A TREATISE OF THE BULK and SELVEDGE OF THE WORLD.  
WHEREIN The GREATNESS, LITTLENESS and LASTINGNESS of BODIES are freely Handled.  
With an Answer to Tentamine de Deo, By S. P. D. D.  
By N. Fairfax, M. D.  
LONDON, Printed for Robert Boulter, at the Turks-Head in Cornhill, over against the Royal Exchange, MDCLXXIV.   

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Sir William Blois, Knight.  
Such is that wonderful and most comely Chain of Being's, which winds up into World, that if the small and lowermost things therein make shift to show themselves, 'tis always by the leave, or with the help of the Bigger and the Higher. That rotten wood may give its glimmerings, the Sun must take away its light: And if the Flowers will needs be rising out of their colder beds, or the Fryes of Wrigglers and swarms of Quickling or Infects, peep out of their Graves and Dungeons, they must wait upon the Sun to bring about those beams of his that make the Spring; whence they may have their Prison doors unlocked, their fetters taken off, and be tickled into such a laughing briskness, and judged up into such a smirkish liveliness, as may last as long as the Summer's warmth holds on to cocker them, and the days heat to frigge and chafe them. Now I reckon that I must bethink myself in this Address, how far I am taken in here, and be well aware how Woodbridge stands so near to Grundsborough Hall, that if such an underly Shrub in Knowledge, and unthrifty Sucker in Philosophy as I am, shall strive to put forth this Spring time here, I can do no less than ask the good liking of such a neighbouring Cedar, under whose shade I must needs creep up, befanned from next Dogs-day scorchings, and within the bosom of whose shrowdings I must be cloaked from wind and weather. Nor should I ever aim to blow up any Fire-light of useful Knowledge in this place, were it not that you have thought meet to withhold those Sunlike beams of yours, that would soon bedim its fainter twinkle, and shine out all its dying glitter. Indeed you have purchased so fair a Lordship of Knowledge in these Parts, that I fear I should wrong your Freedoms, and encroach upon your Royalties, if I should put in any Claims but Under ones, or own any other Hamlet so near you, but what is a limb of your Township. Nor is it but meet that I should hold all my Natural knowledge of your Manor, and become Tenant to so good a Landlord in Philosophy. So that paying this acknowledgement, should be nothing but doing my bounden Homage, and bringing in my Lady Rent-charge; while the Lord of the Soil holds nextly of the King, and does his devoir in a Regi Sacrum.  
Thus however it may be thought by others, I have miscarried in the Thing I treat of; I am sure I have not mistake the Man I address to. And though it may seem but a wooden come off, and like that of the sorry numb-skulled Russes, who when they are pinched with a hardness beyond the learning of Hornbook, are wont to answer, that God and the Great Duke knows all things: Yet I being bound so far by the laws of Mine and Thine as I have been free in acknowledging it; must spring as much from a rightful mind in me, to deal out to the Greater Owner his Greater Share, as it does from a shotten brain in any of them, to tell another, I know not who can answer I know not what.  
Sure I am, if I ever felt myself at all, 'tis in my breast to woe Dame Kind with as busy a warmth and hearty earnestness as any man; but 'tis not in my Chest to endow her with that Fullness that he can, whose mind is as Great and Wealthy as his Love can be strong and flaming, and whose endowments have made him to be as much stared at by the Yeomen, as endeared to men of skill and breeding. And I cannot think I mistook myself in Courtship, while I waited upon the youngest and most Housewifely Daughter of Philosophy, named Workful, so long as I happened of such a Rival in the Parlour with her. I do believe, Sir, that yourself as well as I, had so much rather be a Well-willer to a Bricklayer, than a Philosopher taking name from Aristotle's Physics, by how much the more 'tis behoving Mankind, to have houses on the earth for settled and easeful dwelling, than such capering Castles in the Air, whose Groundsils are laid with Whims, their Overwayes with Dreams, and roofed with Cream of thinking. I must needs say, that I do think myself so much more bettered by a Philosophical Transaction of a Month, or Journal des Scavans of a Fortnight, than by a Mercury Gallant of half a Year, by how much the more I like my self, when I am kindly and steadily knowing, above what I do, when I feel that I am Gay and Towering. And I think our Royal Society at London is as much before that Des belles Lettres at Paris, as the History of that Body of Worthies outstrips the Academy of Compliments. In that narrow Chat that I have had with Outlanders, it has been hugely to my liking, that hard upon the first greeting, I have been plied with so many good words for our R. S. in the whole, and Mr. Boil alone. Nor can I find, that either yourself, or I, or any man else, that has kenned the drift and bounds of that undertaking, have made less reckonings of their growing worth and works already known, or abated our hopes for time to come; for all the Tee he's that have been broke by Men of Droll, or dirt that has been thrown from Daring spite. And it goes a great way with me, to mark, that the same-kidneyed men, who have either a sharp flout at the end of their tongue, or a bitter hate in the middle of their heart, for the wary Experimenter, have another of the same in their Budget, for the Book that is named from its Holiness, or indeed for any thing else, but what is flesh on the one side, and air on the other. Nor can any man guess it should be otherwise, but that he who had a sneer or grudge for the Book of God's Works; the Print that he has given us of his Almighty Power and houndless less Wisdom: should have no less for that other of his Word; the likeness he has drawn for us of his truth and holiness.  
Whence I have somewhat the more wondered how it could ever get into the heads or hearts of Men of insight or holiness, that a right knowledge of the Works which God has done, should lead from the knowledge of, or lessen the love for, that boundless Wisdom and Goodness who brought those things about. As if showing the Coats and garments which Dorcas made, before the holy Mourners, had been to wheadle off their thoughts from the Workwoman to the Works, and drown their sorrows for the jewel that was lost, in the floodings of of their joy for the Cabinet that was left. Can the same train of holy ends which God has framed for Mankind's bliss, be less indearing, for that they are known to be as skilfully ranged as lovingly aimed? How others may have been wrought upon by that doing Knowledge, which now spreads amongst us like love amongst the Youth, kindly and takingly, I cannot tell: But if I were now to die, and knew it so, I must speak it from within me, That I have found myself more warmly shined upon by the Father of Lights, and breathing into more becoming flames, from the reading of Malpighius about the hatching of an Egg, or Dr. Grew about the sprouting of a Bean, (a thing set at nought to a byword;) than ever I could do from the shelves full of those Books, that have struck fire for the Government of Churches and some other things, bearing their religious weight in their Names, and their light in their Newness, in the late days of Blame, and years of Topsy-turvy. Wherein, when men had wrought up all the Woman within them that was feeble and glowing, into a finespun thread, they played the Men only, when they had done, in pelting on't with the distaff. I can easily taste the sweetness of God through the bitterness of wormwood; but could never feel the sweetness of the Christian through the bitterness of the Man. And I love the New Philosophy so much the more; For why, It sets the hand a working not a striking, and answers the noise of Talking by the stillness of Doing, as the Italians clam rout and tattle into nodding and beckoning. Yet 'tis not to be looked for, that the Bulk of men amongst us, should love that which they neither know nor care to know. It will be enough for those that have betrothed the Way, that many are the hands heads and hearts of such worthy and unwearied Gentlemen as are Going along with them. And I shall ever think with that Great part of the R. S. the Great Mr. Oldenburg, that Sound Philosophers are each to other sufficient theatres. The kindness and good greetting that is of one sort, is wont to be enfolded mainly within the rank or stock Guild or kindred of the same. And that man who can find what 'tis to love knowingly and beseemingly, will never feel himself less at ease for being wedlockt but to one. Which I do not speak as if I guessed you had your Philosophy to choose, any more than your Religion; or that you could shift the former with as much sleight as some others do the latter. I believe you deal in Holdfasts as well as Truths, and can foretell what you shall be, as well as tell what you are. But because there are a great many so much upon the spur, that they cannot stay so long till the writing can be fetched which is graven with the finger of God: but grow so hot on't, as to melt down their thoughts forthwith, and fall a graving of them into Calvish likenesses, that may go blazing before them in the wilderness they are got into; that however they miss wool they may have noise, something loud, though nothing useful. I was so forward to chide such a rash piece of Will-worship, that I slipped into speaking of while I was speaking to. But 'tis indeed time to remember, that I have spoken enough of one and other. I am sure he whom I speak to, is too much taken with things to be over fond of words; and 'tis a misbecomingness to have a doing Philosophy set forth by a talking Philosopher. That Manly knowledge that is now in the Chair, is to be trimmed silently. And 'tis well for me that neither Man nor Thing wants gilding. For I could never open my mouth Charmwise, nor breath out Spells to bind down men. I never drew from, nor matched to the House of Peacock. Gay and I are nothing a kin, nor like to be, but all that dwells at my home is homely. My brain is not wont to go big with flower. When ever I spy one 'tis aloof to be sure: So I leave both to shine for themselves, and outshine others. And I know whatever is a None-such, will draw enough as 'tis, without the Hogow of the stifling Haulers. To be joyed of praise-worthiness, is more than to be lifted up by the Hoist of breath, or to be rung with a peal of Hum and Outcry. It will be more than enough for me, though I cannot raise nor greaten, the height and spreadingness of your Worth, by sayings that are big and lofty, if it may not be thought a lowning and lessening of it, to take into the List of your Menials  
SIR, Your most bounden Homager Natha. Fairfax. Woodbridge, Mar. 25. 1678.   

To the Reader.  
IF I may measure others by myself, 'tis a more ticklish thing to pen a Preface, than 'tis to write a Book. For when ever I lay hands on a New piece, as soon as I have once spelled the Great letters of its Name, I am wont hastily to take forth to the Fore-speech for the Reader, as thinking that to be the handle, that I am to hold the Book by, which, according as I relish or mislike, oftentimes so fares the whole with me. For if I find the man has it not in him to erect a Scheme in the Say that he has for me there, I am shrewdly given to mistrust, that he will never conjure much in the Book that comes after: or when the first Greeting me is sour or faint, I am ready to fear the after treat will be none of the sweetest or the winningest. Whether others con Books with these kind of reckonings, I can't tell; but while I can tell myself that I do so, it stands me in hand to be a little wary of tripping upon such slippery ground. Now to speak truth, all the tale that I have to tell the Reader is but this: That finding in myself a kind of forwardness towards Philosophy, and mainly to that part of it which takes knowledge of Bodies; as which, of all others, I found I could receive most helps and furtherance in, from those spreading lights and wealthy stores, with which the Royal Society at home and others abroad, set into the way by their showing and enheartned to go on by their works, had both embellished and enriched it, I let my mind alone to take its full swing in the Cunning of Bodies, this and that; and forthwith or ere I could well help it, I fell a Roving, and plunged out from what I was meddling with and tossing of, to another thing that was earlyer and Bulkier, and to somewhat still that was more betimes and more of Boak; and being quite lost in a wild and a frightful on and on, I'een took back again where I was, and fell to unravel the thing that was too big to be fathomed, that I might make it little enough for my mind to grapple with: but I was as unlucky at lessening and narrowing as I had been before at widening and bigning. As the one had wracked and limned my thoughts, with endless tenters and boundless retching out; so had the other nipped in my soul and shriveled up my thoughts, with restless gripes and unwearyed pare off: so that I had both lost and benothinged myself in the lessenings made within myself, as I had lost and bewildered myself in the scopes still left without myself. Nor could I be at rest in my mind, till I had tried, whether I could not cut off Boundlessness and endlessness, so as at length I might have ease, to find, that Body, which I had to do withal, had both beginning and end, an inmost part and an outmost whole, as I myself had: and so the remarks and experiments that I was to make, were not upon Bodies that carried Boundlessness in their bellies, & were themselves a swimming in a boundless gulf, so that I must needs have my thoughts to dance after them in an endless round, or launch into a boundless width; but that I might settle here or pitch down there, and tell the first and ken the last, and cope with the biggest and the least: and as soon as I got to the spring head of Lastingness, I sat me down and drank a health to sweet rest, and blisst myself that I was there; and when I came at the Selvedge of Bulk, I took heart afresh to think with myself, that there was all, and nothing at all beyond, and I need weary myself with no more wander in a waist, but might come home again fair and soft, and fasten on this or that, or little or great, as I thought best, to set a mark on or make a Trial of. For than I saw that all was not wood within a wood: but me-thought the world was a curious Frame of well set Bodies, the beginning of which the least of which, and the whole of which, might all be come at.  
Thus having shaken off the things I could never grasp, and taken Body by the right handle, I found I was freer to think, and better at ease to work: and deeming there were more in the world that were of my make, I did not know but they might think, and do so too; and it was but a friendly part to set any man into his way, that I thought was out of it: and therefore what I thought I writ, and what I writ, the Reader sees is comen abroad.  
Which if it takes, I shall not mislike it, that another man has found that which he looked for; and if it does not, the worst on't is but this, that that which has not yet been made out by any man, nor has it been by me. And whatever ill luck betides it, I have no body else to blame for it; for I writ it all at home, and 'twas given at myself. And to tell troth, I don't love to ask another man, whether my Child be not pretty or hopeful; for I think, that must needs be a crotchet piece of unluckyness, that is not fit to be Printed if a friend has it to read over for that end, or to be praised, if another man has it to make a New song upon.  
But if any man ask me what I think on't my self? I answer, The very same that I think of other men's writings, and that is, that they are the writings of Man and nothing more, writing and miswriting mingled together. Only I can say the Writer indeed is neither Green nor Grey. So though the Reader may fear he shall find little that is full ripe, I hope he will find less that is altogether raw. As I think otherwise from what I did some years ago, so happily I may think otherwise from what I do some years hence, even about some things here spoken to: and therefore I love to speak soft for my own sake as well as others. I do believe too if I had kept it longer I could have drawn it up better, but that bare no sway with me to do so; for then the only day of its coming into the world must have been the day of my going out of it. Notwithstanding though I don't believe 'tis the best that can be done, or the best that I could do myself, yet 'tis rid of as many mislikes as I could strike out at twice reading, and I did not think it worth while to read it again to find more. As 'tis, I neither reckon it my God nor my Golden Calf, nor am I fond on't or ashamed on't. Should I say I had slighty thoughts of it, I can't tell how it would be wit or good manners to put it into the hands of my Betters; and if I give out I set highly by it, I should lacken it as much by making such a Fondling the Penman of it. However the management of it may seem weak or low, I am sure the drift and scope was manly & lofty. There being no lower nor other aims in it, than that we might not think amiss of that Almighty Being which has made us, nor of the sundry Being's he has made, that we may neither dote nor dare, straggle nor be lost: but may be led by such a clue of understanding, & softened by such a bashfulness of knowledge, that we may be wise and awful both in one; that the knowledge of things may be less a weariness to the flesh, and that thoughts of things without us may less gall that Being within us; that, as God beholding what he had made, said with himself that all was good, we may see it & say it too, & love the spring from whence they came, while we wonder at the wisdom by which they are; worshipping the same with a more becoming dread, a fuller enlightened mind, freer out-going of heart, steddyer & closer thoughts about things that he has made more easeful to the mind, and better sorted in it: that so giving to God his right, we may take to ourselves our own rest.  
In the doing of which, the freedom that I have taken, I give too. Think and let think, are engraven upon my very soul. And I shall never think amiss of the Reader for not being of my mind, any more than I do of those Learned men which I thought meet somewhere to name. Which I did, not from any itching to thwart them: but I thought it would speak nothing of Breeding, to look full on a Great man standing in my way, and not to vouchsafe him worth Doffing to, or to write myself of another mind from what some men of Name are, whose reasons for what they hold have fallen into a many good hands, without I should also say why I am not of their mind for their reason. But as for any lessenings of them, who have done huge well, as I think, elsewhere, and may have done well enough, as others think, where I take them to be out; 'tis so much against my meaning and the very Grain of me to let any such fall from my Pen, that if in any thing I so much as but seem to do it, 'tis all my unwariness, and nothing of my aim. And I do think myself so much the more bound to take heed how I handle the good name of others, by how mnch the more I see, how an ill willed and frampled waspishness has broken forth, to the roiling and firing of the age wherein we live, and for aught I can foretell, even those too, that are coming after.  
Indeed, when I read such things as are spoken to, further on, in a late Writer, I can't for my life but think, he may mistake a little, as you and I and all men do, and have done & shall do. And that thereupon he would not willingly be called Names, such as can't be spoken without a stinking breath, nor written but with a brazen pen, nor spelled but with the letters of the Dog and the Goose, the grinning and the hissing. And remembering 'tis good Bible, Do as you would be done by, I can easily let go myself in some forward wishes leading to self love in behalf of such a one, heartily bespeaking him, for God's sake, for that of self, & the Commonwealth of Learning, that hereafter we might read writings with other sentences besides those of Condemnation, with other wit besides that which lies in the forehead, and where all the Dashes of the pen may not be strokes upon men; as knowing that such Doomsday Books, may soon be burnt themselves, which are readiest to inflame others.  
I believe no man wishes with more earnestness than I do, that all men of Learning and knowledge were men of kindness and sweetness, & that such as can out do others would outlove them too; especially while self bewhispers us, that it stands us all in hand to be forgiven as well as to forgive. The hardest things that I know, had their beginnings laid in the softness and yieldingness of a kind of dew; and whoever would have all men stand up stiffly for what he holds, will find it best at length to lead them in those easier paths of Nature. Sure I am, it would be more than a wonder to me, should any one's sight be bettered by spitting fire into clay & besmearing eyes with it. For every man's mind is his Castle; and if it can't be taken by strength of reason, the throwing in Granades, will be nothing but a smutty, stinking token to the world, that ill will would have done more mischief, but weak Gear could not. So long as he who has but a teeming brain, may have leave to lay his eggs in his own nest, which is built beyond the reach of every man's puddering pole, why should the ears of all the neighbourhood be dinned & grated with the Cackle, as if the whole world besides were all Weasils and Poulcats, vermin and Lurchers? I do verily bear myself in hand, that if the humour of huffing be but a little further cockered & more warmed, the Leyden gown must needs take place of the Long robe at Cambridge & Oxford, instead of the side thing the thing by the side, and snicking and sneeing will be nothing else in the world but writing of Book a la mode d' Angleterre. For so long as men have but unlike think, and that will be as long as they have unlike faces, they must look for no better fare from a world of Bears and Scratchers, than first to be galled in the tenderest part of their good name, and then to fall under the rods and axes of a cutting hate, and ill will set on fire. Were I but to whisper to him of whom so many talk aloud, I should rown him thus much in the ear, with all the heartiness of a friend, that the next time he has left to bless us with his Day breaks, he would choose a softer quill to make his pen of; that the Reader at length might be as ready to have good thoughts for him, as he has been to have bad words for others.  
As for the way of wording it, I know aforehand, 'tis not trim enough for these Gay days of ours; but dressing is none of my business. When I look at things, I can afford to overlook words, and I had rather speak home than fair, nor do I care how blunt it be, so it be strong. Every man has his way of writing and speaking, and I have mine; which as I allow it to others, I may look it should be allowed me. Only 'tis like there is one thing which I may be blamed for by many; and that is a kind of shiness all along of those borrowed words & gaynesses, that Englishmen have picked and culled from other Tongues, under the name of Choice words and Sparkling sayings. To which, after I have marked, how a greater man than I, in the same business of Bodies, has gone a good way towards it already, I mean the Learned Sir Kenhelm Digby, I have but thus much more to say, That thinking with myself, how I an English man would write a Book in English tongue, I made it now and than a little of my care, to bring in so many words of that speech, that the Book might thence be called English, without mis-calling it. And indeed however our smother tongued Neighbours may put in a claim for those bewitcheries of speech that flow from Gloss and Chimingness; yet I verily believe that there is no tongue under heaven, that goes beyond our English for speaking manly strong and full. And if words be more to teach than tickle, as I reckon they are, our Mother tongue will get as much by speaking fit and after kind, as it can lose by faring rough and taking up the tongue to utter, and more than any else can gain by kembing better and running glibber. Besides where I thought an outlandish word would be better taken, I have often for the Readers sake set it down, as for my own sake set an English by it, as thinking it unmeet to force my words upon another, in such a piece as where I was to leave all free, as to the things I spoke about. Only I thought it not amiss, after I was once in, for the taking off that charge that some have too heedlessly laid upon our speech, of a patched up Tongue from Lands and kindreds round about, to show, that a Book of thus many sheets, might be understandingly and roundly written, in hail and clear English, without taking in from abroad, so much as twice so many words (and he that writes it in the most unbroken tongue upon earth, shall go near to light upon so many), unless where the same thing is fuller and kindlier spoken by those we have at home, taking but out the Cant words or terms of art, as they are called, which are rather tallies or spells in the tongue, that is, no bodies, because every bodies, than the homebred words of any whatsoever; and are taken up and forged at will, by the whole stock of learned men in all Lands, wherewith to fish out one another's meaning. And as for a tongue that borrows not nor spends, I believe 'tis no where to be found, or ever will be: all tongues through time being so far blended, that there are not any of those now in the world in whole, that were at the great Speechbreak at Babel, any more than there would be the same body's crew of atoms to those Speakers now that they had then, or the same kindreds of men unmingled with Out-setters that were among them then, should they have lived and jugged together to this day. Yet that some tongues lose more than others at home, and get from abroad, is easy to be seen, and our own is enough to bring any man to believe it. And in earnest, if the knack of borrowing, or robbing and pilfering rather, gets but a little further ground amongst us, at the scantling it has done hitherto, it will in time to come be harder for an Englishman to speak his own tongue without mingling others with it, than to speak a medley of sundry others without bringing in his own. But for my part, I am of the mind, that the larding of Latin with High-Dutch, in what is written to the whole world, as some Germans in their Motley Books have already done, is even as praiseworthy, as the haling in of Latin or other tongues, when we are speaking in English to English; and the rather, for that the words thus foisted in, are of such a sort most an end, that if you look but to their rists, and lay their betokenings to the things whose names they bear, I dare undertake twenty for one, that even the slighted and offcast words in the mouths of Handy-crafts-men and Earth-tillers shall be better drawn and more patly brought in. And inasmuch as that Fellowship of Worthies in London, who are now embodied under the name of Royal, have given us already so many new things, and are daily starting more, neither named nor known by those before us; and for the enriching of the English tongue, as well as fulfilling of England's stores, have thought fit their discoveries should almost wholly come abroad in our own Speech, as they are happily made in our own Land: I think it will well become those of us, who have a more hearty love for what is our own than wanton longings after what is others, to take light and life from such happy beginnings, and either to fetch back some of our own words, that have been justled out in wrong that worse from elsewhere might be hoist in, or else to call in from the fields and waters, shops and workhousens, from the inbred stock of more homely women and less filching Thorps-men, that well-fraught world of words that answers works, by which all Learners are taught to do, and not to make a Clatter; And perhaps if we slip this tide, we shall never come again at such a nicking one. For inasmuch as almost the whole of those words, that we speak in things or knowledges of things that are not body, are taken from things that are body, and spoken in a borrowed meaning from thence, either as they have Being's from God, or a Suchness of being from our handiwork: so all the words about body and hangers on to body that we have to do with, are either such as flow from or mainly well fall in with those that are uttered by Workmen, for such things as are done by hand-deed. Now the Philosophy of our day and Land being so much workful as the world knows it to be, methinks this of all times should be the time, wherein, if ever, we should gather up those scattered words of ours that speak works, rather than to suck in those of learned air from beyond Sea, which are as far off sometimes from the things they speak, as they are from us to whom they are spoken.  
Besides, it may well be doubted, whether Latin can now be made so fit to set forth the things of a Working Philosophy by, as our own Speech, or those other of our Neighbours, who are with us carrying on that way of Doing. For we must know, that almost all the old pieces of good Latin that we draw by, have been taken up by that sort of learning that is wont to be worded in the Schools, & spent in the setting to sale of such things as could best be glazed with the froth of ink, by the men of Closets. Whence he that is best skilled in it, is so hard put to it, in the Kitchen, that Shop, and the Ship; and ever will be, though Plautus should be as well understood as Tully. For the words that are every day running to and fro in the Chat of Workers, have not been gotten into Books and put aboard for other Lands, until this way of Knowing by Doing was started amongst us. So that we and others of the Handed Philosophers may either find better words among our own Yeomanry, for such businesses of workmanship as are already known by name, or at least coin fitter for new ones in a likewiseness to the old, than can be lent us from that Tongue wherein we know not how the Folks talked in the Country, nor do any body else or ever shall do. Whereby too we shall not only with more ease and kindliness be understood by the Painstaking men amongst us, whose Crafts will be more helpful to an hail Philosopher, than the Bookishness of others. But as Learning's being locked up in the Tongues of the Schools, or Love's being licked up in the more womanly simprings of the lips, and the smiling kissing speeches of some others abroad, have been enough to enkindle in us a panting after, and fondness for some of those Outlandish dynns: So if the works of our own men shall be shipped over by words of our own tongue, it may happily make others who have love enough for the things, to seek as much after our words, as we upon other scores have done after theirs; the first draught being English, name and thing, doing and speaking. Which while we forbear to do, and snip here and snatch there from some of them, being as much beholden to them for new and handsome words, as they to us for fresh and useful things, the works are not more greatned by their spreading name, than the workers seem lessened by the unluckiness of the slur, That Englishmen can do by their own Hands, what they can't speak in their own Tongues.   

THE HEADS OR CONTENTS Reckoned up.  
Chap. I. THE Introduction or foreruner. The ground of mistakes thought to be ill blending, shown in two or three things of another sort, as much mismingled and brought home to close with, and set forth the business in hand. Page 1.  
Chap. II. Way opened for the minds easier grasping of Body, or world, by laying hold of room and time, & laying one to God's immensity, the other to his eternity; whereby 'tis found that Room is not widened out with the former, nor time lengthened out with the latter, but that they differ altogether. God's eternity an Everlasting Now: Time is on and on, past, at hand, and to come. [Am] speaks [was] and [will be,] in eternity. The words and Grammar that we speak by, are matched to time, and can't speak forth eternity. We are at a loss for words in some outgoings of the soul, and flight of thoughts, as we are for some other things that truckle beneath us. Doctor Charleton's taking in with eternal time, carried on and further strengthened and dressed up by Doctor S. P. His arguments laid down and answered, by showing there is no outward eternity at all, and if there were, it would be no better than none at all. The Doctor's objection against the Nowness of eternity answered. The matching of it with the way of the souls being in the body. Eternity not such a Now as that of time is, but is quite wide of it, all and some. Thinking is, and does, to Ghost, as bulk to body. Second argument answered, by showing there would be no run of unmade time between two worlds, nor formerness nor afterness. The Doctor's answer to the known Choke, Whether the parts of an infinite length be finite? found to be none at all. Pag. 12.  
Chap. III. All Bulk a point to God's immensity, which is altogether; as all time a Now to his eternity, which is all at once. We should never have thought of Room, had we not been body, (as we cannot now think beyond it, nor where about souls are in it, or our own in the body). Many things are, which are no where. Whereness is too much a kin to place to suit Ghost, if we could but help it by a better word. The kind of some things, stands in their being or knot being according to somewhat. Things coming into senses, are such only to those that have them. Our understanding of things is nearer a kin to them, than our feeling of them. Sense mistakes, and misshews, and thereby reason often misled. What we feel, we know not, nor can help another to know: The new knowledge of Light from Master Newton, don't help the sight of it. The world one thing to God's Idea, another to our feeling. Pag. 41.  
Chap. IU. The outmost reach of Body must needs be bounded. Roomth beyond the world can no more be boundless, than the world itself. Outworldish emptiness an idle thing. God's Almightiness would ask Room as well as his Allfillingness, one being as much roomthy as the other. Room is no where but where body is. Ghost is no more in Room than thought is. Doctor More for roomthyness of Ghost, and outworldish emptiness taken off. God must as well be of some shape as of some Bulk. The world may be bounded without Emptyness beyond it. The foremost mistake, a Dreaming first of emptyness, and then of world in the midst of it: Whereas room is in the world and not the world in Room about it; nor should we have thought of room, till 'twas made, and where 'twas made. Doctor More's arguments answered, by showing an arrow can't be shot beyond the world's Selvedge, nor arm born out of it; the Frame of the world hindering as much as the stiffest bodies waylaying: proved by the stop of falling Bodies at the Earth's middle. The world no heap, but a set of Bodies locked fast together. Ghost can't carry Body beyond the world. The biggest Body can't be fathomed by place, as the lest can't be cloven. Another world would be neither near this, nor far from it. To Ghost the biggest Body and the least, all one. If nothing be between two worlds or Bodies the Rims would touch; Answered, That two Bodies touch, something must needs be between; else onlayed bodies, and inlaid would be all one. Des Cartes and Master White gotten over: they must either unsay, or make the world boundless. Doctor More's cramp argument, brought off. The sides of a vessel emptied of Body, would not only not touch, but be further asunder, than when full. A body may stand still and yet shift place. Things are so near each other, as they can come to be. Stirring of Bodies, or the room between them, comes all to a reckoning. If there were boundless room beyond the world, its running would be standing still, and its standing still running. Master Barlow answered. Body can't stir but in Body. All Bodies start saw wise. Sirring of Ghost is like skipping of thought. God would be no more by halves in two worlds, than he is in the two halves of this. Pag. 54.  
Chap. V. Whether Bulk holds of leasting. Magnenus laid aside. An Atom has not this and that. 'Tis mated with a now of time. An Atom touches secundum impenetrabilitatem, & longitudinem seminalem, made out by the souls closing with the body, and some other less heeded touches. What is brought against it, answered, as to figure and motion. Slow pace is made of Starts and Bearings. Bearing is neither rest nor stirring, but the keeper or spring of stirring, (the beginnings of things and the things themselves being two), further opened by the stirring of a watch, of thrown bodies, the springiness of an egg, of brooding, of boughed bodies. Of sproutings, of Breathers. Begetting is shifting springs. Souls may be shifted in a Blosom of Body, and not moved. Life and soul are two. Man the Son of Man. Swift motions, in likelihood, outstrip time. Motion a thing bodyless, not ghostly. Body as 'tis lodged may move itself. All Body, as throwfaresom to Ghost as some. The nimbleness of Ghosts in their hurryings of Body. Of our Saviour's Body. The Laws of motion enough to stop bodies running a tilt at the middle atom. Such laws bind the Soul to the Body, even against will. God holds us by laws of kind as we do others by those of right. Birds curbed by laws of kind, and all things else, the lowest things, stee'rd by the highest wisdom. Pag. 105.  
Chap. VI Beginning the world sooner and sooner would nevermake it everlasting, but to be so, it must be all at once. How the world is somewhat besides God. Against Doctor S. P. holding the world might have been from eternity. No soonerness before world, nor time, nor ages. The world a Decreed world, the Decree never a decreeing. God's eternity and the Souls two things infinitely asunder. The soul shall never have lived an infinite number of minutes, nor reach half or any part of God's everlastingness, any more than an halfway boundless Bulk, can reach half his alfillingness. God otherwise everlasting than in the root against the Doctor. Whatever is in God is forthwith. The Doctor's argument, If nothing to come of God's eternity, 'tis at an end, Answered; and his half given him back again, to make the best he can of the scurvy recoil of his absurdness and impossibility. Something of likeness hinted at. What an ill looked, frightful train haunts the Doctor's new Tool, of a growing Everlastingness. Body as lasting in its kind as Soul. A time beyond which the world shall not hold out, may be fastened on, from the sureness of the bodies rising again. Pag. 154.  
Chap. VII. A Moreness of worlds, and Earlyerness of this world, stand upon the same untrusty bottom. 'Tis rational to think the world could not have been sooner, nor bigger, nor more. More, or bigger or earlier worlds, would not better set out God's power, eternity, or immensity, than this does. Doctor More for a boundless tale of worlds taken off. The saying of worlds framed, or made, in Holy Writ; and world without end, or before all worlds, in the Common Prayer, cleared from mistake. Pag. 187.   

