II. All things that are, have some operation not violent or casual. Neither doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-conceived end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained, unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure, of working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be attained, unless the actions whereby it is attained were regular; that is to say, made suitable, fit and correspondent unto their end, by some canon, rule or law. Which thing doth first take place in the works even of God himself.
All things therefore do work after a sort, according to law: all other things according to a law, whereof some superior, unto whom they are subject, is author; only the works and operations of God have Him both for their worker, and for the law whereby they are wrought. The being of God is a kind of law to his working: for that perfection which God is, giveth perfection to that he doth. Those natural, necessary, and internal operations of God, the Generation of the Son, the Proceeding of the Spirit, are without the compass of my present intent: which is to touch only such operations as have their beginning and being by a voluntary purpose, wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and how they should be. Which eternal decree is that we term an eternal law.
Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade 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 reach1. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few2.
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 hear of the Father, and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son, the same we have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last, and therefore the nearest unto us in order, although in power the same with the second and the first3.
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 βουλή4. Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus, Τὸν πάντα κόσμον ἐποίησεν ὁ δημιουργὸς οὐ χερσὶν ἀλλὰ λόγῳ5. Thus much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato, terming the Maker of the world an intellectual Worker6. Finally the Stoics, although imagining the first cause of all things to be fire, held nevertheless, that the same fire having art, did ὁδῳ̑ βαδίζειν ἐπὶ γενέσει κόσμου7. 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 I8.” 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 him9.” 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 χρηστω̑ς10, in most decent and comely sort,” all things in “Measure, Number, and Weight.”
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 riches11. “The Lord hath made all things for his own sake12.” Not that any thing is made to be beneficial unto him, but all things for him to shew beneficence and 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.
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 του̑ θελήματος αὐτου̑, not only according to his own will, but “the Counsel of his own will13.” 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 thereat14: “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 herself15, “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.
Seeing therefore that according to this law He worketh, “of whom, through whom, and for whom, are all things16;” although there seem unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world: “Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat, recte fieri cuncta ne dubites17:” “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 himself18” and not be God, as fail to perform them. And concerning the counsel of God, he termeth it likewise a thing “unchangeable19;” 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.
This law therefore we may name eternal, being “that order which God before all ages hath set down with himself, for himself to do all things by.”
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Footnotes
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[“De quo nihil dici et exprimi mortalium potis est significatione verborum: qui, ut intelligaris, tacendum est; atque, ut per umbram te possit errans investigare suspicio, nihil est omnino mutiendum.” Arnob. Adv. Gentes, I. 31. See Davison on Prophecy, p. 672, first edit.] ↩
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[Eccles. v. 2.] ↩
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John xvi. 13-15. [Ὅταν δὲ ἔλθῃ ἐκει̑νος, τὸ Πνευ̑μα τη̑ς ἀληθείας, ὁδηγήσει ὑμα̑ς εἰς πα̑σαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν· οὐ γὰρ λαλήσει ἀϕ’ ἑαυτου̑, ἀλλ’ ὅσα ἂν ἀκούσῃ λαλήσει, … Ἐκει̑νος ἐμὲ δοξάσει, ὅτι ἐκ του̑ ἐμου̑ λήψεται, καὶ ἀναγγελει̑ ὑμι̑ν. Πάντα, ὅσα ἔχει ὁ Πατὴρ, ἐμά ἐστι· διὰ του̑το εἰ̑πον, ὅτι ἐκ του̑ ἐμου̑ λήψεται, καὶ ἀναγγελει̑ ὑμι̑ν. And c. xiv. 15: Πάντα, ἃ ἤκουσα παρὰ του̑ Πατρός μου, ἐγνώρισα ὑμι̑ν.] ↩
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Jupiter’s counsel was accomplished. [Il. A. 5.] ↩
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[C. 7. § 1.] The Creator made the whole world not with hands, but by reason. ↩
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Stob. in Eclog. Phys. [This seems to refer to the following:Ἀναξαγόρας, νου̑ν κόσμον ποιὸν [κοσμοποιὸν] τὸν Θεόν. Stob. ed. Canter. p. 2: Πλάτων . . “νοὺς ὁ Θεός . . τούτου δὲ πατρὸς καὶ ποιητου̑, τὰ ἄλλα θει̑α ἔγγονα.” . . Ibid. p. 5.] ↩
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Proceed by a certain and a set Way in the making of the world. [οἱ στοικοὶ νοερὸν θεὸν ἀποϕαίνονται, πυ̑ρ τεχνικὸν, ὁδῳ̑ βάδιζον ἐπὶ γενέσει κόσμου. Ibid. 5.] ↩
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John v. 17. ↩
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Gen. ii. 18. ↩
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Sap. viii. 1; xi. 20. ↩
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Ephes. i. 7; Phil. iv. 19; Col. ii. 3. ↩
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Prov. xvi. 4. ↩
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Ephes. i. 11. ↩
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Rom. xi. 33. ↩
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Prov. viii. 22. ↩
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Rom. xi. 36. ↩
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Boet. lib. iv. de Consol. Philos. [p. 105, ed. Lugd. Bat. 1656.] pros. 5. ↩
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2 Tim. ii. 13. ↩
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Heb. vi. 17. ↩