time. "Spiritualis ille mundus, mundi huius exemplar,
primumque Dei opus, vita aequali est architecto, fuit semper cum illo,
eritque semper. Mundus autem corporalis, quod secundum opus est Dei,
decedit iam ab opifice ex parte una, quia non fuit semper: retinet
alteram, quia sit semper futurus": "That representative, or the
intentional world (say they) the sampler of this visible world, the
first work of God, was equally ancient with the architect; for it was
forever with him, and ever shall be. This material world, the second
work or creature of God, doth differ from the worker in this, that it
was not from everlasting, and in this it doth agree, that it shall
be forever to come." The first point, that it was not forever, all
Christians confess: the other they understand no otherwise, than that
after the consummation of this world, there shall be a new Heaven and
a new earth, without any new creation of matter. But of these things
we need not here stand to argue; though such opinions be not unworthy
the propounding, in this consideration, of an eternal and unchangeable
cause, producing a changeable and temporal effect. Touching which
point Proclus the Platonist disputeth, that the compounded essence of
the world (and because compounded, therefore dissipable) is continued,
and knit to the Divine Being, by an individual and inseparable power,
flowing from Divine unity; and that the world's natural appetite of
God showeth, that the same proceedeth from a good and understanding
divine; and that this virtue, by which the world is continued and knit
together, must be infinite, that it may infinitely and everlastingly
continue and preserve the same. Which infinite virtue, the finite
world (saith he) is not capable of, but receiveth it from the divine
infinite, according to the temporal nature it hath, successively every
moment by little and little; even as the whole material world is not
altogether: but the abolished parts are departed by small degrees, and
the parts yet to come, do by the same small degrees succeed; as the
shadow of a tree in a river seemeth to have continued the same a long
time in the water, but it is perpetually renewed, in the continual
ebbing and flowing thereof.

But to return to them, which denying that ever the world had any
beginning, withal deny that ever it shall have any end, and to this
purpose affirm, that it was never heard, never read, never seen,
no not by any reason perceived, that the heav