A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…

Answ. This Objection supposes an infinite Length of Time before the World was created, distinguished by successive Parts, properly and truly so; or a Succession of limited and unmeasurable Periods of Time, following one another, in an infinitely long Series: which must needs be a groundless Imagination. The eternal Duration which was before the World, being only the Eternity of God's Existence; which is nothing ⟨p. 241⟩else but his immediate, perfect and invariable Possession of the whole of his unlimited Life, together and at once; Vitae interminabilis, tota, simul & perfecta Possessio. Which is so generally allowed, that I need not stand to demonstrate it.^*

1. *If all created Beings were taken away, all Possibility of any Mutation or Succession of one Thing to another would appear to be also removed. Abstract Succession in Eternity is scarce to be understood. What is it that succeeds? One Minute to another perhaps, velut undo supervenit undam. But when we imagine this, we fancy that the Minutes are Things separately existing. This is the common Notion; and yet it is a manifest Prejudice. Time is nothing but the Existence of created successive Beings, and Eternity the necessary Existence of the Deity. Therefore, if this necessary Being hath no Change or Succession in his Nature, his Existence must of Course be unsuccessive. We seem to commit a double Oversight in this Case; first, we find Succession in the necessary Nature and Existence of the Deity himself: Which is wrong, if the Reasoning above be conclusive. And then we ascribe this Succession to Eternity, considered abstractedly from the eternal Being; and suppose it, one knows not what, a Thing subsisting by it self, and flowing▪ one Minute after another. This is the Work of pure Imagination, and contrary to the Reality of Things. Hence the common metaphorical Expressions; Time runs a-pace▪ let us lay hold on the present Minute, and the like. The Philosophers themselves mislead us by their Illustrations: They compare Eternity to the Motion of a Point running on forever, and making a traceless infinite Line. Here the Point i• supposed a Thing actually subsisting, representing the present Minute; and then they ascribe Motion or Succession to it: that s they ascribe Motion to a meer Non-entity, to illustrate to us a successive Eternity made up of finite successive Parts.—If once we allow an all-perfect Mind, which hath an eternal, immutable and infinite Comprehension of all Things, always (and allow it we must) the Distinction of past and future vanishes with Respect to such a Mind.—In a Word, if we proceed Step by Step, as above, the Eternity or Existence of the Deity will appear to be Vitae interminabilis, tota, simul & perfecta Possessio; how much soever this may have been a Paradox hitherto. Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul. Vol. 2. P. 409, 410, 411. Edit. 3.