A14095:292
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.
But proceed we to take notice of the rest of his so excellent observation: Nature (saith he) hastens unto that being which is to come, nor can it rest, seeing it draws or sucks in that being which it hath, by doing now this and now that, being moved as it were in a circle, with the desire of essence, or of being what it is. By this I perceive where you dipped your pen that dropped forth such wild conceits as before in this very section I have encountered with; to wit, in Plotinus his Philosophy, fit lettuce for such lips as like them. And for the obscurity of conceit, your writings, to my thinking are very like unto his; and the rather may men be moved to suspect, there are some rare notions in them which they understand not; Yet by the way you sometimes intersperse such glosses as make Plotinus meaning worse then it is; as when Plotinus saith of a thing generable, that movetur in orbem quodam essentiae desiderio, that it is moved round with a certain desire of essence; you render it this with desire of ⟨p. 157⟩essence or being what is: Now Plotinus saith, not of any thing that it hath a desire to be what it is, which is very absurd; for nothing desires what it hath already, but rather what it hath not: So when Plotinus sayth, that esse sibi haurit, it draws unto it self being; you render it thus, It sucks in what it hath; whereas indeed it is a thing impossible for any man to suck in that which he hath, but rather he sucks in that which he hath not.
But proceed we to take notice of the rest of his so excellent observation: Nature (sayth he) hastens unto that being which is to come, nor can it rest, seing it drawes or sucks in that being which it hath, by doing now this and now that, being moved as it were in a circle, with the desire of essence, or of being what it is. By this I perceive where you dipt your pen that dropt forth such wild conceits as before in this very section I have encountred with; to witt, in Plotinus his Philosophy, fitt lettice for such lips as like them. And for the obscurity of conceit, your writings, to my thinking are very like unto his; and the rather may men be moved to suspect, there are some rare notions in them which they understand not; Yet by the waye you sometimes insperse such glosses as make Plotinus meaning worse then it is; as when Plotinus sayth of a thing generable, that movetur in orbem quodam essentiae desiderio, that it is moved round with a certeyne desire of essence; you render it this with desire of ⟨p. 157⟩