The Ministry of Healing: Miracles of Cure in All Ages

Have there been any miracles since the days of the apostles? To this question the common answer has been, in our times at least, a decided no. A call recently put forth in one of our religious journals, asking the opinion of ministers, teachers and theological professors on this point was very largely answered; and the respondents were well nigh unanimous in the opinion that the age of miracles passed away with the apostolic period. The statement contained in several of these replies gave evidence indeed that the question had never been deeply investigated by the witnesses. In some instances there was a perhaps unintentional evading of the issue by the question” What is a miracle? - But there were only one or two replies which gave countenance to the view, that miracles are possible in all ages and have appeared more or less numerously in every period of the Church5 c history. If then the little book which we now send forth shall win any assent for its views, it will not do so in all probability because its sentiments accord with the opinion of the majority of the theologians of the day.

It is therefore no enviable task which we have undertaken. The demand of the times is rather in the contrary direction from that in which our conviction carries us. “The strongest requirement now pressing on the Church is for an adaptation of Christianity to the age,” — so we read not long since. How presumptuous it will look in the face of such an utterance for one to set his face squarely in the opposite direction, and insist that the greatest present demand is for the adaptation of the age to Christianity. And not that exactly; for “this present evil age” can never be made to harmonize with a religion that is entirely heavenly in its origin, in its course and in its consummation. But we trust it will not be presumption to say that the Church in every direction needs to be re-shaped to the apostolic model and re-invested with her apostolic powers. For is it not apparent that between the indignant clamor of skeptics against primitive miracles, and the stern frowning of theologians upon any alleged modern miracles, the Lord’s people are in danger of being frightened out of their faith in the supernatural? We speak of what we have often noticed. A simple hearted believer comes into the assembly of the Church and details some remarkable answer to prayer — prayer for healing or prayer for deliverance, in response to which he alleges that God has wrought marvellously; and then we notice the slowness and shyness with which Christians turn their ears to the story, and the glances of embarrassment amounting almost to shamefacedness which they cast towards the minister, as though appealing for rescue from the perilous neighborhood of fanaticism to which they have been drawn. This we have often observed, and on it we have pondered, and from it we have raised the question again and again, whether the Church has not drifted into an unseemly cautiousness concerning the miraculous. As a religion which is ritual is sure to put vestments on her ministers sooner or later, so a religion which is rational rather than spiritual, will be certain to put vestments on the Lord’s providences, insisting on their being draped in the habiliments of decent cause and effect, and attired in the surplice of natural law and order, lest God should “make bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations.” “The world dislikes the recurrence of miracles.” Yes, without question. For the world which “by wisdom knew not God” is very jealous of everything which it cannot explain or reproduce. “A miracle is something very embarrassing to mock professors.” Doubtless; for it brings such, uncomfortably near to God. Accustomed only to such manifestations of the Infinite as have been softened and assuaged by passing through the medium of the natural, they cannot bear this close proximity to the Cause of causes. “He that is near to me is near to the fire;” is one of the sayings which apocrypha puts into the mouth of Christ. How shall they whose feet have never put off their shoes of rationalism and worldliness come near the burning bush, and into open vision of the “I am.”

But it is not worldlings and false professors alone that dislike miracles. Real.true hearted and sincere disciples are afraid of them and inclined to push away with quick impatience, any mention of their possible occurrence in our time. In most cases probably this aversion comes from a wholesome fear of fanaticism.

On which point permit us to observe: — that fanaticism is in most instances simply the eccentric action of doctrines that have been loosened from their connection with the Christian system. Every truth needs the steadiness and equipoise which come from its being bound into harmony with all other truths. If the Church by her neglect or denial of any real doctrine of the faith thrusts that doctrine out into isolation and contempt, thus compelling it to become the property of some special sect she need not be surprised if it loses its balance. She has deprived it of the conserving influence which comes from contact and communion with other and central doctrines and so doomed it inevitably to irregular manifestations. If the whole body of Christians had been faithful to such truths as that of the second coming of Christ, and scriptural holiness, for example, we probably should never have heard of the fanaticism of adventism and perfectionism. Let a fragment be thrown off from the most orderly planet and it will whirl and rush through space till it is heated hot by its own momentum. It is nothing against a doctrine in our minds therefore that it has engendered fanaticism. One who studies the history of important religious revivals indeed must take quite an opposite view, and suspect that it is a proof of the vitality of the truth around which it has gathered.

Who that is acquainted with the religious movements led by Luther and Wesley and with the endless extravagances that followed in their wake does not see that in these instances the stir produced came from the writhing of wounded error rather than from the birth of falsehood, from the contortions of the strangled serpents around the cradle of a new Hercules come for reformation. So let us be less disturbed by the unaccustomed stir of truth than by the propriety of dead and decent error.

But we are offering no apology for fanaticism and providing no place for it in connection with the doctrine which we are defending. It need have no place. We believe in regeneration, the work in which God comes into immediate contact with the soul for its renewal That is no less a miracle than healing in which God comes into immediate contact with the body for its recovery. In the one case there is a direct communication of the divine life to the spirit, which Neander calls “the standing miracle of the ages;” in the other there is a direct communication of the divine health to the body which in the beginning was called “a miracle of healing.” An able writer has said, we believe with exact truth: “You ask God to pet form as real a miracle when you ask him to cure your soul of sin as you do when you ask him to cure your body of a fever.”* Yet who of us thinks of encouraging fanaticism by preaching and praying for man’s regeneration? Enthusiasm has often kindled about this truth indeed, when it has had to be revived after long neglect and denial, but not when it has been held in orderly, and recognized relation to other cardinal doctrines.

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