more are the thoughts of the unsearchable God higher than our thoughts The more sober and weighty part of the Schoolmen do conclude this Question in the negative and assert That Almighty God by one eternal act knew all things from all Eternity and by the like eternal act willed from all Eternity what he any way willed and though the termination of that Will respected Objects that neither were nor could be eternal yet his Knowledge and Will was eternally the same as ever and he begins not to know any thing which he did not eternally know nor to will any thing which he did not eternally will though the execution of that Will respects things to be done in time and futurity And certainly as this is the most probable Opinion so it takes away the pretence of the Objection the immanent Acts and Operations of the glorious God being eternal and without change It is true some late Schoolmen and after them Clara in his 4 th Problem seems to assert that Divina voluntas potest velle aliquid novum sine mutatione sui But suppose that this Supposition were admissible yet this would not any way be inconsistent with the Eternity of the Divine Nature and Essence 1. This is no Physical change in Almighty God but a voluntary and free operation of his Will which possibly was so at first willed by him to be changed according as he saw cause in his infinite Wisdom 2. That this which is here called a change of his Will is not in truth a change of his Will but a change in the Object which only seems to make a diversification of the Will but indeed is the same Will diversified only in the habitude to the Object The Will of God is like a straight unalterable Rule or Line but the various comportments of the Creature either thwarting this Rule or holding conformity to it occasions several habitudes of this Rule unto it We need no better explication hereof than that of the Prophet Ezechiel Chap. 33. from the twelfth to the twentieth Verse 4. A change of Actions and Operations in relation to some external Object or terminated therein and such a change as this is consistent with an Eternal Being though the change happen in any given portion of Time Thus the Almighty and Eternal God created the World by his Power and Will in the beginning of Time and orders governs and disposeth of the things by his Providence in all the Periods of Time and yet without any Physical or real change in himself And thus he began to be a Creator when before he was not a Creator and began to be a Governour of the World after it was made and exerciseth divers external acts of his Providence daily which before he did not For those various acts of his are terminated in such Objects as neither were nor could be eternal namely the World and the Government thereof And although he thereby gain a change of relation or relative denomination yet it is no real or Physical change in himself For all relations arise from the supposition of existence of both the terms of relation as between the Creator and the thing created and the Governour and thing governed and therefore although one of the terms of that relation namely the Eternal God had an eternal existence in his own absolute nature yet the World that was the other term of relation had no eternal existence but was created in the beginning of Time and the relation of a Creator or Governour must necessarily therefore arise in Time and not from Eternity because one of the terms of the relation namely the World had not any existence before Time began But in the eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit the termini relationis were all eternal and consequently the relation of Paternity and Filiation between the First and Second Person and the relation between the Sacred Persons of the Trinity and the denomination thereof must needs be eternal because the terms of relation between whom that relation ariseth were eternal But it is not so between the Eternal God and a temporary World for the relation could not arise till the World had an existence and a change or acquest of a new relation is not at all any real change in God but is an accident resulting from the existence of both the termini and can be no ancienter than the coexistence even of the latest and newest of those terms which if began in time must necessarily produce a new relation yet without any real change in the pre-existing and eternal God And thus I have done with those Physical and Metaphysical Evidences of the Inception of the World and of Mankind and against the Eternity of both And although I shall descend in the ensuing Section to Moral Evidences of probability strongly perswading the same Truth yet I lay the principal weight and stress of this Argument upon what is said in the preceding Chapters of this First Section which though perchance they may have something of obscurity as being bottomed upon and fetched from the true nature of the things themselves and therefore not so obvious and plain to all Capacities yet they have a concludency in them not inferior or at least little inferior to Demonstrations SECT II. CAP. I. The Proofs of Fact that seem with the greatest Moral evidence to evince the Inception of Mankind And first touching the Antiquity or Novity of History I Have now done with those Evidences that in my Understanding seem quasi ab intrinseco to evince the Inception of Mankind from that intrinsecal incompossibility and inconsistency that the Supposition of the eternal existence thereof bears with his Nature I now descend to the examination of those Evidences of Fact which do or may seem to contribute to the proof of what is designed namely Novitatem generis humani And although that Evidences of Fact of things remote from our Sense cannot be said infallible and demonstrative because the nature of such matters of fact simply as they are matters of fact is not capable as such of Demonstration yet they may be Evidences of high credibility and such as no reasonable Man can with any just reason deny his assent unto them That which hath been hath as certainly and infallibly yea and as necessarily been as that which is Omne quod est dum est necessariò est omne quod fuit cum jam preteriit necessariò fuit quando fuit in praeteritis non est contingentia Only that which is and is obvious to Sense hath this advantage of evidence which that which hath been wants namely the immediate evidence of Sense wherein though it is not universally impossible but that Sense may be deceived yet because it is the best evidence that we have of matters of fact we give credit to it as a sensible evidence and we have reason so to do But of things transacted before our time and out of the
