THE SUPERNATURAL IN RELIGION.
By Editor
IN this age when a form of godliness prevails without the power, when the professed churches of God are content with a dull and dead monotony, believing that supernatural manifestations of God's power in the form of miracles ceased with the age of the apostles as no longer necessary to the progress of the gospel;—in such a time we are agreeably surprised to find sentiments like the following in one of the prominent religious journals of the day, which a sister has kindly selected for the REVIEW. But we are decried as Mormons for believing in the perpetuity of the influence and gifts of the Spirit. This article will remind such that they have a controversy on this point with others besides ourselves—those, too, whom they will regard as having clearer views and sounder judgments than they would be willing to accord to us. But the real question with all the candid will be, Does the Bible teach according to the view here presented? And if we become satisfied that it does, shall we give up or suppress a truth merely because a party of fanatics and impostors have seen fit to incorporate it into their creed? But to the article, which speaks as follows:— For the last hundred years the tendency has been to divorce from religion, as much as possible, its supernatural or miraculous character. This skeptical leaning is in great measure the reaction arising from that excess of credulity which culminated in the excitements of the Salem witchcraft. Since that spell was broken, the backward tide has been so strong, that any one avowing his belief in the possibility, at the present day, of demoniacal possession in a real, tangible form, would only be a subject of ridicule. To preserve, however, the integrity of our belief in inspiration, it has been found necessary to admit that such possessions did take place in former times. Miracles, the result of divine interposition, are placed on the same footing. Those which are found recorded between the lids of the Bible, are recognized as authenticated facts, while all others are set down to the score of superstition. It has at length become an axiom, among Protestant denominations generally, that miracles ceased with the apostles. It is easy to see that this opinion, pushed to its legitimate consequences, is calculated to give infidelity the advantage. The same reasons which induce us to discredit the existence or possibility of supernatural events in our own time, will operate to the discredit of supernatural events in former times. While we turn with incredulity from the strange experiences and wonderful providences narrated by our fathers, we forget that the more advanced skeptic is but carrying out the same rule of judgment when he rejects the testimony of the sacred writers. He has but stepped over the precipice, while we stand on the brink. Year after year witnesses the passing over of thousands from a philosophical Christianity to downright rationalism. This is the abyss into which our popular theology is certainly plunging us. But we discover some signs of a change for the better. There is a ripple on the surface, as if some angel were troubling the waters below. Minds are in a state of unrest. Christians are becoming weary of the increasing worldliness of our existing Christianity, and are sighing for the return of a more primitive faith. Our religious and theological reviews have recently given unusual prominence to the discussion of this and kindred topics. Bushnell's work on Nature and the Supernatural has done much to awaken inquiry. The last number of the Christian Review maintains the common doctrine that miracles have ceased, and yet admits the continuance of special providences in answer to prayer. Between these and other miraculous interpositions, it would be difficult to draw a line of distinction. The Biblical Repository for July has an excellent article on Evangelical Faith, showing the supernatural character of the change involved in that term as used in scripture. Another article in the same number, reviewing Boardman's Higher Christian Life, is less satisfactory. The writer, Rev. J. J. Abbot, while he is expert in detecting crudities and inconsistencies in the work he is reviewing, appears to us very unfortunate in attempting to account for its popularity. The cause of that popularity is to be found in an impression on the minds of Christians, far more general than Mr. Abbot is aware of, that the attainment of a more scriptural and elevated piety than the church at present enjoys, is not only to be prayed and hoped for, but to be expected. So long as our faith is so immeasurably behind that of the primitive disciples, we must expect there will be a dissatisfaction, a struggle to break the prison, a groping, this way and that, for some opening by which to emerge into a sunnier atmosphere, and clearer gospel light. We find in the Independent of last week a very sober and judicious view of the supernatural in Christianity, as connected with "the prayer of faith." An incident taken from Neander's "Memorials of Christian Life," is related of Cæsarius, Bishop of Arles, who emptied his granary of the last kernel to feed a large number of prisoners whom he had ransomed, in faith of a supply on the morrow. The next day three ships laden with corn, arrived from the Burgundian kings. Upon this the Independent remarks: Here is one of the eminent examples, long after the times of the New Testament, yet in the comparatively early ages of Christianity, of those "answers to prayer" which, if not miraculous, are yet too extraordinary to be anticipated by mere human sagacity from the natural course of things; and of that faith on the part of the petitioner, which transcends a mere general confidence in the divine Providence, is specific in its expectations, and cannot be justified by the operation of human reason alone. Numberless examples may be cited from the records of piety in all ages. To this effect our readers may at once recall the history of Augustus Hermann Francke, the founder of the orphan hospital at Halle, and the autobiography of the devout physician, Heinrich Stilling. William Huntingdon, the noted Antinomian preacher, though a less amiable religionist, gives instances not to be overlooked in his "Bank of Faith." Facts of this kind are too well attested to be disputed or questioned on the score of evidence. They are too numerous to be set aside as of no account, under the name of accidental co-incidences. We see not how they can be consistently either denied, or ascribed to chance, as not agreeable to reason, by those who at the same time admit similar facts recorded in the Bible. Certainly the Bible nowhere intimates that answers to prayer, like those which are related in its pages, might not be expected in later times, and always. It gives no shadow of reason for supposing that there may not be, at all times, believing and effectual prayer for events which are reckoned most improbable, and even miraculous. On the contrary, the apostle James argues to the power of prayer in general, from the example of Elijah's influence in procuring first the drouth and then the rain, urging that he was "a man subject to like passions as we are." James v, 17, 18. We need not even stop to distinguish, in this connection, between miraculous events, and those unprecedented and extraordinary, since, besides our liability to error in that discrimination, the fate of the petitioner remains to be accounted for in the latter case as in the former. In a word, with devout Christians it ought not to "be thought a thing incredible" that sometimes now, as of old, prayer offered with confidence as to the specific result, is found to be the condition of events otherwise improbable or impossible.
