The Divine Will Considered in its Eternal Decrees and Holy Execution, Chapter 6
CHAP. VI. Of the Work of Creation.
HAving treated of the Divine Will as to its Eternal Decrees, I procede to speak thereof as to its External Works, which are (as it were) the Royal Display thereof. And that there may not be a Chasme in my Discourse, I shall first touch upon Creation as the first of God's ways. There are besides the Ens Entium, three several Worlds or Ranks of Beings, viz. Spiritual, Material and Mixt; the first, is the Intellectual World, made up of those invisible Glories, Spirits by Nature, Angels by Office, Principalities and Powers, spiritual Stars of Light and Flames of Love, all of them at first Inhabitants of that pure spiritual Body the Heaven of Heavens; but afterwards part of them were for their proud Apostasie cast into Hell. The second is the World of visible wonders; the stupendious Heavens eyed with a glorious Sun, and spangled with Moon and glittering Stars, encircling all the rest with their spherical Stories, and wheeling round about with an indefatigable Motion, spinning out time for all the World, and with admirable influences hatching and hovering over all the living Creatures. Under these is the vast Air, encompassing the Earth and Sea, coated with woolly clouds, and those sometimes laced with the curious Rain-bow; every morning putting on the bright-shining Robes of Light, and at evening exchanging them for the black Mantle of the night: now all on a flame with flashes of Lightning, and anon all in a Sea with the Bottles of Heaven: sometimes rent in pieces with thundring Tempests, and then made up again into serenity, and clear as a molten Looking-glass. This is the Fan of all Creatures breathing on the Earth, and it self is fanned with various Winds: This is the Inn where the visible Species, the Imagery of the Worlds Beauty and Glory, and the audible Species, the multiplied progeny of Sounds and Voices, lodge together: This is the common Road, where the influences of the Heavens and the vapours of the Earth, the beams of the Sun and the sweet perfumes of Herbs and Flowers meet and embrace each other in their passage. Within this is the massie Earth the Centre of the World, hanging upon nothing, inwardly boweled with rich Minerals and precious Stones, and outwardly teeming with numberless births of Grass and Corn, shaded with Trees and Woods, and laughing with odoriferous Herbs and Flowers, bubling with lively Springs and Fountains of Water, and admirably enterlaced with gliding Streams and Rivers, inhabited with strange variety of Beasts, and lorded with Man. And the Girdle of this Earth is the wonderful Sea, swadled with Clouds, swarming with Fishes, lodged and locked up in the hollows of the Earth, and from thence secretly winding and straining its moisture into the inward Veins thereof: now swelling with the pride of Winds and Waves, as if it meant to swallow up Heaven and Earth; and then sinking down again into its Den, as if it were afraid to be drunk up by the little Sands. The third is the Mixt World, the mariage or copula of the other two, made up of Men; whose Immortal Souls claim kindred with the World of Angels, and whose Earthen Bodies are the Breviaries and Epitomes of the visible World; virtually summing up the Elements in their harmonious Mixture, the Plants in their Life, the Beasts in their Senses, and the Heavens, with the Sun, Moon and Stars in their Heads, Eyes and beautiful Faces. Now touching all this Catalogue of Beings I shall briefly demonstrate three things.
1. That all these Beings had a beginning.
2. That their beginning was from God.
3. That it was from God as a free Agent, and according to the counsel of his own Will.
1. All these things had a beginning; and this I prove three ways.
1. I argue ex absur do; if they had no beginning of being, then every one of them is a God by Nature, a Jehovah in Self-beingness, and an Alpha in Primacy: If they had no beginning of duration, then are they all inmates in God's Eternity, copartners in his Immutability, and (which is a step higher) possessors of his Infinity, and boundless Beings without any limits of Being: For what imaginable limits of Being can they have, which want a beginning, which is the first limit of Being?
