confused masse coëuall to the Eternitie of divine power which they acknowledged to be the Artificer or framer of this great worke into that uniformitie or beautie of severall formes which now it beares The first objection admits a double sense or doubtfull construction and hath no truth in respect of the Almightie maker saue onely in the impertinent sense The second objection universally taken is false CHAP. 4. The first objection of the Atheist Of nothing nothing can be made Of the doubtfull sense of this naturall how far it is true and how farre it is false WHen it is said by the naturalist that nothing can be made of nothing or that every thing which is made is made of something this particle ex or of hath not alwaies the same importance and in the multiplicitie of its significations or importances the naturalist either hood winks himselfe or takes opportunitie to hide his errour or at least makes advantage of the doubtfull phrase against such as seeke to resell him When we speake of naturall bodies or sublunary substances this particle of usually denotes the proper and immediate Matter whereof euery such body is made Thus we say the Elements are mutually made one of another or of the Matter which is common to them all mixt bodies are made of the Elements wrought or compacted into one Masse vegetables living substances indued with sense are made of mixt bodies as of their immediate and proper matter Sometimes the same particle of or that speech this body is made of that doth not denote the immediate proper matter whereof it is made but yet imports that that part of the bodily substance which was in the one becomes an ingrediēt in the other which is made of it So of water wine was made by miracle Iohn 2. yet not made of water as of its immediate or proper matter not so as vapors are made of moysture ordistilled waters of fume or smoake for so that great worke had beene no true miracle had included no creation but a generation only Now it is impossible unto nature to generate wine of water without the ingredient of any other Element It cannot be made by generation otherwise then of the juyce or sap of the Vine which is not a simple Element but the Expression of a bodie perfectly mixt Howbeit in this miraculous conversion of water into wine some part of the corporeall substance of water did remaine as an ingredient in the wine There was not an utter annihilation of the water and a new production of wine in the same place where water had beene but a true and miraculous Transubstantiation of water into wine And thus we must grant that Trees and vegetables were on the third day made not immediately of nothing That fishes and beasts were made the one of the bodily substance of the earth the other of the bodily substance of the waters neither immediately made of nothing albeit both were made not by generation but by creation that is not of any bodily matter naturally disposed to bring forth or receive that forme which by the creators hand was instamped upon them For in true Philosophy That which Philosophers call the matter of all things generable was not the first sublunary substance which was produced nor was it comproduced or concreated with them but created in them after they were made God had gathered the waters into one place and the drie land into another before either of them had power to conceive or become the common mothers of vegetable and living things Thus were the heaven and the earth first made and the waters divided by the firmament whereas the earth did not become the Matter or common mother of things vegetable before the third day wherein God said Let the earth bring forth grasse the hearb yeelding seed and the fruit tree yeelding fruit after his kind whose seed is in it selfe upon the earth and it was so Gen. 1. 11. Nor did the waters become the common Matter or mother of fishes before the fift day Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life c. Now this production of hearbs or plants out of the earth of fish and fowle out of the substance of the water was not a meer conservation or actuation of that power which the earth waters had before but the Creation of a new power in them the continuation of which power is part of that which we call the passive power of the matter Nor had the fishes or whales which God created this passive power in themselves from their first creation but received it from that blessing of God ver 22. Be fruitfull and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let fowle multiply in the earth Nor did the earth become the Common mother of vegetables as of hearbs grasse trees c. and of more perfect livings creatures at the same time It received power to bring forth the one upon the third day not enabled to bring forth the other untill the fift day God said Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind cattell and creeping thing and beast of the earth So that all these and man himselfe were not immediately made of nothing though immediately made by God himselfe for they were made by him of the substance of the earth which was visible praeexistent to their making though not made of it as of the matter But when it is said in the first of Genesis God in the beginning made the heaven and earth it cannot be supposed or imported that he made them of any visible or invisible substance praeexistent and if hee made them or their common masse of no substance