This at once raises the very important question, whether there is anything in the performance of a miracle inconsistent with the divine character and perfections. It has been often alleged by those who deny the possibility of miracles, that God energizes in the universe in conformity with invariable laws, which express the uniform mode of the divine working. From these, as the result of his wisdom, He will never deviate. To alter or vary from this mode of acting implies that the machinery of the universe, through which He acts, is imperfect. The supposition that He has worked a miracle therefore involves the assumption that He has ceased from one mode of action and adopted another; or, in other words, that the forces of the universe fail to effectuate his purposes; or that the whole machine has got out of order and requires rectification. Any action of this kind in the case of a Being possessed of all power, is a reflection both on his wisdom and his immutability. Still further: it is affirmed by some that the love of order is an attribute so inherent in Deity, that it is inconceivable that any alteration in the existing order of the universe should take place under his government. One objection raised in the above quotation I may dismiss summarily, viz. the idea that God interposes with any fitful interventions in the universe. The idea of fitful intervention is quite foreign to the conception of a miracle, which is described in the New Testament as one of the means by which he realizes his deliberate purposes. I shall elsewhere disprove the allegation that Revelation is an intervention of the Creator to rectify a miscarriage in his creative work. It will also be desirable in this place to answer the charge of anthropomorphism so frequently urged against the defenders of Christianity. When they speak of God as a person, they are charged with manufacturing a gigantic man. When they ascribe to Him a moral character, or describe Him as acting in nature, they are then accused of making a God out of a number of conceptions which are purely human. This fault, if it be one, must be shared alike by philosophers, men of science, and theologians. The plain fact is, that man has no conceptions but human ones. To abandon these is to cease to think altogether. When philosophers and men of science speak of nature, they are obliged to apply to it conceptions which are strictly true only of man. We are obliged to do precisely the same with respect to God. So far all thought, the most elevated and the most ordinary, is anthropomorphic. The term can be fairly used as a reproach only when certain material conceptions or degraded passions are directly affirmed to exist in the divine mind.