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| He Discusses Whether Matter Was from Eternity, or Was Made by God.
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Chapter XXII.—He Discusses
Whether Matter Was from Eternity, or Was Made by God.1140
| 1140 See xi. sec. 7, and note, above; and xii. sec. 33,
and note, below. See also the subtle reasoning of Dean Mansel
(Bampton Lectures, 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. |
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 heaven and earth, or of earth only,
when it is said, ‘In the beginning God created heaven and
earth,’ as that which follows, but the earth was invisible and
formless, although it was pleasing to him so to call the formless
matter, we may not yet understand any but that which God made in
that text which hath been already written, ‘God made heaven and
earth.’” The maintainers of either one or the other of these
two opinions which we have put last will, when they have heard
these things, answer and say, “We deny not indeed that this
formless matter was created by God, the God of whom are all things,
very good; for, as we say that that is a greater good which is
created and formed, so we acknowledge that that is a minor good
which is capable of creation and form, but yet good. But yet the
Scripture hath not declared that God made this formlessness, any
more than it hath declared many other things; as the
‘Cherubim,’ and ‘Seraphim,’1141
and those of which the apostle
distinctly speaks, ‘Thrones,’ ‘Dominions,’
‘Principalities,’ ‘Powers,’1142
all of which it is manifest God
made. Or if in that which is said, ‘He made heaven and earth,’
all things are comprehended, what do we say of the waters upon
which the Spirit of God moved? For if they are understood as
incorporated in the word earth, how then can formless matter be
meant in the term earth when we see the waters so beautiful? Or if
it be so meant, why then is it written that out of the same
formlessness the firmament was made and called heaven, and yet it
is not written that the waters were made? For those waters, which
we perceive flowing in so beautiful a manner, remain not formless
and invisible. But if, then, they received that beauty when God
said, Let the water which is under the firmament be gathered
together,1143
so that
the gathering be the very formation, what will be answered
concerning the waters which are above the firmament, because if
formless they would not have deserved to receive 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,1144
| 1144 See p. 165, note 4, above. | 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,1145
| 1145 See p. 176, note 5, above. | have been made by God out of nothing, and
therefore that they are not co-eternal with Him, although that
narrative hath failed to tell when they were made?”
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