it is fo often generally affirmed in holy Scripture, that God Rom. x. did make all things; all things that are in heaven and in 11, &c. earth it is unfafe, and not without great reafon ever to be done, to make limitations and restrictions of univerfal propofitions, often (yea constantly) fo fet down. And like as St. Paul fomewhere difcourfes; Because it is faid Rom. x. 11. in the Prophets, Every one that believeth in him shall not be ashamed; Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Rom. x. 13. Lord fhall be faved; therefore both Jews and Greeks (in cafe of belief and calling upon God) are capable of falvation and acceptance, οὐ γάρ ἐστι διαστολή, for that there is no distinction or exception made: fo it being faid univerfally and without any limitation, all things were made, therefore the matter of things was also made; the matter being one thing, yea, in the opinion of most philofophers, as well ancient as modern, the principal thing, the only fubftantial thing in nature; all other things being only the modes and affections thereof. Whence Ariftotle tells Metaph. i. us, that most of the first philofophers did affirm nothing Phyf. i. 8. to be made, nothing to be destroyed, because matter did always exift and abide the fame; as if nothing else in nature had any being confiderable. If God therefore did Vid. Lacnot produce matter itself, he could hardly be accounted ii. (p. 179, author of any thing in nature: how then is he truly af- &c.) difpufirmed the maker of all things? 2. Again; God is in like hac de re. manner affirmed generally the true poffeffor and proprietor of all things, excepting none: how fo, if he did not make them? is not this expreffed the foundation of his right and dominion? The heavens are thine, the earth alfo is Pf. lxxxix. thine: as for the world, and the fulness thereof, thou haft founded them how is God, I fay, Lord and owner of matter, (at least by the most excellent fort of right,) but for that he did produce and doth fuftain its being, and therefore may juftly use and difpofe of it according to his pleafure? 3. Again; fuppofing any being eternal, unmade, Y 3. de re non fua, fcilicet non facta ab ipfo. Tert. ad Herm. 9. De alieno ufus, aut precario ufus eft qua egens ejus, aut injuria qua prevalens ejus. lb. tantii libro tationem 11. and independent upon God, doth advance that being in fome refpect to an equality with God, (imparting thofe great attributes of God thereto,) and it deprives him of those perfections, making him to depend upon it in his operations, and not all-fufficient in himself without it: it derogates from his prerogative, and limits his powerz. 4. Farther, as Ariftotle well discourseth against the ancient philofophers, who, before Anaxagoras, did affign but one principle to things, (that material and paffive one,) as if no active principle were required; were required; fo may we argue against him and them together; aif God did produce and infert an active principle into nature, (as who can well imagine those admirable works of nature, the feminal propagation and neutrition of plants; the generation, motion, sense, appetite, paffion of animals to be performed by a mere blind agitation of matter, without fome active principle diftinct from matter, difpofing and determining it toward the production of such specific effects?) if God could, I say, produce fuch an active principle, (fuch an Texéxea, to use the philofopher's word,) why might he not as well produce a paffive one, such as the matter is? 5. Farther, if God did produce immaterial beings, (fimple and uncompounded substances, distinct from all matter,) fuch as angels and the fouls of men, merely out of nothing, (for out of what preexiftent fubftance could they be made?) then may he as well create matter out of nothing. What greater difficulty can we conceive in making such a lower imperfect thing, than in making those more excellent beings, fo much farther, as it were, removed from nonentity? If any thing be pro z Quis alius Dei cenfus quam æternitas? a Veritas fic unum Deum exigit defendendo, ut folius fit quicquid ipfius eft. Tertull. adv. Hermog. 4, 5. Nemo non eget eo, de cujus utitur; nemo non subjicitur ei cujus eget, ut poffit uti: et nemo qui præftat de fuo uti, non in hoc fuperior eft eo, cui præftat uti. Ib. 8. Metaph. i. 3. Nifi quod jam non omnipotens, fi non et hoc potens ex nihilo omnia proferre. lb. * 28. ἐγέρθητι. ducible out of nothing, why not all things capable of existence, by a virtue omnipotent b? But that fuch immaterial beings were produced by God, we faw before from many plain teftimonies of divine revelation. 