Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/15

Rh each of which respects he is truly and properly life in himself, that is, life independent of every other source.

Love and wisdom in God are essentially one, though capable of being distinguished in idea the one from the other. And it being a property of the divine love, in union with the divine wisdom, to love others out of or distinct from itself, to desire conjunction with others, and to make others happy from itself, it seems highly reasonable to believe, that this threefold tendency of the divine love and the divine wisdom was the cause of the creation of the world, and also still is the cause of it's preservation.

AS Jehovah God, by virtue of his divine love, had in view the happiness of others out of himself, yet contiguous to himself; so by virtue of his divine wisdom, operating according to the laws of his own order, he produced from himself, and not out of nothing, as many have supposed, substances and forms, both spiritual and natural, in indefinite variety, and at length human forms capable of receiving and perceiving in themselves his divine love and wisdom. These human forms were therefore created to be images and likenesses of him, from whom they were produced, and by whose power they were brought into existence. On which account it is written, "In the beginning was the Word, (the Divine Wisdom,) and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made," John. i. 1,3. And again, "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man