Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/83

in an unceasing dependence upon the will of the sovereign Maker and divine Architect. The fountains flow and the trees bear fruit, because God has so ordained them through a positive law, and he orders their course now, as in the day of their creation, because he sees that it is good to do so. Consequently, we perceive how mistaken are those persons who seek the ultimate explanation of events, either in their secondary causes, which exist entirely under the general and particular care of God, or in chance, which has no existence whatever. God alone is creator of all that exists, and preserver of all that subsists, and the author of all that happens, as we learn from these words of Ecclesiasticus, xi. 14: "Bona et mala, vita et mors, paupertas et honestas, à Deo sunt." For this reason, St. Basil says, that to refer all to God, is the sum of all Christian philosophy; and in conformity with what our Saviour says in St.Matthew, x. 29, 30: "Nonne duo passeres asse væneunt? Et unus ex illis non cadet super terram sine patre vestro. Vestri autem capilli capitis omnes numerati sunt."

Regarding things from this height, we clearly see that the natural depends on God in the same manner as the supernatural and the miraculous. The miraculous, the supernatural and the natural, are substantially identical phenomena, on account of their origin, which is the will of God-a will which is actually exercised over them all-and is in all eternal. God actually and eternally intended the resurrection of Lazarus, even as he actually and eternally intended that the trees should fructify. And the trees, apart from the will of God, have no inherent power to produce fruit, more than Lazarus had to rise from the grave after death. The difference between these phenomena is not in their essence, because