Note 100 — Chapter X · SECONDARY ROCKS. No. 4. The Wealden.

“Our disposition is, and has been, not to multiply miracles after the sort in which this has been done by many more zealous than wise friends of revelation. In all cases we allow the miracle without question, which is distinctly claimed to be such in the Scriptures, and where the circumstances clearly indicate that a miracle was necessary,—we say ‘necessary,’ because we are persuaded that the Almighty has almost invariably chosen to act through natural agencies, and under the laws which he has imposed on nature, whenever they are adequate to produce the required result. We believe it is one of the beautiful peculiarities of the Bible, that it has none of those gratuitous and barren wonders, which form the mass of the pretended miracles which the various systems of false religion produce.... For our own part, we do not wish to hear of small miracles, which leave us doubtful whether there be any miracle at all. If we are to have miracles, let them be decidedly miraculous, and let not our veneration for the Divine character be offended by exhibitions of the Almighty, as laying bare his holy arm to remove the small remaining difficulty which theorists leave him to execute.”—Dr. Kitto’s Biblical History of Palestine.