from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified."

To suppose that a person when delivered back to Satan, became subject to any bodily disease, which he was not subject to before he was a Christian, seems gratuitous: the words, eis öλelpov Tijs σapKòs, do not necessarily imply any thing of the sort; it is well known that in the Greek Testament càp§ means carnal dispositions and feelings; clearly, then, the killing of such feelings may mean no more than mortification, humiliation, &c. and, till the context can be shown to require a different interpretation, this will be the natural one'. To

1

66

1 [Whitby in loc. says, that the Ancient Fathers "all interpret the words, εἰς ὄλεθρον τῆς σαρκός, of some disease to be inflicted on the offender by Satan." Vid. also on 1 Tim. i. 20. Johnson (Unbloody Sacrifice, part ii. ch. 4.) says, "Some both of the Ancients of the fourth century and of our modern divines, do suppose that St. Paul....did mean to say, that by virtue of this sentence the Devil" was enabled to inflict pains and diseases on him: now I have no great reason to contradict these great men in this particular, so it be allowed that these pains and diseases, were an additional punishment, over and above the Excommunication:...but.... I do not see sufficient reason to believe that St. Paul intended any such thing, nor does it appear from any other text of Scripture that either the incestuous person, or Hymenæus and Alexander.... were ever treated by Satan in this manner. When St. Paul smote Elymas....he expressly says, 'The hand of the Lord is upon thee.'" Yet, after all, surely the history of Job affords a remarkable illustration of the passage in question; "The Lord said unto Satan, Behold, He is in thine hand; but save life." ii. 6. And so, perhaps, do the words, "Whom Satan hath bound;" S. Luke xiii. 16.]

his

appeal to the sicknesses which St. Paul ascribes to unworthy reception of the Communion is irrelevant; for even, at this day, we profess in our Communion Service, that unworthy communicants "provoke God to plague them with divers diseases and sundry kinds of death;" and any one who makes this profession sincerely, would at this day point to epidemic diseases among Christians, as a proof that God was provoked with them. So that when St. Paul speaks of an epidemic at Corinth as a proof of God's displeasure, he does no more than the Prayer-Book authorizes us to do; and to infer from hence, that unworthy Communion in his time was always followed by bodily visitations, is as [reasonable] as it would be to infer from our Communion Service, that unworthy Communion among ourselves is always so followed.

The other instance, in which St. Paul seems to have used the Power of the Keys, is less detailed in its circumstances: all we are informed of is, that two persons, Hymenæus and Alexander, who, "concerning the faith had made shipwreck," were "delivered unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme." The fact, however, is important in one respect; since, as the sentence in the former case had been passed on immorality, so this we see passed on heresy; thereby proving that errors of opinion, as well as of practice, were judged by St. Paul to unfit men for the Kingdom of Heaven. If the Alexander here mentioned was, as is generally supposed, the "Alexander the coppersmith,"

was

routine, within a compass so very limited, and where such a mass of materials presented themselves for insertion.

Of the remaining Books relating to events after our Lord's death, one is prophetic, and the others are letters arising out of particular circumstances, and giving advice with reference to them; nor does the subject of any one of these appear to call for a full statement of the powers of the Apostolic Missionaries. To consider these Letters either singly, or in the aggregate, as a general treatise on Christianity, is an assumption unwarranted by any declaration of Scripture, and, as has been clearly shown, unfounded [on] any principles of sound reason. We must take them for what they profess to be, and expect no fuller information from them than what their respective subjects are likely to call forth.

From the New Testament, then, we may expect to collect only incidental notices of the powers of the Apostolic Missionaries. Nor will it follow, though the information we can gather from such notices should amount to little, that the powers themselves were trifling and unimportant. For if wherever we find them noticed at all, they are noticed in such a manner as is consistent with their being of the greatest importance, the mere fact, that the notice does not force us to think them so, implies nothing. Unless it can be shown, either that they are anywhere so noticed as to negative their importance, or that in any particular

place where they are not noticed, such silence is inconsistent with their importance, then whatever we can anywhere else collect of a positive kind must be taken without drawback.

I proceed then to collect such notices as appear to bear upon the subject; and perhaps it will be found, that, considering the scanty materials from which they are taken, they amount on the whole to more than could have been expected'. And, 1. It will be observed, that almost the first fact with which the Book of Acts acquaints us, is most important in relation to this very inquiry.

The very first thing we are there informed of, after our Lord's ascent into heaven, is an incontestable proof that the Apostles considered themselves empowered to make an Apostle; and this, not by any play upon words, but in the very same sense in which they themselves were Apostles. They prayed God to direct them in choosing one to fill that very Apostleship from which Judas, by transgression, fell; and the person whom they were directed to choose was numbered with the [eleven] Apostles2.

1

1 [That is, though the writing and preservation of the books of the New Testament are apparently so fortuitous, that a complete system of Christianity is not to be expected in them, yet it is overruled by Divine Providence that they should constitute a Rule of Faith. The proof that Scripture is such a Rule, lies in the testimony of the Fathers to the fact; but with this subject we are not here concerned.]

2

["I wish to draw attention to one circumstance more especially, viz. the time when it [the ordination of St. Matthias] occurred. It was contrived, (if one may say so) exactly to fall VOL. I.

I

Now the certainty that they exercised this power to so full an extent in any one case, will of course greatly diminish the difficulty of supposing that they did so in others: and among other things will render it credible, that, when St. Barnabas is called Apostle, he, though not one of the twelve, still was an Apostle in the same sense as they were, and endowed with the same powers.

I mention this, in the first instance, as clearing the way for the consideration of other and inferior powers, which the Apostles were in the habit of dispensing much more frequently, and without

within the very short interval, which elapsed between the departure of our Lord and the arrival of the Comforter in His place: within that "little while," during which the Church was comparatively left alone in the world.... Of course, St. Peter must have had from our Lord express authority for this step: otherwise it would seem most natural to defer a transaction so important, until the unerring Guide, the Holy Ghost, should have come among them, as they knew He would in a few days. On the other hand, since the Apostles were eminently Apostles of our Incarnate Lord, since their very being, as Apostles, depended entirely on their personal mission from Him....in that regard one should naturally have expected, that He Himself, before His departure, would have supplied the vacancy by personal designation. But we see it was not His pleasure to do so. As the Apostles afterwards brought on the Ordination sooner, so He had deferred it longer than might have been expected. Both ways it should seem as if there were a purpose of bringing the event within those ten days, during which, as I said, the Church was left to herself; left to exercise her faith and hope, much as Christians are left now, without any miraculous aid, or extraordinary illumination from above." Tracts for the Times, No. 52.]