[------] very unwarrantably rendered in our "authorized" version "the working of miracles." We have already said enough regarding Paul's use of [------]. The phrase before us would be even better rendered in-or inward-workings of powers(1) and the use made of [------] by Paul throughout his epistles would confirm this. It may be pointed out that as the gifts just referred to are for "healings" it is difficult to imagine any class of "miracles" which could well be classed under a separate head as the special "working of miracles" contemplated by apologists. Infinitely the greater number of miracles related in the Gospels and Acts are "healings" of disease. Is it possible to suppose that Paul really indicated by this expression a distinct order of "miracles" properly so called? Certainly not Neither the words themselves used by Paul, properly understood, nor the context permit us to suppose that he referred to the working of miracles at all. We have no intention of conjecturing what these "powers" were supposed to be; it is sufficient that we show they cannot rightly be exaggerated into an assertion of the power of working miracles. It is much more probable that, in the expression, no external working by the gifted person is implied at all, and that the gift referred to "in-workings of powers" within his own mind, producing the ecstatic state, with its usual manifestations, or those visions and supposed revelations to which Paul himself was subject. Demonaics, or persons supposed to be possessed of evil spirits, were called [------] and it is easy to conceive how anyone under strong religious {353} impressions, at that epoch of most intense religious emotion, might, when convulsed by nervous or mental excitement, be supposed the subject of inward workings of powers supernaturally imparted. Every period of religious zeal has been marked by such phenomena.(1) These conclusions are further corroborated by the next gifts enumerated. The first of these is "prophecy" [------], by which is not intended the mere foretelling of events, but speaking "unto men edification and exhortation and comfort," as the Apostle himself says (xiv. 3); and an illustration of this may be pointed out in Acts iv. 36 where the name Barnabas = "Son of prophecy," being interpreted is said to be "Son of Exhortation" [------]. To this follows the "discerning (or judging) of spirits" [------], a gift which, if we are to judge by Paul's expressions elsewhere, was simply the exercise of natural intelligence and discernment. In an earlier part of the first Epistle, rebuking the Corinthians for carrying their disputes before legal tribunals, he says, vi. 5: "Is it so that there is not even one wise man among you who shall be able to discern [------] between his brethren?" Again, in xi. 31, "But if we discerned [------] we should not be judged [------]" (cf vv. 28, 29), and in xiv. 29, "Let Prophets speak two or three, and let the others discern" [------].