A14095:661
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.
Yet all this you confess to be less then to bring nothing unto something, that is, to take not your words but rather your good meaning, to create out of nothing. Whereby nothing doth not become something, but something hath a being, which before it had not. But here you power out many wild conceits besides this: first as when you say, Essence swallows up infinite degrees of succession in a fixed instant. I had thought rather this had been the property of eternity, not of essence. You might as well say essence swallows up all places into an indivisible unity or point. Then how may eternity be said to swallow up that which it doth not contain; neither formally, (for certainly there is no formal succession in eternity) nor eminently. For to contain eminently, is to be able to produce succession; but it is not Gods eternity that denominates him able to produce time, or the existence of things in time, but his power. So neither his essence nor his eternity, swallows up motion for the same reason.
Yet all this you confesse to be lesse then to bring nothing unto something, that is, to take not your words but rather your good meaning, to create out of nothing. Wherby nothing doth not become something, but something hath a being, which before it had not. But here you power out many wilde conceits besides this: first as when you say, Essence swallowes up infinite degrees of succession in a fixed instant. I had thought rather this had bene the property of eternity, not of essence. You might as well say essence swallowes up all places into an indivisible unitie or point. Then how may eternitie be sayde to swallow up that which it doth not contayne; neyther formally, (for certeynly there is no formall succession in eternitie) nor eminently. For to conteyne eminently, is to be able to produce succession; but it is not Gods eternitie that denominates him able to produce time, or the existence of thinges in time, but his power. So neyther his essence nor his eternitie, swallowes up motion for the same reason.
But as for the swallowing up of motion into a vigorous rest, to wit by moving the eighth sphere round in a moment; Of the nakedness and absurdity, that is shameful nakedness of such an assertion, we have discoursed enough. Again, is it not enough for you to maintain motion in vacuo; but you must needs affirm that this visible world issued from the vacuum which now we imagine without the extremities of it? where now the world is, was a vacuum before the world was, but yet the world issued not from it, neither in the kind of a material cause, nor in the kind of a formal cause, nor in the kind of an efficient cause, much less did it issue from that vacuum, which you term without the extremities of this world. Then again I know no measure of perfection derived unto the creature from Gods immensity, but only from the counsel of his will, by his immensity he fills all places but distributes not the measure of perfections thereby.