but the earth was invisible and without form, CHAP. XIV.—OF THE DEPTH OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURE, AND ITS ENEMIES. which, with a strong voice, Truth tells me in my inner ear, concerning the very eternity of the Creator, that His substance is in no wise changed by time, nor that His will is separate from His substance? Wherefore, He willeth not one thing now, another anon, but once and for ever He willeth all things that He willeth; not again and again, nor now this, now that; nor willeth afterwards what He willeth not before, nor willeth not what before He willed. Because such a will is mutable, and no mutable thing is eternal; but our God is eternal. Likewise He tells me, tells me in my inner ear, that the expectation of future things is turned to sight when they have come; and this same sight is turned to memory when they have passed. Moreover, all thought which is thus varied is mutable, and nothing mutable is eternal; but our God is eternal." These things I sum up and put together, and I find that my God, the eternal God, hath not made any creature by any new will, nor that His knowledge suffereth anything transitory. 66 19. What, therefore, will ye say, ye objectors? Are these things false? 'No,' they say. "What is this? Is it false, then, that every nature already formed, or matter formable, is only from Him who is supremely good, because He is supreme?" "Neither do we deny this," say they. "What then? Do you deny this, that there is a certain sublime creature, cling17. Wonderful is the depth of Thy oracles, ing with so chaste a love with the true and whose surface is before us, inviting the little truly eternal God, that although it be not coones; and yet wonderful is the depth, O my eternal with Him, yet it separateth itself not God, wonderful is the depth. It is awe to from Him, nor floweth into any variety and look into it; and awe of honour, and a tremor vicissitude of times, but resteth in the truest of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehem- contemplation of Him only?" Since Thou, O ently.3 Oh, if Thou wouldest slay them with God, showest Thyself unto him, and sufficest Thy two-edged sword, that they be not its ene- him, who loveth Thee as muce as Thou commies! For thus do I love, that they should be mandest, and, therefore, he declineth not from slain unto themselves that they may live unto Thee, nor toward himself. This is the house Thee. But behold others not reprovers, but of God,' not earthly, nor of any celestial bulk praisers of the book of Genesis,-"The Spirit corporeal, but a spiritual house and a partaker of God," say they, "Who by His servant of Thy eternity, because without blemish for Moses wrote these things, willed not that these words should be thus understood. He willed not that it should be understood as Thou sayest, but as we say." Unto whom, O God of us all, Thyself being Judge, do I thus answer. CHAP. XV. HE ARGUES AGAINST ADVERSARIES ever. For Thou hast made it fast for ever and ever; Thou hast given it a law, which it shall not pass. Nor yet is it co-eternal with Thee, O God, because not without beginning, for it was made. 20. For although we find no time before it, for wisdom was created before all things,not certainly that Wisdom manifestly co-eternal 18. "Will you say that these things are false, and equal unto Thee, our God, His Father, 5 See xi. sec. 41, above. In his De Vera Relig. c. 13, he says: "We must confess that the angels are in their nature mutable as God is Immutable. Yet by that will with which they love God more than themselves, they remain firm and staple in Him, and enjoy His majesty, being most willingly subject to Him alone." In his Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 2, he speaks of all who are holy, whether angels or men, as being God's dwelling-place. 8 Ps. cxlviii. 6. Ecclus. i. 4. and by Whom all things were created, and in the shoulders of my Sheperd,10 thy builder, I Whom, as the Beginning, Thou createdst hope that I may be brought back to thee. heaven and earth; but truly that wisdom which has been created, namely, the intellectual nature,' which, in the contemplation of light, is light. For this, although created, is also called wisdom. But as great as is the difference between the Light which enlighteneth and that which is enlightened,' so great is the difference between the Wisdom that createth and that which hath been created; as between the Righteousness which justifieth, and the righteousness which has been made by justification. For we also are called Thy righteousness; for thus saith a certain servant of Thine: "That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Therefore, since a certain created wisdom was created before all things, the rational and intellectual mind of that chaste city of Thine, our mother which is above, and is free, and "eternal in the heavens" (in what heavens, unless in those that praise Thee, the "heaven of heavens," because this also is the "heaven of heavens," which is the Lord's) --although we find not time before it, because that which hath been created before all things also precedeth the creature of time, yet is the Eternity of the Creator Himself before it, from Whom, having been created, it took the begin ning, although not of time,-for time as yet was not, yet of its own very nature. 