A14095:851
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 albeit this kind of successive consideration be incident unto man, yet it is not so with God. He hath from everlasting known what from the beginning of the world unto the ⟨p. 344⟩end should come to pass, and that not successively but all at once. For his whole knowledge and every part of it is everlasting. And therefore it is absurd to say that God knows things from the beginning of the world unto the end, unless in this sense, God knows all things, which things come to pass from the beginning of the World unto the end, thereby denoting the succession of things in the World, not in the knowledge of God. But much more absurd is it to say that God knows all things from the end of the World to the beginning of it: because this speech can admit no tolerable congruity of explication, like the former, namely by applying it, not to any succession in the knowledge of God, but to the succession of things in the World. For albeit that we may well say that things do succeed in course from the beginning of the World to the end; yet it were absurd to say that things do succeed in course from the end of the World to the beginning. You may as well say, A mans life hath continued not only from the beginning to the end, but also from the end unto the beginning, which is as much as to turn a mans heels upwards, and place them where the head should be.
But albeit this kind of successive consideration be incident unto man, yet it is not so with God. He hath from everlasting knowne what from the beginning of the world unto the ⟨p. 344⟩end should come to passe, and that not successively but all at once. For his whole knowledge and every part of it is everlasting. And therefore it is absurd to say that God knowes things from the beginning of the world unto the end, unlesse in this sence, God knowes all things, which things come to passe from the beginning of the World unto the end, thereby denoting the succession of things in the World, not in the knowledge of God. But much more absurd is it to say that God knowes all things from the end of the World to the beginning of it: because this speech can admitt no tolerable congruity of explication, like the former, namely by applying it, not to any succession in the knowledge of God, but to the succession of things in the World. For albeit that we may well say that things doe succeed in course from the beginning of the World to the end; yet it were absurd to say that things doe succeed in course from the end of the World to the beginning. You may as well say, A mans life hath continued not only from the beginning to the end, but also from the end unto the beginning, which is as much as to turn a mans heeles upwards, and place them where the head should be.