This point would scarcely need special definition had not extreme views been put forth in our times; as (_e. g._) that nature is virtually a second-rate deity――indebted to God, indeed, for the original gift of its powers, but thenceforward working those powers independently of God――made to run without God after he has once wound it up as the mechanic makes and winds up his watch. But the Scriptures recognize no such semi-deification of nature. According to their teaching, God still “_upholds_ all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1: 3); “By him all things consist” (Col. 1: 17)――_i. e._, are maintained in their existence――are held to system and order under natural law. It is precisely God himself who gives or withholds the rain; who calls to the lightnings and they answer, “Here we are”――(Job 38: 35); and it is none the less God who wields these agencies because he does it in harmony with principles which are just as fixed as he pleases to have them. Therefore true science will take no exception to the doctrine that nature is nothing more or less than _God’s established mode of operation_. We may call these modes of operations “laws” or “powers,” and may think and speak of them as constituting “Nature;” but if we come to regard Nature as a maker and a doer, working independently of God, we have (inadvertently perhaps, but none the less really) ruled God out of his own universe. Both Scripture and reason hold that “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17: 28.) The broad fact that God’s intelligent creatures must live in this material world and be constantly acting upon matter and acted upon by matter, suggests abundant reasons why God should ordain fixed laws for the changes and states of all material things. But why should we think of God’s hand as any the less present in all these changes of material states and forms because they follow fixed and ascertainable laws? In truth the divine wisdom is only the more abundantly manifested by means of this reliable uniformity. Another doctrine yet more extreme severs all connection between nature and an intelligent Power above and over her, and thus makes her _supreme_ in her domain. This is so far Atheism――ruling God out from at least the entire material universe.――――Yet, again; to make nature herself intelligent――to ascribe to nature whatever traces of design appear in her operations, and to hold that nature is herself the universe, undistinguishable from any higher spiritual power, is Pantheism.――――It is therefore important to define nature so that her true relations to the Supreme Intelligence――the very God――Creator and Lord of the universe――shall be distinctly seen and reverently recognized.