and of power-1 Cor. ii. 4. to rouse curiosity, to command attention, and to secure such a degree and such an extent of consideration, as might urge the progress, and ultimately accomplish the predominance of that sacred system to which those powers gave miraculous evidence. They were not conferred for the sake of the individuals who exercised them, but for the sake of the system which they were sent to publish. They were conferred in order to command attention, and to supply evidence. The Apostles were naturally weak, ignorant, and prejudiced. They were thus, at once, furnished with all the necessary acquirements which education ordinarily supplies; and they were, moreover, endued with powers, the exercise of which proved at once, and the authentic record of which yet proves, that their mission and message were divine. It is of the utmost importance to consider, and the fact is happily clear and incontrovertible, that those powers were for public purposes, and that they were temporary. They are not essential to the spiritual life of ordinary Christians, and, in fact, they form no part of the Christian life, nor of the proof of the Christian life, even of the Apostles and of their converts. The miracle of Pentecost did, in fact, command

attention, and it furnished such effectual evidence to St Peter's sermon on that remarkable occasion, as that the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. But that notable miracle did not usurp nor supply the place of the ordinary means of grace. On the contrary, it pointed out their essential importance in the Christian life, for we are informed, that they that gladly received his word were baptized; and, it is added, they continued stedfastly in the Apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers; and, farther, that the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be savedActs, ii. 41, 42, 47. These are the ordinary means and the permanent marks of grace which the sacred record distinctly, though briefly, points out as denoting the commencement, the progress, and the proof of the Christian life.

The case of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, points out still more remarkably the precise purpose of the extraordinary powers of the Spirit, and the indispensable and permanent necessity of the ordinary means of grace. The prejudices of all the Jews, and even of the Apostles, after all which they had witnessed and been told, were so obstinately opposed to the admission of the Gentiles to the

same privileges with themselves, that even St Peter, while he executed his commission to Joppa, evidently did so under the influence of this powerful prejudice, which was fully and finally removed from his mind, and from the minds of his companions of the circumcision, when, while Peter yet spake to Cornelius and his company, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word: On which the Apostle immediately said,-Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptised, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? Acts, x. 47. They were in consequence baptized, and the Apostle was entreated to tarry with his converts certain days, in order doubtless to complete the work so happily commenced. That the descent of the Holy Ghost

on Cornelius and his company, as recorded in the tenth of the Acts, was for the precise purpose of commanding attention, and of furnishing evidence, appears distinctly in the subsequent chapter; wherein we find, that the Apostle was actually arraigned by his prejudiced countrymen for his conduct on that occasion, when he simply states the facts of the case as they actually occurred, and thus concludes: Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed

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on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, thatI could withstand God? When they, (the complaining Jews,) heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life-Acts, xi. 17, 18.

Miracles, and all the supernatural powers with which the Apostles and the first Christians were indued, were signs proving the divine sanction of the Gospel, which they were commissioned to publish. Thus expressly, St Paul, 1. Cor.xiv. 22.-declares, wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: and he clearly distinguishes, on various occasions, the supernatural gifts, which, even in that age, frequently fanned the vanity of those who possessed them, from the ordinary graces of the Christian life, which, for every personal purpose, are infinitely more valuable.-1. Cor. xii. 31.

The extraordinary influence of the Spirit, and the miraculous powers with which the Apostles and their associates were indued, were necessary for public purposes. They were in fact the means by which the law of the gospel was promulgated They added the divine sanction to the publication. They ex

hibited as it were the seal of God, and they furnished the evidence of His command, which

is, that all men every where do repent; and is,—that consequently, that they submit themselves to all the obligations of that divine law, by which he hath appointed that the world shall be judged, on that day, and by that man which He hath ordained-Acts, xvii. 30. 31. Those means were continued till the law was so promulgated, till the Church to which it was committed was so constituted, till the faith was so far established, and till the profession of it was so visible among large societies of men throughout the civilized world, as that the system, with full evidence of its origin and progress, might endure and proceed in the common course of Providence: They arrested attention, and they proved to all those whose attention they secured, the truth and the importance of the Apostolic mission. When this their sole object was sufficiently obtained, the sign ceased, though its evidence remained, and remains to this day in full force. The extraordinary influences of the Spirit which were thus necessary to give to Christianity its firstcurrency in a corrupt and careless world, have very unfortunately been confounded with the ordinary means and graces of the Gospel, by