Gerhard, Locus 6, § 71. The sixth aphorism is: Brute animals not only are subject to the providence of God but also either by natural instinct or in some other way feel and in some ways confess God’s sustaining and preservation. Ps. 104:27: “These all look to You to give them their food.” Verse 21: “The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.” Ps. 145:15: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.” Ps. 147:9: “He gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens that cry.” So then, we should under the direction of Scripture interpret the roaring of lions and the cawing of crows that they are praying to God for their food. At the same time, we must deplore the extreme corruption of our nature and the darkness of our mind caused by the fall through which it happens that brute animals understand, as it were, the providence of God better than human reason, just as Christ in Matthew 6 sets up the little birds as our teachers. [See also Job 38:41: “Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help?”]
Gerhard, Locus 6, § 98. **...**Augustine again, Letter 59, ad Paulin., f. 301: “The counsel of God is very well hidden, and by it He employs evil things to the increase of good. In this He also exalts the omnipotence of His goodness because, just as it is part of their wickedness to misuse His good works, so it is characteristic of His wisdom to use their wicked works for good.”