We see all governments are
obscure and invisible:
"Totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
Such is the description of governments. We see the government of
God over the world is hidden, insomuch as it seemeth to participate
of much irregularity and confusion. The government of the soul in
moving the body is inward and profound, and the passages thereof
hardly to be reduced to demonstration. Again, the wisdom of
antiquity (the shadows whereof are in the poets) in the description
of torments and pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was
the giants' offence, doth detest the offence of futility, as in
Sisyphus and Tantalus. But this was meant of particulars:
nevertheless even unto the general rules and discourses of policy
and government there is due a reverent and reserved handling.
(48) But contrariwise in the governors towards the governed, all
things ought as far as the frailty of man permitteth to be manifest
and revealed. For so it is expressed in the Scriptures touching the
government of God, that this globe, which seemeth to us a dark and
shady body, is in the view of God as crystal: Et in conspectu sedis
tanquam mare vitreum simile crystallo.
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