wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, and

150 Nature a fuhordinate Book I,much Jefs can this he thought decorous in refpe£l of God. But it feems far moreauguft, and becoming of the Divine Majefly, that a certain power and virtue,derived from him, and faffing through the univerfe, fhould move the fun andmoon, and be the immediate caufe of thofe lower things done here upon earth.Moreover, it feems not fo agreeable to reafon neither, that nature, as adiftincl thing from the Deity, fhould be quite fuperfeded or made to fignifynothing, God himfelf doing all thing'? immediately and miraculoufly ; fromwhence it would follow alfo, that they are all done either forcibly and violently,or elfi artificially only, and none of them by any inward principleof thiir own.Laftly i This opinion is further confuted by that flow and gradual procefs,that is in the generations of things, which would feem to be but a vain andidle pomp, or a trifling formality, if the agent were omnipotent : as alfo bythofe a.;j.xfrri[MO',Tcx. (as Arijlotle calls them) thofe errors and bungles, whichare committed, when the matter is inept and contumacious •, which arguethe agent not to be irrefiftible, and that nature is fuch a thing, as is not altogetheruncapable (as v/ell as human art; of being fometimes fruftratedand dilappointed, by the indifpofition of matter. Whereas an omnipotentagent, as it could difpatch its work in a moment, fo it would always do itinfallibly and irrefiftibly ; no ineptitude or ftubbornnefs of matter beingever able to hinder fuch a one,or make him bungle or fumble in any thing.5. Wherefore fince neither all things are produced fortuitoufly, or by theunguided mechanifm of matter,nor God himfelf may reafonably be thoughtto do ail things immediately and miraculoufly ; it may well be concluded,that there is a plaftick nature under him, v/hich, as an inferior and fubordiiiuteinftrument, doth drudgingly execute that part of his providence, whichconfill:s in the regular and orderly motion of matter ; yet fo as that there isalfo, befides this, a higher providence to be acknowledged, which prefidingover it, doth often fupply the defedls of it, and fometimes over-rule it •, foras much as this plaftick nature cannot a6t eledlivtly, nor with difcretion.And by this means the wifdom of God will not be fliut up nor concludedwholly within his own breaft, but will difplay itfelf abroad, and print itsftamps and fignatures every where throughout the world ; fo that God, asPlato ' (after Orpheus'-) fpeaks, will be not only the beginning and end,but alfo the middle of all things ; they being as much to be afcnbed to hiscaufality, as if himfelf had done them all immediately, without the concurrentinftrumentality of any fubordinate natural caufe. Notwithftandingwhich, in this way it will appear alio to human reafon, that all things aredifpofed and ordered by the Deity, without any foUicitous care or diftractiousprovidence.And indeed thofe mechanick Theifts, who rejedling a plaftick nature,affedt to concern the Deity as little as is polTible in mundane affairs, either,for fear of debafing him, and bringing him down to too mean ofRces, or elfeof> De Leglbus, Lib. IV. p. 600. Open * Vide Apuleium de JMundo, p. 25.