The following extracts from "Gibbons' Rome" are interesting as showing the works and healing of sickness and raising the dead during the early years of the Christian religion. When Christianity was understood and practised in its purity, surely the "days of miracles" had not passed. When did they cease, and what caused them to cease? Did the divine law, the Principle by virtue of which they were accomplished, cease?
If so when and why? Divine Science is rapidly bringing to the knowledge of men the great fact that the understanding of and living the Principle which Jesus taught and practised, produce the same results now that were accomplished in times gone by. Of course it will be understood that we use the word "miracle" in the Scientific sense.
"The supernatural gifts, which even in this life were ascribed to the Christians above the rest of mankind, must have conduced to their own comfort, and very frequently to the conviction of infidels.... The divine inspiration,... is described as a favor very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on women as on elders, on boys as well as upon bishops.... The expulsion of the daemons from the bodies of those unhappy persons whom they were permitted to torment, was considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of religion, and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apologists, as the most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity.... But the miraculous cure of diseases of the most inveterate or even preternatural kind, can no longer occasion any surprise, when we recollect, that in the days of Irenæus, about the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from being esteemed an uncommon event; that the miracle was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting and the joint supplication of the church of the place, and that the persons thus restored had lived afterwards among them many years. At such a period, when faith could boast of so many wonderful victories over death, it seems difficult to account for the skepticism of those philosophers, who still rejected and derided the doctrine of the resurrection." Pages 401-2, Vol. I.
Gibbons' remarks upon this subject are interesting from the Christian Science standpoint. Of course he could speak only from the best understanding he had of the subject. He brings out many striking analogies between the history of the early Christians and the experiences of Christian Scientists to-day.
We quote also briefly from "The Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scriptures," by George Rawlinson, A. M. long a Fellow and tutor of Exeter College, England, and a writer of ability and distinction. He says:
"Further, we must not forget that the early converts had a second ground of belief, besides and beyond their conviction of the honesty and trustworthiness of those who came forward to preach the Gospel, declaring themselves witnesses of the mighty works which Christ had wrought, and preëminently of the resurrection. The preachers persuaded, not merely by their evident truthfulness and sincerity, but by the miraculous power which they wielded. There is good evidence that the ability to work miracles was not confined to the apostolic age. The bishops and others who pressed to see Ignatius on his way to martyrdom, expected that he would communicate to them some spiritual gift. Papias related various miracles as having happened in his own lifetime—among others that a dead man had been restored to life. Justin Martyr declares very simply that in his day both men and women were found who possessed miraculous powers. Quadratus, the Apologist, is mentioned by a writer of the second century as exercising them. Irenæus speaks of miracles as still common in Gaul when he wrote, which was nearly at the close of the second century. Tertullian, Theophilus, and Minucius Felix, authors of about the same period, are witnesses to the continuance to their day of at least one class of miracles.... But the possession of miraculous powers by those who spread the Gospel abroad in the first ages, would alone and by itself prove the divinity of the Christian Religion. God would not have given supernatural aid to persons engaged in propagating a lie, nor have assisted them to palm a deceit upon the world in his name. If there be then good evidence of this fact—if it be plain from the ecclesiastical writers that miracles were common in the Christian Church for above two centuries—we have herein an argument of an historical character, which is of no small weight and importance, additional to that arising from the mere confirmation by early uninspired writers of the Sacred Narrative."
The following remarks by Mr. Rawlinson have also much significance to Scientists:
"When faith is a matter of life and death, men do not lightly take up with the first creed which happens to hit their fancy; nor do they place themselves openly in the ranks of a persecuted sect, unless they have well weighed the claims of the religion which it professes, and convinced themselves of its being the truth."
This authentic historical evidence is a sufficient refutation of the oft-repeated assertion that "miracles" ceased with the Apostles. Every argument and suggestion so ably made by Mr. Rawlinson, has as much weight in its relation to the possibility of "miracles" now as in the connection in which they were made. Only the unreasonble conception that God gives and withholds his gifts at certain times and for certain reasons, would defeat his argument as applied to the present. We have only to consider that divine Truth is ever-present and ever-active to combat any suggestion that God is partial in his methods or extends special favors to a particular people or age. In the light of Divine Science, we know that he is unchanging in his methods.
