while we gently and gradually take up one season after the other, we may have our bodies
hardened to encounter the summer heat without uneasiness. For since sudden changes to
opposite extremes are productive of the worst injury and disease, God hath contrived that
after winter we should take up the spring, and after the spring the summer; and after the
summer the autumn; and thus transport us to winter, so that these changes from seasons
which are opposite, should come upon us harmlessly and by degrees, through the aid of
intermediate ones. Who then is so wretched and pitiable, that beholding the heavens; and
beholding sea, and land; and beholding this exact adjustment of the seasons, and the unfailing
order of day and night, he can think that these things happen of their own accord, instead
of adoring Him who hath arranged them all with a corresponding wisdom!
7. But I have yet somewhat more to say on this head. For not only, indeed, does the
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magnitude and beauty of the creation, but also the very manner of it, display a God who is
the artificer of the universe. For since we were not present at the beginning, whilst he was
engaged in the work of forming and creating all things; nor had we been present, could we
have known how they came into being,1415 the power that disposed them being invisible;
He hath made the mode of this creation to become our best teacher, by compounding all
things in a manner which transcends the course of nature. Perhaps what I have said, is not
sufficiently clear. Therefore it is necessary that I should again repeat it in a clearer manner.
All men, then, must admit that it is the course of nature for water to be supported on the
earth, and not the earth on the waters. For the earth being a certain dense, hard, unyielding,
and solid substance, is easily able to support the nature of water; but the water, which is
fluid, and rare, and soft, and diffusive, and giving way to all it meets with, must be unable
to support any solid body, though it were of the lightest kind. Often indeed when a small
pebble fails upon it, it yields, and makes way, and sends it down to the bottom. When
therefore thou beholdest not a small pebble, but the whole earth borne upon the waters,
and not submerged, admire the power of Him who wrought these marvellous things in a
supernatural manner! And whence does this appear, that the earth is borne upon the waters?
The prophet declares this when he says, “He hath founded it upon the seas, and prepared
it upon the floods.”1416 And again: “To him who hath founded the earth upon the waters.”1417
1415 See Job xxxviii. 4.
1416 Ps. xxiv. 2.
1417 Ps. cxxxvi. 6. Among the variety of opinions that anciently prevailed respecting the earth’s form and
situation, one of the principal was, that the heavens and earth above this ocean was the only visible universe;
and that all beneath the ocean was Hades, or the invisible world. Hence when the sun set, he was said, tingere
se oceano; and when any went to Hades, they must first pass the ocean. Of this opinion were not only the ancient
poets, but some of the Christian Fathers, particularly Lactantius, and St. Augustin, and others, who thought
their opinion was favoured by the Psalmist, in Ps. xxiv. 2, and cxxxvi. 6. Derham’s Physico-Theology, p. 41. St.
Chrysostom must evidently have adopted the same opinion. St. Greg. Nyss. in Hexæm. t. l., p. 22e., speaks of
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Homily IX