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ignorant, with the greatest professions of knowledge. Besides, the “ laws of 
nature ” which miracles have infringed are not recondite, theoretical “ laws,” 
hut obvious and ordinary laws. And it is a serious mistake to attribute 
everything in nature to God, as if there were no evil or opposition 
to God’s will in the world. But I will give you the express testimony of 
our Lord Himself to this view of the subject, that His miracles were 
wrought to interfere not with God’s original laws of nature, but rather 
with Satan’s perversion of them, and with the evils arising from the trans- 
gression of man and the sin in the world. For what did Christ say when He 
healed the bowed-down woman ? He asked, “ Why should not this woman, 
whom Satan hath bound, lo these eighteen years, be loosed from her infirmity ? ” 
To set her straight, then, was not to violate God’s law, though it was to 
violate what was then a “law of nature,” but of nature diseased. No ; it was 
to set aside a law of nature which had its origin in the power of Satan, and 
to vindicate and re-establish God’s original law of health and strength. But 
surely that is the very drift, the very essence of all the miracles of Christ. 
What were the disciples of John the Baptist to tell their master ? “ That 
the blind receive their sight, the dumb speak, the deaf hear, the lepers are 
cleansed,” &c. Well, whether blindness is natural or not, at all events, when a 
man is born blind, it is the law or rule of nature that he should remain so ; and 
Christ violated that law of nature. But if you do call blindness natural, surely 
you will admit that it is nature a little out of gear ; or else seeing would not 
be natural. I am quite sure, if we had a Socrates here, and if some of our 
sceptical philosophers were bound to answer his interrogations as they used 
to do of old, and not shirk answering questions, he would soon put them into 
an untenable position when speaking about the uniformity of nature’s laws, 
if we include those laws which affect moral agents. It is a remarkable 
fact that there are few miracles in Scripture which deal with, physical 
laws alone, I mean apart from moral agents. The first of our Lord’s 
miracles was, however, one, — that of changing water into wine ; and you can- 
not imagine how such a miracle could be performed except as being the fiat 
of the Divine Will. But if we consider that it was to give the blind sight, to 
restore hearing, to heal disease, and generally to help those who were afflicted, 
that Christ’s miracles were done, we must see that it is no objection to 
miracles that they are violations of what we call nature, but that that is even 
their merit, and that instead of being violations of the original laws of God, 
they afford the best proofs of God’s power and goodness in vindicating His 
own laws of nature, which once were all and only “ very good.” So Christ, as 
“ stronger than ” “ the strong man armed,” cast out devils “ with the finger 
of God,” and so infringed the power of evil. These are miracles that, I may 
say, define themselves by their character as Divine ; and they have nothing 
in common with lying-wonders, or jugglery, or any deeds of darkness. 
Before I conclude, I should like to quote another passage from Sir Matthew 
Hale’s work on Man, in addition to the very brief citation from it in Mr. 
English’s paper. I think you will be interested in hearing it. It contains the 
very same idea that runs through the paper ; and you will see that both 
