THE SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF MIRACLES. 



75 



shows us our failures and our needs, so His mighty works show 

 us God's power and the riches of His grace. 



Supposing we were to blot out from the Bible all that 

 savours of the supernatural, should we be better off or worse off 

 than we are now ? We will imagine, for example, that Christ 

 was born in tlie ordinary way, lived as an ordinary Jew, and 

 became a social reformer, but that He died in early life on the 

 cross and so came to an end. 



AVould this have been a Gospel? Would it have quickened 

 men into newness of life ? would it have affected the stubborn 

 Jew, the philosophical Greek, the imperial Koman, and 

 uncultured barbarian ? Would anyone have cared to preach 

 it ? or to endure persecution for it ? or to suffer death for it ? 



Let us suppose on the contrary that human beings had a 

 great need, and that God alone could satisfy it by a special 

 mode of intervention, tliat this involved a course of self-sacrifice 

 in order to ensure final victory over evil. Then we can readily 

 understand that the Being who was to carry out this great 

 work would have to link Himself with human nature in a special 

 way, would give many practical illustrations of divine love 

 during His life-time, and that finally His death would be 

 swallowed up in His resurrection life. 



This which I have put as a supposition proves to be a 

 historic fact. Thus the scriptural idea of miracles gathers 

 itself up in Christ and appeals to our heart, to our head, to 

 our conscience. It is our inspiration and our hope. 



Discussion. 



The Eev. A. Irving, D.Sc, B.A., thought that a very able and 

 valualjle paper had just been read, and expressed his warmest thanks 

 to the author. It covered some of the ground taken up in his own 

 paper last year on " Evolutionary Law in the Creation Story of 

 Genesis," and in a way supplemented that paper."* He had thought 

 more than once of offering a paper to the Institute on similar lines ; 

 but he was happy to find that Canon Girdlestone had so well 

 anticipated him, and had dealt with the subject with a breadth of 

 view and a catholicity of sentiment, which were admirable. It 



* Trans. Vict. Inst., vol. xxxviii, p. 69. 



