arily in the early Church, and I
will ask no other; grant that, upon prayer, benefits are vouchsafed,
deliverances are effected, unhoped-for results obtained, sicknesses
cured, tempests laid, pestilences put to flight, famines remedied,
judgments inflicted, and there will be no need of analyzing the causes,
whether supernatural or natural, to which they are to be referred. They
may, or they may not, in this or that case, follow or surpass the laws
of nature, and they may do so plainly or doubtfully, but the common
sense of mankind will call them miraculous; for by a miracle is
popularly meant, whatever be its formal definition, an event which
impresses upon the mind the immediate presence of the Moral Governor of
the world. He may sometimes act through nature, sometimes beyond or
against it; but those who admit the fact of such interferences, will
have little difficulty in admitting also their strictly miraculous
character, if the circumstances of the case require it, and those who
deny miracles to the early Church will be equally strenuous against
allowing her the grace of such intimate influence (if we may so speak)
upon the course of divine Providence, as is here in question, even
though it be not miraculous."--p. cxxi.

And again, speaking of the death of Arius: "But after all, was it a
miracle? for, if not, we are labouring at a proof of which nothing
comes. The more immediate answer to this question has already been
suggested several times. When a Bishop with his flock prays night and
day against a heretic, and at length begs of God to take him away, and
when he _is_ suddenly taken away, almost at the moment of his triumph,
and that by a death awfully significant, from its likeness to one
recorded in Scripture, is it not trifling to ask whether such an
occurrence comes up to the definition of a miracle? The question is not
whether it is formally a miracle, but whether it is an event, the like
of which persons, who deny that miracles continue, will consent that the
Church should be considered still able to perform. If they are willing
to allow to the Church such extraordinary protection, it is for them to
draw the line to the satisfaction of people in general, between these
and strictly miraculous events; if, on the other hand, they deny their
occurrence in the times of the Church, then there is sufficient reason
for our appealing here to the history of Arius in proof of the
affirmative."--p. clxxii.

These remar