2. The Motions of the Creatures evince this; the Elements have their enterchanges, the Earth its seasons, the Sea its tides, the Air its winds, the Stars their courses, the Moon her variations, the Sun runs its race between the Tropicks, the Heavens, the common carriers of all the rest, turn about with an uncessant Motion; nay, the immaterial Angels and rational Souls are never without some Motions in their Understanding and Will; neither can they do any thing without a change, because their being and their doing are two things. Now what do all these Motions speak but a first Mover, a beginning at some first point, and a measure of time ever since? Such moveable Beings cannot be measured with Eternity; for that is unmoveable and unvariable, but these are in motions and mutations; that is instantaneous and simultaneous, but these are under a flux of priority and posteriority in their motions and mutations: wherefore it must needs be that these had a beginning.
3. If these had no beginning, then what shall we say of the Years, Days and Minutes past? Are they finite or infinite? If finite, then numerable, and there was a beginning; if infinite, then how past? Infinity cannot be passed over; but and if it could, then there are infinite numbers of Minutes past, infinite numbers of Days past, and infinite numbers of Years past, and (because there cannot be infinito infinitius) by most necessary consequence, there are as many Years past as Days, and as many Days past as Minutes, which is utterly impossible; therefore these things must needs have a beginning.
2. The beginning of all these was from God. The Scripture speaks evidently; In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, Gen. 1. 1. Of him and through him and to him are all things, Rom. 11. 36. He that built all things is God, Heb. 3. 4. When we look upon the stately Palace of the World, roofed with the glorious Heavens, floored with the fruitful Earth, chambered with the cloudy Air, watered with the stupendious Sea, and furnished with all variety of Creatures; we cannot dream of any other Architect but God alone. And (because Job bids us speak to the earth, Job 12. 8. and the Psalmist tells us that there is a language in the heavens, Psal. 19. 1, 2, 3. and the Apostle asserts that there is a witness of God in the rain, Acts 14. 17.) therefore suffer me to parly their Original out of their own mouths, Creatures, whence came you? Ex nihilo. What, ex nihilo? How then came you over that vast infinite Gulf which lies between Nothing and Being? Infinite Power filled it up to make our passage. But since you came over, where do you stand? In a Being betwixt two Nothings, Nothing negative and Nothing privative. And who set you there at first? The first and chief Being, who is ipsum Esse, suum Esse, infinitum Esse, infinitè elongatum à non Esse. But whence had you all that truth and goodness which is in you? Our truth is but a beam from his infinite Verity, and our goodness the Redundance and Super-effluence of his infinite Goodness. And whence came all these numbers and hosts of Beings? Out of perfect Unity; every one of us is numbred by our finiteness and composition, and every Number is from infinite simple Unity. Monas est principium & radix omnium; there is but one God of whom are all things. But how came you into such ranks? Why have not the Elements Life, the Plants Sense, the Beasts Reason, and Men Angelical Perfections? When infinite Power brought us out of nothing, infinite Wisdom shut up every one of us within the bounds of his proper Being. But your Beings being of such different sorts, how came you to be so kind each to other? the Clouds drop down Rain on the Earth; the Earth brings forth Grass; that feeds the Beasts; and these serve for Man, the Breviary of all, and Steward of all. All these and innumerable more links of Amity were made by the God of Order. But if you be of God's own make, shew me your tokens. 'Tis most apparent that all Beings must be from the chief Being, all Truth from the first Truth, all Goodness from supreme Goodness, all Numbers from perfect Unity, and all Ranks and Orders from infinite Wisdom; and this chief Being, first Truth, supreme Goodness, perfect Unity, and infinite Wisdom can be no other than God alone. But if this satisfie not, you may yet further see God's glorious Immensity in the vast capacious Heavens, his invariable Immobility in the unmoveable Earth, his Faithfulness in the great Mountains, his unsearchable Judgments in the great Deep, his dreadful Justice in the devouring Fire, his wonderful Omniscience in the Sun the rouling Eye of the World, his transcendent Beauty in the Varnish of the Light; the plain foot-steps of the Eternal Power and Godhead in every Creature, and the glorious impress of his own Image and Likeness in Men and Angels. Thus the very Creatures themselves tell us, that their beginning was from God.
