SECTION III.

OF THE QUESTION WHETHER THE PERFORMANCE OF A MIRACLE CONFERS ON THE AGENT A LASTING SUBSEQUENT AUTHORITY OR WHETHER IT BE NECESSARY THAT THE ACT OF POWER PERFORMED, AND THE DOCTRINE WHICH MAY BE DECLARED ON THE CREDIT OF IT, BE CONNECTED BY SOME MORE PARTICULAR COPULA.

In the preceding Sections it is, I believe, sufficiently proved, both that a miracle cannot safely be defined as any thing more than an act above human power; and also that consequently we may require certain conditions to prove it conclusive of a divine authority. But a question arises, also, whether even these conditions are enough to hinder us from being possibly deceived. Granting these conditions, yet, if a mere man work a miracle once, and perhaps once only in his life, can we be certain that this miracle confers its authority on every doctrine which he may promulgate in the whole course of it? It is commonly supposeda that this can

a Fleetwood on Miracles, p. 117-119, ed. of 1702. And Farmer, p. 330-334.

not be; and that unless we connect the doctrine and the attestation together, by conditioning that the doctrine must be declared first, and the power confirmatory of it evidenced afterwards, and evidenced as its direct attestation or proof, we cannot allow the miracle to be proof of the doctrine; that without this caution we cannot be assured that the power exerted may not have been given for one purpose, and the authority, which that power confers, abused to another purpose by human fraud or error. Thus it is said that God's impenetrable wisdom may have, and, it is commonly supposed, has, sometimes communicated the possession of supernatural powers to persons who may in their general characters be very undeserving of credit, may have so communicated them with a particular view to some single object or end; and that it does not follow that because those persons were entrusted, for one particular purpose, with an authority which it is impossible to dispute, they must therefore be entitled to plead the sanction of that authority on all occasions on which they may be willing to claim it. But if they declare their doctrine first, and then exert their power in confirmation of it, thus connecting the doc

trime and its attestation together, the authority of the doctrine will thus be evidently established, together with the evidence of the attestation itself.

To this I answer, that though in the miracles of Scripture much of this cumulative proof may be found, much of this immediate connexion between the doctrine and its direct attestation, and though undoubtedly a copula thus immediate and particular may be, and is, of great importance in evidencing the real nature of the act performed, and in excluding all possibility of imposture; yet I do not see on what principle it can become necessary to substantiate a claim of superhuman authority. If a man, of whose chemical or mechanical knowledge I may have had proof at a time remote from the present, should now come and tell me that such or such facts are true, in the science of chemistry, or of mechanics, which he professes, I have still that evidence for crediting what he says, which I derive from my knowledge of his former skill. So, if a person whom I know to have formerly possessed a large portion of the confidence of

See Ch. I. of the following Treatise.

my friend,—if such a person tells me, even after the lapse of many years, of any passage of my friend's history, concerning which he may have had sufficient means of information, I, in the actual knowledge which I possess that they were at one time in habits of intercourse, have ground for crediting him, although I may not possess any evidence of there having existed any recent communication between them. And so, also, equally, if I am taught a revelation by a person whom I have known to exert at any time a power clearly superhuman. That That power must still confer on him some authority. The credit due at all times to any person who has shown at any time clear proof of such power, and who now appeals to that proof as to his authority, cannot but be greater than that which, cæteris paribus, is due to a person who has never shown any such proof. He stands at all events in a very peculiar situation, a situation which gives him peculiar authority; and it does not appear that we can reject that authority, unless some specific cause be assigned why we may or ought to distrust it.

The only argument which can be alleged against this statement rests, I believe, solely on

some indications which, as it has been thought, are afforded in Scripture, that the authority which miracles have been given to sanction, may be withdrawn after it has been given; or, in other words, may be superseded. The chief argument to be derived from Scripture to this effect is from the remarkable history recorded 1 Kings xiii, of the man of God who went down from Judah, and was misdirected by the old prophet of Bethel to his own destruction. We see in this history a real prophet, appealing in form, and yet appealing falsely (though evidently without any impious intent), to the prophetic authority which he possessed, and making this appeal with the design of persuading his guest to commit an act of disobedience to God: which he commits accordingly, and is then punished with death. It appears to follow from this history, and I am ready to concede that it does follow from it, that this old prophet could not have had, in his act of misdirecting the other, that divine illumination which he had possessed formerly, and which, indeed, seems to have been restored to him immediately afterwards. And hence, doubtless, it also follows, that the having

a Farmer, p. 332.