y of redemption; and therefore
the events of this history are precisely those miracles upon which our
deepest religious interest is concentrated. But in spite of all these
distinctions in degree, that natural relationship and that {366} common
character of the miraculous between the miracles of nature, the miracles of
the history of man, and the miracles of the history of salvation, remain
established; and we render a service to religious consciousness, as well as
to the scientific conception of the idea of miracles, if by returning to
the Biblical idea of miracles, as we propose, we make a more comprehensive
definition of miracles possible.

Another advantage which we derive from returning to the Biblical idea of
miracles consists in the fact that it preserves us from the _magical_ and
necromantic in our conceptions of miracles; that it allows us a _grouping
of miracles according to value_, which corresponds with the idea of God and
of the divine government as well as with the idea of miracles itself; and
that in the presence of all single relations of miracles it summons us to
_criticise_ and _investigate the real state of the case_. For the nature of
miracles does not consist in the inconceivable--at least not in the
planless and arbitrary,--but in the fact that they call the attention of
man to God and his government; and this leads to the reverse of all that is
magical and necromantic, because the magical is unworthy of the idea of God
and contradicts all the other self-testimony of God. Now if the nature of
miracles consists in the fact that they call my attention to God and his
government, an event will become a miracle to me, and increase its value,
in the degree in which it refers me to God and his government, and
especially in the degree in which it refers me to that government of God
which is the most important to me--namely, to the action of God in me and
mankind, with which he is bringing about his ends in salvation; {367} but
in the degree in which an event loses this character, it becomes to me an
event without miraculous or religious significance. This gives a quite
definite grouping of miracles according to value, from those which belong
to the central manifestations of the divine plan of salvation and way of
redemption, to those which lie in the extreme periphery of religious
interest. It is a grouping which corresponds with the idea of God just as
much as with the idea of miracles; while all other divis