Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. Nothing can act before it be. The first Man was not, and therefore could not make himself to be: For any thing to produce it self is to act; if it acted before it was, it was then something and nothing at the same time; it then had a being before it had a being; it acted when it brought it self into being. How could it act without a being, without it was? So that if it were the cause of it self, it must be before it self as well as after it self; it was before it was; it was as a cause before it was as an effect. Action always supposeth a principle from whence it flows; as nothing hath no Existence, so it ⟨p. 18⟩hath no operation; there must be therefore something of real Existence to give a Being to those things that are, and every cause must be an effect of some other before it be a cause: To be and not be at the same time, is a manifest contradiction, which would be, if any thing made it self: That which makes is always before that which is made: Who will say the House is before the Carpenter, or the Picture before the Limner? The world as a Creature, must be before it self as a Creature.

1. Nothing can act before it be. The first Man was not, and therefore could not make himself to be: For any thing to produce it self is to act; if it acted before it was, it was then something and nothing at the same time; it then had a being before it had a being; it acted when it brought it self into being. How could it act without a being, without it was? So that if it were the cause of it self, it must be before it self as well as after it self; it was before it was; it was as a cause before it was as an effect. Action always supposeth a priciple from whence it flows; as nothing hath no Existence, so it ⟨p. 18⟩hath no operation; there must be therefore something of real Existence to give a Being to those things that are, and every cause must be an effect of some other before it be a cause: To be and not be at the same time, is a manifest contradiction, which would be, if any thing made it self: That which makes is always before that which is made: Who will say the House is before the Carpenter, or the Picture before the Limbner? The world as a Creature, must be before it self as a Creature.