CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

3. There is the book of Gods Word; and by this we have a revealed knowledge, and this only doth direct in the true way to serve him acceptably. Therefore all the world is said to lie in darkness, and light comes only by the Scripture. This is the great mercy of God to manifest from heaven what he is, and how he will be worshipped.

3. There is the book of Gods Word; and by this we have a revealed knowledge, and this only doth direct in the true way to serve him acceptably. Therefore all the world is said to lie in darknesse, and light comes only by the Scripture. This is the great mercy of God to manifest from heaven what he is, and how he will be worshipped.

3. Consider that our knowledge even at the highest is very imperfect;¹ it's but apprehensive, not comprehensive, which made an ancient say, De Deo etiam vera dicere periculosum est, because we are subject to such ignorance and blindness, God himself doth only comprehend himself; we know him obscurely, and therefore he is said to dwell in light inaccessible, 1 Tim. 6.16. As the eye cannot penetrate into the glorious nature of the Sun, no more can we search into the deep things of God. Therefore Divines say we have a twofold way of knowing God, the one is affirmative and positive, when those perfections we see in creatures we attribute to God in a supereminent manner: Thus we say he is wise, he is just, he knoweth, he willeth, but after a more transcendent way of perfection then man doth. The second way is by negation, or removing imperfections from him, and this indeed is commended as a better way then the former: We can more easily describe God, by saying what he is not, then what he is; he is not a body, and when we say a Spirit, then we run to a negative again, not a finite limited Spirit. In this life every mans knowledge is imperfect, we know but in part, Paul said so, that was wrapped up into the third heavens,