Miracles are necessary to give a new institution and confirm it to
the world, but when it is given and confirmed, no miracle is needed
to perpetuate it. It required miracles to confirm the mission of the
apostles and prove to the world that they were from God. So would it
require miracles now to confirm the missions of any other man or set of
men claiming to be specially called and sent as the apostles were, and
in default of any miracles, we do not believe any men are now called
and sent, as they were. The divine attestations that established
the apostolic mission, among the people of their time, against
their established religion, all their prejudices and every worldly
consideration, was committed to record, and will establish it to all
the generations to come. The same testimony that proved a man guilty of
murder one hundred years ago, will prove him guilty forever. It does
not require that witnesses continue to be sworn and testify to prove
it to other people. In the same way, the testimony that proved the
divinity of Christ, at the beginning of his reign, has been committed
to the record and will prove it forever. There is no new testimony, and
none is needed. Those who lived in the time when the Lord was on earth,
saw him, or saw those who did see him, or, at least, many of them
did; they saw many of his wonderful works, or many who did see them;
they heard the prophecies uttered by him, or saw those who did hear
them, but did not live to see the fulfillment. We did not see him, nor
witness his miracles, nor hear him utter the prophecies alluded to, but
we now have the faithful records of history in which we find accounts
of the fulfillment of his wonderful predictions extending down through
the ages, for more than eighteen centuries. We do not, therefore, need
a repetition of the miracles, or the prophecies, or their fulfillment.
They stand there, firm as the everlasting hills, serving God’s eternal
purpose; confirming the divine mission of his Son, and the New
Covenant, of which he is the Mediator.
When did these miracles cease? They ceased when the apostles died, and
all on whom they laid their hands. Every pretense of a miracle from
then till now, has been nothing but a _lying pretense_. Not a genuine
miracle has been done.
We have in the Bible the clear statement that the spiritual gifts—the
supernatural gifts—would be superseded by “a more excellent way;”
that tongues should cease, prophecies should fail, and knowledge—the
supernatural gift of knowledge—should be done away. In accordance
with these statements, these gifts have ceased, and thus fulfilled
Paul’s statement, and proved that the Spirit of God was in him. The
eternal Spirit saw, and, through him, foretold that these gifts should
cease, as he did in the Apostle John, at the close of Revelation, the
conclusion of the sacred canon, that nothing more was to be added, and
nothing taken away. This ended the revelations from God. We have had
not one word since, and will not have till the end of time.