A14095:967
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 the common and general opinion of making Gods decrees eternal made you to shuffle in that a long time; and at length plainly to fall foul upon the liberty to revoke them lest otherwise, Gods liberty should be restrained. Of Cicero Austin saith, that dumb homines fecit liberos, fecit sacrilegos. And you to make God free make him immutable; and think to help it by giving us to understand that some kind of mutability is potent, like as there is an immutability which is impotent as you conceive.
But the common and generall opinion of making Gods decrees eternall made you to shuffle in that a long time; and at length plainely to fall fowle upon the liberty to revoke them lest otherwise, Gods liberty should be restrayned. Of Cicero Austin sayth, that dum homines fecit liberos, fecit sacrilegos. And you to make God free make him immutable; and think to helpe it by giving us to understand that some kind of mutability is potent, like as there is an immutability which is impotent as you conceave.
4. In conclusion you tell us, that to think of Gods eternal decree without admiration void of danger; we must conceive it as the immediate axis or centre, upon which every successive or contingent act revolves. And I profess I cannot think on this which you deliver without admiration. And the object of my admiration is, upon what axis or centre your wit did revolve when you pleased your self with this resemblance. Yet I think there is no great danger in your meaning to make a man an heretic. For it had need be understood first. And he deserves to be one of your worthiest disciples that understands you in this. For like as he was a worthy Scholar that bid his Master give him positions and let him alone to prove them; so no l•sse worthy a Scholar is he also, that gives his Master leave to speak what gibberish he will, yet nothing doubts of understanding him; In this Section hereafter you say that Gods eternal decree is coexistent to each humane thought or action: ⟨p. 403⟩But in what sense it is, your axis or centre whereupon every contingent act doth revolve, you no where explain that I know. As how every act (many of them being instantaneall) hath a revolution, or how the whole body of contingent actions being drawn into one by aggregation may be said to turn round. As if time from the beginning of the World unto this day did turn, and the change of things to come into things present, & of things present into things to come, were a spherical change; or lastly how Gods decree is the centre hereof, and yet coexist with every part of the circumference; These are mysteries I confess which we cannot think upon without admiration, yet no other danger herein do I find in hast, besides the wasting of precious time in the consideration of so wild and extravagant speculations. Yet one word more of this before we part. Every contingent act revolves you say upon the axis of Gods decree.