59 



unmake. And thus by faith in God, I escape the vicious circle 

 of Fatality, and I leave it to take refuge in a Sovereign Will, 

 from which all has proceeded. 



Hence we maintain faith in miracles, and that first of all 

 miracles, " The Creation. We do not do so to satisfy a coarse, 

 vulgar love of the marvellous, the common tendency of ordinary 

 minds. Christ ever refused to gratify such a curiosity as this. 

 He condemned it in strong and emphatic terms. But I do not 

 wish to deal with this now. The question before us is, whether 

 Nature has a Master, or whether she has not. We must choose 

 between Fatalism and Faith in a living God. Miracles are a 

 most important guide for breaking the connection of seeming 

 natural causes; they attest Divine intervention. Remove 

 miracles, and with them you remove all faith in a personal 

 God ; you have no other master than a blind necessity. You 

 may, if you will, call this necessity God ; but to such a God you 

 can offer neither worship nor prayer, nor can you ever expect 

 an answer from Him. Miracles, then, are needed to enable 

 us to escape from fatal laws ; e.g., Christians believe that 1,800 

 years ago a sepulchre gave up its dead. Is this fact without 

 its importance ? Was it onh^ a prodigy to astonish a gaping 

 crowd ? No ; for since this grave opened many have believed 

 in life eternal : the fatal chain of life was snapped for ever ; and 

 yet nothing less than this was required to make men believe in 

 immortality. Sceptics are willing to concede that there is in 

 nature a vast and majestic harmony which indicates design, 

 but they deny that man is its especial object. We are told that 

 we are yielding to an illusion of pride when w^e affirm that man 

 is under the peculiar care of God ; we are told that our opinion 

 was conceivable enough when men believed the earth was the 

 centre of the universe ; but now that we know that it and its 

 sun, and all its system, are positively lost amid myriads of baser 

 systems, that float through the realms of space as thick motes in 

 a sunbeam, how can w^e fondly imagine that humanity plays 

 the part assigned to it by the Bible, or that man has so vast an 

 importance in the designs of God? This objection sometimes 

 takes another form in the mouths of men who are willing to 

 acknowledge that there is a God who governs the world by 

 general laws, and who may be introduced in the greater events 

 of history ; but that any of earth's inhabitants should assume, or 

 invoke His intervention in the common details of daily life, and 

 think himself the object of His loving care, a person professing 

 such a belief would be derided by them. They are willing, 

 perhaps, to allow that His name may be used in the solemnities 

 of worship, but object to connecting it with our petty sorrows 

 and trifling joys, in which He can take no interest. 



