Yet, notwithstanding the low and suffering con dition of Jesus, and the opposition and animosity which his doctrine excited, he uniformly expressed the most perfect confidence in the ultimate success of his religion. He compared it to a grain of mus tard seed, which, though very minute at first, in creases rapidly till it becomes a tree, and the fowls of heaven take shelter under its branches. The illustration is beautiful and appropriate, and has been verified by the event. He might have com pared it to the oak which springs from the acorn, and, in process of time, becomes the ornament of the forest. Such an illustration would have point ed out the small beginning and ultimate stability of the gospel. But the mustard seed was a more ap propriate emblem of the rapid growth and advance ment of Christianity in the world. This certainly was an event little to be expected on any calcula tion of human policy. The religion of the Jews, with which Christianity was at first confounded, and from which it is not altogether distinct, was an object of contempt among the heathen nations, on ac count of its peculiarities and exclusive spirit, and the Jews themselves were viewed with a dislike bordering on abhorrence. How unlikely was it then that a religion, founded, as the heathens be lieved, on the peculiar institutions of the Jews, (though these, in reality, had been appointed with a reference to it,) should so speedily triumph over all the forms of religion which then existed in the world, which had been consecrated by the strains of the poet, mixed up with the civil institutions of the state, associated with the feelings and prejudices of the people, and protected alike by the arms and the eloquence of their votaries? Yet all these forms of religion vanished almost as rapidly as enchant ments are supposed to do when dissolved by the counter-spell of some more powerful magician.
As Jesus Christ publicly claimed a divine char acter, and divine honours, he would have been des titute of the strongest evidence of his pretensions, had he not had the power of working miracles. When the evangelist declares that 6 6 by him all things were made," it would have amounted to a falsification of such pretensions, had he never de monstrated his power over the works of his hands. In consistency with this idea we find that whilst the prophets, under the Old Testament dispensa tion, referred all the miracles they wrought to the immediate power of God, the Apostles no less uni formly refer all their miracles to the power of Jesus of Nazareth; which is itself a demonstration that they conceived him possessed of divine power, and that they thought it not derogatory to God to per form miracles in the name of him whom he had sent.
It is farther to be observed that Christianity, (in cluding under this name the religion of the Bible at large,) is the only system of religious worship professedly founded on miracles. Our Lord pub licly appeals to them in confirmation of his doc trine, and as proofs of his divine mission. "I have greater witness than that of John," says he, " for the works which the Father bath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me that theFather hath sent me." John v. 36. All religions, indeed, have pretended to miracles; but with them they are continued; they are not referred to the in fancy of the system which they are brought to sup port: they gain credence only after it has reached its full maturity, when superstition or political jug glery can give easy currency to pretended miracles which fall in with the national taste, humour and established prejudices.
Now consider the circumstances under which the Christian miracles are said to have been wrought, and observe how striking is the contrast. They are ascribed to the author of Christianity, and to his immediate disciples, to whom he delegated the task of converting the world. But with them they stopped: at least we have no sufficient evi dence of a well-attested miracle, performed by their immediate successors: and none but the charlatans of the church of Rome, have ever pretended that they extended beyond their times. In the worst ages of this corrupted church its members began to revive pretensions to miracles, and obtained easy credit on account of the besotted ignorance of the people. Christianity rejects such miserable shifts; and being "built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone," it cuts off all attempts at quackery and imposition in after times, by with-holding from all the exercise of miraculous gifts.
We may safely affirm that it was absolutely im possible for such an extraordinary religion to be established in the world without miracles; and therefore God did not make such an unreasonable demand on our belief as to require our assent to it, without the most extraordinary and satisfactory proofs: he did not require us to receive on light grounds, and imperfect evidence, a religion which was to be " the savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto death," but he exhibited demonstra tions of power sufficient to convince even the senses of the generation to which the gospel was first ad dressed, and to satisfy the reason of all succeeding generations of the world.
But it is inconsistent with the plans of divine providence that miracles should be long continued; and it would be foreign to the constitution, and ad verse to the interests of the human mind, were miracles interposed where the object can be ob tained by the judicious exercise of the powers which God has given us, aided, as he has promis ed they shall be, by the influences of his Spirit: which influences, however, are given only to assist, not to supersede our exertions. Whilst, therefore, miracles were absolutely necessary to demonstrate the important truth that Christ " had power to for give sin," for nothing less could have produced this conviction; it was not necessary after this point was established, that miracles should be con tinued; but a religion being fairly introduced, con sistent with reason, and adapted to the wants, and to the best interests of men, we are left to form our opinion concerning it, from an attentive exami nation of the evidence on which it was originally founded, from its conformity to the general plans of divine providence, and from its adaptation to the circumstances of human nature. And if we examine the authentic documents in which the facts and doctrines are recorded; and attend at the same time to the evidence which an unprejudiced con science must bear to the utility and intrinsic excel lence of the doctrines and precepts of Christianity, we will he persuaded that no higher evidence of its truth can reasonably be demanded, or can, in the nature of things, he afforded. If a miracle were required to solve every doubt, the remedy would soon lose its efficacy; for the more frequently it was repeated, the weaker it would become, as was illustrated in the case of the Israelites in the wild erness, who, though fed and conducted every day by miracles, seem to have been no more affected by them than by the ordinary phenomena of nature.