obedience. Revelation as given to us
maintains that this superiority has been asserted in fact here in the
world of phenomena. To deny this is very nearly equivalent to denying
that any revelation has been made. In this way Revelation asserts, for
God's message to the human race precisely the same breach of uniformity
which every man's conscience claims for himself in regard to his own
conduct.
It is, however, necessary to point out that when we speak of a breach of
uniformity we are never in a position to deny that the breach of
uniformity may be physical only and perhaps apparent only. It may be
found, it probably will be found, at last that the Moral Law has in
some way always maintained its own uniformity unbroken. The Moral Law
has in its essence an elasticity which the physical law has not. It
often takes the form, that, given certain conduct, there will follow
certain consequences; and the law is kept though the conduct is free. It
is further possible, and Revelation has no interest in denying it, that
the intervention which has apparently disturbed the sequence of
phenomena is, after all, that of a higher physical law as yet unknown.
For instance, the miraculous healing of the sick may be no miracle in
the strictest sense at all. It may be but an instance of the power of
mind over body, a power which is undeniably not yet brought within the
range of Science, and which nevertheless may be really within its
domain. In other ways what seems to be miraculous may be simply unusual.
And it must therefore be always remembered that Revelation is not bound
by the scientific definition of a miracle, and that if all the
miraculous events recorded in the Bible happened exactly as they are
told, and if Science were some day able to show that they could be
accounted for by natural causes working at the time in each case, this
would not in any way affect their character, as regards the Revelation
which they were worked to prove or of which they form a part. Revelation
uses these events for its own purposes. Some of these events are spoken
of as evidences of a divine mission. Some of them are substantive facts
embraced in the message delivered. And if for these purposes they have
served their turn, if they have arrested attention which would not
otherwise have been arrested, if they have overcome prejudices, if they
have compelled belief, the fact that they are afterwards discovered to
be no breach of the law of uniformity ha
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