Matter not co-eternal with an Eternal Mind.
SECONDLY, Others would have Matter to be eternal, notwithstanding that they allow an eternal, cogitative, immaterial Being.

This, though it take not away the being of a God, yet, since it denies one and the first great piece of his workmanship, the creation, let us consider it a little.

Matter must be allowed eternal: Why?
because you cannot conceive how it can be made out of nothing: why do you not also think yourself eternal?
You will answer, perhaps, Because, about twenty or forty years since, you began to be.

But if I ask you, what that YOU is, which began then to be, you can scarce tell me.

The matter whereof you are made began not then to be: for if it did, then it is not eternal: but it began to be put together in such a fashion and frame as makes up your body; but yet that frame of particles is not you, it makes not that thinking thing you are; (for I have now to do with one who allows an eternal, immaterial, thinking Being, but would have unthinking Matter eternal too;) therefore, when did that thinking thing begin to be?
If it did never begin to be, then have you always been a thinking thing from eternity; the absurdity whereof I need not confute, till I meet with one who is so void of understanding as to own it.