The Christian Dispensation Miraculous

When the writer of the following pages entered on a ministerial duty in the diocese of London, your Lordship was pleased to make some inquiries respecting his literary engagements: and he had accordingly intended to present to your Lordship, as they came out, the successive Numbers of a small Monthly Publication, which he has edited since the commencement of the volume for 1830, and in the columns of which the ensuing remarks, on the subject of miracles, made their first appearance. By so doing, he would have afforded your Lordship the best opportunity of judging concerning the nature of his pursuits and studies, as connected with his ordination vows; while he wished, by the same act, to express his sense of what was due to his Diocesan, in all matters that could come under his cognizance. Circumstances, principally of a private nature, prevented the execution of this design; in consequence of which the writer is the more induced to take the present method of bringing his labours before your Lordship. '
But, even now, he might not have adopted this course, had it not been deemed expedient, in another quarter, publicly to inform your Lordship respecting the sentiments entertained by him, in common with other clergymen of the diocese, on the subject of miraculous gifts in the Church of Christ. While so many real evils in the Church are overlooked, cloaked, or denied, it seems, that to believe its present footing with respect to miraculous powers to be the same on which it was placed and left by Christ, is an offence that demands a formal notification to the episcopal chair: and it is one great object of the present address to appeal to your Lordship's justice; and to beseech your Lordship, in receiving and considering such statements as may be made upon this subject, to exclude from your Lordship's mind some associations which they have a natural tendency to produce, but which cannot be entertained without tending to prejudice and misconception; and that respecting your Lordship's own clergy, to whom it must be sufficiently painful to be brought as offenders before your Lordship, but to be misrepresented, much more so. The opinion, that miraculous powers have never been entirely withdrawn from the Church, has been connected, for instance, with a belief in certain miraculous occurrences, said to have taken. place of late in Scotland. My Lord, this connexion may be just, or it may be unjust. In other words, those who hold the general truth may believe the particular occurrences, or they may not believe them: and there are some who have hitherto taken the latter alternative, at any rate waiting for further evidence than has yet come before them; willing to give it due consideration when it reaches them, ready to hail the facts whrn established to their satisfaction, but not indiscriminately receiving every unexamined statement, merely because they hold the doctrine. Again, the belief of miraculous powers still continuing in the Church has been connected with certain opinions on the subject of prophecy. But this is fair, neither to ·the prophetical question, nor to the miraculous. Each has its share of obloquy; and by attaching to each the burden of the other, both are compelled to carry double. Not, my Lord, that those who believe both shew any indisposition to maintain both: but it is not everyone that is so circumstanced.. There are believers in the miraculous character of the Christian dispensation, who are far from entertaining the prophetical views now prevalent, in all their particulars and consequences: there are other believers decidedly opposed to them. The pages of the Jewish Expositor will sufficiently shew, that the doctrine of miracles may be held by those, who by no means assent to all the opinions now prevalent on the subject of prophecy, however they may incline to think that on some points they are correct, and that they have been hardly dealt with by some of their opponents. Again, there are some who would connect the belief of miracles in the Church of Christ, and indeed the prophetical opinions at the same time, with the management and principles of the London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. This, however, is only another instance of unfair association; the notion being altogether founded either on misconception, or on a total ignorance of facts. It is humbly hoped, therefore, that all such misconceptions will address your Lordship in vain: and that in holding what they conceive to be the correct and scriptural views on the unchanging character of the Christian dispensation, and therefore its miraculous character in the present day, any of your Lordship's clergy who are so circumstanced may be permitted to retain their belief without being subject to inferences, whether affecting themselves or others, that have no real foundation.