much less can man in this earthly state, distant from God, and oppressed with a burden of flesh ?

Now from hence it follows,

I. That ignorance of the manner how divine mysteries exist is no sufficient plea for infidelity, when the scripture reveals that they are; for reason that is limited and restrained, cannot frame a conception that is commensurate to the essence and power of God.

This will appear more clearly by considering the mysterious excellencies of the divine nature, the certainty of which we believe, but the manner we cannot understand; as, that his essence and attributes are the same, without the least shadow of composition; yet his wisdom and power are, to our apprehensions, distinct, and his mercy and justice in some manner opposite;-that his essence is entire in all places, yet terminated in any ;-that he is above the heavens and beneath the earth, yet hath no relation of high or low, distant or near;-that he penetrates all substances, but is mixed with none;--that he understands, yet receives no ideas within himself;—that he wills, yet hath no motion that carries him out of himself; that in him time hath no succession, that which is past is not gone, and that which is future is not to come;-that he loves without passion, is angry without disturbance, repents without change. These perfections are above the capacity of reason fully to understand, yet essential to the Deity. Here we must exalt faith, and abase reason. Thus in the mystery of the incarnation, that two such distant natures should compose one person, without the confusion of properties, reason cannot reach unto, but it is clearly revealed in the word: here therefore we must obey, not inquire.

The obedience of faith is, to embrace an obscure truth with a firm assent, upon the account of divine testimony. If reason will not assent to the revelation till it understands the manner how divine things are, it doth not obey it at all. The understanding then sincerely submits, when it is inclined by those motives which demonstrate that such a belief is due to the authority of the revealer, and to the quality of the object. To believe only in proportion to our narrow conceptions, is to disparage the divine truth and debase the divine power. We cannot know what God can do; he is omnipotent, though we are not omniscient; it is just we should humble our ignorance to his wisdom, and that every

lofty imagination and "high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, should be cast down," and every thought captivated to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor. x. 5. It is our wisdom to receive the great mysteries of the gospel in their simplicity; for in attempting to give an exact and curious explication of them, the understanding, as in a hedge of thorns, the more it strives, the more it is wounded and entangled. God's ways are far above ours, and his thoughts above ours, as heaven is above the earth. To reject that we cannot comprehend, is not only to sin against faith, but against reason, which acknowledges itself finite, and unable to "find out the Almighty to perfection," Job xi. 7.

2. We are obliged to believe those mysteries that are plainly delivered in scripture, notwithstanding those seeming contradictions wherewith they may be charged., In the objects of sense, the contrariety of appearances doth not lessen the certainty of things. The stars, to our sight, seem but glittering sparks, yet they are immense bodies. And it is one thing to be assured of a truth, another to answer all the difficulties that encounter it: a mean understanding is capable of the first; the second is so difficult, that in clear things the profoundest philosophers may not be able to untie all the intricate and knotty objections which may be urged against them. It is sufficient the belief of supernatural mysteries is built on the veracity and power of God; this makes them prudently credible; this resolves all doubts, and produces such a stability of spirit as nothing can shake. A sincere believer is assured that all opposition against revealed truths is fallacious, though he cannot discover the fallacy.

Now the transcendent mysteries of the Christian religion, the trinity of persons in the divine nature, the incarnation of the Son of God, are clearly set down in the scripture. And although subtle and obstinate opponents have used many guilty arts to dispirit and enervate those texts by an inferior sense, and have racked them with violence to make them speak according to their prejudices, yet all is vain, the evidence of truth is victorious. A heathen who considers not the gospel as a divine revelation but merely as a doctrine delivered in writing, and judges of its sense by natural light, will acknowledge, that those things are delivered in it. And notwithstanding those who usurp a sovereign authority

to themselves to judge of divine mysteries according to their own apprehensions, deny them as mere contradictions, yet they can never conclude them impossible; for no certain argument can be alleged against the being of a thing, without a clear knowledge of its nature: now although we may understand the nature of man, we do not the nature of God, the economy of the persons, and his power to unite himself to a nature below him.

It is true, no article of faith is really repugnant to reason; for God is the author of natural as well as of supernatural light, and he cannot contradict himself: they are emanations from him, and though different, yet not destructive of each other. But we must distinguish between those things that_ are above reason and incomprehensible, and things that are against reason and utterly inconceivable. Some things are above reason, in regard of their transcendent excellency or distance from us. The divine essence, the eternal decrees, the hypostatical union, are such high and glorious objects, that it is an impossible enterprise to comprehend them: the intellectual eye is dazzled with their overpowering light we can have but an imperfect knowledge of them. And there is no just cause of wonder that supernatural revelation should speak incomprehensible things of God; for he is a singular and admirable Being, infinitely above the ordinary course of nature. The maxims of philosophy are not to be extended to him. We must adore what we cannot fully understand. But those things are against reason and utterly inconceivable, that involve a contradiction, and have a natural repugnancy to our understandings, which cannot conceive any thing that is formally impossible: and there is no such doctrine in the Christian religion.

