MIRACLES, ECCLESIASTICAL 321 MIRACLES, ECCLESIASTICAL
cessation of miracles in his beautiful sermons on the Resurrection and on the Feast of Pentecost (Se?: xxxiii and xxxvi), where he solves the same question— "Why are no signs and miracles intrusted to us now?" — by claiming those higher miracles of grace and inward change which enable us to use the prayer of faith, and to exclaim, " Our Father, which art in heaven !" Chr}-- sostom says himself: " Ne itaque ex eo, quod nunc signa non tiunt, argumentum ducas tunc etiam non fu- isse. Etenim tunc utiliter fiebant, et nunc utiliter non fiunt" (In Epistolam i, ad Corinth. Homil. vi, 2; comp. Augustine, De Civitaie Dei, xxii, viii, 1). Yet these fathers also supply us with accounts of deeds wrought by Christian believers, which the Roman Catholic Church has pleased to stamp as miraculous, but which these early writers of the Church mark out clearly as natural results. If indeed they pleased to call them miracles, they yet betray that even in their own view there was a vast difference between the scriptural and ecclesiastical miracles, and that they did not count them as of the same category. St. Augustine, referring to the wonderful deeds wrought by the faithful of the Church in his Aav, concedes also that they were not wrought with the same lustre as in the apostolic days, nor with the same significance and authority for the whole Christian world (comp. Fr. Nitzsch, jun., Augus- iinus' Lehre vom Wander [Berlin, 18G5], p. 32 sq.). Bishop Douglas says that these miraculous workings were confined to '• the cures of diseases, particularly the cures of diemoniacs, by exorcising them; which last indeed seems to be their favorite standing miracle;" and Prof. Newman, one of the richest prizes gained bj' the Romanists from the Church of England in this gen- eration, is candid enough to admit the contrast between the scriptural and what he calls ecclesiastical miracles. He says, '' The miracles of Scripture are, as a whole, grave, simple, and majestic : those of ecclesiastical his- tory often partake of what may not unfitly be called a romantic character, and of that wildness and inequality which enters into the notion of romance." " It is ob- vious," he says elsewhere, " to apply what has been said to the case of the miracles of the Church, as compared with those in Scripture. Scripture is to us a garden of Eden, and its creations are beautiful as well as 'very good;' but when we pass from the apostolic to the fol- lowing ages, it is as if we left the choicest valleys of the earth, the quietest and most harmonious scenery, and the most cultivated soil, for the luxuriant wilder- ness of Africa or Asia, the natural home or kingdom of brute nature uninfluenced by man" {Two Essays on Scripture Miracles and on Ecclesiastical, 2d ed. Lond. 1870, p. 116, 150). Dr. Hodge, in commenting upon Romish miracles, quotes these words of Prof. Newman, and says of them, "A more felicitous illustration can hardly be imagined. The contrast between the Gos- pels and the legends of the saints is that between the divine and the human, and even the animal; between Christ (with reverence be it spoken) and St. Anthonv" (iii, 455).
The Roman Catholic Church, notwithstanding the want of any trustworthy patristic testimony, asserts that the power of performing all manner of miraculous works remains with the Church since the days of its first founding, henceforth and forever. '• Roman Catholics," says Butler, "relying with entire confidence on the promises of Christ [quoting Acts ii, 3 sq. ; John xiv, 12 ; Mark xvi, 17, 18], believe that the power of working miracles was given by Christ to his Church, and that it never has been, and never will be withdrawn from her" {Booh of the Rom. Cath. Ch. Letter iii, p. 37 sq. ; see also p. 46 sq.). Another, even greater celebrity, the learned Bellarmine, goes so far as to prove from this continuity of tlie miraculous power in the Church of Rome that the Protestant Church, lacking this, is man- ifestly not of God. He argues that miracles are neces- sary to evince any new faith or extraordinary mission ; that miracles are efficacious and sufficient. By the for- VI.— X
mer, he then tells us, may be deduced that the Church is not to be found among Protestants ; by the latter, that it is most assuredly among Catholics : " Undecima nota est gloria miraculorum ; sunt autem duo fundamenta prcemittenda. Unum quod miracula sint necessaria ad novam fidem vel extraordinariam missionem persua- dendam. Alterum, quod sint efficacia et sufficientia; nam ex priore deducemus non esse apud adversarios ve- ram ecclesiam, ex posteriore deducemus eam esse apud nos. Quod igitur miracula sint necessaria, probatur pri- mo Scriptune testimonio, Exod. iv, cum Moses mittere- tur a Deo ad populum, ac diceret: 'Non credent mihi, neqne audient vocem meam.' Non respondet Deus, ' Debent credere, velint nolint,' sed dedit illi potestatem faciendi miracula, et ait : ' Ut credant, quod apparuerit tibi Dominus,' etc. Et in Novo Testamento, Matt, x, 'Euntes, praedicate, dicentes: Appropinquovit regnum coelorum ; infirmos curate, mortuos suscitate, leprosos mundate, d.Tmones ejicite.' Joan, xv, ' Si opera non fe- cissem in eis qua3 nemo alius fecit, peccatum non habe- rent' " {Opera, vol. ii ; De Notis Ecclesice, lib. iv, cap. xiv, col. 206 D [Col. 1619]). Even the liberal-minded Dr.Mil- ner, who displayed learning in almost every department of science ; who possessed experience, intelligence, and taste; who wrote well and reasoned acutely; teaches, in a letter devoted to the subject of miracles, that "if the Roman Catholic Church were not the only true Church, God would not have given any attestation in its favor. . . . Having demonstrated the distinction," by whicli he means the exclusive holiness of the Roman Catholic Church, he professes himself " prepared to show that God has borne testimony to that holiness by the many and incontestable (?) miracles he has wrought in her favor, from the age of the apostles down to the jjresint time^' (Lett, xxvi, p. 163 sq., et al.).