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BUT it is right for us to hold with unswerving faith that nothing
whatever is done in this world without God. For we must acknowledge that
everything is done either by His will or by His permission, i.e., we must
believe that whatever is good is carried out by the will of God and by His
aid, and whatever is the reverse is done by His permission, when the Divine
Protection is withdrawn from us for our sins and the hardness of our
hearts, and suffers the devil and the shameful passions of the body to lord
it over us. And the words of the Apostle most assuredly teach us this, when
he says: "For this cause God delivered them up to shameful passions:" and
again: "Because they did not like to have God in their knowledge, God
delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not
convenient." And the Lord Himself says by the prophet: "But My people
did not hear My voice and Israel did not obey me: Wherefore I gave them up
unto their own hearts' lusts. They shall walk after their own
inventions."
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