A14095:97
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.
What is that ancient Philosophy of the heathen you speak of, and how well it accords with this, I know not. As touching the nature of God, I know no such discourses superior, if equal to the discourse of Aristotle ⟨p. 61⟩1in a certain chapter of his Metaphysics. Your text, I am God and there is none besides, is fair short of congruity with your present discourse. For will it follow that because there is no God, besides him; therefore there is nothing that hath any true being besides him?
What is that ancient Philosophy of the heathen you speake of, and howe well it accordes with this, I knowe not. As touching the nature of God, I knowe no such discourses superior, if equall to the discourse of Aristotle ⟨p. 61⟩1in a certeyne chapter of his Metaphysicks. Your text, I am God and there is none besides, is faire short of congruitie with your present discourse. For will it followe that because there is no God, besides him; therfore there is nothing that hathe any true beinge besides him?
- 1Lib. 12. c. 3. cont. 39.
4. It is incredible that the Stoics or any other, held nothing worthy the name of essence, which was not [Greek or Hebrew]. Such speeches rather make men unworthy to be esteemed of any faculty of wit. But what think you? is God [Greek or Hebrew]? 1Have you forgotten the diversity of errors, which in the former chapter you mentioned out of Austin, the last whereof was, to conceive that God could beget himself? Yet if [Greek or Hebrew] shall be the property of God, as your self confess by Plotin's Philosophy (you might as well have said by the Philosophy of Heathens that denied creation out of nothing) there shall be many Gods, even as many as there be immaterial substances, which they called minds or Intelligences from their nature; but from their office we call Angels. But this error, you say, was easy to be checked, If the favourers of it had been put in mind, that these their demy Gods, by necessary consequence of this opinion, must have been acknowledged infinite in being. So that had you lived in their days, you had easily brought of not Plotin only but Aristotle also & all others from this point of heathenism. For necessary consequences all must yield unto, especially if the consequence be perspicuous also, as you seem to suppose, by the little or rather no light you give unto it by force of argument. For oportet, ut lancem ponderibus, ita animum veris & perspicuis cedar. And seeing Intelligences, if made, must needs be made out of nothing, which I am persuaded you will not deny, hence it followeth, that you could evidently convict all those Philosophers of error in denying the Creation. Yet shall not you by this your confidence any way hinder us, from giving God thanks, for bringing us acquainted with his word, and giving power unto it by his Spirit, to make us by faith to believe that the world was made, and that the things