Novatian, On the Trinity 8

The Church knows and venerates this God, setting aside the fables and fabrications of heretics; all creation — invisible and visible alike, the whole of nature at all times — bears witness to him. Angels adore him, the stars marvel, the seas bless him, the lands reverence him, and everything in the netherworld looks up to him. Every human mind perceives him, even if it cannot put that perception into words. By his command all things are set in motion: fountains gush, rivers flow, waves surge, every creature brings forth its young, winds are compelled to blow, rains fall, seas are stirred, and everywhere fertility spreads abroad.

He planted a paradise in the east, a world of eternal life, for the first-formed humans; he set there the tree of life and likewise the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; he gave a command and fixed a penalty for transgression. He saved Noah, the most just, from the flood because of his innocence and faith; he transferred Enoch; he brought Abraham into the fellowship of friendship; he protected Isaac and increased Jacob; he appointed Moses to lead the people; he rescued the groaning sons of Israel from the yoke of slavery; he wrote the Law; he led the fathers' offspring into the promised land; he instructed the prophets by the Spirit; and through them all he promised his Son Christ — and when the time came to give him, he sent him.

Through the Son he willed us to come to knowledge of him, and he poured out the broad bosom of his mercy upon us, conferring a rich Spirit on the needy and the outcast. Because he is generous, bountiful, and good, he did not want the whole world to wither, cut off from the streams of his grace. So he willed that apostles, instructors of our race, be sent into all the world through his Son, that the human condition might recognize its teacher and, if it chose to follow, have someone to call Father in its prayers (Psalm 68:17).

His providence does not merely run through individual lives; it runs through cities and nations, whose destinies the prophets have sung — indeed, through the whole world, whose end, plagues, diminutions, and punishments he has foretold because of its unbelief. Lest anyone imagine this untiring providence fails to reach the smallest details, the Lord says: not one of two sparrows falls without the Father's will, and even the hairs of your head are all numbered. His care did not allow the Israelites' clothing to wear out, nor their sandals — the lowliest things — to deteriorate, nor even the captives' hair to be burned. There is good reason: if he embraces all things and contains all things (for the whole and all things consist of individual parts), then his care inevitably extends to each single thing, since his providence already reaches the whole, whatever it is.

Therefore he sits upon the cherubim — that is, he presides over the variety of his works, with the living creatures subject to his throne holding first place among the rest, and all things covered overhead by the crystal firmament, which is heaven covering all. At God's command this firmament was solidified from the flowing substance of the waters into robust ice, dividing the upper and lower waters so that, its strength reinforced by frost, it could bear the weight of the upper waters. Beneath it turn the wheels — that is, the times — by which all the members of the world are continually revolved; feet are added to them so that these things do not stand forever but pass away. And through every part they are studded with starry eyes, for God's works are to be contemplated with a wakeful gaze. In their midst is the fire of coals: either because this world hastens toward the fiery day of judgment, or because all God's works are fiery, not dark but vigorous, or lest, having arisen from earthly principles, they might naturally grow cold from the rigor of their origin — so the warm nature of the inner Spirit was added to all things to supply equal balances for the use of life to bodies frozen by cold.

This, then, is the chariot of God, according to David: 'The chariot of God is multiplied ten thousand times,' that is, innumerable, infinite, immense. Under the yoke of the natural law given to all, some are drawn back as with reins, others driven forward as with loosened reins. The angels and the stars guide this world, the chariot of God, with all its parts; their varied courses, though bound by fixed laws, we see leading to the goals of an appointed time — so that we too, with the apostle, marveling at the artisan and his work, may rightly exclaim: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways inscrutable, and all that follows.