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All power is of God ; and God has apportioned the use of it 
to all His creatnres according to their kind and to the purposes 
of His goodness and wisdom. The vegetable and the animal 
have each power after their kind, according to the work given 
them to perform, while the secret springs of their action, are 
beyond their ken. But man seems to be master of the springs 
of his own power (i. e. the portion with which God endowed 
him) : he can strengthen them by exercise, and relax or destroy 
them completely by disuse ; and he can direct them as he will, 
either in subjection to inward inspirations of a pure conscience 
(which is God's gift), or to the wild and lawless allurements 
of his imagination or his passions. 
In conformity with this freedom of choice, and indifferently 
for good or for evil, we find at all times, and in our own day, 
instances of men who, by their earnestness, enthusiasm, or 
faith, have more or less powerfully moved the springs of 
Nature, and done many wonderful works or miracles. 
Religious enthusiasm, so called, has been the means of many 
wonderful results ; and these results are of a nature according 
to the direction of this enthusiasm or faith; and may be 
characterized as good, or evil, or neuter. If this faith is 
exercised in entire submission to the Divine light, its results 
are in conformity ; and thus we see how a Moses was enabled 
to overcome the magicians, and bring his people out of Egypt, 
and separate them as a peculiar people, a light for the Gentiles 
till Shiloh should come. 
The magicians of Egypt and those of other countries. Fetish 
priests, Fakirs, Medicine-men, and Marabouts of the present 
day, work many wonders or miracles, by moving the same 
springs of Nature (for all their performances are not mere 
jugglery) ; but their works lack the beauty of those of the 
Divine order, and are rightly named occult , or deeds of 
darkness. 
The Chairman. — I am sure you will all return a cordial vote of thanks to 
these two gentlemen for their very interesting papers. I think you will also 
agree that Mr. English’s Essay is one of the most valuable papers that we 
have had yet brought before us, and I hope we shall now have a useful and 
profitable discussion on the subject. 
Rev. Robinson Thornton, D.D. — I will trouble you with a few remarks 
on the first of the interesting papers we have heard this evening ; and they 
will not be in opposition, but rather in harmony with the arguments of 
Mr. English. They have brought out (but not, perhaps, quite with the clear- 
ness I could wish) two very important questions, which we have to consider 
on the subject of miracles. On this subjeot there are two grand fallacies, in 
my opinion, which are constantly urged by those who oppose miracles. The 
