is defined by Dr Samuel Clarke, to be a work effected in a manner different from the common and regular method of providence, by the interposition either of God himself, or some intelligent agent superior to man.

It has been much controverted, whether true miracles can be worked by any less power than the immediate power of God; and whether to complete the evidence of a miracle, the nature of the doctrine pretended to be proved by it is necessary to be taken into the consideration. The above learned author undertakes to set this matter in a clear light, as follows.

In respect to the power of God, and the nature of the things themselves, all things that are possible at all, are equally easy to be done: it is at least as great an act of power to cause the sun to move at all, as to cause it at any time to stand still; yet this latter we call a miracle, the former not.

What degrees of power God may reasonably be supposed to have communicated to created beings or subordinate intelligences, is impossible for us to determine; therefore a miracle is not rightly defined to be such an effect as could not have been produced by any less power than the divine omnipotence. There is no instance of any miracle in scripture, which to an ordinary spectator would necessarily imply the immediate operation of original, absolute, and undervived power.

All things that are done in the world, are done either immediately by God himself, or by created intelligent beings, matter not being at all capable of any laws or powers whatsoever; so that all those things which we say are the effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, are properly the effects of God acting upon matter continually and every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some created intelligent beings. Consequently it is no more against the course of nature for an angel to keep a man from sinking in the water, than for a man to hold a stone from falling in the air, by overpowering the law of gravitation; and yet the one is a miracle, the other not so.

The only possible ways by which a spectator may certainly certainly and infallibly distinguish whether miracles be the works either immediately of God himself, or of some good angel employed by him; or whether, on the contrary, they are the works of evil spirits, are these: If the doctrine attested by miracles, be in itself impious, or manifestly tending to promote vice; then, without all question, the miracles, how great forever they may appear to us, are neither worked by God himself, nor by his commission. If the doctrine itself be indifferent, and at the same time there be worked other miracles more and greater than the former, then that doctrine which is attested by the superior power must necessarily be believed to be divine: this was the case of Moses and the Egyptian magicians. If, in the last place, the doctrine attested by miracles tends to promote the honour of God, and the practice of righteousness among men; and yet nevertheless be not in itself demonstrable, nor could without a revelation be discovered to be actually true, and there is no pretence of more and greater miracles to contradict it, which is the case of the doctrine and miracles of Christ; then the miracles are unquestionably divine, and the doctrine must, without all controversy, be acknowledged as an immediate and infallible revelation from God.

The Lord Bacon observes, that a miracle was never wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God: but miracles, says he, are designed to convert idolaters and the superstitious, who have acknowledged a deity, but erred in the manner of adoring him; because no light of nature extends so far as fully to declare the will and true worship of God.

Acosta inquiring into the cause why miracles are not wrought by the present missionaries for the conversion of heathen nations, as they were by the Christians of the primitive ages, gives this as one reason: That the Christians at first were ignorant men, and the Gentiles learned; but now, on the contrary, all the learning in the world is employed in the defence of the gospel, and there is nothing but ignorance to oppose it; and there can be no need of farther miracles in so good a cause, when it is in the hands of such able advocates against such weak adversaries. See the article ABRIDGMENT.