A09977:81
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.
1 Such as we may easily perceive, as the eye of man doth the object that is before him.
2 Such as we see with more difficulty, and cannot do▪ it, without something above the eye to elevate it: As the candle and the bigness of it, the eye can see; but to know the bigness of the Sun, in the latitude of it, you must have instruments of art to see it, and you must measure it by degrees, and so see it: So is it here, some things we may fully see by reason alone, and those are such as lye before us, and them we may easily see: but other things there are, that though they are true, yet they are more remote, and further off; therefore they are harder to be seen; and therefore we must have something to help our understanding to see them. So that indeed, Faith, it is but the lifting up of the understanding, by adding a new light to them and it; and therefore they are said to be revealed, not because they were not before, as if the revealing of them gave a being unto them; but, even as a new light in the night discovers to us that which we did not see before, and as a prospective glass reveals to the eye, that which we could not see before, and by its own power, the eye could not ⟨p. 22⟩reach unto. So that the way to strengthen our selves by this argument, is to believe the Scriptures; and the things contained in them.
2 Such as we see with more difficulty, and cannot doe▪ it, without something above the eye to elevate it: As the candle and the bignesse of it, the eye can see; but to know the bignesse of the Sunne, in the latitude of it, you must have instruments of art to see it, and you must measure it by degrees, and so see it: So is it here, some things we may fully see by reason alone, and those are such as lye before us, and them wee may easily see: but other things there are, that though they are true, yet they are more remote, and further off; therefore they are harder to bee seene; and therefore we must have something to helpe our understanding to see them. So that indeed, Faith, it is but the lifting up of the understanding, by adding a new light to them and it; and therefore they are said to be revealed, not because they were not before, as if the revealing of them gave a being unto them; but, even as a new light in the night discovers to us that which we did not see before, and as a prospective glasse reveales to the eye, that which we could not see before, and by its owne power, the eye could not