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some piously ascribe to God’s will, but which others regard 
as merely “the nature of things ” themselves, without any 
reference to Deity. Those who hold this latter opinion 
certainly those who have ventured so to express themselves 
are a small and insignificant number. . They, of course, cannot 
possiblv believe in any interference with these laws of nature. 
Their idea of law does not include a law-giver. According to 
them it is material and unintelligent nature that produces all 
we see around us ; and with them a miracle is impossible. 
But there is the other class who believe in God.as the author 
of nature; and of those, some have got the idea that this 
nature is absolutely fixed, and they have the notion of uni- 
formity and invariability so settled in their minds, that they 
cannot imagine the Deity to interfere with the laws of nature 
He has once established. They also, therefore, deny miraculous 
interposition, although they are not professedly atheists. It 
is to meet the difficulties of this class of thinkers, that some 
have recently endeavoured to show that miracles may be 
regarded as possible, without supposing that there is any 
infringement of nature’s laws, if we merely suppose that there 
are probably another series of higher laws that occasionally 
come into operation, and produce miraculous effects.^ But it 
is here we come upon the issues raised in Mr. English’s Beph/. 
I am not now about to discuss these issues. I will only ask : 
Can this reasoning satisfy this class of objectors to miracles . 
And is “ law,” in point of fact, used in the same sense m the 
two cases ? Is the invariable or ordinary law, a law in the 
same sense as the occasional' and exceptional “ law ’’ that 
intervenes ? If the latter is admitted to be “ different from 
the settled course or ordinary law, is not that enough, without 
insisting that what is different from what is settled, being 
unsettled, is therefore “ the contrary ” ? But there is another 
question I must ask : What is gained after all, if we ge 1 
admitted that miracles are the operation of some higher law . 
Is this law self-acting ? Does the universe go like clocx-worx ; 
and do miracles, as it were, strike at appointed hours as the 
hand of time goes round ? If not ; if the so-called higher 
laws ” are the laws of moral government, aud miracles are 
interpositions by the Creator, Himself above all law and 
without law,— then are not miracles best described as simply 
wrought “ by the finger of God ” ? Is the “ law ” that works 
them aught but His will ? And, after all, the practical question 
is — without discussing the accuracy of the. phraseology .-j- 
Will those who deny miracles because they think that nature s 
laws cannot be infringed, accept this view, that miracles resui 
from the operation of other “laws”; and, if not, oi w 
