NATURAL LAW AND MIRACLE. 



51 



unalterable Laws of Nature as known to us, then indeed it is 

 high time that the genuine modern mind should afresh revise 

 his ideas as to the " known and unalterable Laws of Nature," 

 and that he should adjust them to correspond with facts. 

 Even then the orthodox Christian has possession of the fact of 

 causality, w^hich is only unalterable in the claim of modern 

 science, and as its so-called fundamental principle. This 

 fundamental principle, so called, is for the Christian thinker 

 a postulate only, not a new dogma. We close, therefore, with 

 the following thesis : the question of the credibility of the 

 miracles of early Christianity is not philosophic but purely 

 historic. These miracles may be considered as facts as soon 

 as satisfactory proofs of their historic credibility have been 

 furnished. 



Note. — These proofs I have presented in a special study already 

 translated into English, viz. : Dr. Ludwig von Gerdtell, Have vje 

 Satisfactory Evidence of the Miracles of the New Testament? Translated 

 by Samuel Hinds Wilkinson. John Bale, Sons, and Danielsson, 83-91, 

 Great Titchfield Street, London, W. Price, l^. 



Discussion. 



Dr. Woods Smyth thought the interesting paper was particularly 

 appropriate at the present time, and contrasted the views of the 

 Eev. J. M. Thompson and other University teachers with those of 

 Professor Huxley, for example, who sees no difhculty in the 

 possibility of miracles, and recognizes that those of the Bible are 

 rationally accredited. 



Mr. Martin L. E-OXJSE thought it was a daring assumption that 

 God was bound always to work by the common sequences of cause 

 and effect, and all the more so because those sequences are subject 

 to exceptions. He instanced the case of water differing from the 

 general law of contraction with lowering temperature, when it 

 reaches 39° Fahr., at which point it begins to expand ; and referred 

 to a waterspout acting against the usual law of gravitation. In 

 these cases, and many others, a higher law is introduced, and for a 

 special purpose. Men, too, utilize higher laws in overcoming lower : 

 what possible difficulty therefore could remain to prevent men's 



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