began not then to be: for if it did, then it is not eternal: but it
began to be put together in such a fashion and frame as makes up your
body; but yet that frame of particles is not you, it makes not that
thinking thing you are; (for I have now to do with one who allows an
eternal, immaterial, thinking Being, but would have unthinking Matter
eternal too;) therefore, when did that thinking thing begin to be? If it
did never begin to be, then have you always been a thinking thing from
eternity; the absurdity whereof I need not confute, till I meet with one
who is so void of understanding as to own it. If, therefore, you can
allow a thinking thing to be made out of nothing, (as all things that
are not eternal must be,) why also can you not allow it possible for a
material being to be made out of nothing by an equal power, but that you
have the experience of the one in view, and not of the other? Though,
when well considered, creation [of a spirit will be found to require
no less power than the creation of matter. Nay, possibly, if we would
emancipate ourselves from vulgar notions, and raise our thoughts, as far
as they would reach, to a closer contemplation of things, we might be
able to aim at some dim and seeming conception how MATTER might at first
be made, and begin to exist, by the power of that eternal first Being:
but to give beginning and being to a SPIRIT would be found a more
inconceivable effect of omnipotent power. But this being what would
perhaps lead us too far from the notions on which the philosophy now in
the world is built, it would not be pardonable to deviate so far from
them; or to inquire, so far as grammar itself would authorize, if the
common settled opinion opposes it: especially in this place, where the
received doctrine serves well enough to our present purpose, and leaves
this past doubt, that] the creation or beginning of any one [SUBSTANCE]
out of nothing being once admitted, the creation of all other but the
Creator himself, may, with the same ease, be supposed.