One Word More Author:John Neal Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MIRACLES. What is a miracle ? Grant that man hath transgressed. Grant that a way was needed to save him from the consequences, whatever they w.ere: then, i... more »s it not probable—is it not indeed certain—that Infinite Wisdom, and Goodness. and Power, would contrive a way, not likely to suggest itself to the understandings of men ? If not—and regeneration were needed, of what advantage to the Universe, to Man, or to God himself, were the unsearchable wisdom, the boundless power, the unspeakable goodness, which, in their mightiest combinations, could be fathomed and foreseen, if not forestalled by Man ? And if millions of ages were to pass, before the children of men should be allowed to see enough, or to understand enough, to engage their approbation, why should they be troubled ? Has it not been ever so from the first ? From the first, were not laws established by the Builder of the universe, which, after thousands of years, are but beginning to be understood by the wisest of mankind ? Tolerated age after age, though with many a misgiving, by the devout and hopeful, and borne with by Philosophers, not because their beautiful adaptation was felt, and their fitness acknowledged, but because they could not be helped, they are now beginning to beunderstood, approved and justified; and all the phenomena that puzzled our great fathers, in the shape of anomalies, or exceptions, are fast arranging themselves among the clearest manifestations of unapproachable wisdom and foresight; until much that in other days perplexed the ' undevout astronomer', and seriously troubled the mightiest of God's worshippers on earth ; and many a seeming oversight; have come to be regarded with deep thankfulness and awe, as part of a self-sustaining, self-adjusting, and self-compensating system, wher...« less