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others, do I attempt this inquiry ; but in a sincere desire that 
God's glory may be vindicated, and the faith of my fellow- 
believers sustained. 
5. There appears in many even reverent minds, a somewhat 
morbid fear of admitting God's government, even when the 
legitimacy of miraole is, in terms, allowed. We are constantly 
meeting such a statement as this : — “ Such and such could not 
have been without a miracle ; but we must not bring in 
miraculous intervention needlessly." Granted most fully : but 
is there no via media ; nothing between the ordinary experi- 
ence of occidental Gentile life in the nineteenth century and a 
suspension of the “ laws of nature " ? 1 conceive that there 
is ; and that the recognition of it will go far to silence all the 
objections which the De Wette school of theology brings 
against Holy Scripture. That Book presents relations 
sustained by the Blessed God to His creation, far other than 
the imposition of an unalterable law upon it at the first ; very 
different from a mechanic’s making a clock, and leaving it to 
go. Unceasing supervision and control are His. The Eternal 
Son is described as “ upholding all things by the word of His 
power " (Heb. i. 3) : “ in Him all things hold together," — 
c TvvearrjKe (Col. i. 16). Nay, so minutely vigilant is this 
supervision, that, as the Lord Jesus Himself avers, a sparrow 
falls not unnoticed by God ; and that the very hairs of our 
heads are all numbered (Luke xii. 6, 7). We are then 
abundantly justified in concluding that the Blessed God not 
only suspends His own laws of created being when He pleases, 
but does also so hold them in His hand that their operation is 
directed and moulded to His ends. How what we call the laws 
of nature will act when there is no Divine reason for modifying 
their average action, is one thing : how, when God has a 
special object to accomplish with them, is another. And of 
this varying’ modus He alone is the judge ; we, only after the 
fact, by reverently watching His dealing, by hearkening to the 
voice of His word. 
. 0ne thing it is not difficult to see that the national 
birth of Israel, and the isolation of them from all other peoples, 
was a cardinal part of the Divine economy ; since of them 
Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Here, then, 
we have a dignus Vindice nodus. 
7. This seems to me to lie at the base of almost all the diffi- 
culties dequeis agikctur ; the reluctance to admit that One of 
infinite resources, having a will of His own, is not to be 
limited in action by ordinary average conditions. Eor, 
recognize this ; fully, constantly, consistently admit this, that 
“ He doeth according to His will [not only] in the army of 
