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ture, we should have the strongest reasons to suppose, 1st, that He had only done so, in order to accomplish something which could not conceivably have been accomplished without such interpositions; and 2ndly. that He would discontinue these interpositions as soon as they became no longer necessary.
"Now both these conclusions," continued the Doctor, "we find to agree alike with the Bible and with the recorded history of mankind. It was necessary that the doctrines of Christianity should be known to be the infallible truth of God; that what the Apostles said or wrote on the subject should be received as the words of God Himself speaking to mankind. Now this authority, as far as we can see, can be given to mortal man only by God's visibly interfering in his support; and such interferences are what we call miracles. We see then, that for the establishment in the world of Christianity, and of the authority of those sacred books which form the New Testament, miracles were necessary; and we find from Scripture, that miracles were then vouchsafed. But when the interference had been fully proved, when evidence of it could be handed down by ordinary means to following generations; and when no more divine truth was to be revealed, miracles were needed no longer; and the history of the world informs us, that they have ceased for seventeen hundred years."
And while the Dr., in conclusion, pointed out on the one hand the folly of expecting a recurrence of such marvels in our own days, an expectation which amounts to an acknowledgement that Christianity is as yet imperfect, and that we are to look for a more complete revelation; he dwelt with much earnestness on the danger of imagining that God's peculiar protection of Christianity, God's peculiar inward gifts to believers ceased with the cessation of the outward signs and wonders which at first accompanied the revelation of His Word.
John listened with great attention; and, when the Service was over, he thought long and deeply upon what had been said. He looked out also the different texts which the Dr. had mentioned in his Sermon; and in so doing, he came to one which rather puzzled him. It was, John xiv. 16. "It is strange," said he to himself; "our Lord promised that the Comforter whom He would send should abide with His followers for ever; I really do not see why this promise should be given, if the greatest and most striking gifts which that Comforter was to bestow, were to cease at the end of one, or at most of two generations."
