performing in due time that which he ever determined at length to perform, doth not argue any alteration or change, but rather constancy in him.  For the same action of his will, which made the world forever, did also withhold the effect to the time ordained.  To this answer, in itself sufficient, others add further, that the pattern or image of the world may be said to be eternal:  which the Platonics call “spiritualem mundum"[38] and do in this sort distinguish the idea and creation in time.  “Spiritualis ille mundus, mundi huius exemplar, primumque Dei opus, vita aequali est architecto, fuit semper cum illo, eritque semper.  Mundus autem corporalis, quod secundum opus est Dei, decedit iam ab opifice ex parte una, quia non fuit semper:  retinet alteram, quia sit semper futurus”:  “That representative, or the intentional world (say they) the sampler of this visible world, the first work of God, was equally ancient with the architect; for it was forever with him, and ever shall be.  This material world, the second work or creature of God, doth differ from the worker in this, that it was not from everlasting, and in this it doth agree, that it shall be forever to come.”  The first point, that it was not forever, all Christians confess:  the other they understand no otherwise, than that after the consummation of this world, there shall be a new Heaven and a new earth, without any new creation of matter.  But of these things we need not here stand to argue; though such opinions be not unworthy the propounding, in this consideration, of an eternal and unchangeable cause, producing a changeable and temporal effect.  Touching which point Proclus the Platonist disputeth, that the compounded essence of the world (and because compounded, therefore dissipable) is continued, and knit to the Divine Being, by an individual and inseparable power, flowing from Divine unity; and that the world’s natural appetite of God showeth, that the same proceedeth from a good and understanding divine; and that this virtue, by which the world is continued and knit together, must be infinite, that it may infinitely and everlastingly continue and preserve the same.  Which infinite virtue, the finite world (saith he) is not capable of, but receiveth it from the divine infinite, according to the temporal nature it hath, successively every moment by little and little; even as the whole material world is not altogether:  but the abolished parts are departed by small degrees, and the parts yet to come, do by the same small degrees succeed; as the shadow of a tree in a river seemeth to have continued the same a long time in the water, but it is perpetually renewed, in the continual ebbing and flowing thereof.