Apostle: if so, it is not to be supposed that the Apostles could lay their hands on all the believers gathered into the church of Christ throughout the civilized and savage world (see Col. i. 6, 23). And this further shews that the gifts were not universal. Then the terms, "them that believe," must mean some of them; and if the terms may be limited at all, why may they not be limited in time, as well as in extent? why may not their application be restricted to the believers of the first age, as well as to some among the believers of all ages?

Secondly: Other texts, which contain terms as general as these, must necessarily be restricted in their meaning. In the expression, "Thou hast received gifts for men" (Psal. lxviii.), the word "men" must, as we have seen, mean some men. In the words of Isai. viii. 18, "Behold, I and the children whom God has given me," &c., the "children" must mean some of the children, unless the "signs and wonders." do not mean supernatural acts. And the prophecy in Joel ii. 28, "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy," must mean that some of them shall. When John the Baptist said of our blessed Saviour to those around him, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire" (Matt. iii. 11), he certainly meant some of them, not all. And when our Lord himself said, in a manner more emphatically general than any of these texts, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father" (John xiv. 12); he must have meant some believers, not all; for very few, surely, have in any sense done greater things than to raise the dead, to make a few loaves feed five thousand men, to read men's thoughts, and convert hundreds of sinners to God. But, if all these passages must be restricted in their meaning, why should we hesitate to restrict the application of that also which is now under examination?

Thirdly: They who would not allow this natural and necessary restriction are obliged to resort to another restriction of it, far more unwarrantable than that which they forbid. For if the words do not mean some among believers, they must mean all that have the faith of miracles: but the vast majority of true Christians, for more than sixteen centuries,

have been without this kind of faith: if these words mean, therefore, the expectants of the gifts, they exclude the vast majority of true believers for many centuries. What, then, is gained by the new limitation in point of numbers? And in the principle of limitation it is much more objectionable; for I have shewn that several passages justify the kind of limitation for which I argue, but I doubt whether any passage can be adduced in which the words "them that believe," or any words equivalent to them, are made to express a kind of faith not possessed by the vast majority of real believers. How can they, who make this new limitation without Scriptural warrant, blame those who contend for another limitation plainly warranted by Scripture ?——But the new limitation is more extraordinary still; for, according to it, the words do not even include all expectants of the gifts. Many are now said to believe in, and expect the communication of, the gifts, who themselves remain destitute of them.. These, therefore, are not included among "them that believe," and the terms must be limited further, in their present application, to those two or three persons who maintain that they have themselves received the gifts. These two or three persons, then, are the believers, and all others are without faith. Even though expectants of gifts, they have not faith as a grain of mustard seed (Matt. xvii. 20); for if they had it, even in its least beginnings, they would work the most splendid miracles. On their hypothesis the conclusion is inevitable. If the promise is to all that believe, then even the lowest degree of faith in the promise would ensure its fulfilment: all those in whom it is not fulfilled have not, then, the smallest degree of faith. And which, I may ask, are the more criminal, on the supposition that their view is right? They who have no faith in what they see to be a promise made to them; or those who cannot exercise the same faith because they cannot find, after diligent investigation with prayer, that there is any promise to warrant it? This consideration may check the forwardness of some to accuse their brethren as unbelievers.

Fourthly: The gifts are said to be signs, by which God was pleased to confirm the word (ver. 20). Though they could

not instruct in the spiritual nature of the Gospel, they could demonstrate its Divine origin. That purpose is answered as effectually, to every inquirer not obstinately prejudiced against the Gospel, by the signs once granted, as it would be by their perpetual recurrence; and, their chief use baving thus ceased, we may easily believe that they were intended to cease also.

On these grounds I cannot but retain the conviction that some among professed Christians in the first age of the church, and not the expectants of the gifts in all ages, were here intended. So, among the Reformers, thought Calvin, Bucer, Peter Martyr, and others, whose opinions I quote the rather because their authority has been too hastily used in support of the opposite view.

Calvin on this passage writes thus: "We are not to refer to individuals this gift (of miracles) bestowed upon believers; for we know that the gifts were variously distributed, so that the power of miracles belonged only to a few......The possession of the power by a few, was sufficient to testify the glory and Deity of Christ...... Although Christ has not expressed whether he meant the gift to be temporary or perpetual, it is more probable that it was to be temporary...... Certainly, we see that the working of miracles ceased not long after; or, at least, that the instances were so rare as to justify the conclusion that they were not to be common to all ages."

