earnest sense of the permanence of natural law. But more: the fact is
expressly asserted again and again. "They continue this day according to
Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee." "Thou hast made them fast
for ever and ever. Thou hast given them a law which shall not be
broken--"

Let us pass on. There is no more to be said about this matter.

But next: it will be demanded of us that natural Theology shall set forth
a God whose character is consistent with all the facts of nature, and not
only with those which are pleasant and beautiful. That challenge was
accepted, and I think victoriously, by Bishop Butler, as far as the
Christian religion is concerned. As far as the Scripture is concerned,
we may answer thus--

It is said to us--I know that it is said--You tell us of a God of love, a
God of flowers and sunshine, of singing birds and little children. But
there are more facts in nature than these. There is premature death,
pestilence, famine. And if you answer--Man has control over these; they
are caused by man's ignorance and sin, and by his breaking of natural
laws:--What will you make of those destructive powers over which he has
no control; of the hurricane and the earthquake; of poisons, vegetable
and mineral; of those parasitic Entozoa whose awful abundance, and awful
destructiveness, in man and beast, science is just revealing--a new page
of danger and loathsomeness? How does that suit your conception of a God
of love?

We can answer--Whether or not it suits our conception of a God of love,
it suits Scripture's conception of Him. For nothing is more clear--nay,
is it not urged again and again, as a blot on Scripture?--that it reveals