Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	father_n	heaven_n	maker_n	3,071	5	10.1314	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30630	An essay upon reason, and the nature of spirits by Richard Burthogge ...	Burthogge, Richard, 1638?-ca. 1700.	1694 (1694)	Wing B6150; ESTC R1885	119,896	286

Knowledge of him He dwells in the thickest Darkness No Windows in the Sanctum Sanctorum where the Seat of God was and the very Heathen many of them Adored him with Silence as one that was Ineffable and Unconceiveable Methinks it is meer Enthusiasm to talk of Seeing All Things in the Original when we cannot so much as look upon it God is Pure Mind and Pure Mind is Pure Light of too Transcendent Glory to be immediately beheld by us but Blear-eyed Weak-sighted Mortals There are two Opinions in reference to the Nature of God that Differ from mine both of which I will consider The First is that of Spinosa That he is all Substance and that Particular Beings even formally taken are but Participations of his as being only so many several Modifications of the Divine Attributes But this is a Notion of the Deity that I cannot receive as for other Reasons so for this particularly that it makes him to be the Universe and to be Matter as well as Mind whereas God is neither Matter nor the World or Universe but only Pure Mind for the Great World has a Mind that made and Governs it as well as the Little Even Mr. Hobbs has said He that thinks this World without a Mind I shall think him without a Mind And says Seneca Nat. Quast Lib. 1. C. 45. Eundem quem nos Jovem intelligunt Custodem Rectoremque Universi Animum ac Spiritum Mundani hujus operis Dominum Artificem cui nomen omne convenit c. Which I would Render thus God is the Father All-mighty All-wise All good the Maker of Heaven and Earth Soveraign Preserver and Governor of All. For my own part I much doubt that those Philosophers who profess themselves in this Opinion that God is all Substance or that he is the World do really believe he has no Being at all but only in Fiction of Mind and by way of Prosopopaeia and that as Nature Fortune Chance which yet are said to do This and to do That do really only signifie Causes so or so considered so God with them is only a Notion a Name a Mode of Expression by which they mean all Causes taken together and so no more the Name of a Real Individual singular Being than that of Nature or Fortune Sunt says Lucilius in Cicero l. 2. de Nat. Deor. Qui omnia Naturae nomine appellent ut Epicurus c. The unwary Expression of some Theologues and Theologizing Philosophers who Denominated God Nature Naturing might give occasion to this improper conceit of him among the moderns as might also that mistaken Idea of Infinity as an Attribute of God that some have given which seems to shock his distinction and singularity of Being For thence it is Argued how can God be Infinite Being if he be not all Beings And it he be how can he be One by himself be a Singular Individual Being distinct from all others These were the speculations that obliged Spinosa to conceive of God that he is the Ingredient Immanent Cause of all Things and the speculations too that tempt others to other mistakes concerning him But when I come to discourse of the Notions of Finite and Infinite and to Represent in what Sense the latter is truly Ascribed to God I hope to manifest that there is great Mistake in such Speculations and Arguings and to exempt the true received Notion of Infinity both from these and from all the like intangling Embarrasments and Difficulties The Second Opinion is that of Dr. More and his Followers who do hold that God is an Infinite Extension that he is indued indeed with all Goodness Wisdom and Power but he is an Extension so indued and of this they are so confident that some require a belief thereof as of an Article as great as any in the Creed an Article that is the Foundation of all Religion both revealed and Natural But as I believe that no Man hath known the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son hath revealed him so since among all the Revelations that the Son has pleased to make of God the Father this is none that he is an Extension I cannot admit his being so to be a Notion so Essential unto all Religion as they would make it Especially when I consider that it might as easily have been said that God is Extension as that he is a Spirit and Christ hath said the latter but not the former Besides I cannot understand how Wisdom Goodness and Power should be said of meer Extension which is but space it seems to me a lesser Incongruity though even this is Incongruity enough to say that God is Matter so indued than that he is Space so indued seeing even in common sense there is more of Reality and Being in meer Matter than there is in meer Extension or Space But to urge this Argument more home By Extension which the persons who are in this Opinion do Attribute to God they must mean either meer Space or else a thing that in the Idea of it is Spatious If meer Space is intended As this does no ways differ from inane or vacuum so one may think it might as well be said which yet its hard to say that God is an Infinite inane or vacuum that is in plain English an Infinite Nothing indued with Wisdom Goodness and Power as that he is infinite Extension so indued On the other side if by Extension is understood a thing that in the Idea and first Conception of it is Extensive that is a thing that does essentially take up space so as that it cannot be conceived but withal space must be Imagined as an Appurtenant of it in this Sense I cannot see how it differs from Matter and then to say that God is Extension is to say that he is Matter whereas God is Pure Mind not Matter In fine as it is certain that God is Mind rather than Matter so likewise it is certain that in the Ideas that we frame of Mind and of all the things that properly relate to it such as Wisdom Goodness Thought c. We never do once think of Extension or Space And if at any time we do endeavour to apply Extension or Space unto Mind or to any thing properly mental there always arises a Repugnance in us upon but the thoughts of it an Inch a Foot a Yard of Understanding or Goodness is a Bull. I know it is Argued from the Omnipresence of God that he is Extended and in truth it is very hard to imagine any presence with things that are extended but withal there must be an Imagination of some Extension in the thing that is present but still this is but Imagination which is apt to impose upon us and therefore it must be examined by Reason And Reason tells us that we cannot have a distinct and clear conception of the presence of God if we have not as we have not such an one of his Essence since the