144 EXPLANATIONS. 



than to trace the laws by which the world is up- 

 held, and its phenomena perpetually renewed. 

 The presumption naturally rises in the mind, that 

 the same Great Being would adopt the same mode 

 of action in both cases . . . To a mind accustomed, 

 as is every educated mind, to regard the opera- 

 tions of Deity as essentially differing from the 

 limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human 

 agent, it is distressing to be compelled to picture 

 to itself, the power of god as put forth in any other 

 manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laivs, 

 ichich have so plainly an eternity to work in ; it pains 

 the imagination to be obliged to assimilate those 

 operations, for a moment, to the brief energy of a 

 human will, or the manipulations of a human 

 hand .... There are still, indeed, some men of 

 narrow prejudices, who look upon every fresh 

 attempt to reduce the phenomena of nature to 

 general laws, and to limit those occasions on 

 which it is necessary to conceive of a direct and 

 separate interposition of divine power, as a fresh 

 encroachment on the prerogatives of the Deity, or 

 a concealed attack upon his very existence. And 

 yet these very same men are daily appealing to 

 such laws of the creation as have been already 

 established, for their great proofs of the existence 



