149 Ch. ii. 3. Law of Subordination in the Most Holy Trinity. Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade BOOK I. far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him: and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few*. Our God is one, or rather very Oneness, and mere unity, having nothing but itself in itself, and not consisting (as all things do besides God) of many things. In which essential Unity of God a Trinity personal nevertheless subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possibility of man's conceit. The works which outwardly are of God, they are in such sort of Him being one, that each Person hath in them somewhat peculiar and proper. For being Three, and they all subsisting in the essence of one Deity; from the Father, by the Son, through the Spirit, all things are. That which the Son doth Spirit doth receive of the hear of the Father, and which the [3] The wise and learned among the very heathens themselves have all acknowledged some First Cause, whereupon originally the being of all things dependeth. Neither have they otherwise spoken of that cause than as an Agent, which knowing what and why it worketh, observeth in working a most exact order or law. Thus much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth, Διὸς δ ̓ ἐτελείετο βουλή†. Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus, Тòv пávта κόσμον ἐποίησεν ὁ δημιουργὸς οὐ χερσὶν ἀλλὰ λόγῳ §. Thus much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato, terming the Maker of the world an intellectual Worker. Finally the Stoics, although imagining the first cause of all things to be fire, * [Eccles. v. 2.] † John xvi. 13—15. Jupiter's counsel was accomplished. [II. A. 5.] § [C. 7. §. 1.] The Creator made the whole world not with hands, but by reason. Stob. in Eclog. Phys. Ch. ii. 4. 150 The Law and End of God's external working. BOOK I. held nevertheless, that the same fire having art, did óồų βαδίζειν ἐπὶ γενέσει κόσμου*. They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause, that Counsel is used, Reason followed, a Way observed; that is to say, constant Order and Law is kept; whereof itself must needs be author unto itself. Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it, and so could not itself be the first. Being the first, it can have no other than itself to be the author of that law which it willingly worketh by. God therefore is a law both to himself, and to all other things besides. To himself he is a law in all those things, whereof our Saviour speaketh, saying, "My Father worketh "as yet, so It." God worketh nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done; and the end for which they are done is a reason of his will to do them. His will had not inclined to create woman, but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created. Non est bonum, "It is not good man "should be alone; therefore let us make a helper for him ‡." That and nothing else is done by God, which to leave undone were not so good. If therefore it be demanded, why God having power and ability infinite, the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as we see they are: the reason hereof is the end which he hath proposed, and the law whereby his wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power in such sort, that it doth not work infinitely but correspondently unto that end for which it worketh, even "all things xpηors §, "in most decent and comely sort," all things in Measure, Number, and Weight. [4.] The general end of God's external working is the exercise of his most glorious and most abundant virtue. Which abundance doth shew itself in variety, and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture exprest by the name of riches |. "The Lord hath made all things for his "own sake¶." Not that any thing is made to be beneficial -God's Law or Counsel perfect, and unsearchable. 151 unto him, but all things for him to shew beneficence and BOOK I. grace in them. The particular drift of every act proceeding externally from God we are not able to discern, and therefore cannot always give the proper and certain reason of his works. Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain reason there is of every finite work of God, inasmuch as there is a law imposed upon it; which if there were not, it should be infinite, even as the worker himself is. [5.] They err therefore who think that of the will of God to do this or that there is no reason besides his will. Many times no reason known to us; but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine, inasmuch as he worketh all things κατὰ τὴν βουλὴν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, not only according to his own will, but "the Counsel of his own "will*.” And whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution hath of necessity some reason why it should be done, albeit that reason be to us in some things so secret, that it forceth the wit of man to stand, as the blessed Apostle himself doth, amazed thereat+: "O the depth of the riches both "of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable "are his judgments," &c. That law eternal which God himself hath made to himself, and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the cause and author; that