Psalms 92:5

How magnified are your works, O Lord. At this point Marcion and Manichaeus burst out. For what do they say? If God made all things, and made them for the benefit of men, what need was there to make the bedbug and the flea? I answer you briefly: so that your frailty, O man, might be shown. For you who place your thought in heaven — look, you are bitten by a bedbug and you shudder. Why are you lifted up into heaven, and why does your thought soar into heaven? Behold, you are wounded by a bedbug. How magnified are your works, O Lord. Small bodies indeed, but great design. Each has its own uses. I marvel at the Lord in the elephant just as much as in the ant; I proclaim him in the camel just as much as in the gnat. Look at the gnat, how it is like the point of some tiny body, and yet see how in that very point of a tiny body all its members are distinct. It has six feet, it has two eyes, it has a mouth and a belly, it has also a trumpet of voice, it has wings too. If you look at the members, you do not find the body; and yet God is magnified, because without a body there are all these members.

How magnified are your works, O Lord: your thoughts have been made exceedingly deep. Whence the apostle too says, "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Therefore, then, because your thoughts have been made exceedingly deep, and his works, which neither human sense nor reason can attain, in another place it is said, "All your works are in faith." See what he says, "Your works are in faith." If the creature stands firm in faith and not in reason, how much more the Creator himself and the Founder of all things? When therefore it is said, "And all your works are in faith," I too, who am speaking, am in faith — since indeed I am a part of his works. I too stand firm in faith and not in reason: for I cannot know by reason how I move my steps, how the tongue makes its sound, how thought arranges itself, the will commands, and the body serves the will, how the soul, which is immortal, is joined to this body which is mortal, how my soul runs to and fro here and there, and that vast breadth of the world does not contain a thing which is comprehended by the body. Why do I say all this? Because I heard that among the brothers there was a contention — nay rather, a disputation — over the faith. I say a disputation, not a contention: for where there is contention, there is sin; but where there is disputation, there is a pious desire for knowledge. For each one was not seeking to prove the things he did not know, but they brought their ignorance to my knowledge: for they did not wish to teach what they did not know, but to know what they were ignorant of. Therefore their question is not foreign, which was raised concerning the mercy of the Lord. It is said in Isaiah concerning the Lord Savior, "Who shall declare his generation?" When it is said, "Who?" every creature is excluded. […]

There are many things that might be said: but let it suffice for the faithful to have heard a few things about the mystery of the Trinity. I beg you, let there rather be a contest among us in the monastery over how we may seek to triumph over the adversary, how we may fast, how we may bewail our sins, how our thought may not drag us captive into lust, how we may have patience against every injury, how we may not resist a brother doing us an injury, but may conquer him in the humility which we have learned from Christ, "who, when he suffered, did not threaten." If ever a thought should come and add, "What is God? and what is the reason of the Trinity?", let it suffice for us to believe that he is. And we ought not rashly to seek the reason, but to fear, and always to pray to the Lord; and in this matter let us show him our knowledge alone, that day and night we may sing praises to him. To whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Teaching us this, what saith he? "O Lord, how glorious are Thy works: Thy thoughts are made very deep" [Psalm 92:5]. Verily, my brethren, there is no sea so deep as these thoughts of God, who maketh the wicked flourish, and the good suffer: nothing so profound, nothing so deep: therein every unbelieving soul is wrecked, in that depth, in that profundity. Dost thou wish to cross this depth? Remove not from the wood of Christ's Cross: thou shall not sink: hold thyself fast to Christ. What do I mean by this, hold fast to Christ? It was for this reason that He chose to suffer on earth Himself. Ye have heard, while the prophet was being read, how He "did not turn away His back from the smiters, and His face from the spittings of men," how "He turned not His cheek from their hands;" wherefore chose He to suffer all these things, but that He might console the suffering? He could have raised His flesh at the last day: but then thou wouldest not have had thy ground of hope, since thou hadst not seen Him. He deferred not His resurrection, that thou mightest not still be in doubt. Suffer then tribulation in the world with the same end as that which thou hast observed in Christ: and let not those who do evil, and flourish in this life, move thee. "Thy thoughts are very deep." Where is the thought of God? Rejoice not as the fish who is exulting in his bait: the fisherman hath not drawn his hook: the fish hath as yet the hook in his jaws. And what seemeth to thee long, is short; all these things pass over quickly. What is the long life of man to the eternity of God? Dost thou wish to be of long-suffering? Consider the eternity of God. For thou regardest thy few days, and in thy few days thou dost wish all things to be fulfilled. What things? The condemnation of all the wicked: and the crowning of all the good: dost thou wish these things to be fulfilled in thy days? […]

O Lord, how great are thy works!.... Of nature, providence, and grace, both for quantity and for quality, for number, excellency, and glory, as they are a display of God's wisdom, power, and goodness; see Psa 104:24, and thy thoughts are very deep; his counsels, purposes, and designs, they are unfathomable and unsearchable; see 1Co 2:10.