Chapter 5.—That in All Natures,
of Every Kind and Rank, God is Glorified.
All natures, then, inasmuch as they
are, and have therefore a rank and species of their own, and a kind
of internal harmony, are certainly good. And when they are in the
places assigned to them by the order of their nature, they preserve
such being as they have received. And those things which have not
received everlasting being, are altered for better or for worse, so
as to suit the wants
and motions of those things to
which the Creator’s law has made them subservient; and thus they
tend in the divine providence to that end which is embraced in the
general scheme of the government of the universe. So that, though
the corruption of transitory and perishable things brings them to
utter destruction, it does not prevent their producing that which
was designed to be their result. And this being so, God, who
supremely is, and who therefore created every being which has not
supreme existence (for that which was made of nothing could not be
equal to Him, and indeed could not be at all had He not made it),
is not to be found fault with on account of the creature’s
faults, but is to be praised in view of the natures He has
made.