~Omniscient~ or Understanding all things, Here _I_ desire to know, by what _Idea_, _Des-Cartes_ understands _Gods Understanding_? ~Almighty~, I desire also to know by What _Idea Gods Power_ is _understood_? For _Power_ is in Respect of Future Things, that is, Things not Existing. For my Part, I understand _Power_ from the Image or Memory of past Actions, arguing with my self thus, He did so, therefore he was _able_ (or had _Power_) to do so, therefore (continuing the same) he will again have _Power_ to do so. But now all these are _Ideas_ that may arise from _external Objects_. ~Creatour~ of all things, _I_ can frame an _Image_ of _Creation_ from what I see every day, as a Man Born, or growing from a Punctum to that shape and size he now bears; an other _Idea_ then this no man can have at the word _Creatour_; But the _Possibility_ of _Imagining_ a Creation is not sufficient to prove that the world _was created_. And therefore tho it were _Demonstrated_ that some _Infinite Independent Almighty Being_ did _exist_, yet it will not from thence follow that a _Creatour exists_; unless one can think this to be a right inference, we _believe_ that there exists something that has created all other things, therefore the world _was Created_ thereby. Moreover when he says, that the _Idea_ of _God_, and of our _Soul_ is _Innate_ or _born in us_, I would fain know, whether the _Souls_ of those that _sleep soundly_ do _think_ unless they _dream_; If not, then at that time they have no _Ideas_, and consequently no _Idea_ is _Innate_, for what is _Innate_ to us is never _Absent_ from us. ANSWER. None of _Gods_ Attributes can proceed from _outward objects_ as from a _Pattern_, because there is nothing found in God like what is found in _External_, that is, _Corporeal_ things; Now ’tis manifest that whatever we think of in him _differing_ or _unlike_ what we find in them proceeds not from them, but from a cause of that very _diversity_ in our Thought. And here I desire to know, how this Philosopher deduces _Gods Understanding_ from _outward Things_, and yet I can easily explain what _Idea_ I have thereof, by saying, that by the _Idea_ of _Gods Understanding_ I conceive whatever is the _Form_ of any _Perception_; For who is there that does not perceive that he _understands_ something or other, and consequently he must thereby have an _Idea_ of _understanding_, and by enlarging it _Indefinitely_ he forms the _Idea_ of _Gods Understanding_. And so of his other Attributes. And seeing we have made use of that _Idea_ of _God_ which is in us to demonstrate his existence, and seeing there is contain’d in this _Idea_ such an _Immense Power_, that we conceive it a contradiction for _God_ to _Exist_, and yet that any thing should _Be_ besides Him, which was not _Created_ by Him, it plainly follows that demonstrating His existence we demonstrate also that the whole world, or all things different from _God_, were _Created_ by God.