sons and arguments for the negative. But to these men I shall only say, 'Let God be true, and every man a liar:' and therefore if we trust men concerning God, we do not trust God concerning men; that is, if we speak of God as men please, we do not think of men as God hath taught us; viz. that they are weak, and that they are liars: and they who have, by artifices and little devices, acquired to themselves a reputation, take the less care for proving what they say, by how much the greater credulity that is, by which men have given themselves up to be possessed by others. And if I would have my saying to prevail whether it be right or wrong, I shall the less endure that any man should use his own reason against me. And this is one of the great evils for which the church of Rome hath given Christendom a great cause to complain of her, who not only presses men to believe or to submit to what she says upon her own authority, without enduring them to examine whether she says true or no, but also requires as great an assent to what she cannot prove, as to what she can; requiring an adherence not less than the greatest, even to those things which she only pretends to be able to prove by prudential motives. Indeed in these cases if they can obtain of men to bring their faith, they are safe; but to come accompanied with their reason too, that is dangerous.

18. The other sort of men, is of those who do the same thing under another cover; for they not having obtained the advantages of union or government, cannot pretend to a privileged authority: but resolving to obtrude their fancies upon the world, and yet not being able to prove what they say, pretend the Spirit of God to be the author of all their theorems. If they could prove him to be their author, the thing were at an end, and all the world were bound to lay their necks under that pleasant yoke; but because they cannot prove any thing, therefore it is that they pretend the Spirit for every thing and if the noise of so sacred a name will persuade you, you are within the snare; if it will not, you are within their hatred. But it is impossible that these men can prevail, because there are so many of them; it is as if it were twenty mountebanks in the piazza, and all saying they had the only antidote in the world for poison; and that what was not theirs, was not at all, and yet all pretend severally.

For all men cannot have the Spirit, unless all men speak the same thing: it were possible that even in union they might be deceivers; but in division they cannot be right; and therefore since all these men pretend the Spirit, and yet all speak several things and contradictory, they do well to desire of us not to use our reason; for if we do, they can never hope to prevail; if we do not, they may persuade, as they meet with fools, that were not possessed before.

19. Between these two there is a third that pretends to no authority on one hand, nor enthusiasm on the other; but offers to prove what he says, but desires not his arguments to be examined by reason, upon pretence that he urges Scripture; that is, in effect, he must interpret it; but your reason shall not be judge whether he says right or wrong: for if you judge his interpretation, he says you judge of his argument, and make reason umpire in questions of faith: and thus his sect is continued, and the systems of divinity rely upon a certain number of propositions from generation to generation, and the scholar shall be no wiser than his master for ever; because he is taught to examine the doctrines of his master by his master's arguments, and by no other. In effect, they all agree in this, they would rule all the world by religion, and they would have nobody wiser than themselves, but be fools and slaves, till their turn come to use others as bad as they have been used themselves: and therefore, as the wolves offered peace to the sheep upon condition they would put away their dogs; so do these men allow us to be Christians and disciples, if we will lay aside our reason, which is that guard of our souls, whereby alone we can be defended against their tyrannies and pretensions.

20. That I may therefore speak close to the inquiry, I premise these considerations:

(1.) It is a weak and a trifling principle, which supposes faith and reason to be opposite: for faith is but one way, by which our reason is instructed, and acquires the proper notices of things. For our reason or understanding apprehends things three several ways: the first is called vónois, or the 'first notices' of things abstract, of principles and the 'primo intelligibilia;' such as are, The whole is greater than the half of the whole;-Good is to be chosen ;-God is to be loved :-Nothing can be and not be at the same time;

for these are objects of the simple understanding, congenite notices, concreated with the understanding. The second is called Siavónois, or discourse,' that is, such consequents and emanations which the understanding draws from her first principles. And the third is rioris, that is, such things which the understanding assents to upon the report, testimony, and affirmation, of others, viz. by arguments extrinsical to the nature of the thing, and by collateral and indirect principles. For example, I naturally know that an idol or a false god is nothing; that is vónois, or the act of abstract and immaterial reason. From hence I infer, that an idol is not to be worshipped: this my reason knows by diavónois, or illation and inference, from the first principle. But therefore, that all monuments of idolatry are to be destroyed, was known to the Jews by rioris, for it was not primely known, nor by the direct force of any thing that was primely known; but I know it from God by the testimony of Moses, into the notice of which I am brought by collateral arguments, by tradition, by miracle, by voices from heaven, and the like.

