fess that heaven and earth are as of large extent and ample signification as the world and all things therein. Where it is yet farther observable, that the apostle hath conjoined the speech of both Testaments together. For the ancient Hebrews seem to have had no word in use amongst them which singly of itself did signify the world, as the Greeks had, in whose language St Paul did speak; and therefore they used in conjunction the heaven and earth, as the grand extremities within which all things are contained'. Nay, if we take the expositions of the later writers in that language, those two words will not only as extremities comprehend between them, but in the extension of their own significations contain all things in them. For when they divide the Universe into three worlds', the inferior, superior, and the middle world; the lower is wholly contained in the name of earth, the other two under the name of heaven. Nor do the Hebrews only use this manner of expression, but even the Greeks themselves; and that not only before, but after3 Pythagoras had accustomed 1 Καλῶς δὲ πάντες σχεδὸν ἐξεδέξ αντο τοῖς ἄκροις, οὐρανῷ τε καὶ γῇ, τὰ μέσα συμπεριειληφέναι στοιχεῖα [ὕδωρ, αέρα, καὶ πῦρ.] πῶς δὲ ἄκρα φημί; ὅτι γῆ μὲν τὸ κέντρον παντὸς ἐμπεριείληφε· καὶ ἔστι κάτωθεν μὲν ἀρχὴ πάντων ἡ γῆ, πέρας δὲ τούτων ὁ πάντα περιέχων οὐρανός· τούμπαλιν δὲ ἄνωθεν, ἀρχὴ μὲν ὁ οὐρανός, πέρας δὲ πάντων ἡ γῆ μετὰ δὲ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῆς γῆς τὰ λοιπὰ τρία περιείληπται στοιχεία. Jo. Philop. De Mundi Creat. 1. i. c. 5. [p. 478 B.] Τῷ μὲν οὐρανίῳ σώματι (ἡ φύσις) τὸ πέριξ τοῦ παντὸς ἀπένειμε, τῷ δὲ περιγείῳ τὸ κέντρον· ἐν δὲ σφαίρᾳ ἄλλως μὲν τὸ κέντρον ἀρχή, ἄλλως δὲ ὁ τοῦ περιέχοντος ὅρος. Hierocl. in Aur. Carm. v. 52. [p. 180.] For the Rabbins usually divide the whole frame of things into wow *This would now be written uninhabitable. + Cited as Sophocles by Ps.-Justin, Cohort. ad Gent. c. 18; de Monarch. c. 2; Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. 7, p. 63; Strom, 1. v. c. 14, p. 717, etc., but certainly not by him. See Boeckh, Grace Trag. Princ. p. 148; also Valcknaer, Diatribe de Aristobulo Judaeo; Dindorf, Steph. Thes. vol. 11. p. 21. 49 them to one name. As therefore under the single name of World or Universe1, so also under the conjunctive expression of heaven and earth, are contained all things material and immaterial, visible and invisible. But as the apostle hath taught us to reason, When he saith 1 Cor. xv. 27. all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him: so when we say, all things were made by God, it is as manifest that he is excepted who made all things. And then the proposition is clearly thus delivered: All beings whatsoever beside God were made. As we read in St John concerning the Word, that the world John i. 10. was made by him; and in more plain and express words before, All things were made by him, and without him was not any John i. 3. thing made that was made. Which is yet farther illustrated by St Paul: For by him were all things created that are in col. i. 16. heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him. If then there be nothing imaginable which is not either in heaven or in earth, nothing which is not either visible or invisible, then is there nothing beside God which was not made by God. This then is the unquestionable doctrine of the Christian faith, that the vast capacious frame of the World, and every thing any way contained and existing in it, hath not its essence from or of itself, nor is of existence absolutely necessary; but what it is, it hath not been, and that being which it hath was made, framed, and constituted by another. And as every house Heb. iii. is builded by some man; for we see the earth bear no such creature of itself; stones do not grow into a wall, or first hew and square, then unite and fasten themselves together in their generation; trees sprout not cross-like dry and sapless beams, nor do spars and tiles spring with a natural uniformity into a roof, and that out of stone and mortar: these are not the aury rážews. Plutarch. de Plac. Philosoph. 