7. There is no deception in these miracles of God, no subtle pretence to please or to deceive. These works of the Son of God were done from no desire for self-display; He Whom countless myriads of angels serve never deluded man. What was there of ours that He could need, through Whom all that we have was created? Did He demand praise from us who now are heavy with sleep, now sated with lust, now laden with the guilt of riot and bloodshed, now drunken from revelling;—He Whom Archangels, and Dominions, and Principalities, and Powers, without sleep or cessation or sin, praise in heaven with everlasting and unwearied voice? They praise Him because He, the Image of the Invisible God, created all their host in Himself, made the worlds, established the heavens, appointed the stars, fixed the earth, laid the foundations of the deep; because in after time He was born, He conquered death, broke the gates of hell, won for Himself a people to be His fellow-heirs, lifted flesh from corruption up to the glory of eternity. There was nothing, then, that He might gain from us, that could induce Him to assume the splendour of these mysterious and inexplicable works, as though He needed our praise. But God foresaw how human sin and folly would be misled, and knew that disbelief would dare to pass its judgment even on the things of God, and therefore He vanquished presumption by tokens of His power which must give pause to our boldest.

7. Haec non sui causa egit Christus, sed ut humanum de Dei rebus judicandi pruritum retunderet.---Non habent itaque divina adulationem, nec subest Deo ad placendum fallendumque simulatio. Haec filii Dei opera non de jactantiae studio sunt profecta: neque enim ille, cui innumerabilia millia millium angelorum 0079C serviunt, adulatus est homini. Quid enim eorum quae nostra sunt indigebat, per quem sunt universa quae nostra sunt? An honorem a nobis expostulabat, nunc a somno stupidis, nunc de luxu noctium fessis, nunc post rixas et caedes dierum male consciis, nunc post convivia ebriis, quem Archangeli, et Dominatus, et Principatus, et Potestates sine somno, sine occupatione, sine crimine aeternis et indefessis in coelo vocibus laudant: et laudant, quia ipse invisibilis Dei imago omnes in se creaverit, saecula fecerit, coelum firmaverit, astra distinxerit, terram fundaverit, abyssos demerserit; ipse deinceps homo natus sit, mortem vicerit, portas inferi fregerit, cohaeredem sibi plebem acquisiverit, carnem in aeternitatis gloriam ex corruptione transtulerit. Nihil ergo 0079D iste eguit a nobis, ut haec eum apud nos inenarrabilia et inintelligibilia opera tamquam egentem laudis ornarent. Sed providens Deus nequitiae et stultitiae 0080A humanae errorem, et sciens eo usque infidelitatem prorupturam esse, ut sibi de Dei rebus judicium praesumeret, audaciam nostram earum, de quibus ambigeretur, rerum vicit exemplis.