us Christians: and not unto chance or fortune, as these
former Philosophers did.
Thus Aristotle in the first of his Meteorologicks;
It is necessary, saith he, that this whole world which
environeth the earth, should be continuated with the
superior conversions, or revolutions of those celestiall
circles, and bodies, which roll, and wheele above:
because the whole vertue of it dependeth from
thence. Neither is it probable, that he, who hath
created the world, and all that is within it, should
abandon and leave it so: but that as the frame of the
fabricke was his, so likewise the guiding and ruling of
it should be ascribed unto him also.
Which is more cleerely exprest by the said Ari∣stotle,
in his booke De mundo. Where he saith that it
is an old saying, and left by tradition from our fore∣fathers;
that all things both are of God, and likewise
sustained by him; and that there is no nature of it selfe,
left unto it's owne Tutory able to attaine well being
(for so I interprete Salutem) without his assistance or
helpe: wherefore his opinion is, that God holdeth the
beginning, middle, and end of all things. So Theo∣phrast
saith, that all things have a divine beginning, by
which they are and doe subsist.
Dionysius likewise in his booke De divinis nominibus
avoucheth, that nothing hath subsistance, but by the
omnipotent power of God: with whom, Theodoret,
that the governour of nature is the Creator of it:
neither will he forgoe that Ship which hee hath built:
Hence GOD is said by the ancients to bee divided
through all natures, as if all were full of God; be∣cause
his divine power spreadeth it selfe over, and is