We must distinguish between reason corrupted, and right reason. Since the fall, the clearness of the human understanding is lost, and the light that remains is eclipsed by the interposition of sensual lusts. The carnal mind cannot out of ignorance, and will not from pride and other malignant habits, receive things spiritual. And from hence arise many suspicions and doubts concerning supernatural verities, the shadows of darkened reason and of dying faith. If any divine mystery seems incredible, it is from the corruption of our reason, not from reason itself; from its darkness, not its light. And as reason is obliged to correct the errors of sense, when it is deceived either by some vicious quality in the or

gan, or by the distance of the object, or by the falseness of the medium that corrupts the image in conveying it; so it is the office of faith to reform the judgment of reason, when, either from its own weakness, or the height of things spiritual, it is mistaken about them. For this end supernatural revelation was given, not to extinguish reason, but to redress it, and enrich it with the discovery of heavenly things.

Faith is called wisdom and knowledge: it doth not quench the vigour of the faculty wherein it is seated, but elevates it, and gives it a spiritual perception of those things that are most distant from its commerce. It doth not lead us through a mist to the inheritance of the saints in light. Faith is a rational light; for-it arises from the consideration of those arguments which convince the mind, that the scripture is a divine revelation. "I know," saith the apostle, "whom I have believed," 2 Tim. i. 12; and we are commanded always to be ready to give an account of the hope that is in us, 1 Peter iii. 15. Those that owe their Christianity merely to the felicity of their birth, without a sight of that transcendent excellency in our religion which evidences that it came from heaven, are not true believers. He that absolves an innocent person for favour, without considering sufficient proofs offered, though his sentence is just, is an unjust judge; and the eye that is clouded with a suffusion, so that all things appear yellow to it, when it judges things to be yellow that are so, yet is erroneous, because its judgment proceeds not from the quality of the object, but from the jaundice that discolours the organs: so those who believe the doctrine of the gospel upon the account of its civil establishment in their country, are not right believers, because they assent to the word of truth upon a false principle. It is not judgment, but chance, that inclines them to embrace it. The Turks, upon the same reason, are zealous votaries of Mahomet, as they are disciples of Christ.-Faith makes use of reason to consider what doctrines are revealed in the scripture, and to deduce those consequences which have a clear connexion with supernatural principles. Thus reason is an excellent instrument to distinguish those things which are of a divine original, from what is spurious and counterfeit; for sometimes that is pretended to be a mystery of religion, which is only the fruit of fancy; and that is defended by the sacred respect of faith that reason ought not to violate, which is but a groundless imagination; so that we remain in an error, by the sole ap

prehension of falling into one, as those that die for fear of death. The Bereans are commended for their searching the scriptures, whether the doctrines they heard were consentaneous to them, Acts xvii. 11. But it is a necessary duty, that reason, how stiff soever, should fully comply with God, where it appears resonable that He hath spoken.

Briefly; the richest ornament of the creature is humility, and the most excellent effect of it is the sense of the weakness of our understanding. This is the temper of soul that prepares it for faith-partly as it puts us on a serious consideration of those things which are revealed to us in the word: infidelity proceeds from the want of consideration, and nothing hinders that so much as pride :-partly as it stops all curious inquiries into those things which are unsearchable:— and, principally, as it entitles to the promise, God will instruct and give grace to the humble, 1 Pet. v. 5. The knowledge of heaven, as well as the kingdom of heaven, is the inheritance of the poor in spirit. A greater progress is made in the knowledge and belief of these mysteries by humble prayer, than by the most anxious study; as at court, an hour of favour is worth a year's attendance. Man cannot acquire so much as God can give.

And as humility, so holiness prepares the soul for the receiving of supernatural truths. The understanding is clarified by the purification of the heart. It is not the difficulty and obscurity of things revealed, that is the real cause of infidelity, since men believe other things upon far less evidence; but it is the prejudice of the lower faculties that hinders them. When all affections to sin are mortified, the soul is in the best disposition to receive divine revelation. He that doth the will of God, shall know whether the doctrine of the gospel came from heaven, John vii. 17.

The Spirit of God is the alone instructor of the spirit of man in these mysteries, so as to produce a saving belief of them. That knowledge is more clear and satisfying, that we have by his teaching, than by our own learning. The rational mind may discern the literal sense of the propositions in the gospel, and may yield a naked assent to the truth of them; but without supernatural irradiation by the Spirit of life, there can be no transforming and saving knowledge and belief of them. And as the vast expansion of air that is about us, doth not preserve life, but that part which we breathe in; so it is not the compass of our knowledge and

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