Chapter VI: Preservation
CHAPTER VI: ON THE FIRST ACT OF CONTROL, NAMELY, PRESERVATION
There are two “parts,” so to speak, of control: preservation and governance.
§ 61. There are two duties of God’s providence in regard to anything: preservation and governance. Created things do not exist of themselves and of their own powers, but “God upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). Col. 1:17: “In Him all things hold together.” Acts 17:28: “In God we live and move and have our being.” It is characteristic of created things that there be change; it is characteristic of God to be fixed. “As it is characteristic of rays to come from the sun and characteristic of a shadow to come from a body, so all created things depend on the preservation of God” (Raimundus de Sebunda, Theol. natur., ch. 16, which you should be sure to examine).
What is preservation?
§ 62. According to the definition of Scaliger, preservation is nothing else but the “continuation of existence” (Exerc. 31 and 250, sect. 1). When something has received being and preservation, this is attributed to the same author and the same principle. For just as all created things, in their creation and generation, received from God their essence, properties, and power to act, so also they are preserved by Him in their being and acting. Hence there is a constant “inflowing,” so to speak, of the all-preserving power of God into all that exists. Without this inflowing, they cannot act or even exist, even if it be withheld for only an instant. What is more natural for man than moving? Yet it is in God that we move (Acts 17:28). What is more natural for the sun than rising every day? Yet God makes the sun rise (Matt. 5:45). Therefore, though individual things are endowed with their own property, they neither exercise it nor can exercise it unless they “are given being” [essentientur], so to speak, and are enlivened by the power of God. Ps. 104:29–30: “You hide Your face, they are dismayed; You take away their spirit, they die and return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You will renew the face of the ground.”
§ 63. In Deut. 8:3 and Matt. 4:4 we read: “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God.” This not only teaches us that God has the power to feed and to preserve people apart from natural means, but it also shows us that the power to nourish is not the property of bread, as if it could still nourish a person if the Word of God were removed, by which the bread was first created and by which it acquired the power to nourish. Rather, there is required a constant inflowing, so to speak, of the creating and preserving Word in order for the bread to exercise its inherent power to nourish. We can and should say the same thing about medicine. A human being is not restored to health by herbs but by the Word of God which originally gave that power to the herbs and which still instills it in them, so to speak. Wisdom 16:12–13: “For neither herb nor poultice cured them, but it was Your Word, O Lord, which heals all men. For You have power over life and death,” etc. For this reason Mesue (at the beginning of his Grabadin. medic.) concludes correctly and piously: “God alone heals ailments.” Would to God that we would fix this rightly in our heart so that we may be led away from our confidence in physicians and medicines, and see the hand of God present in them, and strive to cling to God alone with the confidence of our heart! Certainly, there are many who have followed the example of Asa in his sickness: They “do not seek the Lord but rather trust the skill of physicians” (2 Chron. 16:12). They pass by repentance and prayer, and hope to recover their health through medication.1
1 Gerhard does not reject medicine, only placing one’s confidence in medicine rather than in God. See below, § 79.