d ex propria deus simplicitate sortitus est. Ex
quo illud quoque resoluitur quod paulo ante posuisti indignum esse, si
scientiae dei causam futura nostra praestare dicantur. Haec enim scientiae
uis praesentaria notione cuncta complectens rebus modum omnibus ipsa
constituit, nihil uero posterioribus debet. Quae cum ita sint, manet
intemerata mortalibus arbitrii libertas nec iniquae leges solutis omni
necessitate uoluntatibus praemia poenasque proponunt. Manet etiam spectator
desuper cunctorum praescius deus uisionisque eius praesens semper
aeternitas cum nostrorum actuum futura qualitate concurrit bonis praemia
malis supplicia dispensans. Nec frustra sunt in deo positae spes precesque;
quae cum rectae sunt, inefficaces esse non possunt. Auersamini igitur
uitia, colite uirtutes, ad rectas spes animum subleuate, humiles preces in
excelsa porrigite. Magna uobis est, si dissimulare non uultis, necessitas
indicta probitatis, cum ante oculos agitis iudicis cuncta cernentis."

VI.

Seeing, therefore, as hath been showed, all that is known is not
comprehended by its own nature but by the power of him which
comprehendeth it, let us see now, as much as we may, what is the state
of the divine substance that we may also know what His knowledge is.
Wherefore it is the common judgment of all that live by reason that God
is everlasting, and therefore let us consider what eternity is. For this
declareth unto us both the divine nature and knowledge. Eternity
therefore is a perfect possession altogether of an endless life, which
is more manifest by the comparison of temporal things, for whatsoever
liveth in time, that being present proceedeth from times past to times
to come, and there is nothing placed in time which can embrace all the
space of its life at once. But it hath not yet attained to-morrow and
hath lost yesterday. And you live no more in this day's life than in
that movable and transitory moment. Wherefore, whatsoever suffereth the
condition of time, although, as Aristotle thought of the world, it never
began nor were ever to end, and its life did endure with infinite time,
yet it is not such that it ought to be called everlasting. For it doth
not comprehend and embrace all the space of its life together, though
that life be infinite, but it hath not the future time which is yet to
come. That then which comprehendeth and possesseth the whole fulness of
an endless life together,