Mount Pisgah, or, A prospect of heaven being an exposition on the fourth chapter…Movnt Pisgah, or, A prospect of heaven being an exposition on the fourth chapter…

Secondly, We come to know (or rather to guess) what God is by comparing God with the Creature; take in all that is amiable, or formidable in the Creature; go over all imaginable perfections and excellencies in the Creatures, Men, Heavens, Sun, Moon, Stars, Angels, and ascribe them all to God, and there you lay a foundation of knowing God, but infinitely short and narrow of what he is; therefore we must ascend.

Secondly, We come to know (or rather to ghess) what God is by comparing God with the Creature; take in all that is amiable, or formidable in the Creature; go over all imaginable perfections and excellencies in the Creatues, Men, Heavens, Sun, Moon, Stars, Angels, and ascribe them all to God, and there you lay a foundation of knowing God, but infinitely short and narrow of what he is; therefore we must ascend.

For when we have gone through all the ranks and gradations of perfections in the subordinations of created beings, when we have searched out the utmost excellency of each classis, we may say, this is in God, and more; whether Man or Angels go higher and higher till we come to the ⟨p. 33⟩top of Jacobs Ladder, still all this is in God and infinitely more. The Creature must be winnowed from all imperfection, and the finest of them must be taken to give some weak resemblance of a Deity.

Thirdly, Per modum Causationis; ¹we know God by the Creature, as the cause by the effect; as the fountain of all power, goodness and perfection; whatever is lovely and illustrious, we must needs say, this is in God, and infinitely more; God is stronger than the mightiest Man or Angel, wiser than the wisest, holier than the holiest Saint or Angel, he being the fountain and cause of all perfection. This, I say, is all we can reach to, in spelling out God, for be it said, we must add infinite to all these perfections, and that is God, this is also by denying; for what is infinite, but without bounds and limits? That is to say, God is strong without weakness, wise without ignorance, holy without impurity, &c. If we would conceive these excellencies, (which seem to us to be affirmative) we are glad to be beholding to negation: As for example, if I would know what is Gods eternity, the negative must help me, it is his being without beginning and without end: What his holiness? I cannot tell affirmatively, but must answer my self, it is to be without the least sin, defilement, or shadow of impurity, &c. In all this there is little to satisfy the covetous inquiry implanted in the Soul, Quid sit? What is holiness? And what wisdom?