The Bulk and Selvedge of the WORLD.  

CHAP. I.  
WHoever in good earnest betakes himself to the scanning of bodies, one and other, as they lie in the whole bulky throng of this World, either as to their kinds of being or wonts of working, will find nothing that the mind at freedom is readier to fasten upon, likelier to be lost in, or, as to the knowledge of other things, be checked or stifled by, than those two puzzling things, the maximum quantum and the minimum; how far a body may be biggened by putting to it, or lessened by taking from it: the one losing itself in spatio imaginario, the other in puncto Mathematico. Now I have been thinking, there is so much of kindred between the two riddles, that if but one of them were rightly made out to man's understanding, the other would thence, as well gain somewhat of more light, as give back somewhat for further settling, and withal a fairer way would be made for the mind to busy itself about all those beings that lie far and wide between them.  
Wherein to attach other men's reasonings of weakness, or to sing Matins and Evensong to my own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by a sort of big and lofty strains, is none of my business, only I would beg leave to say, that what I have met with from the pens and tongues of learned men hereabout, have left me altogether in the dark, whatever light others may thence have gathered, and that what I have hit upon as to this affair, and am now about to set down, has set my own mind so far at freedom, that I was not altogether given to mistrust, but it might somewayes also be helpful, to the setting right the thoughts of some others. Methought then that the answerings or analogies of beings, have been hitherto but ill pitched or adjusted, and that those things that right reason and a wisdom above us, had evened out into ranks and kindreds by themselves, have been unhappily huddled and broken by the mind of man; and that other things wide enough off as to their Births and seats in the world, have been unkindly brought together by our less wary way of thinking, besides a great many things which are either begotten by the understanding, working upon the draughts or ideas of things that sense has to do with, or else do arise from the answerings or habitudes that the things of the World bear to the make of mankind, are hastily forethought to have such a kind of being in analogia mundi, as they seem to have in analogia nostri. Whereupon things being either lodged in the mind, that have no dwellings in the world, or otherwise shaped, linked, or laid, than they are in the world, it falls out that things that are not, are reckoned as if they were, or things that are, are reckoned otherwise than they are.  
Thus a right understanding having bound up Moral beings, with their belongers, in one bundle, and Metaphysical with theirs, in another, by the too forward working of the mind of man, the bond has been loosened and a medley made to the everlasting shackling of that head or question, Praestat non esse quam miserum esse, for although it be as clear, as that which is clearest, that, so laid down, 'tis a known truth, yet Durandus' Argument will stand unanswered till Doomsday, to wit, that which takes away the greater good, is the greater evil, but not being does so, for it takes away the good of well-being and the good of being both. This Mr. Barlow grants but with a Suppositâ semper subjecti duratione. But in my mind that answer is not of the same piece with the learnedness of the rest; for 'tis not asked, whether to Peter not being Peter it be evil to be endlessly wretched? but whether to Peter, being Peter, it be not worse to lose his good of well-being and his good of being too, than to lose but one of them? which is no worse way of speaking than what our blessed Lord spoke of another of the twelve, 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. comparatiuè.  Better had it been for that man, if he had not been born. Now he that grants bonum entis or essentiae to be the object of the will: that is, bonum Metaphysicum to be bonum Morale, has shut himself out from answering, even for evermore: but give but to each good its right, and the thing is at an end; for bonum entis not being bonum Morale, any more than verum entis, which a lie may have, is verum Morale, knit unto malum Miseriae a moral evil, and so laid before the will, 'tis easy enough to foretell where the choice will be: And that these two goods are wide enough asunder, is clear, for why? Non bonum, that is, non ens Metaphysicum, may be as truly bonum Morale, and so the darling of the will, as what is most of all so. Thus the not being of the world itself, before all worlds, till it had a being, was as truly good, and so the object of the will of him that made it, as its self same being when it began to be.  
Thus again by the blending of Ens Physicum with Ens Morale, another question about the thing that sin is, has been as much ruffled and darkened as any whatsoever; for though it has been made out, as heretofore, so moreover of late, by no mean hands, to be Ens positivum, yet most well-knowing men have been wary of speaking it out, for fear they should allot God Almighty a share in it, he being the maker of every positive being; whereas, if I do not much misthink at least, though God Almighty be the Maker of every being that is Physically so, it follows not that he is the same of each being that is Morally so: 'tis enough that God is the maker of the power to do evil, (which being good, may therefore spring from him) not of the things that are so done, so as from them he should take name: thus 'tis most sure, that a non ens Physicum may be a moral good; a Jews naked not doing business on his Rest-day, had as truly Being in it, as the doing the other works of the day, for why? as truly good; and if God should will me not to be, my not being, and willingness not to be Physically, would be as much Being, because as much good Morally, as my very being alive and willingness to be so, worshipping God whilst so. A natural being leaves off to be so, when it no longer abides in the World; but a moral being skills not the world, but is such only from its closing with, or swerving from the Law 'tis laid to; whilst 'tis, it is indeed nothing in the World, nor is any thing else of itself, rightly speaking, unless it takes up room there. Had there been as much of the will of God, as there might be of the will of man, in those two odd wishes, of two holy hearts, in the holiest of Books, blotting out of the Book of God would have been a good, and accursedness from Christ, a blessedness. For then a being grows up to its full ripe happiness, when it fully reaches all that bliss, which God aims at, for its utmost good; which whether it abides Physically or not, is neither here nor there, it being a weakness of understanding to say, that a made being is more happy in its natural life, which God wills not, than in its being nothing when God wills it so: for then either we could never have been fully happy, unless we were as well from everlasting, as to it; or at least, those that go to heaven at the end of the World, would not be so blissful as those that went in the beginning, the former having an happy being, while the latter had neither happiness nor being; whereas both standing even in the love of God, they should do so too, in their own bliss. I think we do respect or look towards God's glory, and our own happiness more, by what we have in us of Ens morale, than by what we have of Ens Physicum.  
Notwithstanding all which there would follow nothing to make us think that sin should be any whit long of God; for why, all that he does towards it, is, to leave us to ourselves to bring it forth if we will; and instead of driving on to it as a fellow helper or procatarctick cause, he draws from it, and towards the good, with unspeakable endearments of wooing, and drives from it, by forbidding the evil, with all that earnestness of threatening, that may beget in man the utmostness of dread; nor is he any nearer the Physical cause of it, than to give that good power, which is not the cause at all, as it looks towards him, for by giving this power he is at the same time the evil thing is done, as much the cause of the gainstanding good that is not done; now if he be no more the cause of it, than he is of that which is not at all, than he is not the cause at all.  
Besides this power is not only good, but also needful, for though the fulfilledness or perfection of the will in the next life, will not be in a standing at jar, and wavering alike towards good and evil, but only in a self-willingness to good, yet in this life, I think it mainly does, and must; for this is a life of doing, or believing, as it looks on to reward in that to come: that, a lie of rewarding, as it looks back to doing or believing here. Now if we do but allow God to deal with us, who are reasonable beings, in ways bearing an evenliness with our kind, as he does with lower beings in ways agreeable to theirs; then must he needs bestow upon us this freedom to sin that we are speaking of; for it seems not so much of right reason to reward that in man, which though he did willingly, yet he could not for his life do otherwise, lest then a stock or a stone should put in too for reward, for its deeds of kind, which it does not unwillingly, but yet must needs do. In like manner Heaven being a life, not of earning wages, but of taking pay, 'tis enough there, for the freedom of the will to stand alone in spontaneitate ad bonum, or self-willingness to good.  
Hence likewise we are in a fair way to answer that threadbare Question, which did so much gravel the ungospeled world; to wit, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; For inasmuch as sin is a moral thing, we are well enough on't if we can but tract it up to a spring of its kind, without looking after any other riste: Now unbounded wisdom and goodness having laid out endless happiness as reward for obedience, and the same wisdom and rightwiseness allotted endless wretchedness as punishment for sin; without this obedience there could be no heaven, without sin no Hell; and without a power not to do, in both, there could be neither. So then, that God may have leave to make man happy for holiness, man must needs have power to make himself wretched for sin. That evil should always flow from evil in a chain of breeders, is a great misunderstanding; for as fire arises from that which is no fire, by a smart stroke upon a flint, so evil springs from that which is not evil, by a cross blow given the Law.  
If it be gainsaid, Then man may thank himself too for all the good he does, that being as much long of him as the other, while the thing done forbears to be denominated from God, at the freeness of the power in man: and so to make God not the spring or Author of good, would be much at one with the making of him the Author of evil.  
I answer, it follows not; For in the first place, of all the good that man does, God is still the Moral cause, egging on to it by all those sweetnesses of entreaty, that the will can any way be wrought upon by; and though man's being free to it, makes it his deed (at second hand at least) both which, even holy writ and reason speak aloud; yet inasmuch as the stream of goodness, by the putting forth of freeness, is not damned up, but left to run on to the thing done: and again the same Almighty hand that barely upheld while sin was done, does over and above further the thing that good is, by enlightening the mind, renewing the will, healing the spring in man, of that a●l which inbred sin had brought upon it, and in a word making it every way more itself; God must be more an owner there than man, and thence the thing done falls in with the divine will, because it flowed from divine goodness; all that which is good in man by way of offspring, being so in God by way of wellspring.  
Once more by the medley of Ens Mathematicum and Physicum, the Question De compositione continui, or the making up of a bulky being, has been overwhelmed and lost in the finenesses of words, and the airiness of tattle, beyond all helps of freedom to a right understanding; whereas by dealing the dole evenly between both, we hope, further on, to make it likely at least, that the doctrine of atoms is not wound up in those darknesses that some men's understandings have may-hap over-weened.  
And lastly, whereas Ens Physicum or naturale, is either materiale, or immateriale, body and ghost or body and not body, by bewedding to body the things that belong to ghost, or bringing over to ghost, or that which is not body, the things cleaving unto body, the bulkiness of the world, the business of motion, the emptiness beyond the world, the allfillingness of God, the herenesses and therenesses of ghosts, have been too much interwoven and twisted together, even to the bewildring of our closest and best weighed thoughts about them.  
Besides our very way of thinking upon bodies, or drawing their likenesses upon our souls, from the unluckiness of those pipes and suckers, through which we have fetched them, have drunk in such a tang of manishness, or a mingle mangle of half man, half world together, that 'tis uneasy to say, what things a body has from us, and what it has from him that made it.  
Now by giving to the abovenamed what is their own of right, and taking from them, what we have given them in wrong, as far as is belonging to what we have before us, is that which we have undertaken, to the utmost of our scantling, at least, to be all along most heedful of, and whence also we look for more light and ease to betid the understanding, than from the giving way to such unkindly minglings as we have blamed before.   

CHAP. II.  
THus then in the first place, one of the readiest ways for us to free the mind from mistakes about the knowledge of the world, is, for us to gather remarks of things, as much in a nearness to the Divine idea of them, or that of ghostly beings, as our more underly way of thinking will give us leave to reach to; and to unclothe them of, or make allowance for, all those answerings or analogies, that do arise to them upon the account of our animalities or beghosted bodyhood. For I reckon it will be a good step towards the knowledge of what the world ought to be to us, who are body and ghost both together, if we but know what 'tis to such Being or Being's as are ghost altogether.  
Now the two first and most bewildring things that the mind is likest to fasten on, as the main belongers to the world, are the room that the world takes up, and the time that the world lasts: But if we come to lay these to the Divine Being, we shall find, that as Time is to God's eternity or everlastingness, so Bulk is to God's immensity or his allfillingness. Our knowing then how the world behaves itself to one of them, will help us still to understand how 'tis to the other, as our knowing how 'tis unto both, will give us somewhat better to guests how 'tis to us who have neither.  
Inasmuch then as the known perfection of God is to be so everlasting, as not to be successive or jogging on and on, the idea or likeness that he frames of timesome Being's that are so, must not be by shrinking up this his fullness, to the narrowness of those Being's which must needs be creeping forwards while they are; for that would be to make himself like them; that is, not to be God: but he must take the ken of these beings, after ways becoming his boundless or infinite being: if then it will not beseem God to be at this time, and at that time, this after that, than neither will it become him to know things that are so, after that kind of way. Now because all the things we can gripe in our minds are such, and the likenesses that God has of them are not such, the words by which we call them being answering to the things, we are as much at a loss for words, as for thoughts, about things so vastly beyond us: all that we can do towards it is, to choose out such words to set forth God's everbeingness by, as may be sure to shut out formerness and afterness, which Gods everlastingness has not, though we cannot on the other hand make them take in what we believe it has. Thus the whole world almost of well enlightened, and right believing men, have hit upon the way of calling God's everlastingness, a cleaveless or indivisible now: not as if 'twere a moment of that time which we take up, (time being cast out, as well in part as in whole) but only because it cannot be brought to our bounded understandings, shrouded under any other word that can like that, cut off all formerness and latterness, which must by no means be taken in.  
Which way of speaking has as sure footing too in holy Writ, as in well-guided reason. I am hath sent me, this day have I begotten thee, before Abraham was, I am; being as much sense spoken of God, as they would be nonsense of any one else. Had Abraham been at the beginning of the World he had not been sooner, as to God's everlastingness; or had he not been till the words spoken, he had not been later, because there is neither sooner nor later in the thing: that which would be [was] in Grammar to Abraham, is [am] to God, as that which would be [will be] to us, is still [am] too him. God's saying, I am before Abraham or the world, and I am after him or it, (answering to our were and will be) is as well the fullness, as truth of speaking, for than we have spoken all that aught, when we have spoken all that can be; and then all that can, when there are no more words to speak more with.  
And that it may not seem so strange to us that we are thus word-bound in such kind of things, we may remember that we are enough put to it for words about things belonging to our own selves, when we would give forth those ravishments of love that we feel, but can not, (without giving Soul and all) give another to understand, our words, it seems, being most an end as little squared to unboundedness in the intention of degrees, or screwing up high, as 'tis to that in the extension of parts, or letting out wide.  
Besides, if God's everlastingness were to be set out by words, it must not surely be, by such words as are fitted to the analogy that is between us, and other timesome and boundsome beings, as all those we yet have are, but is only to be set forth by words running even with the answerings between them and the Divine Being, which we neither know, nor can tell whether ever we shall. Thus Logic and Philosophy cannot be uttered by the neighing of Horses, the barking and howling of Dogs, the hissing and gagling of Geese, the chirping or prating of other Birds, though they speak enough that, amongst themselves, which we cannot give them to know by our more full words; they, it seems, being as unfit for Being's beneath us, as above us.  
Indeed the Philosophical Dr. Charleton, (from the Mighty Gassendus before him, as he from Epicurus) has taken up again, the opinion of Vorstius, so learnedly overthrown by Mr. Barlow, that God's everlastingness is boundless time, and that his unmeetsomeness is boundless width: Both which to me, (whatever they are to others) seem no less than frightful notions: For if we are existant in a small part of that duration, or the world in a small part of that extension in which God exists, and God's eternity not be an everlasting now, and his immensity an unbounded unextendedness; it will follow that some part of God's everlastingness is yet to come, and not now; and some part of his allfillingness beyond the world, not in it, which would make such a medley of succession and division in the Attributes of God, which are God himself, as I can't now understand, or believe, I, or any man ever shall; being as sure, as I am of my own thinkfullness, that what is bounded or finite, cannot hold pace with that which is unbounded or infinite, witho 〈…〉 whole nor in part.  
But because it has been undertaken since by a Reverend Divine, who has followed it as well more closely, as more fully, and that too with a goodly income of Learning, and a right handsome address of words, and well aired periods; it may happily seem to the Reader, that either we want a kindness for the business we have hitherto owned, while we let such a rub lie in our way uncared for, or else that we want respect enough for the Author, to think that so, which he has wrought hard to make so; especially too, having done so much to awaken us, as, to reckon all that think otherwise than himself does, to be no less than fools and laughingstocks; notwithstanding yet the whole throng of those that have been of most name for learning, or of most worth for holiness, have been of the side that he is not of, from the beginning of the World to this day.  
In the doing of this he warns his Reader of 
Tentamina Phys. Theol. de Deo. p. 373.  two kinds of abiding, inward or in gross, and outward or by itself: The inward is the very essence or existence of the thing, which if, as to what 'tis made up of, it be daily throwing off and taking in, (as we and all body-some Being's do) is then successive; but if it be always the same, as 'tis with ghost and the substance of all bodies, then 'tis shut of succession and division, and is selfsame or permanent, like as God is.  
Page 376, 377. The outward has so little reality in it, that the understanding cannot get a draught of it; it has nothing at all of positive reality (though it be not yet a sheer dream or figment) which is gathered, because it must always needs be, both unmade by God, and unbeholden to, or independent on God; if God had never made any thing, it should for all that have been; and if he should unmake all things, it would still be. Page 378. The whole of this is eternity or everlastingness, the half is aevum or endlesness, that share of it that lackeys it by the world's side is time.  
Pag. 398. Thus Gods inward everbeingness, or aeternitas concreta, is the very existence of God, with an outward badge or denomination from time by-running; which is permanent and indivisible: and 'tis about this aeternitas, Boethius and others should be understood, when speaking of its being tota simul.  
God's outward or abstract is in an endless onwardness, and is unto God's everlastingness, asspatium imaginarium is to his all●illingness, which is not an attribute of God, but an unbounded retching out together with it.  
To bring off all this fairly, we have two things to do; First, to show that there is no such thing at all as this same aeternitas externa. Secondly, that if there were, it would not yet do the job for which 'tis brought.  
For the first, A real outward eternity or eternal time that has nothing at all of positive reality, is not; because 'tis a contradiction in adjecto, that it should be a right down self-cut-throat, fordoing even its own being. Eternity, and nothing at all of positivity, can by no means stand together; for whatever is eternal, must needs be positive of eternity, as long as eternity is somewhat positive itself: and whatever is big with or positive of eternity, cannot go farrow, or be privative of real entity; for a thing cannot be everlasting, and not be at all: and that this is really so, is clear, in that 'tis not a figment or whimsy; So 'tis yielded to have a little reality in it, and a little real, is real; especially seeing that little reality is enough to make it really lengthened out with Gods most real inward everlastingness, and so that although God were not, that would be, and though God had never been, that should be.  
Besides he that gives it a little reality or thingsomeness, cannot for his heart be so sparing as to hold his hand there, and give it no more: for why, 'tis such a craving Horseleech, it will suck in more whether a man will or not: Whilst it must for truth's sake be granted, that that little snip of everlasting time, which reaches from my Birthday, or at least, the World's raising day, till now, has a little reality in it; For I have lived, and the World lasted really that little while; the reality of time being grafted in its timeishness, not in its boundlesness; so that every little share of time must have a little of this little reality, and every little must make a much. Then say I, if the time that I have lived and the world lasted, has a little reality in it, then that of it, which is beyond, must have more; and that of it which reaches infinitely beyond it,) because 'tis as real as 'tis infinite, and as really more as 'tis real, (must have an infinite deal of reality beyond it; and that which has more, and infinitely more than a little, cannot surely be said to have but a little, or less than a great deal, or any thing short of infinite reality.  
2. It's independency or looseness from God, lies as crotchet every whit, as its being; for if you ask about it the question that is wont to be asked all the homeless Crew, Whence comes it? The answer must far as if it were a God; for 'tis to be said, God did not make it, nor did any thing else; and yet 'tis indeed, and was unbeginningly, and will be endlessly; and that is as much as can be said of God himself, under that head. If it be said that God has besides an inward everbeingness, that is neither cleavesome, nor on and on; so has this too, by good luck; for the inward abiding is nothing but the existence of a thing always the same: now this outward everlastingness has always been the same, without getting or losing aught, but moments of existing, which the everlasting God and all substances do. If it be said that in God there is Allfillingness, as well as Everlastingness; so there is out of God too, a boundless roomthiness, such as would be though God were not, nor had been ever; and while he is, is retcht out together with him; and was, as he himself, without beginning, and without him too. So we have gotten somewhat to chew upon, that is as everlasting, and as much every where, as God is, and as unbeholden to God for being, as God is to any thing else for his; and yet in the upshot, 'tis such a kind of somewhatkin, as truckles beneath the very tinyness of an half nothing, and is forsooth a fierdhalf nothing; for after the full nice brattling out of reality, into muchnesses and littlenesses, there falls to the share of this, as little as may be, to keep it from dwindling into an altogether nothing, or a middlekin between something and nothing, that is neither of them. Whereas I have thought, that as time had not been if God had not made timesome beings, nor room if he had not made roomthy; so neither had eternity or immensity been, if there had not been a God everlasting and every where, the maker of all things.  
3. As this new Everlastingness breaks with itself, upon the score of being or entity, so it as much undoes itself upon that, of its boundlesness or infinity; for as before we were told it was a real eternal, not real positive, so over and above, we are done to wit, that 'tis an infinite not infinite: for 'tis such an infinite as is cut in a trice into two halves, one past and the other to come. Now it being impossible that I should give thus much to be the half of a thing, without I knew the whole were as much again, it follows that if I know how much the whole is, (and that I cannot but do, because I am told what the half is,) then is this infinite, finite; for I who am finite can fathom it, and by my bounded knowledge of it, bound it; and yet again this finite is the measure to an hair of God's infinity in abiding, who is boundlessly far and wide of me, and of my utmost knowledge. All which being dainties of too high a seasoning, for my more homely understanding, I must leave them, with their Miche-good-do't-ye to the elder sons of relish and shrewd fetches.  
But secondly, if this same cleaving of Eternity in two (that is, into inward and outward) were yielded, we should be ne'er the nearer fadging for all that; for the concrete or inward everlastingness is said to be the very existence or essence (which as they do not differ to speak of, so our Author mingles) of God himself, with the outward denomination taken from time gliding by. Now, though it seems harsh (to me at least) that an outward denomination, should come into the definition of an inward being, yet that the inward essence or existence of God must nobe nakedly understood, is clear enough; for the naked essence of God is as much his all-knowingness, his allfillingness, or his one-foldness, as his everlastingness; and that cannot be said to be God's everlastingness, which is as much somewhat else, as 'tis that. God's everlastingness than is not Gods Being or Essence only, but God's Essence everlasting, or everlasting God, or God's Essence as 'tis to himself, or in himself endlessly abiding: as God's knowledge is his Essence as to, or within himself all-knowing, his allfillingness as to, or within himself filling all things. Now if all this be cleaveless or indivisible, as is fairly yielded above; and of, and by itself too, as, I think, may as fairly be hence gathered, to wit the externa aeternitas & immensitas, or the everlasting time and boundless roomthiness, being utterly of themselves without God, it would be a foolish blasphemy or dirtying of God, not to yield that Gods inward everlastingness and boundlesness, may as well be without the outward, as they could be without the inward. Then, say I, after all this wheeling about, we are not a step further than where we were; for God's whole eternity rightly taken, and as 'tis to himself, is not successive or growing on, but altogether, or one only everbeing now.  
All that we have gotten by it is, a measure for it that is growing onward, as we have for his allfillingness, another that may be sundered. Now surely 'tis as hard to imagine, how that which is successive and divisible, as the outward are, should be the measure of that which is permanent and indivisible, as the inward is; as 'tis that that which is all at once, should hold way with that which is on & on, or that that which is altogether should hold out with that which has part and part; which is the huge nonsense that is to be fathered upon the otherwise minded. And verily, for my share, I cannot see why we may not have a yard or an ell of good-Angell, or a pound or an ounce of the foul fiend, as well as a successive share of God's unsuccessive everlastingness, or a divisible piece of God's indivisible allfillingness: but such it seems may be had, if you knock at the right door; for measures that have fore and aft, and part and part, are the things, and the only things, by which 'tis meted out.  
Besides it carries a train of things after it, that are as hard to answer as easy to light upon. To name one for all; there being as many things to be known, as there are dotts or points in the outward immensity; and as many new things to be known, as new minutes to be lived in, in the outward eternity; it will follow that God's knowledge as well as his everlastingness is both divisible and successive: without we should answer that God knows all that scope of points without retching out that his essence which is his knowledge; and all that chain of minutes, without any lengthening out of that his being which is his everlastingness; but then the new knack is quite split, and we are no wiser, nor speak no more wonders, than the grey bearded men, that have gone before us.  
But it being likely that that which bespoke a kindness for this more hazardous by-road, was, because the open way was looked upon as more encumbered and less enlightened; that the charge may be shown, as less groundedly taken up, we shall give answer as far as we can, unto what has been laid before us under that head.  
Among the hard sayings then that we meet with, these come in chief; to wit, Page 384, The understanding cannot take it, how one now should hold on with the whole runlong of all ages, any more than that one point should be driven out to the utmost wideness of the whole World.  
Page 386. Again, if everlastingness were cleaveless, nothing could be in any part of time, but it would be likewise whole everlastingness; the whole being in every least of time.  
Page 388. And further yet, it cannot be thought that two abidings or durations, to wit, time and everlastingness, should be together and not be the same abiding; when inasmuch as they are together they become one, as two rooms cannot be within one abutment, unless they be thereby clapped into one.  
All which being of so near a kindred, we shall cramp them with this one instance, and that shall be one too, no farther from home than we ourselves are from ourselves: I mean that oneness that is between soul and body, as it makes up the being that is called man.  
The soul is as cleaveless or indivisible as a point of roomthiness, or a now of time; and yet 'tis as much in every roomthy part of the body, all at once and altogether, as in the very lest: and if another man's understanding cannot take it, how a thing that has no parts, should be every where at once, in a thing that has, the blame lies at the man, not in the thing, for we are as sure that 'tis, as he can be that he don't understand it. Thus again the bone is as hard to pick, how a limb of the body should not be as big as the whole, it being as big as the whole of that, which is full as much as the whole body, and in the mean time, the whole of the same too, is even with that which is but a limb of it. And another of the same is, that two abidings, that is to say, time and eternity, may be together and not be the same abiding, as well as the soul may be every where, where the body is stretched out, and yet itself not be stretched out at all. But now either all this is true, or else the soul is as bulky as the body, and as full of parts as it; or else as little as an atom, and so takes up only the least room in it; both which are so easy to take off, that a few words will be enough to dispatch them.  
Page 297, & 300. First then, That the soul is not a Substance, body-like extended, for closeness indivisible, for thinness penetrable, (which seems to be that draught of a ghost which our Author has some kindness for, and has both roundly helped on and filled up) is thus to be made out.  
'Tis given out that ghost, as well as the substance of body innerly, is such a thing, as is always the same, as much as God is; so that if you shift it, you quite and clean undo it. But now that ghostly being which enlivens the body of man, if it were stretched out with the body, would be as surely not the same, but shifted and changed, as the body itself is: therefore we gather rightly it must not be co-extended with it at all. The reason of it in more words stands thus: the body is not only reeking out whole steams of little unseen off-shoots, and taking to it as many more, but over and above 'tis taking in a daily minglement of bigger bodies, by what we eat and drink, which splicing in their little shives, within the crowd of pieces that are clinging close together, at once grow one with the body, and give further bigness to the body; and also, as it may happen, the body may be almost as much lessened, by lopping off its branches, as 'twas bigned by the growing of its trunk. Now 'tis asked, does this extended ghost within the body biggen and lessen with it, or does it not? The soul that I was quickened with at birth day, is the same that I am quickened with at this day, but the body that I have now is bigger than that which I had then: Is my soul bigned or is it not? If it be not, it reaches then only the lesser share of that body which I now have, the greater being soul-less; but if it be bigned, then 'tis not the same it was, any more than my body; nor to be sure, is it so much the same, as God is, who is so the same as to be neither bigger nor less. Again, if I have an arm or a leg cut off, my body is lessened; but I ask whether my soul be or not? If not, then have I forsooth some pieces of my soul jetting out of my body, some in it; and when I walk, that assignable, but indivisible part of my soul, which was in my leg, comes shoveling after me, and that in my arm is swingling by me, in such a shape of air, as taketh up that room, that my leg and arm did, when limbs of my body; But if my soul does not thus featly stick out of my body, than it withdrew at the off-cut, and so my soul is not the same that 'twas before, but less. Besides, when the soul draws back so, into what does it draw? Into itself it cannot, for 'tis already so close packed that it can be no closer; if it could be closer, it must be from some emptiness within, but because it must always needs be brim full, there can be none, and if there were any such, it might then be cut a pieces body-like; for, with those that hold this, it seems the reason why an atom, as well as why a ghost, cannot be cloven, is nothing but because it sticks so close together, that no emptiness can come between; a thing being cleavesome, not from its bulkiness, but inward emptiness mingled. Again, on the other hand, if the soul were as close as it could be at first, (and so it must be, or else be out of kind,) than what it has put forth since of itself, to keep even with the growth of the body, has left such little emptinesses within, (the body by waxing, having cracked a many holes in it,) that 'tis now, at manhood, as like to be shorn in pieces as the body.  
Secondly, If the Soul be not wretched out with the body, but settles in some room whence it may best, by unknown reins, sway the whole body; then 'tis asked, whether that room be cleaveless or not: If it be the Maw or Stomach, the whirl-pool of the spirits in the blood, the brain, the water of it, or the Glandula pinealis in it, (which some or other have set out for it,) they being all extended, the business would be the same as if 'twere in the whole body: If it be but in one atom or leasting in the body, than a child would have more soul to its body than a man, and should thence seem more a man, there being more atoms in the bigger than in the less body. Besides the body being all over spending some and getting others, that atom in which the soul first lodged, may either shift rooms in the body, or quite slip out of it, as well as any others that do so; and so for aught I know, my soul was whilom in my head, and sometime in my toe, and after at my finger's end, according as that atom in which it dwelled, chanced to be bounced about for elbow-room: and I may have been I know not how many men since I was born, according as that atom happened to leave me, and another popped into its stead; I being I, no longer than I have that in me, in which my soul is.  
From the whole then looked back upon but wistly, it seems that God's everlastingness may be all at once, or a beginningless endless now, and time that is successive be together with it, without making that so; as well as our souls which are all together, may be every where, where the body is, without having parts, as that has: which latter, while we are fain to yield, it seems but unhandsome we should make a boggle at the former.  
Withal, it were not perhaps amiss to remark, that a main thing which has put a cheat upon the understanding herein is this; When eternity is said to be an everlasting now, and immensity as an every where cleavelesness, some have been so hard with it, as to strain from it what belongs to a now of time, and a least of body: whereas both of them standing off in their whole kind, 'tis impossible they should hold together in some part; and seeing they so differ as things infinite and finite, 'tis impossible, the agreement that we make between them in words, should be by making that which is everlasting, the least part of that, which is but a while lasting, and that which is beyond all bounds the least share of that little thing, which has bounds. That eternity therefore is called a now, and immensity a thing indivisible, hence 'tis, and hence only: to wit, every part of lastingness besides a now, is onwardly as well as bounded, and every part of bulk besides the least, is cleavesome as well as bounded; now 'tis better to call them by words speaking finite barely, which one thing they are not; than by words speaking finite and successive, or finite and divisible, which two things we are sure they are not; and though a point be the least of boak, and a now the shortest of time, yet they may speak everlastingness, and allfillingness, upon another score, (as much as we can, that is, not as much as they should,) for all their shortestness and leastness, as well as the longest or the biggest, if they could be brought in without other unfitnesses; for neither of them would come any nearer to everlastingness, or everywhereness, than the shortest and the least do; but would, to be sure, be further off from them, by taking in more things which they have not, nor can have.  
Therefore when our Author tells us (page 384.) of a now longer than Ages, and a being unretcht out, that should be more than one that is, 'tis nothing to the business: for we only call God's Everlastingness a now, to clear it of as many things as we can that would make it on and on, as things Time-lasting are; and Gods Allfillingness an altogether, to loosen it from any thing of sundership, which all extended Being's have: not but that one is boundlessly more than all the Nows of Time, and the other boundlessly more than all the Clefts of Body; but forasmuch as we want words wherewith to name them what they are, we take those that have least to do with Time and Body, which they are not. In a word, Everlastingness is no more All at Once, as a Now of Time is, because 'tis not thing enough to be a while, than it is itself Timesom; nor is Allfillingness any more unextended, as an Atom is, that is, because 'tis not thing enough to be recht out, than it is itself extended: but Everlastingness is quite another thing infinitely from what Time is, and the parts of Time are; and Every-whereness is quite another thing infinitely from what Bulk is, and the cleaving of Bulk are: But because our mind gives us, that Time should be liker to Eternity, and Bulk liker to Immensity, than any other bounded things are, we choose the renablest words belonging to the former, wherewith to set forth the latter.  
Perhaps the understanding may draw somewhat nearer the thing as 'tis, by taking the next thing that arises from Soul, which is thinking, together with a next thing that streams from Body, which is roomthyness; thoughtsomness setting full as close to the very stamp or inmostness of a thinking Being, as boak or roomthyness does to the Being that is Bodysom; so that if I would have bulk or roomthyness do any thing, it must be such a thing for all the world as I would have Body do, & vice versa, or heads and heels, so I may have it become big or little, show of this or of that shape, stir or stand still, because these are things that I can have Body do: In like manner, if I would have Ghost do any thing, it must for all the world be such another thing as I would have thought or thinking do, and on the other hand; for if every thing must do according as 'tis, thought being as much an inmate in the very heart of the thinking Being, as bulkiness is in the very inside of Body, it cannot be, but that that which is so much of Ghost in its Being, should be very much so too in its doing; as outstretchedness which is so much of Body, does as much like Body. If then I would have thought to be here or there, in a great thing or in a little, it must do these things the nearest that can be to what a Ghost would do about them; now I find my thoughts are here and there, without moving hither and thither Body-like, and in a great thing or a small one, without being great or small themselves; and thence I think I may freely gather, that Ghost would do so too, which is of all things in the world the next to it, and the root of it: Insomuch, that as there may dwell as many thoughts upon Regiomontanuses Fly, or Tredeskins chained Flea, as upon a First-rate King's man of War, or the greatest Hall-place of the greatest Keisar, (while thoughts being off in their whole kind from the works of Handicrafts, they must needs be off too from what befalls them as such); so there may be likewise as much Soul in the shaplings or tiny keels of the great Malpighiuses eggs within the six hours setting, as was in the foul stalking lundging body of that og of Bashan, at the utmost bulk to which the Rabbins have beswoln him: And, to end, as much of God's Everlastingness in the shortest now, as in the longsomness of a thousand years, and as much of his Allfillingness in the least of bodies, as in the greatest throng of them: for why, much and little, short and long are no more akin to Ghost or what holds to it, than thinking is to Body or its belongers; it being as likely to take the scantling of a stone by a chain made of thought after thought, which only haunt the ghost of a thinking Being, as to take the measure of God's Allfillingness from bulk or extension, which sticks as close to Body.  
But there comes up another Argument by the by, which may happily at first blush seem to have more tiew in it than all the stands we have met with hitherto, and that is in short thus.  
P. 383. Suppose God ten thousand years ago to have made a world, and then to have unmade it, and after to have made this, or (which is all one) suppose this to be benothinged, and some ten thousands of years hence another to be made; Now if there were not time between them, there would be one upon the nick of another, when yet we have supposed a long while betwixt them; And if there would be time between them, than we are quite broke, inasmuch as time may then be unmade, and of itself, without timesom Being's.  
To which the answer is, first: If it were not easier to take up things upon trust, than to frame Arguments, we had never been surprised with this which hangs so ill together: For to suppose God before any thing else was made to make something, and then to unmake all that he had made, and leave nothing as he found nothing, and yet to leave ten thousand years or some ten thousands; is to suppose God to leave nothing, and yet to leave something: for ten thousand years, or some ten thousands, are, in my mind, as much something as the other were that were made nothing; and I believe it would hold any man as many thousand years as there are years in the thousands, to bring it but cleverly off, how ten thousand years between should not be time between, or how ten thousand years should not be ten thousand years.  
But taking it for granted that we shall be bated the supposition in this unwieldy draught of words, and only be brought to this straight or dead lift, whether if God should make a world, and a while after annihilate or make it nothing, and again should make another, and sometime after benothing that likewise, and lastly, should over and above make a third World, would there be Time between these made or unmade Worlds? and would one be before or after the other, or would they not?  
To this we answer round-dealing-wise, There would be no Time at all between them, nor would one be before the other or after the other, nor, in any other meaning than as they are in God's Everlastingness, would they be together. The reason of this short answer stands thus: There being nothing but everlasting God besides them, in whom there is nothing of timesom onwardness, nor ground upon which to fasten fore and aft, there can be no such thing as Time, or fore, or aft, at all. And we are withal to know, that the ground why we give afterness to some things in the World, is from the things that were former, so as until we come at a first; and formerness to other things, from the things that will be afterward, so as until we come to a last; insomuch as some things, even in this World, may not be fore and aft, but only fore or aft: the first thing in the world that was made being after nothing, for why, nothing was before it; and the last thing in the world that shall be unmade, being before nothing, because there shall be nothing after it: as what we gave answer about, and namely, the whole world now in being, is neither before nor after; because there is nothing besides but God, of whom it cannot be rightly said, he was before or will be after, but that he always is.  
If this should come unlooked for to the Readers understanding, it will may-hap seem more kindly further on, when we come to strengthen it with an answer of the same sort, about its twin-brother, outworldish emptiness.  
The little that is yet behind, is the answer that our Author would fain give to that most unanswerable Argument against a successive and divisible everlastingness, and everywhereness; to wit, Whether the parts of it be finite or infinite?  
Which with him is twofold, 1. Enough or abundantly, 2. More than enough, or superabundantly: Enough, by acknowledging that it cannot be answered at all, (p. 402.) And then over and above, to that hard saying, Finite put to finite can't make infinite he says, A set number cannot indeed, yet nothing withholds, but that from an infinite tale of finites there may at length arise an infinite, as who should say, from an infinite twenty or twenty one, there should start up an infinite: what you will; for every number being even or odd as those are, there is not a pin to choose whether you take one of them or some other; that must be as even or as odd to the full as one of them is, and that at the last be such a number as you may put one more to unto all Eternity, or be a numberless number, or a number which is not a number, which is the very pith, and marrow, and heart, and strength of a fineness. And, as to the back door that belongs to this, which is, that The number by which we are to tell the finites that go to the making up of an infinite, is beyond the numbers of Arithmetic, without all iffs & and's 'tis the very twin-trangham of a figure beyond all the figures in Geometry; both which are to be understood by no other thing in the world, but the own dear sweet friend of them, yclept reason beyond the reason of Logic.  
But because the main Castleward to shroud these weaklings from blows and qualms, is no other, but its fellow Fierdhalf nothing called space or roomthiness; which, that 'tis every way infinite, (though made up all of finites,) is said to be as clear as the clearest thing in the world, (pag. 403): and it being as clear to us that 'tis not so, but bounded as well as Time, we are, when it comes in our way, to lay down reasons; which, so much as they will make for that, so much will they make against this.  
Now having thus far unbenighted ourselus, and cleared our way in the foregoing from all that lumber that could hitherto be stumbled on, 'tis hoped we may have leave to settle Gods whole Everlastingness, as untimesom, and altogether unbeclogged with onwardness; and as for any other of the name that should be outward, that the same is altogether nothing but the airiness of thinking: and withal, that Time and timesom Being's, this time-lasting World, and every while-being thing in it, is neither early nor late, as the ken is taken of it by God Almighty; but that earliness and lateness sticks to the things made, as made and not being unbeginningly, and so is only a tang, that all timesom things have among themselves, and cannot be relished by that everlasting Being that made them, any more than we can relish his Everlastingness; but all the things that are early or late to us, are always now to him.  
Which is the first undertaking, in the sorting of things, so as our understandings might best come at them, that is, by laying them as near as we can to the understanding of that Being, who is so all Mind as to be nothing Body: whence we have seen how the lastingness of the World and made things, bears itself to such a Being; which was the uppermost thing, the mind was like to start, in its thoughts about them.   

