Chapter II.—The True Doctrine of God the Creator. The Heretics Pretended to a Knowledge of the Divine Being, Opposed to and Subversive of Revelation. God’s Nature and Ways Past Human Discovery. Adam’s Heresy.

We have now, then, cleared our way to the contemplation of the Almighty God, the Lord and Maker of the universe. His greatness, as I think, is shown in this, that from the beginning He made Himself known: He never hid Himself, but always shone out brightly, even before the time of Romulus, to say nothing of that of Tiberius; with the exception indeed that the heretics, and they alone, know Him not, although they take such pains about Him. They on this account suppose that another god must be assumed to exist, because they are more able to censure than deny Him whose existence is so evident, deriving all their thoughts about God from the deductions of sense; just as if some blind man, or a man of imperfect vision,379    Et exinde.    Fluitantibus oculis. chose to assume some other sun of milder and healthier ray, because he sees not that which is the object of sight.380    Si Forte.    Quem videat non videt. There is, O man, but one sun which rules381    Jam.    Temperat. this world and even when you think otherwise of him, he is best and useful; and although to you he may seem too fierce and baneful, or else, it may be, too sordid and corrupt, he yet is true to the laws of his own existence. Unable as you are to see through those laws, you would be equally impotent to bear the rays of any other sun, were there one, however great and good. Now, you whose sight is defective382    Of eternity.    Cæcutis. in respect of the inferior god, what is your view of the sublimer One? Really you are too lenient383    We subjoin the original of this difficult passage: Hunc enim statum æternitati censendum, quæ summum magnum deum efficiat, dum hoc est in deo ipsa, atque ita et cetera, ut sit deus summum magnum et forma et ratione et vi et potestate.    Quin potius parcis. to your weakness; and set not yourself to the proof384    Quid.    In periculum extenderis. of things, holding God to be certainly, undoubtedly, and therefore sufficiently known, the very moment you have discovered Him to exist, though you know Him not except on the side where He has willed His proofs to lie. But you do not even deny God intelligently,385    Unicus. [Alone of his kind.]    Ut sciens. you treat of Him ignorantly;386    As its first principle.    Ut nesciens. nay, you accuse Him with a semblance of intelligence,387    Porro.    Quasi sciens. whom if you did but know Him, you would never accuse, nay, never treat of.388    Forma.    Retractares. You give Him His name indeed, but you deny the essential truth of that name, that is, the greatness which is called God; not acknowledging it to be such as, were it possible for it to have been known to man in every respect,389    Omnifariam. would not be greatness. Isaiah even so early, with the clearness of an apostle, foreseeing the thoughts of heretical hearts, asked, “Who hath known the mind of the Lord? For who hath been His counsellor? With whom took He counsel?…or who taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding?”390    Comp. Isa. xl. 13, 14, with Rom. xi. 34. With whom the apostle agreeing exclaims, “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”391    Rom. xi. 33. “His judgments unsearchable,” as being those of God the Judge; and “His ways past finding out,” as comprising an understanding and knowledge which no man has ever shown to Him, except it may be those critics of the Divine Being, who say, God ought not to have been this,392    Sic non debuit Deus. This perhaps may mean, God ought not to have done this, etc. and He ought rather to have been that; as if any one knew what is in God, except the Spirit of God.393    1 Cor. ii. 11. Moreover, having the spirit of the world, and “in the wisdom of God by wisdom knowing not God,”394    1 Cor. i. 21. they seem to themselves to be wiser395    Consultiores. than God; because, as the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, so also the wisdom of God is folly in the world’s esteem. We, however, know that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”396    1 Cor. i. 25. Accordingly, God is then especially great, when He is small397    Pusillus. to man; then especially good, when not good in man’s judgment; then especially unique, when He seems to man to be two or more.  Now, if from the very first “the natural man, not receiving the things of the Spirit of God,”398    1 Cor. ii. 14. has deemed God’s law to be foolishness, and has therefore neglected to observe it; and as a further consequence, by his not having faith, “even that which he seemeth to have hath been taken from him”399    Luke viii. 18; comp. Matt. xiii. 12.—such as the grace of paradise and the friendship of God, by means of which he might have known all things of God, if he had continued in his obedience—what wonder is it, if he,400    That is, the natural man, the ψυχικός. reduced to his material nature, and banished to the toil of tilling the ground, has in his very labour, downcast and earth-gravitating as it was, handed on that earth-derived spirit of the world to his entire race, wholly natural401    Animali = ψυχικῷ. and heretical as it is, and not receiving the things which belong to God? Or who will hesitate to declare the great sin of Adam to have been heresy, when he committed it by the choice402    Electionem. By this word our author translates the Greek αἵρεσις. Comp. De Præscr. Her. 6, p. 245, supra. of his own will rather than of God’s?  Except that Adam never said to his fig-tree, Why hast thou made me thus? He confessed that he was led astray; and he did not conceal the seducer.  He was a very rude heretic. He was disobedient; but yet he did not blaspheme his Creator, nor blame that Author of his being, Whom from the beginning of his life he had found to be so good and excellent, and Whom he had perhaps403    Si forte. made his own judge from the very first.

