For in hope we
are saved, wherefore we through patience wait for Thy promises. Let
him that is able, hear Thee inwardly discoursing out of Thy oracle:
I will boldly cry out, How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord, in
Wisdom hast Thou made them all; and this Wisdom is the Beginning,
and in that Beginning didst Thou make heaven and earth.
Lo, are they not full of their old leaven, who say to us, "What
was God doing before He made heaven and earth? For if (say they) He
were unemployed and wrought not, why does He not also henceforth,
and for ever, as He did heretofore? For did any new motion arise in
God, and a new will to make a creature, which He had never before
made, how then would that be a true eternity, where there ariseth a
will, which was not? For the will of God is not a creature, but before
the creature; seeing nothing could be created, unless the will of
the Creator had preceded. The will of God then belongeth to His very
Substance. And if aught have arisen in God's Substance, which before
was not, that Substance cannot be truly called eternal.
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