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made, that He did not allow them. Other things
which He has left without general prohibition, and which for that reason are
said to be permitted, are nevertheless not always permitted. For when God
removed some one of them from us, and when, by the event, which is a
manifestation of the will of God, it appears that God does not will that we
should have a thing, that is then forbidden to us as sin; since the will of
God is that we should not have one more than another. There is this sole
difference between these two things, that it is certain that God will never
allow sin, while it is not certain that He will never allow the other. But
so long as God does not permit it, we ought to regard it as sin; so long as
the absence of God's will, which alone is all goodness and all justice,
renders it unjust and wrong.
669. To change the type, because of our weakness.
670. Types.--The Jews had grown old in these earthly thoughts, that God
loved their father Abraham, his flesh and what sprung from it; that on
account of this He had multiplied them and distinguished them from all other
nations, without allowing them to intermingle; that, when they were
languishing in Egypt, He brought them out with all these great signs in
their favour; that He fed them with manna in the desert, and led them into a
very rich land; that He gave them kings and a well-built temple, in order to
offer up beasts before Him, by the shedding of whose blood they should be
purified; and that, at last, He was to send them the Messiah to make them
masters of all the world, and foretold the
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