Archbishop Trench has, as usual, a singular way of overcoming the difficulty. He says:--"So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and improbable, miraculous and incredible may be admitted as convertible terms. But once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once acknowledge something higher than nature, a kingdom of God, and men the intended denizens of it, and the whole argument loses its strength and the force of its conclusions.... He who already counts it likely that God will interfere for the higher welfare of men, who believes that there is a {53} nobler world-order than that in which we live and move, and that it would be the blessing of blessings for that nobler to intrude into and to make itself felt in the region of this lower, who has found that here in this world we are bound by heavy laws of nature, of sin, of death, which no powers that we now possess can break, yet which must be broken if we are truly to live,--he will not find it hard to believe the great miracle, the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, &c... And as he believes that greatest miracle, so will he believe all other miracles, &c."(1) In other words, if we already believe the premises we shall not find it difficult to adopt the conclusions--if we already believe the greatest miracle we shall not hesitate to believe the less--if we already believe the dogmas we shall not find it hard to believe the evidence by which they are supposed to be authenticated. As we necessarily do abide in the {54} region of nature, in which Dr. Trench admits that miraculous and incredible are convertible terms, it would seem rather difficult to lift the discussion into the higher region here described without having already abandoned it altogether. {55} CHAPTER III. REASON IN RELATION TO THE ORDER OF NATURE