CHAP. III.  
THe next to this, is the Room that the World takes up; which body-haunter of roomthiness, that we may rightliest know, we shall do by it as we did by lastingness; (time and Room being fellows,) which as we brought for that end before God's Everlastingness, so we shall search what this will be, as it stands towards God's Allfillingness.  
As then the abiding of the World from first to last, was nothing but a now to God's everbeingness, so the bulk of the World from least to greatest, will, I think, fall out to be but a cleauless thing to his Allfillingness: For as God's Eternity is not endless longsomness, so neither is his Immensity unbounded outstretchedness; but as his everness is all at once without before and after, so his unmeetsomness is altogether, without here and there: and so still, as the World's abiding being long, makes no length in his Everlastingness, but 'tis yet as to that all at once, so its bulk being wide, makes no wideness in his Allfillingness, but 'tis nevertheless, as to that, altogether: For, 'tis as impossible that God should be in Room, which is one of the hangers on to Body, as that he should be in Time, which is another. When therefore we say that God is every where, it must have the same respect to Place, that his being past, at hand, and to come, has to Time. As then God does as truly abide, after the way of his everlasting nowness, as other things do after the guise of their timesom running on and on, without being himself timesom, like them: So God is as truly every where, after ways becoming his altogetherness, as other things are by the way of their bulkiness, without being himself extended, like to them. And as to those other stainings of the word as 'tis given to Body, we are wholly to forewarn them in this business; for whereness is a word, which though the Schools have marked for another thing than locality, yet betokens too much ex analogiâ nostri, and, as 'tis often made to speak, is almost quite imbrued in Body if not altogether, our souls in the meaning of it, can hardly be said to be any where; and I believe, if we were all Ghost, and nothing else in the world were Body, we should not readily know what to do with it, or ever well reach the meaning of it; for so much does it hang to motion, which I think is altogether befasted to Body, that 'tis thought by those that can best brook the word, that a thing may move from one whereness to another, as easily as Body may from one place to another. Although I can frame in my mind as easily as others, that ten thousand Angels as well as one, may be altogether on a needle's point, (they being all throwfaresom alike), yet it would crack my brain to find so many whernesses there, to stow each of them in. Had there never been any bodies, but only souls, made, I cannot yet think there would ever have been such a question, as where are your thoughts? they being only said there to have a whereness where bodies have a room.  
Thus a Mathematical point or Geometrical figure are no where, good and evil are no where, this Treatise, before written here, was no where; yet it as truly was before the writing, (and so the others before the doing,) as 'tis now, whilst written; the words are only here, the meaning's by them set forth, as much no where as before: so true is it, that whatever is, is somewhere, is untrue.  
Now everywhereness, which is the word by which we set out God's Allfillingness, sounding as if it were a gathering together of all the rooms that may be taken up in the World, or in unbounded boak without the World, seems no more fit to meet out God's Immensity by, than a chain of the nows of Time are, by which to meet out God's Eternity; the one speaking as much division, as the other does succession. When therefore we say that God is every where, we must mean that he is not so somewhere, as not to be elsewhere; and that there is nothing there, but all things here to his unmetesomness, as there is nothing past or to come, but all now to his everlastingness.  
A thing is only there, to me, in behalf of my being here, and not there; for when I am there, the thing is clothed with hereness: so because God cannot be now here and not there, or now there and not here, 'tis clear that the thereness or hereness was nothing belonging unto God, but grounded in the things here or there; for in close speaking whilst God is every where, he cannot be there, because there would be here to him, we are then speaking of two things, by some such words as are bounded by one of them. And indeed whereness is a word of so much narrowness, that it does not reach the All of those things which it most cleaves to, that is, of bodies: forasmuch as it may rightly be said the whole world is no where; for because we can't step out of the world and because it or point to it, as there; nor while we are in it, say, 'tis here, because 'tis as much there or yonder as here; nor can we say 'tis every where, 'tis as much too little for that as too big for the other, and God alone is, or can be so; it must then be remarkably no where, if so be, that which is neither to be shown here nor there, nor to be understood every where, be assignably no where.  
What we gather hence, is not that the words are not to be used, or that 'tis blame-worthy in them that speak so, but only that we remember when we do, that such words don't answer the thing spoken of so as they do bodies, though we must not forsake them, only because we cannot frame others that will come nearer; though they be not the best that were to be wished, they are for aught is known, as good as any we can come at. Thus, if I say I love such a thing at my heart, I do not mean you should understand me as if my love were seated any where in the middle belly, as my heart is; if you rend out my heart 'tis not to be found there, because it was a thing rooted in my manhood, not placed in my body: so do but unstring my soul and body, though you leave my heart in the same place, the thing is gone, and so gone as to be no where else too; and yet I cannot speak plainer English, nor be better understood.  
And this way of speaking has so good footing, that in the Book of books itself, we find not only the same oftentimes, but even a step beyond it sometimes; whilst not only the things of body are given to things not body, but even bodyhood itself is. Thus we read of the body of sin, and the limbs of it, or members upon earth, as uncleanness and worldly-mindedness; which nevertheless are such moral beings, whose kind of existence is not a being any where in the world, but according to, or swerving from a Law, which when they do they only are, and when they do not are not, which fills up the whole of their Being, without any further being any where.  
Our souls are indeed so far tinged with body, that as 'tis hard for us to think how there should be an abiding so unlike to ours, as we are creatures, as not to be lengthened out after the rate that we are; so 'tis hard to think there should be a whereness so unlike to ours, as we are creatures with body, as not to be boakt out after the way that we are. Time not being wrought out into any outward shape or roomthiness, wherewith to smite the sense, we can more easily think it swallowed up in God's Everlastingness, in which we also frame nothing of shape or bulk, than to have the world's whole throng of hard, wide, and off-standing bodies, ingulfed in such an immensity as has nothing at all of bulkiness in it.  
Whereas now, we ought to mend this thought, by remembering that the things that are hard, soft, wide, off, stirred, and such like, are only so among themselves; as all things touching senses, are only so to those that have them: so that were all seeing things sightless, there would be no colours nor shows; all hearers deaf, no sounds nor dines; all feelers numb, nothing handlesom; all tasteless, nothing relishing; all unsmelling, nothing scented.  
Besides, were they all Ghost who are now body and ghost, there would be to them nothing impenetrable, or that could not be drilled through, nothing hard, soft, bulky or stirred; as there are no such things now either to God, Angels or Devils, how strong soever it may be rooted in our minds, that a thick, hard, stirred Being is so in itself, as well as to some other Being's.  
To close up this, we are to wit, that those things that we get knowledge of by the help of our senses, we know by ways more off from their kindly draughts or ideas, than those we take in, by the workings of reason upon experiments wisely made, and remarks heedfully laid: Thus the knowledge of heat that we have from the feeling of it, is far more off from the right knowledge of it, or such as may likeliest become God, than the notion of it according to the great Lord Bacon, in his forma calidi; inasmuch as body, and the cleavers to it, are further off from the Godlike nature, than the soul is, and its ways of working are.  
Sense has so much to do in the mis-shewing or disguising of things to us, that if there be but a great or little change in us, 'tis all one as if there were such in them. Were we but so long clear of body, as to furnish an idea or draught of all the laws of doing, ways, and powers of the Being's, to be set a-work in the framing of a Watch, such as we may best think a Ghost has; and upon embodying again should find it of some hue and bulk, with such and such motions, hard, cold, dry, smooth or rough, and the like; hear it beat, smell to it, and the like; the thing, though the same, would surely seem much another thing to us, thus changed at home: Or did we but so take in things with the naked eye only, as we do by the sundry ground glasses, or Telescopes, Microscopes, Multiplying-glasses, Prisms, or through died glasses, the late Empty Tubes, through the hollow of the hand, upon a piece of Perspective, we must then hold, that which is now no bigger than a mite, to be as big as a spider; what is far off, to be at hand; what of one colour, to be of another; what is flat, to be hollow; what is one, to be two or ten; especially if helped on by such a sense of feeling as we have, when, laying one finger upon another, we roll a pea upon a board; and such an hearing by some inward sleight, as in an echo, by an hollow without: so that we must needs then reckon the world another thing from what 'tis, and as rightly too as we reckon it otherwise now, inasmuch as we go upon the very same grounds.  
Nor does reason mistake only when it builds upon sense, but when it deals too with those lists and cravings that keep the lower house of the soul. Thus she that is the darling of the Lover's heart, be she what she will, is the best in nature; the more he loves, the better she is and does, and, as long as the fire burns, holds on to be and do: but as soon as ever it begins to be winter with the heat, 'tis spring with the faults, and as the one grows on to cold, the other grows up to great: and all this, not because she is another she, but because the love is another love. Now if we may be thus benighted in our petty likes and dislikes, notwithstanding we have the light of reason to shine within, and the whole World besides to set us right without, who are we that we should take upon us to say, This wide World is that very same thing that sense says ' 'tis?  
And further, to beget wariness about sense; we may find that as 'tis too low and scant to give us the marks of Ghost, or because its tools or organs are sluggish, and, taking up room, can bring home no errands of moments or atoms, it ask time and place, it seems, for the doing every thing in, that it does: So on the other side, the soul is too high bred to give us any rational accounts of the awaring of sense, as heat, cold, wetness, dryness, hardness, softness; which had never been known by us, if we had only had that reason which makes us men, and not those senses that make us animals or earthly feelers.  
Those things we feel, we don't know, nor can we by the sense we have of them, give another to know, unless we could also make another to feel them as we do: So that a blind man may talk as knowingly of colours, and be as well understood, as one that can see; for that which I talk of colour is quite another thing than that which I see. A world of men have seen colours since the beginning, but, for aught we know, no man could ever yet tell another what they were; till to the brightening of our Island, our happy wonder of ingenuity, and best broacher of new light, Mr. Isa. Newton, hit upon the thing that 'tis indeed: and now we do know (which no man would ever have guessed before,) that white is a medley mingling of beams differently breaking or refrangible; we see it no better than we did before. I remember that I once asked a blind man, who had been so from his Infant-baptism (the same water that God in goodness allotted to wash away sin, happening through cold and carelessness to wash away his eyesight,) what kind of thing he thought whiteness to be? he answered warily, That sure it must be a bright lightsome colour: and what blackness was? he said, That must be a dark colour; which two took in all that he had to say of colours, and that little too was uttered from the glimmerings of sight in him; he having so much of the Moles eye, that if he held his face to the South and looked up, he would say whether it were day or night. And if all our eyes had been of that make, we should have known no more than those two, nor no more of them neither. And what we do feel of them as we are, sets so close to us as we are such or such, that whatever wants the tools that we have shall never feel the things that we feel, the things being wholly begotten between the organ and the object, the tool and that it works upon. Now God having no such bodily organs by which to take in things secundum habitudines nostri, and such an have-likeness being as needful on the behalf of the organ and object both, for the begetting of a sensation or feeling, as the make of such a screw is, to wind in to such another, or the mutual fitnesses and yearnings of kind are, to the begetting of the like in those that do so, 'tis clear he can no more be brought down to do the one, than to that other. So that, that which to us is World (seen or unseen,) to him is Being, life, might, springsomness, self-entwining, law of doing, seed, teemingness, and such like. Thus day and night, light and darkness, are both alike to him; 1000 years as one day, 1000 years to come as yesterday when it is past, past and to come as now, impenetrable or unthroughfaresom as penetrable, body as emptiness, hot, cold, wet, dry, hard, soft, cleavesom, and the like nothing at all (no more than they would be to our own souls out of the body), heaven and earth not far and wide asunder (nor to our own thoughts that can be now in heaven and the next now on earth); lastly, all bodiship, with those its belongers which make it sensible unto us, coming not at all into that idea that God Almighty frames of them, any more than his idea of them comes into our feeling; and his idea or likeness of them being nearer to that analogy they would bear to us were we all ghost, inasmuch as he is so; it follows that there are no such things as we may think belonging to extended bodies, sundered from our ghesses at them secundum analogiam hominis, or the business they have to do one with another secundum analogiam sui; bodies being one thing to us and themselves, another thing to God and Ghost. So the wide, thick, all-to-be decked heap of visible beings may be swallowed up in the altogetherness of God's Allfillingness, as well as the long chain of ages from the world's first to its last, in the only one now of his Everlastingness.  
And this ends the second Head, wherein we were to show, How the World's vastness behaves itself towards God's Immensity. In both which, having seen what the World's lastingness and roomth is, as it concerns that boundless Being which is neither timesom nor roomthy, and what its bulk is to the same being as immense, & to those ghostly beings which though they are in time are not yet in any room; where 'tis found, that time has no length but as it looks to timesom beings, nor has bulk wideness or thickness but as it stands to body: we have perhaps opened a fair gap, for the better knowing what the World is unto ourselves, who as we are men and made up of ghost and body both, are even a part of it, and take up time and room in it.   

