"ful light, the admirable works which he had fore"thought." Pindarus the poet, and one of the wisest, acknowledged also one God, the most High, to be the Father and Creator of all things: Unus Deus, Pater, Creator summus. Plato calleth God the cause and original, the nature and reason of the universal: Totius rerum natura, causa, et origo Deus. But hereof more at large hereafter". Now, although the curiosity of some men have found it superfluous to remember the opinions of philosophers in matters of divinity, (it being true, that the scripture hath not want of any foreign testimony,) yet as the fathers, with others excellently learned, are my examples herein; so St. Paul himself did not despise, but thought it lawful and profitable, to remember whatsoever he found agreeable to the word of God among the heathen, that he might thereby take from them all escape, by way of ignorance, God rendering vengeance to them that know him not: as in his Epistle to Titus he citeth Epimenides against the Cretans, and to the Corinthians, Menander; and in the seventeenth of the Acts, Aratus, &c. "For truth," saith St. Ambrose, "by whomsoever uttered, is of the Holy Ghost;" Veritas, a quocunque dicatur, a Spiritu Sancto est: and lastly, let those kind of men learn this rule; Quæ sacris serviunt, profana non sunt; Nothing is profane that serveth to "the use of holy things." 66 SECT. III. Of the meaning of In principio, Genes. i. 1. THIS visible world, of which Moses writeth, God created in the beginning, or first of all; in which, saith Tertullian, things began to be. This word beginning (in which the Hebrews seek some hidden mystery, and which in the Jews' Targum is converted by the word sapientia) cannot be referred to succession of time, nor to order, as some men have conceived, both which are subsequent;' but only to n Vid. c. 6. creation then: for before that beginning there was neither primary matter to be informed, nor form to inform, nor any being, but the eternal. Nature was not, nor the next parent, or time, begotten; time properly and naturally taken: for if God had but disposed of matter already in being, then as the word beginning could not be referred to all things, so must it follow, that the institution of matter proceeded from a greater power than that of God. And by what name shall we then call such an one, saith Lactantius, as exceedeth God in potency; for it is an act of more excellency to make, than to dispose of things made? Whereupon it may be concluded, that matter could not be before this beginning; except we feign a double creation, or allow of two powers, and both infinite: the impossibility whereof scorneth defence. Nam impossibile est plura esse infinita: quoniam alterum esset in altero finitum: "There cannot "be more infinites than one; for one of them would limit "the other." SECT. IV. Of the meaning of the words heaven and earth, Genes. i. 1. THE universal matter of the world (which Moses comprehendeth under the names of heaven and earth) is by divers diversely understood; for there are that conceive, that by those words was meant the first matter, as the Peripatetics understand it; to which St. Augustine and Isidore seem to adhere: Fecisti mundum, saith St. Augustine, de materia informi; quam fecisti de nulla re, pene nullam rem: that is, "Thou hast made the world of a matter with"out form; which matter thou madest of nothing, and "being made, it was little other than nothing.". But this potential and imaginary materia prima cannot exist without form. Peter Lombard, the schoolmen Beda, Lyranus, Comestor, Tostatus, and others, affirm, that it pleased God first of all to create the empyrean heaven; which at the succeeding instant, saith P Beda and Strabo, • Cusan. de mente, lib. 3. P Beda Hex. Strabo super Gen. Eug. Cos. et de nat. in corp. he filled with angels. This empyrean heaven Steuchius Eugubinus calleth "divine clarity, and uncreated:" an error for which he is sharply charged by Pererius; though (as I conceive) he rather failed in the subsequent, when he made it to be a place, and the seat of angels and just souls, than in the former affirmation: for of the first, that God liveth in eternal light, it is written, My soul, praise thou the Lord, that covereth himself with light: and in the Revelation, 'And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God did light it. And herein also $John Mercer, upon Genesis, differeth not in opinion from Eugubinus: for as by heaven created in the beginning, was not meant the invisible, or supercelestial; so in his judgment, because it was in all eternity the glorious seat of God himself, it was not necessary to be created: Quem mundum supercolestem meo judicio creari (saith Mercer) non erat necesse. But as Moses forbare to speak of angels, and of things invisible and incorporate, for the weakness of their capacities whom he