the other side, but that this frail and emaciated body must be laid in a watery grave. What matter? I have a duty to perform, and desire to accomplish it ere I go hence; but if in the performance of that duty I am called away, the Christian cannot die in a wrong place; for the sea, too, must give up the dead that are in it. Should our Father, however, permit me to reach my intended destination, and continue my days a little longer, it will ever afford me unqualified pleasure to hear of your prosperity, and that peace and unity abound in all the congregations. And that such may be the case, allow me, as from the verge of eternity, to recommend all of you to cultivate a courteous and conciliatory spirit towards each other; shun dry and barren speculations; beware of pride, selfwilledness, and ostentation; bear with the infirmities of the weak; advise with each other, and pray for one another; and above all things, shun apathy. Oh! forget not that the Saviour bled and died for you, that he bought you with his own most precious blood, and therefore it becomes you to send the glad news of the great salvation to the perishing. What kind of Christian can that man be who would not take every scriptural means to save a fellow sinner ?

It is all but impossible we shall ever meet again in this world, With most of you I have enjoyed many refreshing seasons; we have taken sweet counsel together: contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and soon we shall meet in the presence of him we love, and each other, where sickness, sorrow, or sighing, never

enter.

Finally, brethren, farewell; be perfect; be of good comfort; be of one mind; live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

Affectionately yours, in hope,

G. C. REID.

WE understand that brother Reid sailed with his family from Glasgow on the 12th ultimo; and should he be spared to reach New York he has engaged to write an article for the Messenger. Our hands are weakened by his removal, but the truth and its Author are still the same, and shall be for evermore.-ED.

THE NATURE AND CRITERIA OF MIRACLES, Concluding part of a Discourse delivered in Barker Gate Chapel, Nottingham, September 12, 1844,

I WILL now proceed to the consideration of a few collateral marks, which although they have not the weight and peculiarity of the preceding laws, are yet of much importance as auxiliaries of the direct argument;

1. GREATNESS.

Observe the greatness of Scripture miracles. But on this branch of the argument let me not be mistaken. I do not intend to confound intrinsic greatness, with the material extent of the sphere in which a miracle transpires, or with the external magnificence of its manifestation, The arrest of a flying ball before its impetus was spent, would be

as great a miracle as to arrest the motion of all the stellar hosts, by laying a palsy stroke upon the universe, providing that in both cases, no second causes were in operation. To a being of almighty power and boundless resources, the one work would be no more arduous than the other-but each would be effected by the mere expression of his will. Among inferior beings the case is different, for in producing anything great, they have to summon all their energies, call up all their resources, and toil with strenuous application. And the greatness of their works bears a general proportion to the amount of labour employed, and the extent of their resources, mental or material, which are set in operation. When I speak therefore of the greatness of the miracles, I speak after the manner of men, rather than from the absolute nature of the case. The aspects in which we may examine the greatness of the miracles, is the following:-They were great inasmuch as owing to the extent and palpability of the field in which they transpired, and in the striking sublimity of their character there was no opening for fraud or imposture. The majesty, distinctness, and openness of the work, admitted no successful rivalry among agents of deceit and darkness. Their reality was cognizable by all the senses. The finger of God was luminous, his handwriting manifest, his interposition unquestionable. Nature, death, and hell, were all compelled to bear witness to the glory of God's Anointed; the most virulent diseases were eradicated; the mightiest elements were awed; the spoils of the grave were re-taken from that dreadful prison; and the demons fled in torture to their own dominions.

