be some Supreme Being, that is
from no other, and of which are all things.

But next, consider when these things were made--"In the beginning." And
what beginning is that? Certainly the beginning of the creation, and of
time, to exclude eternity. Whatever may be said of that subtilty, that God
might have created the world from all eternity, for it appears, even in
created things, that there is no necessity of the precedent existence of
the cause, since in the same instant that many things are brought into
being, in the same do they bring forth their effects, as the sun in the
first instant of its creation did illuminate, yet certainly we believe,
from the word of the Lord, that the world is actually but of a few
thousand years standing. Six are not yet run out since the first creating
word was spoken, and since the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the waters.
And this we know also, that if it had pleased his majesty, he might have
created the world many thousand years before that so that it might have
been at this day of ten hundred times ten thousand years standing, and he
might have given it as many years as there are numbers of men and angels,
beasts yea, and pickles(149) of sand upon the sea coast. But it was his
good pleasure that that very point of time in which it was created should
be the beginning of time; and from that he gives us a history of the
world, upon which the church of God may rest, and so seek no other god but
the God that made these heavens and earth.

This will not satisfy the ungodly curiosity and vanity of men's spirits,
who will reproach the Maker for not applying sooner to his work, and
sitting idle such an immeasurable space of eternity. Men wonder what he
could be doing all that time, if we may call it _time_ which hath no
beginning, and how he was employed. I beseech you, restrain such thoughts
in you with the fear of his glorious and incomprehensible majesty who
gives no account of his matters! It is enough that this is his good
pleasure to begin then, and he conceals his reasons, to prove the sobriety
of our faith, that all men may learn an absolute and simple stooping to
his majesty's pleasure. Remember that which a godly man answered some
wanton curious wit, who in scorn demanded the same of him--"He was
preparing hell for curious and proud fools," said he. Let us then keep our
hearts as with a bridle, and repress their boundless wanderings within
bounds, lest we, by looking upward, befor