I prefer to follow Jesus Christ than any other, because He has miracle, prophecy, doctrine, perpetuity, etc.

The Donatists.  No miracle which obliges them to say it is the devil.

The more we particularise God, Jesus Christ, the Church ...

822

If there were no false miracles, there would be certainty.  If there were no rule to judge of them, miracles would be useless, and there would be no reason for believing.

Now there is, humanly speaking, no human certainty, but we have reason.

823

Either God has confounded the false miracles, or He has foretold them; and in both ways He has raised Himself above what is supernatural with respect to us, and has raised us to it.

824

Miracles serve not to convert, but to condemn. (Q. 113, A. 10, Ad. 2.)[327]

825

Reasons why we do not believe.

John xii, 37. Cum autem tanta signa fecisset, non credebant in eum, ut sermo Isayae impleretur.  Excaecavit, etc.

Haec dixit Isaias, quando vidit gloriam ejus et locutus est de eo.

Judaei signa petunt et Graeci sapientiam quaerunt, nos autem Jesum crucifixum.  Sed plenum signis, sed plenum sapientia; vos autem Christum non crucifixum et religionem sine miraculis et sine sapientia.[328]

What makes us not believe in the true miracles, is want of love.  John:  Sed vos non creditis, quia non estis ex ovibus.[329] What makes us believe the false is want of love.  II Thess. ii.

The foundation of religion.  It is the miracles.  What then?  Does God speak against miracles, against the foundations of the faith which we have in Him?

If there is a God, faith in God must exist on earth.  Now the miracles of Jesus Christ are not foretold by Antichrist, but the miracles of Antichrist are foretold by Jesus Christ.  And so if Jesus Christ were not the Messiah, He would have indeed led into error.  When Jesus Christ foretold the miracles of Antichrist, did He think of destroying faith in His own miracles?

Moses foretold Jesus Christ, and bade to follow Him.  Jesus Christ foretold Antichrist, and forbade to follow him.

It was impossible that in the time of Moses men should keep their faith for Antichrist, who was unknown to them.  But it is quite easy, in the time of Antichrist, to believe in Jesus Christ, already known.

There is no reason for believing in Antichrist, which there is not for believing in Jesus Christ.  But there are reasons for believing in Jesus Christ, which there are not for believing in the other.

826

Judges xiii, 23:  “If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have shewed us all these things.”

Hezekiah, Sennacherib.

Jeremiah.  Hananiah, the false prophet, dies in seven months.

2 Macc. iii.  The temple, ready for pillage, miraculously succoured.—­2 Macc. xv.