De peste quaestiones duae explicatae

by what means He can save them: that they do not love God from the heart: that, loving earthly goods, they neglect heavenly ones: that they fear death too much: that they oppose themselves to the will of God, which is always good: that they think they are stronger than God and can escape His hand: that they openly violate the law of Christ and nature, by which we are commanded to do to others what we would wish to be done to ourselves: that they do and teach what no Christian has done, but has been practiced by the heathens. And these are the things that they say, to which the latter have absolutely nothing to respond, who without exception advise flight under the pretext of preserving life. Therefore, if these things are said against those who flee the plague in such a way that they deviate even a little from the laws of piety and charity, I agree with their adversaries, and I decree that those who flee in such a way, when they ought rather to run toward them if they had even a crumb of humanity, are worthy of every reproach. But if these words are turned against those who withdraw impelled by just causes, and keep to that measure by which they omit no parts of their duty either toward God or toward their neighbor (which we say can be done very often), we affirm that all these arguments, however weighty they may seem on the surface, are of no moment if the matter itself is diligently weighed. For, to respond to the first argument, although the immutable decree of God and His eternal providence have fixed the unmoved boundaries of our life, this does not in the least take away the ordinary and legitimate causes for preserving life, not even if someone should receive an oracle for the prolonging of life, as we demonstrated a little earlier by the manifest example of Paul, Acts 27:14 and 31, let alone that it is not permitted to use them, when it is still hidden from us what God has decreed from eternity regarding our life being either extended or ended.