typal idea of themselves'. Accordingly Timæus Locrus represents the Creator of the world in the same strain that Moses did, ὡς ἀγαζόμενος καὶ εὐφρανθείς—delighted, as it were, in Himself to see that all things that He had made were good, and some things exceeding good. God Himself being infinitely full, and having enough and to spare, is always overflowing; and goodness and love issue forth from Him by way of redundancy. When He made the world, because there was nothing better than Himself, He shadowed forth Himself therein, and, as far as might be, was pleased to represent Himself and manifest His own eternal glory and perfection in it. When He is said to seek His own glory, it is, indeed, nothing else but to ray and beam forth, as it were, His own lustre; as R. Jehuda in his book Cosri hath glanced at it: gloria hæc scintilla est lucis divinæ, cedens in utilitatem populi ejus in terra ejus".

God does then most glorify and exalt Himself in the most triumphant way that may be, ad extra, or out of Himself, if I may so phrase it, when He most of all communicates Himself, and when He erects such monuments of His own majesty, wherein His own love and goodness may live and reign.

And we then most of all glorify Him, when we partake most of Him; when our serious endeavours after a true assimilation to Him, and conformity to His image,

1 Αγάλλεται (δὲ οὐ χαίρων ἐπὶ τῷ ἔξω κειμένῳ πράγματι· πῶς γὰρ ἔξω βλέπει νοῦς ὧν ; ἀλλὰ πληρουμένης τῆς ἀγαθοειδοῦς ἑαυτοῦ βουλήσεως καὶ προϊούσης αὐτῆς τοῦ ἀγαθουργοῦ δυνάμεως εἰς μετάδοσιν ἄφθονον καὶ χορηγίαν τῶν τελειοτέρων ἀγαθῶν· ὁ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐνεδείξατο ἱκανῶς εἰπὼν καὶ εὐφρανθεὶς ἔτι δὴ μᾶλλον ὅμοιον πρὸς τὸ παράδειγμα ἐπενόησεν ἀπ εργάσασθαι. Εὐφραίνεται μὲν γὰρ πρώτως κατὰ τὴν ἔνδον ἑαυτοῦ νόησιν, ἁπλῇ καὶ ἀνεμποδίστῳ καὶ ἀθρόᾳ περιβολῇ πᾶν

τὸ νοητὸν περιλαμβανούσῃ.-Procl. in Plat. Tim. 240 B. The notes on the next page contain part of the immediate context of the above quotation.

2 The word 'Locrus', in the text is probably an error, the passage from the Timæus of Plato referred to in the last note being intended.

Stallbaum in his remarks refers to Gen. i. 31.

הכבוד ניצוץ אור אלהי מועיל אצל 3

Cosri, Pars ii. § 8.

L

declare that we think nothing better than He is, and are, therefore, most ambitious of being one with Him, by a universal resignation of ourselves unto Him.

This is His glory in its lowest humiliation, while it beams forth out of Himself; and our happiness in its exaltation, which heaven never separates nor divides, though earth doth. His honour is His love and goodness in paraphrase, spreading itself over all those that can or do receive it; and this He loves and cherishes wheresoever He finds it, as something of Himself therein.

Thus I should leave this particular, but that being gone so far in it, it may be worth the while to take notice of three things wherein God most of all glories and takes the greatest complacency, in reference to creatures, as they are laid down by Proclus. The first, and chiefest, is concurrent with his own internal vision of all things in that simple, expedite and simultaneous comprehension of all things intelligible, piercing through all their essences, and viewing them all in himself, he is delighted therein, as seeing how his own glory can display and imitate itself in outward matter. The second is:-'in the aptness and capacity of those things which he hath made to receive a further influence of good, ready to stream forth from himself into them'.' The last is:-'in the sweet symmetry of his own forms with this capacity, and, as it were, the harmonious conspiration and symphony of them, when his own light pleasantly plays upon those well tuned instruments which he hath fitted to run the descants of his own goodness upon3.' And therefore it becomes us, whom He hath endued with vital power of action, and in some sense a self-moving life, to stir up His good gifts within ourselves; and, if we would have Him take pleasure in us, to

1 Εὐφραίνεται μὲν γὰρ κ.τ.λ.-Procl. in Plat. 240 B. (Vide note 1, p. 145.)

· διὰ τὴν ἐπιτηδειότητα τῶν ὑποδεχο μένων τὴν ἔξω προϊοῦσαν αὐτοῦ τῶν ἀγαθῶν

χορηγίαν.—Ibid.

3

τρίτην δὲ τὴν ἐκ τῆς ἀμφοῖν συμμετρίας, καὶ ὡσανεὶ συμπνοίας καὶ συμφωνίας.—Ibid. 240 0.

prepare our own souls more and more to receive of His liberality, that the stock which He is pleased to impart to us may not lie dead within us'. And this is the application which he makes of this particular.

CHAPTER V.

A SECOND DEDUCTION.

