the first works of the first day, and all spiritual substances: others, mediately, as the works of the subsequent days, which indeed were made of matter; but of matter that in itself was ill adapted to the purpose, that bore no resemblance to the things produced from it, and from which no such creatures could have been produced by any natural energy.

XXXVIII. This production of things was effected by the mere will and command of God, by his all-powerful will, as Clement of Alexandria expressed it; or, which is the same thing, by his word, or fiat. "God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." "He spake, "and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast."z "Thou hast created all things, and FOR THY PLEA"SURE they are, and were created." The creatures existed merely because God willed them to exist, without further effort, without laborious exertion. "The "creation of the world," says the same Clement, "is "the effect of his counsel alone:" and Philo agrees with him, saying, "It seems reasonable to think, that "in the works which he performs, God exercises not only power and authority, but also wisdom and intel'ligence."

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XXXIX. It is still more remarkable, that Maximus Tyrius, a rural philosopher, and a stranger to recondite learning, should have taught the same truth in the following eloquent passage: By the will of Jupiter, "the earth, and whatever is nourished by the earth, "was established; the sea, and whatever is produced

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by the sea; the air, and whatever is supported by the air; the heaven, and whatever moves in heaven. All

y Gen. i. 3.

* Παντοκρατορικῷ βολήματι.

z Ps. xxxiii. 9.

a Rev. iv. 11.

"these were created by the will of Jupiter."* A little before, too, he had said that all these are the works of him, "whose comprehensive and perfect mind is never "divided, but with incredible rapidity, in the twinkling "of an eye, accomplishes and perfects whatever it "touches." Truly Christian and pious expressions, had he said JEHOVAH instead of Jupiter.

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XL. Since these statements are just, we utterly detest that bold tenet of the new Philosophy, by which it is maintained, "That, although God had, from the beginning, given no other form to the world than that "of a chaos; yet if, after having established the laws "of nature, he had assisted its operations by that con"currence which he usually affords, it may be concluded, without any prejudice to the miracle of the creation, that, by this ordinary concurrence alone, all things purely material would, in course of time, have attain"ed the same state of perfection in which we now see "them." The consequence of such notions is, that the masters of the new Philosophy imagine, that by means of natural generation, according to the rules of motion, all natural things could by degrees have been produced out of chaos, established and adjusted, (one of them even says, supposing the ordinary concurrence of God, must have been produced,) in the same manner as they have now been produced, established, and adjusted by a supernatural creation; and, consequently, that there was no necessity for that miraculous work which is called creation.

XLI. These sentiments have a dangerous tendency.† It ought not to pass without severe reprobation as an instance of arrogant temerity, that poor pitiful man should

*Dissert. xxv.

+ Пomnes xoμμaτos, i. e. literally, are of a bad stamp. T.

boast that he has discovered a way, by which, under the conduct of motion alone, all whose laws he, no doubt, has been able to ascertain, those wonderful works, which, as now created by the powerful word of God, command the astonishment of all the choirs of angels in common with the holy prophets, could, and even must have come forth from chaos of their own accord. God spoke, of old, to Job out of the whirlwind, saying, "Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the "foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast under

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standing. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if "thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon "it ?" &c. But these audacious men, according to their hypotheses, would find an answer to return to God; to wit, that, in all those works, there is nothing too wonderful, to have risen spontaneously out of chaos agreeably to their own rules of motion. Without doubt, however, they deserve the same reproof which God administered to Job, "Who is he that darkeneth counsel "by words without knowledge?"c

XLII. Whatever may be pretended to the contrary, assertions of this kind are derogatory to the miracle of the creation. The most admirable circumstance in creation is, that, at the mere command of the Deity, all things rose into existence either out of nothing, or out of matter which was altogether inadequate, and bore no proportion to what was to be formed from it. But this wonder is, in a great measure, if not entirely set aside, when it is affirmed that, supposing the ordinary concurrence of God, all things would have come forth out of chaos in the same manner, of their own accord, or as

Gregory of Nyssa speaks, " bý a spontaneous concourse," provided it had pleased God, who now accelerated the work, to have indulged motion and chaos with a certain period of time. According to this account, what is miraculous in creation, this only excepted, that it surpasses the ordinary production of natural things as to the degree of rapidity with which it is accomplished? The issue to which these notions gradually lead, is to cause the true doctrine of the creation of the world to be at last discarded with ridicule and disgrace. A certain raw disciple of this school, has not been ashamed, to deride that doctrine, in a book in which he makes this newfangled philosophy the interpreter of Scripture.

XLIII. Since it is manifest, then, from what has been said, that Creation is the production of things from nothing, and this by a mere command and volition, the natural consequence is that we must consider it as, indisputably, a work of the Divine omnipotence. Hence God ascribes it to himself alone, and disowns every other cause, whether co-ordinate or instrumental. "Lift up

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your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he "calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fail"eth." "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, "that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of "the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary ?”a "I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretch"eth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad "the earth by myself."e Parallel to this is the following

Αυτοματω συντυχία.

d I s. xl. 26, 28. See also verses 12, 13, 14. Ch. xxxvii. 16. xlii. 5. • Is. xliv. 24.

expression in Job;-" Who alone spreadeth out the "heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.'

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XLIV. Pressed by testimonies so very clear, Socinus perfidiously objects, "that these passages do not prove that, in creating and forming the world, God made "use of the services of none at all, but only of none "that did not entirely depend upon himself, and that "had not derived from him the power of doing something towards the creation of the world." This is boldly to contradict the prophets and God himself; for since they expressly declare, that God stretcheth forth the heavens ALONE, they exclude every other cause of every sort; and since it is added that God spreadeth abroad the earth BY HIMSELF, we are taught that this is an immediate act, in which no cause, not even one that is instrumental, and that operates by power derived from another, has any place. The Rabbinical writers say," immediately, and without any concaten"ation of causes."

XLV. By this work, too, the God of Israel discriminates himself from all the pretended gods of the Gentiles, and vindicates his own majesty in opposition to them. "All the gods of the nations," says the Psalmist, are "idols; but the LORD made the heavens :" and we read in Jeremiah, "Thus shall ye say unto

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them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, shall perish from the earth, and from un"der these heavens." Nor is it impertinent to remark, that, whilst Jeremiah composed all his other writings in the Hebrew language, this verse alone is found in the Chaldee dialect; because it was proper that the