it is wonderfull In Hebrew bookes even to this day the name of God is written Iehovah which name it seemes was wrote on purpose by the Rabbins that the name of God which was written on the front of the Miter might bee hidden For Iosephus who was both a Priest and Pharisee doth testify in the sixth booke of the Iewes warres that the Name praefixed on the Miter of the Priesthood had foure vowels whereby it doth plainely appeare that this name was not Iehova but IOVA by pronouncing I and V not like Consonants but distinctly by themselves as they are Vowells which the word Iove among the Heathens doth also intimate nor much diverse from this is Diodorus the Sicilian who in the first Booke of his Historicall Library doth affirme that the God of Moses was called ΙΑΩ But Clemens Alexandrinus in the fifth Booke Stromat pag. 240 doth say that the foure-lettered name which was writ about the Sacerdotiall Tyare was ΙΑΟΤ which word consists of the same vowels as the word ΙΟΤΑ although the letters are otherwise disposed but howsoever it was they are as wide from truth as Heaven that thinke by this word or any other the Essence of God can be exprest for no name can bee given which can expresse the essence of Man nay of a stone seeing there are no names essential but names are given unto things by common institution and as pleased those who first did practise the diversity of tongues to impose upon them those names only expresse the Essence of the things they signify which doe imitate their sounds as the creaking of the Crow the lowing of the Bullocke But the Essence of God as it cannot be exprest by words so it cannot be conceiv'd by the Vnderstanding the causes of which are many for a thing infinite cannot be comprehended by a thing finite and the inaccessible light of God doth dazle the Vnderstanding Aristotle confessing in the second of his Metaphysicks that as the eyes of Owles cannot endure the beames and splendor of the Sunne so the edges of our Vnderstanding doe rebate themselves in the apprehensions of the primary Beings The same Philosopher affirmes that there is nothing in the Vnderstanding that was not first in the sense but God cannot be presented to the sense Againe as long as Vnderstanding is in the body it comprehendeth nothing but by the helpe of the Fancie and in the act of Vnderstanding it turneth to the Fancie a fancie which doth as much annoy as helpe the Vnderstanding whiles it representeth God cloath'd in the conditions of Nature as of quantities of extension of parts and many other accidents Againe every punie knowes that things are defined by their Genus and their difference or if that they bee not at hand they are then defined by their proper Accidents But of God there is no Genus no specificall difference no Accident at all since God is all substance To these Inconveniences and impediments in attayning to the Knowledge of God there is added not onely Mans slownesse and infirmity but his perversenesse and neglect For many are called from this study by the sloth and dulnesse of their wit rebating it selfe in the contemplation of heavenly things some are taken from it by publicke or private affaires which call downe to earthly things the mounting endeavours of the mind and as I may so say doe pull the wings of Meditation and many the slaves of pleasure and given to their belly misprise the study of Salvation as a thing they have no need of nay as it were some trifling importunity some light or empty Meteor And of those who apply their understandings to the knowledge of God there are but few that persevere in the right course but either they fall off from their designe or strucken with a giddinesse doe stumble on the threshold or turning aside to vaine delights doe wrap themselues in errors from hence arise those monsters of the Gods and illuding Vizards which were worshipped by the Heathen who wanting an able Master to instruct them did follow the custome of their Countrey which commanded them to adore the peculiar Gods of their countrey or their family thinking it would bee better with them if every particular man should choose him a private and particular God From this sprang up such a multitude of Gods that in Hesiods time they amounted to the number of thirty thousand Againe it is planted in Men which is their great folly to measure God by themselves to cloth him not only with mans figure but with his affections also they doe not thinke that they serue God aright unlesse they make him like a Man or Beast that they may haue before them some present object on which they might settle their eyes and their devotion This was the language of the Israelites to Aaron Make us gods which shall goe before us Exod. 32. And because God had made Man to the Image of God Man againe to require the courtesie would make God to the Image of Man By which God after they had discharged themselues of some Ceremonies to him they conceited themselues not