γ. But verily God would not be without Beginning and End, if by Succession the new beginning should continuously incur an end. In succession the one thing is no longer, but was and has departed; another is present, but for a moment only, and soon flies away also. Now that successive movement, in which there are continually new beginnings and ends, at some point necessarily had a first beginning, whence that motion and succession began. But, if you place in God some beginning of this sort of transitory and successive Duration, you also remove His Eternity without beginning, which our very Adversaries acknowledge. But if you acknowledge Duration without beginning, that is also necessarily without parts and succession, before and after.
δ. Neither does the Duration of God differ from the enduring God, as one altogether Simple, and who is Eternal by His very Essence, but is not made more perfect with respect to Essence by Eternity coming to Him, as it were, and as by accident: which spontaneously follows from the real Identity of the divine Attributes with the very Essence of Him, and from the Necessity of His Existence already proven. If, therefore, the Duration of God is successive, the very Essence of God shall be liable to Succession and continuous Mutation.
ε. Duration, hitherto flowing through the moments of time, is never infinitely perfect, and so is not agreeable to the Infinity of divine Perfection. For what Duration is in continual flux, while moment-by-moment it receives new increases, is never able to be said to be as much as it could possibly be, which nevertheless is a property of Infinity.
ϛ. Finally, what is to be actualized continually, that is not able to be Independent, neither is it consistent with a thing, the very nature of which is pure, that is, Independent. This is always in the utmost actuality, since, however much passive potential is in each Being, so much dependence is also in it. Now, that everything successive is to be actuated anew, is evident, because what will succeed is not yet; but, to whatever extent it will be at some point, it is only able to be in the present.