573

Greatness.—­Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it, if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.  Why, then, do any complain, if it be such as can be found by seeking?

574

All things work together for good to the elect, even the obscurities of Scripture; for they honour them because of what is divinely clear.  And all things work together for evil to the rest of the world, even what is clear; for they revile such, because of the obscurities which they do not understand.

575

The general conduct of the world towards the Church:  God willing to blind and to enlighten.—­The event having proved the divinity of these prophecies, the rest ought to be believed.  And thereby we see the order of the world to be of this kind.  The miracles of the Creation and the Deluge being forgotten, God sends the law and the miracles of Moses, the prophets who prophesied particular things; and to prepare a lasting miracle, He prepares prophecies and their fulfilment; but, as the prophecies could be suspected, He desires to make them above suspicion, etc.

576

God has made the blindness of this people subservient to the good of the elect.

577

There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient obscurity to humble them.  There is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them, and make them inexcusable.—­Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Sebond.

The genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is intermingled with so many others that are useless, that it cannot be distinguished.  If Moses had kept only the record of the ancestors of Christ, that might have been too plain.  If he had not noted that of Jesus Christ, it might not have been sufficiently plain.  But, after all, whoever looks closely sees that of Jesus Christ expressly traced through Tamar,[211] Ruth,[212] etc.

Those who ordained these sacrifices, knew their uselessness; those who have declared their uselessness, have not ceased to practise them.

If God had permitted only one religion, it had been too easily known; but when we look at it closely, we clearly discern the truth amidst this confusion.

The premiss.—­Moses was a clever man.  If, then, he ruled himself by his reason, he would say nothing clearly which was directly against reason.

Thus all the very apparent weaknesses are strength.  Example; the two genealogies in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke.  What can be clearer than that this was not concerted?

578

God (and the Apostles), foreseeing that the seeds of pride would make heresies spring up, and being unwilling to give them occasion to arise from correct expressions, has put in Scripture and the prayers of the Church contrary words and sentences to produce their fruit in time.