A Sketch of Universal Wisdom

For although God himself sustains the World he created by his own Power, illuminates it with his own light, and rules it by his own providence: yet because he acts in an ordinary way through ordinary means, it happens that by his arrangement some Creatures are formed, reformed, and nurtured by others, and directed toward their ends.

The entire chorus of Creatures bears witness to this, as do all the works of Nature, joined together in such a tight order that nothing among them all exists or happens for itself, by itself, or through itself; but each one depends on another, serves another, and is sustained by another. For this reason, he distributed various virtues original: "virtutes," referring to the inherent powers or qualities that make a thing effective among various Creatures, so that each one (in that part by which it is what it is, and acts as it does) might represent the role of its Creator, serving its neighboring Creatures, and thereby preserving the Universe itself.

Therefore, because God has also trained some through others within the human race up to this point, in order to gradually multiply the light of the knowledge of himself and his works; and since now the Last times of the World original: "Ultima Mundi... tempora," reflecting a common 17th-century belief that the world was entering its final, most enlightened age before the apocalypse seem to be at hand...