" cl. "[But you will say hath
Nature no share in the production of natural things, and must they all
be ascribed to the immediate and sole operation of God? ... if by
Nature is [100] meant some being distinct from God, as well as from
the laws of nature and things perceived by sense, I must confess that
word is to me an empty sound, without any intelligible meaning annexed
to it.] Nature in this acceptation is a vain Chimaera introduced by
those heathens, who had not just notions of the omnipresence and
infinite perfection of God."
Compare Seneca (De Beneficiis, iv. 7):
"Natura, inquit, haec mihi praestat. Non intelligis te, quum hoc
dicis, mutare Nomen Deo? Quid enim est aliud Natura quam Deus, et
divina ratio, toti mundo et partibus ejus inserta? Quoties voles tibi
licet aliter hunc auctorem rerum nostrarum compellare, et Jovem illum
optimum et maximum rite dices, et tonantem, et statorem: qui non, ut
historici tradiderunt, ex eo quod post votum susceptum acies Romanorum
fugientum stetit, sed quod stant beneficio ejus omnina, stator,
stabilitorque est: hunc eundem et fatum si dixeris, non mentieris, nam
quum fatum nihil aliud est, quam series implexa causarum, ille est
prima omnium causa, ea qua caeterae pendent." It would appear,
therefore, that the good Bishop is somewhat hard upon the "heathen,"
of whose words his own might be a paraphrase.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125