Light has certain properties, and so has water, and so has every distinct order of vegetable or animal life, which make them to be what they severally are, and which cannot be severed from them otherwise than by the destruction of their very nature.

These properties are known to us by their _effects_; and hence the substances or beings to which they respectively belong are regarded by us as _causes_; and their operation as causes is regulated by certain "laws," imposed upon them by the same Omnipotent Will which called them into being and endowed them with all their peculiar properties and powers.

The operation of these "natural causes," and the existence of certain "established laws" by which they are regulated, are explicitly recognized or obviously assumed in Scripture.[186] "Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth; they continue this day _according to thine ordinances_, for all are _thy servants_." The established constitution and settled order of Nature, as well as the "laws," "decrees," or "ordinances" by which it is regulated, are thus explicitly recognized in Scripture itself; and there are several reasons why this fact should be deliberately considered.

First, because it seems to have been assumed by our opponents, that the discovery of "natural laws," and the admission of "second causes," must necessarily be adverse, and may ultimately prove fatal, to the cause of Religion; or, in other words, that Faith must recede just in proportion as Science advances; whereas the Bible speaks both of natural objects, possessing peculiar properties and powers, and also of natural laws, as God's "ordinances" both in the heavens and the earth, but speaks nevertheless of a presiding Providence or governing Will, without ever supposing that the two are incompatible or mutually exclusive.

Secondly, because some of the less intelligent members of the Christian community itself seem to be influenced, to a certain extent, by the very same error which we ascribe to our opponents; and evince a very groundless jealousy of Science, as if they feared that the progress of physical research might have the effect of weakening the grounds on which they believe in the care of Providence and the efficacy of Prayer; whereas the Bible gives no countenance to any jealousies or fears of this kind, but affirms God's providential government and encourages man's believing prayer, at the very time when it founds upon and appeals to the established constitution and course of Nature.[187] And thirdly, because a right apprehension of the properties and powers belonging to created beings, and of the laws to which they are severally subject, will be found to conduce largely to a clear and comprehensive view of the relation which God sustains to His works.