Observations, censures, and confutations of notorious errours in Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan and other his bookes to which are annexed occasionall anim-adversions on some writings of the Socinians and such hæreticks of the same opinion with him / by William Lucy ...

Sect. 14.

I proceed with him, Ita ab hoc absurdo, &c. [There∣fore (saith he) from this absurd thing they fall into another, being constrained to say, that Eternity is a standing instant and an infinite number of numbers is an Unity, which is much more absurd.] There are two parts in this Objecti∣on, the first concernes the nunc stans, or permanent in∣stant; the second of innumerable numbers, &c. for per∣spicuity I take them apart, and handle them distinctly. And first for his absurdity that he conceives to be in a standing instant; if it doe not stand still,* 1.1 and when it doth not, it is no longer nunc, or an instant, but time, or at the least two parts of time, but instant it is not; now, certainly, that which hath no mutation cannot choose but perpetually, eternally, stand still; and that, which to mutable things would be time, to him must be instant. I can shew him one instant that stood still neare two thou∣sand yeares of time; and therefore, if time could be infinite, would last eternally, which is Iohn 8.58. When the Iewes wondred that our Saviour should have seen Abraham, he answered, before Abraham was (not I was, but) I am. There is a difference in exposition, some say that this speech is understood of his Humanity, that his humanity was in the thoughts of God, and his Decree, before Abraham; but this cannot be the sense;

for Christ being the son and posterity of Abraham, even in the knowledge and decree of God, as well as in his birth in the world, therefore it could not be spoke of his humanity, that it was in the Decree of God before A∣braham, for Abraham, in the same Decree, must be be∣fore Christs humanity, as the father of him: But suppose it were, let me enquire, was that being, which Christ had then in the knowledge or being of God before A∣braham, was that being existing when he spake these words, or no? If no, then he could not say I am, but I was; if so, it proves my Conclusion, that there was a nunc stans, a standing instant neare two thousand years. But I am well satisfied, that that speech, of his, was meant of his Divinity which is eternally the same, and was before Abraham, when Abraham was; and after him, he being that which is, which was, and is to come, Revelation 1.4. And certainly there must needs be the same reason, that that instant must be Eternall, as that it should stand still so long as before Abraham to our Saviour. But his words, presently after, seeme to make another reason of the absurdity in nunc stans, thus.

Notes

• * 1.1

  No absurdity in asserting Eternity to be a standing in∣stant.