SACRED THEMES

investigate, and either are ignorant of this one or do not study to know it, tire their minds with many perverse thoughts, become contumelious toward God, and, for the most part, with the duty of piety abolished, weaken their own faith. For, to speak by way of example, those who simply blame the infection of the air, these are never without things they do which they can approve neither by the Word of the Lord nor by their own conscience, as will be said later. It must be observed in the passages previously alleged how studiously and cautiously even Scripture refers the origin of the plague to no other causes than to God Himself, or to the angels of God, who cannot be counted among natural causes. Therefore, we must be thoroughly accustomed to judging and speaking about such great matters according to Scripture. If those things are considered which philosophers have judged in their wisdom concerning the plague, and conversely those which Scripture judges, it will be evident to everyone how unlike those things are, and how poorly it has been advised for piety that some of our theologians have begun to judge the cause of the plague from the schools of philosophers and physicians. Nor will there be anyone in this place who does not affirm that those things which are said and done according to Scripture are the safest and most certain. Furthermore, when no suspicion of error can be cast upon those who feel about the plague what Scripture feels and professes, conversely, those who establish anything about such a great matter according to the judgment of human reason will bring forth no stable opinion upon which they can intrepidly rely, especially when they have Scripture openly dissenting from them. And therefore, this must be said, that God is the author of the pestilence