22. "What say ye to me, O ye objectors whom I was addressing, and who yet believe that Moses was the holy servant of God, and that his books were the oracles of the Holy Ghost? Is not this house of God, not indeed co-eternal with God, yet, according to its measure, eternal in the heavens," where in vain you seek for changes of times, because you will not find them? For that surpasseth all extension, and every revolving space of time, to which it is ever good to cleave fast to God."' 12 "It is," say they. "What, therefore, of those things which my heart cried out unto my God, when within it heard the voice of His praise, what then do you contend is false? Or is it because the matter was formless, wherein, as there was no form, there was no order? But where there was no order there could not be any change of times; and yet this almost nothing,' inasmuch as it was not altogether nothing, was verily from Him, from Whom is whatever is, in what state soever anything is." "This also," say they, "we do not deny." CHAP. XVI.-HE WISHES TO HAVE NO INTER COURSE WITH THOSE WHO DENY DIVINE TRUTH. which Thy truth indicates to my mind are true, 23. With such as grant that all these things I desire to confer a little before Thee, O my God. 21. Hence comes it so to be of Thee, our For let those who deny these things bark God, as to be manifestly another than Thou, and drown their own voices with their clamour and not the Self-same." Since, although we as much as they please; I will endeavour to find time not only not before it, but not in it persuade them to be quiet, and to suffer Thy (it being proper ever to behold Thy face, nor is word to reach them. But should they be unwillever turned aside from it, wherefore it happens ing, and should they repel me, I beseech, O my 1 13 Do that it is varied by no change), yet is there in it God, that Thou "be not silent to me. that mutability itself whence it would become Thou speak truly in my heart, for Thou only so dark and cold, but that, clinging unto Thee speakest, and I will send them away blowing with sublime love, it shineth and gloweth from upon the dust from without, and raising it up Thee like a perpetual noon. O house, full of into their own eyes; and I will myself enter light and splendour! I have loved thy beauty, into my chamber, 14 and sing there unto Thee and the place of the habitation of the glory of songs of love,-groaning with groaning unutmy Lord, thy builder and owner. terable in my pilgrimage, and remembering wandering sigh after thee; and I speak unto Him Jerusalem, with heart raised up towards it, that made thee, that He may possess me also in thee, seeing He hath made me likewise. "I have gone astray, like a lost sheep ;"' yet upon Let my 1" Pet. Lombard. lib. sent. 2, dist. 2, affirms that by Wisdom, Ecclus. i. 4, the angels be understood, the whole spiritual intellectual nature; namely, this highest heaven, in which the angels were created, and it by them instantly filled."-W. W. On God as the Father of Lights, see p. 76, note 2. In addition to the references there given, compare in Ev. Joh. Tract. ii. sec. 7: xiv. secs. 1, 2; and xxxv. sec. 3. See also p. 373, note, below. 32 Cor. v. 21. • Gal. iv. 26. $ 2 Cor. v. I. Ps. cxlviii. 4. 15 10 Luke xv. 5. 11 2 Cor. v. I. 15 Rom. viii. 26. 16 16 Baxter has a noteworthy passage on our heavenly citizenship in his Saints' Rest: "As Moses, before he died, went up into Mount Nebo, to take a survey of the land of Canaan, so the Christian ascends the Mount of Contemplation, and by faith surveys his rest. As Daniel in his captivity daily opened his window towards Jerusalem, though far out of sight, when he went to God in his devotions, so may the believing soul, in this captivity of the flesh, look towards Jerusalem which is above' (Gal. iv, 26). And as Paul was to the Colossians (ii. 5), so may the believer be with the glorified spirits, though absent in the flesh,' yet with them in the spirit,' joying and beholding their heavenly order." And as the lark sweetly sings while she soars on high, but is suddenly silenced when Against the Manichæans. See iv. sec. 26, and part 2 of note on she falls to the earth, so is the frame of the soul most delightful and P. 76, above. Ps. xxvi. 8. Ps. cxix. 176. divine while it keeps in the views of God by contemplation. Alas, we make there too short a stay, fall down again, and lay by our music!" (Fawcett's Ed. p. 327). 