1. ii. c. 1. [Vol. iv. part 2. p. 886 B.] 1 'Si Mundum dixeris, illic erit et cælum, et quæ in eo, sol, et luna, et sidera, et astra, et terra, et freta, et omnis census elementorum. Omnia dixeris, cum id dixeris, quod ex omnibus constat.' Tertull. de Virg. Ve land. c. 4. Φασὶ δ' οἱ σοφοὶ καὶ οὐ works of nature, but superstructions and additions to her, as the supplies of art, and the testimonies of the understanding of man, the great artificer on earth: so, if the World itself be Job xxvi. 7. but an house', if the earth, which hangeth upon nothing, be the foundation, and the glorious spheres of heaven the roof (which hath been delivered as the most universal hypothesis), if this be the habitation of an infinite intelligence, the temple of God; then must we acknowledge the world was built by him, and consequently, that he which built all things is God. Heb. iii. 4 From hence appears the truth of that distinction, Whatsoever hath any being, is either made or not made: whatsoever is not made is God; whatsoever is not God is made. One uncreated and independent essence; all other depending on it, and created by it. One of eternal and necessary existence; all other indifferent, in respect of actual existing, either to be or not to be, and that indifferency determined only by the free and voluntary act of the first Cause. Now because to be thus made includes some imperfection, and among the parts of the world, some are more glorious than others; if those which are most perfect presuppose a Maker, then can we not doubt of a creation where we find far less perfection. This house of God, though uniform, yet is not all of the same materials, the footstool and the throne are not of the same mould; there is a vast difference between the heavenly expansions. This first aerial heaven, where Psal. civ. 3. God setteth up his pavilion, where he maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind, is not so far inferior in place as it is in glory to the next, the seat of the sun and moon, the two great lights, and stars innumerable, far greater than the one of them. And yet that second heaven is not so far above the first as beneath the 2 Cor. xii. 2. third, into which St Paul was caught. The brightness of the sun doth not so far surpass the blackness of a wandering cloud, as the glory of that heaven of presence surmounts the 10 αἰσθητὸς οὑτοσὶ κόσμος οὐδὲν ἄρα ἄλλο ἐστὶν ἢ οἶκος θεοῦ. Philo. [de Som nis, lib. i. c. 32. Vol. 1. p. 648.] Tov Κόσμον εὐπρεπῆ καὶ ἕτοιμον αἰσθητὸν οἶKov elvaι eoû. Id. de Plant. Noe. [c. 12. Vol. I. p. 337.] θεῖόν τι μέγεθος ὁ κόσ μος, καὶ οἶκος θεοῦ αἰσθητῶν. Id. de Mundi Incorr. [c. 21. Vol. 1. p. 509.] 2 Lucretius calls the heavens: 'Mundi magnum versatile templum.' 1. ν. 1436. Τὸ ἀνωτάτω καὶ πρὸς ἀλή θειαν ἱερὸν θεοῦ νομίζειν τὸν σύμπαντα χρὴ κόσμον εἶναι. Philo de Monarch. 1. ii. init. [Vol. I. p. 222.] fading beauty of the starry firmament. For in this great 50 temple of the World, in which the Son of God is the highpriest, the heaven which we see is but the veil, and that which is above, the Holy of Holies. This veil indeed is rich and glorious, but one day to be rent, and then to admit us into a far greater glory, even to the Mercy-seat and Cherubins. For this third heaven is the proper habitation' of the Jude, ver. 6. blessed angels, which constantly attend upon the throne. And if those most glorious and happy spirits, those morning-stars Job xxxviii. which sang together, those sons of God which shouted for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid, if they and their habitation were made; then can we no ways doubt of the production of all other creatures so much inferior unto them. 7,4 Forasmuch then as the angels are termed 'the sons of God,' it sufficiently denoteth that they are from him, not of themselves; all filiation inferring some kind of production: and being God hath but one proper and only-begotten Son, whose propriety and singularity consisteth in this, that he is of the same increated essence with the Father, all other offspring must be made, and consequently even the angels created sons; of whom the scripture speaking saith, Who Psal. civ. 4. maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. For although those words, as first spoken by the Psalmist, do rather express the nature of the wind and lightning: yet being the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews hath applied the same to the angels properly so called, we cannot but conelude upon his authority, that the same God who created the Amos iv. 13. wind, and made a way for the lightning of the thunder, hath Job xxviii. 