298 
of nature ; but we use these terms in a subordinate sense. This conception 
of a “ work of art ” leads to that of a “ work of nature.” If I go to the 
highest conception of nature, I must go to this, that the law of nature ends 
in the will of Deity, and that is the highest. If the law of nature ends in the 
will of Deity, no miracle can be contrary to that law, because all the miracles 
of revelation are wrought in perfect accordance with the will of the Deity. If 
we grant Him infinite knowledge — His own book says He foresaw these things, 
that they are done and must be done, because all along determined upon in 
the counsels of the Almighty — therefore miracles are in accordance with that 
higher and grander view of the law of nature. But there may be a lower 
view ; there is something so distinct in miracles from the ordinary trans- 
actions that occur in the world, that the one thing differs as much from the 
other, and infinitely more, than a work of art from a work of nature. All 
our Saviour's miracles, all those of the Bible, are of this class. But we 
must remember other miracles which were wrought for evil, and therefore 
you must import, if you follow the Scripture, moral considerations when 
you come to questions of miracle. Our Saviour Himself does it. The 
J ews said of Him, “ By Beelzebub he casteth out devils.” They did not deny 
the miraculous effect ; that was admitted by the people. But how did He 
defend Himself? “ Look at the works I do ; they are not wrought for the 
power of evil, bat for good. I appeal to my works ; did any man ever do 
tne works I have done for evil ? If so, Satan is fighting against himself. 
But I am fighting against Satan.” And here you have the moral responsi- 
bility of every man who saw these miracles, of choosing good from evil. 
There the moral responsibility was forced upon man, whether he would accept 
or reject revelation. Now let us go back to the consideration of what natural 
philosophers tell us of the laws of nature, and see how confined are the 
notions they can give us. A law of gravitation, or any other law of nature, 
is nothing more than the general expression of the observation of a succession 
of phenomena in a certain order of sequence. It is nothing more than that. 
If you can group a certain class of phenomena and their sequence, and 
express them in mathematical terms, you say you have a law. For instance 
you say that ponderable matter everywhere and always attracts ponderable 
matter with a force varying directly as the mass and inversely as the square 
of the distance of the attracting matter — that you call the law of gravitation. 
What do we call the law of reflexion in light ? A ray of light, if it strike an 
object so as to be reflected, will be reflected always in the plane of its inci- 
dence, and make the reflected angle equal to the angle of incidence. We 
talk of the law of refraction — we say that a ray of light, except its incidence 
is perpendicular, will have its direction changed, though it will remain in 
the same plane ; but according to what we call the law of sines, the sine of 
the angle of incidence will be to the sine of the angle of refraction in a 
certain ratio. W e might be disposed to regard this as a universal law, and 
it was supposed to be so, until it was found that the law was broken, and that 
there was a class of substances which divided the ray into two parts, and one 
followed the ordinary law and the other the extraordinary law. Now, all the 
