concile the passage before us with the leading principles of whs* is commonly called " Teetotalism," If our Lord Jesus Christ actually worked a miracle in order to supply wine at a marriage feast, ic seems to me impossible, by any ingenuity, to prove that drinking wine is sinful. Temperance in all things is one of the fruits of the Spirit. An intemperate man is an unconverted man. Total abstinence from fermented liquors is in many cases most useful and desirable. But to say, as many do say, that to drink any fermented liquor at all is '" a sin," is taking up ground that cannot be maintained in the face of the passage before us, without wresting the plain meaning of Scripture, and charging Christ with abetting sin.
) . — [TJiis heginning of miracles, t&c] The plain meaning of this sentence seems to be that this was the first miracle which cur Lord Jesus Christ ever worked. The miracles which some have reported that He worked in His infancy and childhood, are destitute of the slightest foundation in Scripture, and utterly unworthy of credit. Those who wish to see their absurdity will find specimens of them in the preliminary Essay to Trench's Notes on Miracles.
Lightfoot suggests the five following reasons why the miracle now before us was purposely the first that Christ worked. 1. As marriage was the first institution ordained by God, so at a marriage was Christ's first miracle. 2. As Christ had showed Himself miraculous a little while ago by a fast, so He doth now by an extraordinary provision at a fea'>t. When He would not make stones bread, it was not because He could not. 3. He would not make stones into bread to satisfy Satan, but He was willing to turn water into wine to show forth His own glory. 4. The first miracle wrought in the world by man was transfor- mation, (Exod. vii. 9,) and the first miracle wrought by the Son of Man was of the same nature. 5. The first time you hear of John the Baptist, you hear of his strict diet, and so the first time you hear of Christ in His public ministry, you hear of Him at a marriage feast.
\^}fanifested forth his glory.] I am unable to see that those words refer to the expression used in the first chapter, " We be- held his glory." (Jonn i. 14.) I believe the meaniag to be that " by this miracle Jesus now for the first time opened or revealed His glorious and divine power, and His commission to be the Messiah." After thirty years' seclusion at Nazxreth, He now for the first time hfted up the veil which He h id thrown over His divinity in becoming flesh, and revealed so nething of His almighty power and Grodhead.
[His disciples believed on him.] These words cannot of cc urse rcican that Arndew, and John, and Peter, and Philip, and Na-