Augustine of Hippo, on Ps 148:8

“Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds which fulfill his word:”

“I am, therefore, leaving out those things that are done corporeally in a quite ordinary period of time, such as the rising and the setting of the stars, the births and the deaths of animals, the innumerable diversities of seeds and buds, the mists and the clouds, the snows and the rain, the lightnings and the thunders, the thunderbolts and the hails, the winds and the fires, the cold and the heat, and all such things. Nor am I taking into account the things that rarely happen in the same order, such as the eclipses of the heavenly bodies, the appearances of unusual stars, monsters, earthquakes, and similar things. I am considering none of these things, for their first and highest cause is nothing else than the will of God. Hence, when certain things of this kind are also mentioned in the psalm, such as "fire, hail, snow, mists," it immediately adds "that fulfill his words," lest anyone might believe that they were done by chance or by corporeal causes only, or even by spiritual causes that exist outside the will of God.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.