Page:Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's life.djvu/155

this same principle, seperated from all imperfection,

⁺incompatible with the divine nature, always will create new worlds the antients had some notion of this sort, for Democritus affirmed infinite worlds

may give us a good notion of the agency of the supreme mind, & solve our problem. I suppose therefore, God almighty, tho' in the Mosaic cosmogony he is said to rest from all his works which he had created & made; yet this I take to be spoken only in regard to our present system. For why sh^d. we not think, that God always created new worlds, new systems, to multiply the infinitude of his beneficiarys,

^*& extend happiness beyond all compass & imagination. I must needs affirm, this is exactly consonant to the idea we ought to have of God.

I mean, since he thought fit to begin creation, for that creation certainly, & necessarily must commence in time, is a truth the

⁺most certain in the world;

⁺for by the definition, tis bringing that into being which was not in being before. therefore there was a time before it. therefore an eternal creation a parte ante is the greatest absurdity. but the continuing it a parte post is the greatest glory of the divine nature.

we see here, God has given a power, in all things partaking of any degree of life, to continue thir own kind, in an endless chain. it suits the notion we have of Gods goodness, that he still made new worlds, for the creatures thereof to do the like.

^Xthat the fountain of his bounty may flow for ever; & all the streams of it, may not only flow, but increase eternally, both in number, & quantity.

"when we indevor to form in our minds an apt idea of God almighty we are to stretch our imagination to the utmost pitch, that we may view somewhat of the largest scope of infinite wisdom, power, & goodness, which we can possibly reach to.

"But becⁿ G. alm. always practises order, method, regularity in all his works; I suppose, he places these new worlds, & systems of worlds, in a certain great, & broad line; not made of single systems in breadth, but of many, like a vast meridian, or plane of worlds; not filling infinite space quaquaversum, but dividing infinite space into two great parts, one on each side,