The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as…

6. Because he knows the things after a manner incommunicable to the creatures: for all things the creatures discern, they discern by one of these ways; either by sense, as by the ministry of the eye or ear, or taste, or touching, or smelling: or else they discern things by opinion, which is done by conjecturing or guessing at things by their causes or the like, or else by Faith, when they know things by the report of others: Or else by knowledge framed by reasoning, discoursing by the benefit of certain propositions, to extract from ⟨p. 60⟩thence the conclusion which breeds knowledge: or lastly, by certain Images or species taken in by the sense, and imprinted upon the Fantasy, which are thence offered to the understanding, by which the knowledge of things is kept for contemplation, when the sense of the things is lost. But God knows things by none of these ways, as being all imperfect, as many Reasons might show. But he knows them all by his Essence, not by any sense or special faculty: And that this may be understood we must note: First, that the whole Essence of God is as it were wholly an eye, or a mind. Secondly, that God is all th•ngs by Eminencie. Deus est omnia Eminenter: as they say in Schools. Thirdly, God contains all things in himself, and his Essence is the example or pattern of all things, and therefore needs but to look upon himself, and then he sees all things as in a glass: our understanding is imperfect, and therefore depends upon the Objects, by which it is as it were coloured, and so while it striveth to know other things is driven to neglect, and forget it self, as the glass which is so coloured from other things which shine in it, that it doth as it were loose his own colour: but God being infinite, and independent, is not bound to the things without him to receive impressions from them, but in himself hath the Ideas or forms of them, and are but as it were little shadows or slender likenesses cast out from the divine nature. Hence it is that the Knowledge of God is not liable to the imperfections that cleave to the things to be known without himself: thus he knows temporal things after an eternal manner, mutable things immutably, contingent things infallibly, future things presently, dependent things independently, created things after an uncreated manner.

6. Because he knowes the things after a manner incommunicable to the creatures: for all things the creatures discerne, they discerne by one of these waies; either by sense, as by the ministry of the eye or eare, or taste, or touching, or smelling: or else they discerne things by opiniō, which is done by coniecturing or ghessing at things by their causes or the like, or else by Faith, when they know things by the report of others: Or else by knowledge framed by reasoning, discoursing by the benefit of certaine propositions, to extract from