21. (2.) These three ways of knowing, are in all faculties sacred and profane: for faith and reason do not divide theology and philosophy, but in every science reason hath notices all these ways. For in natural philosophy there are prime principles, and there are conclusions drawn from thence, and propositions which we believe from the authority of Plato, or Socrates, or Aristotle; and so it is in theology; for every thing in Scripture is not, in the divided sense, a matter of faith: that the sun is to rule the day, the moon and the stars to govern the night, I see and feel; that God is good, that he is one, are prime principles: that nothing but good is to be spoken of this good God, reason draws by a Stavónaiç or discourse and illation: but that this good God will chastise his sons and servants, and that afflictions sent upon us are the issues of his goodness, or that this one God is also three in person, this is known by Tíσriç, or by belief; for it is not a prime truth, nor yet naturally inferred from a prime truth, but told by God, and therefore is an object of faith; reason knows it by testimony, and by indirect and collateral probations.

22. (3.) Reason knows all things as they are to be known, and enters into its notices by instruments fitted to the na

ture of things. Our stock of principles is more limited than our stock of words; and as there are more things than words, so there are more ways of knowing than by principles direct and natural. Now as God teaches us many things by natural principles, many by experience, many at first, many more in time; some by the rules of one faculty, some by the rules of another; so there are some things which descend upon us immediately from heaven, and they communicate with no principle, with no matter, with no conclusion here below. Now as in the other things we must come to notices of things, by deriving them from their proper fountains; so must we do in these. He that should go to revelation to prove that nine and nine make eighteen, would be a fool; and he would be no less, that goes about to prove a trinity of persons by natural reason. Every thing must be derived from its own fountain. But because these things, which are derivatives from heaven, and communicate not at all with principles of philosophy or geometry, yet have their proper fountains, and these fountains are too high for us to search into their bottom, we must plainly take all emanations from them, just as they descend. For in this case, all that is to be done, is to inquire from whence they come. If they come from natural principles, I search for them by direct arguments: if they come from higher, I search for them by indirect arguments; that is, I inquire only for matter of fact, whether they come thence or no. But here my reason is set on work; first, I inquire into the testimony or ways of probation, if they be worth believing in what they say, my reason sucks it in. As if I be told that God said, 'There are three and one in heaven,' I ask, Who said it? Is he credible? Why? If I find that all things satisfy my reason, I believe him saying that God said so; and then wíoris or faith enters. I believe the thing also, not because I can prove it directly, for I cannot,—but I can prove it indirectly; testimony and authority are my argument, and that is sufficient. The apostles entered into much of their faith by their senses, they saw many articles of their creed; but as they which saw and believed were blessed, so they which see not, but are argued and disputed into their faith, and believe what they find reasonable to believe, shall have the reward of their faith, while they wisely follow their reason.

23. (4.) Now in all this, here is no difference in my reason, save that as it does not prove a geometrical proposition by moral philosophy, so neither does it prove a revelation by a natural argument, but into one and the other it enters by principles proper to the inquisition; and faith and reason are not opposed at all. Faith and natural reason are several things, and arithmetical and moral reasons are as differing, but it is reason that carries me to objects of faith, and faith is my reason so disposed, so used, so instructed.

The Result of these Propositions is this one:

24. That into the greatest mysteriousness of our religion, and the deepest articles of faith, we enter by our reason: not that we can prove every one of them by natural reason for to say that, were as vain, as to say we ought to prove them by arithmetic or rules of music; but whosoever believes wisely and not by chance, enters into his faith by the hand of reason; that is, he hath causes and reasons why he believes. He indeed that hath reasons insufficient and incompetent, believes indeed not wisely, but for some reason or other he does it; but he that hath none, does not believe at all for the understanding is a rational faculty, and therefore every act of the understanding is an act of the rational faculty, and that is an act of reason; as vision is of the visive faculty: and faith, which is an act or habit of the understanding consenting to certain propositions for the authority of the speaker, is also as much an act of reason, as to discourse in a proposition of Aristotle. For faith, assenting to a proposition for a reason drawn à testimonio,' is as very a discourse, as to assent to a proposition for a reason drawn from the nature of things. It is not less an act of reason, because it uses another topic. And all this is plain and certain, when we discourse of faith formally in its proper and natural capacity, that is, as it is a reception of propositions à testimonio.'

25. Indeed if we consider faith as it is a habit infused by God, and by God's Holy Spirit, so there is something more in it than thus: for so, faith is a vital principle, a magazine of secret truths, which we could never have found out by natural reason, that is, by all that reason which is born with us, and by all that reason that grows with us, and by all secular experiences and conversations with the world;