If, therefore, you can allow a thinking thing to be made out of nothing, (as all things that are not eternal must be,) why also can you not allow it possible for a material being to be made out of nothing by an equal power, but that you have the experience of the one in view, and not of the other?
Though, when well considered, creation [of a spirit will be found to require no less power than the creation of matter.

Nay, possibly, if we would emancipate ourselves from vulgar notions, and raise our thoughts, as far as they would reach, to a closer contemplation of things, we might be able to aim at some dim and seeming conception how MATTER might at first be made, and begin to exist, by the power of that eternal first Being: but to give beginning and being to a SPIRIT would be found a more inconceivable effect of omnipotent power.

But this being what would perhaps lead us too far from the notions on which the philosophy now in the world is built, it would not be pardonable to deviate so far from them; or to inquire, so far as grammar itself would authorize, if the common settled opinion opposes it: especially in this place, where the received doctrine serves well enough to our present purpose, and leaves this past doubt, that] the creation or beginning of any one [SUBSTANCE] out of nothing being once admitted, the creation of all other but the Creator himself, may, with the same ease, be supposed.
19.

Objection: Creation out of nothing.
But you will say, Is it not impossible to admit of the making anything out of nothing, SINCE WE CANNOT POSSIBLY CONCEIVE IT?
I answer, No.
Because it is not reasonable to deny the power of an infinite being, because we cannot comprehend its operations.

We do not deny other effects upon this ground, because we cannot possibly conceive the manner of their production.