A14095:289
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.
In the next place you draw us to the consideration of Plotinus his excellent observations. I had rather you would acquaint us with some accurate conclusions and demonstrations of his. Yet these observations which you so magnify in a Platonic, such as they are we will consider them. The first is that the best of our life, the very being of things generable is but as a continual draught or receipt of being, from the inexhaustible fountain of life. This is one of his (so much by you magnified) observations, and a very proper one. As if a man ⟨p. 155⟩should say, the very water, be it the best of waters, is but a stream flowing from the fountain of waters. Is not this an excellent observation, think you? Yet you add some thing of your own, which partly swerves from truth, and partly mars Plotinus his music; For you make the very being of things generable, and the best of our life to be all one; whereas the wickedest men that are, are the miserablest things that are, are things generable, and have a being as well as the best; And in the state of our corrupt nature we had a being, & so had Paul when he persecuted the Church of God, and Peter when he denied his Mr. and David when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and caused Uriah to be slain with the sword of the children of Ammon; but did this being of theirs, or their very being, deserve to be accounted the best of their life? Now whereas you say, Our being is a continual draught of being from the inexhaustible fountain of life: I find no mention at all of any fountain of life in Plotinus, His words as you cite them are, Videtur in rebus generabilibus id potissimum essentia esse, scilicet tractus quidam ab ipso esse, (this is all he hath concerning the inexhaustible fountain of life as you paraphrase it) ex generationis initio, quousque ad temporis extrema perveniat.
In the next place you draw us to the consideration of Plotinus his excellent observations. I had rather you would acquaint us with some accurate conclusions and demonstrations of his. Yet these observations which you so magnifie in a Platonick, such as they are wee will consider them. The first is that the best of our life, the very being of things generable is but as a continuall draught or receite of being, from the inexhaustible founteyne of life. This is one of his (so much by you magnified) observations, and a very proper one. As if a man ⟨p. 155⟩