98 
look chiefly at the impression produced by miracles on man, and 
regard the order of Nature as created by God indeed, but now 
practically independent of Him, speaking of miracles as higher 
manifestations of His presence, because proofs of His supremacy 
over Nature. Others, on the contrary, who look rather at the 
Divine attribute of unchangeableness, and regard the order 
of Nature as the true and proper expression ot His living 
presence, speaking of them as lower 
tensions, in which God has stooped to act for awhile aftei the 
imperfect manner of man, as elsewhere to adopt mans 
language and man’s form, that man might learn to recognize 
Him the easier and better. Then, in the second place, there is 
a difference as to the agency involved m miracles, borne re- 
garding them as wrought by God directly, without the inter- 
vention of natural forces or laws. Others regarding them as 
wrought through the instrumentality of these, merely specially 
controlled and adjusted for the particular end m view. 
But Thirdly, there are yet others who admit both the 
premiss and inference of the objection, but deny their im- 
portance. According to these, it is quite true that no miracles 
properly so called ever happened or could happen ; but still 
events happened which were thought to be miraculous im- 
pressions were created on the mind which were believed to be 
produced by miracles, and by these certain spiritual ends were 
attained. What matter, then, if we reject the means so long 
as we preserve the end ? What matter if that which men ot 
old regarded as a miraculous act of God, we regard as purely 
natural, so long as we both recognize Gods hand there. 
What matter if we reject the miraculous evidence of doctrine., 
on account of which men of old believed in them, so long as 
we held the doctrines themselves ? Why trouble about the 
particular channel through which truth comes, so long as 
both are drinking of the same fountain-head . 
IY. We now pass to consider the fourth and last group 
of objections; those, namely, which are brought against 
the dogmatic teaching of Scripture on the ground oi its 
inconsistency with the facts of Nature. Some of these, as, lor 
example, the pre-eminence which Scripture assigns to man m 
the history of the world, and the assertion that all things wei 
created and are still actively superintended by a personal God 
who has the power of dispensing with, and controuhng, na ur . 
laws, have been already touched upon. Of the rest, two only 
need here receive especial mention, as the most notorious an 
oftenest urged. In tke first place, then, it is o jec e ^ 1 ^ 
Scripture represents the whole of creation as very goo , 
product of unmixed beneficence ; whereas, m fact, h ature is lu . 
