Excerpt from The Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures Asserted: And the Principles of Their Composition Investigated, With a View to the Reputation of All Objections to Their Divinity

But do not both parties here somewhat mistake the matter? If the evidence of miracles were so convincing as the Deistical writers usually suppose, how come some of their acutest reasoners to object to Christianity on that very ground, - because it records them among its documents? If, on the other hand, that evidence were so essential as the Christian advocates admit, how can we account for their having ceased; and ceased, not only in countries where the profession of Christianity is established, but even where attempts are made to sow in new soils the seed of the gospel? Ought not this palpable fact to make the Christian hesitate about affirming so confidently, that miracles are so highly important as evidences of the truth of Re velation Ought it not to lead us to conclude, that, either separate from, or in addition to, this use of miracles, some other cause was re quired to their exhibition; and that, this ceasing to operate, they ceased also? Thus may we not infer, that they were performed under the Jewish dispensation, because they were suited to the nature of that dispensation, and to the Jewish character; that they were per formed also at the commencement of Christianity, on account of its original connexion with Judaism; because, likewise, the Jewish dis pensation was not finally terminated till the destruction of Jerusalem, which put a total end to the types and shadows of the ceremonial law; and because, in general, they were suited to the state of the human mind at that time? But that the cause of their entirely ceasing soon afterwards*, was, because they were not suited to the nature of the Christian dispensation, nor to the state of the human mind which was introduced with, or produced by, that dispensation? It is certain that, with the introduction of Christianity, the human mind received a capacity of being enlightened by the substance of those things of which the Jewish law, with the miracles wrought to confirm it, and those also wrought among the Jews by the Founder of Christianity.

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