De peste quaestiones duae explicatae

continues from previous page: we use or are armed against enemies, as if we thought we could resist God: but since those things which He wanted to remain hidden from us are left to God, we must make use of those things which, with God himself leading the way, nature dictates to us were established by Him, so that we may prolong life as long as it pleases Him: which if we do not do, we will deservedly be thought to tempt and most gravely offend God. We are so far from sinning against Him by using the means of avoiding death prescribed by Him, even if we sometimes use them in vain: namely, when the outcome reveals that we must die at a time when we still thought our life should be prolonged. Thus Asa King of Judah, criticized for relying on physicians rather than God is reproached, not because he called for physicians, but because he placed his hope of life in the physicians. Thus, after experience has taught that contagion spreads into nearby things rather than distant ones, he will not be blameworthy who, with no part of his Christian duty neglected, has withdrawn himself and his family. Indeed, he will be most blameworthy who has rashly thrown himself and his own into the danger of contagion, since, as the Apostle testifies, he who does not take such care of his own, as he ought to have while keeping piety and charity intact, is worse than an infidel.

4th Arg. But let us hear whether that which is brought forward next is any stronger. From those names, they say, which are attributed to the plague in the Sacred Scriptures, its nature is sufficiently and more than sufficiently expressed. For the plague is called the hand of God 2 Samuel 24, the sword of God 1 Chronicles 21, and it is also signified by the name of arrows Psalm 31 and 90. Therefore, it does not proceed from contagion, since neither a hand, nor a sword, nor an arrow wounds by contagion.