Answ. 1. That God is not the soul or constitutive cause of the World, but somewhat much greater, is proved before*: And also that it was not from Eternity; and consequently that he created it not by natural necessity: The foundation therefore being overthrown, the building falleth. Those that hold the foresaid opinion must hold, that God is in point of duration, an eternal efficient, matter, form and end; and that in order of Nature, he is first an Efficient principle causing matter, and secondly, he is an efficient with matter, and in the third instant he is the form of the effected matter, and in the fourth instant he is the end of his operations herein. And if you call the efficient Principle only by the name of God, then you grant what I prove and you seemed to deny: But if he be not God as the mere efficient and end, but also as the matter; then you make every stone, and Serpent, and every thief and murderer, and devil, to be part of God, ⟨p. 87⟩and make him the subject of all the sin and evil, all the weakness, folly and mutations which be in the World: (with the other absurdities before mentioned). And if you say, that he is God, as efficient, form, and end, and not as matter, then you contradict your self, because the form and matter are parts of the same being: And whether you call him God as the form only (and so make him but part of Being, and consequently imperfect, and consequently not God) or as matter and form also, and so make him a compounded being, still you make him imperfect, in denying his simplicity or unity, and as guilty of all the imperfections of matter, and of composition: And you make one part of God more imperfect than the rest, as being but an effect of it. All which are inconsistent with the nature of God, and with the nature of Man and every Creature, who is hereby made a part of God.
Answ. 1. That God is not the soul or constitutive cause of the World, but somewhat much greater, is proved before*: And also that it was not from Eternity; and consequently that he created it not by naturall necessity: The foundation therefore being overthrown, the building falleth. Those that hold the foresaid opinion must hold, that God is in point of duration, an eternall efficient, matter, form and end; and that in order of Nature, he is first an Efficient principle causing matter, and secondly, he is an efficient with matter, and in the third instant he is the form of the effected matter, and in the fourth instant he is the end of his operations herein. And if you call the efficient Principle only by the name of God, then you grant what I prove and you seemed to deny: But if he be not God as the meer efficient and end, but also as the matter; then you make every stone, and Serpent, and every thief and murderer, and devil, to be part of God, ⟨p. 87⟩and make him the subject of all the sin and evil, all the weakness, folly and mutations which be in the World: (with the other absurdities before mentioned). And if you say, that he is God, as efficient, form, and end, and not as matter, then you contradict your self, because the form and matter are parts of the same being: And whether you call him God as the form only (and so make him but part of Being, and consequently imperfect, and consequently not God) or as matter and form also, and so make him a compounded being, still you make him imperfect, in denying his simplicity or unity, and as guilty of all the imperfections of matter, and of composition: And you make one part of God more imperfect than the rest, as being but an effect of it. All which are inconsistent with the nature of God, and with the nature of Man and every Creature, who is hereby made a part of God.
- *Chap. 4.