law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most perfect beauty the countenance of that wisdom which hath testified concerning herself, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, even before his works of old I was set up;" that law, which hath been the pattern to make, and is the card to guide the world by; that law which hath been of God and with God everlastingly; that law, the author and observer whereof is one only God to be blessed for ever: how should either men or angels be able perfectly to behold? The book of this law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into. That little thereof which we darkly apprehend we admire, the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore. 66 [6.] Seeing therefore that according to this law He worketh, Ch. ii. 5, 6. * Ephes. i. 11. + Rom. xi. 33. + Prov. viii. 22. BOOK I. Ch. ii. 6. iii. 1. The law which natu ral agents have given them to ob serve, and their neces sary manner of keeping it. 152 God's Law or Counsel, unchangeable, free, eternal. "of whom, through whom, and for whom, are all things*;* although there seem unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world: "Tamen quoniam bonus mun"dum rector temperat, recte fieri cuncta ne dubites+:" "Let "no man doubt but that every thing is well done, because "the world is ruled by so good a guide," as transgresseth not His own law than which nothing can be more absolute, perfect, and just. The law whereby He worketh is eternal, and therefore can have no show or colour of mutability: for which cause, a part of that law being opened in the promises which God hath made (because his promises are nothing else but declarations what God will do for the good of men) touching those promises the Apostle hath witnessed, that God may as possibly "deny himself" and not be God, as fail to perform them. And concerning the counsel of God, he termeth it likewise a thing "unchangeable§;" the counsel of God, and that law of God whereof now we speak, being one. Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, let, or hindered, by means of this; because the imposition of this law upon himself is his own free and voluntary act. "that This law therefore we may name eternal, being "order which God before all ages hath set down with him"self, for himself to do all things by.". 66 III. I am not ignorant that by law eternal" the learned for the most part do understand the order, not which God hath eternally purposed himself in all his works to observe, but rather that which with himself he hath set down as expedient to be kept by all his creatures, according to the several conditions wherewith he hath endued them. They who thus are accustomed to speak apply the name of Law unto that only rule of working which superior authority imposeth; whereas we somewhat more enlarging the sense thereof term any kind of rule or canon, whereby actions are framed, a law. Now that law which, as it is laid up in the bosom of God, they call Eternal, receiveth according unto the * Rom. xi. 36. † Boet. lib. iv. de Consol. Philos. [p. 105, ed. Lugd. Bat. 1656.] pros. 5. God's second Law eternal, set to His Creatures. 153 Ch. iii. 2. different kinds of things which are subject unto it different BOOK I. and sundry kinds of names. That part of it which ordereth natural agents we call usually Nature's law; that which Angels do clearly behold and without any swerving observe is a law Celestial and heavenly; the law of Reason, that which bindeth creatures reasonable in this world, and with which by reason they may most plainly perceive themselves bound; that which bindeth them, and is not known but by special revelation from God, Divine law; Human law, that which out of the law either of reason or of God men probably gathering to be expedient, they make it a law. All things therefore, which are as they ought to be, are conformed unto this second law eternal; and even those things which to this eternal law are not conformable are notwithstanding in some sort ordered by the first eternal law. For what good or evil is there under the sun, what action correspondent or repugnant unto the law which God hath imposed upon his creatures, but in or upon it God doth work according to the law which himself hath eternally purposed to keep; that is to say, the first law eternal? So that a twofold law eternal being thus made, it is not hard to conceive how they both take place in all things*. [2.] Wherefore to come to the law of nature: albeit thereby we sometimes mean that manner of working which God hath set for each created thing to keep; yet forasmuch as those things are termed most properly natural agents, which keep the law of their kind unwittingly, as the heavens and elements of the world, which can do no other * Id omne, quod in rebus creatis fit, est materia legis æternæ.' Th. I. 1, 2. q. 93, art. 4, 5, 6. [Thom. Aquin. Opp. xi. 202.] Nullo modo aliquid legibus summi Creatoris ordinationique subtrahitur, a quo pax universitatis administratur.' August. de Civit. Dei, lib. xix. cap. 12. [t. VII. 556.] Immo et peccatum, quatenus a Deo juste permittitur, cadit in legem æternam. Etiam legi æternæ subjicitur peccatum, quatenus voluntaria legis transgressio pœnale quoddam incommodum animæ inserit, juxta illud Augustini, Jussisti Domine, et sic est, ut |