thereto, or capable thereof; as animals and plants out of their feeds.] Which principles, being deduced from obfervation of natural effects, (or works of art,) performed always by alterations and tranfpofitions of fome fubjacent matter, we may fafely, in refpect only to fuch kind of effects, admit; allowing no natural agent, no created artificer able to produce any thing without fome subject, aptly qualified and prepared to receive its influence. But hence to conclude generally, that every action poffible doth neceffarily require a matter preexiftent, or predifpofed fubject, is nowife reasonable; because fuch a thing doth not ufually according to the course of nature happen, therefore it is in itself absolutely impoffible to be, is no good collection; no logic will allow us from particular experiments to establish general conclufions; especially fuch as concern abfolute impoffibility of things to be otherwise, than fometimes they appear to be: there may be, for all we can know, agents of another fort, and powers much differing in kind and manner of efficacy from those which are fubject to our obfervation; efpecially to fuppofe the Supreme Being (that made the world) can himself act no otherwise, than we see these inferior things do, is grofsly vain; nor from any certain principle of reafon can it ever appear, that it is impoffible fome fubftances fhould be totally produced de novo, or receive an existence which they had not. We cannot derive any fuch propofition from fense: it affures us that fome effects are poffible, but cannot help us to determine what is impoffible: that which we fee done is poffible; but what we cannot perceive done, is not therefore impoffible: nor can any reafon of ours reach the extent of all powers and poffibilities. That opinion therefore of the ancient philofophers, that the matter of the world, or of natural things, is eternal and uncreated, had no certain foundation: we may fay to them, as our Saviour once Matt. xxii. did to the Sadducees; Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God: and that their opinion was indeed false, and contrary to our faith, may appear, 1. Because 29. 11, &c. it is so often generally affirmed in holy Scripture, that God Rom. x. did make all things; all things that are in heaven and in earth: it is unfafe, and not without great reafon ever to be done, to make limitations and reftrictions 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; Whofoever 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 philosophers, 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 deftroyed, becaufe 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 justly use and dispose of it according to his pleafure? 3. Again; fuppofing any being eternal, unmade, y de re non fua, fcilicet non facta ab ipfo. Tert. ad Herm. 9. De alieno ufus, aut precario usus eft qua egens ejus, aut injuria qua prevalens ejus. lb. 3. tantii libro tationem 11. and independent upon God, doth advance that being in some respect to an equality with God, (imparting those great attributes of God thereto,) and it deprives him of thofe 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 power. 4. Farther, as Ariftotle well difcourfeth 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; 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, fense, 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 fay, produce fuch an active principle, (fuch an évreλéxa, to use the philofopher's word,) why might he not as well produce a paffive one, fuch as the matter is? 5. Farther, if God did produce immaterial beings, (fimple and uncompounded fubftances, distinct from all matter,) fuch as angels and the fouls of men, merely out of nothing, (for out of what preexistent subftance 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, so 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. * Νιάνισκε, 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 course of nature, (without any preparation or predifpofition of the fufcipient matter,) in the fame manner, (by faying only, as our Saviour did; Oéλw, xadagioni, I Luke v. 13. will; be thou cleanfed: Woman, great is thy faith: Tevŋ- Matt. xv. Dýrw coi wis déreis, Be it to thee as thou defireft,) * doth 2% fhew the fame. For it is nowife harder, nor more impof- aiya ooì, ἐγέρθητι. 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 stones, than to make them out of nothing: there being a pofitive obstacle to be removed; here no refiftance appearing; there being as well fomewhat preceding to be destroyed, as something new to be produced. [Especially, I say, confidering that God uses no other means or inftruments in these 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, defcribing 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 seems, God made the matter of heaven and earth, devoid of all form and order, a confused and unshapen mafs; then he digefted 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 ©. From these premises we may conclude (against those philofophers, who, deftitute of the light of revelation, did conceive otherwife; and against fuch 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 fcholaftical fenfe of that word,) produce out of nothing, either immediately or mediately bestow 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 Christians have always acknowledged, and the holy M. V. 1. Scriptures do moft 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 worse 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 verfe describes this conceit. Prædicat hic duos effe patres, divifaque regna, Effe mali caufam Dominum qui condidit orbem; Adv. Marc. Poem. 1. 1 < Scriptura terram primo factam edicit, dehinc qualitatem ipfius edifferit ; ficut et cœlum primo factum profeffa, dehinc difpofitionem ejus fuperinducit. Tertull. contra Hermog. 26. |