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. 10.12. Order being the effect, cannot be the cause of it self: 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 an 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?] Nothing so sure as that that which hath an end to which it tends, hath a cause by which it is ordered to that end: ⟨p. 27⟩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;
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. 10.12. Order being the effect, cannot be the cause of it self: 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 peice of work, but he hath the Model of it in his own mind: No Man builds an 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 patern 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, vertue to compleat it and power to Govern it, why should it be called nature rather than God?] Nothing so sure as that that which hath an end to which it tends, hath a cause by which it is ordered to that end: ⟨p. 27⟩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;
- *Lactant.