onely safe against all sins already committed but thought for the time to come they had got a licence and a priviledge to sinne For these causes there haue not beene wanting some who turning desperation into censure haue beene of judgement that God could not be knowen and that in vaine they travaile that bestow their labours in searching out his Nature whose modesty indeed deserues to bee excused were there not too much of sloth in it and were not the diminution of his knowledge an occasion of the diminution of his loue and by the same contempt whereby the knowledge of the Divine Nature is neglected the knowledge also of the Divine Will would be despised Plato in whose tracks Cicero treads hath beene more happy in this inquiry for hee hath delivered to the world many true and excellent things concerning God as when he saith That he is the Author and Governour of all things most Good most Great who seeth and sustaineth all things and that the life of a wise man is nothing else but a returne to God and that the way to God is by the study of Piety and Iustice This and much more to this purpose wee may reade in Platoes Politicon his Philebus Theatetus and Timaeus where we may find many things taken from the Ancient Divinity which he had learned in Egypt and in Siria Aristotle more sharpe in understanding doth adde that God is the first Moover the first Being and moving Power who notwithstanding is unmoueable to whom as to their End the Caelestiall Intelligences perpetually mooue and that he is the cause of the continuall Motions of the heavens which causeth other Motions and from whom the inferiour bodies receiue their influences For although to see into the mysteries of God and to know his Essence is not granted unto any Creature no not unto the Angels because there is no
indued them with abilities as to set forward God and helpe him in his worke So that of necessity we must stay at some one who wanteth not the ayde of any and from whom all things are who seeing that of nothing hee hath made all things cannot but bee of an Infinite Power since from Nothing to Something there is an infinite disproportion for sottishly profane is that ridiculous insolence of the Epicure Velleius who in the first Booke of Cicero Of the Nature of the Gods deriding the Creation demandeth what was the foundation what were the tooles what were the Leavers who were the Apprentices in so great a worke Besides the Mistery of Numbers convinceth plainely that there was a beginning of the World and therevpon that it was created by God for every Number ariseth from vnity when therefore dayes are numbred it must needes bee that there was one first Day and therevpon one first Conversion of the heaven for there is no number infinite in Act neither can there bee Dayes infinite in number for if any number were infinite the number of ten would infinitely fill vp that infinite number from whence it would follow that five would arise no oftner then ten and that one halfe would bee no lesse then twice as much nay in that infinite number there would be as many tennes as vnityes which surely cannot stand together and imply a contradiction Besides the terme of life and proportions of men so much contracted in respect of the vigour and the Stature of our forefathers doe not obscurely testifie that there was one first Man and one primary perfection from which by staires Generations haue descended for the Diminution of things cannot bee infinite for should wee runne them over in the Ages past vnto Infinitie wee should at length advance Man vnto a Stature higher then heaven it selfe The Scope of all this is that by Arguments borrowed from the light of humane Reason although but clouded and dusky wee may teach that as the beames of Light shed over all the World doe flow from one beginning namely the Sunne and as Numbers proceede all from vnity and in the body of Man as all the Arteryes and Vitall facultyes proceede from one heart so every Being doth depend and is sustained by one Chiefe and Soveraigne Beeing who should hee withold or but withdraw his Vertue and his Influence All things presently would dissolue and returne into their ancient Nothing No otherwise than if the Sunne being taken from vs whatsoever there is of Light would bee turned into Darkenesse Now if any should demand what moved God to put his hand vnto this Worke the answer is ready For God made all things for himselfe and was mooued with no other consideration than with his owne Loue For God is not onely the efficient Cause of all things but the finall also as the Apostle witnesseth in the second of the Hebrewes where hee alledgeth that God is for whom and by whom all things are All things are for God as hee is the End of all things and most Good all things are by God as hee is the efficient Cause of all things and most great Deseruedly therefore doe wee title God Most Good Most Great but first most Good before most Great for hee is most Good as hee is the End for the End is alwayes the foremost in the Intention and the Efficient Cause is but mooued by it Seeing therefore there is no Reasonable or Intellectuall Agent which vndertaketh any thing without proposing to himselfe the End which ever appeareth Good the most chiefe and Soveraigne AGENT could not worke but for the last and best End And seeing there is nothing better then God nay Seeing all things whatsoever are Good come from God God could not worke for any other End but for himselfe And seeing there is nothing that should bee rather pourtrayed or represented in a picture then what doth seeme most beautifull God who is the first Beauty and the first Light was pleas'd to draw his owne Picture and as in Phidias his Minerva the Artist himselfe hath imprinted in his worke an vndefac'd resemblance of himselfe But seeing now of things created part are Bodies part are Spirits and immateriall Substances among the Spirits the Angels are most eminent next vnto which are the Soules of Men among the Bodyes the first Heaven is aboue all most honourable Wherefore when God in all his creatures hath imprinted some tracks of his power and his wisedome the Spirits by a more speciall priviledge have ingraven in them the image of himselfe and that not drawne by a pencil as Painters vse expressing onely Colours and proportions but such an image as is beheld in a Glasse which represents euen our motions and our Actions For God hath powred into Spirits the Light of vnderstanding and knowledge of the Truth which is as a certaine sparke of the Diuine Light hee hath adorned their Wills whose faculty it is to mooue and produce Actions with Holinesse and Righteousnesse hee hath conferred on them Immortality and a liberty of choyce which are the Lineaments of the Diuine Image and Resemblances of God himselfe Which image of God as it is the most glorious ornament of the Intellctuall creature so there is nothing more vgly than the deformation of it which is occasioned when the Soule the eye of the vnderstanding beeing pulled out by Ignorance and the lineaments of this Image beeing soiled by Vice is turned into a Monster and beeing hated by God hath rendred it selfe so miserable by its owne default that it is not any wayes worthy of the Mercy of God For as the Image of a King stampt on siluer with much rubbing and often fretting against the Ground becomes defaced so in our soules the image of God is deformed addicted to earthly things and as it were wallowed in the mire they are turn'd away from divine contemplation and from the Love of God Nay and in the first body too which is heaven God hath imprinted certaine tokens I had almost sayd a certaine Image of himselfe For God hath turned it into a roundnesse an imitation of his diuine infinitenesse because this figure hath neither beginning nor ending and in the same first Body hee hath engraven no obscure resemblances of his immobility and eternall Rest a rest which is yet notwithstanding in continuall motion For although the Heaven is continually mooved by Parts while one Part doth succeede another so it is that the whole Body resteth neither is it mooved from its place Hee hath also placed in the heavens an imitation of his Power disposing of his Worke in such a method that the elementary bodyes are governed by the heavenly and superiour bodyes worke into the inferiour their powerfull influences And indeed most true is that of Aristotle in his second Booke de Gen. Cap. 10. That the perpetuall durance and continuance of things ought to be imputed to the simple daily motion of the Sun from the East into
circumscrib'd by limits but most especially in this that hee is all in every place so his eternity likewise is not placed in this onely that hee is without beginning and without end but rather in this that his life is not a Course of Motions as ours but a perpetuall Rest and in which there is no succession of Parts for otherwise hee should dayly loose a part or portion of his life but hee enjoyes all his life and perfection together and in a Moment for Aeternity as Boetius doth define it is the whole together and the perfect possession of a life vnlimited And as to a Man sitting on the banke of a River onely that Water is present to him which is observed by him in that instant Moment and point of time but that part of the River is not presented to his eyes which is not yet come to them or but now gone from them yet the same Man were hee exalted into the vpper region of the ayre might behold the whole River and at one view obserue both the fountaine and the courses of it So by the eye of God who is above time together and in a moment is obserued the whole flux of transitory things neither in him is there addition or subtraction for all things that are are present to him There is another difference and that too a remarkable one for these perfections which are diverse and scattered in the