CHAPTER VII

IN REGARD TO THINGS ABOVE OUR COMPREHENSION, WE SHOULD GLORIFY THE CREATOR’S WISDOM, AND ATTRIBUTE THEIR CAUSES TO HIM ALONE, AND NOT TO CHANCE

IN fact, this word “chance” is the expression of men who think vaguely and at random; who are unable to understand the causes of these things, and who, owing to the feebleness of their own apprehensions, conceive that those things for which they cannot assign a reason, are ordered without reason or design. There are, unquestionably, some things which possess wonderful natural properties, and the full understanding and explanation of which is very obscure: for example, the nature of hot springs. For no one can easily explain the cause of so powerful a fire; and it is indeed surprising that though surrounded on all sides by a body of cold water, it loses none of its native heat. These phenomena appear to be of rare occurrence throughout the world, being intended, I am persuaded, to afford to mankind convincing evidence of the power of that Providence which ordains that two directly opposite natures, heat and cold, should thus proceed from the self-same source. Many indeed, yea, numberless are the gifts which God has bestowed for the comfort and enjoyment of man; and of these the fruit of the olive tree and the vine deserve especial notice; the one for its power of renovating and cheering the spirit, the other because it not only ministers to our enjoyment, but is adapted for the cure of bodily disease. Marvellous, too, is the course of rivers, flowing night and day with unceasing motion, and presenting a type of everlasting life: and equally wonderful is the alternate succession of day and night.