CHAP. IU.  
THe dealing or business that is between body and body, being as real as that between body and ghost, and body and us who are body and ghost mingled; it being as sure that one body cannot penetrate another, as 'tis that a ghost can, that the whole throng of bodies and each one in it is extended, as that a ghost is not so, and that a piece of body may be cloven asunder or stirred so and so, as 'tis that a ghost can be neither, like it: having seen what body is to God and Ghost, it seems now as much behoving us to sift out, what body is to body and us. In the doing of which, we shall endeavour to show, how far body or the world of bodies may be stretched out, how small a piece of body may be crumbled, how swift or how slow either may be moved? And also, because we find the stuff of body of a more flitting kind than the groundwork or substance of ghost, How long it has or might have already been, and how long it does or may last? And forasmuch as body may happily shift its being as well as its seat, Whether there may not have been some bodies or world's heretofore, which now are not? And last of all, whilst one may be a great way off from another, Whether some are not so far from our place, as to be far also from the world in which we are placed? Of each of these, as they will best fall in with that train of thoughts which we have framed about them, without aiming at any better rangement for them.  
The first Head about extension in the whole or the utmost reach of bodies, will fall into these things; to wit, Whether the world be boundless or bounded? And if bounded, what 'tis that bounds it; whether body or emptiness? And if either, Whether they be bounded or not? which shall be likewise set down in somewhat a mingled way, as they may lucken most readily to come into mind.  
Having erewhile said, That manifold lengths of time coming one after other, could never make out an Eternity, or a being boundless in abiding, so here we say, That the cleavesom bitlings of body heaped one upon another, can never make up an Immensity, or a being boundless in its bulk somness: but now the world is all heaped up of such little bits: therefore we gather thence, that it cannot be boundless in its bulk. The reason of the thing to me is clear thus. Every thing that may be riven apieces may have its pieces told, and every tally by which we tell things must be either even or odd: every one that is even may have one put to it to make it odd, every one that is odd may have one put to it to make it even, and every one that may have one put to it is not infinite: It follows then, that if there be no parts but may be numbered, and no number but must be finite; that whatever is made up of parts is finite too, its parts being told by a finite tally.  
Now as to a number beyond the numbers of Arithemetick, I must be so bold with it, for once, as to ask, Whether it be even or odd? if it be either, we have the same chokes for it that we had before; and if it be neither, then 'tis no number: for every number (whether Arithmetical or Hyperarithmetical,) is even or odd, though you take leave to eke it out beyond the bounds of Arithmetic, and make it a greater number; 'tis to be understood you must not pull out the pluck of it, and make it quite another thing from number: for that would not be a number beyond Arithmetic, but a thing besides it; not an eking out in tale, but a change in kind: and so you may as well call it a shooinghorn beyond the numbers of Arithmetic, as a number beyond them.  
That the world which is made up of parts finite should be infinite, is to me as great a wonder, as that God should be finite: for I think 'tis as impossible that that being which has nothing in it but parts finite should be infinite, as 'tis that that being which has nothing in it but what is infinite should be finite. I cannot see why there may not as well be finite things in the infinite Being of God, as an infinite All from the finite parts of bulk; finite standing off no further from infinite than infinite does from finite: 'tis even as broad as 'tis long.  
But because most men are willing to wave the boundlesness of the world, so be it, they may but give it, name and thing, to that same emptiness that is thought to be beyond it; we shall therefore to our power rumage in it with our wont freeness, that we may understand a little, whether it be so boundless as 'tis thought to be, or whether there be any such thing at all? for having already cut off its partner, eternal time, from the abiding of the world, we are not o trust, if we can, to pair this same immense emptiness too from about its selvedge.  
To me indeed 'tis as likely, that the world itself should be boundless, as that any outworldish emptiness about it should be so; that roomthiness being as really something besides God as the world is. For what is really extended must be really something, but that roomthiness is as really extended as 'tis at all; extension or spreadingness being the very inwards, and indeed the very all of it.  
But the unluckiness on't is, that if outworldish boak be yielded at all, it must needs be yielded infinite to boot; For why, there can be nothing thought on, sleeping or waking, to bond it, but that same thought that pitches upon bounds, slides on to roomthiness beyond the bounds, imaginary in infinitum, or bound and room, bound and room in infinitum.  
To say the truth of it, Some have been so forward to yield the boundlesness of spatium extramundanum, that they have given it the right hand of fellowship with God Almighthy; this roomthiness forsooth being needful for the very existence of an immense God: thereby making it at once something, boundless, and before God. Something, because needful for God to dwell in, and such needfulness cannot be spoken of nothing: Boundless, because such is that Being that must dwell in it: and before God, because it was that God might have scope to be: and if God had made it, it must have been needlessly; for he might as well have lived without it a maker, as no maker: besides, that a being should make another that itself might have room to be, is the very height and depth of nonsense.  
And again, should this dreamt or imaginary space answer its name, and be no more thing than a dream is, 'tis worse to think; how somewhat that is the fondling of our addle brains should be needful to the existence of the ever blessed God who made us, and the best brains we have to our heads too.  
Now I think, that as God's Everlastingness is in time, and boundlessly before it as to imaginary years, without before and after, in an ever-being now; so Gods Allfillingness is in the world, and boundlessly beyond it as to imaginary worlds or roomthiness, without any roomthy spreadingness, in an indivisible altogetherness.  
For I bethink myself, that God is as boundless in his Almightiness as in his Allfillingness. Now God's Almightiness is within the least punctum physicum, or dustling of body, ('twas made and is kept in being by Almightiness). But God's Almightiness being God himself, himself is there altogether: and if the Almighty be there wholly, the All-filling is there too in like manner; for both is one, and less than wholly they cannot be there, because less than wholly they cannot be. And we may as well dream of boundless imaginary stuff for Almightiness to work upon, as boundless imaginary roomth for Allfillingness to dwell in; (if it be enough for his Almightiness to work inwards upon his Essence, so 'tis too for his Allfillingness to dwell inwards in the same.) God then being as Almighty in the least brack of the world as in the whole world, he is as all-filling in the same too as in the whole: and if that were gone too, he would be as all-filling without it as with it; for he was as immense before there was an atom of body or room, as he is now when there are both: and so it follows, there needs neither real nor imaginary scope to make way for a boundless allfillingness.  
I remember the excellent Dr. Hen. More, whose soul may have roamed as far into these scopes and vastnesses as most men's in the world, has not only (in his Enchirid. Metaph.) made Ghost, as such, extended; but has started such a boundless roomthiness, and as needful as God is (if I understand him) as is a kind of ghost inwardly drilling through the All of body, and such a one too as is so far a likeness of God himself, that it wants nothing of him but only his life and working; and somewhere else finds in his heart to say, That there is a space wherever God is or any self-subsistent Being, is as plain to him as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: but, for my share, laying aside all humour of thwarting my betters, I do as verily believe, as I do any thing I have not a word of God for, that there is roomth no where but where body is, and that ghost is so far from needing space to be in, that when 'tis in a world where room is, 'tis as far from taking up room as 'tis from putting on body: nor can I but wonder, that one who lives so much in the soul, and so little in the body as he seems to do, should find it quite otherwise. That worthy Gentleman, I do think, had his reasons for so steady a belief, and of that weight to him, that his own are wont to be to others; the slighting of which would not strengthen, nor the valuing of them weaken, those of ours on the other behalf, which are mainly the following.  
First, I see this roomthiness in the whole, must as well have unassignable parts or such as cannot be laid out, as body has assignable or such as can; and though they be unlaid out in themselves, they may be laid out by body laid in, as all the parts of that room in which the world is may now be. Now I cannot understand, how that which is made up of parts, laid out or unlaid out, which are all finite, should itself be infinite: and that all are so I am sure, because those I know, which are altogether like the rest which I do not know, are so: and as for parts more than all those that are all thus finite, they cannot be: and if all that a thing be made up of be finite, I cannot for my heart think how the whole, which is no more than all, should be infinite; every thing being the same with all the parts of it taken together.  
Secondly, That such a kind of thing must be, that God himself may be, strikes me with too great an awe to speak it. They who hold this wild emptiness, hold also (as they must) its independency on, or unbeholdenness to, God himself: Now who would think that there were such a thing that God should be beholden to, for the Being which he has, and that not beholden to him for the being which itself has? And to say, that both are eternal as well as boundless, and so, one was not before the other, because neither did ever begin to be, will take off nothing of the hardness: For, (not to say, that if one could have been before the other, space had been the eldest,) though one was not before the other in standing, the one was worthy before the other in causality; though God was never the cause of room, yet room was ever the cause of God: for that was that God might have leave to be; and had not that ever been, God had never been, had not that ever been without him, he had never been within that; it's being making way for his being, its being room making way for his being God; who could not be it seems, because he wanted room to be in, though that could be room without his being in it, or would be if he were out of it.  
Besides, they that bestow extension upon any thing else but body, as emptiness, ghost, and thence upon God himself, are not, I fear me, very well aware of its ill-lookt followers. For whoever makes God a boundless extended being, may upon the same score make him a boundless extended triangle, (one figure being as much extension fashioned as another, 'tis neither here nor there which:) some figure or other he must be (as to kind) because 'tis as much of the nature of extension to be of some shape; as to be of some roomth, unless we should here borrow a bucket somewhere and draw up a figure too beyond all the figures in Geometry, out of the same depth with the number beyond all the numbers in Arithmetic. Already, it seems, God must have as many shapes in his unassignable parts with us, as all the things of the world have in those that we have sense of; their shape being nothing but their bulk so cantled out: and what there is of God beyond the world, being of the same piece with that of him which is in it, must also put on shape as that does; inasmuch as roomthiness there, can no more be without it than roomthiness here. Whence would arise what I am not forward at all to speak of; an harshness in these things not being so harmless as the cutting of Cork, whereby, though you saw and wring the ears with the sharm, yet still 'tis but a light business you have to deal with; and I am thinking the unhandsomness will lose nothing of its distastfulness for not being named only out of dread.  
But now one reason at least why the understanding has been robletted in to these wastes and wildnesses is, the forefearing, that if emptiness far and wide were not granted, the world would not be bounded; wherefore rather than make a boundless world, many have chosen to yield a boundless scope beyond it. But we are at no such penned, as we should be fain to fly to either the one or the other; for the world is not bounded by any thing beyond, nor ought any such thing, or kind of thing to be imagined: but 'tis enough that 'tis bounded by itself; its boundedness, where 'tis bounded, arising as unavoidably from its very kind, as its extension where 'tis extended.  
The leading mistake of all, I think, with freedom to others, is this: We first roved in our minds at an unbounded emptiness, and then thought put the world in the midst of it. Whereas we were alike mistaken in the middle and in the thing too, both which may thank haste; for before any thing was made there was nothing, and therefore we should have stayed and thought of nothing, but only infinite power, wisdom, goodness, truth, & what other things there are in God, whereby he vouchsafes to make known himself to us. Now, for a Being whose very Essence is no other than these, roomth or space is no more needful, than for the dwelling of the good things of the mind and soul under those names, or than there is for Universal, or boak, as taken in the Mathematics, stripped out of body. You may as well be earnest for a finite room for one, as an infinite for the other, (and perhaps better too, inasmuch as one may be had, whatever the other may.) If it be said these are other kind of beings, (as Moral, Metaphysical or Mathematical.) I answer, So is God too, and more other than they are, because boundlessly other. Besides, I think a being, that is the term of Creation, or a piece of God's handiwork, may live without any room, as do the Angels, and would do if world should be no more. If we can but get thus far then, as to think there was no roomthiness before the world, (If we think there was, we find at what peril we must;) 'tis easy enough to think further, that there is none beyond it. For 'tis but thinking the world was made and nothing else besides it, which surely is true, and the thing is done: for if it were not before the world was made, nor made with the world when the world was made, it never was made, nor never was.  
But we are not yet out of the mire, nor like to be, until we can fairly rid ourselves of that load of objections with which the men of depth and quickness have even overburdened the thing we hold. All, or all the weightiest of which, that we can feel for, shall be dispatched in manner following.  
Obj. 1. Suppose we then with the learned Dr. More, that an Archer were so seated at the rim of the world, as to levelly his arrow right through the selvedge of it outwards; there being full strength and right aim given it, Would the arrow fly, or Would it not?  
Ans. It would, and it would not, and either according as you make the selvedge. If you make it as round as a Mathematical circle, it would not fly: for arrow standing in a straight line, from the innermost or centre to the selvedge; and there being no more reason why it should warp to the right hand than to the left, why this way rather than that, it must needs stir no way; but stick with its head at the selvedge, though it has all the force given it that strongbow and arm-strong can make together. But the shapes of nature being of another kind of make than those of handiworks, 'tis very likely that the roundness of the world (if yet it be round) is somewhat otherwise than a true Geometric circle. As we see the ring of the Earth, a far less Ball, ends not in lines evenly drawn from the centre thither, but is bounded with hills and dales; and both earth and water with manifold unevennesses: much more than are we to guess such in the bigger roundle of the world. Whence 'tis, that the arrow may have, by some lucky rising or other, a Bias given it this way or that way, as a Coach may be so tickly set upon the surface of the earth, as to give itself a trundling, one way or other. So then, the motion would be, as touching the world, in a bow or arch of a circle, upon the very selvedge of it; but, as touching the Marksman, in a line straight enough on to the eye. For it flying in a line as far off as it can, according to the steering that was given it, it would be seemingly as straight as it can be at all; for the nearer the eye comes to a great thing that is bowing, the less bowing it seems. When we first make a Ness at Land too, it seems more a Ness than when we are less off at Sea; but when we are just at shore, it seems to lie in a straight line with the rest of the Coast. And as we are not aware of that bow, which is made by all things darted or shot in the air, supposing the whirl of the earth; because we ourselves are running the same round (as the great Galileo has altogether made out): so neither do we ken that bow that is made by the wheeling of a Chariot onwards upon the round surface of the earth (whether it stirs or stands still); but we see it run as much flat-wise or in plano, setting aside the little risings and fall of uneven ground, as if the outside of the earth were a shire flat or level. Nor could Sir Fra. Drake have ever gathered from the eye, that he sailed otherwise than in a level; when yet he sailed in a circle round about the earth. As then, whatsoever moves as much in a flat as it can for the earth's rim, we reckon to have moved in a flat altogether: so whatever flies in as straight a path as the bow of the world's bigger rim will give leave, we, if there, would count wholly straight.  
And that such seeming straightness would not show sidewise but forwards, may be gathered from hence. If I were to look through the earth at an enlightened hole or Well, reaching from me to him that sets foot to foot with me on the other side, the hole would seem all downwards to me, although in itself it were half downwards half upwards: As well then may an arrow gliding on the selvedge of the world, seem to me, there standing, all upwards and nothing at all sidewise.  
But to give the objection all the lifts we can, Suppose we instead of this Shooter, a man leaving his side against the selvedge of the world, with his arm down by it, Could he spread forth his arm or could he not? If he could, than he did it in that emptiness which is gainsayed: For we will think him to bear it that way, and for the nonce to hinder all other ways: and if it should but upon the shove fly upwards or downwards, or otherwise than he aims it, he would quickly be aware of it, by the change of that posture which it would then have to the rest of his body. And if it could not, when thus hemmed in, be put forth into the emptiness at all, What hinders it?  
To this we answer in the first place, 'Tis hugely questionable to me, Whether such a posture may be allowed as standing with the loadstoneships or magnetisms of the world, and the ballancings of a body, such as that of man's is. For as we see 'tis impossible to have the earth, (in this our roundle) otherwise than beneath us; so 'tis agreeable, that we cannot otherwise have the heaven, in the world, than as to sense above us. The thing taken up then, grates as much upon the face of Dame Nature, as to suppose a man lying along in the open air at level, or in a line parallel to the plane of the Horizon.  
But secondly, Bating the Objection all this seeming roughness, We answer: If the man were so laid at the world's selvedge, as to have it on the side of him, not above his head, his arm hanging by the same side; if by a sudden rush of the spirits into it, he should give it an heave outwards, and from the same inward free spring of motion should keep it from slipping awry: then would not the arm stir at all, there being no place left for it to stir into, it being all one as if he should thrust it against some hard body at rest, of too stout a withstanding to yield way or give back. If it be further said, it must sure fly outwards, because 'tis lifted that way, and there's nothing to forbid its coming there: 'tis further answered, The knack or contrivance of the Frame of the world forbids it; and that is something, and something too as powerful to check or bind motion, as the waylay of a gross unwieldy body, or any thing else that we, by sense and trial, find enough to stop the career of a body in its swiftest hurry.  
If this answer seems harsh or stretched, we shall easily slacken and soften it by a clearer Instance nearer home. Suppose we then a bore through the heart or centre of the earth from outside to outside, into which let a man be thought falling down: when he comes at the centre he falls no further, but is as surely stopped there, as if the hole were bored no further, but had the whole pillar of the earth's half-thwart line, or semidiameter of even bore to withstand it. Now in this Instance it may as well be said, there being nothing in the Tube to hinder, Why should not the man fall further, the air of the Well being all of a make? What could not stop him in one place could not in another. And indeed, if the air upon any score could check the downfall, it would sooner do it at the top of the earth, where the spring of the air below was stronger, though its weight aloft lighter; than in the middlemost, where the penned or bear of it beneath was nothing at all, (there being no beneath at all,) though the weight above much more, the spring of the earth overbalancing the weight of it as to power: which perhaps is one reason why all downfals hasten their speed, by how much the nearer they come to the earth. Now the answer to the Phoenomenon is this, That the reason why it stops there, is, not the meeting with any body there of force enough to stand against the shock of its motion, but only the nice contrivance of the world's Frame: and more especially the magnetisms and poises of the earthly Vortex, which will not allow an heavy body left to itself within a flowsom one that is lighter, to buoy up.  
Which business of deadning the motion of a stirred body, not from body, but the law of body, puts me in mind of bodies or a man's being stirred up from rest, without any jog from body that we are aware of, but mainly from some of these hidden working laws that round the world. Our sleep is called rest, and a waking out of it, a being stirring: now 'tis easy to mark that we are thus stirred by those wide and unseen laws that wield the day, while we for little dream of it. Thus our time of waking or stirring is the morning, from that even share of refreshing sleep, as one would think, that we are wont to take the night before: But 'tis shrewdly to be mistrusted, that something a great deal further off, and broader spread, has some kind of tamperings here. For if you mind it, you will find, an hundred to one else, That whether you go to bed at 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 a clock at night, you shall wake at your wont hour next morning; (little otherwise whether it begin to rain late in the evening, at midnight, early or late in the morning, it does likely hold up, as we say, by that time the Shrews have dined): which cannot be from that measure of rest, and new breed of quickners that have befallen the body in the night; for why, there has been so much odds in the hours of sleep. It seems then, that the thing that calls us up is Morningness, or that woof and plight that the whole ticklish frame of worldly beings are wheeled into at such a tide of day. Which we should never have sprung by hunting for, had we not thus been made aware of it, in that we find there is somewhat in it, that firks us more at such a nick of time to wake and stir, than the wont that we have got of resting so many hours, can bind us down to bed and sleep.  
And here indeed 'tis mainly to be heeded, That we are by no means to look upon the world as a great heap of fast and loose bodies huddled up together at six and seven by haste and carelessness, or an hugger-mugger of meddlesom beings all at jars: but a curious frame of well-ranged bulks so featly set together by a boundless cunning, that should but any one pin of it be misdriven, or the running of its least wheel slipped or jostled, you hazard the cracking and splitting of the whole. Whence 'tis, that the least bitling of it will so far club and fall in with the laws that bind the whole Set, that we can sometimes force bodies to close with the woof or tenor of the whole, though it lies cross to those little businesses which they seem to have been set about in their narrow homes: as may be made out by instances, enough to fill up a book of bulk, bestowed upon us from that wealthy and yet growing store-house wherewith the Royal Society have enriched the world, and singly from that of the Noble Mr. Boil the glory of it, and England's too as well as the great wish of the whole world besides us. He that will but weigh & ponder in his mind what at first sight puts forth itself, when looking on a Watch, where the single shove or heave of the spring, which if the pieces of the Watch were unhinged and born upon by it would only be pushed forwards or by-wards, puts the Watch thus fadged together and in tilter into motions round, right on, levelly, swingling, forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards, and otherways, all because 'tis a knack or engine: and shall further mark, (the Watch-wrights craft being not only the Ape of Nature, but the very Tool, still in her hand,) that if Nature should but flinch back her hand, or the world that is round about it should but be plucked away from it, our Watch would without more ado be utterly unwatcht; it's being in the world being as needful to its being a Watch, as its being made by the skill of a Watchmaker: the whole Watch being nothing else but a cunning and clever way of laying bodies to the wheels and springs or ballancings of Nature, as its pieces are put to the spring that is so craftily lodged in it by the Workman. Nothing less than a world being able to stand upon its own legs, or do any thing after 'tis made; all our knicknacks are but engines within an engine, engines of the Craftsman within the machina mundi, or a Cog put into Nature's wheel, which if one did not stir the other would not, any more than a mill would be that 'tis made for, if the world did not help it to wound or water to set it a working, as well as stuff of which to make it. He, I say, who will but weigh and scan these things, will at length have some low and underly rovings at, or at least admirings of that height and depth of workmanship, that this curious world is wrought up to.  
But 'tis further objected from the same learned hand, Though the arrow shoved by body, or the arm yerked by spirit enlivening body, will not be gotten into this vacuum extramundanum, yet an Angel unencumbred with body may be there, and help either thither. For if Angels were before the world, and the first ofGen. should mean only the works that are seen not those too that are not seen or were the first day's work, and so existing before the world was such as 'tis as they shall after the breaking up of the world by fire, or being no ways beclamed with body as to ubiety or whereness, or may be wherever God is, who must be in outworldish wastes, then may we imagine them there now, and carrying the arm or arrow thither?  
Answ. This Objection as fast as it comes, comes yet too late: For we have already bereaved Ghosts of place, and tied up that attribute or belonger to bodies only. So that 'tis as impossible to seat an Angel in outworldish emptiness, as in the world itself; and as impossible to seat or stow it in this world, as to seat moral virtue or a Mathematical point here. 'Tis indeed such a great bellied truth that body only can be in a room, that it has another truth in the womb of it, which is, That no body but such as is lodged by with or among other bodies is in a room: For to be in a room is to be in such a room, or in a room that may be shown, and such a shown room as that wherein another body is not. So that if there were but one body, it could not rightly be said to be in a room, but only to be. And in truth of speaking, the whole world is in no place or room, as bearing no stowsomness to any other body about it; for want therefore of another body, near to or far from which it should be placed, it loses its stowsomness or location. Every place of it the meanwhile being in a place, as having nearnesses or farnesses between each other within the great verge; while the whole must needs have them from without, or else can have none at all. Inasmuch as it cannot be said of the world, 'tis in this place, or that, or some other place besides, because this and that, and some other, would be all one, the world taking up no less than all that is; nor that 'tis here or there or somewhere else, because there would be here, here there, and somewhere else no where else, the world filling up all wherenesses; all which would be an ill kind of medley: Therefore it should seem that it cannot but harshly be said, that the world has a placeness or whereness at all. In short, Room is rather in the world than the world in room, as thinking is in the soul, not the soul in thinking. So that I believe we should never have dreamt of stowing any thing in a room, if our minds had not first given us that the room was bigger than the thing to be bestowed; any more than we should have thought of putting a thing into a box, without we had first thought the box was so much bigger as to hold it.  
The same likewise, as to another thing befalls the Mininium quantum, or the Least share of the world. Cleavesomness we know is the great hanger on to body; but yet the least brack of body cannot be broken a pieces, because 'tis already the least: yet 'tis as really body as that piece which can, and no whit nearer ghost than it was when knit to more. So place is another thing that haunts body as much; the whole world in the mean time not being in a place, and yet 'tis never the nearer being ghost: for that the one has too little bulk to lose any and yet be, the other too much to have any thing bigger wherein to take up room, or besides whereby to be placed. Yet these belongers to body are helpful enough, wherewith to set forth the nature of the things to which we bequeath them: For we are to understand, that the ends and bounds of natural beings have things spoken of them much otherwise than what becomes their whole, or the bigger parts to which they belong. Thus supposing, that as time had a beginning so it should have an end, and only God himself to be after this world as he was before it, than the kindliest attribute of time, which is successiveness in abiding, would not be true of the beginning and the end of it. For if the first now were successive, it was not the first: for why, it followed a former; and the last now could not abide, for if it did, it was not the last. When therefore we say, All time has fore and aft, we must bar the beginning which had not fore, and the end which had not aft: in the mean time it still holding good enough, that time is a successive or lengthening kind of abiding. The beginning or end of time being no more time (as we call it) than the least part is the whole, and the definition or whatness of a thing ought to to be of a thing as a thing, not of the least or greatest, first or last part or a thing, as such part.  
But to strain this yet a little further: Suppose God Almighty to have made another world beyond, or which is better, besides this; which being a gathering of bodies, may be said to be somewhere, and somewhere too where this world is not: and there being our world also, it may stand so or so unto ours, and ours so or so unto that, and thereupon both of them be in a place, and either near to or far from each other: and all this farness or nearness, or way of standing off, by the bare making of a world over and above this, without the making any thing of scope or roomth between. Therefore whatever there would be of such scope or roomth between two such world's, must needs before the world's so made: and, as it follows, must be the same with that spatium imaginarium which we have been so shy of owning all along.  
Ans. To overlook the uncouthness of the thing, We will be so kind to the supposition of more world's, by Almighty power, as to let it go for a thing that may be, though it be a great deal more likely, as we may happily show beneath, that it may not be than that it may: And in plain English answer, That such a world besides this, would neither be far from it, nor near to it, or any ways meddle or make with it, any more than if this were the only world, or if instead of two world's you should there suppose two Angels. For the clearing up of which we are to understand, That unto a stowsomness or local respect between two stowed beings, 'tis not only needful they should be both bulky; upon which foot we have taken away all stowsom meddlings between the world and God, between the world and ghosts, or between God and the world, and ghost and the world, because but one of them is bulky: but 'tis also behoveful there should be something besides the things which are stowed, to which roomthiness should as much belong; two roomthy beings bearing no stowsomness to each other, upon the account of their being two or two roomthy beings, any more than two ghosts: but also upon the score of roomthiness put between them. Now room between these two worlds being that which is denied, the argument brought to prove it must by no means be allowed to suppose it. Imagine we now two Angels point blank over against each other, in the hem or rim of the world, there is room between, but no roomthy or stowsom respect; because the two things that are there, are such as cannot be put into a place there, and all local habitude or behaviour must be between two things or more, in a place so or so. Then let us suppose in the stead of an Angel, some remarkable body; there is one of the terms, body placed, and there is roomthiness between that and the other boundary or term: but because that other is not also body, nor can, for want of being so, take up room, the local respect is shire lost, for nothing but because the third thing is no roomthy being. A ghost being in itself not roomthy, it cannot bear any roomthy behaviour towards bodies that are so, any more than bodies that are bulky, can bear immaterial respects or thoughtsom behaviours towards ghosts that are so; roomthiness being as much nothing to a ghost, as thinking is to a body. Think any what they will, the world is what it is and bodies do what they do: so let roomth be, a ghost thinks and does the same as if roomth were not. They are things that are off in their whole kind, and one does nothing like the other: So that you may as well threap one down, that a ghost is heavier or lighter, colder or hotter, wetter or drier, harder or softer, whiter or blacker than a body, as to say 'tis further or nearer to it, above it or beneath it, a furlong on the right hand, or a furlong on the left in any other than in a borrowed meaning. As we cannot say that a body has an inch or an ell of thinking, an ounce or a pound of understanding or willing: for though body and inch, or ounce agree well enough, yet the third thing in the bunch, that is thinking, will not be brought to stick to either, (without it be in such borrowed meanings as when we say, The love of the world is near the heart, or the fear of God far from it, thoughts heavy in grief, light in gladness, softness of mind, hard thoughts, and the like.) As in our former Instance, body at one side of the world, and room from thence to the other side, did close well enough; but then ghost at the end of it will stick no more to it, than birdlime will to a thought.  
Moreover yet, That it cannot be said of a Ghost 'tis further or nearer to a body given, may hence, I think, be seen. The reason why we say this is further off than that from another, is not only because I come lay a longer line between them while so far asunder, but that it will also take a longer time to bring them close together. Now the motions (if we may call them so) of ghosts being all in an instant, (as the darting of our thoughts are through the world,) they can both come home in the same time. If then they come home neither sooner nor later, nor did they lie off either nearer or further. If their coming together must be measured by the same time, their lying asunder must be meted by the same metwand. So that which is nearer, must be as far off as that which is further, and that which was further, as nigh as that which was nearer; which speaks aloud that nearness and farness had nothing to do with their being what they were. To a ghost the whole world and the least bit of it are all one. A ghost at one side of the world is as near the other side as if it were in the middle, and in the middle as near as if it were at the edge. Now the whole world bearing no cleavesom behaviour to a ghost, 'tis impossible the whole or any part of it should bear a local. If we ourselves were not body as well as soul, our understandings would never have coped with such a thing as placeness or stowage at all. If then we suppose a being that is bulky, and nothing about it that is so, or two beings that are bulky and nothing between them that is so; though both these taken in themselves are, after a sort, and like nothing but themselves, in a place, yet they have no local respect to one another: that being in a place which they have, speaking nothing which belongs to them beyond their own bounds or outsides, and is nothing in the world but their own roomthiness, and all the unlikeness between them and ghost as to stowage is, that as to within they are roomthy, and so in place, or rather place itself; but as to without, there belongs nothing such to them any more than to ghost.  
If besides the two worlds we should suppose manifold ghosts laid between them (which may as well be as our thoughts are while we make the supposal) still they would bear no place-like respect. For as the placing of body between two ghostly beings, would not give them a placely behaviour; so the stowing of a ghostly being as a middle thing between two bodies, would not give them any such behaviour neither. If then ghosts between the two world's would not give it, surely nothing at all between them could not. That cannot do this one thing, that can do nothing at all.  
But we may further be twitted with this, If there be nothing between the two world's as we have answered, than the rims of them would touch.  
To this we have two or three things to give in. And in the first place, We say, The catch is so unphilosophical, that that which gainsays it most, is most true. If nothing were between them, the side of one would not butt upon the other, but be inlaid in the other. That one body should touch another, 'tis altogether needful that something should be betwixt them. For we are to mark, that the smoothest body in being has more or fewer unevennesses, or ridges and furrows, in its outerness or surface. The utmost smoothness we can come at by tools or otherwise, is full of such little ruggednesses, between which lie as many little holes of air; which holes if they could be filled up, or the little ridges and knolls brought down to a level with them, so as the surface might not be some airsom body, but all such thick or fast body, than this body laid to another, would be so far from touching it, that it would be no other than one with it, and the nearer any body comes to this plight, the nearer it comes to inlaying or oneness. The pieces of a body do not pierce one another, but are only clapped together at their little smoothnesses as close as they can snug, and held there by the poysings of the world. Thus we see two pieces of flat polished marble laid one upon another, are either inlaid secundum quid or after a sort, that is, as to such parting as may be made by drawing them asunder upwards or downward, or else they are in a middle between onlaid and inlaid, which is a thing for which we want a word; for the hundredth part of that power that is but enough to sunder two such flat abutting marbles, is more than enough to break up the very inlaying of a sponge.  
That stounding and surprising Essex Writer in his Dialogues de Mundo, roundly bears us down, That two such worlds would touch without any more ado; there being no off-standing betwixt them, because nothing at all between them. And all bodies standing off from each other do so, by reason of off-standing or roomth put between them. And as it follows, Two such worlds must club together and become one; and upon that ground he shows A moreness of worlds would be impossible.  
But now we are to show, That that which makes two sides of two bodies touch, is not the not having roomthiness betwixt them. There lies no roomthiness between the soul and the body, nor between God and the world, and yet they do not touch, any more than two bodies would do that are off from each other. But 'tis also needful there be no possibility of putting a quantum or roomth between them, where indeed they do touch; as only those things may touch that have a mayness or possibility of having roomth put between them. To make one body butt upon another, 'tis not enough that nothing sensible be between them; but it behoves them also, that they be the nearest together, that they can be and not be one. But we have already taken away all show of nearness and farness from the two bulks, by shutting out the middleness in which such nearness or farness must needs be pitched. Those bodies or beings that cannot have a placely respect, cannot have an abutting or touching respect.  
Thus on the other hand, the putting of a bulky middleness between two ghosts, 'tis not enough to set them at such a farness from each other. Suppose two Angels to have been before the world in their agreeable wherenesses, after the making of the world, without any change in their unbodylike way of being somewhere, one to be found in the roundle of the Moon, another in that of the earth; extended body is now between them, without the least distance or off-standing arisen between them. For before the world there was no off-standing betwixt them, all extension being then unmade, and they holding the selfsame wherenesses, must also have the same non-distance after the world made. Every thing while it holds the same whereness, keeps also the same things to be spoken of it as to whereness.  
If those sides between which nothing is, do touch and become one, Then if all the world were unmade but Sun and Moon, they two should forthwith jump into one; and it would be hard enough to say what it were, Whether a Sun, or a Moon, or neither? supposing that by Almighty power their Sunship and Moonship might be kept by them, without worldship.  
Again, If between which nothing is put, the sides would touch, according to sound and right speaking, Then beyond which nothing is put, the selvedge is infinite. So it falls as hard upon the Cartesians and the Whiting, for an infinite world, which neither of them dare speak in words, but shuffle it indeed: emptiness or spatium imaginarium with them, being as verily nothing, as that which is imagined between the two sides of the vessel emptied of all its body between them.  
And now by driving thus far, We have gained ground for the answering that puzzling argument of the foresaid Doctor, for distance in vacuo, in his ingenious Canto of Infinity of worlds. Suppose the sky all swept away from Saturn to the Sun, the Planets still holding their rooms, and holding on their roundings as they did before, let then an Astronomer take their heights: The Question is, Whether their Parallaxes would be the same, or other, or none at all?  
I answer upon the Supposition, (which is wide enough from what is natural, and perhaps from what may be too against nature: for that which claws away world from about them, would, 'tis like, wring out their Planethood from within them.) There would be no Parallaxes at all, no beams of light to take Parallaxes by, no throughfarings of the least steams or reekings of bodies, from one globe to another or from our earth to any of the globes, nor any power to shoot forth any body from one to the other, by any impetus or darting whatsoever. Though the kindred between these things should be still left, yet the gossipred would be quite taken away. Though all should jump in this one thing, to wit, in being Planets as before, yet they could neither speak with, nor make one another, (if I may word it so much Yeoman-wise,) nor have any more to do with one another than if there had never been dealings between them; that by which they meddled and made each with other being taken away. As on the other side, we find some bodies amongst us hold up a Gossipred, that seem to have little or nothing of kindred; as may be seen between jet and straw, loadstone and iron, with some others of that hooking kind: where, setting aside their angling and groping one for another, there are as few things cleaving to one, to be met with in the other, as in most twoes in the whole world. In a word, the business here would be much at one with that of two worlds spoken of before; one being as free from fellowship and dealing with the other as they were, or as would be between our earth and so many Angels, having supposed dwellings there, where those Planets have such place. But as for their motion in ring or circular, that must not be yielded; for that seems as hard to be in vacuo, as for a ghost to stand still in pleno.  
But once more to take off all show of strength from that way-layer, to wit, the sides of the vessel must needs touch between which nothing is: We will but lay it down thus. Take we a square body in the world unevenly sided, out of the hollow of this take we then (in our minds) all body whatsoever, leaving nothing at all. The ingenious Des Cartes and others tells us, The sides for that trick alone would touch. But now we say stiffly, and will stand to it so, That the sides would not only not touch, but be so far, in part, from touching, that they would, to rights, be further asunder. For the off-standstanding or distance between them being to be met with only in the body that lies between them, and the body space and distance which lay nearest between them being taken away, they can only be meted by that which lies furthest off; those bodies being further off that are by all measure found to be so. Thus the middle point in one of the sides, for that it cannot be meted by a straight line drawn from it to its overthwart, but only by a crooked line of three sides and two corners tracing along the surface of the hollow, must as needs be further from it than before, as this crooked line that goes thus far about to meet it now, is longer than the overthwart straight one by which it might have been meted before.  
But it being easy for me here to Object it to myself, I may think 'tis as easy for another to do it, That then two bodies keeping the same place in the world, or standing stark still, may yet change place as if they stirred out of it: which seems to thwart at an high rate.  
To which I answer. If the world in which they are, be changed, 'tis no wonder if their place in it be changed also; or if that by which their distance be meted, be taken away, is it, that their distance should be so too: a distance that cannot be measured being none at all. But by supposing this emptiness, the world is not what it was, but by so much less as our mind took away: as, if the body made nothing should again be made there, it would be by so much bigger as that was big; the nearness taken away by one deed, would be brought again by the other; and to take away place, or to take away the body placed, comes all to a reckoning. I am in the room where I now stand, about sixty miles from Westminster Abbey, If you start that sixty miles further, though I stand still, I am so much further from it as if both had started three miles apiece: but if both it and I stand still, and a square cut of earth be digged between us, from the Eastern shore as far as to the Westward, I am as near still by water, but so much further by land as I am fain to go about for the sake of that cut betwixt: but if you empty it as well of water as you did of earth, I am just so far from it by water as I was by land, and am only as near to it as ever I was by air. So if I were of the winged kind, I might fly to it through the Sky, as well as I could walk to it by land or row and sail by water: but if you empty out the air too, and leave nothing, I am then so much further from it all three ways: and if I would come nearer to it, I must either have a bridge of body laid between, or else must walk, or row, or fly about. So near one thing is to another as it can come to be, and no nearer: If then I can come no nearer to it, but by the ways spoken of, I think I rightly gather I am no nearer to it. That which is as near to a thing as ever it can come, is as near as it can be, without iffs and and's, or to all intents and purposes. That I be further from another thing, 'tis all one whether you hitch me off from it while that stand still, or whether you put that back from me while I stand still, or whether you make that betwixt us further from both while both stand still. As you see 'tis the same in making me further off by land, water, or air, so I see nothing forbidding it to be the same by all other ways. While the taking such things from between makes me further off as to such things or so far, the taking all things from between should make me further off as to all things or altogether. A change of the world in the suchness of the between-lyers, begetting a change in my nearness as answering that suchness: so a change of the world in the whole of the between-lyers, must beget a change in the whole of my nearness. The more body there is between me and another body the nearest way that can be gone, the further are we asunder: and the more body is pared away from the nearest path that can be gone, the more body is laid between, the nearest way that can be gone: the more short paths you cut away, the longer you leave behind: and if you cut away short and long, the things are neither near nor far, but name and thing are utterly lost.  
Furthermore, that the answer may less seem to have any thing of trick in it, a like thing may be done, the world not thus changed, to make way for it. For as the world now is, a body may glide at full speed, so shifting place as to the bodies it glides by, and yet stand still as to the greatest part of the world besides; so keeping place, and shifting place as uncouthly as in the thing objected. Thus we will take upon trust the whirling of the earth from West to East, (which is held by all a thing that may be, by most a thing that is,) and a ship under sail driving with the same speed from East to West, (not being checked by the earth's giving over its motion to it.) Now this would shift place as to the bodies making up the earth's ball, and hold the same place as to all the rest of the world besides. So we reckon St. Paul's Church in London to stand so stone still, that it never stirred ground since the days of Sebert King of the Saxons; yet supposing the earth's motion, it only keeps its place in respect of the earth, or that steamscope or atmosphere that wheels the same round with it, and shifts room every day with all the world besides, that by which its off-standing thereto should be taken, being so oft lengthened and shortened by the whirl of the earth. And in the thing before us, by taking all body out of the square and leaving just nothing, such pieces of the world would be further from others, whose nearest roads for measure should lie through such room taken away, keeping still the same off-standing to all the rest of the world besides.  
So true is it, that we name and bound things according to what they oftenest or easiliest do seem to us to be, and not as to those narrow and less heeded byways, wherein sometimes they may be.  
At the foot of this we shall yet set one remark more, and that is this. That of all men, he that holds a boundless roomthiness beyond the world, must beware how he hits us in the teeth with this, That we make a body stir and stand still both together. For if the forestroke give us but a little tick, the back-stroke will be sure to give him a knocker. We say, a body may keep place as to some things, and shift it as to some others: But he must say, a body must stand still and run both together, and as to all things. For we will take but this o'trust, That the world may have been sinking down, or flying up, or starting aside ever since it was made; He that made it, could as easily make it stir as stand still; and he that we are speaking with, holds it as easy to stir in emptiness as in fullness: Then say, we That this utmost speed of about 5675 years, is no other than stark standing still. For while it stands still, it has but boundless room evenly about it, so as to be, to our thinking, in the midst of it: but for all it runs, and has done, thus much, and thus long, it has the very same boundless room every way about it (nor more, nor less) than it should have had, it it had stood still: therefore it has stood still all the while it has run so fast. For, if that body which is in the midst of a bounded ring, so running 5675 years as to be still as much in the midst as ever, does so run as to stand still all the while it runs, then in like manner, That body which has unbounded room so every way about it, that if by running never so long, and never so fast one way, it would neither lengthen the room behind it, nor shorten the room before it, than it so runs as to stand still all the while it runs; and than if by making it stand still, it can have no more than the same unbounded room round about it, that it would have had if scouring all the while one way or other, its standing still is as much running as its running was standing still, and each as much the other as itself: Which falls so pat upon the head of him that owns an emptiness beyond the world, that I dare be bold to say, 'Tis such a flail as there can ne'er be fence for.  
The quicksighted Mr. Barlow coping with Nazarius, who had rightly laid down body and space to be the same, and that the world's being in room is being in its own selvedge, has thence raised this further Objection; to wit, That the world being thus in its own selvedge, may by God Almighty be thrust into another room; and, as it follows, the room in which now 'tis, is another thing from it; and that room into which it is thrust, must be the same outworldish scope that we have been all this while falling out with.  
What answer Nazarius would give to it, I cannot tell; but from the grounds laid down by us, 'tis as easy to answer as to name. For as the Argument says, the world may be thrust out of the room in which 'tis into another, our Answer says it may not be: that is, without God should also make another room for it to be thrust into. And though the may be in the Argument came starveling alone without any thing of proof to back it, yet the may not be in the Answer shall be thus shouldered up. Unto motion 'tis not only behoving that the thing stirred be bulky, but that the thing through which 'tis stirred be also roomthy. Thus as a ghost, because no bulky Being, cannot move through the world, though a bulky throughfare or medium: so the world or whole clutter of bodies, though a bulky Being, cannot stir any way; for why, it has no bulky throughfare to stir in: Whatever stirs must stir in somewhat. And if it seems odd, that motion, which is an all-reaching affection or belonger to each bit of the world, should yet be denied to the whole, 'tis full as odd, that cleavesomness, which is as all-reaching a belonger to body, should be withheld from a least piece, which is as truly body as the greatest. But as that would partake of sundering, if it were not the least that can be: so would the world of stirring, if it were not the greatest that could be. From the leastness and mostness, not from the things themselves, it is, that this befalls them. The world is made as much for stirring in its kind, as any share of it, if it had but a wherein to stir: and a least bitling is made as much for cleaving, if it had but a wherewith to be cloven; its leastness, not its bodiness forbidding it.  
But it would not be out of the way, it may be, to put one thing more to this Answer before we go from it, and that is this, That when I say, God must also make another room for the world to be thrust into, if it starts at all, I would not be understood, as if I meant a room without body; which is the thing I have been so much blaming. For, to me, room and body are all one, that is, altogether; as ghost and thinking are: And I can no more understand how room can be by itself without body, than I can how a thought may dwell by itself without a thinking Being. But the room that I mean, is a roomthy yielding body, big enough to shift places with the world. For to me the very life and soul of motion is shuffle or sawing, and all stir one and other are nothing but gobyes or shift of bodies. So that if one body had not another body to slide by and make a sawing with, that it might be, out one, in another, that way one, this way t'other, it would ne'er stir while 'tis a body. Whence, that one world may stir, another must be made for it to stir in. Whatever moves, must do it somewhere, or in somewhat, besides itself too. For nothing can stir its whole self within itself: All stirring being out of, into. And 'tis easier to think, how, if this world were all marble, that piece in the middlemost might slide itself to the outside, than how a world, which has no room about it, should stir any whither. 'Tis easier crowding into a full room, than into none at all. The middle piece here has body about it, but only 'tis too stiff and sturdy to yield or shift rooms with it: but the world we speak of, wants both yielding body and body too; and cannot stir into a somewhere, because all besides itself is a nowhere.  
Now because ghost cannot hand the saw thus with body so as its sliding into the room of body, should make body slip into the room of it, Thence 'tis, as I make reckoning, that ghost cannot rightly be said to move. For it cannot be, out body, in ghost, as 'tis in motion, out one body, in another; but body in, or body out, 'tis all one to ghost. A bodies standing in the way, cannot slacken its speed; nor a bodies making way, quicken it. And all motion, being either speedier or slower, that which stirs neither the one way nor the other, stirs not at all. We find that all stirring is as the thing stirred is withstood; if more, 'tis easily, if less, 'tis fast. But because a ghost can't be withstood at all by body, (every body, but where 'tis ensouled, being alike throughfaresom to it,) it does that in one now, at once, that body does in some time, by steps. For want of which stepping or gradation, it cannot well be called motion, (any more than its being out of this plight, can be called placing in some room, or standing still.) But 'tis somewhat else that we have no right name for, (unless skipping or canting may in a low sort speak it;) as we have none neither for those odd wights, (to name one of a thousand more,) that ran down a steep place into the Sea, with our Lords good leave. For they were neither Hogs nor Devils, no devilish Hogs, nor hoggish Devils; but a mesling of two, that we have no more name for than we had of yore for that medley of three which we now call Gunpowder: their being called Swine, is such a vouchsafement for the Folks sake, as calling the Devil in a Crawler, a Serpent.  
The last Argument we shall need to name, for width or room beyond the world, is from the same worthy Gentleman, and stands thus. If God be in very deed in it, than such a thing is: But, that God is indeed in it, may thus be made out; that is to say, Because he may frame another world standing off from this, and then be in both of them as in this, otherwise he should not be everywhere. And if he be in both, the must be in the room also that lies between both, otherwise he should be two in both, not one, this crossing his one-foldness as much as the other did his allfillingness.  
Answ. Had these Bugbears comen in the Van, they might have put on the show of a forlorn of Bravoes: But having grappled already with so many Battalioes, and wrought our way through such strong fastnesses, we are not to be worsted by the reermost and very leave. We say then in short, That all this waist arises from a mistake, that God is everywhere in the world so as to be coextended with the world: Whereas the truth is, Were there no space at all, neither real nor counterfeit, (as none was, before he who made all things, made that,) God should be as immense as he is for all that: As if there had never been any time, (nor was there, till God made timesom Being's,) he had been as eternal as he is. As God by making of a body and real space with it, everywhere in which he really is, is thereby no more really in space himself than he was before, or no more roomthily there than he was before; (What he really is, he was from everlasting:) So by not making of a body, he is not less really in space, or in imaginary scope: But let space be what it will, his everywayness or immensity is the same, one not meddling at all with the other.  
I say then, That God would be in those two world's as he is in this. As he is not here by halves, so neither would he be there. As he is not partly in one piece of this world and partly in another; but wholly in all, and wholly in each, wholly in East side, and wholly in West side, without having any part of him in the parts between: So he would not be partly in one world and partly in another, but wholly in both, and wholly in each. And as for taking up the room between them, either with whole or with part, the care is taken: for we have already made it out, That there would be no room at all; and that which is not at all, God is not in at all. While God is so in two world's, that though they do not touch or about, yet there lies nothing between them; 'tis all one as to the one-foldness of his Being, as if they two did touch, or were both made one: for there can be no more than nothing between two world's that touch, or between the very parts themselves of one world; in any of which, and in every of which, 'tis yet easily yielded God may be, and be one too.   

