No Miracles to God.

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sion is not proof, prejudice is not refutation. The mind without a God, e. g., denying a God, sees a universe without a God. But a mind having God within, e. g., in its faith, sees all things live, move, and have their being in God. Law, force, miracle and cause are different names for Will. As we widen the field of law, we multiply the number of miracles; for miracles are not the exception to law, but law is the uniformity or system of miracles. Law, as the assumed invariability of will, is essentially and possibly, variable. Law-phenomena and miracle-phenomena, are both will-phenomena. A equals X plus Y. In other words, law and miracle, cause and force, make the sum of will; but to this will, there is no law and no miracle. One volition is as natural as another; is as much a law as another; and is as much a miracle as another. If asked what is a miracle, I ask, what is law? Miracles are defined when law is explained; when law is explained, miracles are proved. Miracles have hitherto been put upon the defensive; but the time has come, for the more philosophical understanding of truth, to put law upon explanation. That is miracle in nature which is alone in nature. Each of the three Kingdoms, mineral, animal, vegetable, is alone in the universe; and each to every other Kingdom, is a Wonder--a Miracle. Law is the greatest miracle of God. To say that law is in the fact of like results from like conditions, is to state merely a fact, not to give a principle; a result, not an effect; a method, not a power; a sequence, not a consequence. According to some, notion of the change of condition changes the law.

Miracles may work by conditions as well as law. In law the conditions are repeated; in miracles they are not repeated. Put the possibility of miracles in the change of conditions, if that will help the matter. Give to law its conditions, and to a miracle its conditions. Nothing is impossible with God.

It is said "the elevation of a body in the air by the force of the arm, is a counteraction of the law of gravitation, but it is a counteraction of it by another law as natural as the law of gravity. The fact, therefore, is in conformity with the laws of nature. But if the same body is raised in the air without any application of known force, it is not a fact in conformity with natural law." But when the arm raises.

stone in the air, it is not the arm, but the will of the man that raises it; and the will is a known force. Is not that will a netural law-all the natural law there is? If so, may not the will of another raise it? If a will can raise it, what is it that pulls it down, but the will of some other? If some other will pulls it down, may not the will of that other raise it up? When a man raises a stone in the air, his will overcomes the will of some invisible person that pulls it down. If the will of a finite person raises, may not the will of an infinite person pull down? God's will manifests itself twice as much in two ounces as it does in one.

When science explains a law, theology will explain miracles. To account for law is to account for miracles. Law is essentially what miracles are, and nothing more; and miracles are essentially what law is, and nothing less. The mistake has been in putting miracles upon proof, instead of putting law upon

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Method and Providence.

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explanation. Miracles are not the exception to law; but law is the uniformity of the miraculous Power. Law is the totality of miracles. But law and miracles are essentially the acts of one and the same Absolute Will. The will of God has general manifestations called laws, special manifestations called miracles. But there was a miracle before there was law, just as the end of a line is before its prolongation. The first thing in the universe was a miraclea something done antecedent to all conditions-an act of Absolute Will.

An uniform repetition of those miracles or acts of the will, are the laws of nature. But the special was before the general—indeed the general was only many specials in succession. Nature is but the visible shapes of will-some special as in miracles, and some general and uniform, as in what are called laws. Both miracle and law mean nature, and nature means Absolute Will. Therefore, the explanation of miracle is identical with the explanation of law. Miracle does not suspend, violate or withdraw itself as an exception to the law-order of nature; for law being the uniform willing, or volition of the Absolute Will, cannot suspend, violate, or except itself. One act of will does not suspend another act of will; nor does one act of will violate another act of will;

nor is one act of will an exception to other acts of the same will. Will is will, and that is all there is about it. When law is accounted for essentially, then miracles are accounted for rationally.

Method as related to providence. The universe is under the control of Will, direct or indirect, or under

necessity. If all things are under the control of Will, nothing is necessary, or if under necessity nothing is free, and nothing can be right or wrong. If conduct can be morally right or wrong, Supreme Will controls all, and providence is both possible and probable. So that the question is not, can there be a providence? but, as Supreme Will controls all, the question is, what is not a providence? Here too we see the possibility of answer to prayer. If unlimited Power is unlimited Will, prayer may be answered, and no law broken; for law is will, as we now proceed to show.

3. Method as related to Law. In what is called. natural law, supernatural Will Power manifests uniformity rather than method. Law is Will; Will is one as the sun, law many as the rays. As every ray is all sun, so every law is all Will. In other words, as the sun and its rays, so is Will and laws. Natural law is supernatural Will, uniform as we think law to be. Will is not only Power-personal power-but Will is law-power.

The law of human, individual and collective, conduct is superhuman Will, stereotyped in the inev itable state of society. That is natural law which is best under natural circumstances. Circumstances over which we do not have control reveal the law of conduct over which we do have control.

If the universe is governed by law, it is governed by Will; for, as said before, if Will is not law, then the motion of my hand which is governed by my Will, is not governed by law, and so the whole universe, of which my hand is a part, is not governed by

law. So far as law is uniform, it is the uniformity of Will. Supreme Will prescribes its own supreme conditions, supreme operations, and supreme aims. Law is Will, uniform as we see it. Natural law, as contrasted with civil law, is supernatural Will, uniform in natural order.

But law creates nothing, therefore if law is only a fact, it governs nothing; for fact belongs to method and not to power; and while power governs everything, method governs nothing. What is method? Method is a way of power, and may be uniform or multiform. As in initial creation of the inorganic, in progressive creation called evolution, and in special creation called miracles, omnipresent Will observes a self-prescribed method of special diversity in a general system of uniformity, doing different, original, creative things, with or without conditions; so in Law, the same omnipresent Will observes a selfprescribed method of general uniformity in special diversity; doing, uniform things under uniform conditions, governing, under a method of uniformity, a universe it had created by its power, under a method of diversity. The scientific notion of law is in its apparent uniformity. I say its apparent uniformity, because, as Prof. Jevons says, "Law is not inconsistent with extreme diversity."

According to Mill," the expression ‘law of nature,' means nothing but the uniformities which exist among natural phenomena."

The essence of law is in the will behind the uniformity. Even Mr. Mill admits that "the expression 'law of nature,' is generally used by scientific men