Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

6. God would not be the first Cause of all if he were not Eternal; But he is the first, and the last; the first cause of all things, the last end of all things^*: That which is the first cannot begin to be, it were not then the first; it cannot cease to be: Whatsoever is dissolved, is dissolved into that whereof it doth consist, which was before it, and then it was not the first. ^*The world might not have been, it was once nothing; it must have some cause to call it out of nothing; Nothing hath no power to make it self something, there is a superior Cause, by whoso Will and Power it comes into Being, and so gives all the Creatures their distinct forms.

1. *Rev. 1.8. Ficin. de Immort. l. 2. cap. 5.
2. *Coccei Sum Theol. cap. 8

This Power cannot but be eternal; it must be before the world; the Founder must be before the Foundation; ^*and his Existence must be from Eternity, or we must say nothing did exist from Eternity: And if there were no being from Eternity, there could not now be any being in time: What we see, and what we are, must arise ⟨p. 190⟩from it self or some other; it cannot from it self: If any thing made it self, it had a power to make it self; it then had an active power before it had a being; It was something in regard of Power, and was nothing in regard of Existence at the same time: Suppose it had a Power to produce it self, this power must be conferred upon it by another; and so the power of producing it self, was not from it self, but from another; But if the power of being was from it self, why did it not produce it self before? Why was it one moment out of being?