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at once
that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore.
But for those in whom this light is extinguished, and in whom we purpose to
rekindle it, persons destitute of faith and grace, who, seeking with all
their light whatever they see in nature that can bring them to this
knowledge, find only obscurity and darkness; to tell them that they have
only to look at the smallest things which surround them, and they will see
God openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great and important
matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to claim to have concluded
the proof with such an argument, is to give them ground for believing that
the proofs of our religion are very weak. And I see by reason and experience
that nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt.
It is not after this manner that Scripture speaks, which has a better
knowledge of the things that are of God. It says, on the contrary, that God
is a hidden God, and that, since the corruption of nature, He has left men
in a darkness from which they can escape only through Jesus Christ, without
whom all communion with God is cut off. Nemo novit Patrem, nisi Filius, et
cui voluerit Filius revelare.30
This is what Scripture points out to us, when it says in so many places that
those who seek God find Him. It is not of that light, "like the noonday
sun," that this is said. We do not say that those who seek the noonday sun,
or water in the sea, shall find them; and hence the evidence of God must not
be of this nature. So it tells us elsewhere: Vere tu es Deus absconditus.
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