26. also produced those glorious spirits; and as he furnished them with that activity there expressed, so did he frame the subject of it, their immaterial and immortal essence. If then the angels and their proper habitation, the far most eminent and illustrious parts of the world were made; if only to be made be one character of imperfection; much more must we acknowledge all things of inferior nature to have dependence on their universal Cause, and consequently this great Universe, or all things, to be made, beside that One who made them. This is the first part of our Christian faith, against some of the ancient philosophers, who were so wildly fond of those 1 Ἴδιον οἰκητήριον. things they see, that they imagined the Universe to be infinite and eternal', and, what will follow from it, to be even God himself. It is true that the most ancient of the heathen were not of this opinion, but all the philosophy for many ages delivered the world to have been made. When this tradition of the Creation of the World was delivered in all places down successively by those which seriously considered the frame of all things, and the difference of the most ancient poets and philosophers from Moses was only 5I in the manner of expressing it; those which in after-ages first denied it made use of very frivolous and inconcluding arguments, grounding their new opinion upon weak foundations. 1 'Mundum, et hoc quodcumque nomine alio cælum appellare libuit, cujus circumflexu degunt cuncta, numen esse credi par est, æternum, immensum, neque genitum, neque interiturum umquam.' Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. ii. c. 1. 2 Γενόμενον μὲν οὖν ἅπαντες εἶναι paow, says Aristotle, De Calo, 1. i. c. 10. [S2] confessing it the general opinion that the world was made.Which was so ancient a tradition of all the first philosophers, that from Linus, Musæus, Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, and the rest, they all mention the original of the world, entitling their books, Κοσμογονία οι Θεογονία or the like. Εἰσὶ γάρ τινες οἵ φασιν οὐθὲν ἀγέννητον εἶναι τῶν πραγμάτων, ἀλλὰ πάντα γίγνεσθαι· γενόμενα δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄφθαρτα διαμένειν, τὰ δὲ πάλιν φθεί ρεσθαι μάλιστα μὲν οἱ περὶ τὸν Ἡσίο δον, εἶτα καὶ τῶν ἄλλων οἱ πρῶτοι φυσloλoynσavтes, says Aristotle, De Calo, 1. iii. c. 1. [§ 7.] In which words he manifestly attributes the doctrine of the creation of the world not only tɔ Hesiod, but to all the first natural philosophers: which learning, beginning with Prometheus, the first professor of that science, continued in that family amongst the Atlantiada, who all successively delivered that truth. After them the Ionian philosophy did acknowledge it, and the Italian received it by Pythagoras, whose scho lars all maintained it beside Ocellus Lucanus, the first of them that fancied the world not made, whom Plato, though he much esteemed him, yet followed not; for there is nothing more evident than that he held the world was made. Λέγωμεν δή, δι ̓ ἣν τινα αἰτίαν γένεσιν καὶ τὸ πᾶν τόδε ὁ ξυνιστὰς ξυνέστησεν ἀγαθὸς ἦν. [Timus, p. 29 D.] In which words he delivers not only the generation of the universe, but also the true cause thereof, which is the goodness of God. For he which asks this plain and clear question: πότερον ἦν ἀεί, γενέσεως ἀρχὴν ἔχων οὐδεμίαν, ἢ γέγονεν, ἀπ ̓ ἀρχῆς τινὸς ἀρξάμενος; and answers the question briefly with a yéyover, [p. 28 B.]; he which gives this general rule upon it: τῷ δ' αὖ γενομένῳ φαμὲν ὑπ ̓ αἰτίου τινὸς ἀνάγκην εἶναι γενέσθαι· and then immediately concludes: τὴν μὲν οὖν ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς εὑρεῖν τε ἔργον, καὶ εὑρόντα εἰς πάντας áðúvatov λéye Ibid. cannot (notwithstanding all the shifts of his Greek expositors) be imagined to have conceived the world not made. And Aristotle, who best understood him, tells us clearly his opinion ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ (from whence I cited the precedent words), ἐκεῖ γάρ φησι τὸν οὐρανὸν (where by the way observe that in Plato's Timmus οὐρανός and κόσμος are made synonymous) γενέσθαι μέν, οὐ μny plaρтóv. De Cœlo, 1. i. c. 10. § 12. |