turn on Our Lord's self-evidencing character. It is most remarkable that throughout the whole argument Our Lord never once refers to a miracle either in its character of a mighty work, a wonder, or even a sign. On the contrary, He rests His claim to be believed on His complete and absolute sinlessness. "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" says He, "and if I say the truth why do ye not believe me?" The perfection of his holiness, as he affirms, constituted the great proof that his teaching was worthy of all acceptation. His testimony was in fact that of an eyewitness who could not fail to know the truth of the things which He uttered by the directness of his intercommunion with God, and his perfect sinlessness was the guarantee of the truth of his assertions. "I speak," says He, "what I have seen with my Father, and ye do what ye have seen with your Father." But further: it is worthy of particular notice that immediately after making these declarations, He proceeds to make one of the strongest affirmations of His divine character which is to be found in the Gospels"Before Abraham was I am." According to the views which have been entertained by many on this subject, Our Lord ought to have performed one of His greatest miracles in confirmation of the truth of so astounding a statement, as being the only thing which could give it credibility, yet throughout the whole discourse He never once alludes to His miracles, which He surely would have done if He had regarded them as the sole or even the chief guarantee of His veracity.

Fifthly: Another striking proof that Our Lord uniformly appealed to the self-evidencing power manifesting itself in His person is contained in His last discourse. The apostle Philip makes a definite request that He would afford them a visible manifestation of the Father, and declares that if He would do so it would be sufficient for their complete conviction. What is Our Lord's reply? "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest

thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works' sake." Such an affirmation, even if it stood alone, would prove conclusively that the evidence afforded by the presence of the divine in Our Lord's person and working ought to occupy a very prominent place in the Christian argument. But further: Our Lord affirmed that He was the light of the world. This is equivalent to the assertion that His person and work were self-evidential; or in other words, as the best proof that the sun is shining is to turn and behold its beams, so the strongest evidence of the existence of the spiritual Sun is the light which He emits. A pretender to be the light of the world, who emits no radiance, is self-convicted of being an impostor.

Sixthly: Although no such explicit affirmations are to be found in the Synoptics, they afford abundant confirmations of the same view. They fully concur with St. John that whenever Our Lord's opponents challenged Him to work a miracle as a proof of His divine mission, He uniformly refused to do so. This seems inexplicable, if He viewed them as constituting its sole and only proof. But they inform us of the further fact, that He was deeply grieved when this demand was made on Him; that He declared that it was an evil and adulterous generation that sought after a sign of this description; and that the only sign which He would afford them would be the sign of the prophet Jonas, i.e. His own death and resurrection. It seems incredible that persons who have attributed to Our Lord utterances of this description could have imagined that miracles form the exclusive attestation of a divine mission.

Neither the Synoptics nor St. John have once represented Our Lord as performing miracles for the purpose of proving the truth of any doctrine or moral precept uttered by Him.

Whenever they mention His motive at all for performing them, they nearly uniformly ascribe it to His divine compassion, or to its being an answer to a prayer for help. The only exceptions are, when Our Lord cured the paralytic in proof that He had power on earth to forgive sins; and when He wrought several miracles in reply to the message sent Him by John the Baptist, "Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?" In His reply, He directed the messengers to report the miracles they had seen and heard, as proofs of His Messianic character.* To these may be added the miracle of the Resurrection of Lazarus, which is directly stated to have been wrought that the people which stood by might believe that the Father had sent Him. But so far were Our Lord's miracles from being performed with the direct purpose of proving either doctrines, precepts, or even His divine mission, that in no inconsiderable number of cases He strictly charged those

St. Luke's account is as follows:-" When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee saying, Art thou he that should come, or look we for another? And the same hour he cured many of their infirmities, and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto many that were blind, he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me" (Luke vii. 20-23). The miracles wrought on this occasion were evidently wrought for an evidential purpose; but they were not merely performed as proofs of a divine commission, but as works which were suitable for the Messiah to perform as part of His divine character. As such, several of them are directly attributed to the Messiah in the Old Testament Scriptures. It should be observed that among them, the preaching the Gospel to the poor holds an equal rank with those occurrences which we commonly designate as miracles, a reference which not only points out the fulfilment of the prediction of the prophet, but draws attention to their moral aspect. Besides, the miracles in question are all works of healing - not wonders wrought in the physical universe being manifestations of the divine goodness which dwelt in Our Lord; and as such, proofs of His Messianic character.

whom He healed to keep the miracle secret. It is simply impossible that such miracles could have been wrought for directly evidential purposes, though all miracles, as portions of His divine working, and as manifestations of the superhuman power which dwelt within Him, were evidential in the sense so often referred to in St. John's gospel. In this point of view, they form at the same time portions of the Revelation, and of its evidence.

Such then are Our Lord's affirmations on this subject. They prove beyond contradiction that He considered His own divine character and working self-evidential; and that it formed a higher attestation to His divine mission than miracles viewed as mere wonders and mighty deeds. Also that the right view to take of the miracles which He performed is, not that they are merely marvellous acts of power, displayed in the physical Universe, but essential portions of His divine working, entirely in harmony with it, and stamped with the same moral impress. Viewed in this aspect, the perfection of His divine character and working constitutes His witness to Himself; and His miracles, bearing the impress of the same character, the testimony of the Father to His Divine Mission.

The self-evidencing power of Our Lord's divine person and working occupies a very prominent place in the Apostolic Epistles.

1. The affirmations made by St. John on this point in his first Epistle and in the prologue to his Gospel are conclusive. I have fully examined them in a supplement to the first Lecture; it will, therefore, be sufficient here to observe that they affirm in the clearest manner that the highest form of Christian evidence consists in the manifestation of the divine, made in the person of Jesus Christ. This is in fact the burden of the entire Epistle.

2. St. Paul's mode of placing the claims of Christianity to be accepted as a divine revelation is precisely similar. With his Epistles in our hands it is impossible to doubt that the Apostle viewed the moral and spiritual power residing

in the person of Jesus Christ as the all commanding evidence of His Divine Mission. He again and again declares that this had formed the very centre and essence of his teaching; and he appeals to those to whom he wrote as witnesses of the mighty effects which it had wrought in them. That teaching which had been mighty to lay deep the foundation of the Christian Church, and had manifested the energetic power of which they were the monuments, might be summed up in two pregnant sentences-Christ, the power of God, and Christ, the wisdom of God. They make it clear that the Apostle was not in the habit of appealing to miracles as the sole, or even the most conclusive evidence of Christianity. In fact, he has never once appealed to them in this light, either in the Epistles themselves or in his discourses as recorded in the Acts. With him the great evidential miracle of Christianity is the Resurrection; his references to other miracles wrought by Our Lord are indirect, and only three, or at most four times has he referred to any as having been wrought by himself. These he viewed not as proofs of his divine commission but as manifestations of a divine power residing in Jesus Christ, and, as such, proofs of His Resurrection. Numerous and profound as are his doctrinal statements, and vehement as was the opposition of his opponents to certain aspects of the Gospel which he preached, it never once occurred to him to work a miracle in vindication of their truth. It is clear therefore, that he could not have regarded miracles as the necessary confirmations of his doctrines.

Portions of the Acts afford on this point strong confirmatory evidence. In dealing with Jews and Proselytes, he is uniformly described as endeavouring to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, not by working miracles in their synagogues, but by reasonings drawn from the Old Testament Scriptures. When he addressed heathen auditories, his first efforts were directed to prove the Unity and Fatherhood of God; and he concludes by referring to the Resurrection as a proof that God will render to man hereafter a righteous retribution