which they know least, and consequently admire most. (5) In fact, the common
people can only adore God, and refer all things to His power by removing
natural causes, and conceiving things happening out of their due course, and
only admires the power of God when the power of nature is conceived of as in
subjection to it.

(6) This idea seems to have taken its rise among the early Jews who saw the
Gentiles round them worshipping visible gods such as the sun, the moon, the
earth, water, air, &c., and in order to inspire the conviction that such
divinities were weak and inconstant, or changeable, told how they themselves
were under the sway of an invisible God, and narrated their miracles,
trying further to show that the God whom they worshipped arranged the whole
of nature for their sole benefit: this idea was so pleasing to humanity that
men go on to this day imagining miracles, so that they may believe
themselves God's favourites, and the final cause for which God created and
directs all things.

(7) What pretension will not people in their folly advance! (8) They have no
single sound idea concerning either God or nature, they confound God's
decrees with human decrees, they conceive nature as so limited that they
believe man to be its chief part! (9) I have spent enough space in setting
forth these common ideas and prejudices concerning nature and miracles, but
in order to afford a regular demonstration I will show -

(10) I. That nature cannot be contravened, but that she preserves a fixed
and immutable order, and at the same time I will explain what is meant by a
miracle.

(11) II. That God's nature and existence, and consequently His providence
cannot be known from miracles, but that they can all be much better