praeexistent here was something made of nothing but how of nothing or what doth this particle import not that nothing should remaine as an ingredient in the first masse or as if it had the like precedency to it as the earth had to living things the Almightie did not so turne nothing into something as our Sauiour did water into wine To say any thing could be made of nothing in this sense or according to the former importances of the particle of doth indeed imply an evident contradiction for so nothing should be something and simple not beeing should haue a true being To make nothing to be something fals not within the object of power Omnipotent it can be no part of the Almightie makers worke As Cyphers cannot bee multiplied into numbers by any skill in Arithmetique though supposed infinite so neither can nothing be converted into something nor become an ingredient in bodies created by any power though infinite As the Omnipotent Creator is one vnitie it selfe so euery thing which he makes must have its unitie or Identitie it cannot consist of contradictories 2. When then it is said that all things were made of nothing or that creation supposeth some things to be immediately made of nothing this particle of can onely
that out of this earth was brought forth hearb yeelding seede and fruit trees yeelding fruit with seed in them before there was any propagation by seede So he tels us againe vers 21. That God created great Whales and every living creature â—at moveth in the waters after their kinde before there was any Spawne of fishes or seede of fowles For so it followes in the 22. ver That God blessed them after hee had made them saying Be fruitfull and multiply and fill the waters and the Seas and let fowle multiply on the earth And it was this blessing upon fish and fowle thus created at once that is made perfect in their kinde not by growth or succession but by present operation of his Omnipotent power which gave first beginning to the naturall propagation of Fishes and Fowles by Seede or Spawne Againe in as much as the greatest Whales or other creatures most perfect in their kinde though produced in a moment did presuppose a possibilitie of their being and in their most perfect actual beeing include more than a possibilitie of not beeing a necessary inclination to returne unto the matter or masse out of which they were made This beeing which they have presupposeth an infinite and pure act which every way hath precedencie of them as having no cause at all of his beeing but is beeing it selfe without possibilitie of not beeing The manner or method which Moses observed in the Creation was this Hee made the Heaven and Earth and first masse of meere nothing that is without any masse or subject visible or invisible praeexistent whereon to worke That imperfect masse of this great Spheare now distinguished into its severall parts and within sixe dayes adorned and beautified in every part beyond all skill of Art was the first effect or prime worke in order of time or nature of his all sufficient active power or efficiencie Out of this masse hee made all things visible in their kind not by meanes or efficiencie naturall but by the same supernaturall or Omnipotent power by which he made the first masse out of nothing In the prime and Cardinall workes of the sixe dayes the Almighty did proceede though by supernaturall efficiencie in that order or method which Nature by his appointment since hath followed Man which is the most perfect visible creature was the last made next before him the beasts of the field which are next in perfection to him Next before them the fowles of the Ayre and fishes of the Sea and immediately before them the Sunne the Moone and the Stars But in the severall fountaines or roots of propagation by seede hee baganne the contrary way Hee first made man perfect before hee gave him the power of propagation So did hee make every living creature actually perfect in his kinde before he gave them power to increase and multiply by naturall seede or inchoation of now being 3. It is a conceipt groundlesse either in Philosophy or Divinitie which some late Divines aswell of the Romish as of Reformed Churches not without faire pretence of Saint Augustines Authoritie have taught that all things were created at once or in one day by the Almightie maker that the mention of Gods six daies worke is interserted by Moses onely for distinction sake or in respect of our incapacitie to conceive distinctly of Gods workes But if all things had beene made in this sense at once that is upon one day no reason could be given why Gods commendation of something which hee made should bee omitted and exprest upon the making of others or why the commendation of his workes should have beene oftner exprest than once if the productioÌ„ or finishing of al things which he made had beene momentarie or in the compasse of one day Now in the first part of Moses his historie In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth we doe not reade that God saw it was good What is the reason because as yet they were not perfected in their kind but destinated onely unto more perfection Of the light which was created the first day saith Moses God saw that it was good But so he saith not of the second dayes worke which was the separation or division betweene the waters which are above the firmament and the waters beneath it What doth this