Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour, and Defences of His Discourses. Thomas Woolston
to the Admiration of Mankind, as well as our Jesus: But if any of them, or any other greater Worker of Miracles than they were, should withall assume to himself the Title of a Prophet, and Author of a new Religion, I humbly conceive, we ought not to give heed to him.
Neither is there the least Reason that we should; for the Power of doing Miracles is no certain, nor rational Seal of the Commission and Authority of a divine Lawgiver. St. Paul says[15] there is a Diversity of the Gifts of the Spirit, for to one is given by the Spirit, the Word of Wisdom; to another the Word of Knowledge; to another the Gift of Healing; to another the working of Miracles; to another Prophecy; to another discerning of Spirits; to another divers Kinds of Tongues; to another the Interpretation of Tongues. These Gifts may be given apart and separately. One of them may be conferr'd on this Man, and another of them on his Neighbour. There is no Necessity that any two or more of these Gifts should meet in one Man. To argue then, that a Man, who has one of these Gifts, must have the other; that is, that he must needs have the Gift of Wisdom, or of Prophecy, or of discerning of Spirits, or of divers Kinds of Tongues, because he has the Gift of Healing and of working Miracles, is very inconclusive, and false Reasoning: And yet this is the Reasoning of our modern Writers who would prove Jesus's Authority, to found a Religion, from his Miracles. I don't question but Jesus had all the foresaid Gifts and Powers of the Spirit in a most superlative Degree; but then it is unreasonably inferr'd, for all that, that a Man, because he of Certainty has some of them, must of consequence have the other. St. Augustin[16] cautions us against being deceived into a good Opinion of a Man's Wisdom, because of his Power to do Miracles. And I think accordingly, that we may as well say, that the strongest Man is the wisest; or that a good Physician must needs be a good Casuist; or that the best Mathematician is the ablest Statesman, as that Jesus, because he was a Worker of Miracles, such as his are, and a Healer of all manner of Diseases, ought to be received as the Guide of our Consciencies, the Director of our Understandings, the Ruler of our Hearts, and the Author of a Religion.
What then will the Writers against the Grounds do to prove Jesus's Authority and Messiahship from his Miracles? Or how by his Miracles will they be able to distinguish him from an Impostor, a false Prophet, and the Anti-christ? Why, they will say perhaps,
1. That besides Greatness of Power, there was nothing but Goodness, Kindness, and Love to Mankind shewn in Jesus's Miracles. As to the Miracles of false Prophets and Impostors, if they be, many of them, of a kind and benevolent Aspect, yet the Devil's Foot, if we look well to it, will discover it self in some ludicrous and mischievous Pranks: But Jesus's Miracles were all of a beneficent Nature; He went about doing good, healing all manner of Diseases among the People, and did no Wrong to any one; which is a good Argument, they say, of his divine Authority, or God would not have suffer'd, nor the Devil have work'd such a Testimony in behalf of it. On this Head our Divines are copious and rhetorical, and many notable and florid Harangues have they made on it. But
In answer to them, they don't seem to have their Memories at Hand, when they declaim at this rate. The Fathers, upon whose Authority I write, will tell such Orators, that Jesus, if his Miracles are to be understood in the literal Sense, did not only as foolish Things as any Impostor could do, but very injurious ones to Mankind. I shall not here instance in the seemingly foolish and injurious Things which Jesus did for Miracles, intending under the next Head to speak to some of them: But they are such, if literally true, as our Divines do believe, as are enough to turn our Stomachs against such a Prophet; and enough to make us take him for a Conjuror, a Sorcerer, and a Wizard, rather than the Messiah and Prophet of the most High God. But
