Varieties: or, A surveigh of rare and excellent matters necessary and delectable for all sorts of persons. Wherein the principall heads of diverse sciences are illustrated, rare secrets of naturall things unfoulded, &c. Digested into five bookes, whose severall chapters with their contents are to be seene in the table after the epistle dedicatory. By David Person, of Loghlands in Scotland, Gentleman.

SECT. 1.

The definition of Miracles, with their distinction; In what time they were requisite, in what not, &c.

SAint Augustine, that famous and reverend Father of the Church in his 6. Booke de utilitate credendi ad Honoratium, defineth Miracles,* 1.1 to bee things beyond the expectation and power of the beholder: Whereof there are two kindes, True and False.

The false are such Miracles as are not in effect the thing they seeme to be;* 1.2 or if they be, they are not of any power that excelleth nature, but meerely of and by the power of nature, though obscured and hid; which the bad spirits as well as the good can performe.

True Miracles are done by the power of God,* 1.3 beyond all faculty of created nature, partly to draw the beholder to a due and true admiration of him in them, and partly to confirme their saith: such as these were; the bringing back of the shadow ten Degrees in the Diall of Ahaz, for Ezechias: A Virgin to conceive with childe, and yet remaine a Virgin: To draw water out of a hard Rock: To make the Sea to part in twaine; the Sunne to stand still; to turne water into wine; to cause Manna fall from heaven, and many of the like kinde com∣prehended in holy Scripture, which indeede were miraculous things of themselves, if we consider the nature of their doing; where, on the other side, false Miracles may,* 1.4 in a manner, be thought mira∣culous, but not so much for the nature of their do∣ing, as for the manner how they are done; Neque enim (saith one) constant miracula magnitudine ope∣rum; so these Miracles are not so much to be mea∣sured by the greatnesse of the worke, as by the way of doing of them: and such as these bad spirits cannot bring to passe, because how wonderfull so∣ever their miracles appeare to be, yet they doe no wayes exceede the reach of Nature: Itaut mirabi lia quanquam sint, non proinde sint, & Miracula.

Neither is it to be denied, but that God serveth himselfe with,* 1.5 and permitteth the false Miracle∣workers, intending thereby rather to trie the faiths of the beholders of them, than any way to allow or confirme their doings, as Deut. cap. 13. vers. 3. may be seene.

Now, where it is said before, that true Miracles are for the confirming, as false ones are for trying of our faiths; this must be understood to be, when the workers of them doe teach withall so sound doctrine, that his Miracles may bee judged by it, not it by them. Hereby I intend not to enforce a necessity of miracles perpetually for confirming our faith;* 1.6 for though, during the Churches infan∣cie, they served some way towards the establish∣ing and confirming of the weake and wavering faiths of the hearers; yet now they are not so re∣quisite, seeing the Law, Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles workes and writing are so universally preached unto all.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Two kindes of Miracles.
• * 1.2

  False Mira∣cles which.
• * 1.3

  True Mira∣cles.
• * 1.4

  Difference betwixt true and false Mi∣racles.
• * 1.5

  Why God permitteth false miracles.
• * 1.6

  When mira∣cles were most neces∣sary.