[152] [Without offering the least objection to what is here said of the comparative value of moral and positive institutions, it should not be overlooked that sometimes, obedience to a positive rite is more indicative of an obedient spirit, than obedience to a moral rule. The latter is urged by its intrinsic propriety, over and above the command, and appeals to several of our finer impulses. The former rests singly on our reverence for the will of God. There are many who would repel a temptation to steal, or to lie, who yet are insensible to the duty of baptism or the Lord’s supper.] [153] Matt. ix. 13, and xii. 7. [154] Hosea vi. 6. [155] See Matt. xii. 7. [156] See ch. iii. [157] [Dr. ANGUS judiciously remarks on this sentence, “This sentiment, as understood by Butler, is just, but very liable to abuse. Clearly, the Bible must be so interpreted as to agree with _all_ known truth, whether of natural religion or natural science. At the same time, to correct the theology of the Bible by the theology of nature, as finite and guilty men understand it, may involve the rejection of Bible theology entirely; and of the very light and teaching it was intended to supply. The converse of Butler’s statement is equally true, and even more important. If in natural theology there be found any facts, the seeming lesson of which is contrary to revealed religion, such seeming lesson is not the real one.” Practically, it will be found that seeming meanings of Scripture, really erroneous, are corrected by other parts of Scripture itself. I understand Butler as only affirming that we must interpret Scripture according to immutable principles, and _known truth_. The infidel rejects it for not conforming to his _assumed hypothesis_.] [158] P. 203. [159] Chaps. iii., iv., v., vi. [160] Chap. vii. [161] P. 172. [162] [Papists urge that the actual conversion of the bread and wine in the Eucharist is an invisible miracle. But an invisible miracle is such because wrought under circumstances which _exclude_ examination: while transubstantiation _invites_ and _facilitates_ examination. It is wrought publicly, and constantly, and yet cannot be discovered to be a miracle. Indeed it supposes the working of a second miracle, to make the first invisible.] [163] [Paley shows conclusively that a denial of miracles leads not only to a denial of revelation, but a denial of the existence of God, all of whose extraordinary acts are necessarily miraculous.] [164] [WHATELY, in his _Logic_, b. iii., has shown the folly of the Deistical attempts to explain our Savior’s miracles as mere natural events. Having labored to show this of some _one_ of the miracles, they then do so as to _another_, and thence infer that _all_ were accidental conjunctures of natural circumstances. He says, they might as well argue “that because it is not improbable one may throw sixes once in a hundred throws, therefore it is no more improbable that one may throw sixes a hundred times running.”