DE PESTE.

We have another example in which I wish they would exercise themselves diligently and with a good conscience, and demonstrate that which they say about the air, and which they presume so confidently has been believed in all ages. It is easy for us to demonstrate that at that time, when charity was purer and less contaminated by the opinions of philosophers, what they say was not believed, but only that which we have defended thus far, which was received by pious hearts and believed, and was proposed to us as an example so that we might believe. The passage stands in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. This is in confession among all, just as Scripture itself also testifies, that Israel was struck by the pestilence. God gives King David the power of choosing one from three punishments; he himself chooses the pestilence, by which it is also immediately present and kills 70,000 men in his kingdom, from Dan even to Beersheba. Now, you many who claim the air and natural causes, how could it be managed, that once the opinion was accepted, so great a plague should arise immediately, and in so short a time consume so many thousands? You will say the air was immediately corrupted by God; I indeed knew you would say this, but explain to us those natural causes that existed so suddenly in the air. If you confess that God could have disturbed the air without them, what need is there for such circumlocutions, and why is it necessary to wander so far from the target? If He could do that, let us confess what Scripture has, that these men were struck by the Lord through the angel without infection of the air. Nor do you answer anything unless you show that the air itself was infected and that the causes in it were natural. But where will you stand when your...