II–VI: parts of governance; conservation immediate and mediate; notable observations
II. In governance there are to be distinguished: (1) parts; (2) grades; (3) the great influxes into created things. III. First, its parts are conservation and ordination.
IV. CONSERVATION is the first part of governance, by which God makes things founded in the world so that they continue to be. See Psalm 104 throughout, a most clear mirror of such providence. Opposed to conservation is destruction, by which God abolishes some substance or accident. Conservation is the formal continuation of a thing's own being. For from the same principles from which being originates, it ought also to be continued and kept — not from contraries, which destroy, nor from diverse things, which contribute nothing: but like is kept by like, especially by the more powerful, and what is being by participation is kept by that which is being by essence. So fire is fostered by fire, cold by cold of itself, being by being — most of all by the greatest Being from whom it has that it is. Therefore it is written, from Him and through Him and in Him are all things (Romans 11:36) — that is, they emanate, are ruled, are kept. And Gregory: All things, he says, would be reduced to nothing unless conserved by the operation of divine power.
V. Conservation of things is immediate or mediate, and that direct or indirect. For God conserves things not only through Himself but also through other causes. VI. Here there are certain notables: (1) God conserves all things principally; second causes secondarily; and those nearer to God conserve more. (2) What can be made by God alone through creation, and not otherwise, can be conserved only by God. (3) Because the multitude of things is so great and diverse, God inserted necessity, fate, and harmony, by which second beings are kept as long as needed and transmuted when needed. (4) God distinguished many systems mutually keeping and moving one another, as wheels in a clock. (5) Inferior things have a certain sympathy with first and superior seeds.
Latin
II. Sunt autem in ea discernenda: 1. partes; 2. gradus; 3. magni in res creatas influxus. III. Primo, partes eius sunt conservatio et ordinatio. IV. CONSERVATIO est prima pars gubernationis, qua Deus res in mundo factas ut porro sint. Vide Psalmum 104 totum, quia qualis providentiae est speculum nitidissimum. Conservationi vero opponitur destructio, qua Deus substantiam aut accidens aliquod abolet. Conservatio est continuatio proprii esse formaliter. A quibus enim principiis emanat esse, ab eisdem continuari et servari oportet, non a contrariis, quia destruunt, non a diversis, quia nihil conferunt: sed simile simili servatur, praesertim potentiori, et quod est per participationem ens, ab eo quod per essentiam. Sicut enim ignis igni, frigus frigore per se, ens ente fovetur, maxime autem ab ente maximo, a quo habet ut sit. Idcirco scriptum est, ex ipso et per ipsum et in ipso sunt omnia — id est, emanant, reguntur, servantur. Et Gregorius: Omnia, inquit, in nihilum redigerentur, nisi operatione divinae virtutis conservarentur. V. Est autem conservatio rerum immediata aut mediata, eaque directa aut indirecta. Nam Deus non solum per se res conservat, sed et per alias causas. VI. Sunt vero hic quaedam notabilia. 1. Deus conservat omnia principaliter; secundae autem causae secundario; eaeque priores Deoque viciniores sunt, magis conservant. 2. Quae a Deo solo fieri possunt per creationem neque aliter, ea non nisi a Deo possunt conservari. 3. Quoniam tanta est rerum multitudo diversissima, Deus necessitatem, fatum et harmoniam inseruit, quibus servarentur quanto tempore opus foret secunda entia, et ubi opus esset transmutarentur. 4. Distinxit Deus systemata plurima mutuo sese servantia moventiaque, ut rotae in horologio. 5. Res inferiores quandam habent sympathiam cum seminibus primis et superioribus.