Let us love then, Theotimus, and adore in humility of spirit this depth of God's judgments, which, as S. Augustine says, the holy Apostle discovers not, but admires, when he cries out: O the depth of God's, judgments! "Who can count the sands of the sea, and the drops of rain, or measure the depths of the abyss," says that excellent understanding S. Gregory Nazianzen: [211] "and who can sound the depth of the Divine Wisdom by which it has created all things, and governs them as it pleases and judges fit. For indeed it suffices that, after the example of the Apostle, we admire it without stopping at the difficulty and obscurity of it. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Theotimus, the reasons of God's will cannot be penetrated by our intelligence till we see the face of him who reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly; [212] doing all that he doth in measure, and number, and weight; [213] and to whom the Psalmist says, Lord, thou hast made all things in wisdom." [214]

How often does it happen that we are ignorant why and how even the works of men are done? And therefore, says the same holy Bishop of Nazianzus, "as the artist is not ignorant of his art, so the things of this world are not carelessly and unskilfully made, though we know not the reasons of them." Entering into a clockmaker's shop, we shall sometimes find a clock no greater than an orange, which yet has in it a hundred or two hundred pieces, of which some serve to show the time, others to strike the hour or give the morning alarm; we shall see in it little wheels, some turning to the right, others to the left, one by the top, another by the bottom; and the balance which with measured beats keeps rising and falling on either side. We wonder how art could join together such a number of pieces, with so just a correspondence, not knowing what each little piece serves for, nor why it is made so, unless the master tell us; knowing only in general that all serve either to point out or to strike the hour. It is reported that the good Indians will stand whole days musing upon a clock, to hear it strike at the times fixed, and not being able to guess how it is done, they do not therefore say that it is without art or reason, but are taken with love and respect towards those who regulate the clocks, admiring them as more than men. Theotimus, we see in this manner the universe, but specially human nature, to be a sort of clock, composed with so great a variety of actions and movements that we cannot but be astonished at it. And we know in general that these so diversely ordered pieces serve all, either to point out, as on a dial-plate, God's most holy justice or as by a bell of praise, to sound the triumphant mercy of his goodness. But to know the particular use of every piece, how it is ordered to the general end, or why it is so, we cannot conceive, unless the sovereign Workman instruct us. Now he conceals his art from us, to the end that with more reverence we may admire it, till in heaven he shall ravish us with the sweetness of his wisdom, where in the abundance of his love he will discover unto us the reasons, means and motives of all that shall have passed in the world towards our eternal salvation.