SACRED THEMES

search? Is it not sufficient that we know these things which happen suddenly from the Lord can be done by His own direct hand, with no intervening instrument? And concerning those things which He affirms in His Scripture that He does, where He does not show intermediate causes, is it not enough to have believed that He did it, even if He did not use natural causes? Or can He not act unless they are present? If anything has been done without applying nature, did He not do it Himself? Or is it permitted to curtail the hand of God? And if in this opinion nothing could be so manifestly shown from the very fountain of Scripture, which often proclaims against the course of nature, it could still have nothing of the impious, nor where the hearts of the pious would be offended. It will happen quite differently, however, if we assert that God does not act except through natural causes, and that those very facts are natural which God wished to be held as miracles, so that contrary to the laws of nature, His omnipotence would become known to the world. Perhaps, however, those who are so fixed on natural causes that they say all works of God arise from them will object to us that God can, if He wills, summon these causes into His service. Whether God can, if He wills, is not the question here: but because they dare to expressly confess that these things happen by natural causes, this is what must be demonstrated by them: in place of "God can," they assume "God wills," and they can never prove it, even with the facts themselves protesting, which they believe to arise from the concept of nature. Nor is the matter of little moment, since they later build upon this foundation everything which we believe to be opposed to the foundation of piety. One should not have insisted upon such a slippery principle, so