Notion & God Psal. cxxxvi. 2. Dan. ii. 47; what means we come to assure ourselves of the existence of such a Deity, and upon what grounds we apprehend him of such a transcendent nature that he can admit no competitor; then may we be conceived to have sufficiently explicated the former part of the first Article; then may every one understand what he says, and upon what ground he proceeds, when he professeth, I believe in God. The name of God is attributed unto many, but here is to be understood of him who by way of eminency and excellency Deut. x. 17. bears that name, and therefore is styled God of gods; the 18 Lord our God is God of gods, and Lord of lords: and in the same respect is called the most high God, (others being but inferior, or under him), and God over or above all'. This eminency and excellency, by which these titles become proper unto him, and incommunicable to any other, is grounded upon the Divine nature or essence, which all other who are called gods have not, and therefore are not by nature gods. Then when ye knew not God (saith St Paul) ye did service unto them which by nature are not gods. There is then a God by nature, and others which are called gods, but by nature are not so: for either they have no power at all, because no being, but only in the false opinions of deceived men, as the gods of the heathen; or if they have any real power or authority, from whence some are called gods2 in the Scripture, yet have they it not from themselves or of their 1 Tim. vi. 16. own nature, but from him who only hath immortality, and consequently only Divinity, and therefore is the only true John xvii. 3. God. So that the notion of a Deity doth at last expressly Gal. iv. 8. signify a Being or nature of infinite perfection; and the infinite perfection of a nature or being consisteth in this, that it be absolutely and essentially necessary, an actual being of itself; and potential or causative of all beings beside itself, independent from any other, upon which all things else depend, and by which all things else are governed. It is true, 1 Inprimis quidem necesse est concedatis esse aliquem sublimiorem Deum et mancipem quendam divinitatis, qui ex hominibus Deos fecerit.' Tertull. Apol. c. 11. 2 'Ego dixi, Dii estis; sed in eo indulti nominis significatio est: et ubi refertur, ego dixi, loquentis potius est sermo quam rei nomen.' S. Hilar, de Trin. 1. vii. c. 10. [p. 921 c.] 3 'Deus plenæ ac perfectæ divinitatis est nomen.' S. Hilar. de Trin. 1. xi. c. 48. [p. 1110.] 'Deus substantiæ ipsius nomen, id est, divinitatis.' Tertull. adv. Herm. c. 3. indeed, that to give a perfect definition of God is impossible, neither can our finite reason hold any proportion with infinity; but yet a sense of this Divinity we have, and the first and common notion of it consists in these three particulars; that it is a Being of itself, and independent from any other; that it is that upon which all things which are made depend; that it governs all things. And this I conceive sufficient as to the first consideration, in reference to the notion of a God. As for the existence of such a Being, how it comes to be u known unto us, or by what means we are assured of it, is not so unanimously agreed upon, as that it is. For although some have imagined that the knowledge of a Deity is connatural to the soul of man, so that every man hath a connate inbred notion of a God; yet I rather conceive the soul of man to have no connatural knowledge at all, no particular notion of any thing in it, from the beginning; but being we can have no assurance of its pre-existence, we may more rationally judge it to receive the first apprehensions of things by sense, and by them to make all rational collections. If then the soul of man be at the first like a fair smooth table, without any actual characters of knowledge imprinted in it; if all the knowledge which we have comes successively by sensation, instruction, and rational collection; then must we not refer the apprehension of a Deity to any connate notion or inbred opinion; at least we are assured God never chargeth us with the knowledge of him upon that account. Again, although others do affirm, that the existence of God. is a truth evident of itself, so as whosoever hears but these terms once named, that God is, cannot choose but acknowledge it for a certain and infallible truth upon the first apprehension: that as no man can deny that the whole is greater than any part, who knoweth only what is meant by whole, and what by part: so no man can possibly deny or doubt of the existence of God, who knows but what is meant by God, and what it is to be; yet can we not ground our knowledge of God's existence upon any such clear and immediate evidence: nor were