Of such as held Mans Creation too lately effected. CHAP. 12.
WHerefore our answere to those that held the world to haue beene ab aeterno, against Plato's expresse confession, though some say hee spake not as hee thought, the same shalbe our answere still to those that thinke Mans Creation too lately effected, hauing letten those innumerable spaces of time passe, and by the scriptures authority beene made but so late, as within this sixe thousand yeares. If the b•…•…ity of time be offensiue, and that the yeares since Man was made seeme so few, let them consider that (a) nothing that hath an extreame, is continuall: and that all the definite spaces of the World being compared to the interminate * 1.1 Trinity, are as (a very little: Nay as) iust nothing. And therefore though wee should recken fiue or sixe, or sixty, or six hundred thousand yeares, and multiply them so often till the number wanted a name, and say then GOD made man, yet may we aske why he made him no sooner? For GODS pause before Mans Crea∣tion beeing from all eternity was so great, that compare a definite number with it, of neuer so vnspeakeable a quantity, and it is not so much, as one halfe drop of water being counterpoised with the whole Ocean: for in these, though the one be so exceeding small, and the other so incomparably great, yet (b) both are defi∣nite. But that time which hath any originall, runne it on to neuer so huge a quan∣tity, being compared vnto that which hath no beginning, I know not whether to call it small, or nothing. For, with-draw but moments from the end of the first, and be the number neuer so great, it will (as if one should diminish the number of a mans daies from the time he liues in, to his birth day) decrease, vntill we come to the very beginning. But from the later abstract (not moments, nor daies, nor monethes nor years, but as much time as the other whole number contained, (lie it out of the compasse of all computation) and that as often as you please, preuaile you when you can neuer attaine the Beginning, it hauing none at all? Wherefore that which we aske now after fiue thousand yeares and the ouerp•…•…s, our posterity may as well aske after sixe hundreth thousand years, if our mortal∣lity should succeede, and our infirmity endure so long. And our forefathers, presently vpon the first mans time might haue called this in question. Nay the first man himselfe, that very day that he was made, or the next might haue asked why he was made no sooner? But when soeuer hee had beene made, this contro∣•…•…ie of his originall and the worlds should haue no better foundation then is 〈◊〉〈◊〉 now.
L. VIVES.
NOthing (a) that] Cic. de senect. When the extreame comes, then that which is past, is gone (b) Both are] Therefore is there some propertion betweene them, whereas betweene definite, and indefinite there is none.