CHAP.13.--OF THE REVOLUTION OF THE AGES, WHICH SOME PHILOSOPHERS BELIEVEWILL
BRING ALL THINGS ROUND AGAIN, AFTER A CERTAIN FIXED CYCLE, TO THE SAMEORDER AND
FORM AS AT FIRST.
This controversy some philosophers have seen no other approved means of solving than by introducing cycles of time, in which there should be a constant renewal and repetition of the order of nature;(1)and they have therefore asserted that these cycles will ceaselessly recur, one passing away and another coming, though they are not agreed as to whether one permanent world shall pass through all these cycles, or whether the world shall at fixed intervals die out, and be renewed so as to exhibit a recurrence of the same phenomena--the things which have been, and those which are to be, coinciding.And from this fantastic vicissitude they exempt not even the immortal soul that has attained wisdom, consigning it to a ceaseless transmigration between delusive blessedness and real misery.For how can that be truly called blessed which has no assurance of being so eternally, and is either in ignorance of the truth, and blind to the misery that is approaching, or, knowing it, is in misery and fear? Or if it passes to bliss, and leaves miseries forever, then there happens in time a new thing which time shall not end.Why not, then, the world also? Why may not man, too, be a similar thing? So that, by following the straight path of sound doctrine, we escape, Iknow not what circuitous paths, discovered by deceiving and deceived sages.
Some, too, in advocating these recurring cycles that restore all things to their original cite in favor of their supposition what Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes: "What is that which hath been? It is that which shall be.And what is that which is done? It is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.Who can speak and say, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us."(2) This he said either of those things of which he had just been speaking--the succession of generations, the orbit of the sun, the course of rivers,--or else of all kinds of creatures.that are born and die.For men were before us, are with us, and shall be after us; and so all living things and all plants.Even monstrous and irregular productions, though differing from one another, and though some are reported as solitary instances, yet resemble one another generally, in so far as they are miraculous and monstrous, and, in this sense, have been, and shall be, and are no new and recent things under the sun.However, some would understand these words as meaning that in the predestination of God all things have already existed, and that thus.there is no new thing under the sun.At all events, far be it from any true believer to suppose that by these words of Solomon those cycles are meant, in which, according to those philosophers, the same periods and events of time are repeated; as if, for example, the philosopher Plato, having taught in the school at Athens which is called the Academy, so, numberless ages before, at long but certain intervals, this same Plato and the same school, and the same disciples existed, and so also are to be repeated during the countless cycles that are yet to be,--far be it, I say, from us to believe this.For once Christ died for our sins; and, rising from the dead, He dieth no more."Death hath no more dominion over Him;(3) and we ourselves after the resurrection shall be "ever with the Lord,"(4) to whom we now say, as the sacred Psalmist dictates, "Thou shall keep us, O Lord, Thou shall preserve us from this generation."(5) And that too which follows, is, I think, appropriate enough: "The wicked walk in a circle," not because their life is to recur by means.of these circles, which these philosophers imagine, but because the path in which their false doctrine now runs is circuitous.
CHAP.14.--OF THE CREATION OF THE HUMAN RACE IN TIME, AND HOW THIS WASEFFECTED
WITHOUT ANY NEW DESIGN OR CHANGE OF PURPOSE ON GOD'S PART.
What wonder is it if, entangled in these circles, they find neither entrance nor egress? For they know not how the human race, and this mortal condition of ours, took its origin, nor how it will be brought to an end, since they cannot penetrate the inscrutable wisdom of God.For, though Himself eternal, and without beginning, yet He caused time to have a beginning; and man, whom He had not previously made He made in time, not from a new and sudden resolution, but by His unchangeable and eternal design.Who can search out the unsearchable depth of this purpose, who can scrutinize the inscrutable wisdom, wherewith God, without change of will, created man, who had never before been, and gave him an existence in time, and increased the human race from one individual? For the Psalmist himself, when he had first said, "Thou shalt keep us, O Lord, Thou shall preserve us from this generation for ever," and had then rebuked those whose foolish and impious doctrine preserves for the soul no eternal deliverance and blessedness adds immediately, "The wicked walk in a circle." Then, as if it were said to him, "What then do you believe, feel, know? Are we to believe that it suddenly occurred to God to create man, whom He had never before made in a past eternity,--God, to whom nothing new can occur, and in whom is no changeableness?" the Psalmist goes on to reply, as if addressing God Himself, "According to the depth of Thy wisdom Thou hast multiplied the children of men." Let men, he seems to say, fancy what they please, let them conjecture and dispute as seems good to them, but Thou hast multiplied the children of men according to the depth of thy wisdom, which no man can comprehend.For this is a depth indeed, that God always has been, and that man, whom He had never made before, He willed to make in time, and this without changing His design and will.
CHAP.15.--WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT GOD, AS HE HAS ALWAYS BEENSOVEREIGN
LORD, HAS ALWAYS HAD CREATURES OVER WHOM HE EXERCISED HIS SOVEREIGNTY;AND IN