found this interpretation was held by many eminent men who were very competent and judicious critics. I have discovered that another opinion has been held by equally learned men, and by those who seem to be equally competent judges, namely, that these miracles performed by the magicians of Egypt were not mere legerdemain, not mere shams, but that they were feats of power performed by supernatural influence, and meant to rival and eclipse the deeds that omnipotent beneficence performed by the hand of Moses. This seems to me the truth. God says, "Against the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment." Now the word translated "gods," might throughout Scripture, in the New Testament certainly, be rendered "demons." These demons are supposed to be fallen spirits, but the heathens imagined that they were the spirits of glorified heroes. Here the term seems so applied as to convey that supernatural agency was concerned in enabling these magicians to attempt to rival, and to endeavour to eclipse, the feats that Moses and Aaron did. And we shall see that this is the more probable, if we remember the fact that the whole religion of Egypt was an emanation from the evil one. It had its priests, its prophets, and its emissaries, charged and commissioned by the evil one, while the religion of Israel was an inspiration from God, the Holy One, having for its priests, its ministers, and its messengers, Moses and Aaron, and all the people of God. The collision that was commenced at Paradise has been carried on ever since. Supernatural powers are at this moment engaged in battle. The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head, but it is after conflict. At every dawn of a new dispensation on the part of God, there was a new collision between the powers of darkness and the powers of light. The issue was in every instance the bruising of

the serpent's head, while this involved the injury of the heel of the woman's seed."

Some one may say, "But does it not look something approaching to puerile, that God should come into collision. with Satan, or that God's agents, commissioned by omnipotence, should come into contact and controversy with agents that might now and must ultimately be crushed?" You might just say, "Why does God suffer sin and holiness to war in this world? Why does he suffer loyalty and rebellion? Why does he suffer his own people to be depressed and discouraged at times, and his enemies to triumph?" There is many a "why" we can put, when we cannot give an answer that will satisfy; but it is a matter of fact that it is so. God might pronounce a word at this moment that would go down into the depths of creation, and rise to its greatest heights, and make the whole universe blossom like the rose, and all mankind holy and happy. But he does not do so. He has told us that there will be a conflict before there will be a crown, that there will be hot battle before there shall be the prize: he has committed his cause to earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of man.

At the incarnation, which was a second epoch in the history of God's dealings with mankind, we discover, what we do not find before to the same extent, demoniac possession, as if to prove, that whenever God has a great work of good in the world, Satan will always have a counterwork of evil. Whenever you see good coin circulated, you will find bad coin is put into circulation. Satan does not directly oppose the good, but he gets up something so like it that the unsuspecting may be deceived, insnared, and destroyed. When Christ came into the world, what was the great fact? God manifested in the flesh. And what was the great work that Satan set up as a counter

fact? Demons took possession of human beings, and made them their sport and their prey. I do not believe that these demoniac possessions were diseases. The language of our Lord is utterly incompatible with such a view. They were evil spirits that took up their habitations in the hearts of men, just as God entered into humanity and was manifested in the flesh. It is also worthy of notice, as corroborative proof, that when our Lord came, he was taken into the wilderness, and there he openly encountered Satan. I cannot believe, with the German Rationalists, that this was a mere dream, or eloquent myth. If that was a dream, the whole Bible is a dream; if that was not a literal historical fact, there is no literal historical fact in the Bible. The tendency introduced by Origen is perpetuated by the Rationalists still-that of trying to make every thing a myth; and the issue of it will be, that they will land where Berkeley's skepticism landed him, when he believed that he himself was a myth, that he was not a bodily substance, and that there was no such thing as matter in the world. We thus find Satan, the moment that our Lord appeared to commence his ministry, interposing with all his force, combining, in one desperate assault, the power, and genius, and resources of the archangel, with the malignity, the subtlety, the cunning of the fiend; hoping to destroy Jesus, and thus to arrest the final blow which he believed was brought nearer in that fact, namely-that the woman's seed should bruise the serpent's head.

In coming down to the dispensation in which we now are, we shall find indications given by the Spirit of God, that there will be superhuman feats to be perhaps witnessed by us, and that right speedily; for our Lord himself says, "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show [not the mimickry of, but shall show] great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were pos

sible, they should deceive the very elect;" showing us, that none but God's own people shall escape; that such shall be the splendour, such the power, such the attractions of the deeds they shall do, that all who have but a name to live by, and whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of life, shall be deceived and ensnared thereby. We read in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, that one of the characteristics of the great antichrist is, "coming after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, [not pretended wonders, but wonders that would teach and inculcate lies,] and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, in them that perish." In the Apocalypse (chap. xiii. 13) we have another statement of the same kind, where one of the beasts is said to do "great wonders, so that he maketh fire to come down from heaven on the earth, in the sight of men; and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles, which he had power to do in the sight of the beast." We have, therefore, plain indications that superhuman deeds will be done. in defence of error by Satanic agency. Why should we suppose this impossible? We admit that Satan is a fallen archangel; once the highest, the brightest, the most glorious intelligence, next to the Deity, that we know of. If Satan retains the archangel's wisdom, (and the Bible constantly asserts this,) and is able by that wisdom to originate, concoct, and carry on things in this world that are full of the most subtle deception and mischief, why should we refuse to admit that Satan may retain, with the archangel's wisdom, the archangel's power, and do feats as well as invent schemes which are, in themselves, superhuman -signs, and wonders, and lying miracles?

But you say, "How are we to be guided?" I do not now enter upon the intricate question how a miracle is to teach, irrespective of revelation: I merely enter upon the

question, how we, who have a revelation, are to receive such miracles, should they come. In the first place, a miracle, or superhuman deed, does not prove that the man who does it is from God; it simply says, "You must listen to this man; he is a spirit from hell, or a spirit from heaven; he comes armed with great power; he tells you he has a message to deliver, and you are bound to listen to the man, judging not of the message by the miracle, but of the miracle by the message, and of both by the word of God." We are expressly told in Deuteronomy, xiii. 1, 2, at a time when these directions were still more important than they can be to us now: "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, [to confirm his mission,] and the sign or wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." So we are told in reference to the whole Bible, "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book." Then we are told again, that "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners"-at sundry times, before the flood, during the days of the patriarchs, under the dispensation of the law; in divers manners, sometimes by dreams, sometimes by prophets, sometimes by types, sometimes by direct messages from heaven" spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." That is the final communication; revelation is now closed, the Bible is complete. If then a spirit were to come on earth, and turn water into wine, or raise the dead to life, in my presence, and if he were to say, "I do