A69028:1227
The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as…
The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as it affordeth both milk for babes, and strong meat for such as are at full age / by ... Nicholas Bifield ; ... now published ... by his son, Adoniram Bifield.The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as it affordeth both milke for babes, and strong meat for such as are at full age / by ... Nicholas Bifield ; ... now published ... by his sonne, Adoniram Bifield.
London: printed by G.M. for Philemon Stephens and Christopher Meredith, 1626
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.
2. The soul is endued with the light of reason, and can discern things by reasoning and inward discourse, seeing things by a light that is Immaterial, and with great variety contemplating of things that the senses cannot reach to, and finding out strange things, even in those things are presented by the senses which no other creature can do: and this discerning would be in the mind, if there were no Sun in the firmament: and above all things that the soul can know, it is most excellent, in that it can know God himself: Man only of all visible creatures can see God, and his works, and acknowledge his workmanship which none of the other creatures can do.
2. The soule is indued with the light of reason, and can discerne things by reasoning and inward discourse, seeing things by a light that is Immateriall, and with great variety contemplating of things that the senses cannot reach to, and finding out strange things, euen in those things are presented by the senses which no other creature can doe: and this discerning would be in the minde, if there were no Sun in the firmament: and aboue all things that the soule can know, it is most excellent, in that it can know God himselfe: Man onely of all visible creatures can see God, and his workes, and acknowledge his workemanship which none of the other creatures can doe.
3. The soul of man was made in the Image of God: in other things the footsteps of God do appear, but in man only (in this visible world) did the similitude of God appear, Gen. 1. 26. Man was not made like the Sun in the firmament, or like some Angel in Heaven, but like God himself, and so especially in his soul: for the soul of man is a spirit, as God is himself, and it is invisible, and immaterial like God: and as in the substance of the soul, we resemble God, so in certain qualities or virtues printed in the soul which resemble the Attributes of God, such as are goodness, ⟨p. 198⟩love knowledge, mercy, Justice, patience, and the like,