The Essential Augustine
Therefore a bad measure, a bad form, a bad order, 23. are either so called because they are less than they should be, or because they are not adapted to those things to which they should be adapted, so that they may be called bad as being alien and incongruous; as if anyone should be said not to have done in a good measure because he has done less than he ought, or because he has done in such a thing as he ought not to have done, or more than was fitting, or not conveniently; so that the very fact of that being reprehended which is done in a bad measure, is justly reprehended for no other cause than that the measure is not there maintained. Likewise a form is called bad either in comparison with something more handsome or more beautiful, this form being less, that greater, not in size but in comeliness; or because it is out of harmony with the thing to which it is applied, so that it seems alien and unsuitable. As if a man should walk forth into a public place naked, which nakedness does not offend if seen in a bath. Likewise also order is called bad when order itself is maintained in an inferior degree. Hence not order, but rather disorder, is bad; since either the ordering is less than it should be, or not as it should be. Yet where there is any measure, any form, any order, there is some good and some nature; but where there is no measure, no form, no order, there is no good, no nature.
Those things which our faith holds and which reason 24. in whatever way has traced out, are fortified by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, so that those who by reason of feebler intellect are not able to comprehend these things, may believe the divine authority, and so may deserve to know. But let not those who.understand, but are less instructed in ecclesiastical literature, suppose that we set forth these things from our own intellect rather than what are in those Books. Accordingly, that God is unchangeable is written in the Psalms: "Thou shalt change them and they shall be changed; but Thou thyself art the same." [Ps. 101:27] And in the Book of Wisdom, concerning wisdom: "Remaining in herself, she renews all things." [Wisd. 7:27] Whence also the Apostle Paul: "To the invisible, incorruptible, only God." [1 Tim 1:17] And the Apostle James: "Every best giving and every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of light, with whom there is no changeableness, neither obscuring of influence." [Jas. 1:17]