Sunday 11th February, 1826.
One argument strikes me in favour of the tenet of Apostolic succession,
in the ordination of Bishops and Presbyters, as taught by the Church of
Rome, and by the larger part of the earlier divines of the Church of
England, which I have not seen in any of the books on this subject;
namely, that in strict analogy with other parts of Christian history,
the miracle itself contained a check upon the inconvenient consequences
necessarily attached to all miracles, as miracles, narrowing the
possible claims to any rights not proveable at the bar of universal
reason and experience. Every man among the Sectaries, however ignorant,
may justify himself in scattering stones and fire squibs by an alleged
unction of the Spirit. The miracle becomes perpetual, still beginning,
never ending. Now on the Church doctrine, the original miracle provides
for the future recurrence to the ordinary and calculable laws of the
human understanding and moral sense; instead of leaving every man a
judge of his own gifts, and of his right to act publicly on that
judgment. The initiative alone is supernatural; but all beginning is
necessarily miraculous, that is, hath either no antecedent, or one
[Greek: heterou genous], which therefore is not its, but merely an,
antecedent,--or an incausative alien co-incident in time; as if, for
instance, Jack's shout were followed by a flash of lightning, which
should strike and precipitate the ball on St.
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