II. NUMBERS.

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Observe the number of the Scripture miracles. Any impostor succeeding in deceiving the senses of the people for a few times, his conniving would lead him to retire and rest upon his reputation. would instinctively perceive that it would be most impolitic to endanger the fabric of his fame by multiplied attempts at miraculous dignity. But our divine Master was continually repeating the supernatural proofs of his mission and character. About forty of his miracles are circumstantially narrated; and it is hinted that the recorded instances were but a small portion of those which were actually performed. So numerous were they, that the world could not have contained, or received the books which might have been written on the subject. By this continual exercise of supernatural energy, our Saviour was daily submitting his claims to the rigid scrutiny of those, whose natural acuteness had been sharpened and heightened by strong prejudice and implacable resentment. By surveying the subject in this light, the number of Scripture miracles becomes a point of grave consideration. There was no partial or niggardly display of evidence; no stunted or fleeting disclosure of celestial grandeur; but an opulent outpouring of the divine Spirit, brightly vindicating the majesty of heaven, and loudly challenging the severest investigation of earth.

III. VARIETY,

If an impostor were succeeding in deceiving the senses of the people in some specific line, he would cling desperately to the sphere in

which his reputation was acquired, fearful of hazarding experiment in untired regions. Therefore the variety of the Scripture miracles is well calculated to establish our faith in their reality. Our hearts are inspired with the confidence of strong assurance, when we find that earth with all its elements; death with all its desolate triumphs; hell with all its mysterious torments-are all constrained to conspire together in demonstrating the essential divinity and peerless glory of our great King. We feel that such marvels were effected by one unlimited in resources; unbounded in the affluence of power; supreme in dominion over matter, and mind, life and death, heaven and hell— all things visible and invisible.

IV.-BENEVOLENCE.

In a world like ours, where the inhabitants were abandoned in crime and pollution of the deepest kind, the Son of God might have manifested the divinity of his mission by miracles of retribution, by supernatural displays of penal indignation. If, in the room of healing diseases, he had inflicted them; if, in the room of expelling demons, he had summoned them from cavern glooms to torture into anguish and goad into madness the sons and daughters of men; if, in the room of hushing into peace the stormy elements of nature, he had bidden them rave in fury over the darkened and trembling land; if, in the room of multiplying, he had diminished the aliments of natural life, by allowing famine to breathe from shrivelled lips deep curses on the fruits of the earth; if, in room of arresting the victories of death, he had suddenly hurried the rebels into his icy grasp, amid circumstances of deepening horror; the divinity of his person and mission would have been as effectually proved as it was by the wonders of his mercy, and the marvels of his overflowing tenderness. It need not be objected, that as the design of his incarnation was benevolent in the highest degree, such miracles of judgment would have been incongruous and discordant with his purpose. To this we can reply, that such indications of wrath and holy jealousy, would have harmonized with all the great eras in which the Godhead has arisen out of his place to startle the human race from the slumber of guilt and delusion. No one could therefore have thrown suspicion on the character of the Messenger, the nature of his power, or the source of his mission; such inflictions would have been sanctioned by eternal justice, and every subject of moral government might have laid his mouth in the dust.

But though the absence of benevolent miracles, or a blending of such with others of a penal character, would not have invalidated the claims of our lawgiver, yet the wonderful fact that all his miracles were strictly and manifestly benevolent, becomes additional evidence. Miracles of such a kind indicate at once the source of their origin. They are broad and resplendent sheets of living water, sparkling in the light of their uncreated fountain; showers of mercy from that fulness and infinity of love which is treasured in the Godhead. Power disjoined from love, either in reality or in semblance, might indeed have brought conviction, but fear and despair would have followed in the train. But when we discern so clearly the heavenly alliance of majesty and tenderness, the blessed ethereal union of infinite strength

with boundless mercy, then the heart is smitten by sympathy, and ratifies the conclusion of the intellect, that perfect love which casteth out fear softens the austerity of reverence, and life becomes perpetual worship. G. G.

SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES.-No. XIV.

"GOD hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation."-2 Thess. ii. 13.

THE divine doctrine of election-the assurance of being chosen to salvation by the heavenly Father-is clearly set forth in these words; nor ought any one to rest satisfied until, in truth, able to appropriate the soul-delighting declaration.

