BT 97 .W3 1918 Warfield, Benjamin
Breckinridge, 1851-1921 Counterfeit miracles
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COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES
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MIRACLES
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BY
BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1918
Copyright, 1918, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published April, 1918
THIS VOLUME CONTAINS
THE THOMAS SMYTH LECTURES FOR 1917-1918
DELIVERED AT THE
COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA OCTOBER 4-IO, igi 7
IT IS DEDICATED TO
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND THE FACULTY OF COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
IN APPRECIATION OF
THEIR INVITATION TO DELD7ER THE LECTURES
AND IN PLEASANT RECOLLECTION OF
THEIR MANY COURTESIES
CONTENTS
The Cessation of the Charismata i
Patristic and Mediaeval Marvels 33
Roman Catholic Miracles 71
Irvingite Gifts 125
Faith-Healing 155
Mind-Cure 197
Notes. [Referred to in the text by superior nu- merals] 231
THE CESSATION OF THE CHARISMATA
THE CESSATION OF THE CHARISMATA
When our Lord came down to earth He drew heaven with Him. The signs which accompanied His ministry were but the trailing clouds of glory which He brought from heaven, which is His home. The number of the mir- acles which He wrought may easily be underrated. It has been said that in effect He banished disease and death from Palestine for the three years of His ministry. If this is exaggeration it is pardonable exaggeration. Wherever He went, He brought a blessing:
One hem but of the garment that He wore Could medicine whole countries of their pain; One touch of that pale hand could life restore.
We ordinarily greatly underestimate His beneficent ac- tivity as He went about, as Luke says, doing good.1 *
His own divine power by which He began to found His church He continued in the Apostles whom He had chosen to complete this great work. They transmitted it in turn, as part of their own miracle-working and the crowning sign of their divine commission, to others, in the form of what the New Testament calls spiritual gifts2 in the sense of extraordinary capacities produced in the early Christian communities by direct gift of the Holy Spirit.
The number and variety of these spiritual gifts were considerable. Even Paul's enumerations, the fullest of which occurs in the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, can hardly be read as exhaustive scientific catalogues. The name which is commonly applied to them3 is broad enough to embrace what may be called both the ordinary and the
* For all references see corresponding numbers at the end of the volume.
3
4 COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES
specifically extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; both those, that is, which were distinctively gracious, and those which were distinctly miraculous. In fact, in the classical pas- sage which treats of them (I Cor. 12-14) both classes are brought together under this name. The non-miraculous, gracious gifts are, indeed, in this passage given the prefer- ence and called " the greatest gifts"; and the search after them is represented as "the more excellent way"; the longing for the highest of them — faith, hope, and love — being the most excellent way of all. Among the miraculous gifts themselves, a like distinction is made in favor of "prophecy" (that is, the gift of exhortation and teaching), and, in general, in favor of those by which the body of Christ is edified.
The diffusion of these miraculous gifts is, perhaps, quite generally underestimated. One of the valuable features of the passage, I Cor. 12-14, consists in the picture given in it of Christian worship in the Apostolic age (14 : 26 ff.).4 "What is it, then, brethren?" the Apostle asks. "When ye come together, each one hath a psalm, hath a teaching, hath a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. If any man speaketh in a tongue, let it be by two or at the most three, and that in turn; and let one interpret: but if there be no inter- preter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God. And let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others discern. But if a revela- tion be made to another sitting by, let the first keep silence. For ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted ; and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets ; for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace." This, it is to be observed, was the ordinary church worship at Corinth in the Apostles' day. It is analogous in form to the freedom of our modern prayer- meeting services. What chiefly distinguishes it from them is that those who took part in it might often have a mirac-
THE PRIMITIVE CHARISMATA 5