it safe to lay it upon such a ground, because whosoever should deny it, could not by this means be convinced; it being a very irrational way of instruction to tell a man that doubts of this truth, that he must believe it because it is evi3 PEARSON. dent unto him, when he knows that he therefore only doubts of it, because it is not evident unto him. 1 Athough therefore that, God is, be of itself an immediate, 19 certain, necessary truth, yet must it be evidenced and made apparent unto us by its connexion unto other truths; so that the being of the Creator may appear unto us by his creature, and the dependency of inferior entities lead us to a clear acknowledgment of the supreme and independent Being. Wisd. xiii. 5. The wisdom of the Jews thought this method proper, for by the greatness and beauty of the creatures, proportionably the Maker of them is seen: and not only they, but St Paul hath taught us, that the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. For if Rom. i. 20. 1 'Hæc propositio, Deus est, quantum in se est, per se nota est, quia prædicatum est idem cum subjecto. Deus enim est suum esse.-Sed quia nos non scimus de Deo quid est, non est nobis per se nota, sed indiget demonstrari per ea quæ sunt magis nota quoad nos, et minus nota quoad naturam, scilicet per effectus.' Aquin. Par. 1. qu. 2. art. 1. 2 This place must be vindicated from the false gloss of Socinus, who contends, that it cannot be proved from the creature that there is a God, and therefore to this place of St Paul answers thus: 'Sciendum est verba, a creatione mundi, debere conjungi cum verbo invisibilia—Ait igitur eo in loco Apostolus, æternam divinitatem Dei, id est, id quod nos Deus perpetuo facere vult (Divinitas enim hoc sensu alibi quoque apud ipsum enunciatur, ut Col. ii. 9), æternamque potentiam, id est, promissiones quæ nunquam intercident (quo sensu paulo superius dixerat Evangelium esse potentiam Dei), hæc, inquam, quæ nunquam postquam mundus creatus fuerat, ab hominibus visa fuerant, id est, non fuerant eis cognita, per opera, hoc est, per mirabiles ipsius Dei et divinorum hominum, præsertim vero Christi et Apostolorum ejus, operationes, conspecta fuisse.' [Prælectiones Theologica, Lib. i. c. ii. vol. 1. p. 538. col. 2. ed. 1656.] In which explication there is nothing which is not forced and distorted; for though his first observation seem plausible, yet there is no validity in it. He bringeth only for proof, Matt. xiii. 35, κεκρυμμένα ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, which proves not at all that ȧnd KTÍσews has the same sense: and it is more probable that it hath not, because that is usually expressed by ἀπ' ἀρχῆς κτίσεως, Mark x. 6, and xiii. 19, 2 Pet. iii. 4, never by drò κτίσεως. Besides, the κεκρυμμένα in St Matthew bears not that analogy with dópara which Socinus pretends, signifying not things unseen or unknown till then, but only obscure sayings or parables; for which purpose those words were produced out of the Psalms by the Evangelist, to prove that the Messias was to speak in para חידות מני קדם bles, in the original LXX. προβλήματα ἀπ' ἀρχῆς, id est, wise ancient sayings, which were not unseen and unknown, for it immediately followeth, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us, Psal. lxxviii. 3. And though he would make out this interpretation, by accusing other interpreters of unfaithfulness: 'Plerique interpretes, ex præpositione a, ex fecerunt, contra ipsorum Græcorum Codicum fidem, qui non ἐκ κτίσεως, sed ἀπὸ κτίσεως Phidias could so contrive a piece of his own work', as in it to preserve the memory of himself, never to be obliterated without the destruction of the work, well may we read the great Artificer of the world in the works of his own hands, and by the existence of any thing demonstrate the first cause of all things. We find by the experience of ourselves, that some things in this world have a beginning, before which they were not; the account of the years of our age sufficiently infer our nativities, and they our conceptions, before which we had no being. Now if there be any thing which had a beginning, there must habent:' yet there is no ground for such a calumny, because and may be, and is often rendered e or ex as well as éx, as Matt. iii. 4, ȧπò тριxŵν καμήλου, e pilis camelinis, vii. 4, ἀπὸ τοῦ ὀφθαλμοῦ σου, ex oculo tuo, 16, ȧrò ȧкavoŵv, ex spinis; and even in the sense which Socinus contends for, Matt. xvii. 18, άπò Tŷs wpas èxelvys, V. T. ex illa hora, as Tully, 1 de Fin. 51, 'Ex ea die,' and Virgil, 'Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis,' Ecl. vii. 70, and, "Tempore jam ex illo casus mihi cognitus urbis Trojanæ,' Æn. i. 623. So the Greek and μépovs the Latins render ex parte, and тoû loov, ex