The answers to prayer recorded in the Bible are among its most striking miracles. If these divine interpositions are continued, there is no reason why we should deny the possibility of others. It is sometimes said the occasion for miraculous interpositions is removed, now that the canon of scripture is closed, and any further testimony to the truth of revelations is therefore unnecessary. But the idea that miracles had no other office than that of witnesses to the truth of revelation is154not borne out by an examination of facts. The objects of the scripture miracles were various. Sometimes, indeed, their chief use appears to have been to carry conviction to the minds of the spectators; but this is by no means the case universally. If their only design were to convince the doubting, the need for them at the present day would be quite as great as in any former period of the world. The question of miracles is simply one of evidence. Upon adequate evidence, we are required by sound philosophy to receive the miracles of former times as readily as any other recorded facts. On the same evidence and with the same readiness we would believe in a miracle of the present day. To withhold assent, in opposition to testimony, on account of the natural incredibility of an event, is to assume the ground of Hume. Whatever comes to us properly attested, we must believe, or sink to the grossest atheism. Nor can we rationally deny the possibility of satanic influence over the men of the present generation more than over generations past. Sorcery, demoniacal possession, and lying wonders have been a reality in other ages of the world, and they may, for aught we know, be yet again developed. Many prophecies evidently point to periods in the future, when the agents of the prince of darkness shall be stimulated to unwonted interference with the affairs of men. Let the veil between the seen and unseen be removed, and we should see even now, and everywhere, the footsteps of the great adversary, the Devil, who, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. And if supernatural agency is exerted upon man for purposes of evil, much more may we feel assured that divine interference will not be withheld when necessary for our good. The encouragements to prayer in the New Testament are often expressly based on a direct promise of special divine intervention. The direction to pray over the sick, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord, accompanied with the promise that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick," implies a supernatural cure which cannot be distinguished, in any respect, from other miraculous interpositions. Nor is there any intimation in the sacred text that such prayers, or the corresponding answers, were to be confined to apostolic times; the exhortation was a general one, enforced by a general principle, the admitted efficacy of the prayer of a "righteous man;" not a sinlessly perfect being, for even "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are," yet his prayer shut heaven for three years and six months, because that prayer was offered through the Spirit, in accordance with the will of God. If it be asked whether the Christian can offer this effectual prayer for a special object at pleasure, we answer, No; the doctrine of Scripture plainly is, that this efficacious faith is a special gift, communicated for special objects, by the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. The marked and decided instances of divine interposition in answer to prayer are at present rare, and that the alleged miracles of Papists, Mormons, and Spiritualists are gross interpositions, we readily admit. But were it true that we could not point out a single supernatural event, or special interposition of Providence, it would by no means prove that such manifestations never occur, or that they may not be expected in the future history of the church. It would only prove the weakness of our faith, and the dimness of our spiritual vision, compared with the faith of primitive times. We are perhaps disposed to look upon the miraculous occurrences of former days as being more numerous and common than they really were. We ought to remember that the extraordinary interpositions recorded extend over long periods of time, and that, with the exception of the Saviour's miracles, but a comparatively small number were witnessed by any one generation. Those that did occur were carefully recorded and preserved for the instruction and encouragement of God's people. Apostles healed the sick, cast out devils, spake with tongues, but they did not do these things always and everywhere. Sickness and death did not disappear at their approach; Paul was obliged to leave his friend Trophimus sick at Miletum. It was but once in his life that he was miraculously preserved from the bite of a serpent; but once that he was caught up to behold the glories of the third heavens: and then it was necessary that he should be buffeted by a messenger of Satan, to keep him from being exalted above measure. Nor was it upon all the disciples that supernatural gifts were bestowed; all were not workers of miracles; all had not the gifts of healing; all did not speak with tongues; all did not interpret. If we took more pains to verify and place on record the various instances of gracious divine interposition that occur in our own times, and were more studious in searching the "Banks of Faith" which our fathers have left us, we should probably be convinced that in no age of the world has God left his people without occasional manifestations of his special presence and favor, by tokens that are fully entitled to be regarded as supernatural.