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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. Bemove 
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 only 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 we 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 we 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. 
