A89737:67
The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few…
The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few whereof are much opposed and eclipsed in this perilous hour of the passion of the Gospel) are briefly discussed, cleared, and confirmed: as a further help, for the begetting, and establishing of the faith which is in Jesus. As also the state of the blessed, where; of the condition of their souls from the instant of their dissolution: and of their persons after their resurrection. By John Norton, teacher of the church at Ipswich in New England.The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few whereof are much opposed and eclipsed in this perillous hour of the passion of the Gospel) are briefly discussed, cleared, and confirmed: as a further help, for the begeting, and establishing of the faith which is in Jesus. As also the state of the blessed, where; of the condition of their souls from the instant of their dissolution: and of their persons after their resurrection. By John Norton, teacher of the church at Ipswich in New England.
London: printed by John Macock for Henry Cripps, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Negative Attributes are such as remove from God all imperfection:1 by these we help our understanding in our meditation of God, by way of Negation. The more principal of them are in number five, viz. Simplicity, Eternity, Immensity, Immutability, Infiniteness: to which, or some of which, any other of like nature may conveniently be referred.
- 1Negative Attributes.
Simplicity is God, one mere and perfect act without all composition. God calleth his Name, I am, Exod. 3.14. that is, mere Essence, wherein is nothing past, nor to come. Because spirits are immixt in respect of bodies, to show that he is not compounded, he saith he is a Spirit, John. 4.24. When we say that God is a mere and perfect Act, the meaning is, that God is a Cause without any Cause, a Being that is not from any Being; not compounded of an Act, by which he is; and Possibility, by which he might not have been, or may not be: of whom it never could nor can be said, that any thing was to be in him, which was not; or cannot be, that is.
Simplicity is God, one meer and perfect act without all composition. God calleth his Name, I am, Exod. 3.14. that is, meer Essence, wherein is nothing past, nor to come. Because spirits are immixt in respect of bodies, to shew that he is not compounded, he saith he is a Spirit, Iohn. 4.24. When we say that God is a meer and perfect Act, the meaning is, that God is a Cause without any Cause, a Being that is not from any Being; not compounded of an Act, by which he is; and Possibility, by which he might not have been, or may not be: of whom it never could nor can be said, that any thing was to be in him, which was not; or cannot be, that is.