Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A65777
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A contemplation of heaven with an exercise of love, and a descant on the prayer in the garden. By a Catholick gent.
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White, Thomas, 1543-1676.
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1654
(1654)
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Wing W1814A; ESTC R220997
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65,739
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200
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it Therefore I beseech you oblige me with some explication of this difficulty in such an intelligible way as may feed and encourage my desire to see that Glory of Glories Light What shall I say to you If you can fix your eyes upon what Being is how although but one yet it runs through all that is in the world how not onely things and parts of things but even the most dilated and thin conceits of every thing have this Nature as necessarily as the fullest then think Almighty God is the first root and necessity of Being He is Being it self in it self and of it self because it is its self I must leave the rest to your quiet contemplations but know that in these few words if you ponder them to their just merit you shall find life and blisse Yet let me say one thing more Can you conceive how in a Bean or Acorn or a Mustard-seed lies the Herb or Tree which we see spring out of them how every Branch and Flower and Knot and what ever else is in the Off-spring lyes hidden in the Seed not that every part is distinct there but the nature of the Seed is such that out of it they have their ordinary proceeding and sprouting without fail From this low and familiar instance if you can raise your fancy to conceive that Almighty God is to all that can be or ever was as this Seed to that which comes of it not in the dull manner wherein the Seed is consider'd in reference to what springs from it but in all sorts of principall and noble causality then you have made some little entrance into the displaying of this unspeakable treasure Soul This example has a little awaken'd my brains and given me a hint how great secrets may be hidden in one uniform and simple thing but I wish you would be pleas'd to go on help my dulness to understand it better Light Have you read any of the Spirituall books which treat of Gods Attributes and shew his Essence his Infinity his Truth his Goodnesse his Eternity his Immensity his Providence his Mercy his Justice his Knowledge and Idea's and what ever else fills up those high Discourses Have you seen the volumes by which Divines strive to declare those three Mysterious Words FATHER SONNE and HOLY GHOST so plain and yet so high so simply deliver'd in our Creed and so laboriously commented upon by all the most prodigigious Witts of almost sixteen Ages Soul I have to my proportion had a view of most of those Treatises you mention and imagine your designe is to informe me that this Indivisible Essence we call GOD contains in it sublime Mysteries sufficient to satisfie any mind that is contented here with these Discourses which learned Doctours frame of God But all this avoids not the Objection that he is an Indivisible Essence when seen in himself and consequently can give but one contentment though that be very high and excessively delightfull Light You are not much amisse in my aim but you cannot deny that the entire cause of that pleasure which all these books afford is in that Indivisible Being you shall contemplate For besides that it is the same thing the one onely subject of all those Books and that clearly discover'd which humane skill can but weakly expresse under vails and shadows you shall see how this one indivisible sight is variously dispers'd and articulated in all those admirable Truths which fill those immense volumes so that on one side you shall behold the Indivisible Truth on the other the Multitude we make of it and thirdly how that Indivisible contains all this Multitude which in effect makes appear to you that this Indivisible Essence you had such fear to be cloy'd with contains large volumes and corresponds to all the Libraries in the World and farre exceeds them Nay if you reflect upon what we were discoursing by accident concerning the languages of Angels and if there be as some imagine Corporeall Rationall Creatures in other Globes besides the Earth which have new manners of apprehending and expressing different from us you shall finde in this Indivisible Essence whole volumes to entertaine and satiate with innumerable contemplations all these varieties of noble understandings Soul I now see that if a thousand Millions of writers for a thousand times as many yeares should imploy their whole studies to drain the cognoscibility and pleasure the Indivisible Deity yields it were absolutely impossible they should in the least measure exhaust it So that if I atchieve that happy enterprise if I once enter into that blessed State I fear not to be overflown with a floud of content pure beyond all content refreshing my heart with perpetuall delight for all eternity Light Since we are come so farre together I must not leave you here without proceeding to declare one quality more of this blissfull Vision Did you never observe when some hard businesse has been explicated according as you understood it or not you would say you had it or had it not Soul I have often felt such a thought passe within me but what do you inferre from thence Light Not so quick you must take along with you this notion likewise Our Masters tell us that the Soul by knowledge becomes the thing known as if it knew a House it becomes a House if an Ox or Horse it becomes that Creature Not by its being turn'd into the Object but by the assumption of the Object into its self as the Wall when the Sun shines on 't becomes the light Iron in the fire becomes red And that which perswades them to this opinion is they see Water or Iron when heated with Fire will warm or burn and have the effects of the assumed Nature and that universally nothing hath the particular operation of a thing but it s own Nature Wherefore finding that the workman who knows and has the Idea of a house can make a house that as far as we know of a Dog or Horse so far we can humour them and work according to their Natures they assure themselves that knowledge is a kind of having or being the thing we know Our Divines go farther and tell us Almighty God cannot be clearly known by similitude and therefore say 't is necessary this Essence should be immediately joyn'd to the understanding of the blessed soules or else they cannot know him Out of all which I would derive to your understanding this great truth That the sight of God is a full possession of him a kind of becoming his nature and a true and reall though accidentall Deification Wherefore if you have any esteem of Almighty God and Charity towards him if any love to your self any desire to be noble and excellent beyond all others if any consideration and rationality in you fly at this great Quarry run for this glorious Prize fight for this incomparable Crown Fear nothing only ruminate seriously upon it do but heartily desire it and long