ANTECEDENCE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Antecedence

... that this union of body and soul shadows forth the connection between the material universe and the Infinite One? How else, indeed, can we attach any meaning to the attributes of omnipresence and omnipotence? The unity of action, the regularity of antecedence and consequence in outward events, which we commonly designate by the lame metaphor of law, then become the fitting expression of the consistent doings of an all-wise Being, in whom there is no variableness, ...

— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen