PRETENSIONS by any class of men to the possession and use of miraculous powers as a permanent endowment are, within the limits of the Christian church, a specialty of Roman Catholicism. Denial of these pretensions is part of the protest by virtue of which we bear the name of Protestants. “In point of interpretation, the history of Protestantism,” as an Edinburgh reviewer, writing in trying conditions in 1831, justly puts it,! “is a uniform disclaimer of any promise in the Scriptures that miraculous powers should be continued in the Church.” In point of fact (we may slightly modify his next sentence to declare), the claim to the possession and exercise of powers of this description by individuals has always been received in Protestant circles with a suspicion which experience has only too completely justified.
Protestantism, to be sure, has happily been no stranger to enthusiasm; and enthusiasm with a lower-case “‘e’”’ unfortunately easily runs into that Enthusiasm with a capital “E” which is the fertile seed-bed of fanaticism. Individuals have constantly arisen so filled with the sense of God in their own souls, and so overwhelmed by the wonders of grace which they have witnessed, that they see the immediate hand of God in every occurrence which strikes them as remarkable, and walk through the world clothed in a nimbus of miracle. To them it seems a small thing that the God who has so marvellously healed their sick souls should equally marvellously heal their sick bodies; that the God who speaks so unmistakably in their spirits should speak equally unmistakably through their lips. Especially in times of wide-spread oppression, when whole communities have, in their hopeless agony, been thrown back upon their God as their only refuge, and have found in Him solace and strength, it has over and over again happened that out of their distresses words and deeds have come to them which to their apprehension seemed manifestly divine. We may find an illustration of the former phenomenon in John Wesley, who, though he would have repelled the accusation of superstition, yet, as one of his biographers finely expresses it, “was always far more afraid of being ungodly than of being credulous.” He would not admit that there was any scriptural ground for supposing that miracles had ceased. “I do not know,” he declares? ““that God hath any way precluded Himself from thus exerting His sovereign power, from working miracles in any kind or degree, in any age, to the end of the world. I do not recollect any Scripture where we are taught that miracles are to be confined within the limits either of the Apostolic or the Cyprianic age; or to any period of time, longer or shorter, even to the restoration of all things. I have not observed, either in the Old Testament or the New, any intimation at all of this kind.” Feeling thus no preconceived chariness with reference to miracles, he recognized their occurrence with great facility in the past and in the present. He twits Middleton with his readiness to believe, on the testimony of scientific observers, that it is possible to speak without a tongue, rather than to credit the miracle testified to as having been wrought in favor of the African confessors who had had their tongues cut out. “After avowing this belief,” he cries,” “do you gravely talk of other men’s credulity? I wonder that such a volunteer in faith should stagger at anything. Doubtless, were it related as natural only, not miraculous, you could believe that a man could see without eyes.” After himself recording a sheerly incredible instance of mirror-gazing, he solemnly affirms his belief in it, and stoutly declares that those who can believe it all fiction “may believe a man’s getting into a bottle.” William Warburton, who devotes the second book of his Doctrine of Grace almost entirely to criticisms of a series of extracts from Wesley’s Journal, sums up his findings in the remark that “this extraordinary man hath, in fact, laid claim to almost every Apostolic gift and grace; and in as full and ample a measure as they were possessed of old”; that, in fact, “of all the Apostolic gifts and graces there is but one with which we find him not adorned—namely, the gift of tongues.” To such apparent lengths is it possible to be carried by the mere enthusiasm of faith.
A very good example of the wide-spread prevalence of apparently supernatural experiences in conditions of deep religious excitement is afforded by the history of the Cami-sards during the long period of their brutal persecution; and, indeed, beyond—for the same class of manifestations continued among their English friends, apparently by a kind of spiritual infection, long after some of them had taken refuge from persecution in England. These manifestations included prophesying and predictions, miracleworking and speaking with tongues, and they were by no means done in a corner. A Mr. Dalton, “who did not know one Hebrew letter from another,” nevertheless uttered “with great readiness and freedom complete discourses in Hebrew, for near a quarter of an hour together and sometimes much longer.” Mr. Lacy spoke in Latin and Greek and French, although himself unable to construe his Latin and Greek, “of which,” the historian slyly remarks, “the syntax is certainly inexplicable.” Unfortunately for themselves, these French Prophets” believed sufficiently in themselves to venture upon the luxury of specific predictions. They foretold that a certain Doctor Emes, who died December 22, 1707, would rise again on March 25, 1708. He did not do so; and the prophets were reduced to publishing a paper giving “Squire Lacy’s reasons why Doctor Emes was not raised.” They predicted that certain dreadful judgments would fall on London in three weeks, explained explicitly to mean three literal weeks. When the fulfilment did not take place, they re-explained that, after all, it was three prophetic weeks that were intended—which corrected dating also was, of course, stultified in the process of time. Above all, of course, they predicted the speedy coming of the Lord, and the setting up of His personal reign on earth, of which, they explained, the present diffusion of the spiritual gifts among them was the preparation and the sign. “Christians,” cries John Lacy, “now only look upon Christ as dead and ascended into heaven. But where—where’s the expectation taught of His coming again? A doctrine that has annexed to it the powers, the mighty gifts of the Holy Ghost engaged by promises. Is the state of Christianity now so perfect that the powers and gifts of the Holy Ghost extraordinary are not worthy expecting or regarding?… Therefore the extraordinary dispensation to prepare so extraordinary a revolution… sure there needs something extraordinary to prepare for so tremendous, useful, so joyous and blissful a state of the Church on earth. Nay, the wisest do need an extraordinary call for it.”