3. Their beginning was from God as a free Agent, and according to his own Decree; for either God did produce them naturally and necessarily, or else freely and voluntarily. Not naturally and necessarily; for then he should produce things ad extremum virium, and so (besides these Beings) produce all the possible Beings producible by his glorious Omnipotence, all the possible Orders and Congruities contrivable by his unsearchable Wisdom, all the possible Goodness effluxive out of his infinite Goodness, and all the possible Numbers which his infinite Unity can bring forth into being and produce them all as early as Eternity it self; and all of them so produced must be necessary Beings as well as God himself: in all which many great contradictions are involved. Wherefore it remains that he did produce them voluntarily and according to his own Decree; the Will of God was the first Mover in this great Work. 'Tis true that the World is (as Damascene stiles it) foreign, a kind of Redundance of God's infinite Goodness; but not a drop of this Goodness runs out ad extrà but by his good pleasure. 'Tis true that there is the various and admirable Wisdom of God in this Work; but that Wisdom shews forth never an Order or Rank of Being, unless it be taken into the divine Decree, and so become the counsel of his Will, according to which he worketh all things. 'Tis true that the Eternal Power and Godhead are clearly seen in the Creation; but these had never shewed themselves at all, if the divine Will had not spoken the word. God made all things by the word of his power; that is, the divine Will eternally expressed to the divine Power, what Beings it should produce in time. 'Tis true that all the numbers and hosts of Beings foreign, they flow from him who is perfect Unity; but not in the way of natural Necessity, but of his free Decree. Qui dicit, Quare Dous fecit coelum & terram? Respondendum est ei, quia voluit; Aust. Li. 1. de Gen. contr. Ma…. cap. 2.qui autem dicit, Quare voluit? majus aliquid quaerit quàm est Volunt as Dei: nihil autem majus inveniri potest. When the Psalmist made that general summons to the Angels, Heavens, Sun, Moon, Stars, Waters, Dragons, Deep, Fire, Hail, Snow, Vapours, Wind, Trees, Beasts, Cattel, creeping Things, flying Fowl, even all the hosts of Nature to sing praises to their great Makes, he added this as the supreme Reason of all, he commanded and they were created, Psal. 148. 5. Sermo Dei Volunt as Ambr. H…m Li. 1. cap. 9.est, Opus Dei Naeturae est. Unto whatsoever his Will speaks a fiat, it comes forth into being; but if that be silent, not the least Atom can appear. The Egyptian Magicians cannot produce so much as the shadow or counterfeit semblance of a Louse, but as men mazed and nonplus'd they are forced to cry out, This is the finger of God, Exod. 8. 19. And what these wicked Atheists mutter out touching this poor Creature upon the rack of Conviction, that the Catholick Church confesses touching all the World in a triumphant Gratulation. The Twenty four Elders (in the name of all Saints) falling down and worshipping before the Throne of the Everliving God, cry out, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honour and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created, Rev. 4. 11. O thou divine Will! thou art worthy to be adored in the Angels above, and Men below; in the Luminaries of Heaven and fruitfulness of Earth; in the Meteors of the Air and wonders of the Deep; in the life of the Plants and senses of the Beasts: at thy imperial Word all these came pouring out of the barren Womb of Nothing; the births of their Existence were all dated by thine hand; the dowries of their goodness were all given by thy Love; the proprieties of their Being were all stamped on them by thy Ideal Truth; and the various Ranks and Orders of their standing were all set out by thy glorious Wisdom. O glorious Creator! who hast made all these things, go on one step further; create in us an admiring Heart, which by the scale of Creatures, as by Jacob's Ladder, may ascend higher and higher in the Adorations of thee; when we are at the lowest step of all, I mean mere Being, let's remember thee the chief and first of Beings; when at the second step, which is Being with Life, let's praise thee the only Fountain of Life; when at the third, which is Being and Life crowned with Sense, let's tremble at thee the All-seeing and All-hearing Deity; when at the fourth, which is Being, Life and Sense irradiated with beams of Reason, and impowered with liberty of Will, let's adore thy infinite Wisdom which contrived, and thy allmighty Will which created all these things, and us to see thy Glory in them; when at the highest step of all, Angelical perfections, let's be lost in holy mazes and trances at thy infinitely purer glory, in comparison whereof, the very Angels themselves are but as spotted lamps and duskish beauties. In a word; from the sublimest Seraphim to the poorest Worm, let's admire thee, humbly confessing that none can shew forth all thy praise.