IN the Subsequent Discourses, I have Studied all possible Plainness and Perspicuity: My design therein being to Profit Ordinary Readers; yea, the Meanest Capacities. I have not therefore (although' I incline to the Negative) Concerned my self with the Disputes about that Abstruse Question, Whether the Saints in Glory shall have a Perfect Knowledge of the First Being? Or (which is the same Question) see the Divine Essence it self? That Great Scholar and Blessed Martyr, Peter Ramus said truly,He must have Gods own Logic, who is able to give a perfect Definition of God. But a man may Perfectly Define that whose Essence he can see and know. I do not find (Austin excepted) that any of ⟨p. ii⟩the Ancients affirm this of the ETERNAL. I know the Schoolmen (in special the Thomists) and Popish Authors; and some Protestants are for the Affirmative. But those very Learned Writers, Gomarus, and his Scholar Dr. Voet, have with great Judgment endeavoured a Confutation of that Opinion. I have not produced any of their Arguments; as judging that it would be little to the Edification of my Hearers: But in speaking concerning the Beatifical Vision, I have chosen to keep to Plain Clear Scripture Revelation, and not to be wise above what is Written.
IN the Subsequent Discourses, I have Studied all possible Plainness and Perspicuity: My design therein being to Profit Ordinary Readers; yea, the Meanest Capacities. I have not therefore (altho' I incline to the Negative) Concerned my self with the Disputes about that Abstruse Question, Whether the Saints in Glory shall have a Perfect Knowledge of the First Being? Or (which is the same Question) see the Divine Essence it self? That Great Scholar and Blessed Martyr, Peter Ramus said truly,He must have Gods own Logick, who is able to give a perfect Definition of God. But a man may Perfectly Define that whose Essence he can see and know. I do not find (Austin excepted) that any of ⟨p. ii⟩the Ancients affirm this of the ETERNAL. I know the Schoolmen (in special the Thomists) and Popish Authors; and some Protestants are for the Affirmative. But those very Learned Writers, Gomarus, and his Scholar Dr. Voet, have with great Judgment endeavoured a Confutation of that Opinion. I have not produced any of their Arguments; as judging that it would be little to the Edification of my Hearers: But in speaking concerning the Beatifical Vision, I have chosen to keep to Plain Clear Scripture Revelation, and not to be wise above what is Written.
