comprehended the meaning of the scene, rent their clothes in dismay and sorrow, and, springing into the heart of the excited crowd, laboured with no little difficulty to dissuade them from their sinful and preposterous design. They were struck with grief and terror that they should be supposed to be gods-heathen deities; they who were only humble instruments in the Saviour's hands. Peter had said, on a similar occasion-" Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?" The evangelists were honest men, and would not impose upon the people, or be guilty of a pious fraud. Nor would they lodge themselves in the temple, and obtain possession of that wealth which was often stowed away in such edifices.

The "chief speaker" raised his voice, and delivered the following rebuke and argument against idolatry, either the worship of men or dead and dumb idols-"Sirs, why are ye doing these things? We, too, are of like constitution as you—but men; and we are offering you as glad tidings that from these vanities ye turn away to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all in them; who in generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways, though, indeed, He did not leave Himself unwitnessed, as He was doing good, sending rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness." "Sirs-men"-not different from our "gentlemen" in the opening clause of an address to a promiscuous assembly-" why do ye these things?" This is the first sentence of his expostulation. What an absurd and frantic step! Why not assure yourselves by some

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other proofs? We are not gods; we have not descended from the skies. We have no claim to any rank higher than that of mere humanity. We are simply what we seem. "We are men," not men of special lineage or walking on some higher platform, but of like passion with you literally "homoeopathic with you." Our nature is yours; with the same functions and susceptibilities, the same appetites and instincts. When we hunger we eat; when we are thirsty we drink; when we toil we are fatigued; we weep under grief; we smile in our joy; and when mortal disease comes upon us we shall die. Why then attempt to invest us with divinity, and offer sacrifice to us? No sin is so heinous or so provoking to God. We did not claim to be gods, nor did we lead you by any words of ours into such a delusion. Nay more, one special object of our mission, and our preaching of the gospel, is to induce you to abandon such idolatrous follies. Our teaching is designed to induce you to forsake them, and turn from them to the living God-who has a real existence, as shown by His creative acts and providential bounties. The gospel proclaims one God "above all, through all, and in us all "

-one tri-personal Essence; Life, and the source of all life in the universe. The apostle, in arguing against idolatry, does not appeal to scripture, and to its many striking assertions, for the people did not know it, and could not recognize its authority. He takes common ground-lower ground-that which is furnished by natural theology. We have here the germ of the fuller argument against atheism and polytheism elaborated in the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans.

There are two proofs adduced by the apostle of God's real and sole existence. There is, first, proof of God's existence as Creator; and secondly, the proof of His continued existence as Provider. God was, for He created the universe. God still is, for He supports us in being by His goodness. God reared this stately fabric, and filled earth with its appropriate population; but He has not retired from it, left it to itself, or placed it under the operation of impersonal law. He still presides over it, and in His uniform kindness, care, and government, presents a perpetual monument of His being and beneficence. Creation testifies that He did exist; providence is a witness that He still exists; and the movements of providence are successive acts of creation. "We preach unto you," says the expostulator, or rather "we bring the gospel to you" in order to supersede those delusions. The object of the apostle was to overthrow, but also to build up. Argument might show the fallacy of idolatry, and satire like Isaiah's might expose it; but the heart meanwhile was not to be left without some object of worship. The true was to displace the fictitious, for faith in a Saviour-God, expels all false theology. speaks of one God, and bids us adore Him. It describes His throne of majesty, but assures us it is one of grace. The idol in that temple "which was before the city," and all others, were but "vanities." They have no being, they cannot stir; a nail holds them in their place, and they need to be carried should their place be changed. Though they have the semblance of humanity, they are inferior to man who makes them. "They have mouths, but they

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speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; they have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not; neither speak they through their throats.” Jupiter and Mercury are but vanities-nonentities; "an idol is nothing in the world," there are no such things. Mahomet could call the idols of his country "bits of black wood." When an image of the Virgin was brought to Knox in the French gallies, and he was asked to adore it, he called out that it was no goddess, only a "pented bredd" (painted board), and tossed it into the Loire. But God is the living God-a spirit and everywhere-the one God-the one Will that guides and controls. idols are dead, are but inert matter, having no more divinity in them than the rock out of which they were hewn, the metal with which they were moulded, or the tree which got its deified shape from axe, saw, and chisel. But the living God is Creator, and the one Creator; ay, Creator of the very materials out of which these false gods are framed. "He made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein." The three terms describe the universe. There are not more Gods than one, each claiming a separate jurisdiction and jealous of intrusion, such as Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. The one living God brought all into being, and governs all by indefeasible right.

He “made heaven"-the sky with its orbs, the sun in his splendour, rising, ascending, sinking, and setting; the moon "walking in brightness," planets and constellations rejoicing in their courses, "the sweet influence of the

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Pleiades, Mazzaroth in his season, and Arcturus with his sons." Not the heaven only, but "all things therein "— the fowls that "fly in the face" of it, armies of brightcoloured butterflies, myriads of gnats, the gathering clouds and the refreshing shower, the light of day and the darkness of night. The earth, too, and all that is in it—its green carpet enamelled with flowers of every hue, and scented with herbs of every fragrance; its trees, "from the cedar which is in Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall;" its "pastures clothed with flocks," and "its valleys also covered over with corn;" its mountains bearing on their brow the snows of ages; its forests vocal with birds of every note and plumage, " singing among its branches;" its animals, fierce and tame; "all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field." The sea, too, and all that is in it—river, lake, and ocean-smooth as a floor or heaving in fury, when "the waters thereof roar and be troubled "—with the monster in its depths, and the minnow in its shallows-"this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts; there go the ships; there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein." The universe, with its furniture and population, is the work of God-a condemnation of atheism; of the one living God-a protest against polytheism; and the fact that He made it shows that it is no necessary emanation or co-eternal phenomenon—a warning against pantheism. The apostle employs no metaphysical argument as to the nature and connection of cause and effect; discusses not the question, whether a finite effect can warrant the conclusion of an infinite cause; dwells not