A14095:839
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.
Secondly, I deny that God by determining things contingent, and in their nature merely possible, making them future, doth lay any necessity upon them, but rather decreeth a contingent manner of production unto them, answerable unto their natures. For as he decreeth that necessary things shall come to pass necessarily, so he decreeth that contingent things shall come to pass contingently.
Secondly, I deny that God by determining things contingent, and in their nature meerly possible, making them future, doth lay any necessity upon them, but rather decreeth a contingent manner of production unto them, answerable unto their natures. For as hee decreeth that necessary things shall come to passe necessarily, so hee decreeth that contingent things shall come to passe contingently.
Thirdly, as touching your antecedent, I desire to know what things contingent those are, whereupon we can lay any necessity, whereby to foretell them, for it passeth my imagination to divine. This may well go for your own. I have been acquainted with many disputants in this argument, I never ⟨p. 339⟩met with any argument of any kin to this. Certainly there is some exquisite curiosity in it. For you suppose men may doubt of this, and therefore you undertake to prove it: but when? In your treatise of the divine providence, that I hear is newly printed, we shall hear of it belike ere long, in case you do not forget what you promised: and the reason why I may doubt hereof is this; In the end of the fifth Section of this Chapter you told us that you were anon to intimate, that the reservation of such liberty unto God himself, (as never to pass any decree whereby to bind his own hands) is a point of high perfection. Now this anon of yours is yet to come, for hitherto since we parted from that section we have received no intimation hereof. But be it, that you will be as good as your word, what is that which you undertake to demonstrate? That some events which are to day truly contingent, may by our industry become to morrow truly necessary. But this needs no demonstration. For whatsoever I do, by doing it, I make that necessary, which before was contingent. For every Sophister knows out of Aristotle, and out of common sense also, that Omne quod est quando est necesse est esse. But this is nothing to your purpose. For you speak of such a necessity laid upon contingents, as whereby we might foreknow them. But by doing things I cannot foreknow them; for knowledge of things upon the doing of them, is rather after-knowledge then fore knowledge.