A09977:260
Life eternalLife eternall
Life eternal or, A treatise of the knowledge of the divine essence and attributes Delivered in XVIII. sermons. By the late faithful and worthy minister of Jesus Christ, John Preston, D. in Divinity, chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inn.Life eternall or, A treatise of the knowledge of the divine essence and attributes Delivered in XVIII. sermons. By the late faithfull and worthy minister of Iesus Christ, Iohn Preston, D. in Divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Majestie, master of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inne.
London: printed by Richard, 1631
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
It is an immense being,1 such as hath all the degrees, and kinds, and extents of being in it. The creatures have not so; they have so little of this being, that it is nothing: it is not so much, as the drop of a bucket, Isai. 40. that is,2 it is of so small a being, that it is no being: therefore that place is to be marked, Isai. 40.17.3 All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, or vanity. Which place shows, that this place of being doth not agree to the creatures; for having said before, they were as the drop of a bucket, he adds, nay, they are less than nothing. But you will say, how can they be less than nothing? That is, if I should express it to ⟨p. 98⟩you, as it is, they are less than that which you reckon as nothing; as you do a dust of the balance; so that in respect of the largeness of his being, they are nothing to him: there are divers degrees, and extents of being, and he hath them all in him; as, there is a being of Angels, another of men, and so of every creature; but they are defined, and you know that definitions do but limit the being of a thing. The Angels have a large and glorious being; men have a good and excellent being, but they are nothing in respect of the being of God.
It is an immense being,1 such as hath all the degrees, and kindes, and extents of being in it. The creatures have not so; they have so little of this being, that it is nothing: it is not so much, as the drop of a bucket, Isai. 40. that is,2 it is of so small a being, that it is no being: therefore that place is to be marked,