CAPUT II.

At nunc negotium patitur Deus omnipotens, dominus et conditor universitatis; ideo tantum opinor, quia a primordio notus est, quia numquam latuit, quia semper illuxit, etiam ante Romulum ipsum, nedum ante Tiberium: nisi quod solis haereticis cognitus non est, qui ei negotium faciunt: propterea alium Deum existimantes praesumendum, quia quem constat esse, reprehendere magis possunt, quam negare de arbitrio sensus sui pensitantes Deum aliqui: proinde atque si caecus vel fluitantibus oculis, ideo alium solem praesumere velit mitiorem 0285B et salubriorem; quia quem videat, non videt. Unicus sol est, o homo, qui mundum hunc temperat; et quando non putas, optimus et utilis; et cum tibi acrior et infestior, vel etiam sordidior atque corruptior, rationi tamen suae par est. Eam tu si perspicere non vales , jam nec ullius alterius solis, si qui fuisset, radios sustinere potuisses, utique majoris . Nam qui in inferiorem deum caecutis, quid in sublimiorem? Quin potius infirmitati tuae parcis, nec in periculum extenderis, habens deum certum et indubitatum, et hoc ipso satis visum, cum id primum conspexeris eum esse, quem non scias, nisi ex parte qua voluit ipse. Sed Deum quidem ut sciens non negas, ut nesciens retractas; imo et accusas quasi sciens; quem si scires, non accusares, imo 0285C nec retractares. Reddens nomen illi, negas substantiam nominis, id est magnitudinem, qua Deus dicitur, non tantam eam agnoscens, quantam si homo omnifariam nosse potuisset, magnitudo non esset. Isaias jam tum apostolus, prospiciens haeretica corda: Quis, inquit (Is. XL, 13, 14), cognovit sensum Domini, aut quis illi consiliariusfuit? 0286Aaut ad quem consultavit? aut viam intellectus et scientiae quis demonstravit ei? Cui et Apostolus condicet: O profundum divitiarum et sophiae Dei! ut ininvestigabilia judicia ejus, utique Dei judicis, et ininvestigabiles viae ejus! utique intellectus et scientiae, quas ei nemo monstravit: nisi forte isti censores divinitatis, dicentes: Sic non debuit Deus; et sic magis debuit: quasi cognoscat aliquis quae sint in Deo, nisi spiritus Dei. Mundi autem habentes spiritum, non agnoscentes in sapientia Dei per sapientiam Deum (I Cor., I, 21), consultiores sibimet videntur Deo. Quoniam, sicut sapientia mundi stultitia est penes Deum, ita et sapientia Dei stultitia est penes mundum. Sed nos scimus stultum Dei sapientius hominibus, et invalidum Dei validius hominibus (I Cor., I, 25). 0286B Et ita Deus tunc maxime magnus, cum homini pusillus; et tunc maxime optimus, cum homini non bonus; et tunc maxime unus, cum homini duo aut plures. Quod si a primordio homo animalis non recipiens quae sunt spiritus (I Cor., II, 14), stultitiam existimavit Dei legem, ut quam observare neglexit: ideoque non habendo fidem, etiam quod videbatur habere ademptum est illi (Matth., XIII, 12; Luc., VIII, 18), paradisi gratia et familiaritas Dei, per quam omnia Dei cognovisset, si obedisset: quid mirum si redhibitus materiae suae, et in ergastulum terrae laborandae relegatus, in ipso opere prono et devexo ad terram, usurpatum ex illa spiritum mundi universo generi suo tradidit, dumtaxat animali et haeretico, non recipienti quae sunt Dei? Aut quis 0286C dubitabit ipsum illud Adae delictum haeresin pronuntiare, quod per electionem suae potius quam divinae sententiae admisit? nisi quod Adam numquam figulo suo dixit: «Non prudenter definxisti me.» Confessus est seductionem; non occultavit seductricem: rudis admodum haereticus fuit. Non obaudiit; non tamen blasphemavit Creatorem, nec reprehendit 0287A auctorem, quem a primordio sui bonum et optimum invenerat, et ipse si forte judicem fecerat a primordio.