creatures in God are one and the same perfection As if there were a creature which could excercise all those faculties by one sense which wee doe by five And as all lines drawen from the circumference to the Center of the Circle are vnited in the Centers point and the farther they are from the Center the more they scatter and enlarge themselues so all the vertues which are dispensed among the Creatures are collected in God into one Vertue and the farther they depart from God the more scattered thin they doe appeare till at length they degenerate into the vilest of vices The Cause of this difference is that these perfections and vertues of the creatures are Qualities and ornaments added to their Substances but the onely perfection of God is the Essence of God himselfe which though it be most pure yet because it hath diverse effects it hath diverse names In Man indeede it is one thing to know and another thing to Will neither is the foreknowledge of Man the cause of the event to come But seeing the foreknowledge of God is the very Essence of him it is necessary that it must bee the same perfection with his Will and Providence and that in his foreknowledge hee hath a power not onely foreseeing but also disposing of things to come Neither must we thinke that God foresees stormes to come or Earthquakes or Ecclipses because they are to come but wee must rather say that they will come because that God foresees them Neither would I by this inferre that if at any time the same perfections bee attributed to God and to the Creatures that the same perfections are equall in the Creatures as in God Wisedome and Righteousnesse are not attributed to the Angells as to God in one and the same Sense for in God they are Substances but in Angels Qualities neither can these bee said to bee termes equivocall that is words of the same sound for words purely equivocall such as the word Lupus in Latine which signifieth the creature of prey and Rapine as also the bitte or snaffle of a bridle hold no intelligence together neither haue they any order in Nature neither by one doe we proceed to the knowledge of another but the wisdome and the Righteousnesse of Angells are resemblances of the diuine Righteousnesse and sparks shining from it and the knowledge of one doth advance our spirits to the Contemplation of another Those things therefore may bee said to haue an Analogicall reference which are as Ens or Being which is in Logick called the Genus Analogum of Substances and Accidents and so a foote is spoken either by the foote of a liuing creature or by the tressle of a bed or table for in the greatest diuersity there is no little Analogy or Resemblance Whosoever therefore will exalt his thoughts without danger to the contemplation of the Diuine perfection must runne over in his owne Mind all the perfections that are in a Creature and abstract and sever from him whatsoever ther is of Imperfection and also those perfections which are the helps and Crutches of Imperfections all these being substracted that which remaineth will bee GOD As from Man to whom God hath given to bee to liue to vnderstand take away but these things To bee a Body to haue a Beginning to bee circumscribed by Limits to bee compounded of Parts to bee the Subject of Accidents to bee remooued from one place to another to discourse to remember to forget to learne to bee ignorant to bee able to sinne to depend on a Superiour Beeing and such like these things taken away that which remaineth will bee GOD namely a liuing Beeing vnderstanding incorporeall without beginning not depending on another infinite simple vnchangeable vnmooveable all-knowing perfectly Iust and perfectly Wise Moreover although wee cannot demonstrate what God is by any thing that is precedent for substances are not the Subjects of Demonstrations or graunt they were yet the Essence of God must bee exempted because no Cause can bee rendred of it howsoever I speake after the manner of men some of the divine Attributes are demonstrated by what goes before while one Attribute is deduced from another by a necessary Conclusion so out of the Infinitenesse of God his immobility is demonstrated for whither can hee mooue himselfe who is every where and in the same manner from the Simplicity of the Essence of God wee may deduce his incorruptibility for all corruption doth proceede from the dissolution of the Compound Nay from the same simplicity of Gods essence wee doe necessarily inferre that in God there are no Accidents for hee were not most pure and Simple if hee did consist of Substance and of Accidents then againe from the omniscience of God is collected the vnchangeablenesse of his decrees For then Men doe change their resolutions and fall off from their enterprises when any thing doth happen vnthought of or vnlook'd for The vnderstanding of man Mounted on these wings can exalt her selfe to some knowledge of the Divine Nature by which preexercitations the Mind being stirred vp doth more greedily receiue and more easily digest the Instructions reveiled in the Word of God which excellent and sublimed knowledge of the Word of God shall bee now the Subject of our Discourse God therefore who with a courser pencill hath shaddowed himselfe in his creatures hath exprest himselfe in his Word in more bright and liuely Colours and that two wayes For there is one knowledge of God which is deliuered in his law and another which is contained in the Gospell
