an ignorance. All
that they can do is, to give some shape or form, or to fashion that in
some new model which had a being before. So that, whatever men have done
in the world, their works are all made up of those things which appear,
and art and skill to form and fashion that excellently which before was in
another mould and fashion. But he needs not sit idle for want of
materials, because he can make his materials; and therefore, in the
beginning he made heaven and earth, not as they now are, but he made first
the matter and substance of this universe, but it was as yet a rude and
confused chaos or mass, all in one lump, without difference. But then his
majesty shows his wisdom and art, his excellent invention, in the
following days of the creation, in ordering and beautifying and forming
the world as it is, and that his power might be the more known; for how
easy is it for him to do all this? There needs no more for it but a
word,--let it be, and it is. "He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and
it stood fast." Not a word pronounced, and audibly composed of letters and
syllables--mistake it not so--but a word inwardly formed, as it were, in his
infinite Spirit. Even the inclination and beck of his will suffices for
his great work. Ye see what labour and pains we have in our business,--how
we toil and sweat about it,--what wrestlings and strivings in all things we
do; but behold what a great work is done without pain and travail? It is a
laborious thing to travel through a parcel of this earth, which is yet but
as the point of the universe; it is troublesome to lift or carry a little
piece of stone or clay; it is a toil even to look upward and number the
stars of heaven. But it was no toil, no difficult thing to his majesty, to
stretch out these heavens in such an infinite compass; for as large as the
circumference of them is, yet it is as easy to him to compass them, as it
is to us to span a finger-length or two. It is no difficulty to him to
take up hills and mountains as "the dust of the balance," in his hand, and
weigh them in scales. Hath he not chained the vast and huge mass of the
weighty earth and sea, in the midst of the empty place, without a
supporter, without foundations or pillars? He hangeth it on nothing. What
is it, I pray you, that supports the clouds? Who is it that binds up their
waters in such a way that the clouds are not rent under them, even though
there be more abundance of water in them than is