æquo: of which examples are innumerable. [Dr Burton refers to Matt. vii. 20, xi. 19, xvi. 21; Luke xvii. 25; Acts ii. 22; Apoc. xii. 6.] There is no unfaithfulness then imputable to the interpreters: nor can such pitiful criticisms give any advantage to the first part of Socinus's exposition*. Howsoever the Catholic interpretation depends not on those words and κτίσεως, but on the consideration of the persons, that is the Gentiles, and the other words, ποιήμασι νοούμενα, which he farther perverts, rendering them the miraculous operations of Christ and his apostles, or, as one of our learned men, their doings, mistaking woinua, which is from the passive πεποίημαι, for ποίησις, from the active ἐποίησα: for ποίημα is properly the thing made or created, not the operation or doing of it; as KTÍσis is sometimes taken for the creature, sometimes for the creation, but kтiouа is the creature only. As therefore we read, 1 Tim. iv. 4, πâv κτίσμα Θεοῦ καλόν, so Eph. i. 10, αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα. In this sense spake Thales properly: Пpeσβύτατον τῶν ὄντων Θεὸς, ἀγέννητον γάρο κάλλιστον κόσμος, ποίημα γὰρ Ocov. Diog. Laert. [Thales, § 35.] The other interpretations, which he was forced to, are yet more extravagant as when he renders the eternal Godhead, that which God would always have us do,' or 'his everlasting will,' and proves that rendition by another place of St Paul, Col. ii. 9, "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; that is, says he, 'all the will of God' (whereas it is most certain, that where the Godhead is, especially where the fulness, even all the fulness of the Godhead is, there must be all the attributes as well as the will of God): and when he interprets the eternal power to be 'the promises which shall never fail;' and thinks he has sufficiently proved it, because the same apostle calls the Gospel the power of God. For by this way of interpretation no sentence of Scripture can have any certain sense. 1 In the shield of Pallas, Arist. de Mundo, c. vi. § 29. *Dr Burton cites further, as fixing the meaning of anò kriσews kóσμov, Arist. de Mundo, c. 6, §20: Plato apud Cyr. Alex. adv. Julian, iii. vol. vi. p. 97 D. necessarily be something which had no beginning, because nothing can be a beginning to itself. Whatsoever is, must of necessity either have been made, or not made; and something there must needs be which was never made, because all things cannot be made. For whatsoever is made, is made by another, neither can any thing produce itself; otherwise it would follow, that the same thing is and is not at the same instant in the same respect: it is, because a producer; it is not, because to be produced: it is therefore in being, and is not in being; which is a manifest contradiction. If then all things which are made were made by some other, that other which produced 20 them either was itself produced, or was not: and if not, then have we already an independent being; if it were, we must at last come to something which was never made, or else admit either a circle of productions, in which the effect shall make its own cause, or an infinite' succession in causalities, by which nothing will be made: both which are equally impossible. Something then we must confess was never made, something which never had beginning. And although these effects or dependent beings, singly considered by themselves, do not infer one supreme cause and maker of them all, yet the admirable order and connexion of things shew as much; and this one supreme Cause is God. For all things which we see or know have their existence for some end, which no man who considereth the uses and utilities of every species can deny. Now whatsoever is and hath its being for some end, of that the end for which it is must be thought the cause; and a final cause is no otherwise the cause of any thing than as it moves the efficient cause to work: from whence we cannot but collect a prime efficient Cause of all things, indued with infinite wisdom, who having a full comprehension of the ends of all, designed, produced, and disposed all things to those ends. Again, as all things have their existence, so have they also their operations for some end3; and whatsoever worketh so, must needs be directed to it. Although then those creatures 1 ̓Αλλὰ μὴν ὅτι γ' ἐστὶν ἀρχή τις, καὶ οὐκ ἄπειρα τὰ αἴτια τῶν ὄντων, οὔτ ̓ εἰς εὐθυωρίαν, οὔτε κατ ̓ εἶδος, dov. Aristot. Metaph. 1. i. [min.] c. 2, § 1; and again: elrep μŋlév ἐστι πρῶτον, ὅλως αἴτιον οὐθέν ἐστι. Ib. § 4. 2 Πόθεν δῆλον, εἰ ὅλως ἐστὶ Θεός; Εκ τῆς τῶν ὄντων συστάσεώς τε καὶ diaμovis. Justin. Quæst. et Resp. ad Græcos, quæst. iii. 6. [p. 204 c.*] 3 Εν ὅσοις τέλος ἐστί τι, τούτου *This is not a genuine work of Justin. |