The doctrine was not what Christ brought into the
world. It appears in the Christian records, incidentally and
accidentally, as being the subsisting opinion of the age and country in
which his ministry was exercised. It was no part of the object of his
revelation, to regulate men's opinions concerning the action of
spiritual substances upon animal bodies. At any rate it is unconnected
with testimony. If a dumb person was by a word restored to the use of
his speech, it signifies little to what cause the dumbness was ascribed;
and the like of every other cure wrought upon these who are said to have
been possessed. The malady was real, the cure was real, whether the
popular explication of the cause was well founded or not. The matter of
fact, the change, so far as it was an object of sense, or of testimony,
was in either case the same.
Secondly, that, in reading the apostolic writings, we distinguish
between their doctrines and their arguments. Their doctrines came to
them by revelation properly so called; yet in propounding these
doctrines in their writings or discourses they were wont to illustrate,
support, and enforce them by such analogies, arguments, and
considerations as their own thoughts suggested.
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