The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2Charnock, Stephen
Religion
The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2
Charnock, Stephen
God (Christianity) -- Attributes; Providence and government of God -- Christianity
From all this it follows, if there be an order, and harmony, there
must be an Orderer: one that “made the earth by his power, established
the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his
discretion” (Jer. x. 12). Order being the effect, cannot be the cause
of itself: order is the disposition of things to an end, and is not
intelligent, but implies an intelligent Orderer; and, therefore, it
is as certain that there is a God, as it is certain there is order in
the world. Order is an effect of reason and counsel; this reason and
counsel must have its residence in some being before this order was
fixed: the things ordered are always distinct from that reason and
counsel whereby they are ordered, and also after it, as the effect
is after the cause. No man begins a piece of work but he hath the
model of it in his own mind: no man builds a house, or makes a watch,
but he hath the idea or copy of it in his own head. This beautiful
world bespeaks an idea of it, or a model: since there is such a
magnificent wisdom in the make of each creature, and the proportion
of one creature to another, this model must be before the world, as
the pattern is always before the thing that is wrought by it. This,
therefore, must be in some intelligent and wise agent, and this is God.
Since the reason of those things exceed the reason and all the art of
man, who can ascribe them to any inferior cause? Chance it could not
be; the motions of chance are not constant, and at set seasons, as
the motions of creatures are. That which is by chance is contingent,
this is necessary; uniformity can never be the birth of chance. Who
can imagine that all the parts of a watch can meet together and put
themselves in order and motion by chance? “Nor can it be nature only,
which indeed is a disposition of second causes. If nature hath not
an understanding, it cannot work such effects. If nature therefore
uses counsel to begin a thing, reason to dispose it, art to effect it,
virtue to complete it, and power to govern it, why should it be called
nature rather than God?”[91] Nothing so sure as that which hath an end
to which it tends, hath a cause by which it is ordered to that end.
Since therefore all things are ordered in subserviency to the good of
man, they are so ordered by Him that made both man and them; and man
must acknowledge the wisdom and goodness of his Creator, and act in
subserviency to his glory, as other creatures act in subserviency to
his good. Sensible objects were not made only to gratify the sense of
man, but to hand something to his mind as he is a rational creature:
to discover God to {a60} him as an object of love and desire to be
enjoyed. If this be not the effect of it, the order of the creature,
as to such an one, is in vain, and falls short of its true end.[92]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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