A14095:1032
A discovery of D. Jacksons vanity. Or A perspective glass, whereby the admirers of…A discovery of D. Iacksons vanitie. Or A perspective glasse, wherby the admirers of…
A discovery of D. Jacksons vanity. Or A perspective glass, whereby the admirers of D. Jacksons profound discourses, may see the vanity and weakness of them, in sundry passages, and especially so far as they tend to the undermining of the doctrine hitherto received. Written by William Twice, Doctor of Divinity, as they say, from whom the copy came to the pressA discovery of D. Iacksons vanitie. Or A perspective glasse, wherby the admirers of D. Iacksons profound discourses, may see the vanitie and weaknesse of them, in sundry passages, and especially so farre as they tende to the undermining of the doctrine hitherto received. Written by William Twisse, Doctor of Divinitie, as they say, from whom the copie came to the presse
Amsterdam: printed by the successors of Giles Thorp, 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.
and better thus in plain terms to express our meaning, then by affecting curious strains, and forms of expression to expose religion and the glory of our God to scorn & derision amongst atheists. God is of necessary being, and therefore of himself eternal, without beginning, and without end. To perfect himself, or to be greater or better then he is, is to suppose that he is imperfect, and not Optimus maximus, which is a thing impossible, and therefore not subject to, nor the object of Almighty power; nay, it destroys it, as one part of contradiction destroys the other: for Almighty power were formally destroyed, if it were imperfect, or less then Almighty. Therefore all outward employments are for the good of his creature, but how? not as tending to the good of the creature as Gods end, but both his employments for the creatures good, and the creatures themselves are for God and his glory. Hath not the Apostle expressed thus much, that both from him and for him are all things: and the Prophet also, God hath made all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil: and 1that for good reason, as many hundred years ago hath been acknowledged in these termes, Qui dedit esse, quo sine essent, habui potestatem. If Gods will to have creatures when they were not, was but the influence or working of his essential goodness, ⟨p. 437⟩I pray what is his will to destroy them when they are? The scripture tells us, that God worketh all things according to 2the counsel of his own will; so he did when he made the world, so he doth when he sets an end to any part of it, so he should if he should set an end to all, and return them to the gulf of nothing from whence they came. It is false to say, that the continuance of being is desired by all, as the stamp of Gods goodness: for continuance of being was as much desired by those atheists that denied the creation, as by those Christians that do believe it. And as for the making of the world, it is in holy Scripture (the language of God) attributed to the word of God, to the breath of God, to the wisdom of God, to the power of God, to the counsel of God; but never, that I know, ascribed to the goodness of God. And it had need of explication, to show how Gods goodness is communicated unto all, much more how it is communicated unto a stone;