various names of God, brings in this as one : 'Power, known by no measure, for it is measured only by his own will; for he can do whatsoever he will.' And Austin, in his Soliloquies, speaks thus to the great God': ' Thy Almighty hand, which is always one and the same, created angels in heaven, and worms upon earth: not higher in those, nor lower in these. For, as no other hand could make an angel, so neither could any other hand make a worm: as none else could create heaven, so neither could any one else create the least leaf upon the tree: as none else can make a body, so neither can any one else make an hair, either white or black; but only thy Almighty hand, to which all things are alike possible. For it is not more possible to him to create a worm than an angel, nor more impossible to stretch out the heavens than a leaf.' And concerning the infinite wisdom of God, also, the same Father speaks excellently: But the Spirit of God is called in Scripture manifold wisdom, therefore, because it hath many things in itself; but what it hath, that it is, and itself alone is all it hath. For they are not many, but one wisdom, in which there are great and infinite treasures of intelligible things; where are all the invisible and unchangeable reasons of things, even of such as are visible and changeable, which were made by it." And elsewhere":"Wherefore, if the infinitude of numbers cannot 1 Omnipotens manus tua, semper una et eadem, creavit in cœlo angelos, in terra vermiculos: non superior in illis, non inferior in istis. Sicut enim nulla manus angelum, ita nulla posset creare vermiculum: sicut nulla cœlum, ita nulla posset creare minimum arboris folium: sicut nulla corpus, ita nullaunum capillum album posset facere aut nigrum;' sed omnipotens manus tua, cui omnia pari modo sunt possibilia. Nec enim possibilius est ei creare vermiculum, quàm angelum; nec impossibilius extendere cœlum quàin folium, &c. Aug. Soliloq. Animæ ad Deum, in Append. ad tom. vi. cap. 9. p. 89. C. Ed. Ben. Par. 1685. m Cæterùm dictus est in Scripturis sanctis Spiritus sapientiæ multiplex, eò quod multa in se habeat; sed quæ habet, hæc et est, et ea omnia unus est. Neque enim multæ, sed una sapientia est, in quâ sunt immensi quidam atque infiniti thesauri rerum intelligibilium, in quibus sunt omnes invisibiles atque incommutabiles rationes rerum, etiam visibilium et mutabilium quæ per ipsam factæ sunt.-Aug. de Civit. Dei. lib. xi. cap. 10. p. 281. A. Ed. Ben. Par. 1685. "Quare si infinitas numerorum scientiæ Dei, quâ comprehenditur, essë non potest infinita; quî tandem nos sumus homunculi, qui ejus scientiæ be infinite to the knowledge of God, by which it is comprehended, what are we then, poor worms, that we should presume to set bounds to his knowledge; saying, that unless the same temporal things be repeated over again in the same circuits of times, all things that God hath done, he either cannot foreknow them that he may do them, or not know them when he hath done them? Whose wisdom, simply manifold and uniformly various, by such an incomprehensible comprehension, comprehendeth all incompre hensible things.' And Hilary: His wisdom is innumerable who discerneth all things by their names and number.' And as for the goodness of God, Athenagoras saith P, God is perfectly good, and is always doing good.' Justin Martyr calls him, "The greatest of goods, or the chiefest good.' And Austin': The chiefest good, above which there is no good, is God: and by this he is the unchangeable, and, therefore, the truly eternal and immortal good. All other goods are only from him, but not of him.' And Tertullian calls him, goodness itself. Goodness said, "Let us make man;" Goodness formed man of the dust of the earth; Goodness breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,' &c. And thus we see Scripture, reason, and fathers avouching God to be of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. limites figere præsumamus, dicentes, quòd nisi eisdem circumitibus temporum eadem temporalia repetantur, non potest Deus cuncta quæ fecit vel præscire ut faciat, vel scire cùm fecerit? Cujus sapientia simpliciter multi plex et uniformiter multiformis; tam incomprehensibili comprehensione omnia incomprehensibilia comprehendit.—Id. ibid. lib. xii. cap. 18. p. 317. F. • Innumerabilis sapientia ejus est, cùm universa et nominibus discernit et numero.- Hilar. Enar. in Ps. 146. p. 1178. F. Par. 1605. Ρ Ο δὲ Θεὸς τελείως ἀγαθὸς ἄν, ἀϊδίως ἀγαθοποιός ἐστιν.—Athenag. Leg. pro Christ. Oxon. 1682. p. 122. 4 Εἰ γὰς τῶν ἀγαθῶν τὸ μέγιστον ὁ Θεός ἐστι, δηλονότι εἰ τὶς ὑπόθοιτο μέγιστον nanòv, súpeÕñoerai étépa dexù ivavría t❀ De.—Justin. Par. 1686. Resp. Quæst. 1. ad Græcos. p. 159. E. r Summum bonum quo superius non est, Deus est: ac per hoc incommutabile bonum est; ideò verè æternum, et verè immortale. Cætera omnia bona non nisi ab illo sunt, sed non de illo.-Aug. de Natura Boni, cap. 1. 'Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram,' Bonitas dixit; Bonitas finxit hominem de limo, in tantam substantiam carnis ex una materia tot qualitatibus exstructam; Bonitas inflavit animam, &c.-Tert. advers. Marc. lib. ii. cap. 4. p. 456. A. Par. 1634. THE MAKER AND PRESERVER OF ALL THINGS, BOTH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. What God is in himself, he hath manifested himself to be to us, and that both in his Word and by his works. His Word we shall have occasion to treat of hereafter; his works here, viz. these two great works (if they may be called two), his creation and preservation of the world; wherein he hath discovered the truth of that part of this Article that we have just now taken off our pen from, viz. that he is a God of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. If his power had not been infinite, he could not have made it; if his wisdom had not been infinite, he could not have known how to have made it; if his goodness had not been infinite, even infinitely communicative of itself, he would not have made it at all. If his power had not been infinite, he would not have been strong enough; if his wisdom had not been infinite, he would not have been wise enough; if his goodness