matched elsewhere in the history of the
human race, both the miracles and their 'evidences' would have long
since ceased to be the transmitted inheritance of intelligent men.
Influenced by the thoughts which this universe inspires, well may we
exclaim in David's spirit, if not in David's words: 'When I consider
the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which
thou hast ordained; what is man that thou shouldst be mindful of him,
or the son of man that thou shouldst so regard him?'

If you ask me who is to limit the outgoings of Almighty power, my
answer is, Not I. If you should urge that if the Builder and Maker of
this universe chose to stop the rotation of the earth, or to take the
form of a burning bush, there is nothing to prevent Him from doing so,
I am not prepared to contradict you. I neither agree with you nor
differ from you, for it is a subject of which I know nothing. But I
observe that in such questions regarding Almighty power, your
enquiries relate, not to that power as it is actually displayed in the
universe, but to the power of your own imagination. Your question is,
not has the Omnipotent done so and so? or is it in the least degree
likely that the Omnipotent should do so and so? but, is my
imagination competent to picture a Being able and willing to do so and
so? I am not prepared to deny your competence. To the human mind
belongs the faculty of enlarging and diminishing, of distorting and
combining, indefinitely the objects revealed by the senses. It can
imagine a mouse as large as an elephant, an elephant as large as a
mountain, and a mountain as high as the stars. It can separate
congruities and unite incongruities. We see a fish and we see a woman
we can drop one half of each, and unite in idea the other two halves
to a mermaid. We see a horse and we see a man; we are able to drop
one half of each, and unite the other two halves to a centaur. Thus
also the pictorial representations of the Deity, the bodies and wings
of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, horns, and tail of the Evil One,
the joys of the blessed, and the torments of the damned, have been
elaborated from materials furnished to the imagination by the senses.
It behoves you and me to take care that our notions of the Power which
rules the universe are not mere fanciful or ignorant enlargements of
human power. The capabilities of what you call your reason are not
denied. By the exercise of the faculty here