2 Jerusalem my country, Jerusalem my mother, and Thyself, the Ruler over it, the Enlightener, the Father, the Guardian, the Husband, the chaste and strong delight, the solid joy, and all good things ineffable, even all at the same time, because the one supreme and true Good. And I will not be turned away until Thou collect all that I am, from this dispersion 1 and deformity, into the peace of that very dear mother, where are the first-fruits of my spirit, whence these things are assured to me, and Thou conform and confirm it for ever, my God, my Mercy. But with reference to those who say not that all these things which are true and false, who honour Thy Holy Scripture set forth by holy Moses, placing it, as with us, on the summit of an authority to be followed, and yet who contradict us in some particulars, I thus speak: Be Thou, O our God, judge between my confessions and their contradictions. 3 CHAP. XVII.—HE MENTIONS FIVE EXPLANATIONS OF THE WORDS OF GENESIS i. 1. 24. For they say, "Although these things be true, yet Moses regarded not those two things, when by divine revelation he said, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Under the name of heaven he did not indicate that spiritual or intellectual creature which always beholds the face of God; nor under the name of earth, that shapeless matter." "What then?" "That man," say they, "meant as we say; this it is that he declared by those words." "What is that?" By the name of heaven and earth," say they, "did he first wish to set forth, universally and briefly, all this visible world, that afterwards by the enumeration of the days he might distribute, as if in detail, all those things which it pleased the Holy Spirit thus to reveal. For such men were that rude and carnal people to which he spoke, that he judged it prudent that only those works of God as were visible should be entrusted to them." They agree, however, that the earth invisible and formless, and the darksome deep (out of which it is subsequently pointed out that all these visible things, which are known to all, were made and set in order during those "days"), may not unsuitably be understood of this formless matter. 25. What, now, if another should say "That this same formlessness and confusion of matter was first introduced under the name of heaven and earth, because out of it this visible world, with all those natures which most manifestly appear in it, and which is wont to be called by 1 See ii. sec. 1; ix. sec. 10; x. sec. 40, note; ibid. sec. 65; and xi. sec. 39, above. 2 See ix, sec. 24, above; and xiii. sec. 13, below. 3 See p. 118, note 12, above. 4 Gen. i. I. the name of heaven and earth, was created and perfected"? But what if another should say, that "That invisible and visible nature is not inaptly called heaven and earth; and that consequently the universal creation, which God in His wisdom hath made,—that is, 'in the begining,'-was comprehended under these two words. Yet, since all things have been made, not of the substance of God, but out of nothing5 (because they are not that same thing that God is, and there is in them all a certain mutability, whether they remain, as doth the eternal house of God, or be changed, as are the soul and body of man), therefore, that the common matter of all things invisible and visible,—as yet shapeless, but still capable of form,-out of which was to be created heaven and earth (that is, the invisible and visible creature already formed), was spoken of by the same names by which the earth invisible and formless and the darkness upon the deep would be called; with this difference, however, that the earth invisible and formless is understood as corporeal matter, before it had any manner of form, but the before it was restrained at all of its unlimited darkness upon the deep as spiritual matter, fluidity, and before the enlightening of wis dom." 26. should any man wish, he may still say, invisible and visible, are not signified under the "That the already perfected and formed natures, name of heaven and earth when it is read, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; but that the yet same formless beginning and made, was called by these names, because of things, the matter capable of being formed contained in it there were these confused things not as yet distinguished by their qualities and forms, the which now being digested in their own orders, are called heaven and earth, the former being the spiritual, the latter the corporeal creature.” thing that is formed from that which is formless was formless before it was formed. the Prophets.1 And what doth it hinder me, CHAP. XIX.