Hereby also is resolved the objection which a little while ago gave thee offence--that our doings in the future were spoken of as if supplying the cause of God's knowledge.

For this faculty of knowledge, embracing all things in its immediate cognizance, has itself fixed the bounds of all things, yet itself owes nothing to what comes after.
'And all this being so, the freedom of man's will stands unshaken, and laws are not unrighteous, since their rewards and punishments are held forth to wills unbound by any necessity.

God, who foreknoweth all things, still looks down from above, and the ever-present eternity of His vision concurs with the future character of all our acts, and dispenseth to the good rewards, to the bad punishments.

Our hopes and prayers also are not fixed on God in vain, and when they are rightly directed cannot fail of effect.

Therefore, withstand vice, practise virtue, lift up your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers to Heaven.