Then, alluding to the view, entertained by many, then as now, that what we call Nature’s operations are upheld and carried forward by fixed laws, which spare the Maker all further trouble, he asserts that all things are impelled
“To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under pressure of some conscious cause.
The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused,
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect
Whose cause is God.”
Nor does he step at this merely theistic view. He goes on to the distinctly Christian teaching of St. John and St. Paul, so easy to assert, so hard to take home to the feelings and imagination, that it is the Eternal and Incarnate Word who is the Creator and Sustainer of this visible universe.
“All are under One. One Spirit—his
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows—