s no bearing at all on the
Revelation to which they belong. The miracle would in that case consist
in the precise coincidence in time with the purpose which they served,
or in the manner and degree in which they marked out the Man who wrought
them from all other men, or in the foreshadowing of events which are in
the distant future.

Thus, for instance, it is quite possible that our Lord's Resurrection
may be found hereafter to be no miracle at all in the scientific sense.
It foreshadows and begins the general Resurrection; when that general
Resurrection comes we may find that it is, after all, the natural issue
of physical laws always at work.

There is nothing at present to indicate anything of the sort; but a
general resurrection in itself implies not a special interference but a
general rule. If, when we rise again, we find that this resurrection is
and always was a part of the Divine purpose, and brought about at last
by machinery precisely the same in kind as that which has been used in
making and governing the world, we may also find that our Lord's
Resurrection was brought about by the operation of precisely the same
machinery. We may find that even in the language of strict science 'He
was the first fruits of them that slept,' and that His Resurrection was
not a miracle, but the first instance of the working of a law till the
last day quite unknown, but on that last day operative on all that ever
lived.

Let us compare the general resurrection with the first introduction of
life into the world. As far as scientific observation has yet gone that
first introduction of life was a miracle. No one has ever yet succeeded
in tracing it to the operation of any known laws. If it is a miracle it
is a miracle precisely similar in kind to the miracle which believers
are expecting at the last day. And assuredly if a miracle was once
worked to introduce life into this habitable world, there is very good
reason to expect that another miracle will be worked hereafter to
restore life to those that have lived. But there are scientific men who
think that the introduction of life was not a miracle, that it came at
the fitting moment by the working of natural laws; or, in other words,
that such properties are inherent in the elements of which protoplasm is
made that in certain special circumstances these elements will not only
combine but that the product of their combination will live. If this be
so, it is assuredly no such ver