'Before Abraham was, I am,' is the saying of Christ; yet is it true in some sense if I say it of myself, for I was not only before myself, but Adam, that is, in the idea of God, and the decree of that synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say, the world was before the creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive;--though my grave be England, my dying-place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain. Compare this with s. 11, and the judicious remark there on the mere accommodation in the 'prae' of predestination. But the subject was too tempting for the rhetorician. Part II. s. 1. But as in casting account, three or four men together come short in account of one man placed by himself below them, &c. Thus 1,965. But why is the 1, said to be placed below the 965? S. 7. Let me be nothing, if within the compass of myself, I do not finde the battaile of Lepanto, passion against reason, 'reason against faith', faith against the devil, and my conscience against all. It may appear whimsical, but I really feel an impatient regret, that this good man had so misconceived the nature both of faith and reason as to affirm their contrariety to each other. Ib. For my originale sin, I hold it to bee washed away in my baptisme; for my actual transgressions, I compute and reckon with God, but from my last repentance, &c. This is most true as far as the imputation of the same is concerned. For where the means of avoiding its consequences have been afforded, each after transgression is actual, by a neglect of those means. S. 14. God, being all goodnesse, can love nothing but himself; he loves us but for that part which is, as it were, himselfe, and the traduction of his Holy Spirit. This recalls a sublime thought of Spinosa. Every true virtue is a part of that love, with which God loveth himself. [Footnote 1: Communicated by Mr. Wordsworth.--Ed.] [Footnote 2: A mistake as to Ænesidemus, who lived in the age of Augustus--Ed.] NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S GARDEN OF CYRUS, OR THE QUINCUNCIAL, ETC. PLANTATIONS OF THE ANCIENTS, ETC. Ch. III. That bodies are first spirits, Paracelsus could affirm, &c. Effects purely relative from properties merely comparative, such as edge, point, grater, &c. are not proper qualities: for they are indifferently producible 'ab extra', by grinding, &c., and 'ab intra', from growth. In the latter instance, they suppose qualities as their antecedents. Now, therefore, since qualities cannot proceed from quantity, but quantity from quality,--and as matter opposed to spirit is shape by modification of extension, or pure quantity,--Paracelsus's 'dictum' is defensible. Ib. The æquivocall production of things, under undiscerned principles, makes a large part of generation, &c.