Copy 1, Volume 2
Library of useful knowledge.
- Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
- Date:
- 1827-1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Library of useful knowledge. Source: Wellcome Collection.
153/496 page 19
![or consistent form until its character was fixed and its stability decided by the policy of an emperor. In order to rest on ground which will not be disputed, we have been contented to seek our proofs of the early strength and secu¬ rity of Christianity in the ordinary records of history, made Miraculous probable by natural circumstances and human operation. claims. But we should treat the subject imperfectly if we were to make no mention of those higher powers which have been so generally claimed for the primitive Church, not merely through the interposition of Divine Providence at such moments as seemed fit to His omniscience, but as a gift confided by the Most High to the uncertain discretion of his ministers on earth, and placed through a succession of ages, at their un¬ controlled disposition. The chain of historical evidence on which this claim rests is continued from the days of St. Irenaeus to those of St. Ber¬ nard (and even much later) with much uniformity of confident assertion and glaring improbability ; it is interwoven in inseparable folds throughout the whole mass of ecclesiastical records, and the links which compose it so strongly resemble each other both in material and manufacture, that it appears absolutely impossible to break the succession, or to distinguish which of the portions were fabricated by the wisdom of God, which by the impiety of man * *. Various writers have assigned various periods to the cessation of supernatural aids; but they appear for the most part to have been rather guided by their own views of probability, than by critical examination of evidence ; which would have led them equally to receive or equally to reject the claims of every age, excepting the first. The powers which were undoubtedly communicated by the Apostles to some of their immediate successors probably continued to enlighten and distin¬ guish those holy persons to the end of their ministry, and were eminently serviceable in the foundation of the faithf ; but it is a reasonable opinion]:. * The performance of a pretended miracle for the purpose of delusion is the highest imaginable impiety, and the deliberate propagation of accounts of such performances, with knowledge of their character, is not far short of it. But we do not intend to impute this guilt to all the ancient Christian retailers of miraculous stories,—far from it;—cre¬ dulity is the weakness of some minds, as mendacity is the vice of others ; and the former of these qualities, perhaps even more than the latter, has characterised some Eastern nations in every age. And we should recollect that to them we are indebted for the fabrication of most of the tales which stain ecclesiastical history, and for the example which led to them all. *t* Mosh. Hist. Gen. c. i. p. i. ch. 4. $ On such a question as this it is vain to appeal to authorities ; and unhappily we have here no space for full developement of our reasons. We must be contented, then, to say, that the argument by which we are principally moved is this: miracles become im¬ probable in proportion as they seem to be not absolutely necessary ; and we consider that through the wonders wrought by the Apostles, and those, their contemporaries, to whom similar power was vouchsafed, some of whom may have survived them forty or fifty years, the foundation of the Christian Church was so firmly established as to remove the neces~ sity of the further continuance of that power to it. The facts which have chiefly decided us are the following :—In the writings of the Apostolical Fathers and those immediately succeeding, we read nothing respecting apostles, prophets, interpreters, or other inspired and extraordinarily gifted ministers : we have no record of the perpetuation of any office in the ministry which in its nature and name included the certainty of inspiration and miraculous powers. Again, the fathers who succeeded them, those of the second and third centuries, when they speak of the existence of such powers, confine themselves to the use of general language; they seldom specify an instance of their application ; and when they do so, it may usually be classed in that description of miracles which is most liable to misrepresentation or mistake ; such as the healing of diseases, or the expulsion of demons. Add to these and similar considerations that which we do not hesitate to call the historical impossibility of assigning any period for the cessation of such gifts in the Church, if we once exceed the barrier which_ the infallibility of the inspired writers](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29324853_0002_0153.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