2. That all things are supported and governed by an Almighty wisdom and goodness. An answer to an objection made against the Divine Providence from an unequal distribution of things here below. Such quarrelling with Providence ariseth from a pedantic and carnal notion of good and evil.

Ν

IN the next place, we may, by way of further deduction, gather, That that Almighty wisdom and goodness which first made all things, doth also perpetually conserve and govern them; extending themselves through the whole fabric, and seating themselves in every finite essence, 'lest, straggling and falling off from the Deity, they should become altogether disorderly,' relapsing and sliding back into their first chaos. As in all motion there must be some first mover, from whence the beginning and perpetuation of all motion is deduced; so in beings there must be some first essence upon which all other must constantly depend. And, therefore, the Pythagorean philosophy was wont to look upon these νέα δημιουργήματα, as they call this production of every thing that is not truly divine, as dei év yevéoei-as being always in fieri. For as no finite thing can subsist by its own strength, or

1 ἵνα μὴ ἀργῇ εἰς ἡμᾶς ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ δόσις. Ibid.

2 ἵνα μὴ φυγόντα τὸ θεῖον τελέως άτακτα yévyrai.-Procl. in Plat. Tim. 243 E.

take its place upon the stage of space without the leave of an Almighty and Supreme power: so neither can it remain here without licence and assistance from it. The Deity, indeed, is the centre of all finite being, and entity itself, which is self-sufficient, must, of necessity, be the foundation and basis of every one of these weak essences, which cannot bear up themselves by any central power of their own; as we may also be almost assured of, from a sensible feeling of all the constant mutations and impotency which we find both in ourselves and all other things.

And as God thus preserves all things, so He is continually ordering and disposing all things in the best way, and providing so as may be best for them. He did not make the world as a mere exercise of His Almighty power, or to try His own strength, and then throw it away from Himself without any further attention to it; for He is that Omnipresent Life that penetrates and runs through all things, containing and holding all fast together within Himself; and, therefore, the ancient philosophy was wont rather to say, that the world was in God, than that God was in the world. He did not look without Himself to search for some solid foundation that might bear up this weighty building, but indeed reared it up within Him, and spread His own Omnipotency under it and through it: and, being centrally in every part of it, He governs it according to the prescript of His own unsearchable wisdom and goodness, and orders all things for the best. And this is one principal orthodox point the Stoics would have us to believe concerning providence; ὅτι πάντα ὑπ' ἀρίστου νοῦ γίνεται— that all things are here done in this world by the appointment of the best mind'.'

1 Thus Epictetus: Τῆς περὶ τοὺς θεοὺς εὐσεβείας, ἴσθι ὅτι τὸ κυριώτατον ἐκεῖνό ἐστιν, ὀρθὰς ὑπολήψεις περὶ αὐτῶν ἔχειν, ὡς ὄντων, καὶ διοικούντων τὰ ὅλα καλῶς καὶ δικαίως· καὶ σαυτὸν εἰς τοῦτο κατατε

ταχέναι, τὸ πείθεσθαι αὐτοῖς, καὶ εἴκειν ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς γινομένοις, καὶ ἀκολουθεῖν ἑκόντα ὡς ὑπὸ τῆς ἀρίστης γνώμης ÉπITENOVμÉVOis.-Epict. Enchirid. cap.

xxxi.

And now, if any should quarrel with the unequal distribution of things here, as if rather some blind fortune had bestowed her blessings carelessly till she had no more left, and thereby made so many starvelings, rather than some all-knowing mind that deals forth its bounty in due proportions; I should send them to Plutarch and Plotinus to have their reasons fully satisfied on this point, for we here deal with the principles of natural light-all these debates arising from nothing but pedantical and carnal notions of good and evil: as if it were so gallant a thing to be dealing with crowns and sceptres, to be bravely arrayed, and wallow in that which is called the wealth of this world. God indeed never took any such notice of good men as to make them all rulers, as the last of those fore-cited authors tells us; neither was it worth the while, 'neither is it fit for good men that partake of a higher life than the most princely is, to trouble themselves about lording and ruling over other men';' as if such a splendid kind of nothing as this is, were of so much worth. It may be generally much better for us, while we are so apt to magnify and court any mundane beauty and glory as we are, that Providence should disorder and deface these things, that we might all be weaned from the love of them, than that their lovely looks should so bewitch and enchant our souls as to draw them off from better things. And I dare say, that a sober mind that shall contemplate the state and temper of men's minds, and the confused frame of this outward world, will rather admire the infinite wisdom of a gracious Providence in permitting and ordering that ataxy which is in it, than he would were it to be beheld in a more comely frame and order.

1 οὐ τοίνυν (θεμιτόν οὐδὲ θεοὺς αὐτῶν ἄρχειν τὰ καθέκαστα, ἀφέντας τὸν ἑαυτῶν βίον, οὐδέ τε τοὺς ἄνδρας τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς

ἄλλον βίον ζῶντας, τὸν ἀρχῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἀμείνω, τούτους αὐτῶν ἄρχοντας εἶναι· κ.τ.λ. -Plot. Enn. III. 2. 9.