e 'If' with respect to a much less startling narration is the point in
dispute between us?"

Such and so peculiar, and to an honest mind so unmistakeable, is the
character of veracity and simplicity on the very countenance, as it
were, of the Gospel, that every remove of the inquirer's attention from
the facts themselves is a remove of his conversion. It is your business
to keep him from wandering, not to set him the example.

Never, surely, was there a more unequal writer than Skelton;--in the
discourses on the Trinity, the compeer of Bull and Waterland; and yet
the writer of these pages, 500-501! Natural magic! a stroke of art! for
example, converting the Nile into blood! And then his definition of a
miracle. Suspension of the laws of nature! suspension--laws--nature!
Bless me! a chapter would be required for the explanation of each
several word of this definition, and little less than omniscience for
its application in any one instance. An effect presented to the senses
without any adequate antecedent, 'ejusdem generis', is a miracle in the
philosophic sense. Thus: the corporeal ponderable hand and arm raised
with no other known causative antecedent, but a thought, a pure act of
an immaterial essentially invisible imponderable will, is a miracle for
a reflecting mind. Add the words, 'praeter experientiam': and we have the
definition of a miracle in the popular, practical, and appropriated
sense.

Vol. III.

That all our thoughts and views respecting our Faith should be
consistent with each other, and with the attributes of God, is most
highly desirable: but when the great diversities of men's
understandings, and the unavoidable influence of circumstances on the
mind, are considered, we may hope from the Divine mercy, that the
agreement in the result will suffice; and that he who sincerely and
efficiently believes that Christ left the glory which he had with the
Father before all worlds, to become man and die for our salvation,--that
by him we may, and by him alone we can, be saved,--will be held a true
believer,--whether he interprets the words 'sacrifice,' 'purchase,'
'bargain,' 'satisfaction,' of the creditor by full payment of the
'debt,' and the like as proper and literal expressions of the redeeming
act and the cause of our salvation, as Skelton seems to have done;--or
(as I do) as figurative language truly designating the effects and
consequences of this adorable act and process.

Ib. p. 393.

But