2. To prove the Messiahship of the Holy Jesus from his Miracles, our Divines urge the Prophecies of the Old Testament, such as that of Isaiah, C. xxxv. V. 5, 6. Then the Eyes of the Blind shall be opened, and the Ears of the Deaf shall be unstopp'd; then shall the lame Man leap as the Hart, and the Tongue of the Dumb sing; and say that these Prophecies were accurately fulfill'd by our Jesus in the several specifical Cures of Blindness, Deafness, Lameness, and Dumbness, which he often perform'd upon one or other; and, inasmuch as our Saviour seems to appeal to such Prophecies, do conclude this his Accomplishment of them, to be no less than a Demonstration, that he was the true Messiah, that great Prophet, who was to come into the World. To which I answer,
First, That the Accomplishment of Prophecies that can neither be given forth by human Foresight, nor fulfill'd in a Counterfeit, are good Proofs of Jesus's Messiahship: But then, what shall we say if others besides Jesus should do the like Cures and Miracles? It is said of Anti-christ, and I believe it, that he will not only do all the Miracles that Jesus did, but will appeal to the like Prophecies too. How then we are to distinguish the true Christ from the false Christ by Miracles and Prophecies in this Case, is the Question, which I leave with our Divines to consider of an Answer to, against the Time that it is proved that Anti-christ does all those Miracles, which Jesus in the Flesh wrought. But
Secondly, The foresaid Prophecies and others mentioned in Isaiah, neither were, nor could be Prophecies of the miraculous Cures of bodily Diseases which Jesus then did. And this may be made appear, not only from the Context of those Prophecies which received then no Accomplishment from Jesus, who ought to have fulfill'd one Part of the Prophecy as well as the other, or is not to be taken for the Fulfiller of either; but from the Opinion of both Jews and Fathers, who adjourn the Accomplishment of those Prophecies to Christ's spiritual Advent. But
Thirdly, The Prophet Isaiah, in the Place above cited, speaks not of bodily Blindness, &c. which the Messiah is to heal, but of the spiritual Distempers of the Soul, metaphorically so called; as may be easily proved, not only from the Prophecies themselves, but from the old Jews, who were allegorical Interpreters of those Distempers, and from the antient Fathers,[17] who so understood them. Consequently our Jesus's healing of those bodily Diseases, was no proper Accomplishment of those Prophecies. It is true our Saviour, Matt. xi. 4, 5. seems to appeal to those Prophecies, and to make his Cure of corporal Distempers an Accomplishment of them: But he means not in the literal Sense, that our Divines take him in, as I shall show hereafter, when I come to consider what Jesus means, by appealing to his Works and Miracles, as bearing Witness of him.
Our Divines then may admire and adore Jesus as much as they please for his Miracles of healing bodily Distempers; but I am for the spiritual Messiah that cures those Distempers of the Soul, that metaphorically pass under the Names of Blindness, Lameness, Deafness, &c. And the Cure of these spiritual Diseases, is the proper and miraculous Work of the true Messiah; for the sake of which, says[18] St. Augustin, Jesus condescended to do those little Miracles of healing bodily Distempers, which were but the Type and Shadow of his more stupendous Miracles of curing spiritual Diseases. The Cure of spiritual Infirmities is a God-like[19] Work, above the Imitation of Man or of Anti-christ, infinitely more miraculous than the healing any bodily Distempers can be.
Whether our Jesus be at this Day such a spiritual Messiah, I leave to our Divines to consider, with those spiritual Distempers of the Church, that seem to want his miraculous Hand and Touch. The Fathers of the Church said, that Jesus was in part such a spiritual Messiah in their time, and argued[20] his Messiahship, not from bodily Cures, but from his most miraculous Cures of the Diseases of the Soul: But there was another and future Time, in which he would be such a spiritual and glorious Messiah to the greatest Perfection. In the mean while, no healing of corporal Distempers can prove Jesus to be the Messiah, nor any other of his miraculous Works recorded in the Evangelists: So far from it, that
II. I shall prove that the literal Story of many of Jesus's Miracles, as they are recorded in the Evangelists, and commonly believed by Christians, does imply Improbabilities and Incredibilities, and the grossest Absurdities, very dishonourable to the Name of Christ; consequently, they, in whole, or in part, were never wrought, but are only related as prophetical and parabolical Narratives of what would be mysteriously and more wonderfully done by him.
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