PREFACE, 1 THE following Papers owed their Birth to an accident. The Author being at Church on TRINITY SUNDAY, 1792, heard a very able Divine of the Church of England, who is a celebrated Preacher, refer his Audience to the Natural Creation, for an Idea of the Doctrine of the Day: and he was thence led into a Train of Meditation which brought forth the first Paper, and so on to the fourth generation. They were printed separately, in order as they occurred, with design only to be handed from one Reader to another for experiment; till repeated applications determined the Author to send them about with less trouble to himself and his Friends under a public Advertisement from a Bookseller's shop. THE TRINITARIAN ANALOGY. I. ·MAN N° I. AN consists of a soul and a body: and as his soul is supported by the power of God, so is his body supported by the powers of Nature. II. God having always taught man invisible things, the objects of faith, by some reference to things visible, the objects of sense; he has given us an understanding of his own Divine Nature, by shewing us how to take our ideas. of it from those agents or powers which govern the visible world. III. But the powers of Nature, by which all natural life and motion are preserved, are three, namely, Air, and Fire, and Light. Experience shews this to all the world. The most ignorant are sensible of it; and the most learned cannot contradict it. These powers are all present whenever a candle is lighted; with x 2 |