,
moon, and stars, with "ipsum infinitum": it may truly be said of them
all, which himself affirms of his imaginary "Materia prima,"[36] that
they are neither "quid, quale," nor "quantum "; and therefore to bring
finite (which hath no proportion with infinite) out of infinite ("qui
destruit omnem proportionem"[37]) is no wonder in God's power. And
therefore Anaximander, Melissus, and Empedocles, call the world
universal, but "particulam universitatis" and "infinitatis," a parcel
of that which is the universality and the infinity inself; and Plato,
but a shadow of God. But the other to prove the world's eternity,
urgeth this maxim, "that, a sufficient and effectual cause being
granted, an answerable effect thereof is also granted": inferring that
God being forever a sufficient and effectual cause of the world, the
effect of the cause should also have been forever; to wit, the world
universal. But what a strange mockery is this in so great a master,
to confess a sufficient and effectual cause of the world, (to wit,
an almighty God) in his antecedent; and the same God to be a God
restrained in his conclusion; to make God free in power, and bound in
will; able to effect, unable to determine; able to make all things,
and yet unable to make choice of the time when? For this were
impiously to resolve of God, as of natural necessity; which hath
neither choice, nor will, nor understanding; which cannot but work
matter being present: as fire, to burn things combustible. Again he
thus disputeth, that every agent which can work, and doth not work,
if it afterward work, it is either thereto moved by itself, or by
somewhat else: and so it passeth from power to act. But God (saith he)
is immovable, and is neither moved by himself, nor by any other: but
being always the same, doth always work. Whence he concludeth, if the
world were caused by God, that he was forever the cause thereof: and
therefore eternal. The answer to this is very easy, for that God's
performing in due time that which he ever determined at length to
perform, doth not argue any alteration or change, but rather constancy
in him. For the same action of his will, which made the world forever,
did also withhold the effect to the time ordained. To this answer, in
itself sufficient, others add further, that the pattern or image
of the world may be said to be eternal: which the Platonics call
"spiritualem mundum"[38] and do in this sort distinguish the idea
and creation in