In the second place, a more numerous class have maintained that the Supreme Being, after creating the world, committed its preservation and government either to a subordinate agent, or to the laws which he impressed upon matter and mind, which possess an inherent power to execute themselves; so that, in fact, God exercises no direct and immediate agency in natural operations.
— from The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences by Edward Hitchcock

The fish are good enough, no doubt; and it may be from the skewer-wood; but they have a sort, not to say a smell, but a manner of reminding one——" "Of the savoury stuff they feed on," said I; "and the thorough good use they make of it.
— from The Maid of Sker by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore