out noise, colours without tinctures, light without clearness, darkness without obscurity. What account can be given of the admirable operations of the soul in dreams, when the senses are suspended from working, and the body seems to be a warm carcass. It is one of those secrets, that human wits labour in vain to explain, how it composes discourses so just and regular, as to the invention and style, which by their impression in the memory, we know were not the effects of wild fancy, but of sober judgment; and that awake, and intent, we could not so speedily and orderly frame. It is as strange as that an artificer should work more exactly with his eyes covered, than seeing; that a painter should draw a face better in the dark, than in open day-light. That man were totally deserted of reason, who not being able to see things that are but a just distance from his eyes, would not acknowledge that things distant from him the extent of the horizon, are beyond his sight. We are finite beings; there is some proportion between our minds and our natures : * if we cannot understand ourselves, what folly is it to presume that we know God? "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know? The measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." Job 11. 7, 8, 9. Who can unfold the divine attributes? They are not confused in their unity, nor divided in number; they are not separable qualities, but his essence: he is not only wise, but wisdom; not only lives, but is life. We cannot speak of some attributes without distinction, wisdom and power; nor of others, without a seeming opposition, justice and mercy; yet they are the same divine nature, and cannot be separate but in our thoughts. He is eternal without succession; with "him there. is no past, and to come: he sees all things with one view; not only events that proceed from the constraint of natural and necessary causes, but that depend upon causes variously free and arbitrary. This knowledge is too wonderful for us." To believe no more than we can understand, proceeds from the ignorance of God's nature, † and our own: for the divine nature is truly infinite, and our minds are narrow and finite.

* Quo intellectum deum capiat homo, qui ipsum intellectum quo eum vult capere non capiat? Aug, lib, de. Trin. c. 1.

+ Infinitus immensus, & soli sbi tantus, quantus est notus; nobis vero,

3dly. The human understanding in our lapsed state, is dark and defiled, weakened and vitiated. Of this we have innumerable instances. Although the Deity be so illustriously visible in the creation, yet even the wise heathen represented him in such a degree of deformity, as is highly blasphemous. They could not conceive his infiniteness, but made every attribute a God. They transformed the glory of the immortal God, into the likeness of an earthly dying man. And the papists transform a mortal man into the likeness of the great God. They attribute to the pope a power of contradicting the divine laws: for though God, in the second commandment, so strictly forbids the worship of images, and has annexed to the prohibition the most terrible threatening, of "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children, to the third and fourth generation;" yet in defiance of the majesty of the Lawgiver, the pope commands all his adorers to worship the images of the dead saints: he arrogates a power to dispense with oaths, the most sacred bands of human society, and thereby authorizes perjury.

4ly. Though reason is not able to conceive and comprehend supernatural mysteries, yet it can never demonstrate that they cannot be. Who can prove by irresistible evidence, that God, who is an infinite good, cannot by an infinite communication of himself be in distinct subsistencies? It is true, our reason may find unaccountable difficulties, that one should be three in the subsistence of persons; and three, one in nature: but there can be no proof that it is impossible, without the perfect understanding the nature of God. The incarnation of the Son of God, is matter of astonishment, that two natures so different and immensely distant, as finite and infinite, mortal and immortal, should be so intimately and inseparably united in one person, without confusion of their properties: but we have the strongest reason to believe, that God knows his own nature, and is to be believed upon his own testimony. If the matter of his testimony be inconceivably great, we must exalt faith, and depress reason. If we will believe the word of God no farther than it is comprehensible by our reason, we infinitely disparage him: for this is no more than the credit we give to a suspected witness.

pectus augustum, & ideo sic eum dignæ utimamus, cum inæstimabilem dicimus. M. Felix.

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5ly. The doctrine of the Trinity and incarnation have a clear connexion with other truths, that right reason comprehends and receives without reluctancy. That men transgress the laws of God, natural conscience is their accuser, an essential faculty of the human nature, that can neither die with them, nor without them that every sin needs pardon, is most evident: that God is just, is known by the general light of reason in all men; that it is becoming God to pardon sin in a way honourable to his justice, is as certain now the satisfaction of divine justice requires the enduring the punishment ordained by the law, and equal to the guilt of sin. The guilt of sin rises from the majesty of the Lawgiver, who is dishonoured by it, and the satisfaction must be by a person of equal dignity, and consequently only God can make satisfaction. Now reason dictates, that he that satisfies, and he that receives satisfaction, must be distinguished: for it is not reasonable that the same person be the judge and the criminal; therefore there must be two distinct persons in the Deity from hence the reason of the incarnation is evident; for the Deity is incapable of suffering, and it was necessary that the dignity of the divine nature should give value to the sufferings. It was therefore requisite that the Deity should assume our nature capable of suffering, and the salvation of the world should result from their conjunction. This doctrine is very honourable to God, and beneficial and comfortable to man; which are the conspicuous characters, and strongest evidence of a doctrine truly divine: this maintains the royalty of God, and the rights of justice; this secures our pardon and peace, and removes all the difficulties and doubts that are apt to rise in the minds of men, whether God, infinitely provoked by our rebellious sins, will be reconciled to us? It is our duty to admire the mysterious doctrines of the gospel, which we do understand, and to adore those we do not. We may observe the same connexion in errrors as in divine truths; for they who rob our Saviour of his natural glory, his eternal Deity, vilify and disbelieve the value and virtue of his priestly office, by which our pardon is obtained. In short, the fabric of our salvation is built on the contrivance and consent of the divine persons, and the concurrence and concord of the divine attributes.

6ly. The belief of supernatural things may be confirmed by comparisons and examples of things in nature; for they prove

and persuade that a thing may be. Our Saviour, to cure the infidelity of the pharisees, tells them, "Ye err, not knowing the scripture, and the power of God." In the book of scripture we read the declaration of God's will; in the book of nature we see the effects of his power. The apostle says, "The weakness of God is stronger than men." The expression is strange to a wonder; for it seems to attribute a defect to God: but he speaks in that manner, to declare with emphasis, that God is always equal to himself, and has no need to strain his power to overcome the strongest opposition. The same apostle argues against infidels, that say, "How are the dead raised up? And with what bodies do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; * and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain; it may chance of wheat, or some other grain; but God giveth it a body as pleaseth him." If our eyes are witnesses of such an admirable resurrection in nature, which our understandings cannot comprehend, shall it not confirm our belief of the resurrection of the body, the wonder of grace, when it is promised by God the author of both. All difficulties vanish before infinite power. St Paul declares, "I know in whom I have believed, that he is able to keep that I have committed to him till that day." We are assured "the Lord will change our vile bodies into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power whereby he can subdue all things to himself." The belief of the resurrection is drawn from the clearest springs of nature and scripture.

7ly. It is a prudent foundation of judging things attended with difficulties, to compare the difficulties, and to determine our judgment for that which has least. Now it is certainly much more suitable to the reasonable mind to acknowledge, that things may be true which we are not able to conceive and comprehend, than to deny the natural and proper sense of many clear and express texts of scriptures, that declare those things. And by this we may judge of the glosses of Socinus, and his followers, who without reverence of the majesty of God, and the sincerity of his word, rack the scriptures to make them speak what they do not, and use all arts to silence them in what they do reveal. Unhap

* Præmisit deus naturam magistram, sub missurus prophetiam, ut facilius credas prophetiæ discipulus naturæ. Tert.

py men! that affect to be esteemed ingenious and subtile, to the extreme hazard of their own salvation. How much safer, and more easy is it to believe the plain sense of the scriptures, than the turns and shifts that are invented to elude it, and extricate heretical persons out of the difficulties that attend their opinions?

I shall add, the doctrine of the Trinity is so expressly set down in the gospel of Christ, that it is impossible the Son of God, who is infinite and eternal love, who gave himself for our redemption, should have declared it, and engaged his disciples in all ages and places in an error of such dreadful consequence, as the worshipping those who are not God.

Secondly. It is alledged, that if a person sincerely searches into the scripture, and cannot be convinced that the supernatural doctrines of the Trinity, and others depending upon it are contained in them, he shall not be condemned by the Righteous Judge of the world for involuntary and speculative errors.

To this I answer,

This pretence has deceived many who were guilty of damnable heresies, and there is great reason to fear deceives men still. "The heart is deceitful above all things," and most deceitful to itself. Who can say that neither interest nor passion, neither hope nor fear, neither anger nor ambition, have intervened in his inquiry after truth, but he has preferred the knowledge of divine truths before all temporal respects, and yet he cannot believe what the scripture reveals of the nature of God, and the economy of our salvation: let this imaginary man produce his plea, for I believe there was never any such. There are many that make reason the sovereign rule of faith, and determine such things cannot be true, because they cannot understand how they can be true. Prodigious inference! the most absurd of all errors, that makes the narrow mind of man the measure of all things. This is the proper principle of that horrible composition of heresies and execrable impieties, which so many that are christians in profession, but antichristians in belief, boldly publish. * They will choose to err in matters of infinite importance, rather than confess their ignorance. And which is astonishing, they will

* Emanimitur imperitres in tuis, insolenter in dei rebus ignarus. Hil. de Trin. 1. 2.