Ezekiel.—They say: These are the people of God who speak thus.
It is said, "Believe in the Church"; but it is not said, "Believe in miracles"; because the last is natural, and not the first. The one had need of a precept, not the other. Hezekiah.
The synagogue was only a type, and thus it did not perish; and it was only a type, and so it is decayed. It was a type which contained the truth, and thus it has lasted until it no longer contained the truth.
My reverend father, all this happened in types. Other religions perish; this one perishes not.
Miracles are more important than you think. They have served for the foundation, and will serve for the continuation of the Church till Antichrist, till the end.
The two witnesses.
In the Old Testament and the New, miracles are performed in connection with types. Salvation, or an useless thing, if not to show that we must submit to the Scriptures: type of the sacrament.
853
[We must judge soberly of divine ordinances, my father. Saint Paul in the isle of Malta.]
854
The hardness of the Jesuits then surpasses that of the Jews, since those refused to believe Jesus Christ innocent only because they doubted if His miracles were of God. Whereas the Jesuits, though unable to doubt that the miracles of Port Royal are of God, do not cease to doubt still the innocence of that house.
855
I suppose that men believe miracles. You corrupt religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies. You arrange it at your will.
856
On the miracle.—As God has made no family more happy, let it also be the case that He find none more thankful.