then cared to inform of those things which were more manifest; to wit, that God did not only by a strong hand deliver them from the bondage of Egypt, according to his promise made to their forefathers, but also that he created, and was the sole cause of this aspectable and perceivable universal: so, on the other side, I dare not think, that any supercelestial heaven, or whatsoever else (not himself) was increate and eternal. And as for the place of God before the world created, the finite wisdom of mortal men hath no perception of it; neither can it limit the seat of infinite no more than infinite power, itself can power be limited; for his place is in himself, whom no magnitude else can contain: How great is the house of God, saith Baruch, how large is the place of his possession! It is great, and hath no end; it is high, and unmeasurable. But leaving multiplicity of opinions, it is more probable a Ps. civ. 12. r Claritas divina non est lux facta, sed sapientia Dei, non creata, sed nata. Apoc. xxi. 23. • Mercer. in Gen. vii. 7. and allowed, that by the words "heaven and earth was meant the solid matter and substance, as well of all the heavens, and orbs supernal, as of the globe of the earth and waters, which covered it over; to wit, that very matter of all things, materia, chaos, possibilitas, sive posse fieri. "Which matter," saith Calvin, " was so called," quod totius mundi semen fuerit; "because it was the seed of the uni"versal:" an opinion of ancient philosophers long before. SECT. V. That the substance of the waters, as mixed in the body of the earth, is by Moses understood in the word earth; and that the earth, by the attributes of unformed and void, is described as the chaos of the ancient heathen. MOSES first nameth heaven and earth, (putting waters but in the third place,) as comprehending waters in the word earth; but afterwards he nameth them apart, when God by his Spirit began to distinguish the confused mass; and, as Basil saith, præparare naturam aquæ ad fœcunditatem vitalem: "to prepare the nature of water to a "vital fruitfulness." For under the word heaven was the matter of all heavenly bodies and natures expressed; and by the name of earth and waters all was meant, whatsoever is under the moon, and subject to alteration. Corrupt seeds bring forth corrupt plants; to which the pure heavens are not subject, though subject to perishing. They shall perish, saith y David; and the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, saith z Esay. Neither were the waters the matter of earth; for it is written, a Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear: which proveth, that the dry land was mixed and covered with the waters, and not yet distinguished; but no way, that the waters were the matter or seed of the earth, much less of the universal. Initio tu, Domine, terram fundasti; Thou, O Lord, in the beginning hast founded the earth: and again, b The earth was covered with the deep (meaning with waters) as with a garment, saith David. And if by natural arguments it may be proved, that water by condensation may become earth, the same reason teacheth us also, that earth rarefied may become water; water, air; air, fire; and so on the contrary. Deus ignis substantiam per aërem in aquam convertit; "God turneth the substance of fire by "air into water." For the heavens and the earth remained in the same state in which they were created, as touching their substance, though there was afterwards added multiplicity of perfection, in respect of beauty and ornament. dCœlum vero et terra in statu creationis remanserunt quantum ad substantiam, licet multiplex perfectio decoris et ornatus eis postmodum superaddita est. And the word which the Hebrews call maim is not to be understood according to the Latin translation simply, and as specifical water; but the same more properly signifieth liquor. For, (according to *Montanus,) Est autem maim liquor geminus, et hoc nomen propter verborum penuriam, Latina lingua plurali numero aquas fecit; "For maim," saith he, "is a double liquor;" that is, of divers natures; " and this name, or word, the La"tins, wanting a voice to express it, call it in the plural, aquas, waters." 66 This mass, or indigested matter, or chaos, created in the beginning, was without form; that is, without the proper form which it afterwards acquired, when the Spirit of God had separated the earth, and digested it from the waters. And the earth was void; that is, not producing any creatures, or adorned with any plants, fruits, or flowers. But after the Spirit of God had moved upon the waters, and wrought this indigested matter into that form which it now retaineth, then did the earth bud forth the herb which seedeth seed, and the fruitful tree according to his kind, and God saw that it was good; which b Ps. civ. 6. C Zeno. d Gul. Par. 600. e A. Mont. de Nat. |
