See Sum. Theol. 2a-2ae, q. 97, Of Tempting God, where the gloss is quoted: "He tempts God, who, having a safe line of action open to him, unreasonably puts himself in danger by way of making trial of the possibility of a divine deliverance." It will be seen that St Thomas agrees with this Criticism, and makes no defence of this Fifth Mode. I think it likely to have been extracted from Friar Gerard's Introduction to the Eternal Gospel which was vehemently attacked by William of St Amour, and condemned also by St Thomas: indeed it is the first utterance of the then nascent seer of the Fraticelli. In the Breviary Legend of St Cajetan, the founder of Theatines, who were approved by Clement VII, we read: "He instituted an Order of Clerks Regular, who should lay aside the solicitude of all temporal things, and neither possess revenues, nor beg the means of subsistence from the faithful, but live solely on alms spontaneously offered." But as these religious lived in public, and their profession and mode of life was known, their very going about, preaching and working for souls, was a virtual appeal to charity. The Theatines flourished for three hundred years, and still had houses in Italy in 1845.

Of God and His Creatures: 3.133