| |
| COULD he beginne, Beginnings that began? | |
| If so he could, what is beginninglesse? | |
| Or Time, or Nothing. That’s vntrue; for than, | |
| If there were Time, it was not motionlesse; | |
| For Time is made by Motion, all confesse: | 5 |
| But where there Nothing is, no Motion is: | |
| For Nothing hath no motion, and much lesse | |
| Can Nothing make of nothing Something. This | |
| Something sometime of nothing made all is. | |
| |
| God euer was, and neuer was not God: | 10 |
| Not made by Nothing: nothing could him make. | |
| Could Nothing make and not make? This is odde; | |
| And so is he that could creation take | |
| Of nothing: for all was, when as he spake; | |
| Nothing was made that was not made by it: | 15 |
| Then nothing was that could it vndertake; | |
| To make its Maker what had powre or wit? | |
| Not him that can doe all that he thinkes fit. | |
| |
| Time’s but a moment’s flux, and measured | |
| By distance of two instants: this we proue, | 20 |
| Which then commenced, itselfe considered, | |
| When first the orbs of heauen began to moue; | |
| That but sixe thousand yeeres, not much aboue. | |
| But what’s so many yeeres as may be cast | |
| In thrice as many ages, to remoue | 25 |
| Eternitie from being fixed fast, | |
| And God therein from being first and last. | |
| |
| He is eternall; what is so, is He: | |
| So is no creature, for it once was made: | |
| Then ere it could be made it could not be. | 30 |
| But the Creator euer beeing had, | |
| To pull out from Not being: who can wade | |
| (Beeing a deapth so infinite profound) | |
| But he that was, and is, and cannot fade, | |
| This Beeing infinite, this deapth most sound, | 35 |
| To lift vp all to Beeing, there beeing dround? | |
| |
| Eternity and Time are opposite; | |
| For time no more can bound eternity, | |
| Then Finite can invirone Infinite; | |
| Both of both which haue such repugnancy, | 40 |
| As nere can stand with God’s true unity: | |
| Eternity is then produced from hence— | |
| By ioyning of his sole Infinite | |
| With his essentiall intelligence; | |
| And all the attributes proceed from thence. | 45 |
| |
| If then eternity doth bound this One, | |
| Or rather he bounds all Eternity, | |
| How could he bee? or beeing all alone, | |
| How could he worke, that works vncessantly, | |
| (For hee’s all act that acts continually,) | 50 |
| Hauing no subiect whereupon to worke? | |
| And beeing without his creatures vtterly, | |
| It seemes he must in desolation lurke, | |
| Which must of force an actiue nature irke. | |
| |
