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| Conclusion. Contrast Between the Statements of Hermogenes and the Testimony of Holy Scripture Respecting the Creation. Creation Out of Nothing, Not Out of Matter.
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Chapter
XLV.—Conclusion. Contrast Between the Statements of Hermogenes
and the Testimony of Holy Scripture Respecting the Creation. Creation
Out of Nothing, Not Out of Matter.
But it is not thus that the prophets and the
apostles have told us that the world was made by God merely appearing
and approaching Matter. They did not even mention any Matter, but
(said) that Wisdom was first set up, the beginning of His ways, for His
works.6593
Then that the Word
was produced, “through whom all things were made, and without
whom nothing was made.”6594
Indeed, “by
the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their hosts by the
breath of His mouth.”6595
He is the
Lord’s right hand,6596
indeed His two
hands, by which He worked and constructed the universe.
“For,” says He, “the heavens are the works of Thine
hands,”6597
wherewith “He
hath meted out the heaven, and the earth with a span.”6598
| 6598 Isa. xl.
12 and xlviii. 13. | Do not be willing so to cover God with
flattery, as to contend that He produced by His mere appearance and
simple approach so many vast substances, instead of rather forming them
by His own energies. For this is proved by Jeremiah when he says,
“God hath made the earth by His power, He hath established the
world by His wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by His
understanding.”6599
These are the
energies by the stress of which He made this universe.6600
His glory is greater if He laboured. At
length on the seventh day He rested from His works. Both one and the
other were after His manner. If, on the contrary,6601
He made this world simply by appearing and
approaching it, did He, on the completion of His work, cease to appear
and approach it any more. Nay rather,6602
God began to appear more conspicuously and to be everywhere
accessible6603
from the time when
the world was made. You see, therefore, how all things consist by
the operation of that God who “made the earth by His power, who
established the world by His wisdom, and stretched out the heaven by
His understanding;” not appearing merely, nor approaching, but
applying the almighty efforts of His mind, His wisdom, His power, His
understanding, His word, His Spirit, His might. Now these things were
not necessary to Him, if He had been perfect by simply appearing and
approaching. They are, however, His “invisible things,”
which, according to the apostle, “are from the creation of the
world clearly seen by the things that are made;”6604
they are no parts of a
nondescript6605
Matter, but they
are the sensible6606
evidences of
Himself. “For who hath known the mind of the
Lord,”6607
of which (the
apostle) exclaims: “O the depth of the riches both of His wisdom
and knowledge! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past
finding out!”6608
Now what clearer
truth do these words indicate, than that all things were made out of
nothing? They are incapable of being found out or investigated, except
by God alone. Otherwise, if they were traceable or discoverable
in Matter, they would be capable of investigation. Therefore, in
as far as it has become evident that Matter had no prior
existence (even from this circumstance, that it is impossible6609
for it to have had such an existence as is
assigned to it), in so far is it proved that all things were
made by God out of nothing. It must be admitted, however,6610
that Hermogenes, by describing for Matter a
condition like his own—irregular, confused, turbulent, of a
doubtful and precipate and fervid impulse—has displayed a
specimen of his own art, and painted his own
portrait.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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