THE SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF MIRACLES. 



65* 



Nothing is left to chance in the material world ; fixed causes 

 produce fixed results which cannot be evaded. There is thus 

 a sort of necessity imposed on our material surroundings, yet 

 we ourselves rise above it, not tliat we are absolutely free, but 

 that our human will has to be reckoned with as among the causes^ 

 of things. ]\Iodern psychology does not ignore these facts of 

 consciousness. 



Dean Mansel in his powerful essay on miracles in Aids to- 

 Faith (p. 19), says, " Deny the existence of a free will in man 

 and neither the possibility of miracles, nor any other 

 question of religion or morality is worth contending about.. 

 Admit the existence of free will in man ; and we have the 

 experience of a power, analogous, however inferior, to that 

 which is supposed to operate in the production of a miracle,, 

 and formini^- the basis of a legitimate argument from the less 

 to the greater. In the will of man we have the solitary instance- 

 of an efficient cause in the highest sense of the term, acting 

 among and along with the physical causes of the material 

 world, and producing results which would not have been 

 brought about by any invariable sequence of physical causes 

 left to their own action. AVe have evidence also of an elasticity,, 

 so to speak, in the constitution of nature, which permits the 

 influence of human power on the phenomena of the world to- 

 be exercised or suspended at will, without affecting the stability 

 of the whole." 



(4) They agree in the ])osition assigned to man. 



The Bible gives man dominion over earth and its inhabitants.. 

 He is at liberty to turn them all to his own account. Science 

 says that man has the biggest brains of any animal in propor- 

 tion to his size ; hence his extraordinary powers and his^ 

 adaptability to almost every possible environment. He has the^ 

 gift of insight into the processes of nature ; he wei^jhs the 

 planets, tells us what metals are to be found in the stars, 

 fastens the electric force to his carriage, spoils the animal,, 

 vegetable, and mineral worlds of their possessions, reproduces 

 the past, anticipates the future, and lifts his mind up to com- 

 munion with the unseen God. 



§ 4. Phenomena which Scripture records but which 

 Natural Science cannot Formulate. 



1 have by no means exhausted the points of union between\ 

 the Bible and science, but I go on to observe that there are- 



