Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/129

Rh represent the Christian dispensation, together with the great process of man's regeneration, and above all that of the Lord's glorification. The miraculous cures, which were performed on the bodies of the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the sick, were in like manner representative of those divine operations upon the spirit of man, whereby his understanding is enlightened, his affections purified, and his whole life renewed, through the medium of a true and genuine faith, directed solely to the Lord in his Divine Humanity. There appears also to have been a further reason why the dispensation of miracles was formerly given, but is withheld in latter times; namely, that the canon of Sacred Scripture might be written and completed, while the representative church was in a state favourable to it's dictation in ultimates: for it's divine truths could not have been concentrated in the literal form and basis, in which we now behold it, and consequently could not have been accommodated to the capacity of man in all future ages, unless a series of miraculous appearances had been exhibited and registered. From which consideration it follows, that it was chiefly for the sake of the Word, which is the uniting link between heaven and the church, and to point out the divine omnipotence of the Lord, as well in spiritual as in natural things, that such extraordinary miracles, as we find recorded in it, have actually taken effect. But having been transacted before men, with whom the internals of the mind were already closed, and by whom consequently no further spiritual injury was likely to be sustained from the display of supernatural powers, the volume of revelation, couched under the language of history, prophecy, and evangelism, was written in different successive periods, and at length fully completed, it's