A14095:335
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 that which follows you manifestly betray your cause: For that God hath such fullness of joy and sweetness of life, that nothing can be added thereto in joy or sweetness; doth no way infer, that therefore, the duration hereof cannot be added unto him, and the continuance thereof: Your comparison utterly overthrows you: For as in a body infinite, though there cannot be a middle nor extreme; yet there are parts without parts by way of extension; So in infinite life, though it hath, no extremes, as being without beginning and without end, yet this hinders not but that it may have parts going before, and parts coming after by way of succession.
In that which followes you manifestly betray your cause: For that God hath such fulnes of joy and sweetnes of life, that nothing can be added thereto in joy or sweetnes; doth no way inferre, that therefore, the duration hereof cannot be added unto him, and the continuance thereof: Your comparison utterly overthrowes you: For as in a bodie infinite, though there cannot be a middle nor extreame; yet there are parts without parts by waye of extension; So in infinite life, though it hath, no extremes, as being without beginning and without end, yet this hinders not but that it may have parts going before, and parts comming after by way of succession.
And whereas you say, that Natures capable of these differences have always the one accomplished by the other, is either without sense; as if you mean it of the parts of time, as if one were accomplished by the other; For how I pray you, is time past or present accomplished by that which is to come, or that which is present or to come accomplished by that which is past: Or if in respect of natures subject to time, which are perfected by time, or rather in the course of time; thus, as it is sometimes true, so sometimes it is notoriously false: For as there is a time of growth in perfection, so it is well known that there is a time of diminution, & corruption also; And, I pray you, how doth a mans dotage accomplish him either in soul or body? And in the Kingdom of Heaven, what accomplishment by time, when our glorious condition shall be as full and perfect at the first, as in the progress, for what space imaginable soever.