A14095:145
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.
Suppose God create another world without the heaven; then either God is there, where he was not before, and so shall be changed in place; or if he were there before, then he was in Uacuo. I answer, that God may be in things, wherein he was not before, not because himself becometh otherwise then he was before, but because things which before were not, now are; and God with his effects doth fill all things and all places, as they have their ⟨p. 96⟩being, and ceaseth to fill all things, as they cease to have any being. In a word God is said to coexist, or not coexist with things anew, not that he doth either begin or cease to coexist with them; but in respect that they do either begin or cease to coexist with him. His third argument is, that as many as deny God to exist in Uacuo, must be driven to deny that God could make the world bigger or less then it is. But we see no cause, why we should be cast upon any so absurd assertion. We grant that God could and can make a real and spacious distance beyond the Heavens: but till God doth create such a distance, we deny that there is any such, though we deny not, but man may imagine such. Again he say the we must be driven to maintain, that God necessarily made the world n the site. A. where now it is, and that before the world was made, there was no other site, but the site A. where now it is. But we say that before the World was, there was no site at all, not only no site different from the site A. but also not so much as the site A. neither. And that to imagine any different sites before the world was, is to imagine distance of parts, where neither any parts were, nor distance; though such distance of parts be imagined by us, like as Chimeras are, and such like fictions. Again he disputes thus: Except Vacuum be granted to have been sometimes, the world was everlasting; I answer; Vacuum sometimes was; but the question between us is not about the existence of it (as such negations and possibilities may be said to exist) but only about the nature of it, to wit whether it contained any distance of parts as it is imagined after the form of a positive thing. This we deny, and do maintain that Vacuum is only a voidness of bodies with possibility of existence of bodies, not of existence of bodies therein, as in a space capable of bodies as it is imagined, but simply of their existence.
Suppose God create another world without the heaven; then eyther God is there, where he was not before, and so shall be changed in place; or if he were there before, then he was in Uacuo. I answeare, that God may be in thinges, wherein he was not before, not because himselfe becommethe otherwise then he was before, but because thinges which before were not, nowe are; and God with his effects dothe fill all things and all places, as they have their