New Illustrated Price Lists for 1885 Free by Post on application. A. GARDNER & SON, MANUFACTURING HOUSE FURNISHERS & REMOVAL CONTRACTORS, 36 JAMAICA STREET, GLASGOW. THE Sabbath School Magazine. NO. V.] MAY, 1885. [VOL. XXXVII. The Teaching Power of Christ's Miracles. By MR. H. MORTON BARNET, Kirkcaldy. THE subject upon which I desire to offer a few thoughts is a certain view of our Lord's teaching which is perhaps not so generally or sufficiently apprehended as the importance of its significance demands-I refer to what I may term, The Teaching Power of Christ's Miracles-the spiritual instruction which our Lord sought quietly, but strongly, to convey through the medium of those wonderful acts of beneficent power. The miracles of our Lord have been popularly and rightly understood to stand for signs of His Divine omnipotence, the expression of His Divine benevolence, and the seals of His Divine mission; while His parables, on the other hand, are also justly regarded as instances of His supreme qualifications as a Divine Teacher. Now, while this is a recognition of the truth so far, it certainly is not the whole truth regarding these manifestations of our Saviour's mission; and if we were sometimes to exchange these popular conceptions, and look at our Lord's miracles as powerful utterances of Divine instruction, as I am sure they were every one intended to be, and see at the same time in His parables testimonies of His Divinity, we should open up for ourselves fresh vistas of revelation, and help to render more complete and symmetrical to our own minds the conception of our Saviour's ministry. Of course I am aware that the miracles of Christ are frequently shewn, both from the pulpit and in the Sabbath school, to be capable of illustrating some great spiritual truth analogous to the miracle treated of; but this is often done in such an incidental way, as if the idea were a happy discovery, or a feat of mental ingenuity on the part of the preacher or teacher, and not a necessary element of the miracle so illustrated, that it only adds force to what I have advanced as to the too exclusive light in E |