—HE ENUMERATES THE THINGS CON CERNING WHICH ALL AGREE. 28. For it is true, O Lord, that Thou hast made heaven and earth; it is also true, that the Beginning is Thy Wisdom, in Which Thou hast made all things." It is likewise true, that this visible world hath its own great parts, the heaven and the earth, which in a short compass comprehends all made and created natures. It is also true, that everything mutable sets before our minds a certain want of form, whereof it taketh a form, or is changed and turned. It is true, that that is subject to no times which so cleaveth to the changeless form as that, though it be mutable, it is not changed. It is true, that the formlessness, which is almost nothing, cannot have changes, of times. It is true, that that of which anything is made may by a certain 'mode of speech be called by the name of that thing which is made of it; whence that formlessness of which heaven and earth were made might it be called "heaven and earth." It is true, that of all things having form, nothing is nearer to the formless than the earth and the deep. It is true, that not only every created and formed thing, but also whatever is capable of creation and of form, Thou hast made, "by whom are all things." It is true, that every 1 Matt. xxii. 40. For he says in his Con. Faust. xvii. 6, remarking on John i. 17, a text which he often quotes in this connection: "The law itself by being fulfilled becomes grace and truth. Grace is the fulfilment of love."' And so in ibid. xix. 27 we read: "From the words, I came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it,' we are not to understand that Christ by His precepts filled up what was wanting in the law; but what the literal command failed in doing from the pride and disobedience of men is accomplished by grace. . So, the apostle says, 'faith worketh by love.'" So, again, we read in Serm. cxxv.: "Quia venit dare caritatem, et caritas perficit legem; merito dixit non veni legem solvere sed implere." And hence in his letter to Jerome (Ep. clxvii. 19), he speaks of the "royal law" as being" the law of liberty, which is the law of love." See P. 348, note 4, above. 1 Ps civ. 24. See p. 297 note 1, above, XX.—OF THE WORDS, “IN THE BEGIN NING," VARIOUSLY UNDERSTOOD. 29. From all these truths, of which they doubt not whose inner eye Thou hast granted to see such things, and who immoveably believe Moses, Thy servant, to have spoken in the spirit of truth; from all these, then, he taketh one who saith, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,"-that is, "In His Word, co-eternal with Himself, God made the intelligible and the sensible, or the spiritual and corporeal creature." He taketh another, who saith, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,"-that is, " In His Word, co-eternal with Himself, God made the universal mass of this corporeal world, with all those manifest and known natures which it containeth." He, another, who saith, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,". that is, "In His Word, co-eternal with Himself, God made the formless matter of the spiritual and corporeal creature." He, another, who saith, "In the beginning God created the “In His heaven and the earth,"—that is, Word, co-eternal with Himself, God made the formless matter of the corporeal creature, wherein heaven and earth lay as yet confused, which being now distinguished and formed, we, at this day, see in the mass of this world." He, another, who saith, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth,"—that is, "In the very beginning of creating and working, God made that formless matter confusedly containing heaven and earth, out of which, being formed, they now stand out, and are manifest,, with all the things that are in them." CHAP. XXI.