overpowering and irresistible evidence would have of necessty done away the moral nature of their assent, while to many of subsequent times, the national reception of this truth would have been a stumbling-block, for it would have been easy for Celsus and other adversaries to have represented it as a state trk, a Jewish fable, a mere political contrivance." There was, however, another reason, which has not been suficiently noticed, but on which alone Origen rests his reply—the unseemliness of the thing required, constituting a moral impossibility. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they sha see God; and to them alone, after the triumph of our incarnate Deity over death and hell and him who had the power of death, was this high privilege vouchsafed. Our Lord, therefore, now recompensed as Mediator with all power in heaven and on earth, could not renew with the world the familiar intercourse of the Son of Man. The atonement once made, the form of a servant was to cease. Christ was to resume His glory, and to be seen no more except as the Only-begotten of the Father. His appearance, accordingly, after the resurrection, was a favour granted to friends, and justly withheld from the nation, who, by their rejection of their Messiah, had proved themselves unworthy of this distinction. He had solemnly taken leave of the Jews on quitting for the last time the Temple, when He declared that they should not see Him again, till they were disposed to acknowledge Him as their King. He now opened a new commission, addressed to the whole world, and that once opened, there was no ground to demand special and particular evidence to them'. The world, He had told the Apostles, should see Him no more, but I will see you again; your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. It was, however, a joy tempered with Sherlock's Trial of the Witnesses. reverence; there was now a more reserved dignity in His deportment, on their part a more humble and less familiar intercourse. He showed Himself to them, and even ate with them, but it was for the purpose of convincing them, that though restored to life, He had still a real body, for His time was no longer passed as heretofore in their society; they knew not His goings out and His comings in, and none of them, for instance, could say to Thomas as Nathanael did formerly to Philip, Come and see. On the journey to Galilee, He was not their companion, but went before them; they were not to seek Him at Capernaum, His former residence in that province, but at a mountain where Jesus had appointed them; and when they saw Him, they did not address Him as heretofore, but worshipped HimTM. 152. Jesus instructs His Apostles, who had now returned to Jerusalem, to preach Repentance and Remission of sins to all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Matthew xxviii. 19, 20. Mark xvi. 16-18. Luke xxiv. 44—48. Acts i. 1-9. The first message of Jesus to the Apostles after the resurrection was, to order them to go into Galilee. When in Galilee, He must have commanded them to return to Jerusalem, for it was in the capital that He took leave of them. At this last meeting, having opened their understandings that they might comprehend the Prophecies concerning Himself, He commanded that Repentance and Remission of sins should be proclaimed in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and that they should make disciples of them, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; that is, into a religion, the characteristic tenet of which is Belief in the existence, offices, and operations of the Three Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity, as Creator, m Bp. Horsley, Sermon xiv. on the Evidences of our Lord's Resurrection. Reserne mit Sander As long as these words shall sanit ¤ Bar Songnure as a Commandment, to persist in the ERLEI emer personaly, or by aiding the missionary in enging the wond vil be the enty of Christians, let vir al je ugei yms 1: md as long as the concluding ra 24. I m ra ya dron, even unto the end of the end all sand there as a Promise, nothing but want of fam can make is Úm4 E my time, that our labour in such mie danys cmt be à ran a the Lord." We learn from dhe 1s I dhe bosons du at this last meeting, though E lai su x dem so the concerning the things per2. Enpam of God they were still under the ndance of the ramal pregatires, from their question, Wilt The Dori e di a time restore ogor the kingdom to Israel? Els reply rootened so the imation they sought, but a zerofi •for you to knoer the times and the seasons, gisi tie Esther hoch pas in Hu o porer. Yet, that they mis not be discouraged He subjoined a promise, well fitted to comfort them: Te so receive miraculous power after the Hy Ghost is come upon go, and He contrasted the inferior Baptism of John by water with the Christian by the Holy Ghost, to intimate its immeasurable superiority. This power from on high had been already bestowed upon the Twelve, and even upon the Seventy during their preparatory missions. The gift is now renewed, and this promise of the Father of the Holy Ghost in His extraordinary operations is thus particularized by St. Mark: These signs shall follow them that believe: In My Name they shall cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents. And if they drink any deadly draught, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. ☐ Archdeacon Bather's Sermon before the Church Missionary Society, 1833. In the original commission to the Apostles was added, Raise the dead. The Evangelist concludes with informing us, that They went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with the signs following. St. Paul subdivides some of these gifts and adds others, when he enumerates to the Corinthians, (1 Cor. xii.) 1. the word of wisdom; 2. the word of knowledge; 3. faith; 4. the gifts of healing; 5. the working of miracles; 6. prophecy; 7. discerning of spirits; 8. divers kinds of tongues; and 9. the interpretation of them and at the close of the chapter he specifies those to whom that one and the selfsame Spirit divided them severally as He willed: first, Apostles; secondarily, Prophets; thirdly, Teachers; after that, Miracles; then, 5. Gifts of healing, 6. Helps, 7. Governments, 8. Diversities of tongues. Of these the last is in some respects the most remarkable. Our Lord Himself, as a Minister of the Circumcision within the limits of the Holy Land, had no occasion to employ it; but it is the most satisfactory, because it acts equally upon a whole assembly, and does not admit of being counterfeited. Such credentials were indispensable on the introduction of a new Religion, opposed to the feelings and prejudices of all mankind, and hostile alike to the superstition, power, knowledge, and philosophy of the age; but they are no longer needed, when power, knowledge, and philosophy, have passed over to Christianity; and Missionaries can appeal to the miracles preserved in the written word in successive generations, which ushered in the new Dispensation, as it had the Mosaic, and which have convinced thousands, and triumphed over the attacks of Sophists and Scorners. The Romanist indeed maintains, that the gift of Miracles is one of the notes of a true Church; and in conformity with this view, the Pope from time to time canonizes those in whose favour evidence of this test of being Saints is proved to the satisfaction of the appointed judges. The miracles, however, which they adduce are of a very different character from those recorded in the Scriptures. Like those of the apocryphal gospels, they are objectionable, or at best frivolous, carrying with them their own confitation; and even when of an edifying character, which is not the rule bat the exception,) we should anticipate from them not benefit, but injury to religion, as their tendency would be to encourage spiritual pride, by unduly exalting the persons so favoured in the estimation of themselves and others. In countries where Christianity already prevails, there appears to be no adequate reason for their continuance. The Apostle himself, as eminent in these gifts as in the natural qualifications for his office, when he tells the Corinthians that tongues are for a sign to them that believe not, leads us to the conclusion, that miraculous gifts granted to the first preachers of the Gospel to cooperate with them, would be withdrawn as soon as preachers could prevail without them. Whatever be the reason, we know it as a fact, from the confession of Xavier the Jesuit, who has been called "the Apostle of the Indies," and the testimony of Protestant propagators of the Faith in Africa, India, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, that this supernatural aid is no longer granted. And the modern Missionary, who having attained, not by intuition, but by diligent study, a foreign tongue, preaches to an attentive congregation of New Zealanders, whom he found cannibals, or to the Hindoos of Chrishnagar or Tinnevelly, who lately worshipped "stocks and stones," has no need to regret that miraculous power has been denied to them, since the conversion of fierce savages and haughty Brahmins into humble and moral Christians, without the aid of these extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, will bring others to worship God, and to report that God is in them of a truth. Our own ancestors, and the other northern nations, |