CHAP. V.  
HAving hitherto treated of Bulk, How far it may be bigned? it follows next, that somewhat should be spoken to the other hard Question, How far it may be lessened? And the rather, because, if we have been lucky in making it out, That body by putting to it cannot be bigned beyond a certain bulk, it seems to follow by the laws of Analogies, That the same by taking from it cannot be lessened beneath a certain smallness. And we have from thence this ground to set foot upon, That that which is not boundless one way, cannot be so another; or that that which is not infinite in its whole, cannot be so in its little part. We must then put an end to that puzzling Question, Whether a bulky Being be made up of a throng of cleaveless shreadlings? by bearing the Reader in hand, flatly, that so 'tis indeed. And that upon this score too as well as any other; because 'tis impossible to put so much as one jot or dust unto bulk, beyond a set or bounded number: this finite world being the All of quantity, and nothing of outstretchedness being beyond it or besides it, so, at least, as to have any thing to do with it: that it should be likewise impossible to take from bulk, so much as one jot or dust beneath a bounded number.  
Which while we are beginning to take in hand, it will well become us to show first, what we mean by a Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Lat. Punctum, or Indivisibile, and an English Leasting. The crafty Magnenus new dressing his old Democritus, gives it to be Materialis physicaeque extensionis radix & initium. Which may safely enough be owned as it stands, bating but its belongers bequeathed it by him, which are in no wise to be harkened to, that is to say, Quantity under I cannot tell what Mathematical dimensions or measures: For so he takes off the graveller, Indivisibile junctum indivisibili non facit majus, quia tangit secundum se totum, That His indivisibles suas habent dimensiones secundum quas jungi cum extensionis incremento possunt: By which kind of Mathematical parts or metenesses in a Physical point, he does all his great feats in his whole row of Answers.  
But 'tis to be wondered, that having shaken off Ariaga's Mathematical points, and Suarezes' way of making up bodies of parts and Mathematical points jumbled together, he could not feel himself, whilst playing aloof off, to have wheeled about into the selfsame snare: For he says, Neither by no means: but a natural body is made up of Physical points, made up of Mathematical measures. That is, 'tis not made of Mathematical points, but made of those things that are made of nothing but Mathematical points. A sly kind of body indeed, that is Mathematical at second hand, or linsey Physical woolsey Mathematical.  
Wherefore we are about to say, That our atom punctum or leasting, is made only of body. And although it may be metesom by Mathematical measures of the minds making, yet it is not made up thereof, any more than the greater parts are, or the whole is. But as to Physical measures, it has neither East side nor West side, North side nor South side, top nor bottom, this nor that, nor any thing that speaks twinship to any thing else, but is itself all that 'tis: and when you have said that, you have said all. So that if you ask, when it abuts upon another, Whether it touches secundum se totum, or not? Whether wholewise or piecewise? 'Tis answered, There is no such name belongs to it. For having maintained it to be a least part, 'tis impossible it should have parts in it; which, if any, must be less than least. And 'tis also impossible, that that Physical body which has not parts, should rightly be a whole, or a thing made up of that which it has not. Every Physical whole being made up of parts, that which has no parts, but is itself the least of parts, can no more be an whole, than the whole nakedly taken can be a part. And every whole being greater than its parts, taken sunderly, it would follow, that our leasting were greater than somewhat else, or greater than itself: Which would be a thwacker as unspeakably big as that is little.  
We are therefore in good sooth to understand, That having pared off from body all its parts, we have also bereft it of all those bedighting or affections that belong to it, as having parts; of which the wholeness, laid in our dish was one. And though we cannot thereby make it ghost or not body, because we cannot tear from it piercelessness or impenetrability, which is the closest sticker to a body, as a body lessened; yet it comes so much the nearer to ghost, by how much the more it has thrown off the things belonging to a body, which ghost had not neither. As we found a now of time to speak out God's Eternity better than any other share of lastingness; because it threw off more of those things that time had, and that had not: so here, we can no more betemme wholeness to the one, than to the other: It being as good speech to talk of the head or foot, right half or left half of a ghost, as of an atom. For as in a ghost there are none of them, because there is nothing of body to fasten them to: So neither are they in a leasting: For why, there is so little body, that one would be the other.  
What we have hitherto spoken, will seem to have less of auk in it, if we do but pattern our leasting of body with a now of time, which has no more fore and aft, than we say this has side and side; though it goes to the making up of that which has the former, as this does to the making up of that which has the latter.  
And again, if we be but so good as to remember. That we have lifted our leasting out of the kingdom of the world, and seated it in the kingdom of the mind. For an atom by itself, unlinkt from the chain of all other bulks to which it hangs, is no where to be found but in that of our thoughts, any more than a now of time is, so singled out from time past and time to come.  
But to speak more home or right down to the thing in hand, Whether a leasting touches another in its whole, or by its parts? Saying only in the first place, That the word Touch is none of the fittest that can be to come in here. For why, many things may close that do not touch, as the soul, for one, does with the body. We answer, That as we have said already, it touches according to neither. For why, 'tis not the one, nor has the other. So we say flatly, it touches according to its piercelesness, secundum impenetrabilitatem; it so snugs to another, as not to be in another; and according to its seedsom length, secundum longitudinem seminalem, so as with another to make a line of two points. For not being a stretchling or quid quantum, any more than a now is an onwardling or quid successivum, but only quid impenetrabile, somewhat unthrough faresom; and having nothing in it saving the seed of bulkiness, which, so as 'tis knit to more leasting, springs up; we must not look that it should touch after what it has not, but after what it has. So put we but an atom to it, the seed of bulksomness is so far quickened, that length is begotten; close but as many more sidewise, up starts breadth; so again, as many clapped to, upwards or downwards, and forth comes deepness. So that to the three meteings or dimensions of a body, 'tis fit that eight leasting should be clapped together: as it takes at least two nows of time to make fore and aft, and three to make was, is, and is to come. Whence we gather, 'tis altogether from the business to hale any of these things in, when we are speaking of one only: And nothing better is it, than pumping of two out of one, or taking the greater number out of the rest, in Talecraft or Arithmetic.  
Not much unlike is the closing or union between soul and body, which two together make up one man. The soul not being bulky, cannot be stretched out with the body; and not being unthroughfaresom, cannot close so with it, as to be shut out from being in it. As it had not the latter by itself, so neither had it the former in booty beme, or a power in seed, (or half seed,) to biggen the bulk of the body, or make it more as to any of the measures. The close or oneness therefore between ghost and body, must be according to those powers the soul or ghost has, whereby 'tis squared for the laying hold on or laying in with body, and not according to those it has not. Now the soul has the trick or power in the seed to quicken body, when by such and such laws kept down to it, without flinching from it, neither taking up room itself in the body, or eking out the body, by making over to it, seedwise, from itself, any thing that is bulky or unthroughfaresom; and can withal bestead it with a fashioning or plastic spring of lifesomness or animality, whence it grows, works, and begets its like from an inbred power; and has another feat to move the body: Which it does not by shoving or driving of it forwards, as a slouch does a crowd-barrow, stepping into the room which that leaves behind it; but, as the Ingenious Mounsieur de Cordemoy has it, By having such stir of the body to answer such workings of the thoughts. 
Le discernement du corpse & de l'ame.  Every thing must do as itself is, and as it tools are: And certain workings of thoughts are to a soul, what certain stir of parts are to a body, in the which the soul is housed: only the soul not agreeing with body, so much as in that one belonger of unthroughfareness, when bewedded thereunto it cannot make it bigger; being lost in it, not lodged by it; but only better or nobler, as to its being or working. But now our leasting, being, while such, of a lower house, and made for the nonce to be knit unto more of its kind without piercing or being pierced, gathers thereby to itself a fresh train of hangers on in the body kind, or in genere Physico, which it would never reach to, but only in fellowship with them, as making up a bulk of such a name; no more than a part can take upon it those names or things which are suited to its whole, all together, as an whole: itself being an unthroughfaresom whatkin, having in it the seed of an half length, quarter breadth, and eighth of depth. Little otherwise, one sex, though complete in itself taken, cannot by itself beget its like; but is, as to that, the half seed of it, and enkindles it as clubbing with another like power, from which two only that one must spring; each of which by themselves have but the half or unlike seeds of quickening, as lock and key has of opening.  
This kind of touching of things according to some one thing that is in them, and not according to others, puts me in mind of what is done of that sort, not only between part and part barely taken as abutting, but between draught and draught or scheme and scheme as meddling. Thus a certain gathering together of bracks or atoms, make that scheme in the stomach that we call hunger or thirst; and another unlike one, makes that there, which we call a fullness, or loathing and spewing. Now wormwood has another draught in it, that touches or closes with their latter, so as to make up the former; but it neither touches according to the draught of its root stalk, branches, leaves, flowerings, seed, juice, powder, water, mash or conserve, syrup, steeping, boilings, settle or extract, salt, oil or spirit: for each of these will do it, only because this touching draught is more broken in some, and more tied in others; some do it more, some less. Now if it does not touch or meddle according to any of the forenamed, it must do it, as to that we have no name for, unless we call it a Wormwoodness; it being a wormwoody stamp more or less printed upon each of them, and like wards for such a lock, will perhaps clap in with nothing in the world else, but that Set of atoms which is sometimes found in the maw of a feeder. On the other hand, Asarum holds a scheme of an unlike make from wormwood, which shall put the stomach, when in good plight, into loathe and castings, as surely as wormwood shall still and heal such roiling; and this either in its raw juice or powder dried in an oven: but do but boil it, and then break up the scheme of it, and then if it changes or empties the body 'tis by sweat, (says Rulandus:) this then seems not so much to be done by its Rabaccaness, unless that of it may be boiled away, which cannot be baked away, as by some narrow draught that lies in juice and powder, made to lock with that other which lies in the juices of the stomach.  
And now because the reason why so many great understandings have leaned to the other side, holding the cleavesomness of a body unboundedly, is from a willingness to be rid of those gallers that twinge the brain of the stiff maintainer of this, it shall in the next place be tried, Whether we can afford any rest or good liking to the mind, by facing the Objections with such Answers as the grounds we have laid down will allow us to build upon. And they will fall, not untowardly, under a threefold Head.  

