dude, where are my miracles?

"Christians helped the cause of modern rationalism by their jealous determination to sweep out of the world all miracles and magic except their own.  Some of this generation of scientists argued that Christian miracles themselves could not be vindicated unless it could be assumed that the normal workings of the universe were regular and subject to law."

Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New York: Free Press, 1965), 7.