had not been infinite, he would not have been good enough to have made such a glorious fabric as the world is we live in. His infinite wisdom appeared in that he first made the simple elements, then the mixed bodies, and in that those things were first created who had only a being, without life, as the inanimate creatures; then such as had a being and life, but without sense, as plants; then such as had a being, life, and sense, but without reason, as the brute beast; then such as had both being, life, sense, and reason, as man. His infinite power appeared in that he made plants, herbs, and trees, before he made the sun, moon, and stars, without which, naturally, they cannot be produced; his infinite goodness, in that he made the habitations before he made the inhabitants; food, before them that were to eat it; and all things that man was to make use of before man himself, for whom they were made. So well may we say, "He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion," Jer. x. 12. Thus he hath manifested himself clearly to be a God of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, by being the Maker and Preserver of all things visible and invisible; that is, there is nothing in the world besides himself, but what was made and is preserved by himself. The angels that are above us, the devils below us, the whole world that is about us, and our own souls that are within us, are all the workmanship of his hands. First, he made all things, and that not of any thing, but of nothing; so that before he made it, there was nothing at all made. The sun, moon, and stars, with the rest of their fellow creatures, all lay in the barren womb of nothing, not appearing to any, having no being in themselves. This barren womb of nothing did the almighty word of God deliver of the world, and all things therein contained ; having no pre-existent or coexistent matter to make them of; nor any thing but his own infinite power to make them by. It was the opinion of many ancient philosophers, that out of nothing, nothing can be produced: but it is the faith of all sound Christians', that out of nothing all things were created. So that there is nothing but what was made of nothing besides God, who was never made at all, but was himself the Maker of all things besides himself. And this must needs be the purport of the words visible and invisible; which so immediately contradicting one another, cannot but comprehend all things possible within themselves. The things that are seen, and the things that are not seen, being all understood by them; and, therefore, the matter, also, that all things were made of, as well as all things themselves that were made of that matter, must needs be comprehended under them. So that to say, God made all things of something, is a contradiction: for he that saith, there is something he never made, but made all things of, and yet he * Nemo quærat, ex quibus ista materiis tam magna, tam mirifica opera Deus fecerit omnia enim fecit ex nihilo.-Lactant. de Orig. Error. lib. ii. p. 154. Oxon. 1684. Εἰ οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ ὕλη ἀγέννητος, ὡς ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ δύναται ὁ Θεὸς ἐκ τοῦ ἀγεννήτου ποιῆσαί τι, δῆλον ὡς δύναται ὁ Θεὸς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ἁπλῶς μὴ ὄντος ποιῆσαί τι. Justin. Aristot. Dogm. Evers. p. 123. A. Par. 1636. Igitur in quantum constitit materiam nullam fuisse, ex hoc etiam quòd nec talem competat fuisse qualis inducitur, in tantum probatur omnia à Deo ex nihilo facta. Tertull. adv. Hermog. cap. 45. p. 288. C. Par. 1634. omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam, viz. et mundanam. Concil. Later. iv. cap. 1. de Fid. Cathol. Qui sua made all things, contradicts himself; that something being also necessarily comprehended under all things. Neither was he the Maker only of all things that are preserved, but the Preserver also of all things that were ever made. When he had produced all things out of nothing, he did not leave them to themselves, as an artificer, who, when he hath done his work, hath done with his work; no, should God thus leave all things he hath made of nothing to themselves, they would of themselves again fall down to nothing: and, therefore, as he first bestowed their beings upon them; so he still continues them in their beings: preserving every species by procreation of individuals, and every individual by nutrition proper to itself. And so in the constant vicissitude and orderly succession of one thing after another, there was nothing made by him at the beginning of time, but what is preserved by him from time to time. And so he is not only the Maker, but also the Preserver of all things visible and invisible. Which that he is we have confirmed from the mouth of three witnesses, Scripture, and reason, and fathers. 1. Confirmation from SCRIPTURE.-And, truly, the first words of the holy Scripture clearly show, that God was the first cause of all creatures. "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth;" that is, in the first beginning of time, before which there was nothing but eternity: and in the first beginning of all things, before which there was nothing that had a beginning, did God of nothing make all things. First, I say, he made all things of nothing; for though the word barah" may not always signify the production of any thing out of nothing, and so we cannot raise any convincing argument from the word itself, so as to say, because God "That does not signify the production of any thing out of nothing, is plain, in that it is oft used in the same sense with and wy, which do not signify to produce any thing out of nothing, but only to make or form; as yaw WY W 812) 77, Isaiah, xliii. 7; xlv. 7. And whereas ,Isaiah,ואדם עליה בראתי,Gen. ii. 7. it is said וייצר יהוה את האדם,it is said lxv. 12. And to show that, in that place, is the same with 72, the Targum renders it ", and therefore, saith the Targum elsewhere, .48 .Psalm 1xxxix אתכריתי מן עפרא Job, xxx. 19. and לאדם ראתברא מן טינא and it is Jerome's observation, that in magnis operibus atque facturis verbum creationis assumitur,' ad Ephes. iv. 24. |