[171] 1 Cor. i. 28.
[172] See [Chap. vi.]
[173] See [Chap. vi.]
[174] [See note, [page 218].]
[176] [It is not to be understood that Butler would not have the ordinary rules of interpretation applied to the Holy Scriptures. Because the interpretation, “if not gathered out of the words, must be brought into them.” We cannot interpret them as if we knew beforehand, what the Holy Ghost meant to say; as Spinoza proposes to do, in his Philosophia Scripturæ Interpretes. The student will do well to consult Benson’s Hulsean Lectures on Scripture Difficulties: King’s Morsels of Criticism: Storr, Exertationes Exeget.: Michaelis, Introd. ad. Nov. Test.: and Featley’s Key.]
[178] [See 1 Cor. xii. 1-10: xiii. 1: and xiv. 1-19.]
[179] [“The power of healing, or working miracles, is, during the whole course of its operation, one continued arrest or diversion of the general laws of matter and motion. It was therefore fit that this power should be given occasionally. But the speaking with tongues, when once the gift was conferred, became thenceforth a natural power; just as the free use of members of the body, after being restored, by miracle, to the exercise of their natural functions. In healing, the apostles are to be considered as the workers of a miracle; in speaking strange tongues, as persons on whom a miracle is performed.”—Warburton, Doct. of Grace, b. i. ch. iii.]