1. Such as hold to figure mainly.  
2. Such as meddle with figure and motion together. And  
3. Such as have to do with motion rather than figure.    triangle 
A. B. C. is a Scalenum. The same must also, from the Doctrine of leasting, be an Isosceles, or even-sided Triangle: For fill but the Area with lines parallel to A. C. there must be then as many pricks or points in B. A. as in B. C. there being as many lines drawn from the one as to the other; and so B. A. would be equal to B. C. that is, the Scalenum would become an Isosceles.  
Answ. It would not be so Physically, but only Mathematically: Thus namely, The lines drawn to the side B. C. do not touch it in one point, but the line B. C. bends so much to a parallel with the lines drawn from B. A. to C. that they make the angles to be altogether in a parallel with at least the two last points of the lines A. C. so that it may fairly hold as many points again, or be as long again.  
The same Answer undoes the knot, That every triangle would be an Isopleuron, That the diagonial lines of a Rhomboides would be equal, That the diameter of a Quadrangle would be equal to its sides, That a Semicircle would not be greater than its diameter, As also, That of divers concentric circles, the outermost would not be greater than the inmost; inasmuch as all lines drawn from all points of it towards the Centre, must pass through as many points of the other: With so many more of the same kind, as are not readily so much as to be named. All which, however done in Geometry, are much otherwise, or not at all done in Physics.  
Again, 'tis said, A line of unequal atoms could not then be cut into halves; when yet 'tis as sure as any thing in Geometry, that any line whatsoever may be so.  
To which 'tis answered, That 'tis as untrue in Physics, as 'tis true in Mathematics. But because a Physical leasting comes not under the ken of sense, according to the smartest reckoning that we can make with body, Nevertheless, we may hold such a body to be even with another, if sense can find no unevenness between them, whether they be so indeed or not. That is to be reckoned even, that cannot be found otherwise than even.  
But those which are harder to take off, are such as come with figure and motion hand in hand, being a kind of mingled Mathematics.  
Thus it may be objected, That a wheel of manifold rims whirled upon its axletree, would make out uneven bows of circles, in even shares of time, the whole wheel being evenly turned, and the circles being some bigger than others: whence it would follow, That one atom in the inner rims, would be even to more than one in the outermore.  
Now supposing the rims of the wheel to be brought from their bow into a straight line, the same whirling force resting in each, the Objection would fall in with the following (figure only changed;) to wit, That all bodies would then be moved with a like swiftness; the swiftest running but through a leasting of room in a now of time, and the slowest creeping on even, so much in so much.  
To this kill one, there have been a great many Answers forged by the men of brains, and finespun thoughts. The cunning Magnenus takes his flight to Mathematical parts in a Physical leasting, Ariaga to rests intermingled with stir. But we having shut out Mathematical parts as to the making up of body, it cannot but be thought hugely misdone, to tow them in here for the making out of motion; there being the same parts and no more in a body moved, that there are in the same made. And as for rests, there being yet no reason shown, why stirring should begin after such rests, than why a body at full rest altogether, should of itself stir, without a quickening jostle from some other Being, or a fresh swing or poising from its lodging in the world; both the contrivances will even miss of giving the mind that ease and rest which the wittiness of them might seem to have been worthy of.  
The Answer then that we have been thinking of is this, That slower motions are made up of starts and bearings, or springsomness, (progression and elasticity): and that the swiftest are either all outstart, without bearings, or made up of speed and sprightfulness, (pernicity and impetus.)  
For the better making out of which, we are to bethink ourselves, That as the beginning of time had not fore and aft, nor the least deal of body here a piece and there a piece, or partem extra partem: so neither has the first spring of motion any thing of onwardness or stirring, but only a penned or earnest strife fromwards, which we call springsomness or bearing. A thing though not motion, yet as much the beginning or seed of it and made for the nonce for it, as a now is of or for time, and a leasting of or for body. And again, motion being quid non materiale, somewhat bodiless, may-hap it ought not altogether to be scanned and sifted by the laws that say bulkiness as such alone: As time in which all motion is, and with which it began, has got some things belonging to it, that body cannot lay claim to.  
Thus then, suppose a body slowly moved to begin at the bear or heave, and for one now of time to start one leasting of room, the next now neither to start nor rest, but to be in the bearing or elater, till the bearing be wrought up so high as to burst forth into another start of another atom, in another minute; so holding on bearing and starting, till it comes to a full rest, after the last start and bear: For as motion begins in a bearing or conatus, so it ends in the same; and as the bearing took rist from rest, so it dies and falls into the same again.  
Now although this Answer may at first seem chargeable, with the same hardnesses with that of girds and rests; yet upon a narrower search, it will be clearly found to be far and wide from it in the making out. For we having warily held, the stirred body not to be at rest, or in a stound or pause at all, but always to be either stirring or bearing, which bearing is no more rest than 'tis stirring; as a leasting, though it be not quantum, yet 'tis far enough off from being ghost, and wants nothing but more of the same to make it quantum; or a now of time to make it fore and aft. We cannot then be charged with the uncouthness of bodies recovering motion of itself, after the dying or breaking off of that which stirred it. For how can that be said to be recovered which was never lost? Now motion is not lost, but only locked up in the bearing or elater: Forasmuch as the bear is the wellspring of motion, as motion is the offspring of bearing. As likewise the darting power in the hand or soul is not motion, but the rist or spring of all that swiftness that is given to outcasts. Now when motion is shifted or begotten in the thing moved or forthcast, this darting force or rally of stirring springs, is shotten or propagated also, and that firstly and nextly too; it being the breeder, motion the child of it; the hand giving a kind of teemingness to the spring, which in its season is brought to bed of start. Whence 'tis, that until this loses its enkindling or leavening strength, the motion into which it breaks when swelled up to an height, cannot be lost neither; only it asks some time to heave or penned in, before it actually starts; Whence 'tis that one body is slower than another in its motion.  
Because I find the meaning of the words do not square so evenly with the notion, as I think that may do with the truth of the thing, (thoughts being easier to come by than words,) We shall strive to imprint it on the Readers understanding, by such likenesses as either Handicrafts or Nature itself shall afford us.  
Thus than the stirring of the hand or Index on the Dial-plate of a Watch, is as slow as any that we need to treat of; 'tis notwithstanding, or aught to be, on and on, without stops or stands; and yet 'tis an hour creeping from hour-stroke to hour-stroke. Now when we see what a long thread of sand passes the neck-hole of an hourglass in that same time; four mile long, in likelihood at least, supposing the running but as fast again as the walk of a middling kind of footman, (when yet to the eye it seems far speedier;) 'tis almost beyond the reach thoughts, that the hand should find so many atoms or leasting of body to step over one after other, without the least stopping between the two streaks, not above the sixth or eighth part of an inch asunder, as to be even with the time that the aforesaid thread of sand is posting through the neck-plate of the hourglass. But 'tis easy enough to understand, that the spring of the Watch, which is the spring also of the hands stirring, should by its bear or elasticity hitch it forwards, not so as to be always stirring, or at any time resting, but creeper-like, to be sometimes starting one point, and oftener bearing towards the next; the spring ask some minute's time to gather strength enough, (as the arm does by fetching about) to give a start or least stirring, and some minute or minutes more to bear on towards a second hitch: In the mean time that which bequeathes it this slow pace, and the wheels and balance a pretty tied one, is a thing that is not so fitly said to be stirred or in motion itself, as lodged or locked up in a bearing or pressing posture. So agreeable is the notion that we have been advancing, that the best key-keeper of motion is an elater or bear, where one would at first think it would likeliest be lost.  
But it may indeed be said, That this comes not home to the business of forthcast things; the spring or principle of motion being continued or close by the thing stirred, whereas the hand is sundered from that body which is thrown forth by it.  
Answ. 'Tis but supposing that the spring of motion or an elater or elaters, as well as the motion flowing from thence, is also thrown off, (which ought in dartings forth to be supposed,) and then the business is much at one; unless it be that in things thrown, the stirring is swifter for the most part, and spends itself sooner: it being impossible to make over motion that may be lasting, without a spring of swiftness; and as impossible to hold on a swiftness, without the renewing of such a spring. So the greatest unlikeness between crowding and throwing is, That in the first it skills not whether there be above one spring, or few springs of motion, handed over at one time; for why, as soon as that one is, or those few are spent, another is, or more are hard by to follow, without any let to the going on: whence 'tis, that I can crowd a bigger body than I can throw, as I can give one or few springs, where I cannot give more or many: But as to the other, I cannot put a body off, without I bequeath it either such a spring as has another spring, or more springs in the belly of it, or else give it so many springs to keep at its breaking off from my hand, as it had when in it, and carried by it: otherwise it would fall down, as soon as the crowding or gird of the hand left it; or else go on but a little way, with a sudden breaking off, from the nimbleness of stirring which it had before it parted from the arm that threw it.  
A little further help may be gained, I think, by quoting a likeness of Natures own, wherein the stirring power is taken aside from the thing stirred or quicknesd, and that stirring or sprightfulness only locked up in the spring or strife to stir, which afterwards upon the taking off all clogs and stops, advances up to those bounds that Dame Kind before had pitched upon. The Instance is that of an egg, which we will take as a thing that sprang from the impetus of the tread, the Harveyan tang, or contagion and egg-fry of Kerckring and the Graaf, to be what 'tis, after laid by the Hen. That which 'tis in motion towards as fast as it can, (the little scar I mean, or Cicatricula) is a Chicken: But that there is no more of this stirring but what is hemmed and cooped up in the spring, while the body that imprinted it is broken from it, is clear from hence: For why, an egg that has been kept many days, and set under a breeding Hen, shall be hatched no sooner than one that has been laid fewer; and the oftener they cool by the Hens being long off her nest, the longer are they in hatching; which is Argument enough that some stop or other was met with by the way; and yet upon a bare warmth or brooding shroud, which only removes way-layers or brushes the passages, so giving scope for the springs of the scar to leap forth into nimble freaks and brisknesses, the make towards animality are taken up a fresh, and carried on, after all rubs in the way, to that bulk and quickness, which Dame Nature had cast with herself to bring about.  
That this is done, as I say, by only paring off encumbrances, and scouring the passages, or at least not from any new springs or stir that are begotten, by the hoppings and friskings about of such warm and lightsome steams, as may be thought to have swarmed from the brooding hen, and crowden into the brooded egg; as a Watch or a Jack, by being only wown up, without thripping the balance or flyer, fa●l to work again: may, I think, even hence, seem more than a little likely,  
In that a snail or Dodman, which is not only not warm, but to our feeling, very cold, is fain to brood it's as cold sweaty eggs, nested upon a cold wet earth, bespiewing them about with the fuzze of a cold clammy froth, in coldish raughty weather, and all making way to a kind and timely hatching of them: And so needful is a kind of cold and sultryness to the doing of this, that as far as ever I could find by housing and turning of them, (when I have not only missed of the brood, but, for want of feeding their earth and froth, with cold and raughtiness, as it should be done▪ I have soon lost sight of the very eggs too;) that I say, I dare undertake to light sooner of that warmth and reek and air, that will hatch an hen's egg, than that cold and due and clamminess, that goes to the hatching of a snails.  
And to say there may be warmth, though no body living could ever feel it, is as bad a put off as to say, that such a thing is sense, though all men in the world have ever taken it for non sense.  
'Tis therefore somewhat likely, that a hens setting upon her eggs for hatching, is much what, with her brooding her chickens under her wings when they are hatched; the one being to ward off quellers from the air, the other to shroud them from those birds of prey that are scouting & sharking up and down in it. Whence a snail, whoseeggs have other kind of foes, besets them with other kind of shield and buckler. Their setting being the casing or housing such a tickleish piece of workmanship, that wind and weather may not ruffle and snarl it, or any straggling bodies clutter up its rooms and stifle it.  
From which I think, without straining, we may gather, that, if such a spring as this is, may be tickled and roused up again, in which is bound up a whole set or draught of springs, some shaping or plastic, some bigning or growing, others barely stirring or twitching, and after all so long stinted and so often checked; Well may one motion, of one sort, after sinking into its spring, or being wown up in it, be, by its inhidden power, when unfettered, brought on again to a kind of quickness.  
Little otherwise a hoop brought to a stiff bough, and kept in it by such a strength as can cope with it, upon some after chance the hoop getting ground of its holdfast slips or starts, by fits and girds, keeping still its inward springsomness, though in a lessening way, that is in a scantling to what is spent or thrown off at every slip, until at length losing all its springiness, it falls of itself into the stillness of a rest.  
This to me also seems to be the main, if not the whole of Vegetative motion, or the waxings and sproutings forth, which are found in all growers. For I take the seed (till some further experiment teach me better) to be a cluster of bubbles wried up snug, or a bottom of hoops or springs closely girt or knit together, which being a little loosened when sown a while, by the bedewings of the raughty mould soaking in between its crevices, the springs swell and grow roomthy, and which follows thereupon, the bosoms or hollows are made wider, whence new moisture or fogginess presses in, not at random, but moulded by the hollows into bows for the nonce, bedighted or impregnated also, with a springsomness altogether fit, both to eke out that of the widened hoops, and also by a kind fermentation or bustle of the working or leavening particles, beget new springs, and then biggen the same, till the seed heaves up from a sprouting or shrubble, to the scantling of height, bulk and growth, that nature has cut out for it, as a plant or as a tree.  
But as in springs made by the hand of the workman, if they lie too long bend, by reason of the swarms of insensibles, drilling through their pores or spungholes, they may be so fast stuck by such as jump in die wise or cubically, as to have their springs choked or benumbed (as a piece of Iron by lying long in an odd posture, may by the same chance light upon a magnetism): so the seeds of most or all growths, kept beyond their full time, upon the same score shed or lose their springinesses, and when sown become barren or unsproutful.  
Only herein the motion that nature gives, is unlike to that which we bequeath to forthcasts. For why, she not only bedights them with many springs at first, but lays in spawn also for the begetting of more, and stuff for the greatning of one and other. Whereas when we give a dartingness to outcasts, we betemme them but one or a few springs, which by often sturts and flashes of motion, cracker-like, weaken themselves, till at length all ends in the calmness of a rest.  
Again, if we go up to the stock of breathers, a step above these as they are a step beneath us, we shall find that begetting the like, is making over of springs; and according as the begetter is hotter and smirker, or colder and listlesser, the bows are sooner or later bent and shot off. So while the lively eager Creatures do the business of their kind, in the while that we are speaking of it, a Toad (to name one of the cold and clammy kind) may-hap takes days to do the same. Thus I remember that towards the end of March at high noon day, I was shown a he and she Toad engendering, which to be sure had lain so from noon the day before, how much soever longer they might or would have done, (unless the spring of the year being backward, and the mouthed and vents of their bodies not yet opened, might happily lengthen out the time somewhat longer than otherwise.) And as it took so much time to set the bowie frame, so it seems he could not break off where he was very suddenly; for we had not only slit open the body of the she, but were taking out the inwards before he could frame to get loose of her, and yet, at that time, he hugged her only with his two forefeet, which he had thrust so into the soft of her sides, as to make two deep doaks there. So we see that man or beast fetching their runs with earnestness, they can't strike sail, or notch the wheels, and croose the springs, at work within them, in a trice. And this also may be one cause why earthworms are limed so much to the headward, and hold so for an whole night. And why Slugs or Dodmans' engender in the neck, and are so many hours, if not days, in the limeing, to wit, that so the workhouse for the springs may be nearer seated to the storehouse of the tools and stuff for that end, which is the brain and spirits. And why both of them too play the he's part in the deeds of their kind, each crowding into the other a roping, tough, silver-like thread of seed: (That both do the she's work also, I cannot yet find, but mistrust that Doctor Swammerdam might rather guess so aforehand than know so.)  
Because the quickening power of one, was not enough to rally together all those sparks of life, that lay asunder in a clammy dew, and were to be enkindled and hatched up into a springiness of such a set, and so thrown off, but both of them must go hand in hand, in blowing of the bellows.  
Nor is it altogether without remark, among those of our own kind, that the man, upon the account of his being stronger and springier does more, (as 'tis like will be found) towards the bequeathing of that hoard of sprightfulness to the little one that is to be, than does the woman. (It seems not to be in the first blessing of growing manifold, for that was given evenly to both.) I know somebody, who knows a woman of understanding enough to make the remark, and of faithfulness enough to be believed about it, who took with child in the very fit of a Third Ague, (not to name many that have done so, out of the fit;) the latter being lost too, until brought to bed, for the former being got: when yet I have not found hitherto, (I know not what I may do, or others have done,) that a man under that disease, either in the fit or out of it, could be so much a man as at other times; though I have made the observation, where the man has had the blessing of offspring all the years of wedlock, before and after, and the ground that was to be sown that year in as good tilt as in the other, only the husbandman so much out of plight. Whence it should seem that the life that is made over to the offspring, is but a frame or draught offsprings, leavened into a breedingness, and stamped upon this or that which is beginning, and is either stronger or weaker, in more or in less time made over, as it happens that the Being which does it, can fetch them up, or slip them off. As unto the things thrown out by the hand, there is given forth a clue of springs, or starts, and bearings, without any such draught of them or breed in them, or plastic might in the thrower, so to frame or rank them.  
But I would not here be understood so much at warfare with myself, as if I took the soul of man to be a thing, that might body-like be some ways moved or thrown off; For having all along been driving at this, that motion or going on by steps, is such a sticker unto body, that it can no more belong to Ghost, than thinking can to that, I should wonder at myself, if I should yield that to the soul as 'tis beginning to be from another, which it must by no means have to do with, when it is itself and does like itself.  
That which I mean therefore is that The soul may be so one with a breeding frame or bud of body, as, for aught I know, to be made over together with it, when that is made over, and yet not be moved as that than is moved, any more than the thoughts of the heart walk when the body walks. And as a strong breathed and well set man for wayfaring, shall foot it with greater sleight and more speed, than one who is not so made; in like manner, another man whose plastic, shaping, or enkindling powers, are fraught with more of manhood, and quickued with a kindlier sprightfulness, may make over the beginnings of manliness to the beginning birth, with a liveliness no ways unanswerable. Life and Soul being two things with me, as are Spirits and Spirit; the first being the springiness of the body, in such a well set frame, the other that which sets all in man a going: both which as they are together▪ in the being of man, so are they, I think, in the beginning of man; man being the son of man, as first-man was the Son of God; the soul coming from God, nextly, to the first man, and from God through man, to every one else. Whole man's springing from whole man, seeming, to me at least, a main Doctrine in that Text, Abraham begat Isaac. But, that the soul, which way soever we come by it, should be any thing of that body which we are, I bless God, I never dreamt so much of Master Hobbes in all my life as to think it. And if any man else has had his brain so far blackened with that Writers Ink as to think, that body may be thoughtful too, and any ways aware, I believe he may have it pretty well wiped off for him, with some papers from the hand of the Learned and Ingenious Master Thomas Tenison, in a 
* The Creed of Master Hobbes examined.  Book, where 'tis hard to say, whether the arguments in the whole be more strong, or the way of bringing them in more handsome, only because both of them are most of all so.  
Having thus far endeavoured to reckon with the slow paced motion, and found, to our thinking, that 'tis a kind of thing that has got the fidget; and that bodies so stirred, do not gain for every minute of time, a point of room, but jogging on in a jiffling way, they lag behind at every bearing, as they come up more or less at every jetting: We shall go on to find out, whether there be not also somewhat of likelihood, that in the swiftest hurries, and most glancing gobyes of the world, such bodies do not glide through more than one leasting of room, in one now of time.  
That which has put me upon the guess is this, Time is such a thing as neither mends its pace nor slacks it, but is always plodding on at the same rate, but motion is a thing that may be either hugely slow, or hugely swift, or else in the middle between both: Now 'tis but odd to think how such a flicketing skipjackly thing as that is, which is always so much upon the snatches, that no body knows where to have it, should be bound to the behaviour of such a grave stayed thing as time is. Especially having seen already that motion in its loytering or sluggishness cannot walk times pace, but is cast back much or little as the strifts are.  
Now that the mind may cope with this so much the better, we must look back to some hints before treated of, to wit, That what is body and what is not body, ought not to be measured by the same laws of worldishness, or natural affections, any more than those reasonless breathers that live under us, are to to be wielded by those laws Divine or Moral, that are to sway and bind the whole stock of mankind.  
But now of things not-body there are two sorts, Either such as are bodiless and no more, non materialia, or non corporea, such as you may fancy time to be; or else such as are not only bodiless, but over and above ghostly, immaterialia or spiritualia; either of which may yet have to do with body, and in and through that, give tokens to us, of its being and power of doing.  
Thus we find the soul of man to have business laid out for it in the body of man, by way of oneness with it. In which, besides a sort of mechanical or engine-like twitchings, and animal sprightnesses which are there set on foot, either by its power, or at its beck and good liking, it also cleaves to it in the advance to certain workings, of so lofty and refined an alloy, as to stamp man with the likeness and show of him that made him, and withal trim up and fashion him for the relishing of a world after this, where it shall be his bliss to live with God, or his woe to be banished from him, world without end.  
Then again, Motion, which is another unbodily thing, though it does not carry body into any such lofts as should raise it above its meanness when at rest: yet in its meddling with it, 'tis whisking about riding and of the so manifold pieces of the world, that it gripes within the bounds of its wide verge all the restlessness that we are either justling with, or other things banged about by, within the whole scope which bodies have to play in.  
Now this in its kind lying between ghost and body, partaking of neither, is raised up by both. Thus the soul of man and other ghosts, holding upon the hand of the first Being, beget it daily; as he of himself, upheld by none, did at the first stir and empower other beings to do so and body also (if I mistake not,) without ghost, give birth to it, in the rank of Being's next below man, or at least beneath that of breathers; and this, according to the tickleness of its lodging in the machina mundi, it does either in itself or in another body. For I am so much of the mind, that matter or body moves itself under God, as poised or postured in the frame of bulkiness, that I wonder all or most men, that have looked much into it, are not of the same mind too, there being (or may be) more bodies moved by body than by ghost, in the world. I see a body as sluggish as iron, may be so clapped in with the knack of a Craftsman, as both to stir itself, and con its heavy neighbour a share too. And I can't find in my heart to deny that skill to a World-maker, that I must needs give to a Watchmaker, not to say to that child, who has but strength enough to wind that up, that he had skill enough to let so down.  
And as it may be begotten by both, or bequeathed another from both, so it may itself belong unto both, though in a way so much unlike, that one word cannot well take in the meaning of it as it reaches both. For body being a stour unweildsom thing, or at least a boaky unthroughfaresom thing, it cannot stir without ask another bodies leave to crowd by; whence 'tis, that this Motion, as such, is ever onwardly or by degrees: But a ghost being never in the least stinted in its way by body, is here, or there, or yonder, forthwith or in an instant. For if when 'tis here at this now, there be nothing to hinder it from being there or yonder, next now, it may be there or yonder then: And if there be nothing but body to hinder, there is nothing at all to hinder, all body being as throughfaresom to ghost, as 'tis stopping to body. But now this kind of leaping not being successive, but all together, 'tis but even a lessening and underly way of speaking to call it Motion.  
To apply this then, we are to lay down, That this hoard of restlessness is evenly dealt out amongst the sundry Clubs and canters of bodies, while time is one and the same to all and every one; insomuch that it may fall to the share of some body or other, to be more quickened or leavened with degrees of motion, than 'tis besteaded with pieces of bulk; and thereupon behave itself in the world, more after the laws of unbodily beings, than of those that own body: things working according to that which they have most of within them. Now we having settled this, That spirits change their Being's here or there, in the All of bodies, far otherwise than bodies do when they flit places, as being now here, next now in the furthest corner of the world, without taking point by point the room that lies between; and this power they have too, as being not body.  
We say then again, That motion, a thing as truly not body as ghost is, may happily upon that score be so far quickened, by ghost at least, or so high wrought up in its own kind, as to hale the thing stirred in the utmost speed, beyond the step of atom by atom, after its kind.  
So a body having bequeathed it one degree of sturt or yerk, in one now of time, and hitching thereupon one atom of room may upon taking in ten or twenty degrees of the same, in the next, sturt to many atoms in length. Now it being as easy for a body to take in ten or twenty degrees of starting in one now, as to take in one, (Start or swiftness not being body in itself, cannot be measured as intended in degrees, by that which measures body as extended in parts;) it seems not to bear very hard upon reason, that it should also undergo the brunt of them as of one. As then the effect of one taken in in one now, was a start of one atom of room in one now of time, the taking in of twenty such degrees in such one now, should also beget a skip of twenty such atoms in one such now.  
Though the foul seems to have much the better of it, as to the body, while in it, as doing things often against the grain of the body, and more like itself, when the body cannot do many things against the souls will, nor any against its kind, though the things be never so friendly to body as body: Yet this sway that the soul has over the body, will not help us out in the showing, how body may be carried out to the doing beyond itself, as such, when roused up by a thing, not body, which has gotten the mastery of it. For the souls business in the waggon or vehicle of the body, is not to ride it full speed, but to breathe it fair and soft, rather to ride in state than to ride post, ennobling the body by its curious draughts and trails of enlivening sprightlinesses, not jading it in the great road of bare motion, which other stirred bodies are wayfaring in.  
That therefore, whence I think a little light will dawn towards us in these mists, is this, to wit, Some instance of God's impowering ghost, either by bare leave, or by biding to boot, to run body so far off its legs, as to hurry it on nearer the pace of ghost, than that of itself, yet without insouling or inlivening of it. Thus, if any faith may be had to story, we have tales enough to make a Thomas believe, that spirits have brought bodies into a room, in the twinkling of an eye, and by as clever a slight wafted them away in another; and that they have in a bodily shape told some, as at this now, what is done at a place, scores or hundreds of miles off, which upon search have been found to have been done there, as near as could be driven, but the moment before it was spoken yonder: Of which, (to name one) the Devil of Mascon falls not much short, whether you look upon the feats done, or the witness of the story that speaks them so.  
But to be sure, one who could never mistake himself, nor mistel us, has said flatly, that our Blessed Lord was so suddenly wafted into the midst of his Disciples, (Luke 24. 36.) that of above 22 eyes none could see him coming thither, till they beheld him standing there. And though they might well believe their eyes, while he stood, that it was, a body by standing there; yet 'tis said they were frighted to think, that it must be a spirit in its coming thither: they being no more able to ken the body through the glancing of the spirit that brought it, than they could the speed of a spirits glancing, even without body. And as his coming was thus overquick, to be seen by those eyes that can see from earth to heaven in a moment, so his going away from two, a little before, was of the same kind, (v. 31,) He vanished out of their sight: not that the body turned to a nothingness, but to an unseenness, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) And such, to end, was his farewell, While he blessed them he parted, and was carried up, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; in the very blessing he was carried. It was so soon upon it, that the Spirit of God did not think meet to say it was after it. Though indeed we read from one gospeler, That after the Lord had spoken he was received up; yet he does not say it was after these words of blessing, but might be only after what he was speaking of foregoing: Or if he did take in this, he does not say after but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which may be at, among, or about, there, as well as it must be elsewhere, Luk. 24. 5. And if it be said that our Lord's Body was a spiritual body, we must also say, that if it was not true body, as well as spiritual, it could not be truly a spiritual body.  
What we would gather hence is this, That if a body, whilst a body, may be so overswayed by ghost within it, as to brush through many atoms of room in fewer nows of time, it may happily be that that unbodily thing called motion without ghost, may be so far intended beyond what the body in which 'tis is extended, as to bring it to a like swiftness. So that if all the motion with which God at first quickened the world, were made over to one small body, just holding way with time in its motion, and all the rest at a dead stillness, time all the while holding on its even by-run, 'tis not methinks altogether unlikely, but that this body which ran even a breast with time, from the motion which it had before, should now give time the go-by, with what it has gotten since, and is over-glutted with. But, to break off from this so great a stamme to the mind, rather wishing we could give more light in it, than blessing ourselves in that already given, We go on to the following, which may seem to have beset the mind as narrowly with wrack and night, as any of the foregoing.  
We have it, with the former, fathered upon Empiricus, thus. Take a line of nine points, and imagine two lest bodies pacing with even speed from the two ends to the middle, that they may meet there, 'tis needful that the fifth or middle point should be halved between them, there being no reason why one should engross the whole more than the other; when yet the places and bodies moved in them, are for-taken to be altogether without parts.  
To which by way of forerunner, we ananswer, That if the Argument be of any force at all, it will hold as strongly against time's being made up of nows, as bodies being made up of leasting. For suppose we these nine atoms of room to be run over by these leasting, in nine nows of time; each of them then must needs have run as well four instances and an half of time, as four atoms and an half of room, time being a thing to be halved as well as room: Notwithstanding which, we hold time to be made out of nows or instances, and so may likewise for all that, hold body to be made up of leasting or points; Only we have a divine witness to assure us, that time had a first now, but have only reason to bespeak us, that bulk has a least part: Whence we are not so ready to drive one back to infinity, as we are to drive the other on to it.  
But then to speak more home, we answer, That the middle point is not to be halved or shared between both, nor taken up by either; but the race of both shall end at the fourth leasting. If it be asked, What stops them there, when there is another leasting of room between them ere they can touch? I answer again, The laws of motion, in the round All of bodies stop them there, by virtue whereof 'tis impossible for a body to move through less than a least of room, or to strive to do it: Now the whole, or all that lies between them being the least that can be, if both should crowd nearer, (and one must do it as well as the other) motion would be made in less than a leasting of room: which is but a kind of more than the most of nonsense.  
That they do not touch comes to nothing: for having taken them up as Indivisibles, such as can't be shred, we have thereupon made them Invisibles, such as can't be seen; and those things that cannot be seen at all, cannot be seen to touch or not to touch at all.  
But if you make two such bodies as may be seen, so to run a tilt upon such a line of odd leasting, we say they would meet and touch, and yet leave the odd atom of room between them too: For there are not two bodies in nature or handiworks so smoothly outsided, but that being clapped together, would leave as many leasting of room between them, as those they touch at indeed, and in the mean time should seemingly touch or abutt at all, and by us be said and thought so to do.  
Besides, we are to reckon here, That 'tis no unwonted thing in nature, for motions to be checked, from a bare truckling to the laws of the world, or symbolising with the scheme of the great All, without the least hit or stop from other bodies that thwart them; as we have before shown they would do, at the selvedge of the World, and centre of the Earth. Nor is this Show or Phaenomenon harder to be understood, than that of two atoms falling from the two ends of the Earth's throughfare line or diameter in even pace, and both ceasing to stir further, with the central or inmost point between them, as here with the middlemost. It being demonstrable, that neither of the two should thrust into it, and shut out the other, for this reason, Because 'tis alike impossible, that both should have the whole, (two leasting of body crowding into one of room;) or that each of them should have half, the breaking that asunder which is the least that can be already, being only a breach of sense, and nothing at all besides.  
Which laws too, are so far spread as to take in ghost as well as body. For though we are sure that body cannot stop the glance of a ghost, the hardest or the stiffest matter being as throughfaresom unto that, as the softest or the yieldingest: Yet, to go no further than our own souls, we see them bound, by these wide reaching laws we are speaking of, to the narrow closet of a man's body; which that the body do not lock up there for the sake of its hardfastness or closeness, we are insured. For why, the body is as fast and unthroughfaresom when a carcase, as when enlivened: but when the body becomes a carcase by timely or untimely death, we see then the soul can do after the needing of its own kind, and fairly take leave of the body for all its cloggishness; not that it has sprung any new leaks or startingholes to fly out at, but only that law which bade it stay till then, bids it go now. If you ask me then, What 'tis that keeps the soul so fast within the quickened body? I answer, Because the great law of its kind has set it no business to do any where else in the world; and for the soul to be, and be for nothing, or be against the law of its kind, which is as bad, would too ill tax, and too much shame the wisdom of its maker. 'Tis a truth with a witness, That every thing in the world is as much stakt down to its work (freedoms in free beings set aside) by the law of its Maker, as the Groundsil of St. Paul's was by the tools of the Workmen. Yielding therefore but this, That the soul was once put into the body by God Almighty, to begin or carry on a shaping or plastic work of life, in such bounds, of such stuff, for such a time; which must be so, or else, that the hairs of our head are told, or our time's in God's hand, not so: It will as surely hold to that spot of the world, for that work, all that while, as all other ghosts may do within the selvedge of it, or as the body would rest where 'tis, if begirt in a mould of marble, to the bigness of the whole earth's globe; the laws of the All of bodies taking like place in both. The reason of the latter being, not, that the body of man cannot drill through marble at all: For if God likes to empower it, it may, for aught I know, do so, as well as our Blessed Lords could come in to such a room, as where the doors were shut. But the main, if not the only thing in the way, is, That unless a narrower law be made for it, there is a wider already made against it. And sure, to think of any other and thicker way of making the body the souls inholder, as if any strings of it could bind it down there or the closest coat of it wrap it up there, would be all one with hedging in the Cuckoo, or laying of lime-twigs to catch the flying thoughts of it.  
And that this law is not a law like that of right reason, and settled within, but some outward one, far above and wide of it, may be gathered from hence; in that though we think it never so meet and wish it never so earnestly, (if it be our mind and will only and not Gods) that we may go out of the body in life, or stay in it at death, neither will come to pass, any more than willing to be rich will make so; our bounded wills not being of strength enough to unhinge Gods unbounded power: Who hath withstood his will, that is, of power or forecast?  
If I agree with a Workman to build me on such a plot of ground, an house of such a size, in such a time, with such stuff as shall be laid him in, he not stirring out of it until he has ended it; though the doors or ways be open, he cannot any ways get out within that time, morally or in right: For why, I have so hemmed in that of him which is moral by the bargain, that that cannot be done by him that cannot lawfully be done by him, though he has still the same kindly power of going out at doors or openings that other men have. And could I now as well bind him by laws of nature, as I have done by those of right and wrong, (which God can do both alike,) I should then grasp all of him, as well as before I laid hold of some of him; and it would then be as well beyond his power to stir abroad altogether, as 'tis now to do it lawfully; and he would more surely, than with chains and bulwarks, be charmed within that circle all that time. If God Almighty had said it with himself, That I shall ne'er set foot in Rome; though my soul has the same power to do that for my body that another man's soul does for him going from hence thither, or that it should do for me if I went thither; yet I shall be as sure not to come there, as if I were waylaid with nothing but walls and sconces gulfs and quicksands. So much does each thing after its kind, bow to the laws of him that made it.  
Much of this may be seen to in the Breathers below us, of which a bird, one of the most quick and flitting kind, is one. At a known time of the year, one of the laws we are speaking of, binds her to the sluggish trade of setting in a nest upon eggs, on which score alone it does it, in the open lightsome air too, and with more stillness than if tied with strings, or born down with weights, and notwithstanding too, the kindly cravings of hunger and thirst, as seems from its leanness at that season, and all this from as certain a cause as is that, by which the runner in a Mill does not sink through the Lyingstone, that is, a wide law of the Almighty's. Afterwards the same law, that for the sake of the eggs hatching, had tied down the brisk and eager fowl so long, forecasting also for the young ones a coming, bids it arise; for though its fatness might be spared, yet its life cannot. And now, though the Coethy bird should be as much bend upon setting and starving, as it was before upon rising and eating; yet, as then the strength of the law overbound it to set still and hatch, so now the force of the same oversways it to fly away and eat: All this while she plotting no more, (without wiser than we) than the shruff, moss and hair, that the nest was thwacked together of. In a word, 'tis so clear that the Shows or Phaenomena of the world are wielded by unseen laws, even the worst of its shocks and jumbles, and not after those thick roughnesses that sense beholds them with, that he cannot be any thing of a Christian Philosopher (nor can he be now adays the latter, to speak of, who is not the former,) that does not see, that even the Being's beneath us are led to do all their tricks, by a wisdom far overtopping that by which we manage the most weighty and crafty of our own affairs.  
The birds we have been speaking of, build nests with such an auk tool, their beak varying too after the manifoldness of their sorts and kinds, without either being shown or having tried, more neatly than some men would do, holding the Apprenticeship to the craft of a Nestwright and making it their daily work, with the meetest of tools. The Spider drives on the great business of catching flies, by netting in corners within doors, and darting in the open air abroad, from the beginning to the end, with far more layers of plots and traps than the cunningest Huntsman follows his game. If the Commonwealth of Bees were but as narrowly searched into, as it has been curiously endeavoured, happily it would shame the misadventures of the cried up Kingdoms amongst the stock of mankind. To come more home, we find we could such better at a week old, without showing or trying, than we can do when grown up, by the help of reason and sight of the thing done: for when we did it as sucklings, we were steered by a wisdom in its ripeness, too far outgoing what we laid claim to in the seeds and sparklings to be named with it. Nay, to end, we may observe in our own elderly doings, and those too of so low a rank as that of the bare stirring of the limbs, we are set on work after higher scantlings of wisdom than when we put forth the loftiest powers of will and understanding: else we can give no reason why a Fool should rise more Mathematically from a seat, than the wisest man can fully reckon for; inasmuch as the remark is as old as Aristotle, That no man can rise off a seat without either bowing the body forwards, or drawing the legs backwards: but the ground of the thing has been so much in the dark, that it was but lately (that I know) hit upon by that great Light of Chester and the World, (now with the Father of Lights,) the excellent Bishop Wilkins; who has brought it so to the lever of the thigh, as to make the middle of it the prop or thiller, the body the weight, and the leg the power; either of which being brought by a sharp angle to a downright or perpendicular or more, with the thiller, will by so much lessen the weight, from the yielded assumption in that mechanic power, That that point, which is touched by a perpendicular from the centre of heaviness, is one of the terms: Which kind of way made out to a fool, as an help to him to stand up from his seat, would sooner fit the man that gives it to set down even such another, than him any whit the more to rise up, for being taught so, how he should: but yet he can do the thing without showing, and as most wise men do too, without so much as thinking how. So far do the laws we have hitherto been upon, bind and oversway the workings of all bodies, from the noblest beings in the world, to the tiny bestirring of the least atoms, which led us into all these remarks.   

