knowledge of God; and to know him in this way only is not to know him at all.

The God of Christians, is not merely the divine author of geometric truths, and of the order of the elements; this is the belief of the heathen.

He is not merely a God

who exercises his Providence over the lives and fortunes of men, to bestow a succession of happy years on his worshippers; this is the belief of the Jew. But the God of Abraham and of Jacob, the God of the Christian, is a God of love and of consolation; he is a God who fills the soul and the heart which he possesses; a God who makes them feel within, their own misery, and his infinite mercy; who unites himself with their inmost soul; fills it with humility, and joy, and confidence, and love; and makes it impossible for them to seek any other end than himself.

The God of the Christians is a God who causes the soul to feel that he is its only good; that he is its only rest; and that it can have no joy but in loving him; and who teaches it, at the same time, to abhor every obstacle to the full ardor of that affection. The self-love and sensual affection which impede it, are insufferable to it. God discloses to the soul this abyss of selfishness, and that he himself is the only remedy.

This is to know God as a Christian. But to know God thus, a man must know also his misery and unworthiness, and the need he has of a mediator, by whom he may draw near to God, and be united to him. These two branches of knowledge must not be separated, for when separated, they are not only useless, but injurious. The knowledge of God, without the knowledge of our ruin, is pride. The knowledge of our ruin, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ, is despair. But the knowledge of Jesus Christ de

livers us, both from pride and despair, because in him we discern, at once, our God, our own guilt, and the only way of recovery.

We may know God without knowing our wretchedness, or our wretchedness without knowing God; or both, without knowing the way of deliverance from those miseries by which we are overwhelmed. But we cannot know Jesus Christ, without knowing at once, our God, our ruin, and our remedy; because Jesus Christ is not merely God, but God, our Saviour from misery.

Hence, those who seek God without the Saviour, will · discover no satisfactory or truly beneficial light. For, either they never discover that there is a God, or, if they do, it is to little purpose; because they devise to themselves some way of approaching without mediation, that God, whom, without the aid of a mediator, they have discovered; and thus they fall into atheism or deism, two evils equally abhorrent to the Christian system.

We should therefore aim, exclusively, to know Jesus Christ, since by him alone, can we expect to obtain a beneficial knowledge of God.

He is the true God of mankind, that is, of miserable sinners. He is the centre of all, and the end of all; and he who knows him not, knows nothing of the economy of this world, or of himself. For not only are we unable to know God, but by Jesus Christ, but we cannot know ourselves except by him.

Without Jesus Christ, man must remain in sin and misery; in Jesus Christ, man is delivered from sin and misery. In him is treasured up all our happiness, our virtue, our life, and light, and hope; ont of him there is nothing for us but sin, misery, darkness and despair; and without him,

we see nothing but obscurity and confusion in the nature

of God and man.

CHAPTER XVI.

THOUGHTS UPON MIRACLES.

I.

WE must judge of doctrine by miracles, and of miracles

by doctrine. The doctrine attests the miracles, and the miracles attest the doctrine. Both sides of the assertion are true, and yet there is no discrepancy between them.

II.

There are miracles which are indubitable evidences of truth, and there are some which are not. We should have a mark to distinguish those which are, or they would be useless. But they are not useless, they are of the nature of a foundation. The test then which is given us should be such, as not to destroy that proof which true miracles give to the truth, and which is the chief end of miracles.

If no miracles had ever been adduced in support of falsehood, they would have been a certain criterion. If there were no rule for discrimination, miracles would be useless, and there would be no just grounds to credit them.

Moses has given us one test, which is, when the miracle leads to idolatry. "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake to thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt

not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you," Deut. 13: 1, 2, 3. Jesus Christ also has given us one in Mark 9: 39. "There is no man who shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.' Hence it follows,

that whoever declares himself openly against Jesus Christ, cannot do a miracle in his name. Thus, if he works miracles, it is not in the name of Jesus Christ, and he should not be listened to. We see then the limits marked out to our faith in miracles, to which we must add no others; in the Old Testament, when they turn men away from God, in the New, when they turn men from Jesus Christ.

Therefore, if we see a miracle, we must at once receive it, or discover some plain reason to the contrary. We must examine if he who does it, denies God or Jesus Christ.

III.

Every religion is false, which does not in its belief worship one God as the author of all things, and in its morals, love one God as the end of all things. Every religion now which does not recognize Jesus Christ, is notoriously false, and miracles can avail it nothing.

The Jews had a docctrine from God, as we have from Jesus Christ, and one confirmed by miracles. They were forbidden to believe in any worker of miracles, who should teach a contrary doctrine; and, moreover, they were required to have recourse to their priests, and to adhere to them strictly. Thus, it appears, that all the reasons which we have for rejecting workers of miracles, they had with respect to Jesus Christ and his apostles.

Yet it is certain, they were highly culpable for refusing to believe them on the testimony of their miracles; for

Jesus Christ said, That they would not have been blamable, if they had not seen his miracles, John 15: 22-24.

It follows, then, that he regarded his miracles as an infallible proof of his doctrine, and that the Jews were bound by them to believe him. And, in fact, it was these miracles especially which made their unbelief criminal. For the proofs that they might have adduced from Scripture, during the life of Christ, were not alone conclusive. They might have seen there that Moses had said, another prophet should come; but that would not have proved Jesus Christ to be that prophet, which was the whole matter in question. Such passages of Scripture, would have shown them that Jesus Christ might be that prophet; and this, with his miracles, should have determined their belief that he really was so.

IV.

Prophecy alone was not a sufficient testimony to Jesus Christ, during his life; and hence the Jews would not have been criminal in not believing him before his death, if his miracles had not decided the point. Miracles, then, are sufficient when we detect no contrariety in doctrine, and they should be received.

Jesus Christ has proved himself to be the Messiah, by confirming his doctrine more by his own miracles, than by an appeal to the Scriptures and the prophets.

It was by his miracles that Nicodemus knew his doctrine to be from God. "We know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do the things that thou doest, except God be with him," John 3: 2. He did not judge of the miracles by the doctrine, but of the doctrine by the miracles.