A miracle's speed is not its defining feature
A miracle simply means the swift control of matter by mind.
The analogy makes reform and miracle share a desirable end: intelligent agency overcoming an apparently fixed obstacle. It does not by itself distinguish miracle from an unusually rapid natural operation. Aquinas supplies the missing distinction in the Summa theologiae, I, question 105: a miracle exceeds the order of created causes, whereas ordinary effects also depend on God. In article 8, his third rank of miracle includes a familiar kind of effect produced in an extraordinary manner, such as recovery without the usual natural process. Speed can matter as part of that manner; it is not the general definition. Summa I.105.5–8, English Dominican translation, revised edition 1920.
Article 6 closely parallels Chesterton's appeal to divine liberty: the creator is not subordinate to the order of secondary causes. It also qualifies the image of unbounded freedom: God cannot act against his own goodness or will. This is a theological comparison, not evidence that Chesterton took the formulation from Aquinas.
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