So it is again in the New Testament with regard to spiritual life and
the miraculous. Spiritual life commenced in a world full of belief in
the miraculous, and it did not at once break with that belief. But it
threw the miraculous into the background and anticipated its decline,
presaging that it would lose its importance and give place finally to
the spiritual. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling
cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all
mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.... Charity
never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether
there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall
vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that
which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done
away." Clearly the writer of this believes in prophecies, in tongues, in
mysteries. But clearly, also, he regards them as both secondary and
transient, while he regards charity as primary and eternal.
It may be added that the advent of spiritual life did at once produce a
change in the character of the miraculous itself, divested it of its
fantastic extravagance, and infused into it a moral element. The Gospel
miracles, almost without exception, have a moral significance, and can
without incongruity be made the text of moral discourses to this day. An
attempt to make Hindoo or Greek miracles the text of moral discourses
would produce strange results.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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