the Trinity two Sonnes one by eternall Generation and another by Generation in Time Neither was there any thing more agreeable than that hee who was the Middle in the persons of the Trinity should also be the Middle betwixt God and Man and bee the linke and tye of all affinity betwixt heaven and earth And what could bee more apt and sutable to the Wisedome of God than that we should be restored into the Right and Degree of sonnes by him who is the onely Sonne of God and that God should renew Man by the same Word by which he created him and that God should speake unto us by him who is the Eternall Word of God and by him should teach us true wisedome who is himselfe the wisedome of the Father This is that Doctrine which is called the Gospell which God hath left as a pledge in his Church that by this prerogatiue it should bee distinguished from the rest of mankind which doctrine he hath commanded to bee published throughout all the world by his Apostles and their Successors prescribing that those who joyne themselues to the Church should bee baptized In the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost and that the people should bee instructed in the faith of Christ by the preaching of the Gospell by which to the Penitent and Beleeving Remission of sinnes and everlasting life is promised and that the faithfull should attend the second comming of Christ in which hee shall raise up the dead and taking into his knowledge an Account of all Mans actions shall render unto every one according to his workes By the Church I understand not onely the Church under the new Testament which is called the Christian Church but also the whole Church in all Ages whose beginning is deduced from Adam and which shall last unto the End of the World for the Scripture testifieth that the Fathers before Christ were saved by faith in Christ Abraham rejoyced to see my day and hee saw it Iohn 8. And Moses preferred the reproach of Christ to the treasures of Egypt Heb. 11. And it pleased the Father to reconcile all things by the blood of the Crosse whether they were things in Heaven or things in Earth Col. 1. And there is no man of sober understanding that ever yet made doubt but that these words of Things in heaven did comprehend the Patriarchs and the Prophets to which purpose some of the Ancients haue not unaptly applyed an Allegory of a Branch laden with Grapes which hanging on a staffe was carried on two mens shoulders by him that went formost they understood the Church of the old Testament by him that came after the Church of the new Testament and by the branch of Grapes Christ himselfe for the old Church saw not the comming of Christ because it went before in order of Time but this latter hath Christ ever before her eyes and beholds him come Neverthelesse the Branch of Grapes is as much the food of one as of the other for Christ equally unto both Churches conveigheth life and foode spirituall These are those instructions in which the true and saving knowledge of God consisteth a knowledge which farre transcends all other Arts and Sciences The Sciences are all either contemplatiue or practicke the excellence of the Contemplatiue consists in these three things the Dignity of the Subject the Certainty of the Demonstrations and the Perspicuity of the Instructions the excellence of the Practicke consists in these the Excellence of the End the Aptnesse of the Meanes and the Rules to attaine that End In Divinity that part is contemplatiue which treateth of the nature of God and of the workes of Creation Gubernation and Redemption but that part which treateth of the offices of Piety towards God and Charity towards our Neighbour is practicall for although in this there bee great need of Contemplation yet all this Contemplation is directed to the Practicke in one as in the other Divinity doth infinitely excell all Sciences The Subject of the Part contemplatiue is God himselfe betwixt whom and the body of Man or twixt Lands and Chattles the Subiects of Law and Phisicke there is no comparison but in certainty it wonderfully transcends them all For whatsoever the Philosophers doe dispute concerning the chiefe or principall good are so different among themselues so contrary one unto another that their chiefe good seemes rather to bee grounded on opinion then on nature Augustine in the nineteenth booke of the Citty of God reckons up out of Marcus Varro a hundred and