"And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man for- St. Paul's shipwreck and deliverance-Value of human LECTURES. LECTURE I. ACTS xix. 20. SO MIGHTILY GREW THE WORD OF GOD, AND PREVAILED. IN recommencing these lectures, I could wish to remind my hearers that they are intended to be very plain and simple and practical commentaries upon the divine word. Nothing critical, nothing learned, nothing argumentative, will be admitted into them. They will be, as far as I am enabled to render them, faithful expositions and practical appli cations of the leading events in the life of him of whom they speak, and will derive their chief interest and value, if they have any, from the fact that many of these events will, perhaps, touch responsive chords in our own lives and conversations, and vibrate, it may be, mournfully, but, I trust, usefully, to our affections and hearts. Upon the last recurrence of this holy season, you were invited to the consideration of the life and doctrines of St. Paul. After having traced this great apostle of the Gentiles through many scenes of labour and of peril, we left him at Ephesus, where, as we are informed in the chapter from which the text is taken, he abode two years, preaching "the word of the Lord Jesus," and "working special miracles." It was thus that it pleased God to confirm the teaching of these holy men of old, that if their hearers believed not them, they might believe the works; while in the present instance an express prediction of our Lord was remarkably verified, viz. "Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to the Father." We are, accordingly, told in the 12th verse of the chapter from which the text is taken, that from the body of St. Paul 66 were brought unto the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirit went out of them." The object of bestowing upon the children of men such extraordinary power was, no doubt, to convince the enemy and the blasphemer, that the truths which were preached to them were an immediate message from God Himself. We, therefore, find few instances in scripture of miracles, unless for the purpose of establishing some new doctrine, or confirming the authority of some messenger of the Most High. I need scarcely say that one among the many proofs that the so-called miracles of the present day are not, as they profess |