themselves wrought, that great multitudes were converted to a doctrine, which, befides the oppofition it gave to luft and paffion, was borne down and perfecuted for three hundred years; and yet its force was fuch, that it not only weathered out all those ftorms, but even grew and spread vaftly under them. Pliny, about threefcore years after, found their numbers great, and their lives innocent: and even Lucian, amidst all his raillery, gives a high testimony to their charity and contempt of life, and the other virtues of the Chriftians; which is likewife more than once done by malice itself, Julian the apoftate.

If a man will lay all this in one balance, and compare with it the few exceptions brought to it, he will foon find how ftrong the one, and how flight the other. Therefore it was an improper way, to begin at fome cavils about fome paffages in the New Teftament, or the Old, and from thence to prepoffefs one's mind against the whole. The right method had been firft to confider the whole matter, and from fo general a view to descend to more particular enquiries: whereas they fuffered their minds to be foreftalled with prejudices; fo that they never examined the matter impartially.

To the greatest part of this he feemed to affent, only he excepted to the belief of mysteries in the Christian religion; which he thought no man could do, fince it is not in a man's power to believe that

which

which he cannot comprehend, and of which he can have no notion. The believing myfteries, he faid, made way for all the jugglings of priests; for they, getting the people under them in that point, fet out to them what they pleased; and giving it a hard name, and calling it a myftery, the people were tamed, and easily believed it. The reftraining a man from the use of women, except one in the way of marriage, and denying the remedy of divorce, he thought unreasonable impofitions on the freedom of mankind and the bufinefs of the clergy, and their maintenance, with the belief of fome authority and power, conveyed in their orders, looked, as he thought, like a piece of contrivance; and why, faid he, muft a man tell me, I cannot be faved, unless I believe things against my reason, and then that I must pay him for telling me of them? These were all the exceptions which at any time I heard from him to Christianity; to which I made thefe answers.

For myfteries, it is plain there is in every thing fomewhat that is unaccountable. How animals or men are formed in their mothers bellies, how feeds grow in the earth, how the foul dwells in the body, and acts and moves it; how we retain the figures of many words or things in our memories, and how we draw them out fo eafily and orderly in our thoughts or difcourfes; how fight and hearing were fo quick and distinct, how we move, and how bodies were

com

compounded and united; these things, if we follow
them into all the difficulties that we may raise about
them, will appear every whit as unaccountable as
any myftery of religion; and a blind or deaf man
would judge fight or hearing as incredible as any
mystery may be judged by us; for our reason is not
equal to them. In the fame rank, different degrees
of age or capacity raife fome far above others, fo
that children cannot fathom the learning, nor weak
perfons the councils of more illuminated minds;
therefore it was no wonder if we could not under-
ftand the Divine Effence. We cannot imagine how
two fuch different natures as a foul and body should
fo unite together, and be mutually affected with one
another's
's concerns; and how the foul has one prin-
ciple of reafon, by which it acts intellectually, and
another of life, by which it joins to the body and
acts vitally: two principles fo widely differing both
in their nature and operation, and yet united in one
and the fame perfon. There might be as many hard
arguments brought against the poffibility of thefe
things, which yet every one knows to be true, from
fpeculative notions, as against the mysteries men-
tioned in the fcriptures. As that of the Trinity,
that in one effence there are three different principles
of operation, which, for want of terms fit to exprefs
them by, we call perfons, and are called in fcripture
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and that the

fecond

fecond of thefe did unite himself in a most intimate manner with the human nature of Jefus Chrift; and that the fufferings he underwent were accepted of God as a facrifice for our fins; who thereupon conferred on him a power of granting eternal life to all that fubmit to the terms on which he offers it; and that the matter of which our bodies once confifted, which may as juftly be called the bodies we laid down at our deaths as these can be faid to be the bodies which we formerly lived in, being refined and made more fpiritual, fhall be reunited to our fouls, and become a fit inftrument for them in a more perfect eftate; and that God inwardly bends and moves our wills by fuch impreffions as he can make on our bodies and minds.

Thefe, which are the chief myfteries of our religion, are neither fo unreafonable, that any other objection lies against them, but this, that they agree not with our common notions, nor fo unaccountable that fomewhat like them cannot be affigned in other things, which are believed really to be, though the manner of them cannot be apprehended: fo this ought not to be any just objection to the fubmiffion of our reason to what we cannot fo well conceive, provided our belief of it be well grounded. There have been too many niceties brought indeed rather to darken than explain thefe: they have been defended by weak arguments, and illuftrated by fimilies

not.

not always fo very apt and pertinent; and new fubtilties have been added, which have rather perplexed than cleared them. All this cannot be denied; the oppofition of heretics anciently occafioned too much curiofity among the fathers, which the fchoolmen have wonderfully advanced of late times. But if myfteries were received rather in the fimplicity in which they are delivered in the fcriptures than according to the defcantings of fanciful men upon them, they would not appear much more incredible than fome of the common objects of fenfe and perception. And it is a needlefs fear, that, if some mysteries are acknowledged, which are plainly mentioned in the New Teftament, it will then be in the power of the priests to add more at their pleasure. For it is an abfurd inference from our being bound to affent to fome truths about the Divine Effence, of which the manner is not understood, to argue that therefore in an object prefented daily to our fenfes, fuch as bread and wine, we fhould be bound to believe, against their teftimony, that it is not what our fenfes perceived it to be, but the whole flesh and blood of Chrift, an entire body being in every crumb and drop of it. It is not, indeed, in a man's power to believe thus against his fenfe and reason, where the object is proportioned to them, and fitly applied, and the organs are under no indifpofition or diforder. It is certain that no mystery is to be admitted