We begin with the second of them, Mark 16 : 17, 18, because we may rule it out of court at once as spurious. Of course its spuriousness may be disputed, and some very learned men have disputed it. The late Dean Burgon published a lengthy treatise in its defense, and the Abbe Martin wrote an even more lengthy one. Nevertheless it is just as certain that it is spurious as anything of this kind can be certain. The certainty that it was not origi- nally a part of Mark's Gospel, for example, is the same kind of certainty as that the beautiful verse
"For Thy sorrows we adore Thee,
For the griefs that wrought our peace; Gracious Saviour, we implore Thee, In our hearts Thy love increase,"
which we now sing as the last verse of the hymn, "Sweet the moments, rich in blessing," was not originally a part of that hymn. Or if you prefer to put it so, the certainty that the last twelve verses of Mark are spurious is the same in kind as the certainty that the rest of Mark's Gospel is genuine. And it "may be added that it is just as
168 COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES
well for you and me that they are spurious. For the gifts that are promised to "them that believe" seem not to be promised to eminent saints merely, one here and there who believes mightily, but to all believers; and what is promised to believers is not one or two of these gifts but all of them. " These signs," it is said, "shall accompany them that believe." I should not like to have the genuine- ness of my faith made dependent upon my ability to speak with new tongues, to drink poison innocuously, and to heal the sick with a touch.15 And, let us note in passing, it certainly was not understood in the Apostolic Church that these gifts were inseparable from genuine faith. The incident of the conversion of the Samaritans recorded in the eighth chapter of Acts stands there, as we have seen in a previous lecture,16 for the express purpose of teaching us the contrary — that, to wit, these signs accompanied not them that believed but them on whom the Apostles laid their hands in order to confer these signs upon them. The employment of this spurious passage by Gordon in this connection brings him into inevitable embarrassment. For although, when commenting on it here,17 he insists, as he must, that "this rich cluster of miraculous promises all hangs by a single stem, faith" — "the same believing to which is attached the promise of salvation"; and that "whatever practical difficulties we may have in regard to the fulfillment of this word, these ought not to lead us to limit it where the Lord has not limited it"; yet, when he comes, at a later point, to meet the objection that "if you insist that miracles of healing are possible in this age, then you must logically admit that such miracles as raising the dead, turning water into wine, and speaking in unknown tongues are still possible" 18 — he does "throw one half of the illustrious promise into eclipse," denying that that part of it, at least, which says that this sign shall follow believers, "They shall speak with other tongues," does still follow them. Nor will it be easy to show that "taking up ser-
JAMES 5 : 14, 15 IRRELEVANT 169
pents," whatever that may mean, or drinking deadly things without harm, are not "miracles on external nature, like the turning of the water into wine." The truth is that these items bear an apocryphal appearance, and constitute one of the internal indications, answering to the sufficient external proof, that the passage is uncanonical and of un- inspired origin.19
The third passage, that from James 5 : 14, 15, we are ourselves inclined to set aside with equal summariness as irrelevant. We allow, of course, that the presumption is "that the passage refers to an established and perpetual usage in the Church" ; we should not find it difficult to be- lieve that " the oil is applied as a symbol of the communica- tion of the Spirit, by whose power healing is effected"; we agree that "the promise of recovery is explicit, and un- conditional" to the prayer of faith.20 But we see no in- dication in the passage that "a peculiar miraculous faith" is intended ; no promise of a healing in a specifically mirac- ulous manner; and no command to exclude medicinal means, or proof of their exclusion. If we read the passage with simple minds, free from preconceptions, I think we shall find in it nothing but a very earnest exhortation to sick people to turn to the Lord in their extremity, and a very precious promise to those who thus call upon Him, that the Lord will surely hearken to their cry.