Lastly, However these or other difficulties intervene, and that we cannot satisfie our selves in the exact compute of time, yet may we sit down with the common and usual account; nor are these differences derogatory unto the Advent or Passion of Christ, unto which indeed they all do seem to point, for the Prophecies concerning our Saviour were indefinitely delivered before that of _Daniel_; so was that pronounced unto _Eve_ in paradise, that after of _Balaam_, those of _Isaiah_ and the Prophets, and that memorable one of _Iacob_, the Scepter shall not depart from _Israel_ untill _Shilo_ come; which time notwithstanding it did not define at all. In what year therefore soever, either from the destruction of the Temple, from the re-edifying thereof, from the flood, or from the Creation he appeared, certain it is, that in the fulness of time he came. When he therefore came is not so considerable, as that he is come: in the one there is consolation, in the other no satisfaction. The greater Quere is, when he will come again; and yet indeed it is no Quere at all: for that is never to be known, and therefore vainly enquired: 'tis a professed and authentick obscurity, unknown to all but to the omniscience of the Almighty. Certainly the ends of things are wrapt up in the hands of God, he that undertakes the knowledge thereof, forgets his own beginning, and disclaims his principles of earth. No man knows the end of the world, nor assuredly of any thing in it: God sees it, because unto his Eternity it is present; he knoweth the ends of us, but not of himself: and because he knows not this, he knoweth all things, and his knowledge is endless, even in the object of himself.
Of mens Enquiries in what season or Point of the Zodiack it began, that as they are generally made, they are in vain, and as particularly, uncertain.
[Sidenote: _The world began in all the four quarters of the year._]
Concerning the Seasons, that is, the quarters of the year, some are ready to enquire, others to determine, in what season, whether in the Autumn, Spring, Winter or Summer the World had its beginning. Wherein we affirm, that as the question is generally, and in respect of the whole earth proposed, it is with manifest injury unto reason in any particular determined; because when ever the world had its beginning it was created in all these four. For, as we have elsewhere delivered, whatsoever sign the Sun possesseth (whose recess or vicinity defineth the quarters of the year) those four seasons were actually existent; it being the nature of that Luminary to distinguish the several seasons of the year; all which it maketh at one time in the whole earth, and successively in any part thereof. Thus if we suppose the Sun created in Libra, in which sign unto some it maketh Autumn; at the same time it had been Winter unto the Northern-pole, for unto them at that time the Sun beginneth to be invisible, and to shew it self again unto the Pole of the South. Unto the position of a right Sphere or directly under the Ãquator, it had been Summer; for unto that situation the Sun is at that time vertical. Unto the latitude of Capricorn, or the Winter Solstice it had been Spring; for unto that position it had been in a middle point, and that of ascent, or approximation, but unto the latitude of Cancer or the Summer Solstice it had been Autumn; for then had it been placed in a middle point, and that of descent, or elongation.