-OF THE EXPLANATION OF THE 2 the following words, out of all those truths he ven and earth, or of earth only, when it is selected one to himself, who saith, "But the said, 'In the beginning God created heaven earth was invisible and without form, and dark- and earth,' as that which follows, but the earth ness was upon the deep,"-that is, "That cor- was invisible and formless, although it was pleasporeal thing, which God made, was as yet the ing to him so to call the formless matter, we formless matter of corporeal things, without may not yet understand any but that which order, without light." He taketh another, who God made in that text which hath been already saith, "But the earth was invisible and without written, 'God made heaven and earth.'" The form, and darkness was upon the deep,"-that maintainers of either one or the other of these is, "This whole, which is called heaven and two opinions which we have put last will, when earth, was as yet formless and darksome matter, they have heard these things, answer and say, out of which the corporeal heaven and the cor- "We deny not indeed that this formless matter poreal earth were to be made, with all things was created by God, the God of whom are all therein which are known to our corporeal things, very good; for, as we say that that is a senses. He, another, who saith, " But the greater good which is created and formed, so earth was invisible and without form, and dark-we acknowledge that that is a minor good which ness was upon the deep,"—that is, "This is capable of creation and form, but yet good. whole, which is called heaven and earth, was as But yet the Scripture hath not declared that yet a formless and darksome matter, out of God made this formlessness, any more than it which were to be made that intelligible heaven, hath declared many other things; as the 'Cherwhich is otherwise called the heaven of heavens, ubim,' and 'Seraphim,' and those of which and the earth, namely, the whole corporeal the apostle distinctly speaks, Thrones,' 'Donature, under which name may also be com- minions,' 'Principalities,' 'Powers,'' all of prised this corporeal heaven, that is, from which it is manifest God made. Or if in that which every invisible and visible creature would which is said, 'He made heaven and earth,' all be created." He, another, who saith, "But things are comprehended, what do we say of the carth was invisible and without form, and the waters upon which the Spirit of God moved? darkness was upon the deep,"-"The Scrip- For if they are understood as incorporated in ture called not that formlessness by the name of the word earth, how then can formless matter heaven and earth, but that formlessness itself," be meant in the term earth when we see the saith he, "already was, which he named the waters so beautiful? Or if it be so meant, why earth invisible and formless and the darksome then is it written that out of the same formlessdeep, of which he had said before, that God had ness the firmament was made and called made the heaven and the earth, namely, the heaven, and yet it is not written that the waters spiritual and corporeal creature." He, another, were made? For those waters, which we perwho saith, "But the earth was invisible and ceive flowing in so beautiful a manner, remain formless, and darkness was upon the deep," not formless and invisiblee. But if, then, they that is, "There was already a formless matter, received that beauty when God said, Let the whereof the Scripture before said, that God had water which is under the firmament be gathered made heaven and earth, namely, the entire cor- together, so that the gathering be the very forporeal mass of the world, divided into two very mation, what will be answered concerning the great parts, the superior and the inferior, with waters which are above the firmament, because all those familiar and known creatures which if formless they would not have deserved to reare in them." ceive a seat so honourable, nor is it written by what word they were formed? If, then, Genesis is silent as to anything that God has made, which, however, neither sound faith nor unerring understanding doubteth that God hath made,5 let not any sober teaching dare to say that these waters were co-eternal with God because we find them mentioned in the book of Genesis; but when they were created, we find not. Why-truth instructing us-may we not understand that that formless matter, which the Scripture calls the earth invisible and without form, and the darksome deep, have been made CHAP. XXII.—HE DISCUSSES WHETHER MATTER WAS FROM ETERNITY, OR WAS MADE BY GOD.' 31. For, should any one endeavour to contend against these last two opinions, thus,-" If you will not admit that this formlessness of matter appears to be called by the name of heaven and earth, then there was something which God had not made out of which He could make heaven and earth; for Scripture hath not told us that God made this matter, unless we understand it to be implied in the term of hea 1 See xi. sec. 7, and note, above; and xii. sec. 33, and note, below. See also the subtle reasoning of Dean Mansel (Bampton Lect ures, lect. ii.), on the inconsequence of receiving the idea of the creation out of nothing on other than Christian principles. And compare Coleridge, The Friend, iii. 213. 2 Isa. vi. 2, and xxxvii. 16. 4 Gen. i. 9. 5 See p. 165, note 4, above. |