fourescore disagreeing opinions of Philosophers concerning their Summum Bonum or Chiefest Good and Physicians doe rather suspect then see the inward affections of the bodies and the causes of diseases and hereupon it often comes to passe that in pretence of curing the diseased officiously they kill them But how great the uncertainty of humane Law is the infinite diversity of customes and countries the endlesse discord of municipal Rights and of the Roman and Barbarian Lawes doth plainely testifie but the foundations of Divinity stand sure and unshaken being laid by the hand of God himselfe and are more firme then Heaven or Earth The Heaven and Earth shall passe away but my words shall not passe saith God himselfe Neither doth it any thing derogate from this certainety that Men in the busines of Religion are divided into so many Sects and dispute with such contentious heate concerning the interpretation of the Scripture for this doth not arise from the uncertainety of Gods Word but from the pravity of Man who wilfully doth blind his owne eyes and takes delight to stumble in so faire a way subjecting Religion to his belly and by depravation of the most certaine things with full Sailes doth fly to Avarice or Ambition For whosoever will not destine himselfe to a peculiar and set opinion shall find in the Holy Scripture many cleare and evident sentences wanting no Interpreter which abundantly wil suffice him both for faith maners I confesse in the Scriptures there are many things full of obscurity but if the pious student shall weigh them well hee shall find them either prophecies or figures and not foundations of faith or of the nature of those things which are necessary to Salvation for God by plaine and easie things doth instruct us to Salvation and by obscure ones doth exercise us in prayer or workes in us sobriety or pulling the wings of our curiositie doth retaine us in the bounds of modesty And this must bee a received Maxim that the least knowledge derived from the word of God is more excellent then the exactest knowledge of earthly things For a little of the knowledge of God faithfully received doth abundantly suffice to inflame our minds with the loue of God and to leade our liues both well and happily The End Remaines by which Divinity whatsoever there is of Arts or Sciences by a transcendent Distance doth excell For the Politicks onely ininforme a
eating of the Paschall Lambe the Israelites were to feed onely on the flesh and not to meddle with the bones so in the doctrine which instructs us in the knowledge of God wee must labour after those things which serue for the nourishment of our soule and abstaine from those which by their hardnesse would breake our teeth and turne the edge of our understanding then onely in the knowledge of God shall we obserue a meane betwixt an affected negligence and a sawcie curiositie when we shall referre all our knowledge and meditation to piety and manners and to the loue of God Le Sr de la Primaudaye en ses Quatrains L'aeuvre excellent des cieux l'entour le space Rendent leur Architecte admirable à tous yeux Mais sa divine loy restaurant l'ame en mieux L'esleue sur ce tout pour voire Dieu face à face The glorious Vault and fabricke of the skies Presents their wondrous Maker to all eyes Whose Law divine restoring soules by grace Mounts them o're all to see HIM face to face FINIS THE CHOICEST SENTENCES TAKEN out of this present treatise of the knowledge of GOD. In the collection onely whereof I have followed the Copy of Mounsieur Derelincourt Minister of the Hague which if they be thought either too tedious or impertinent it shall be some protection to me that I had so reverend an Example TRVTH is so affected to the Mind as Light unto the Eye Sect. 3. The true knowledge of God is the most absolute perfection of the mind Sect. 4. That in all Men is inherent an apprehension of a God it is manifest by experience and the testimony of all Ages amongst whom there is none so wild or barbarous that hath not received some forme of Religion and that established under most grievous penalties for this is no written but a natiue Law to which we are not taught but made not instructed by precepts but by the principles of Nature Sect. 7. From nothing to something is an infinite disproportion Sect. 24. As the beames of Light dispersed over all the World doe flow from one beginning namely the Sunne and as numbers proceed all from Vnity and in the Body of Man as all the Arteries and Vitall Faculties proceed from one heart so every Being doth depend and is sustayned by one chief and Soveraigne Being Sect. 24. God is not onely the efficient Cause of all things but the finall also as the Apostle witnesseth to the Hebrewes saying That God is for whom and by whom all things are Sect. 25. The End is alwayes the formost in the Intention and the Efficient Cause is moved by it ibid. Most true is that of Aristotle in his second booke