omission of the divine approbation intimate unto us thus much if no more That the second dayes worke did not bring the waters to that perfection and use whereunto they were destinated But of the third dayes worke in which the earth was severed from the waters under the firmament and enabled by his creative power to bring forth Hearbes and other Vegetables God saith Moses saw that it was good And so it is likewise said of the fourth dayes worke in which the Sun and Moone and the Stars were made and so likewise of the fift wherein the water was authorized to bring forth fowles and fishes perfect in their kind and lastly of the sixt day wherein man was made it is said that God saw all that he had made and it was exceeding good To explicate every dayes worke in particular would require a larger Treatise then we project our intended Commentaries upon the Apostles Creede shall bee Of such Euangelicall mysteries as the Historie of the sixt dayes worke and the seaventh dayes rest did by way of Embleme portend or foreshadow wee shall have occasion to treate when wee come unto the Sonne of Gods consecration unto his everlasting Priesthood or of the Sonne of mans residing three dayes and three nights in the wombe of the earth which speech of our Saviour cannot bee verified either of three naturall dayes or of three artificiall dayes and nights but hath a peculiar reference to three of those evenings and mornings which Moses mentioneth in the historie of the Creation The taske for the present undertaken was to shew the possibilitie of the Creation or making all things of nothing and that there is a necessitie in nature that things generable should have a beginning that the propagation of living Creatures could not be from Eternitie not before all times imaginable And if sublunarie substances or vegetables had a beginning Not the Elements onely whereof they are made but the Heavens themselves the Sunne the Moone the Starres by whose influence they are produced must have their beginning too because the end of their beeing of their operation of continuance in their course or order is for the continuall propagation of vegetables and living bodies I may conclude this first point with that acute collection of Iustin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there were no Sunne there could be no use of the eye and if there were no eye there should be no use of the great eye of this world at least of its light But in asmuch as the Sunne is necessary for the eye and the eye for the Sun there is a necessitie that both of theÌ„ should have a beginning of Beeing For
the earth and in the waters are as immediately and as intirely ascribed unto the operative power of the Creator as their first Creation out of nothing was Yet the reason of their ascribing all this unto the immediate and sole power of God will no way warrant the truth of their criticisme who teach that neither the fire doth truly heat or burne or the water really coole or moisten or that no visible creature hath any reall operation upon another but that our assigning of their motions or operations as true causes in their kind of the effects which we see daily produced is but a solaecisme of vaine Philosophy or of sciences falsly so called whereas the right resolution of this solaecisme into distinct and Christian phrase is but this God doth produce heat cold moisture vegetables and other living things ad praesentiam creaturarum the Fire Water Sunne Earth c. being but bare witnesses of the Creators power which is manifested in them or of its operation in their presence by which operation alone all those effects are produced which the Philosophers ascribe unto the Creatures And most true it is that the Creator doth daily worke all those effects which we attribute to naturall agents yet doth hee not worke such effects onely in them or where they are present but he truly worketh by them and with them And if the Omnipotent power be truly said to worke by and with natural meanes or causes they must truly worke with him in their kinde When the Apostle saith in him wee live and move and have our beeing this necessarily implies that wee have a life in its kinde distinct from his life a motive power different in its kinde from his power a kinde of beeing likewise distinct from his infinite Essence or from being-it-selfe But in as much as the life of all things living the motions of every thing that moveth the being of every numerable thing that is hath such an absolute dependance as hath been declared upon his creative power hence it is that the Prophets and Divine Philosophers ascribe all the visible effects or events which time presents or place accompanieth no lesse intirely to the Creator than the first production of their visible and naturall causes As for the former Critickes in whose language God onely worketh in his creatures or his creatures being present they might with as good reason affirme that the Sunne did not really move but that God did move the Sun being present yet could he not move or create motion ad praesentiam Solis unlesse the Sunne did truly move The truth is the Sunne doth move or is moved by Gods presence in it but he doth not move with it or by it But with the Sunne or other Creatures he truly worketh as they truly worke with him And by this concession of some true power and property of working unto naturall Agents more is ascribed to the Creator