Part 69

But if miracles are true we cannot persuade men of all doctrine, for that will not come to pass: Si angelus....

Rule. We must judge of doctrine by miracles, we must judge of miracles by doctrine. All this is true, but there is no contradiction.

For we must distinguish the times.

You are glad to know general rules, thinking by that to introduce difficulties, and render all useless. We shall stop you, my good father; truth is one, and strong.

It is impossible from the duty God owes us, that a man, concealing his evil doctrine, and only allowing the good to appear, pretending that he is in conformity with God and the Church, should work miracles to insinuate insensibly a false and subtle doctrine. This cannot be.

Still less, that God who knows the heart, should work miracles in favour of such an one.

There is much difference between temptation and leading into error. God tempts, but he leads not into error. To tempt is to present occasions which impose no necessity; if we love not God we shall do a certain thing. To lead into error, is to place a man in a necessity of forming and following false conclusion.

This is what God cannot do, which nevertheless he would do, if in an obscure question he wrought miracles on the side of falsehood.

In the Old Testament, when they would turn you from God, in the New when they would turn you from Jesus Christ.

Such are the occasions on which we exclude certain miracles from credence. There need be no other exclusions.

But it does not therefore follow that they had the right to exclude all the prophets who came to them. They would have sinned in not excluding those who denied God, and would also have sinned in excluding those who denied him not.

So soon, then, as we see a miracle we should at once either acquiesce or have signal marks against it. We must see if it denies either a God, or Jesus Christ, or the Church.

Miracles avail not for conversion, but for condemnation. I P. ix. 113, a. 10, ad. 2.

Si tu es Christus, dic nobis.

Opera quæ ego facio in nomine patris mei, hæc testimonium perhibent de me.

Sed non vos creditis quia non estis ex ovibus meis. Oves mei vocem meam audiunt.

Joh. vi. 30. Quod ergo tu facis signum ut videamus, et credamus tibi? Non dicunt: Quam doctrinam prædicas?

Nemo potest facere signa quæ tu facis, nisi Deus fuerit cum illo.

2 Mach. xiv. 15. Deus qui signis evidentibus suam portionem protegit.

Volumus signum videre de cœlo tentantes eum. Luc. xi. 16.

Generatio prava signum quærit; sed non dabitur.

Et ingemiscens ait; Quid generatio ista signum quærit. Marc. viii. 12. They asked a sign with a bad intent. Et non poterat facere. And nevertheless he promises them the sign of Jonah, the great and incomparable evidence of his resurrection.

Nisi videritis signa non creditis. He does not blame them for not believing without there having been miracles, but without their having been themselves witnesses of them.

Antichrist in signis mendacibus, says St Paul. 2 Thess. ii.

Secundum operationem Satanæ. In seductione ii qui pereunt eo quod charitatem veritatis non receperunt ut salvi fierent. Ideo mittet illis Deus operationem erroris ut credant mendacia.

As in the passage of Moses: Tentat enim vos Deus, utrum diligatis eum.

Ecce prædixi vobis, vos ergo videte.

The Church has three kinds of enemies, the Jews, who have never been of her body; the heretics, who have withdrawn from it; and bad Christians, who rend her from within.