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land_n great_a keep_v king_n 2,594 5 3.5237 3 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A07825 A treatise of the nature of God Morton, Thomas, of Berwick. 1599 (1599) STC 18198; ESTC S101314 111,319 258

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and mother-citie of the land where the kings Court is kept and where there is greatest concourse of people abundance of wealth and store of all things seruing either for the necessitie and vse of warre or the pl●●sure of peace then he saith thus vnto himselfe Surely now I see and knowe the very state and power of this Prince as well as I doo that man whose face I doo fully and stedfastly behold and yet all this while he neither is nor can bee admitted to see the very person of the Prince Euen so it fareth with vs in respect of nod for here on earth as it were in Dan or Bersheba or some other border-town of the land of Promise the happie kingdome of Chanaan wee haue a glimmering of the king But when wee come to the heauenly Ierusalem the Cittie of the great king there we see a thousand times mote then we did before and yet all that we see is but the riches power and glorie of the king as for his person and verie essence that is kept secret and shut vp in his priuie chamber or closet into the which none may or can enter for none but god knoweth God 1. Tim. 6. 16. the king of kings who onely hath immortalitie and dwelleth in light that none can haue accesse vnto whom neuer man saw neither can see yet although the nature of god be vnsearchable as a bottomlesse gulfe into the middest whereof whosoeuer plungeth himselfe in hope of sounding the depth of it wil without question be soon swallowed vp by it and confounded in al his imaginations yea thogh hee were indued with the wit of all the men and Angels in the world yet I confesse that as you say we may safely wade and swimme in the shallowe brinke of this great Ocean hauing the one hand on the shore or banke as a sure anchor to hold vs fast that wee bee not carried too farre into it by the violent blastes of presumption and curiositie and the other in the water wherewith to mooue our minds vp and down in a sober and modest contemplation of it Sect. 2. LEt vs therefore let loose into this deepe and bottomlesse sea of the nature of God not in any fond hope of attaining the perfect knowledge of it yet trusting in God that we shall not loose our labour and fish all night without catching any thing as on the other side it were madnesse to thinke of catching al the fish in the sea but rather returne to land with our vessels not emptie although not so full lade that they be readie to sinke by reason of the heauinesse of their burthen The knowledge therefore of the the natures of things is attained two waies to wit by sense and by imagination sense apprehendeth the qualities of things sensible by the which the minde is led to thenature and substance of the thing But as for those things which are not sensible wee must suppose imagine thē to be thus thus and so coine in our minds a forme and phantastical idea of them resembling them to something which wee haue sometime apprehended by sence and especially to that which is likest and commeth nearest vnto them Soh That to the searching out and the knowing of the nature of any insencible thing these three things belong must concurre First the obseruation of the effects or actions proceeding from it the which being sensible will giue vs some light to know the nature of the thing it selfe from the which they did proceed as we see the nature of the father to appeare in the sonne of the roote in the fruite and of the fountaine in the streams issuing from it Secondly when as by this and whatsoeuer other meanes we haue wee haue gotten some knowledge of the nature of it and to what kinde of things it i● to bee referred we must then as it were comming nearer to the purpose and bringing foorth into act the conceit of the minde resemble it to that thing the which of all other things in the world commeth nearest and is likest vnto it Yet wee haue not attained to that which we desire for we haue not the thing it selfe but onely a patterne or example a likenesse or resemblance of it and therefore in the third and last place we must adde to this example or patterne that which is wanting squaring it in all respects to the idea and conceit which we first had of the nature of the thing For example a man hearing much speech of y e Angels wold gladly know what and of what nature and essence they are to the effecting whereof he is desirous to see heare or feele one of them hoping by thi● meanes to know what they are as he vseth to bee by his sences taught the nature of other things But in the triall he findeth there can no good bee done by this meanes the Angel● being spirituall and insensible creatures ●nd that therefore hee must go some other way to worke and search out their nature by the eyes not of his bodie but of his mind and gesse at their natures by that which he hath heard and read of their effects functions and actions As touching the which hee findeth in scripture that they are Gods seruants continually attending his pleasure and praising him and readily performing whatsoeuer hee commaundeth Wherevpon hee inferreth surely the Angels liue for they mooue and they are not brute beastes but reasonable creatures yea not simple ideots but of great vnderstanding and wisedome without the which they could neuer dispatch those affairs aright about the which God imployeth them and further that they are not weaklings but of great strength for otherwise one of them could not haue destroyed in one night an hundreth fourescore and fiue thousand of the Assyrians as we read 2. Ki. 19. 35. and lastly that they are not base or contemtible but most glorious creatures fit to stand and serue in the presence of God Thus he conceiuing and imagining them to bee most mightie wise and glorious creatures to what thing in the world can hee resemble them more fitly then to the most excellent men in the world endued with the greatest measure of power glory authoritie knowledge and wisdome Now we are come as neare them as wee can in any one thing for there is nothing more like to an Angell then is an excellent man whereof it commeth that the name of an Angel is often giuen to men yet we haue not attained our purpose for there is yet great difference and oddes betwixt them therefore to make them euen wee must take from this excellent man this grosse body of clay and earth and giue vnto him a pure and spirituall body voyd of all mixture of elements and moysture the which debaseth and keepeth him downe beneathe the Angels who being not clogged and pressed downe with such heauie lumppes of clay nor hauing their cleare vnderstandings dimmed with soggie mystes of moysture excell him farre in