Furthermore, seeing admiration and wonder are consequent to the knowledge and experience, wherewith men are endued, some more, some less; it followeth, that the same thing may be a miracle to one, and not to another. And thence it is, that ignorant and superstitious men make great wonders of those works, which other men, knowing to proceed from nature, (which is not the immediate, but the ordinary work of God), admire not at all: as when eclipses of the sun and moon have been taken for supernatural works, by the common people; when nevertheless, there were others, who could from their natural causes have foretold the very hour they should arrive: or, as when a man, by confederacy and secret intelligence, getting knowledge of the private actions of an ignorant, unwary man, thereby tells him what he has done in former time; it seems to him a miraculous thing; but amongst wise, and cautelous men, such miracles as those, cannot easily be done. [Sidenote: The end of miracles.] Again, it belongeth to the nature of a miracle, that it be wrought for the procuring of credit to God’s messengers, ministers, and prophets, that thereby men may know, they are called, sent, and employed by God, and thereby be the better inclined to obey them. And therefore, though the creation of the world, and after that the destruction of all living creatures in the universal deluge, were admirable works; yet because they were not done to procure credit to any prophet, or other minister of God, they use not to be called miracles. For how admirable soever any work be, the admiration consisteth not in that it could be done; because men naturally believe the Almighty can do all things; but because he does it at the prayer or word of a man. But the works of God in Egypt, by the hand of Moses, were properly miracles; because they were done with intention to make the people of Israel believe, that Moses came unto them, not out of any design of his own interest, but as sent from God. Therefore, after God had commanded him to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage, when he said (_Exod._ iv. 1) _They will not believe me, but will say, the Lord hath not appeared unto me_, God gave him power, to turn the rod he had in his hand into a serpent, and again to return it into a rod; and by putting his hand into his bosom, to make it leprous; and again by putting it out, to make it whole; to make the children of Israel believe (as it is in verse 5) that the God of their fathers had appeared unto him: and if that were not enough, he gave him power to turn their waters into blood. And when he had done these miracles before the people, it is said (verse 31) that _they believed him_. Nevertheless, for fear of Pharaoh, they durst not yet obey him. Therefore the other works which were done to plague Pharaoh and the Egyptians, tended all to make the Israelites believe in Moses, and were properly miracles. In like manner if we consider all the miracles done