46. But, to say the same
things again and again,3725
| 3725
Lit., “again and more frequently.” |
let this belief, so monstrous and
impious, be put
far from us, that
God, who
preserves3726
all things,
the origin of the
virtues and
chief in
3727
benevolence, and, to exalt Him with
human
praise, most
wise, just, making all things
perfect, and that
permanently,
3728
| 3728
Lit., “things perfect, and preserving the measure of their
completeness;” i.e., continuing so. |
either made
anything which was imperfect and not quite correct,
3729
| 3729
So the ms., LB., Oberthür and
Oehler, reading claudum et quod minus esset a
recto. All other edd. read eminus—“at a
distance from the right.” |
or was the cause of misery or
danger
to any being, or arranged, commanded, and enjoined the very acts in
which man’s
life is passed and employed to flow from His
arrangement. These things are unworthy of
3730
Him, and weaken the force of His
greatness; and so
far from His being believed to be their
author,
whoever
imagines that man is sprung from Him is
guilty of blasphemous
impiety,
man, a being
miserable and
wretched, who is sorry that
he exists,
hates and laments his
state, and understands that he was
produced for no other reason than lest evils should not have
something
3731
through which
to spread themselves, and that there might always be wretched ones by
whose agonies some unseen and cruel power,
3732
| 3732
Lit., “some power latent and cruelty.” |
adverse to men, should be
gratified.
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