of all things than can bee ascribed by the contrary opinion which utterly denies al power or property of working to the Creatures For he that denyes any effects to be truly wrought by them cannot ascribe their abilities or operative force which in his opinion is none unto their Creator But Moses taugh the Israelites that it was God which gave them power to gather substance Nor were they more bound to praise God for the substance which they gathered or for the Manna which by miracle hee sent unto them than for the 〈◊〉 which he gave them to gather the one or other 2 Yeâ— is not this absolute and immediate dependance which every creature as well or its being as for its power or exercise of it hath oâ— the Almighty Creator the intire ground or reason why the effects which are in their kinde produced by the Creatures are by the Prophets wholly ascribed unto power Almighty For this dependance or the reason of ascribing all things to God which is grounded on it being for the present â—questred he hath a peculiar title to all the works or effects especially to all of greater and more publique consequence which the Creatures produce from his skill or wisedome in contriving the combination of second causes with their severall operations for the assequution of their last or utmost end Nor was the entitative goodnesse of every creature in his kinde albeit considered in that perfection wherein God made it the ground or reason of that approbation which hee bestowed upon them as they severally began to bee or after hee had accomplished them all God saith Moses saw all that he had made and loe it was exceeding good What goodnesse then was this which hee thus commends the goodnesse of order or of harmony betwixt them as they were parts of this Vniverse This harmony was the accomplishment of his severall workes the ground of his praises and the complete object of our beleefe of this Article of Creation Hence saith the Apostle Heb. 11 By faith we beleeve What Secula facta esse nay more then so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the worlds were harmonically made It was a double over-sight in some good Divines from one or both of these two principles Omne ens quâ—â—ens est bonum What soever hath being is good whatsoever is was made by God and all things which God made were good to infer that sinne or morall evill could have no positive entitie For the greater the entitative goodnesse of any creature is the greater measure of morall evill it alwayes includes unlesse its entitative goodnesse hold such harmony or correspondency with the rest as may helpe to make up or support that goodnesse of order that is that goodnesse of coordination amongst themselves or of that joint subordination unto their Creator which he first framed and placed in this Vniverse as it was his worke Vnlesse sinne or morall evill had some positive entitie or some positive degrees or measure all sinnes should be equall there could bee no different kinds of sinne no numericall difference or degrees betwixt particular sinnes of the same kind But of the nature of sinne or morall evill and how compatible this evill is with goodnes entitative more at large by Gods assistance in the Treatise of Originall sinne or the estate or condition of the sons of wrath which estate every child of Adam by participation of this first sinne doth inherit The peculiar title which the Almighty Creator by right of Creation or by the combination or contrivance of naturall and intellectuall agents hath to all the praises which either the Souldier or Statesman the Landlord the Husbandman or such as live by Merchandizing daily rob him of will come more fitly to be declared in some following Treatises of Divine speciall providence 3 If the Reader desire a briefe abstract or summe of what hath beene said of Gods power in creating the world or of the reservation of this free power unto himselfe to alter to innovate or amend the estate wherein he hath hitherto
celestiall or sublunarie bodies for exercising the functions most naturall to them That hee will not at any time lay the like restraint upon them wee are not bound to beleeve untill thus much be by his word revealed unto us That God cannot at this time bring such a generall Inundation upon the earth as hee did in the dayes of Noah we may not say or thinke but that hee will not destroy the world by water wee must beleeve because wee have his solemne promise to this purpose sealed unto us by the signe of the Bow in the Cloud But when the iniquitie of this present world shall come unto the same height and measure which the old world had made up wee beleeve hee will destroy it by fire For other mutations in the course of nature the condition or exigence of times ensuing may be such as that they may be as strange and miraculous as at any time heretofore they have beene The not interposing of miracles in these our dayes proceedes not from any Act passed by the Almightie to the contrary nor from the unchangeablenesse of his eternall will but from the condition or course which his creatures hold de facto whose condition or estate is in it selfe and by his Almighty will so to have it so changeable and so improveable to different purposes that many events which to our observation would be most strange might upon speciall occasions be produced without any change or alteration in his power whose exercise ad extra that is in respect