Saint Augustines confessions translated: and with some marginall notes illustrated. Wherein, diuers antiquities are explayned; and the marginall notes of a former Popish translation, answered. By William Watts, rector of St. Albanes, Woodstreete

CHAP. 6. What himselfe sometimes thought of it.

1. FOr mine owne part, O Lord, if I may confesse all vnto thee, both by tongue and pen, what-euer thy selfe

hast taught me of that matter, (the name whereof hauing heard before, but not vnder∣standing, because they told me of it, who themselues vn∣derstood it not) I conceiued of it as hauing innumerable formes and diuerse, and there∣fore indeede did I not at all conceiue it in my minde: I tossed vp and downe certaine vgly and hideous formes, all out of order; but yet formes they were notwithstanding: and this I cald without forme. Not that it wanted all for me, but because it had such a mis∣shapen one: insomuch as if any vnexpected thought, or absurdity, presented it selfe vnto mee, my sence would straight wayes turne from it, and the fraylenesse of my hu∣mane discourse would bee distracted. And as for that which my conceite ranne vp∣on, it was (me thought) with∣out

forme, not for that it was depriued of all forme, but it comparison of more beauti∣full formes: but true reason did perswade me, that I must vtterly vncase it of all rem∣nants of formes whatsoeuer, if so bee I meant to conceiue a matter absolute without forme: but I could not. For sooner would I haue ima∣gined that not to bee at all. which should be depriued of all forme; then once conceiue there was likely to bee any thing betwixt forme and no∣thing; a matter neyther for∣med, nor nothing; without forme, almost nothing.

2. My minde gaue ouer thereupon to question any more about it with my spirit, which was wholy taken vp already with the images of formed bodies, which I chan∣ged and varied as mee listed: and I bent my enquiry vpon

the bodies themselues, and more deeply lookt into their mutability, by which they both leaue to bee, what they haue beene; and begin to bee, what they haue neuer beene. And this shifting out of one forme into another, I suspect∣ed to bee caused by I know not what thing without form, not by nothing at all: yet this I was desirous to know, not to suspect onely. But if my voyce & pen should here con∣fesse all vnto thee, whatsoeuer knots thou didst vnkn••t for me in this questiō; what Rea∣der would haue so much pa∣tience to bee made conceiue it? Nor shall my heart, for all this, cease at any time to giue thee honour, and a Song of praise, for all those things w^ch it is not able to expresse. For the changeable condition of changeble things, is of it selfe capeable of all those forms, in∣to

w^ch these changable things are changed. And this change∣ablenesse, what is it? Is it a soule, or is it a body? or is it any figure of a soule or bo∣dy? Might it be sayd proper∣ly that nothing, were some∣thing, and yet were not; I would say, This were it: and yet was it both of these; that so it might bee capeable of these visible and compounded figures.