Sect. 11.--In my solitary and retired imagination
(
"neque enim cum porticus aut me lectulus accepit, desummihi"), I remember I am not alone; and therefore forget
not to contemplate him and his attributes, who is ever
with me, especially those two mighty ones, his wisdom
and eternity. With the one I recreate, with the other
I confound, my understanding: for who can speak of
eternity without a solecism, or think thereof without
an ecstasy? Time we may comprehend; 'tis but five
days elder than ourselves, and hath the same horoscope
with the world; but, to retire so far back as to appre-
hend a beginning,--to give such an infinite start for-
wards as to conceive an end,--in an essence that we
affirm hath neither the one nor the other, it puts my
reason to St Paul's sanctuary: my philosophy dares not
say the angels can do it. God hath not made a creature
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.
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