With respect to the dreams and visions, of which we find so many accounts in the Old and New Testaments, they are spoken of by the prophets as being the medium of divine inspiration. One of them thus expresses himself:—“It shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old mm shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” (Joel, chapter ii.) Now we know that dreams are not the result of divine inspiration. When we read that an angel appeared to a man of God, no more can be made of it than this:—the priest, or pretended prophet, dreamed that an angel appeared to him, and conversed with him.
I have many times dreamed of seeing my first wife, who died upwards of forty years ago. If I were to insist that the dream was a reality, it would be considered by my friends that my mind was disordered; in short, that I was insane. From dreams, we can obtain no correct ideas of realities. If persons, who are much subject to dreams, were to imagine that their dreams pointed to realities, they would be all their lifetime in pursuit of shadows. Dreams and visions would be very uncertain channels for the conveyance of divine revelations, for the supposed angel might be the servant of the Devil instead of a messenger from heaven.
The writings in the Old Testament which are called prophecies, generally relate to the Jewish nation. How are we to know that they are prophecies? In order that there may be no uncertainty with respect to a prophet’s pretensions, he should foretell something to come to pass in the lifetime of the persons to whom he declares the prophecy, stating the precise time and place, so that when fulfilled, it should be a million to one against its being the result of guess-work. It would then carry with it a convincing proof of being the result of divine inspiration.
To show the dependence that can be placed on prophecies, we may refer to the Millerite delusion. The pretensions and extravagances of that sect were based on the prophecies of Daniel. I have heard many preachers, of acknowledged learning and talent, attempt to explain Daniel’s prophecies with regard to the time of the second advent; but they generally differed in their views. About the year 1803, a preacher in London, (England,) of first rate abilities, told his congregation, a very large one, to keep, in mind the year 1833, for that he had, after the most laborious calculations, arrived at the conclusion that about that period, signs and wonders would indicate the near approach of him who is to come again in power and great glory.
There is no doubt but hundreds of learned men have, since the time that Jesus is said to have left this world, consumed the “midnight oil” in their researches to discover the time of the second advent, but to no purpose. To no purpose, did I say? I mistook. In the case of Miller, it was to a most unfortunate purpose. Thousands of his followers have been in a state of partial insanity; many have been absolutely deranged; some have committed suicide; others sold their lands, abandoned their occupations, neglected their wives and children, and will never regain their former happy homes. Can we suppose that the all-wise Ruler of the Universe would promulgate prophecies so uncertain with respect to their fulfilment, and so disastrous in the effects arising from their uncertainty? I repeat, that prophecy, to answer any good purpose, should be fulfilled in the lifetime of the persons to whom it is addressed; otherwise, the uncertainty attending it renders it worse than useless.
If Daniel had been divinely inspired to foretell any thing relating to Christ, common sense suggests that it would have reference to his first appearance on earth. Instead of this being the burden of his prophecy, he makes no allusion to his first coming, but, according to Christian expositors, his dreams and visions refer to the second coming of Christ, and the final judgment. Father Miller’s bubble having burst, his sincere but deluded followers are in a state of extreme wretchedness; all of them injured either in mind or circumstances, and most of them in both. Many of them will doubtless reject religion altogether. So much, then, for depending on divine inspiration.
The power to perform miracles is included in the idea of divine inspiration, and implies the possession of a power superior to all human power. The exhibition of a power by an individual, superior to what the united exertions of a whole nation could perform, ought to be credited to the exhibiter as a power received from on high,—a conclusion drawn by Christian commentators, and also by Jesus himself, with respect to his recorded miracles; for, he says—“If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they would not have had sin; but now [they having seen his miracles, and yet rejected him] their sin remaineth.”
Miracles are uncertain evidences of divine inspiration. What an ignorant man might deem to be a miracle, a man of intelligence and education might know to be the result of combined natural causes. What in one age has been currently believed to have been the effect of supernatural agency, a succeeding and more enlightened age has known as the result of certain operations of nature. Nothing can justly be regarded as a miracle unless it be, past all dispute, beyond human power to perform. To suppose that the Deity makes use of means to promote the improvement of his creatures, which are calculated to mislead them, is to impeach his wisdom and goodness.
Miracles could not have been evidences of divine interposition to the Jewish people, at the time of Christ’s appearance among them, owing to the prevailing belief that supernatural beings, called devils, could perform wonderful things, far above man’s power or comprehension; and that some of them, more powerful than the rest, could invest mortals with the power of performing-miracles of the same nature as those ascribed to Jesus Christ.
Most of the religious sects at the present day affect to be influenced by something almost amounting to divine inspiration—their religion consisting of feelings, not of action. In the Scriptures we read, “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” I have often noticed the variety of modes in which the spirit operates on different sects. The Methodists, while seeking the Lord, as they term it, will sigh, moan, and howl, and immediately after be in ecstasies bordering on insanity, and bawl so loud that a passer-by might reasonably conclude that some dreadful accident had befallen them. Passing to the other extreme, the Friends, or Quakers, are as dumb as mutes, and will not allow their speakers to open their lips until impelled to do so by the spirit. But the Jumpers, in Wales, (Great Britain,) go ahead of all, for they often perform the journey from their homes to their churches, by the same kind of evolution as frogs make when on their peregrinations in search of water. All these monkey tricks are of much easier performance than feeding the hungry, or clothing the destitute. Can, or, presuming that they can, will the preachers please inform us, which of these three modes of spiritual manifestation will be practised in heaven?