{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/008/0080450.htm","path":"chr/ecf/008/0080450.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/008/0080450.htm","text":"Chapter XLIV.\u2014Ordinate and Inordinate.\nThen the old man: \u201cI should like to hear from you why those useless things are made by the will of that supreme mind?\u201d \u201cIf,\u201d said he, \u201cit is fully manifest to you that there is in them the work of mind and reason, then you will not hesitate to say also why they were made, and to declare that they have been rightly made.\u201d To this the old man answered: \u201cI am not able, my son, to say that those things which seem formed by art are made by mind, by reason of other things which we see to be done unjustly and disorderly in the world.\u201d \u201cIf,\u201d says Aquila, \u201cthose things which are done disorderly do not allow you say that they are done by the providence of God, why do not those things which are done orderly compel you to say that they are done by God, and that irrational nature cannot produce a rational work? For it is certain, nor do we at all deny, that in this world some things are done orderly, and some disorderly. Those things, therefore, that are done rationally, believe that they are done by providence; but those that are done irrationally and inordinately, that they befall naturally, and happen accidentally. But I wonder that men do not perceive, that where there is sense things may be done ordinately and inordinately, but where there is no sense neither the one nor the other can be done; for reason makes order, and the course of order necessarily produces something inordinate, if anything contrary happen to disturb order.\u201d Then the old man: \u201cThis very thing I wish you to show me.\u201d","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VIII: Pseudo-Clementine Literature.: Chapter XLIV","type":"page"}