the learned Philosophers knew not a production ex nihilo by Creation by the Almighty God which breaks and tears in pieces all those petite Axioms and superstructions thereupon which they had been long time in weaving and by which they formed much of their Philosophical Speculation As the necessity of eternal Matter because nothing is made of nothing the necessity of eternal Motion because every Motion must have some Motion anteceding the nature of possibilities which and many more being desumed from Generation as it stood in the setled course of Nature and fitted and appropriated to it are no way applicable to the first Origination and Production of Being by Creation 5. He gives us the true Efficient of Being and the manner of his Operation namely Almighty God a most wise intelligent and free Efficient and one that in the first production of things did not work per modum naturae or necessarily or as a natural or necessary Cause as the Sun produceth Light but per modum intentionis volitionis electionis for he was before he created his Creation of the World was in the beginning namely of Time and created Nature but he was before that beginning namely without all beginning But to pursue a little more distinctly the order of the Creation of things positively and not barely negatively the Mosaical History touching the Creation seems to be as followeth 1. That in the beginning the first Apex of Time which began with the Being of Matter Almighty God created in one indivisible moment the first and common Matter of all this Mundus aspectabilis the Heaven and Earth Vers 1. 2. That in that first Creation and for some continuance of time or duration after this common Matter of all things lay indistinct and confused together without any order or distinction expressed by those words Gen. 1.2 And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep And in this common Mass and Chaos were contained the constituent Matter of the Celestial and Elementary World Which salves the Dispute touching the disparity of the Matter of the Heavenly and Elementary World which appears here to be the same in kind 3. That this common Matter had these deficiencies in it in and for some time after its production 1. It was without Form and Order 2. It was without Light 3. It was without Activity Life or Motion and 4. All that Superficies which it had bore the greatest analogy to Water though in that vast Abyss there was a confused mixture of other Matter 4. That the Spirit of God moved upon the face of this great Abyss incubavit super abyssi faciem What this Spirit of God was whether the essential Spirit the Third Person in the Holy Trinity or whether it were a created Spirit the Spirit of Nature or as some will have it the Anima mundi created by God to digest inspire and communicate an active nature to this confused Moles as some earnestly contend or whether this Spirit of God were any other than the emanation of his Power I shall not determin But whatever it was this Motion of the Spirit upon the face of this Abyss had these great Intentions and Effects upon this confused Moles 1. It derived into it motive Powers or Energies whereby the parts of it were agitated or moved or at least rendred more obsequious to the agitation and motion of that active nature which was afterward created namely Light or Fire 2. It did gradually digest and separate its parts whereby they became more capable of disposition and order according to their several designed and destined places positions and uses 3. It did transfuse into this stupid dead and unactive Moles certain activity and vital influence whereby it did in general affect that which Aristotle calls the common Life of Bodies namely Motion and the several parts thereof were impregnated with several kinds of vital influence varied and diversified according to their several parts and uses As the gentle heat of the Hen seems to communicate a vital influence to the Egg only with this difference that the heat of the Hen seems to excite a pre-existing vital principle in the Egg rather than to give it But the incubation of this Spirit of God did not so much excite as give a new vital power to the several parts of the Chaos as the vital Soul in Nature communicates vitality and activity to the Seminal Particles And this gives us an account how Activity and active Forms Powers or Qualities were derived into Matter namely not from Matter it self or such which is meerly unactive and passive but from another Principle namely the vigorous influx of this Spirit that moved upon the face of the Water Whereby it is apparent that the Vis Vigor Activity or Energy that is in Natural Bodies and in the Universe as it came from no other Principle than Matter so it is an Entity of a distinct nature from Matter or material Substance simply as such and indeed an Entity of a nobler extraction and nature than bare Matter or material Substance So that in this Description hitherto containing the first Stamina or Rudiments of the Universe we have 1. The Efficient thereof Almighty God 2. The manner of his efficiency herein namely Creation ex non praeexistentibus 3. The Matter of the Universe thus by Creation produced the confused Moles containing in it self the Matter of all things 4. The disposition or rather indisposition of this Matter dark stupid and unactive 5. The plastick formative digesting Principle that pervaded it the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the Waters Totósque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem The first Rudiments of the World being thus laid and thus prepared and influenced by the powerful Energy and Incubation of this Spirit of God this divinely inspired Historian gives us in the next place the next succeeding order of Almighty God producing and effectually raising out of this Matter the greater Integrals of the Universe namely the Etherial and Elementary Nature Vers 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. As in the order of Reason it was but fit and convenient that the production and influencing of the Matter should precede the division and distribution and orderly disposing thereof so it was equally reasonable and convenient that the greater and more extensive parts thereof should be first laid out and disposed into their several stations and orders before the smaller and lesser portions of Nature should be either produced or setled and that the simple parts of this great Chaos should be first extracted before the mixed and compounded Existences should be setled For as the Chaos and common Lump of Matter was as it were the first Matter of all things so the more simple and uncompounded parts thereof the Etherial and Elementary Natures were as it were the Materia secunda or proxima of the ensuing Productions and in conformity to this first Divine Ordination of things
