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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 July 2022
Of the Necessity, Excellency, and Use of Knowledge; its Depths and Extents, its Objects and its End.
KNOWLEDGE and Love are so necessary to Felicity, that there can be no Enjoyment or Delight without them. Heaven and Earth would be Dark and obscure, Angels and Men vain and unprofitable, all the Creatures base and unserviceable, Felicity impossible, were there no Knowledge. Nay GOD himself, without Knowledge and Love, could not well exist; for his very Essence is seated in infinite Knowledge.
GOD is Light, and in him is no Darkness at all; He is Love by nature and there is no hatred in his Essence. His very Godhead is all Perfection, by the infinite Knowledge and Love in his Nature.
THE Original of our Knowledge is his Godhead, His Essence and his will are the Fountain of it; and the stream so excellent, that in all Estates it is for ever to be continued, as the Light and Glory of the whole Creation.
THE understanding Power, which is seated in the Soul, is the Matter of that Act wherein the Essence of Knowledge consisteth: Its form is the Act it self, whereby that Power of knowing apprehendeth its Object.
ITS nature is invisible, like that of all other Spirits, so simple and uncompounded, that its form and matter are the same. For all Powers, when transformed into Act, are Acts themselves. And the faculty of understanding, in a Compleat and Perfect Act of Knowledge attains its Perfection, and is Power exerted, or an Act in its Exercise. For every Act is Power exerted.
THE Power of Knowing is vain if not reduced into Act; and the Soul a melancholly and Dreadful Cave, or Dungeon of Darkness, if void of Knowledge. Had GOD himself a Power of Knowing Distinct from its Operation, if he never exercised that Power, it would be useless to him. His Glory and Blessedness are seated in the Light of that Knowledge, which to us upon Earth appeareth Inaccessible.
IF we would be perfect, as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect, our Power of Knowing must be transformed (into Act,) and all Objects appear in the interior Light of our own understanding.
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