Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 2.djvu/420



and turning the falling and defection of the creature, which to his prescience was eternally known, to make way to his eternal counsel, touching a Mediator, and the work he purposed to accomplish in him. That God created Spirits, whereof some kept their standing, and others fell: he created heaven and earth, and all their armies and generations; and gave unto them constant and everlasting laws, which we call nature; which is nothing but the laws of the creation; which laws nevertheless have had three changes or times, and are to have a fourth or last. The first, when the matter of heaven and earth was created without forms: the second, the interim of perfection of every day's work: the third, by the curse, which notwithstanding was no new creation: and the last, at the end of the world, the manner whereof is not yet fully revealed: so as the laws of nature, which now remain and govern inviolably till the end of the world, began to be in force when God first rested from his works, and ceased to create; but received a revocation, in part, by the curse; since which time they change not. That notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from creating since the first sabbath, yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfil his divine will in all things, great and small, singular and general, as fully and exactly by providence, as he could by miracle and new creation, though his working be not immediate and direct, but by compass; not violating nature, which is his own law, upon the creature. That at the first, the soul of man was not produced by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God: so that the ways and proceedings of God with spirits are not included in nature; that is, in the laws of heaven and earth; but are reserved to the law of his secret will and grace: wherein God worketh still, and resteth not from the work of redemption, as he resteth from the work of creation: but continueth working till the end of the world; what time that work also shall be accomplished, and an eternal sabbath shall ensue. Likewise, that whensoever God doth transcend the law of nature by miracles, which may ever seem as new creations, he never cometh to that point or pass, but in regard of the work of redemption, which is the greater, and whereto all God's signs and miracles do refer. That God created man in his own image, in a reasonable soul, in innocency, in free-will, and in sovereignty: that he gave him a law and commandment, which was in his power to keep, but he kept it not: that man made a total defection from God, presuming to imagine that the commandments and prohibitions of God were not the rules of good and evil, but that good and evil had their own principles and beginnings, and lusted after the knowledge of those imagined beginnings; to the end, to depend no more upon God's will revealed, but upon himself, and his own light, as a God; than the which there could not be a sin more opposite to the whole law of God: that yet, nevertheless,this great sin was not originally moved by the malice of man, but was insinuated by the suggestion and instigation of the devil, who was the first defected creature, and fell of malice, and not by temptation. That upon the fall of man, death and vanity entered by the justice of God; and the image of God in man was defaced; and heaven and earth, which were made for man's use, were subdued to corruption by his fall; but then, that instantly, and without intermission of time, after the word of God's law became, through the fall of man, frustrate as to obedience, there succeeded the greater word of the promise, that the righteousness of God might be wrought by faith. That as well the law of God as the word of his promise endure the same for ever: but that they have been revealed in several manners, according to the dispensation of times. For the law was first imprinted in that remnant of light of nature, which was left after the fall, being sufficient to accuse: then it was more manifestly expressed in the written law; and was yet more opened by the prophets; and, lastly, expounded in the true perfection by the Son of God, the great Prophet, and perfect interpreter, as also fulfiller of the law. That likewise the word of the promise was manifested and revealed: first, by immediate revelation and inspiration; after by figures, which were of two natures: the one, the rites and ceremonies of the law; the other, the continual history of the old world, and Church of the Jews; which though it be literally true, yet is it pregnant of a perpetual allegory and shadow of the work of the redemption to follow. The same promise or evangile was more clearly revealed and declared by the prophets, and then by the Son himself, and lastly by the Holy Ghost, which illuminateth the Church to the end of the world. That in the fulness of time, according to the promise and oath, of a chosen lineage descended the blessed seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God and Saviour of the world; who was conceived by the power and overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, and took flesh of the Virgin Mary: that the Word did not only take flesh, or was joined to flesh, but was made flesh, though without confusion of substance or nature: so as the eternal Son of God and the ever blessed Son of Mary was one person; so one, as the blessed virgin may be truly and catholicly called Deipara, the Mother of God; so one, as there is no unity in universal nature, not that of the soul and body of man, so perfect; for the three heavenly unities, whereof that is the second, exceed all natural unities: that is to say, the unity of the three persons in Godhead; the unity of God and man in Christ; and the unity of Christ and the Church: the Holy Ghost being the worker of both these latter unities; for by the Holy Ghost was Christ incarnate and quickened in flesh, and by the Holy Ghost is man regenerate and quickened in spirit. That Jesus, the Lord, became in the flesh a sacrificer, and a sacrifice for sin; a satisfaction and price to the justice of God; a meriter of glory and the kingdom; a pattern of all righteousness; apreacher of the word which himself was; a finisher of the ceremonies; a corner-stone to remove