while rests unmoveable and keeps the same unaltered site or position in it self So it is in the coexistence of successive Beings with the indivisible fixed permanent state of the glorious God But in all this there is nothing that answers or weakens the Reason before given against the Eternity of successive Generations or Individuals which is not upon this account that that which is eternal cannot be extended to a greater extent at the hithermost and concluding extreme as I may call it for at the hither end it is quasi quid finitum but that those Beings that must by their successive existence excrescere in multitudinem sive numerum cannot be eternal upon a certain intrinsick incongruity between Multitude and Number of the one part and Infinite of the other part But in the eternal duration of the glorious God there is neither Multitude nor so much as Succession And this is my second Answer 3. My third Answer is this That although it may be and certainly is consistent with an eternal duration that it may be shorter or it may be longer upon the hither end thereof namely that extreme wherein it is finite as is before shewn yet it is impossible to be consistent with the very notion of an eternal duration to be longer or shorter à parte ante in the extreme or remote part thereof as I may call it for upon that Supposition it should be utrinque clausa terminated in the moment wherein I write and terminated or limited by an antecedent being or duration of something else With Reverence be it spoken If any thing in the compass of Nature might bear an eternal Creation yet if that Creation were but a moment after the Divine Existence that created Being could not be eternal because it had a pre-existence of the Divine Being before it Nay though I use the expression of an antecedent moment to render my conception yet that very imaginable moment must be an infinite duration antecedent to that created Being and it could not possibly be otherwise for if it were possible to be otherwise it would consequently deny the Eternity of God himself for that created Being being impossible to be eternal since it must ex suppositione have a pre-existing moment of the Divine Existence if that mora prae-existentiae divinae were not eternal but a moment or any limited duration less than eternal and infinite it would be but an addition of a limited time to a limited or non-eternal time and therefore cannot be eternal and here by the way the Eternal Incomprehensible Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit are no way concerned in this Dispute which are not created Beings nor distinct from the Divine Essence or essentially distinct from one another but One Incomprehensible God Blessed for ever though under a personal distinction This therefore being the true state of the matter the Reason herein given doth not at all infirm the important Reason against the Eternity of Mankind because necessarily there would upon such a Supposition follow an Eternity that had a beginning an Eternity that was puisne to some other thing or some other Eternal And that although that duration which is infinite in one extreme namely à parte ante and finite at another extreme namely by the present time may have an increase accession or addition in that part in which it is finite yet it is impossible that it should have any thing before it in that extreme wherein it s Infinity and Eternity consisted This is the chief stress of the former Debate which is no way impugned by the Instance here given for the glorious God and his Eternal Existence is such that it hath not cannot have any thing antecedent to it neither is it measured by successive parts but is simply eternal infinite before all things without beginning of Being or Duration as well as without end and such a Duration as it is impossible to suppose any thing before it or any thing equally ancient to it but ever was and ever had Being or Existence that is eternally and immutably the same what once he was he ever was still is and ever shall be 5. A Fifth Objection is this That because we have formerly supposed that nothing can possibly be eternal and together with it have variety of Operations The glorious Eternal God hath variety of Operations in all the Works of Creation and Providence his emanant Actions and also in the Counsels and Determination of his Will his immanent Actions And therefore the Position seems to be derogatory to the Eternity of Almighty God I had not inserted this Objection but for the fuller vindication of the Truth and to shew that it no way in the least imaginable degree derogates from the Truths concerning God I therefore answer that when we are speaking of alterations or changes it may reasonably be supposed to be one of these kinds 1. An alteration that with it carries a change of the Nature or Essence of a thing and thus in a large sense generation or corruption or the essential change of any thing or Being into another thing thus corporeal Matter under any determinate form is changeable and such a mutability is impossible to be consistent with Eternity and it is thus impossible for the glorious God to be subject to any change for he necessarily and therefore eternally exists and must ever exist 2. An alteration of states or conditions of any Being which yet as to its essential condition persists as before thus Bodies are every moment changed sometimes in quality as from hot to cold sometimes in figure sometimes in dimensions as the motions of augmentation and diminution a Child grows unto the stature of a Youth and then of a Man and such Beings as these cannot sustain an eternal duration à parte ante and in this respect the ever-glorious God is perfectly unchangeable without so much as a shadow of change but eternally and immutably the same 3. A change of the internal and immanent acts of the Understanding and Will in a Being endued therewith as to know that which before it knew not to will purpose or determin what before it willed not or purposed not The Schoolmen are indeed many of them a Generation of Men that think they can give an estimate of the manner of the Divine Operations even those that are immanent when yet God knows 't is more possible for the Infant of a span long to discern and understand and define and determin the most sublime and abstruse Notions of the most Seraphical Doctor than for such a Doctor to give an estimate of the hidden Operations of the Divine Intellect and Will And therefore they are too bold to adventure upon such determinations touching these Operations of the glorious God and in the upshot arrive at nothing touching them but presumptuous uncertain and dangerous Speculations and it must needs be so for as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so and much