All the Attributes in God are one and the same Perfection. It is better said of God that he is his Attributes, then that he hath Attributes: The Attributes are not distinguished in God, but in our manner of understanding,1 who being unable to comprehend that mere act at once, do conceive thereof after the manner of many acts. The Sun when it is perpendicular, had it an eye would behold all that at once, which we, by reason of the inadequateness and unproportionableness of our sight, are necessitated to view by parts. In God all things are one and the same, according to the ⟨p. 4⟩Nature of God; though out of God many, and divers, according to their own proper and created nature. The same heat in the Sun produceth divers effects, according to the various disposition of the objects: Hardness in Clay, softness in Wax: Life in Insects and Plants, &c. The same lines are one in the Centre, but distinguished and multiplied in the Circumference. Water that is the same in the Sea, out of the Sea is variously and diversly qualified, sweet, bitter, Sulphureous, &c. The matter in the Liver is the same, but the four humours of Blood, Choler, Melancholy, and Flegm, that proceed from thence, are very divers: The Soul which is one and the same produceth very differing effects, as appears in the operations of the understanding, will, and affections. The sum is: The Attributes, as was said before, are not distinguished in God, that is, from the divine Essence, or one from another really, but only notionally, or virtually in our conception, and in their objects, in respect of the various effects thereupon: For every and all the Attributes are the divine Essence it self; according to that received Proposition,2 Whatsoever is in God, is God: And this is the reason why some well describe the Attributes from the Essence of God: which manner of description, besides many useful notions clearly intimated thereby, doth in the describing of the Relative Attributes, principle and fortify the understanding against that perilous Tenet of Arminianism, concerning the Decree passing upon good or bad foreseen, with the evil consequences following thereupon.
All the Attributes in God are one and the same Perfection. It is better said of God that he is his Attributes, then that he hath Attributes: The Attributes are not distinguished in God, but in our manner of understanding,1 who being unable to comprehend that meer act at once, do conceive thereof after the manner of many acts. The Sun when it is perpendicular, had it an eye would behold all that at once, which we, by reason of the inadequateness and unproportionableness of our sight, are necessitated to view by parts. In God all things are one and the same, according to the ⟨p. 4⟩Nature of God; though out of God many, and divers, according to their own proper and created nature. The same heat in the Sun produceth divers effects, according to the various disposition of the objects: Hardness in Clay, softness in Wax: Life in Insects and Plants, &c. The same lines are one in the Center, but distinguished and multiplyed in the Circumference. Water that is the same in the Sea, out of the Sea is variously and diversly qualified, sweet, bitter, Sulphureous, &c. The matter in the Liver is the same, but the four humors of Blood, Choller, Melancholy, and Flegm, that proceed from thence, are very divers: The Soul which is one and the same produceth very differing effects, as appears in the operations of the understanding, will, and affections. The sum is: The Attributes, as was said before, are not distinguished in God, that is, from the divine Essence, or one from another really, but only notionally, or virtually in our conception, and in their objects, in respect of the various effects thereupon: For every and all the Attributes are the divine Essence it self; according to that received Proposition,2 Whatsoever is in God, is God: And this is the reason why some well describe the Attributes from the Essence of God: which manner of description, besides many useful notions clearly intimated thereby, doth in the describing of the Relative Attributes, principle and fortifie the understanding against that perilous Tenet of Arminianism, concerning the Decree passing upon good or bad foreseen, with the evil consequences following thereupon.
- 1Est inadequatus conceptus sed non falsus. See Weemse Of the Image of God in man, cap. 13.
- 2Fenner Theol. lib. 1. c. 3. Alsted. Theol. sect. 3. loc. 2. Zanch. de Nat. Dei. lib. 2. cap. 5. qu. 2.