CHAP. VI  
HAving thus seen how far body or the world of bodies may be bigned, how far a piece of it may be lessened, and how slowly or how swiftly bodies may be stirred, The next thing to be handled is, Of what standing the world may be, or might have been? Whether it might not have been so far of old, as to have had no beginning; or may not be such a while to come, as to have no end?  
To this we must say, That as we learn from holy Writ, that the world had a beginning, so from the grounds by us laid down, it could not choose but have so; It being as easy for God, who is without beginning, to have beginning, as for the world which had it, to have had none. God who is every way unbounded, may as well be brought down to the timesomness of that which is bounded, as that which is every way bounded, may be lifted up to the alwayness of him who is unbounded; the farness being the same, 'tis all one, for this to come to that or that to this, the Hill to come to Mahomet or Mahomet to the Hill. If it be said, That Gods coming down to the world would ungod him, but not the world's coming up to somewhat that he is. I say, the world's driving up to any thing of Gods being, would as much ungod him, and over and above unworld itself. For it does as much ungod him who is everlasting, to make another so, as it does to make him not so; for why, if he be not only everlasting, he is not everlasting at all. Two times may as well drive on by each others side, and not be one, as two everlastingnesses; and two things unbounded in bulk, may as well dwell together in the same unbounded room, and not be the same bulk, as two things unbounded in lasting, may dwell together in the same abiding, and not be the selfsame abiding.  
If God has the whole perfection or fullness of everlastingness, then cannot the world go shares with him, without he should ungod himself, by making himself less perfect; and if he has it so wholly, as that whole thing to be himself wholly, then cannot he make it over to another, without making that to be no other but himself. Insomuch that I do think the begetting and forthstepping of the Son and Holy Ghost could ne'er have been, had they not been Very God of very God.  
If any shall say as some have done already, that the world is somewhat besides God for all his boundlessness, and has a bounded fullness or perfection, over and above his boundless perfection, and so why may there not be infinitely more than gods infinite whole perfection as well as finitely more? I answer, Methinks whoever says it, speaks thick, in both meanings, as taken for hasty and gross too. For though the world be somewhat that is not God, yet 'tis not somewhat that is not Gods; 'tis not he but 'tis his; ' its perfection is his perfection, and so his, as that it had never been his nor never been, if he had not been Infinite or Almighty. Had the world or any thing else perfection or being, though in never so low and scant a way, and not springing from God, I could not tell how to think God an infinite maker; something being made, or being, that he did not make: but that Gods making a boundedly perfect world, from his unboundedly perfect power, should be a taking up of, or lessening to, that his whole perfection, I no more con, than that a man's doing a thing wisely, should make him not to have the whole of that wisdom which he had. Indeed if God were such a kind of Being, as some have made him, by ekeing him out with boundless scopes, nothing could then be roomthy besides him, without carving a piece out of him. Which he that stickles so much for should do well to mind a little the twitchings of; For sure he must be stocked with forehead, as well as brains, to hold it.  
As that Bayard must ever be as bold as blind, that comes hobbling with his blundring houghs, on Hallowed be thy name. God is an infinite maker as well as an infinite God, infinite in doing, as well as in being; when therefore he does or makes, he does or makes somewhat: but that the somewhat, should end in a thing that is not God, falls out by luck, and is not a thing that must be; for Gods making of something into nothing, is as much an Almighty work, as making of something out of nothing. Whence I think, that God by making any things, does not make any new perfection besides, or out of, his own, which is the whole infinitely; but gives a new show of it, in that, which still lives, or moves, or has its being in him, not out of, or besides him, as when he be nothings a thing that is, he does not benothing any perfection, it being too hard to think how that can be an infinitely perfect deed, as all his are, but only shift the show or sight of his own infinite whole perfection, which is not more by doing this, nor less by doing that; (or gives the same in another dress).  
The way to drive the world up to everlastingness, is not to give it a being sooner and sooner, on and on: For when you have driven it as far as you can that way, you are as far off from God's everlastingness as when you first set out; and 'tis no better than if you should go about to make a man as wise as God, by making him every day a little wiser than other. We have said it and must stand to it, that God's everlastingness is a beginningless, endless now; and if you mean, to get the world to go share in it, you must turn its way of being one now of time after another, into that of being all at once, or you do nothing; any more than you shall make it all filling, unless you can put it out of its wont of having here a piece and there a piece, into the way of being altogether.  
If otherwise, look for brain-breaks from such kind of kill things as these; As an infinite tale of years to have run before the time in which the world, as 'tis, began; and that is such a cannot be, that we need say no more against it, because we have said enough already: and then a more than infinite tale now, because more have run by now, than had then: and a more than that more, because more are to come to the end of the world, than have already been: and then a most behind that after more, for why there is to come an unknown tale of years after the world's end: and after that after as endlessly as ever were before. Thus shall we sort out eternity into as many kinds and lengths, as the Darbyshire huswife does her puddings, when she makes whiting and blacking, and livering and hackings: and 'tis pity for fooling sake that we cannot tie a string at the ends of all alike. But still that which kills after all this death is, that in this infinite tale of years, more than infinite, more than that more, and most at the end of it, there must yet have been a more infinite than all those infinites of months, and in that a more than that infinite of weeks, and in that a more than that infinite of days; in that, a more of hours, in that, of halves quarters and moments: and yet the first infinite tale, as much as all of them together, neither more nor less.  
Pag. 400. 402. And if any man think to come flourishing off with this, That 'tis not the infinite succession but the infinity of the succession that thus wracks the mind, and that it would bear as hard upon any other infinite but Gods, that is. I think so myself and would have others think so too, that a things infinity in whole, which is finite in parts, is enough to crack all the strings in the backbone. Therefore all the hurt I wish men, is That as they love their ease, they would never crack their brains nor rend their souls, with thinking that there are any such things, while they live, but only in the Mathematics, where such are supposed, but are not, nor ever were said to be. And then, as for Gods ever blessed and only infinity, to a man who is as he should be, it comes as full of good cheer and heart taking, as the other comes empty of it.  
Pag. 413, 414. Our Author indeed is clearly of the mind, the world might have been from everlasting, and that for aught I can see for these reasons only.  
'Tis clear, says he, the world might have been made sooner than it was made; and if there never was a time in which the world could not be made, it follows that it might have been made from eternal ages?  
Answ. Before world was, there was no soonerness at all: and therefore the world could not have been sooner made than it was. And the reason why there never was a time in which the world could not be made, is only this; Because there never was any time at all, till the world that was the first timesom thing, was made, and by it time was. Nor does it follow from thence, That it might have been from eternal ages; For why, there were no ages at all, until that which began at the beginning of the world.  
Secondly, Pag. 415. Could not God then make the world, when he set with himself that he would do it? What bound him up, that he could not give show of his power, together with his will?  
Answ. The words having a twofold meaning, one true, the other untrue, I say he could, and he could not; he could in one meaning, and he could not in another. The when has two faces, one with which it looks inwards into the decree, the other with which it looks onwards unto the world. As to the first, 'tis not true; as to the latter, ' 'tis. God could bring forth the world at that then, wherein or when he had cast with himself the world could afterwards be made, and that was when it was made: But God could not do it then, when he was setting with himself to do it afterward, (if I may word it so to be better understood;) and that when only was from everlasting; for he had decreed from everlasting, that he would do it in time, and it could be done no otherwise.  
That forecast or decree by the power of which the world was, was nothing but God forecasting or decreeing; and if the world had been of as long standing as that was, that had been God too. That everlastingness that made one to be God, would have made the other so. Insomuch that the Argument is nothing but this, God was from everlasting, therefore the world might have been so too. And that is indeed a pretty little brat, that has been so lovingly dandled by old Father Hobbes, that it will never call other man Daddy while the world lasts.  
Methinks decreeing is so much forecasting or foredooming that which is to be, and is not, till so foredoomed, that do but once yield that the world was, because God from everlasting did decree it should be, and for the sake of that alone it cannot be from everlasting. The world being no world but as it was a decreed world, and the decree by which it was such, being from everlasting decreed, and never a decreeing, than I say, The world must be after the decree, not in the passing of it; for it was ever passed, never passing. So the decree passed, was the cause of the world made. Now the decree which was passed before it, being from everlasting, it was thereupon from everlasting before it. So that by making the world as much as you can of old, you can make it no more everlasting than 'tis; for it would always be alike after the decree, which was from everlasting before it.  
If you say the world was just as everlasting as the decree, rather made in it than by it, or upon it: Not to say, How can that be made, that was never a making? I say then, The world must needs be before ever God was aware of it, or could ever decree it; and so as much the cause of the decree, as the decree of that; and the decree as much a worlded decree, as the world a decreed world; and that decree being God himself, he must be also a worlded God, or a begoded world.  
'Tis still a truth, and owned such, That what binds up God from doing, binds him also from willing: But as God had not a power from everlasting, to make the world from everlasting; so neither did he ever will it should be so: but his will from everlasting was, That it should be in time. Accordingly his power holding an evenness with this his will, brought forth the world at that time and no other, than we read it took beginning.  
Obj. There is yet another Argument much befriended by the same hand, as also to be met with good broadly somewhere in the Morean Philosophy, and that is, Why could not God as well make the world everlasting a part ante, on the behalf of formerness, as he did the soul of man a part post, on the behalf of latterness? Why could not the one as well have no beginning, as the other no end?  
Answ. This all flows from a very great mistake about the very being of that thing which we call Everlastingness. God's everlastingness, and that of the soul, are two things under one name; and so wide asunder too, that they lie infinitely off each other, as to their very kind. As God's everlastingness was always without succession, so 'tis now, and ever shall be. And as the everlasting soul of Adam has lived as successively since his death, as the world itself, that we see holds on to do so still; so shall it abide for what is to come, as it has for that which is past▪ it shall never wear otherwise than it has or does. And it shall never be said, That his, or any man's soul, has lived to an infinite number of minutes; but whatever minute you pitch upon, in the boundless lasting of the soul, it will have a bounded tale of minutes behind it; and it shall never live in other to come, than such as are already past; the soul being rather indefinite than infinite in its abiding, rather of an unmarkt lasting than everlasting; and that everlastingness or endlesness which it has, (so called,) shall come no nearer Gods everlastingness or endlesness, than if it lasted only for a while, and then ended: For still it shall be rightly said, That God is every way infinitely beyond the soul, in his way of abiding. God's everlastingness is without beginning and without end; and these two are so together, and bound up in one, that you can no way halve them, and say, This half is unbeginningly, and that unendingly; this unlike the souls abiding, and that like it: For that is this, and this is that in God, and both are one, and one God too, and you can no more sunder them than cut a now in two. From everlasting to everlasting is God's whole eternity, and nothing less can be it, or any thing of it; If it be otherwise dealt out, we must remember, 'tis for our sakes only.  
But now the alwayness of the soul is such a thing, as of which it may be said, it evermore was not, as well as it evermore will be. Now as that which evermore was, stands off infinitely from that which evermore was not, so does God's everlastingness, which was the former, from that of the soul which is the latter. And as for that which is to come, the soul must creep on to it step by step, now after now: Whereas to God's everlastingness, as there was nothing before it, so there is nothing to come after it; nothing to come, nor nothing passed in respect of it; but all to him is now, and he is shire out of the length of our line, from everlasting before it, to everlasting beyond it.  
Should it be otherwise than we have said, this unbecomingness would tread upon the heels of it, to wit, That the world might as well get up with God's allfillingness by growing bigger, as with his everlastingness by growing older. For let us but suppose the world every week it lasts, to wax as big again, (he that made this in six days, can make it as much more in six more,) and to have the same everlastingness the soul has, or might have had; if by its ever growing older it would reach or hold up with God's everlastingness, then by its ever growing bigger it would reach or hold out with God's allfillingness: ever to ever, or infinite to infinite being the same.  
Why could not God make the world boundless in its bigness one way, as the soul in its lasting another way? As suppose an infinite line to cut the infinite roomthiness in the midst, (as somebody will show you how,) might not God have made in one half, a Being boundless in bulk one way, so as we might say, that God were infinitely beyond the bound of its infinity one way, as well as say, God was everlastingly before the beginning of our everlastingness one way. It's immensity might as well have a first part as to outstretchedness, and no last, as our everlastingness have a first now of its abiding, and no last. Extension that is infinite as to bulk one way, is no more uncouth than an abiding that is everlasting as to length one way.  
But now should there ever be such a thing as this, it must needs share in the half of God's allfillingness; but seeing that Gods allfillingness cannot be halved, but is what it is wholly, and this is what it is halfly, it follows, That because this Being cannot reach half of it, or all of it, it can reach none at all of it. In like manner, God's everlastingness not being to be halved, any more than his allfillingness, the everlastingness that the soul has, must reach the whole of it, or none of it.  
Besides, the thing would be too ill matched with itself, ever to be at all. If that which is once infinite can never be finite, 'tis impossible, that even while 'tis infinite it should be finite too, infinite one way and finite another, whether it be so in its lasting or in its roomthiness. Finite one way and infinite another, is worse than man one way and horse another, or woman one way and fish another, which yet is that Centaur and Meremaid, that never were but in the wildest thoughts of him that sometimes roved at them.  
But indeed the selfsame Writer has told us roundly, (p. 399.) That Gods being everlasting, is nothing but his having the root of it so in him, as to be called everlasting in the selfsame meaning that the soul of man is; not that it has been together with that which is to be, but that 'tis put into such a way that it must needs ever abide, and be together with every now, when once it comes. But that God should be in actu, or already, together with those moments that are to come, is both absurd and impossible.  
Now I must beg leave to say, That however this everlastingness may set well enough upon the thing that Mr. Hobbes has made a God of, that he might play with him: yet I am sure it would full ill become that God who has made us, that we might worship him. For I will be bold to say, 'tis proved, the soul shall never have lived everlastingly, and that that everlastingness which the soul has in the root, and is to come, is of the same kind with that abiding which it has already grown up to, and is past: Nor is it any thing else but time eked out, now after now, a lastingness that is indefinite, but not finite; for why, a thing that is finite backwards, cannot be infinite forwards, any more than a thing may be boundless in bulk one way and bounded another. Now, that God Almighty should have an everlastingness that is as much finite as infinite, growing as grown, or be only indefinite, is a thing that I will not call by its right name: but be it as it can be, it lights full upon the head of him that says, God's everlastingness is so strainedly such as that of our souls is. If it be allayed with this, That only that part of God's everlastingness which is to come, is akin to ours; he that shall do it, is himself more akin to Waltham's Calf, that was to suck part of that Bull's milk that had none at all. He that breaks asunder God's everlastingness, breaks the Godhead; for why, his everlastingness is no less than his very Being: and he that makes part of it like to ours, makes the whole so; for whatsoever part you pitch on fore or aft, it is the whole, and now for evermore.  
The ground we go upon here is this, That whatsoever God is, or is in God, is actualiter or in a readiness, and that he is not towards any thing which now he is not, or in potentia ad aliquid. That the bare Essence or Being of God is so in actu or forthwith, that 'tis as impossible he should be in potentia, as that he should be less perfect, is owned as well by our Author as any man. But I say then, That God's everlastingness must needs be as much in a readiness, because Gods Being, as 'tis everlasting, is as far from not being, and as every way perfect as his Being barely taken. And if that be reason enough to make one actually or forthwith, 'tis so too to make the other; the latter being bound in the former, and Gods being alone without being everlasting, not being at all, but as we think it, by itself. If then God's Essence or Being, taken only as such, cannot be made up of being and not being, neither can that his Being, taken as everlasting; the everlastingness of it being as much of the Essence as the nakedness, and rather too, inasmuch as one is, the other lonely, is but thought. If then Gods being as such, shut out as well the may be, posse esse, as the may not be, the posse non esse, Gods Being as ever being, shuts out both too; else God should be more perfect in the being which he has sunderly in our thoughts, than in that being which he has truly in himself. If that of God's everlastingness which is to come may be, but is not; then that of God's Essence which it is, may be also, but as yet is not. He than that says that God's bare Essence must be forthwith or actu, but his everlasting Essence, or his everlastingness which is all one, must be forthcoming or in potentia, must either say he does not know what, or he does not care what; it being true blue Gotham or Hobbes ingrained, one of the two.  
To make it yet out, that God's everlastingness must be like that of the soul, growing still more and more, our Author goes on, by showing the aukness or great absurdity on the other side, which is, That all that which is to come should already be.  
That that which is so unto us should already be with us, I acknowledge is auk enough; but that that which is so to us, but not to God, (to whom nothing can be to come or passed) should be now together with him, is no more odd, than that that which is a great way off in place from us, should be at hand to God-ward. As for what we read in Holy Writ, that God was, and is, and is to come, 'tis a coming down to our meanness: As when he said, Before Abraham was I am, and This day have I begotten thee, who was begotten from everlasting, he kept as near to the thing that he was, as he kept off from the Grammar that we speak by. And if we should but reason from the likenesses that God has given us of himself to other things, as 'tis here done from the likeness given to time, unto his being such indeed, we might easily make as odd a thing of the Godhead▪ as somebody else has done of his everlastingness.  
Besides, 'tis owned too, That all the moments which are to come shall never be, [p. 399.] and therefore God shall never be▪ together with them. Not to say how hard 'tis, that that which is not at all, nor ever will be, nor can be at all, nor can come nearer at all, should yet be a coming; I must yet mark, that this onward everlastingness which is fastened upon God Almighty, is all along made up of things which before were not, afterwards are not, and leaves still beyond it things that never shall be: So that God's everlastingness, or everlasting God, is made up of something that now is, and something that was and is not, and something that neither is, nor ever was, nor ever will be: And that is a something that never was something, nor is now something, nor ever will be something: but a something that is now nothing, and always was nothing, and always will be nothing; unless the Reader will let it be something that is now awake, and always was awke, and always will be awke.  
But we are not only to be burdened with awke, but knocked down with a Can't be too. For so we read, If there be nothing to come of God's infinite succession, then 'tis come to an end: but 'tis a Contradiction that what is unbounded should ever be ended: 'tis therefore impossible that God should be in actu or at hand with that, which is not so yet, but will be.  
This indeed smells pretty strong of quirk, but relishes as faintly as may be of reason. For it has no crutches to lean its crippled burden on, but what we have already plucked from under it, to wit, a succession in God's everlastingness; whence 'tis thought because things are to come to us, who are growing onwards, they must be so to God likewise, who is not, but calls the things that are not as though they were: and I think enough has been said to show, that neither is extendednes the measure of God's immensity, nor is successive lastingness the measure of his eternity. But if the man who is so all to benighted, will needs be setting up a Will in the wisp, no wonder if the glare of it sometimes roblet him into bogs and marlpits.  
But if another gates answer must be given, I do say, that when ever any man dogs me with this, If there be nothing to come of God's eternity 'tis at an end? Then will I say too, If there be nothing to come of half of it, that half is at an end. So at the very time of my writing this, Half God's everlastingness should be fairly tripped off; and though God Almighty were whole God from everlasting, yet he is to be but half-God to everlasting; his everlastingness being of his very Godhead, and this halving of it being a knack of our Authors owning long since. Again I must say, If there be no part of God's immensity beyond the room where I now am, then 'tis wholly here, and if wholly hear 'tis wholly finite; for such is the whole room that is here: But 'tis a Contradiction that boundless being should be bounded. For the rightning of all which there is nothing in the world to be brought forth but this, that He that talks of one or other, talks idle, and jumbles holy Ghost and body, lastingness and everlastingness both together, which should always be kept wide asunder. Something to come, and part beyond, have nothing to do, with God's everlastingness or alfillingness, but are wholly taken up by body and time. And because we see that every body has a middle and that our lastingness has an onwardness, we are hasty to make over these to God and his everlastingness: Whereas nothing has a middle, that has not two ends, between which the middle must evenly be, nor is any thing growing older that was not sometimes young, or young that was not sometimes nothing: If then God's Eternity has neither beginning or end, he must be hugely out, that talks of the middle of it; and if God were never younger than he is, he is but a brainsick wight that dreams of his growing older. If nothing of his everlastingness be past, nothing of it is to come, and if any be past than something of Gods being, was, but is not; and if any be to come, than something of Gods being is not yet, but forsooth shall be, and yet his own self stiffly and rightly holds, that Gods being as such is altogether in a readiness or actualiter. Now do but put these two together, and see how huge luckily and unluckily they spell absurd and impossible, which yet are the two hard things that are cast into the Folks dish for them to gnaw upon: Sometimes he that is busy in hurling stones at random to pelt other men's Geese, may unluckily brain some of his own Swans.  
Though the thing we are upon be so a Nonesuch, that there is no other thing in being, or can be, to which we may fully liken it, yet some things there are by our looking unto which, the understanding, I think, will a little the better cope with this. One is the way of the souls being in the body, or together with it. Let us then with Michaelius (a late Hoorns man) take eternity to be as it were the soul of time as then the soul takes in all the body, without being partable as that is, but being as cleaveless as if it were but the least point of it; So eternity hems in all time, without creeping on & on as that does, but being as free from all succession as the least now of it. Little otherwise God's working or knowing differs from ours, as sealing or printing does from limning and drawing, one ask time, and the more done the more time; the other is done in a moment, and much may be done in that moment as easily as a little.  
Another likeness may be that of the wheel, beset with a row of clogs or pegs, in the whirling about of which, to an eye that is placed within, the stirring of each cog comes into sight, one after other, all on a row; so that the first looked on, must turn about to the point at which its start began, before all of them can come to be seen; but to an eye that is seated without the wheel, the running of the wheel is taken in the twinkling of an eye. Now God is beyond the wheel or line of our time; for why, he is beyond the selvedge of this our timesome world, by way of perfection, that is, not stowage, to him then the whole wheeling about or revolution of times, is as much in an instant, as the least now of it is to us.  
Nor is it right down trifling to mark how time has a great deal of its length or shortness, from the plight that our souls or bodies are in: for when we are ill at ease, the shorter time is always long, and the wheel thereof drives on heavily; but when we are blithe and happy, the wheel is laid aside for wings, and that which could scarce go of late, now flies, and overswiftly too for us to mark its speed. Now God who is infinitely more happy than we are, must needs drive on the speed of this wheel to an infinite height, beyond what we can; so that it must do no less than wind up into itself, even in a very moment. If it can take the slowness of one now after another, from us, why may it not take the swiftness of all its nows together from God? And though indeed many things are to us otherwise than they are, yet so as all things are to him, even so they are indeed.  
But to make short with our Author, to whom it seems the world might have been from everlasting, we shall only mark what an ugly train this carries after it. His news is, That the world might have been as unbeginningly as God himself, and then to be sure it may be as endlessly as he is; for the soul which is one thing that God had made, being so already, the world which is another, may be so too, if God will: So God may give away his whole everlastingness, to a world that is as much as he can be from everlasting to everlasting: And when he is thus on the giving hand, he may give away his immensity too. And this indeed our Author is so forward to yield, that he has taken it up for a thing that all men else have done; for so he lanches out, (p. 391.) Our lastingness cannot be of another kind from God's everlastingness; for than if God should make a body of an all-filling, outstretchedness, it would not be all-filling, because it would have dimensions of another kind from what God has. So he does not only take it for a truth, That such a thing may be, but a more owned truth than that which this is brought to strengthen. But indeed, whether he will hold so or not, he must, or else break with himself. For if the reason why the world might be from everlasting, was, (as p. 414. is said,) Because there was no part of that lastingness which was before the world, in which it began to have a power to be, but still it might have been sooner and sooner unbeginningly, than the same gives the world leave to have been all-filling as to bulk: For why, there is no scantling of that roomthiness beyond the world, beyond which the world had no power to be, but still it might have been bigger and bigger boundlessly. Besides, for fail, he has found out another way to make the world as immense as God is, though it were made bounded from everlasting; and that is by growing every day bigger and bigger endlessly: so having lasted an infinite while, it must needs have grown up to an infinite bulk, though made otherwise at first; for so he says, God is called everlasting, not that he is gotten up to all the nows of time that are to come, but that he is hieing thither as fast as he can, in the same road with our souls. Which is indeed a most curious, pretty, dainty thing if you mind it narrowly: For, in likeness, God's immensity may be called so, not that he has filled all roomthiness from all eternity, or was everlastingly every where; but from his growing ever more and more in bulk, he may be said to be immense, as from his growing ever older and older in time, he may be said to be eternal: so have we gotten a world as everlasting and as immense as God himself. Now he that will but cut out such a God for me and make it thus far, I'll undertake to make it up for him with stuff of the own; for now God's Almightiness, All-wisdom, and whatever else comes under the name of attributum incommunicabile in the Dutch Divinity, setting no closer to the Godhead than his everlastingness and allfillingness, he might from everlasting have thrown them in too after the other: or however, if he gave them but a bounded mightiness and wisdom, yet inasmuch as there might be a growing every day more mighty and more wise from everlasting, that Being must needs be as infinite in wisdom and mightiness as God himself, because as infinite in those two as he is in his everlastingness, in which he is no less infinite than in them.  
All that we want now of making the world a God Cap-a-pe, or up to the Brim, is only this, That such a world would be made by God still, and not from everlasting of itself, as he is. But do but put it next into that same boundless roomthiness and abiding, whereupon 'tis said, they would jump into one roomthiness and abiding; and, which are as much of themselves as God himself is, and were and will be for all him from everlasting to everlasting; and then I think he will have set before us such a Hoghen moghen Leviathan, that that of Holy Job would be but a kind of Spratkin to it ward, and the bigger one of Mr. Hobbes would never be enough to make Anchovy-sauce for it. Though indeed I cannot think he meant no better, yet weighing these things, I must needs say, He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods, and looks as if he had given us Tentamina de Deo for the nonce. And for my part, if I did but think there were or could be any such thing as springs thus kindly from the seed which he has sown, it would give me for ever frolicking on't again, and I should go in fear of my life on't every day I rise, and dream full dradly on't every night I went to bed. For I being at no agreement with this same hideous Roomster, as to the way how I should behave myself towards it while in it, how to bespeak its forgiveness after doing amiss, or how to know when I have done so; it may be, while I am thinking how all is well, and a coaks a coming, I may, for aught I know, be ramping on the snout of it, and so have my harmless mistake paid home by a vile mischance and a sudden too, with nothing less than the dreadfulness of a grim nip, and a dead-doing gripe.  
And this shall be enough to have spoken to the first part of our fourth Head, How far of old, the world or body, has or might have been: The other part is, How long it shall or may last. The Answer to which must be twofold, according to the twofold state of the world; to wit, That in which 'tis, and that in which it shall be. As to the latter, There sticks nothing with me, but that the world or body may be as everlasting as the soul: For I think 'tis as impossible, that that which is something should make itself nothing, as that that which is nothing should make itself something. And when we say, the body is dying or timesom, the soul deathless or endless, we do not mean the body should thereby lose its bodyhood, but only its suchness: It shall be or may be always body, but it never shall be, or at least never was it body unshifted; but after its kind, sending forth and taking in of steams and reeks, even all along.  
But as to that plight in which the world now is, the May be of its lastingness is not to be gathered from the inwardness of the thing; for, for aught we know, body as now 'tis, may last as long as body renewed and cleansed by fire, as hereafter it shall be: But we are altogether to look outward to the will of God, who, as he hath said to the Sea, Thus far shalt thou go and no further in room, so has he said to the World, Thus far shalt thou go and no further in time: The last day and hour of which, though no man knows, yet I think 'tis not much harder to pitch a time beyond which it shall not be, than 'tis to find out a scantling beyond which the roundle or globe of the earth is not, as now.  
For whether we hold, That the same body which slept shall rise again, that very flesh, blood and bones which it lay down, as Holy Church seems all along to have believed; or whether we will have it, That the same body, because the same Man with body beghosted, rises, as some of the uppermost seat of Philosophers at this day have themselves thought, and won upon others to think so too; Inasmuch as both of them are acknowledged to be made of stuff already in being, it comes all to one: As sure as we are that the body shall rise again either way, so sure are we that this world shall hold no longer, than till all the stuff that is now in the world be wrought up into bodies rising again.  
But then we are not only sure that the body shall rise again, but we have the same Word of God for it, That it shall do so in the world in which now 'tis, though not in the world as now 'tis, but changed in its kind of worldhood, as that shall be in its kind of bodyhood; the new heavens and the new earth being (as we think,) but old bodies new dressed. So that we are sure too, that at the ending of the world there must be stuff enough left, unmade up into Manish bodies, wherewith to frame a new heaven and new earth, without making more of nothing; and that this world shall hold no longer than till then.  
Now though the heavens and the earth have dealings with one another, yet they do not make over to each other any thing that is bulky or weighty, that we can find so: whence we may make bold to say, over and above, That all bodies that are to rise again, are made of the same mould or ground that the first was; that is, taken out of the earthly world, not out of the heavenly bodies. Whence the world is to last no longer than till the earthly stuff for rifing bodies be spent, with leaving enough for an earthly world besides.  
If then we do but know how the earth's globe, or that of it that lies fleshward, bears itself to the throng of men's bodies made out of it, we may at length come at such a bound of time or term of years, beyond which we may be sure the world shall not hold out. And if we were but well aware, how much the innermost bodies enwombed in the earth, had to do with the making of ours, we might come a great deal nearer the business, than otherwise we are like to do. But, setting aside the Excellent Mr. boil and Kircher, almost all men that have delved into the bowels of the earth to fetch us any tales of underground bodies, have done it rather to make themselves more rich and wealthy, than either themselves or any body else more wise or knowing. So that we are much at a loss as to the kind of those things that are hidden there, and whether according to the Laws that God has set to himself, in drawing one thing out of another, in those Workhousen which we find he has set up, the fleshly body of man may at length be carved out of them, or Whether there be any little spungholes or crannies by which one may soak through to the other? Again, What we do find at our utmost depths or bores, whequarries of stone, Mines of metal, or layers and veins of barren earths and sapless medleys, we can't tell how far they may be tiewed, and dressed, and mingled, so as at length to be be made fit for the food of body, to make it wax when well, as we see they may for the health of the body, to make it well when sick. And yet again, The sundry unevennesses in the depth of those layers, that are made of sapful and growthsom earths, lead us into another Wilderness and leave us there. For like as sometimes we find Gold (a thing that changes us much, but feeds us little) as fleet as the roots of shrubs in Peru or the West Indies, sometimes among the shallow waters that drill between the pebbles in the Falls of Guiny or Africa: whilst the Gold Mine at Chremnitz is no less than 160 fathoms deep, (as we have it from a good Hand upon the place:) So in like manner, those things that feed and biggen us, lie in the earth's globe at full us uneven depths. For while salt, a thing that helps as much to live, and get life for others too, sometimes floats on the top of the Sea, and is thickened in the open Beds, at the salt-making Marshes of the Isle of the and Xantoign, Provence and Messina, or digged in the Isle of May, and fetched up at the Wiches in England from easy depths. We have it for truth, That near Eperies is a Salt-Mine 180 fathoms deep, and a Sal gemma Mine in Poland no less than 200. Though for the most part it will hold good, that you cannot dig many spades in mould or growthsom earth, before you come at a dead soil. Supposing then (to make short of a thing that may more easily be made long) That the wet and dry surface of the earth's roundle, to the depth of man's height, one place with another, may be made up into the bodies of mankind, and with the well-skilled F. Taquet, That at Doomsday a less cantling of it than England, which we reckon above the thousandth part of the Globe, will be enough to hold all the dwellers of it and their children, that ever have been, or in likelihood may be hereafter till then, though the world should last 10000 years, Then are we sure this world shall never last beyond a thousand times ten thousand years, how much soever it may be guest to fall short of it. Which being the whole that we think needful to speak, under an Head that has so much room to spread upon, and so little of boundedness to wind up in, we shall take forth to our last, which is,   

