Читать книгу A Book of Gems, or, Choice selections from the writings of Benjamin Franklin - Бенджамин Франклин - Страница 54

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MIRACLES are necessary to give a new institution and confirm it to the world, but when it is given and confirmed, no miracle is needed to perpetuate it. It required miracles to confirm the mission of the apostles and prove to the world that they were from God. So would it require miracles now to confirm the missions of any other man or set of men claiming to be specially called and sent as the apostles were, and in default of any miracles, we do not believe any men are now called and sent, as they were. The divine attestations that established the apostolic mission, among the people of their time, against their established religion, all their prejudices and every worldly consideration, was committed to record, and will establish it to all the generations to come. The same testimony that proved a man guilty of murder one hundred years ago, will prove him guilty forever. It does not require that witnesses continue to be sworn and testify to prove it to other people. In the same way, the testimony that proved the divinity of Christ, at the beginning of his reign, has been committed to the record and will prove it forever. There is no new testimony, and none is needed. Those who lived in the time when the Lord was on earth, saw him, or saw those who did see him, or, at least, many of them did; they saw many of his wonderful works, or many who did see them; they heard the prophecies uttered by him, or saw those who did hear them, but did not live to see the fulfillment. We did not see him, nor witness his miracles, nor hear him utter the prophecies alluded to, but we now have the faithful records of history in which we find accounts of the fulfillment of his wonderful predictions extending down through the ages, for more than eighteen centuries. We do not, therefore, need a repetition of the miracles, or the prophecies, or their fulfillment. They stand there, firm as the everlasting hills, serving God’s eternal purpose; confirming the divine mission of his Son, and the New Covenant, of which he is the Mediator.

When did these miracles cease? They ceased when the apostles died, and all on whom they laid their hands. Every pretense of a miracle from then till now, has been nothing but a lying pretense. Not a genuine miracle has been done.

We have in the Bible the clear statement that the spiritual gifts—the supernatural gifts—would be superseded by “a more excellent way;” that tongues should cease, prophecies should fail, and knowledge—the supernatural gift of knowledge—should be done away. In accordance with these statements, these gifts have ceased, and thus fulfilled Paul’s statement, and proved that the Spirit of God was in him. The eternal Spirit saw, and, through him, foretold that these gifts should cease, as he did in the Apostle John, at the close of Revelation, the conclusion of the sacred canon, that nothing more was to be added, and nothing taken away. This ended the revelations from God. We have had not one word since, and will not have till the end of time.