A14095:708
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.
Let us come to the third, & that is Gods inevitable forecast of the full accomplishment of his proposed ends by this multiplicity of means. Now this as it is plain enough, so it seems as manifestly to be untrue. For that God should foreknow the issue of things by the means which have only a contingent operation, is generally disdained by School-divines the Jesuits themselves, and Frarius by name in his Opuscula; as that which would infer an uncertain, and not infallible knowledge in God. For as much as nothing can lay a better ground of certainty, then the nature of it can afford.
Let us come to the third, & that is Gods inevitable forecast of the full accomplishment of his proposed ends by this multiplicity of meanes. Now this as it is plaine enough, so it seemes as manifestly to be untrue. For that God should foreknow the issue of thinges by the meanes which have onely a contingent operation, is generally disclayned by School-divines the Iesuites themselves, and Frarius by name in his Opuscula; as that which would inferre an uncertayne, and not infallible knowledge in God. For as much as nothing can lay a better grounde of certainty, then the nature of it can affoord.
Secondly either you suppose that all this multiplicity of means you speak of, shall be used or no. If all be not used, then God doth not forecast the full accomplishment of his proposed end by this multiplicity of means possible, you speak of, but only by some of them, namely so many as were used. And indeed it is very strange, that all means possible to be used should be used to the accomplishment of every proposed end, or indeed of any proposed end. But if all be used, and all fail save the last, upon what ground can you say that the end proposed must necessarily be accomplished by this last, which is as possible to miscarry as the former; for you have not signified that God always useth this course, as to use the courses first that are most possible to miscarry, and such as are least possible in the last place; nay your self profess all the means to be alike possible, and probable. To this you seem to answer in the sentence following, that it comes to pass by the rules of eternal wisdom. Namely that if an hundred means be appointed for the apprehension of a Traitor, and ninety and nine do amiss, the hundred, and last by the rules of eternal wisdom must of necessity take. But where