Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. rx. of Necessity. 237
was the First Great Cause: His will the source of all
all events : it could not
things, the spring of all motions,
be frustrated, it must always be fulfilled : God hath done
whatsoever He would omnia qucecunque voluit fecit, in
codo et in terra. This was contained in the very idea of
Omnipotence ; for no agency can be impeded but by
stronger agency, and none can be stronger than Omnipo
tence : it was contained in the very idea of the Divine
whose will is
Felicity ; for no one can be perfectly happy
1
not fulfilled, and the Supreme Being is perfectly happy.
Though the Divine Will, then, acted by mediate and
secondary causes, both in the physical and moral world,
these causes were no more than mediate ones, and fell back
upon the First Great Cause, from which they derived all
their efficacy. Nor, because a secondary cause failed of its
effect, was there, therefore, any failure of the power of the
First Cause. One particular cause was impeded in its
operation by another ; the action of fire by that of water,
the digestive functions of the stomach by the coarseness
of the food : but the qualities of the water and the food
were also particular causes, acting under the Universal
Cause as much as those which they impeded. Thus what
seemed to recede from the Divine Will according to one
and the failure of the
order, returned to it under another ;
2
cause was the success of the universal.
particular
1 Voluntas Dei causa est omnium speciei, sed etiam quantum ad indiquse
naturaliter fiunt, vel facta sive vidua principia. Summa Theolofutura
sunt. . . . prima et summa gica, P. 1. Quaest. 22. Art. 2.
causa omnium specierum et moti- In hujusmodi autem causis non
num. Lombard. 1. 1. Distinct. 45. est infinitus processus, est ergo
4
Cassari non potest, quia ilia volun- aliqua omnium una prima quse est
tate fecit quaecunque voluit, in ccelo Deus. Bradwardine,p.l90. Omne
et in terra, cui, teste Apostolo, nihil movens posterius est instrumentum
resistit. Distinct. 46. Nulla causa primi moventis, alias enim non est
impeditur nisi ab aliquo fortiori posterius naturaliter eo, sed prius
agente, sed nihil est fortius Divina vel etiam coaequum. p. 173.
2
voluntate. . . . Prseterea, diminutio Quod si aliqua causa particugaudii
si voluntas non impleatur, laris deficiat a suo effectu, hoc est
sed Deus felicissimus. Aquinas in propter aliquam aliam causam par-
Lombard. Distinct. 47. Causali- ticularem immediantem, quae contitas
autem Dei qui estprimum agens, netur sub ordine causae universalis.
se extendit usque ad omnia entia, Unde effectus ordinem causae uninon
solum quantum ad principia
versalis nullo modo potest exire.