of effects producible in the creature is immutably free untill hee promise to inhibit them as hee hath done the generall Inundation And although hee be most immutable in all his promises or inhibitions yet doth not every promise or inhibition which hee makes induce an absolute immutabilitie or necessitie of the things promised or inhibited Their immutabilitie or necessitie is the proper effect of his more solemne or peculiar promises Nor are such inhibitions as he hath set unto the water absolutely necessary from Eternity but grow necessary in revolution of time by the changeable condition of the Creature And albeit we can neither prescribe limits to his will nor conceive any reason of the mutations which fall out in the Creatures by his inhibition by his permission or by his positive enabling them to exercise their native functions yet of the least mutation that can fall out in the world he knowes a cause or reason nor doth he suffer any thing to be done for which his immutable freedome in governing the world hath not an eternall rule or reason infinitely more perfect than the wisest man living can give any for his best Acts or undertakings But suppose the Sun to have that freedome of power in the emission or not emission of his beames which men have over their breath or that dexterity in tempering or moderating its light or influence which skilfull Musitians have in modulating their voices and the former representation of that power which God hath over all his creatures and of their dependance on him in their beings and operations by the dependance which light hath on the Sunne would be more lively and full 6 But the Psalmist hath made choice of that free power which man hath over his animall faculties as over his breath or operation of his senses as the fairest picture of Gods free power creative and providence over his Creatures These wait all upon thee that thou mightest give them their meat in due seasons That thou givest them they gather thou openest thine hand they are filled with good Thou hidest thy face they are troubled thou takest away their breath they dye and returne to their dust Thou sendest forth thy spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the earth The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever the Lord shall rejoyce in his workes He looketh on the earth and it trembleth he toucheth the hils and they smoake Psal 104. vers 27. c. Yet even in these and the like emblematicall expressions of the Creators free power over his Creatures or in the choisest that can bee taken or gathered out of the Propheticall descriptions from the exercise of mens free and purest thoughts there will still remaine this disparity We cannot alter the objects of our intellectuall or abstract contemplations without some alteration or change of Acts. It is then the prerogative of the Almighty freely to will things most contrary and different without any diversity in his will And this his free will not onely worketh greater varietie or change in the Creature than the wits of all men in the world can conceive but withall irresistibly determines the issue of every possible change without any shadow of change or alteration in his thoughts or resolutions which in him are not many but more truly one infinity than any one thought in us is one This disparity betweene the Identity of his Eternall knowledge and of his immutable freedome and the manner of our understanding or intellectuall choice I cannot yet better represent than by the former disparity betweene the circle and many sided figures Mans purest intellectuall thoughts or actuall choices are in the contemplative part of the soule as angles are in many sided figures all as different each from other as one angle is from another in a quadrangle and every one is as distinct from the substance of the soule wherein they are as angles in a quadrangle are from the sides or surface of it But those which wee terme or conceive as severall Acts or exercises of the Divine power as the Act of creation the act of preservation the act of conseruation the production of miracles c. are in the Almighty not so much distinct one from another or from his incomprehensible essence as the Angles in a circle are from the sides or from the circumference which notwithstanding is a totangle in which there is no sensible distinction betweene sides and Angles albeit both of them bee truly contained in the circumference as all power and freedome of power is contained in the immutable infinite and incomprehensible Essence CHAP. 10. The usuall and daily operations of naturall causes with their severall events or successes are as immediately ascribed to the Creator by the Prophets as the first Creation of all things with the reasons why they are so ascribed 1 FRom the forementioned hundred and fourth Psalme which is no other than a sweet paraphrase upon the sixe dayes work of Creation and from the like propheticall emblazoning of Gods glory which amounts from consideration of his workes the intelligent Reader will informe himselfe that the continuall rising and setting of the Sunne and Moone their incessant diffusion of light through this visible World the perpetuall ascent of springing waters into the hills their continuall decursion from them into the Sea the limitation of the Seas ebbing and flowing the daily growth of plants and vegetables the motion of living things on