lust of hurting. Many an action then which in men's sight is
disapproved, is by Thy testimony approved; and many, by men praised,
are (Thou being witness) condemned: because the show of the action,
and the mind of the doer, and the unknown exigency of the period,
severally vary. But when Thou on a sudden commandest an unwonted and
unthought of thing, yea, although Thou hast sometime forbidden it, and
still for the time hidest the reason of Thy command, and it be against
the ordinance of some society of men, who doubts but it is to be done,
seeing that society of men is just which serves Thee? But blessed
are they who know Thy commands! For all things were done by Thy
servants; either to show forth something needful for the present, or
to foreshow things to come.

These things I being ignorant of, scoffed at those Thy holy servants
and prophets. And what gained I by scoffing at them, but to be scoffed
at by Thee, being insensibly and step by step drawn on to those
follies, as to believe that a fig-tree wept when it was plucked, and
the tree, its mother, shed milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding
(plucked by some other's, not his own, guilt) had some Manichaean
saint eaten, and mingled with his bowels, he should breathe out of
it angels, yea, there shall burst forth particles of divinity, at
every moan or groan in his prayer, which particles of the most high
and true God had remained bound in that fig, unless they had been
set at liberty by the teeth or belly of some "Elect" saint! And I,
miserable, believed that more mercy was to be shown to the fruits of
the earth than men, for whom they were created. For if any one an
hungered, not a Manichaean, should ask for any, that morsel would seem
as it were condemned to capital punishment, which should be given him.

And Thou sentest Thine hand from above, and drewest my soul out of