SECT. IV. All perfection is in God.

THAT we may come to the knowledge of the other attributes of God, we conceive all that is meant by perfection to be in him, (I use the Latin word perfectio, as being the best that tongue affords, and the same as the Greek τελειότης); because whatever perfection is in any thing, either had a 7beginning, or not; if it had no beginning, it is the perfection of God; if it had a beginning, it must of necessity be from something else: and, since none of those things that exist are produced from nothing, it follows, that whatever perfections are in the effects, were first in the cause, so that it could produce any thing endued with them; and consequently they are all in the first cause. Neither can the first cause ever be deprived of any of its perfections: not from any thing else; because that which is eternal does not depend upon any other thing; nor can it at all suffer from any thing that they can do; nor from itself, because every nature desires its own perfection.