CHAP. VII.  
WHether there may not have been some other worlds or world before ours was; or Whether there may not yet be some such a great way off, while this of ours is?  
Answ. A moreness of worlds, and a soonerness of this world, may always be, and often are, grounded upon a like way of reasoning; that is, the boundless and everlasting power and goodness of the Almighty Maker: for so pleads the avoucher, God being all way boundless in power and goodness, and every where withal, wherever and whenever he is, he may give show of his power and his goodness; there being nothing to hinder his making worlds elsewhere than where this was pitched, or other-while than when this was begun, but only time and room imaginary which are nothing; and it being good in itself for a world to be, the more of them there were, or the sooner they began, so much the better. Now if all this makes any thing for a moreness or more earliness of worlds, by the selfsame Argument we may hold, That this world began sooner than we are told it did begin. Which is both impossible to be, and wicked to think: For the Maker Almighty being everlasting as well as all-filling, and ever as well as then, boundlessly powerful and good; and it being good in itself for this world, as much as for any former or other world to be, Why might he not 10000 ages before the world was, give it its bidding to step forth, whilst the sooner it was the better? But we must also note, That the Argument drawn from God's unbounded power and goodness, as looking towards the behoof of the Creature will ever fall short upon this score: For why, there is not a full reckoning up of those attributes of his that have to do in the work; boundless wisdom and good liking being left out. For we are to know, That then only infinite power and goodness could make the world, when infinite wisdom and good-liking thought it meet, that such a being should begin to be. Now that was when we read in Moses it did begin to be. Whence I think it follows. That it could begin no sooner. For infinite wisdom pitching upon that time for its beginning, chose out the very best time that could be lighted on for its beginning: Had it then begun sooner, it had been better for it not to have begun so soon. But to mistrust boundless wisdom, to contrive so, that it might have better been contrived, is to unmake its boundlesness. And to pitch upon two or more best times, for a thing to begin in, is to pitch upon one of the worse kinds of awkwardness.  
Hence than we gather thus much, That as boundless wisdom took in with a moment, wherein it was deemed most meet, that Creatures should begin, so are we to think again it settled upon a certain number of Creatures, which it was best of all, should sometimes have beginning. For if there were no more reason, why God should make the world, then when he did make it, than why he should make it sooner or later than he did, it had ne'er been made at all, any more than it was made sooner or later than it was: and if there were no more reason why he made so many beings in the world, than why he should make more or fewer, he had never made so many at all, any more than he made fewer or more than he did make. Now the same most trustful witness that tells us when the world began, telling us also that it was, in the beginning; that is, (if I understand the first word in the Bible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) in the beginning of those things that were ever made, or before all worlds, or the first made bodies were the heaven and the earth which now are: and when he tells us what things were then made; tells us also that they were made up into a world that was one. And the same argument that makes for worlds more or sooner, proves also with the same strength that our own world was more or sooner, or might have been. We have the same reason to deny its force for more or earlier worlds at all, that we have to deny it for the forebeing or morebeing of this.  
Besides, To gather that God has or may have, more or earlyer worlds, because he can do the most that can be done, and the soon that could be done, is no less than the very scum of emptiness. For God being as boundless in his goodness as he is his mightiness, at this rate, would be forced to reach out that love to all mankind at least, that we read he has bounded only to some chosen ones: so not only the few names in Sardis and the remnant of Israel, but the All of those Churches and mankind too, should at length arrive at everlasting bliss. But as we find his goodness as boundless in the making some happy for ever, as it would be in the making all so; and that God has thought meet that his infinite goodness should have enough to do, to save some, without saving all or most: surely we are to think too, that his boundless power has enough to do, and begins soon enough to do, or did as much as it needed to do, and began as soon as it needed to begin, in making one world as he did, and beginning it, when he did. If then boundless good will and ruthfulness in sparing some from everlasting burnings, has spared as many as it needs to spare, for the sake of its boundlesness; in like manner boundless mightiness in making the world or this whole Crowd of beings, as late as 'tis, and as little as 'tis, has made it as soon and as big, as a world or number of beings needs to be made, for the sake of its boundlessness, so as if more or sooner worlds should be made, it would not better become, or more fully speak forth its boundlessness. And if so, then had God made, sooner or bigger or more worlds, he had done that which was altogether needless to be done, and what not so well done, as that which he has already done; because what is done is the best that can be done: And that would be an unbeseemingness, which would as much take from the boundlessness of his wisdom, as it would put to the boundlessness of his power.  
Again, This ill weighed reasoning would put God upon the doing of things, with a meaner forecast than we do things ourselves. For should God have made worlds, before or besides this, that so his works might hold some fuller proportion or meetsomness with his everlasting and Almighty power; it would be a making of God to do things, for such ends as he should never be able to reach, nor in the least draw nearer to. For should God have made any world's some thousands of years before this, there would have been the same everlasting power, before all such worlds, as is before this, and no less: as there is now the same everlasting power before our world, that would be before such worlds, and no more. And should God make other worlds together with, or wide off this world, there would be the same Almighty power beyond them, and taken up in the making of them, that is beyond, and in the making of this, and no more, as there is in this, and no less. Upon the same account that God may make or might have made, one world more than this, he may make or might have made 10000, and upon the same score he may or might 10000, he may or might 100000, and when he has made all of them, be yet no nearer doing any thing like his boundless self than he was in the making this one; for his whole boundless power was set a work or taken up, in the making of this, and no more than the whole could be, in the making of never so many more worlds, or never so many more early worlds.  
God did not make the world or worldly beings, that the bigness or manifoldness of them should set forth to us his alfillingness, or that the earliness of them should give us the likeness of his everlastingness, but that the unutterable curiousness of its frame and workmanship, the unthinkable care and forecast in all its evennesses and entwining, should beget in us as well an awfulness of, as wonder for, a greatness and wisdom so unbounded. As also that the thoughts of those manifold layers of hallowed drifts, and everlasting well wishes for the happiness of worthless sinful man, should enkindle in us the flames of holy love and hearty worshippings, of a boundless goodness, so boundlessly endearing. All which are to be done well enough, without looking at the time before, the room beyond, or the while taken up, in the doing of the things we so much wonder at, and bow down while we think upon. Else should we have lower thoughts of Almighty Power and Wisdom making the world in six days, than if the same had been done in one, or less than one. Isaac Habrechtus that cunning Handywright who made the Clock at Strasburgh is as much talked of, and wondered at, far and wide, for the bare framing of it at such a bigness, sometime in his life, once, in so long while as he thought fit, as if he had made it bigger or earlier, and had made more besides it, and in a shorter time: for, for its workmanship alone, 'tis matchless, as to man's skill, and it would have been no more than so, by reason of the rest.  
God Almighty by making this one world in six days, beginning it when he did, and bounding it where he did, has made it a Nonesuch altogether; and had he by making it more, or quicker, or sooner, or bigger, fulfilled the minds of such as would have it so, it had been no more still than a Nonesuch altogether. He that cannot enough praise Almighty wisdom, and love everlasting goodness, for the making one world of nothing when he did, would never find in his heart to do it, for his making more, or quicker, or sooner or bigger: Boundless wisdom, love and power brought about the first, and no more than boundless could the latter.  
The worthy Doctor More has suprizingly effayed the infinity or boundless manifoldness of worlds from the Head of lightsomness. For so he pleads, Either there must be infinite Suns and Worlds or else, (which is frightful to think), there must be infinite darkness, for nothing bounded could ever enlighten it?  
To which we say first, that having taken away altogether that boundless wastfulness beyond the world, we are no whit careful, about the light or darkness of it; that which is nothing at all, being neither light nor dark at all: let them say, which of the two it had best to be, who hold it. And again we cannot but mark here, how hard a thing 'tis for us, to lay aside the things which befall bodies, while we are speaking of things, which are not so. For the outworldish emptiness before the income of lightsome worlds is owned to be no body, and yet it seems, must needs be dark, if unenlightned, body-like: according to which that Learned Gentleman might as well have proved the soul itself to have been dark, no Sun shining into it, as that emptiness, a thing as much not body (a sort of which alone are enlightened with sunbeams), would have been so: not to say that even God himself before the making of the Sun, must thus have been in state of darkness too; for God, who, whilst no body, is yet something, stands fairer for being an enlightened something, than that does, which, whilst no body, is also nothing at all, and must therefore first become something, before it can get up to be an enlightened something.  
Moreover, to say nothing how light may otherwise arise than from suns, (as may be seen by Mr. Clayton's Diamond, the Bononian Stone, stale Sprats, the souse drink of Mackrel, the off-scouring of an Oyster-shell, &c,) 'tis clear that darkness or Sun-light, are such narrow betiders of body, that they are too scant to cover all that are bound up under that name, unless any will be so uncouth as to say, that a Millstone is inwardly dark; which he that does, must see further into than I can, or any man else that I know; or that a shining piece of rotten wood, has less of its lightsomness in the dark than in the day.  
As for the lights that have been seen in Mr. Boyles Air pump, When it once be made clear, as the lights we are speaking of, that all body is indeed and indeed sucked out of it, that light cannot beam in that thinness where a breather can't live nor a bladder be blown, that the hollow side of the glass throws in no rays or steams, nor the outside of the shining body any at all or any but those of light, or that none of those rays of other atoms that are shacking all over the world's wastes come riding or drilling through both; it will behoove us to bethink ourselves of some kind of Answer for it: But until that be done, we shall think that the world cannot at all, or at least by man, be crowded into a less room than God at first allowed it, (and that it must be, if the empty Receiver has nothing of the world in it); and that all the light that we see is body in body, (the world, as we think, being all over glutted with body). So that he who at the selvedge of the world does but see light as far as he can see any thing, he needs not take thought for that darkness beyond which neither his eyes see, nor understanding ken. Which might be enough wherewith to close the last thing we laid down, that is, the moreness or more earliness of worlds.  
Unless that we may put to the rest one Objection more for the plurality of worlds, or infinity of this, from such sayings in the English tongue, as seem to speak it a truth with us, time out of mind: Some whereof having room either in the daily offices of the Liturgy, or in the Creed itself, the overlooking of them without any remark, may seem so like a slight that Book, or those things which holy and wise men have had both good thoughts of, and much love for, that I hope we may be forgiven, while we go on to show, that their right meanings do as much befriend these our think, as their mistaken ones may seem to lie cross to them.  
The first is that which comes, as otherwhere, so oftenest in the Gloria patri,— World without end; which may seem to speak the world everlasting or boundless. The other is most remarkably in the Nicene Creed— Before all worlds; which seems too to be well enough bottomed upon Holy Writ itself; For so we read, Heb. 1. 2, By whom also he made the worlds. And 11. 3, Through faith we understand the worlds were framed. Whence one would think, that we do believe in good earnest, that there were worlds before this, or are besides it.  
Answ. If we had but that insight into the happy speech of our forefathers that were to be wished for, the words could never afford us the least of a stumbling-block. But so few men having thought good to meddle with it of late, and scarce any but Mr. Somner at this day, we shall take upon us, as shortly as we can, to give the meaning of those sayings, so as no man who has not so much as looked back to old English, should at any time be misled by them.  
We are then to understand, That the word [World] though we now take it for that bulk of bodily beings we see, yet of old it was as well, and oftener too, taken for ages and lastingness time out of mind. And the word with our Saxon Forefathers, for what we now call the World, was mostly Middan eared, Middle earth., The old word World answering to the Seculum of the Latins, as the forenamed did to their Mundus. Which they have stuck so closely to in their Englishing of Latin, that not only Aelfrick in his Glossary, (set forth by the Learned and painful Mr. Somner,) turns seculum, World, (as he does aevum yld & ece). But the word seculum being to be met with 70 times and upwards in the Psalms, according to the vulgar Lat. the Saxon translations, (printed by the Great Spelman,) have always turned it world; and as often as it happens in the Saxon Gospels 'tis the same too. And whereas Mundus comes in in the Gospels about 20 times, 'tis also read Middan eared: As also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aelfrick's Glossary. And though Orbis terrarum be the same in sense with both, that is Englished by neither word, but evermore, (if I mistake not,) in the Psalms and Gospels by ymbhwyrft eorthena, or all the roundabout of earthly beings. And lastly, Though in aeternum, in perpetuum, and in sempiternum, mean the same with in seculum, yet are they ever turned on ecnysse, unto endlesness.  
But how little they thought them to differ in sense, will be shown by an Instance or two among many. Psal. 135, His mercy endureth for ever; It being in aeternum, 'tis made on ecnysse: But the very same thing, Psal. 117, being spoken by in seculum, 'tis Englisht on worulde, to or for world. Psal. 9 5, in aeternum, and in seculum seculi being together, 'tis on ecnysse and on worulde a worulde, for ever and ever. And Psal. 27. the last— life them up for ever, being in aeternum, the Trin. Coll. MSS. reads oath on worulde and on ecnysse, for ever and ever as we say. Whence 'tis clear, that with our Forefathers, World and Evermore were often the same.  
And they were so ready to make World speak seculum, that where we give a much unlike meaning, they still hold to it. So Psal. 89, (90.) 8, where we read, our secret sins. The Lat. having it seculum nostrum, (and the 70 the same in Gr.) from the Heb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they have it worulde ure, our world., So they hold it in the Ajective too: Whence in King Aethels●ans Laws, as we have them from Mr. Lambert, we find Mess thegn, and weoruld thegn, turned in Brampton, as the Great Selden has it, Presbyteri & Seculares. And in K. Edm. Laws, Churchmen and Secular men are shared into God●●nda hada and woruld●●da, and worldmanna doom is judicium seculare.  
Besides, We are to know that World, whether it be in the singular number or plural, may betoken plurally or indefinitely, and as much adverbially as nominally. So where we read, Psal. 54. 21, Abideth of old, ante secula, plurally, 'tis atforan worulde, singularly. And in St. Luke, in secula is on worulde, as in seculum is sometimes on a worulda, Psal. 132. 4., and sometimes one sometimes the other, Psal. 117. So that world needs not be one age only, but age's time out of mind, and hereafterward.  
Again, If we compare a few Doxologies of the Saxon times, with the sayings we before spoke of, it will yet further be seen.  
Thus in the Saxon Sermon in Mr. Lisle and Mr. Fox, we read on ealra worulda woruld, unto all ages of ages. And in the pieces of Saxon Homilies by Mr. Wheelock, on ealra woruld, unto all ages; yeond ealra worulda woruld, beyond all ages of ages, or times of times; a butan end, aye without end; on ealra worulde woruld a butan end, unto all ages of ages, aye without end; a a on ecnysse, for aye, to eternity; a to woruld, aye for ever, or for ever and for aye. And K. Canute shuts up his Church-Laws with symble efre to woruld Amen, always, for ever, to endlesness; after our full way of speaking over and over what is boundless, when we say, for ever and ever.  
And since we were overrun by the Normans, this way of speaking has been kept up. Thus in a MSS. now by me of the N. T. written (as I guess) about the time of Ric. 1. where 'tis said, Rom. 1. 25, Benedictus in secula, 'tis that is blessed into worldiss of worldis, who is blessed for ever. 1 Cor. 2. 7, Ante secula, bifore worldis. 2 Cor. 11. 31, In secula, into worldis. Eph. 2. 7. In seculis supervenientibus, in the worldis above coming, in the ages to come. Col. 1. 26, Hid from ages and generations, fro worldis and generaciouns. Lastly, in the Cordial, one of the earliest printed Books coming forth a. 1478, quoting Isa. 34, 'tis said, The sinner shall be in desolation time and world withouten end.  
From all which 'tis as clear, that we meant in the days of yore by the word World, time, ages, all the while that has been heretofore or is to be hereafter boundlessly, as that we mean by it now adays, that frame of bodies in which we live and speak it.  
And indeed 'tis easy enough to be aware, that we still take World for that which is vast in bulk, boundless in tale or lastingness, or any ways else that we can think of. In those Country sayings of a world of water in the Sea, a world of Sea-stones on the shingle, or a world of moments since the world began; and when we say, this or that is nothing in the world, such a thing is like another for all the world.  
So then, to make an end, When we read in the Penman of the Hebr. of Worlds that were made or framed by God, we mean (if we know what we mean) as the Gr. and V. Lat. mean; that is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fecit secula, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ap●ata esse secula; he made or there were framed, the sundry ages or by-running and wheelings about of things in this world, or the whole gathering of them called world: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betokening rather a lasting than the thing that lasts; and yet may sometimes be both, as the Heb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Seculum and Mundus. Likewise when we read in the Nicene Creed, or Maesse Creda, as in the Saxon, that Christ was begotten of the Father ante omnia secula; we have it ae r ealle worulda, before all worlds,, that is, before all ages or wheelings about of times, and things in time. And world without end, in the Doxology, is ages, or evermore without end, or beyond all ages or set times. The keeping to which old saying in Holy Writ, or about holy things, (as we do elsewhere to those of two tenth deals of flower, reward thee in this plat, seek after leasing, go with him twain, etc.) while we have taken in so many new ways of speaking, and later meanings of the word World, has made those more lonesome Speeches somewhat less understood, and more likely to be mistaken.  
FINIS.    

Books to be Sold by Robert Boulter at the Turks-head in Cornhill over against the Royal Exchange.  

FOLIO. 

THe Institutes of the Laws of England, in four parts, by Sir Edward Coke.  
Spiritual Refinings, in two parts, by Anthony Burgess.  
— His 145 Sermons on John 17.  
— His Treatise of Original Sin.  
The Merchant's Map of Commerce, wherein the universal manner and matter of Trade is compendiously handled; the second Edition: by Lewis Robert's Merchant.  
Curia Politiae or the Apologies of several Princes Justifying to the world their most Eminent Actions by Reason and Policy.  
A Concordance to the Holy Scriptures with the Various Readins both of Text and Margin: By S. N.    
Quarto. 

An Exposition with Practical Notes and Observations on the five last Chapters of the Book of Job, by Joseph Caryl.  
Husbandry Spiritualised; or the Heavenly use of Earthly things, by J. Flavel.  
An Exposition on the first eighteen verses of the first Chapter of S. John; by J. Arrowsmith, D. D.  
A Treatise of the Sabbath, in four parts; by Mr. Dan. Cawdry.  
Vindiciae Legis; or, a Vindication of the Law and Convenants from the Errors of Papists, Socinians and Antinomians; by Anthony Burgess.  
The Saints Everlasting Rest; Or a Treatise of the blessed state of the Saints in their enjoyment of God in glory; by Rich. Baxter.  
— His plain Scripture-proof of Infant-Baptism.  
Thesaurus medicinae practicae, ex praestantissimorum tum Veterum tum Recentiorum medicorum Observationibus Consultationibus Consiliis & Epistolis, summa diligentia Collectus ordineque Alphabetico dispositus, per Tho. Burnet.    
Large Octavo. 

Scholae Wintoniensis Phrases Latinae, The Latin Phrases of Winchester School; Collected by H. Robinson, D. D.  
A Discourse of growth in Grace, in sundry Sermons; by Samuel Slater, late of S. Katherine's near the Tower.  
The Grounds of Art, teaching the perfect work and practice of Arithmetic both in whole Numbers and Fractions; by R. Record.  
A Cloud of Witnesses, or the Sufferers Mirror; made up of the Swanlike Songs, and other choice passages, of several Martyrs and Confessors to the end of the 16th. Century, in their Treatises, Speeches and Prayers; by T. M. M. A.  
A Treatise of the Divine promises, in five Books; by Edw. Leigh Esquire.  
The unreasonableness of Infidelity, in four parts; by R. Baxter.  
— His method for getting and keeping spiritual peace and comfort.  
His safe Religion against Popery.    
Small Octavo and Duodecimo. 

A Saint indeed; Or, the great work of a Christian opened and pressed from Prov. 4. 23. by J. Flavel.  
Annotations on the Book of Ecclesiastes, by a Reverend Divine.  
Artificial Arithmetic in Decimals, showing the Original, Ground and Foundation thereof; by R. Jagar.  
Euphrates, or the Waters of the East; being a short Discourse of that secret Fountain whose Water flows from Fire, and carries in it the Beams of the Sun and Moon.  
The Queen's Wells, showing the Virtue and Nature of Tunbridge Waters.  
The Greatness of the Mystery of Godliness; together with Hypocrisy discovered in its Nature and Workings; by Cuthbert Sydenham.  
The Blessedness of the Righteous opened and further recommended from the consideration of the Vanity of this mortal life; by J. How, M. A.  
Quakerism no Christanity, clearly and abundantly proved out of the writings of their chief Leaders, with a key for the understanding their sense of their many usurped and unintelligible words; by John Faldo.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hesiodi ASCRAEI QVAE extant, Cum notis, Cornelii Serivelii.  
Idea Theologiae tam Contemplativae quam Activae ad Formam S. Scripturae delineata, Opera Theophili Galei.