A14095:211
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.
Touching the second difficulty, to wit, how the indivisibility of Gods presence in every place may be compared to a Centre: You say, this comparison is right, in as much as God hath no diversity of parts. And indeed ⟨p. 128⟩I find no small uniformity, between the beginning of this your discourse of Gods immensity, and the end of it. For about the beginning you professed; that No creature, no positive essence no numerable part of this Universe, was so like unto God as noting; And now you say, he is rightly resembled to a point, which every man knows, is much about the same proportion, & quantity of just nothing. For immensity & eternity no Angel so like unto God as nothing: & again for his indivisibility, you say he is rightly compared to a point, which is as much as nothing. Of the sobriety of these your discourses, let the Reader judge. But you think to help the matter by saying, that His presence again is like to magnitude actually infinite, in that it can have no circumference. Now consider I pray, How will you make the Majesty of God amends, for these your injurious comparisons, to wit, in comparing him, to magnitude actually infinite, which indeed is just nothing? For in the most general opinion of Philosophers & Divines, magnitude actually infinite, is a thing utterly impossible to have any being. And mark withal, how you contradict your self. For here you suppose, that magnitude infinite can have no circumference; & but a little before, your discourse was of an infinite Sphere that had a circumference. At length notwithstanding your▪ former assertion of justifying the comparing of Gods indivisible essence unto a centre, or point of magnitude; Now▪ you confess that the indivisibility of the one, and indivisibility of the other are heterogeneall, and consequently asymetrall, the best Philosophical truth I have hitherunto found in your discourse. But least all this while you should seem utterly extravagant in your incongruous comparisons of the nature of God to vile things, or rather to Nothings; first you mince this Philosophical maxim, as when you say, They are of times asymetrall; and then you corrupt it by interpretation as if asymetrall signified not absolutely incommensurable, but only not exactly commensurable.
Touching the second difficultie, to witt, how the indivisibility of Gods presence in every place may be compared to a Center: You say, this comparison is right, in as much as God hath no diversitie of parts. And indeede