The difference between the angels of God and the children of men

William Hooker

The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593)

Part VI

In the matter of knowledge,

there is between the angels

of God and the children

of men this difference:

angels already have full

and complete knowledge

in the highest degree that

can be imparted unto them;

men, if we view them in

their spring, are at the first

without understanding or

knowledge at all.  Nevertheless,

from this utter vacuity they

grow by degrees, till they come

at length to be even as the

angels themselves are.  That 

which agreeth to the one now,

the other shall attain unto in

the end; they are not so disjoined

and severed, but at the end they

come at length to meet.  

The soul of Man being therefore 

at the first as a book where nothing is 

and yet therefore at the first 

all things may be imprinted;

we are to search by what steps and

degrees it riseth to perfection of

knowledge.

from The Protestant Reformation edited by Hans J. Hillerbrand, Harper

Torchbooks, 1968, paperback edition