For thus her-self by her own self’s oppos’d; The Heavens the Earth the universall Frame Of living Nature God so soon disclos’d As He could do, or she receive the same. All times delay since that must turn to blame, And what cannot He do that can be done? And what might let but by th’ all-powerfull Name Or Word of God, the Worlds Creation More suddenly were made then mans swift thought can run? 41 Wherefore that Heavenly Power or is as young As this Worlds date; or else some needlesse space Of time was spent, before the Earth did clung So close unto her-self and seas embrace Her hollow breast, and if that time surpasse A finite number then Infinitie Of years before this Worlds Creation passe. So that the durance of the Deitie We must contract or strait his full Benignitie. 42 But for the cradle of the _Cretian Jove_, And guardians of his vagient Infancie What sober man but sagely will reprove? Or drown the noise of the fond _Dactyli_ By laughter loud? Dated Divinitie Certes is but the dream of a drie brain: God maim’d in goodnesse, inconsistencie; Wherefore my troubled mind is now in pain Of a new birth, which this one Canto’ll not contain. _Now Reader, thou art arrived to the Canto it self, from which I have kept thee off by too tedious Preface and Apologie, which is seldome made without consciousnesse of some fault, which I professe I find not in my self, unlesse this be it, that I am more tender of thy satisfaction then mine own credit. As for that high sullen Poem, =Cupids Conflict=, I must leave it to thy candour and favourable censure. The =Philosophers Devotion= I cast in onely, that the latter pages should not be unfurnished._ H. M. _Nihil tamen frequentius inter Autores occurrit, quám ut omnia adeò ex moduli ferè sensuum suorum æstiment, ut ea quæ insuper infinitis rerum spatiis extare possunt, sive superbè sive imprudenter rejiciant; quin & ea omnia in usum suum fabricata fuisse glorientur, perinde facientes ac si pediculi humanum caput, aut pulices sinum muliebrem propter se solos condita existimarent, eáque demum ex gradibus saltibúsve suis metirentur. =The Lord Herbert in his De Causis Errorum.=_ _De generali totius hujus mundi aspectabilis constructione ut rectè Philosophemur duo sunt imprimis observanda: Unum ut attendentes ad infinitam Dei potentiam & bonitatem nè vereamur nimis ampla & pulchra & absoluta ejus opera imaginari: sed è contra caveamus, nè si quos fortè limites nobis non certò cognitos, in ipsis supponamus, non satìs magnificè de creatoris potentia sentire videamur._