“Since, as we already have had occasion to observe, the proper effect of a miracle is _clearly_ to mark the divine interposition, it must therefore have characters proper to indicate such interposition; and these _criteria_ are six in number. “1. It is required, then, in the first place, that a fact or event which is stated to be miraculous should have an important end, worthy of its author. “2. It must be instantaneously and publicly performed. “3. It must be sensible (that is, obvious to the senses) and easy to be observed; in other words, the fact or event must be such that the senses of mankind can clearly and fully judge of it. “4. It must be independent of second causes. “5. Not only public monuments must be kept up, but some outward actions must be constantly performed in memory of the fact thus publicly wrought. “6. And such monuments must be set up, and such actions and observances be instituted, at the very time when those events took place, and afterwards be continued without interruption.”—Vol. I. p. 214 and 215. From these examples we may see what different definitions have been given of miracles, and that the definition is not so easy a thing as one might at first suppose. All depends on the point of view which we take. If we look only at the outward fact, a miracle is a wonderful event, a portent, something out of the common course of nature, and unparalleled in common human experience. But if we look at it as regards the character of him who works the miracle, it then becomes a supernatural work, or a preternatural work, having a divine or a demoniac origin. But, on the whole, the Orthodox doctrine of a miracle seems to be this—that it is a wonderful work, contrary to the laws of nature, wrought by the direct agency of God, in proof of the divine commission of him by whom it is done. The two essential points of the definition are, that a miracle is _contrary to the laws of nature_; and that it is _the only logical proof of the divine authority of the miracle-worker_. We call this the orthodox definition, although we must admit that no one in modern times has presented this view more forcibly and decidedly than the Unitarian Andrews Norton, and though many Orthodox men have taken a different view. § 3. The different Explanations of the Miracles of the Bible. The four explanations of the miracles of the New Testament (to which we now confine ourselves) are these:—