P. Martyr. "Whence their argument fails who say, that because we find in Mark that certain signs were to follow them that believe, which do not take place among us, we must acknowledge that the church of our day is without faith. They are deceived. Miracles were like the trumpets and heralds by which the Gospel was recommended; for as the Law of Moses received authority by means of various miracles wrought at Sinai and throughout the wilderness, which ceased after the people entered the land of promise, so miracles have ceased now also, since the Gospel is diffused through the world. The promise, then, in Mark did not relate to all times." (Comment on 1 Cor. xii.)

Bucer. "Both this text (John xiv. 12) and Mark xvi. 17 are to be understood, not of any believers, but of those in the Apostolic age." (Comment on John xiv. 12.)

Pellican. "In the beginning of the church miracles were neces

sary, that their faith might be confirmed and nourished; but, the faith of the church being confirmed, they are no longer necessary." (Comment on Mark xvi. 17.)

5. Another passage cited is Rev. vii. 1-4; on which I will only remark, that graces may seal men as servants of God, but gifts cannot (Matt. vii. 22, 23): therefore supernatural gifts cannot be the seal here intended.

6. Lastly: 1 Cor. xiii. 8-10 is also sometimes adduced; but, as I have heard no proof attempted that it does not relate to the ending of the gifts with the life of the gifted person, which is the natural meaning, or that it does refer to their duration in the church, I need not consider this passage as even seeming to support the expectation of the gifts.

None of these passages, then, sustain an expectation that miraculous powers will revive in the church; and, until some stronger reasons than these afford can be adduced in favour of the expectation, I am entitled to consider it as an expectation unfounded in Scripture, and therefore not faith; the general consent of Christians, for many ages, not to expect them, cannot be stigmatized as unbelief; nor can they have been lost to the church through the want of a faith which we are not warranted to exercise.

While there are no texts which confirm the expectation of the gifts, there are several considerations which forbid it.

1. They were generally granted by imposition of the hands of the Apostles. We read of only two instances in which they were granted in any other way-one, when the Apostles themselves received them; and the second, when the first Gentile converts received them. The first case cannot be considered as a deviation from the rule; and for the second case, which was a deviation, there was the manifest reason, that by that mode the scruples, which made St. Peter doubt whether Gentiles ought to be baptized while non-conformists to the Jewish ritual, were effectually removed; and not his only, but those of the Jewish Christians in general. With this exception, the accounts which we have, lead us to believe that they were generally communicated by the Apostles.

Nor can we understand, except on this supposition, why

Simon, in Acts viii., should have tried to purchase from the Apostles the power of communicating them. For if believers generally received them without the intervention of others, why should he seek the power at all? And if others beside the Apostles had the power, who were they upon whom this distinction was conferred; and why was Philip, though an eminent believer, and the instrument of conversion to the Samaritans, unable to exercise it? If the power of communicating the gift was confined to the Apostles in the first age, to whom has it been transmitted? The apostolic office having ceased, we should suppose that their peculiar powers have ceased too; or, at least, we have no right to expect the revival of their powers, till we see some person rise who shall prove his claim to be their successor by communicating the gifts, as they did, to all around him.

2. The gifts were granted to professed Christians indiscriminately (Matt. vii. 22; x. 4,8; 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2; Gal. iii. 2-4, with iv. 11, 20; Heb. vi. 4-6). Not only did real Christians in a low state of grace receive them, but nominal Christians, who had never experienced conversion, received them; and yet they have been withheld for centuries from the most eminent servants of God. At different times there have been great revivals of religion in the church of Christ, and in several of them the truth has been confessed before an evil world, in circumstances of greater difficulty and peril than those which attended the first promulgation of the Gospel yet in none of them have the most advanced Christians (though some may have expected miracles to be wrought in certain cases, in answer to prayer) ever expected the gift of miracles. The Waldenses, when they held up the solitary torch of Divine truth which gleamed upon the midnight darkness of the middle ages, never claimed for their calumniated doctrines the sanction of new miracles. Wickliffe and his Lollards wrought none; Huss and his Bohemians were equally prudent *. We have already seen that among the Reformers of the sixteenth century, Calvin, Bucer, Peter

*1. The Waldenses. In the year 1547 the Archbishop of Turin, among other charges against the Vaudois, brought the following: "Ils disent que les miracles qui se font en l'Eglise Romaine ne sont point veri