that can comprehend him; 'tis a privilege of his own
nature: "I am that I am" was his own definition unto
Moses; and 'twas a short one to confound mortality,
that durst question God, or ask him what he was. In-
deed, he only is; all others have and shall be; but, in
eternity, there is no distinction of tenses; and therefore
that terrible term, predestination, which hath troubled
so many weak heads to conceive, and the wisest to ex-
plain, is in respect to God no prescious determination of
our estates to come, but a definitive blast of his will
already fulfilled, and at the instant that he first decreed
it; for, to his eternity, which is indivisible, and alto-
gether, the last trump is already sounded, the reprobates
in the flame, and the blessed in Abraham's bosom. St
Peter speaks modestly, when he saith, "a thousand
years to God are but as one day;" for, to speak like a
philosopher, those continued instances of time, which
flow into a thousand years, make not to him one moment.
What to us is to come, to his eternity is present; his
whole duration being but one permanent point, without
succession, parts, flux, or division.

Sect. 12.--There is no attribute that adds more diffi-
culty to the mystery of the Trinity, where, though in a
relative way of Father and Son, we must deny a priority.
I wonder how Aristotle could conceive the world eternal,
or how he could make good two eternities. His simili-
tude, of a triangle comprehended in a square, doth some-
what illustrate the trinity of our souls, and that the
triple unity of God; for there is in us not three, but a