If doctrine regulate miracles, miracles are useless for doctrine.
If miracles regulate....
Objection to the rule.
Discrimination between times. One rule in Moses's day, another at present.
Miracle. An effect which exceeds the natural force of the means employed, and non-miracle an effect not exceeding the natural force of the means employed. Thus those who heal by invocation of the devil work no miracle, for that does not exceed the natural power of the devil But....
The combinations of miracles.
A second miracle may suppose a first, but a first cannot suppose a second.
No one has ever suffered martyrdom for the miracles he says he has seen; the folly of men would perhaps go as far as martyrdom, for those which the Turks believe by tradition, but not for those they have seen.
Were there no false miracles there would be certainty.
Were there no rule to test them, miracles would be useless, and there would be no reason for belief.