To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
1. HEnce, we are arriv'd to the pro∣duction of Substances: For, since some are produc'd out of nothing, some out of others preexisting; the former must, of necessity, have flow'd immediately from God: The Agent,
therefore, which produces out of nothing, makes all the other qualities and conditi∣ons of the Thing, by the notion of exi∣stence: Existence, therefore, is first in execu∣tion; and, since the greater is not made for the lesse, it must be first, too, in intention.
2. Wherefore, since every Agent, by a∣cting, endeavours to expresse its own es∣sence upon the effect; the Essence of him that produces out of nothing must be Ex∣istence it self.
3. Nor is it to be expected, that ano∣ther Creature should be made use of, as to preparing the matter; both because Ex∣istence is nobler then all the rest in a Thing, whence it admits not of any prepa∣ration for the rest, since preparations are only in the baser in order to a better: as also, because, existence being put, the Thing is already put: whence, the operati∣on upon nothing is compleat by the very putting of existence, and consequently, of that cause alone which puts existence.
4. Supposing, then, that God has crea∣ted certain Substances; and that, because, of themselves, they are defectible, they al∣waies have that being from God; 'tis infer'd, that God perpetually poures out the power of being, as the Sun Light. Imagine,
now, an accidentall transmutation on Bo∣dy's part, (such as is explicated in our Physicall discourse), and, (as 'tis decla∣red above) through certain changes, an arrivall to a constancy of being in another degree.
5. It must needs be, that, As, when the Earth is turn'd to the Sun or Wood laid on the Fire, from the perpetuall and mi∣nutable action of the Sun or Fire, joyn'd with the mutability of the Earth and Wood, sometimes one sometimes another part of the Earth will be enlightned, and sometimes one sometimes another part of the Wood will burn: So, supposing that naturall motions make Matter, in severall Sites, sometimes capable of a perfecter ex∣istence, sometimes of a more imperfect; from the same constant effusion of exi∣stence on Gods side, the Substance must needs be sometimes nobler, sometimes more ignoble, respectively.
6. Suppose, farther, an existent body so chang'd, that the matter may be capable of a Form which, in its essence, includes some notion, that exceeds the power of matter: is it not plain, that, out of the very same constant effusion of existence from God, a Substance will exist which will be, so, cor∣poreall,
that 'twill be, in some respect, Spi∣rituall?
7. For, since the putting of existence puts a Thing; purely at the second causes determinating God to the position of such an existence, not that alone is put, but whatever follows out of it, though it ex∣ceed the power of second causes: And so, it appears, how, putting the generation of a Man, a rationall Soul is put; and how the power of nature so concurres to it, that yet the notion of Creation, or rather of con-creation, supervenes, and is necessa∣ry.
8. Lastly, how it both is and is-not ex traduce, and, at once, by Generation and Creation; and how, in this case, an Instru∣ment, in some sort, is made use of for Creation.
9. And, because the internall Dispositi∣ons of a Soul, as, to know and to will, even they are indivisible, and follow out of the materiall impressions made upon the Bo∣dy: it must needs be that, as the Soul it self follows out of the generation of Man, by the help of the universall Action of God; so these Dispositions, too, from the impression made upon the man, and from the nature of the Soul, must indivisibly al∣ter the Soul.
10. And, whoever would see an evi∣dent example of these things, let him con∣ceive how, by cutting, a piece of wood is made more; for, all the time of the cut∣ting, the figure is chang'd, yet the wood remains, by the same unity, one; but, in∣divisibly, the cutting being finisht, they are, now, two pieces of wood; without the dualities beginning at all, before, or any thing of its nature, but only some va∣riation about the Figure.
11. Out of what has been said, we are deduc'd to see, how God performs all the works of the Creatures in them. For, first, if we speak of Intelligences, Since their internall operations are nothing else, but to be all other things after a cer∣tain manner; 'tis manifest, they are, actu∣ally, even to the uttermost positive cir∣cumstances, by force of their Creation.
12. For, by force of that, their essence is conjoyn'd to it self, as 'tis a cognosci∣tive vertue; and, out of this conjunction, the next divisibility, which is, of God to the same cognoscitive vertue, since all the causes are put, is, of necessity, in them.
13. And, what is said of this divisibility is, with the same facilnesse, discover'd of all the rest whatever; since they are all con∣nected:
their externall action, too, Mat∣ter, which is its subject, being put, follows, by force of their internall, without any o∣ther change in them.