6. I add, that the manner of God's making the world, delivered in Scripture, by mere will and command; (He Spake, and it Pfal. xxxiii. was done; he commanded, and it flood faft ;) that by only pronouncing the word fiat, all things fhould be formed and conftituted in their specific natures and perfections, doth argue that matter might be produced out of nothing by divine power: as alfo the effecting miracles, contrary to the courfe of nature, (without any preparation or predifpofition of the fufcipient matter,) in the fame manner, (by faying only, as our Saviour did; Oéλw, xadagíoIntı, I Luke v. 13. will; be thou cleansed: Woman, great is thy faith: Tevŋ- Matt. xv. DTW GOL WS DEREs, Be it to thee as thou defireft,) doth * Νεάνισκε, fhew the fame. For it is nowife harder, nor more impof- aiya roi, fible, to produce matter itself, than to produce a form Lukevii.14. therein, without or against its aptitude to receive it: nay, it feems more difficult to make children to Abraham out Matt. iii. 9. of ftones, than to make them out of nothing: there being a pofitive obftacle to be removed; here no refiftance appearing; there being as well fomewhat preceding to be destroyed, as fomething new to be produced. [Efpecially, I say, confidering that God ufes no other means or inftruments in thefe productions, than his bare word and command; which why should we not conceive as able immediately to produce the matter, as the forms of things?] 7. Laftly, the text of Mofes, describing the manner and order of the creation, doth infinuate this truth; In the beginning, faith he, God made heaven and earth: now the earth was without form: firft, it feems, God made the matter of heaven and earth, devoid of all form and order, a confufed and unshapen mass; then he digested and diftinguished its parts; by feveral degrees raifing thence all thofe various kinds, b Cur non omnia ex nihilo, fi aliquid ex nihilo, nifi fi infufficiens fuit divina virtus omnibus producendis quæ aliquid protulerit ex nihilo, &c. Tert, adv. Herm. 15. those well arrayed hofts of goodly creatures o. From these premises we may conclude (against thofe philofophers, who, deftitute of the light of revelation, did conceive otherwise; and against such Chriftians as have followed them; as Hermogenes, whom Tertullian hath, upon this occafion, writ a difcourfe against, and fome Socinians, Volkeim, &c.) that God did create, (in the most strict and scholaftical sense of that word,) produce out of nothing, either immediately or mediately beftow total existence upon every thing that is, not excepting any Nihil fine one; and that this is the true meaning of these words, origine, nifi Deus folus. Maker of heaven and earth, which is afcribed here to God, Tertull.adv. the Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift; a truth, which all 1 Cor.viii. 6. good Chriftians have always acknowledged, and the holy M. V. 1. Scriptures do most plainly avouch, (for to us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we from him; and one Lord Jefus Christ, (his Son,) by whom are all things, and we by him ;) though Marcion of old (and other Gnoftical heretics before and after him) did contradict it, affirming that the God who made the world, and enacted the Law, (whom Mofes did declare,) was a worfe conditioned, a rigid and angry God; but the God of the Gospel was another more benign and harmless God, void of all wrath and spleen. [Tertullian thus in verse describes this conceit. Prædicat hic duos effe patres, divisaque regna, Effe mali caufam Dominum qui condidit orbem ; Adv. Marc. Poem. 1. • Scriptura terram primo factam edicit, dehinc qualitatem ipfius edifferit ; ficut et cœlum primo factum profeffa, dehinc difpofitionem ejus fuperinducit. Tertull. contra Hermog. 26. Of affinity to this was the error of the Manichees, who supposed two first causes of things, one of good, the other of bad, taken, it seems, from the Perfian, Egyptian, or other Ethnical doctrines, which to this purpose we may fee recited by Plutarch, in his tractate de Ifide et Ofiride: the Plut. de If. et Ofir. p. Perfian, from Zoroafter, he tells us, had their Oromazes 659. and Arimanius; the Egyptians their Ofiris and Typhon; Steph. Gr. the Chaldeans their good and bad planets; the Greeks their Zeus and Hades; the Pythagoreans their Movas and Avas; Empedocles his Concord and Difcord, &c. The common reason or ground upon which erroneous conceits were built was this; that there being in nature some things imperfect and bad, these could not proceed from perfect goodness; it would have produced all things in highest perfection and in indefectible state of goodness. (If, difcourseth Plutarch there, expreffing the main of their argument, nothing naturally can arife without a cause, and good cannot afford causality to evil, it is neceffary that nature should have a proper feed and principle of evil, as well as good and thus it feems to the most and wifeft: for they indeed conceive two Gods, as it were, counterplotting each other; one the contriver and producer of good things, and the other of bad; calling the better one, God; the other, Dæmon.) But this discourse hath two great faults: it fuppofeth fomething imperfect and evil, which is not truly fo; and that which is truly imperfect and evil it affigneth to a wrong cause it supposeth some things according to their original conftitution imperfect and evil, which is falfe: there was no creature which did not at first pass the divine approbation; God faw every thing that he had made, and Gen. i. 31. behold it was very good. Good; that is, convenient and fuitable to its defign, fair and decent in its place and proportion: very good; that is, altogether perfect in its degree, without any blemish or flaw, not liable to any just exception. There be indeed degrees of perfection, (it was 4 Εἰ γὰρ ἐδὲν ἀναιτίως πέφυκε γενέσθαι, αἰτίαν δὲ κακς τ' ἀγαθὸν ἐκ ἂν παράστ χοι, δεῖ γένεσιν ἰδίαν καὶ ἀρχὴν, ὥσπερ ἀγαθῆ, καὶ κακῶ τὴν φύσιν ἔχειν, &c. |