de Gen. cap. 10. that the perpetuall durance and continuance of things ought to bee imputed to the Simple and daily Motion of the Sunne from the East into the West but that Generation and Corruption doth arise from the oblique course of the Sunne and planets through the Zodiack whiles according to their situation they change their Aspects and by their accesse neerer to us or recesse farther from us the Affections and the Qualities of the things doe differ Sect. 28 As the Essence of God cannot be exprest by words so it cannot be conceived by the Vnderstanding for a thing infinite cannot be comprehended by a thing finite and the inaccessible light of God doth dazle the understanding Sect. 39. From the diminution of the knowledge of God would arise a diminution of his loue and by the same contempt whereby the knowledge of the divine Nature is neglected the knowledge also of the divine Will would bee despised Sect. 42. The life of a Wise man is nothing else but a Returne to God and the way to God is by the study of Piety and Iustice Sect. 43. The Maker of time is before time and above it neither is his duration measured by it for as the infinitenesse of God doth not onely consist in this that hee is not circumscrib'd by limites but most especially in this that hee is all in every place so his eternity likewise consists not in this onely that he is without beginning and without end but rather in this that his life is not a motionary course but a perpetuall rest and in which there is no succession of parts Sect. 56. As to a man sitting on the banke of a Riuer only that water is present which is observed by him in that instant moment and poynt of time but that part of the River is not presented to his eyes which is not yet come to him or but now gone from him yet the same man were he exalted into the upper region of the aire might behold the whole River and at one aspect observe both the fountaine and the coruses of it so by the eye of God who is obove time together and in one moment is observed the whole flux of transitory things neither in him is there addition or subtraction because all things are present with him Se. 56. Those perfections which are diverse and scattered in the creatures in God are one and the same perfection Se. 57. God making the body of man of earth did conforme his mind to humility and a religious lowlinesse by remembring him of his descent and ignoble parentage Se. 67. The happinesse of men is not to be esteemed by the present condition of things but by the Counsaeile of God and last event of all things Sect. 71. It is necessary in the businesse of salvation to have God our leader and to make his word our rule Sect. 74. Because that man did fall by believing the words of the Devill it was fitting that man should be raysed from his fall by believing the Words of God for it was requisite that contrary Evills should bee cured by contrary Remedies Sect. 79. The Scripture teacheth that Man being first creaeted to the image of God indued with holinesse and righteousnesse revolted from God by his owne consent and the suggestion of the Devill whereupon sinne came into the world and by sinne death and malediction notwithstanding the image of God is not so deformed in man that there remains not certaine traces of it to wit a certaine apprehension of Divinity and some graines of Honesty and civill Iustice Sect. 95. Though God inhabits light which cannot be attained to yet in some manner he hath made himselfe visible in his Son who is the image of the invisible God and God with us whosoever shall endeavour to come to God by any other way he shall find him a Iudge and not a Father and the more he hasts the more he erres and headlong falls into a certaine ruine Sect. 99. Physicians doe rather suspect then see the inward affections of the Bodies and the causes of Diseases and hereupon it often comes to passe that in pretence of curing the diseased officiously they kill ihem Sect. 105. As there are may be gathered many and excellent fruits from the knowledge of God so this is above all the most principall that we cannot bridle in our vices or stop our desires in their careere with a stronger rein then with the knowledge of God for he that knowes God knowes him to bee a searcher into the secrets of the heart whose eyes cannot be curtaind with the flattering clouds of lying or hypocrisy to whom accounts are to be given of every idle word Sect. 111. To complaine of Gods providence as it is unrighteous so to oppose against is rash and dangerous Sect. 112. Without the knowledge of God it is impossible for us to know our selves for then the bubbles of our pride sinke downe and our plumes doe fall when we looke on God Sect. 114. Then only in the knowledge of God shall we observe a meane betwixt an affected negligence and a sawcy curiosity when we shall referre all our knowledge and meditation to piety and manners and to the love of God The End