They are expressly recognized and cordially maintained by divines, not less than by men of science; but in such a sense as to be perfectly compatible both with the doctrine of a primitive creation, and also with the possibility of a subsequent miraculous interposition.

The Westminster Divines explicitly declare that "God, the First Cause, by His providence, ordereth all things to fall out _according to the nature of second causes_, either necessarily, freely, or contingently;" and that "in His ordinary providence, He maketh use of means, but is free to act without, above, and against them at His pleasure."[79] But M.Comte will have no laws, however regular, unless they be also invariable, and independent of any superior will.

And, doubtless, if this were the sense in which Science has established the doctrine of natural laws, it would be at direct variance with Theology, both Natural and Revealed; and the antagonism between the two might afford some ground for the belief that, sooner or later, Theology must quit the field.

But it is not the existence of these natural laws, nor even their regular operation in the common course of Providence, that is hostile to our religious beliefs,--it is only the supposition that they are unoriginated, independent, and invariable; and to assume this without proof, as if it were a self-evident or axiomatic truth, or to apply it in a process of historical deduction respecting either the past development or the future prospects of the race, is such a shameless begging of the whole question,--that we know of no parallel to it except in the kindred speculations of Strauss, who assumes the same radical principle, and gravely tells us that whatever is supernatural must needs be unhistorical.[80] There is absolutely no evidence, properly historical, that there is any necessary tendency in the recognition of established natural laws to supersede Theology, or to introduce an era of universal Atheism.

Some such tendency might exist were these laws conceived of as necessary, independent, and invariable.