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And so then we see that from the beginning God created everything
perfect, nor would there have been need for anything to have been added to
His original arrangement--as if it were shortsighted and imperfect--if
everything had continued in that state and condition in which it had been
created by Him. And therefore in the case of those who sinned before the
law and even before the flood we see that God visited them with a righteous
judgment, because they deserved to be punished without any excuse, for
having transgressed the law of nature; nor should we fall into the
blasphemous slanders of those who are ignorant of this reason, and so
depreciate the God of the Old Testament, and run down our faith, and say
with a sneer: Why then did it please your God to will to promulgate the law
after so many thousand years, While He suffered such long ages to pass
without any law? But if He afterwards discovered something better, then it
appears that at the beginning of the world His wisdom was inferior and
poorer, and that afterwards as if taught by experience He began to provide
for something better, and to amend and improve His original arrangements. A
thing which certainly cannot happen to the infinite foreknowledge of God,
nor can these assertions be made about Him by the mad folly of heretics
without grievous blasphemy, as Ecclesiastes says: "I have learnt that all
the words which God hath made from the beginning shall continue forever:
nothing can be added to them, and nothing can be taken away from them,"
and therefore "the law is not made for the righteous, but for the
unrighteous, and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the wicked
and profane." For as they had the sound and complete system of natural
laws implanted in them they had no need of this external law in addition,
and one committed to writing, and what was given as an aid to that natural
law. From which we infer by the clearest of reasonings that that law
committed to writing need not have been given at the beginning (for it was
unnecessary for this to be done while the natural law still remained, and
was not utterly violated) nor could evangelical perfection have been
granted before the law had been kept. For they could not have listened to
this saying: "If a man strikes thee on the right cheek, turn to him the
other also," who were not content to avenge wrongs done to them with the
even justice of the lex talionis, but repaid a very slight touch with
deadly kicks and wounds with weapons, and for a single truth sought to take
the life of those who had struck them. Nor could it be said to them, "love
your enemies," among whom it was considered a great thing and most
important if they loved their friends, but avoided their enemies and
dissented from them only in hatred without being eager to oppress and kill
them.
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