A pious acquaintance here cries, "Alas! this we never can do. At most we can only hope, and that in fear; for unless we happen to be of the favoured number, whom God, when he made the worlds, decreed to be saved (which number can neither be increased nor diminished), we must remain unchosen and unsaved for ever." To this a friend objects: "If so, preaching is vain and exhortation useless; for why preach but to turn sinners from Satan to God? And why exhort but to move believers to increased diligence in seeking the things above? Such a God-dishonouring and soul-benumbing notion I cannot entertain. A third, aiming at compromise, admits that God did, from the creation, choose or elect unto salvation, yet contends that he did not then choose persons but character; did not decree the salvation of particular individuals to the rejection of the rest, but appointed that every one who should believe on and obey the Gospel of his Son, should be his elect.

Now, to the candid, it must be manifest from the case before us, that when the heavenly Father elects, he does make choice of particular persons; for the Apostle assures the Thessalonian believers, "God hath chosen you." The fact being so, nothing remains but that we should inquire WHEN he chose them? "From the beginning," we are here informed. If we venture to ask, From what beginning? almost every one (with concern for our scanty knowledge) replies, "Hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world."-Eph. i. 4. Must we, then, of necessity, understand the Apostle here, as meaning "the beginning of the creation ?" Is there no other beginning? Let us see:

These things I said not unto you at the beginning because I was with you."-John xvi. 4.

"And ye also shall bear witness who have been with me from the beginning."-John xv. 27.

"As they delivered them to us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write."-Luke i. 2.

"And as I began to speak the Holy Ghost fell on them as on us at the beginning."-Acts xi. 15.

"Great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord."-Heb. ii. 3.

"For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning that we should love one another."-1 John iii. 11.

"Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye shall also continue."-1 John ii. 24.

These testimonies are conclusive, not only that we are not under a necessity to make the Apostle here speak of the "beginning of the world," but that there is the best reason to believe he speaks of the time when the Thessalonians first knew the Gospel and gave themselves to the Lord and to his people. That was eminently "THE BEGINNING" to them. The "new creation" so infinitely surpasses the old in moral grandeur and importance, that the Lord, his Apostles, and evangelists, speak of its day (more emphatically than of creation) as "the beginning," "the very first." And well it deserves to be so highly distinguished, because it marks to each disciple the point, in time, of the all-important change from darkness to light; of translation from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son; of ceasing to be a child of wrath and becoming a child of God, by then believing in and putting on Christ. To this point in time the Apostle alludes in such places as Rom. xvi. 7, "Salute Andronicus and Junia, who also were in Christ before me.' Paul was not in Christ until, being full of faith, he was baptized by Ananias. That was to him "the beginning." Andronicus and his friend, were probably among the strangers of Rome" on the day of Pentecost, who gladly received the Apostles' word and were baptized, and so their "beginning" and "being in Christ," was earlier than Paul's. We are thus emboldened to understand the Apostle in the passage before us, as saying, God has from the beginning (of your new life) chosen you to salvation,” expressing his choice by sending, as to his adopted children, the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, by which you cry, "Abba, Father."

By carefully reading the whole paragraph from which these words are improperly detached, the true meaning of the Apostle is manifest. The Thessalonians were Idolators. God called them by the Apostles' Gospel, in its provisions, prospects, invitations, and welcomings, to faith in Christ, and separation from the world and sin, in order to their obtaining the final glory of the Lord-and they obeyed the call, turning wholly to him. Through sanctification of spirit, and belief of truth, God actually elected them to salvation. He chose them "from the beginning"-from their very birth of water and Spirit; and thence Paul regarded them as "brethren, beloved in the Lord."

Oh! that every child of Adam could be persuaded to "turn to the Lord," as the Thessalonians did; that each becoming a child of God by faith and obedience, might, like them, be assuredly the elect of God, his beloved, blessed with an impartation of the Spirit of his Son, an earnest of the inheritance.

J. D.

IT is said that God is no respecter of persons. Still, it is only he who feareth Him and worketh righteousness, that is accepted of Him. Twelve spies went to search out the land of Canaan; only two were approved of by Jehovah. These, it is said, followed the Lord fully. Brethren, be exhorted to give all diligence to make your calling and election sure. J. W.