A14095:139
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.
Only this is the condition of the imagination, in distinction from the understanding, that imaginatio non transcendit continuum: It cannot consider things abstract from continuity, that is from extension of parts: but from time and place it can abstract, how much more from the infinity of each And surely each faculty were a sorry winnower, if it could not separate the grains of natural things, from such gross hu•kes that in wrap them. It is true we are apt to imagine a local distance, beyond the utmost surface of heaven, but it doth not herehence follow, that we imagine an infinite distance beyond it, but rather indefinite. And therefore we are apt to imagine a distance without the globe of Heaven, because we can imagine the globe of Heaven in as small a proportion as we list, even no bigger then one of the globes in our College Libraries. In like sort we may imagine time before the World; for who doubteth, but that it was possible that time should have been sooner then it wa• & wh•s ⟨p. 90⟩it is now about six thousand years since the World began; so if it had pleased God, it might have b•ne 1•. thousand. But do not you infer herehence, that we do imagine infinite time preceding the World; for that is not held to be possible as finite time is. But it is an easy leap, I confess, in the error of a mans imagination to pass from time indefinite, to time infinite, •nd to take one for the other. To imagine a successive duration of time much longer before the creation of the world, th•n hath been the continuance of it since, is one thing▪ but to imagine an infinite duration of time before the World, is another thing, and much different, •ea infinitely different. Looking back upon this discourse of yours to prove▪ whether it might admit any other tolerable construction; I conceived your meaning might perhaps be this; not that place and time could not be conceived without the immensity of the one, and the eternity of the other▪ but ather that immensity could not be conceived without place, nor eternity without time. But upon serious consideration I do not find this latter interpretion to be any way congruous unto your text.