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 rioris 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 à 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;

but of such things which God only teaches, by ways supernatural and divine.

26. Now here is the close and secret of the question, whether or no faith, in this sense, and materially taken, be contrary to our worldly or natural reason, or whether is any or all the propositions of faith to be exacted, interpreted, and understood, according to this reason materially taken? that is, are not our reasons, which we rightly follow in natural philosophy, in metaphysics, in other arts and sciences, sometimes contrary to faith? and if they be, whether shall be followed? Or can it, in any sense, be an article of faith, if it be contrary to right reason? I answer to this by several propositions.

27. (1.) Right reason (meaning our right reason, or human reason) is not the affirmative or positive measure of things divine, or of articles and mysteries of faith; and the reasons are plain: 1. Because many of them depend upon the free will of God; for which, till he gives us reasons, we are to be still and silent, admiring the secret, and adoring the wisdom, and expecting till the curtain be drawn, or till Elias come and tell us all things. But he,-that will inquire and pry into the reason of the mystery, and because he cannot perceive it, will disbelieve the thing, or undervalue it, and say it is not at all, because he does not understand the reason of it, and why it should be so,-may as well say, that his prince does not raise an army in time of peace, because he does not know a reason why he should; or that God never did suffer a brave prince to die ignobly, because it was a thousand pities he should. There is a ragione di stato,' and a ragione di regno,' and a 'ragione di cielo,' after which none but fools will inquire, and none but the humble shall ever find.

28. Who can tell why the devil, who is a wise and intelligent creature, should so spitefully, and for no end but for mischief, tempt so many souls to ruin, when he knows it can do him no good, no pleasure, but fantastic? or who can tell why he should be delighted in a pleasure that can be nothing but fantastic, when he knows things by intuition, not by phantasm, and hath no low conceit of things as we have? or why he should do so many things against God, whom he knows he cannot hurt,—and against souls, whose ruin cannot add one

moment of pleasure to him? and if it makes any change, it
is infinitely to the worse: that these things are so, our reli-
gion tells us;
but our reason cannot reach why it is so, or
how. Whose reason can give an account why, or understand
it to be reasonable, that God should permit evil for good
ends, when he hates that evil, and can produce that good
without that evil? and yet that he does so we are taught by
our religion. Whose reason can make it intelligible, that
God who delights not in the death of a sinner, but he and
his Christ, and all their angels, rejoice infinitely in the salva-
tion of a sinner, yet that he should not cause that every
sinner should be saved, working in him a mighty and a
prevailing grace, without which grace he shall not in the
event of things be saved, and yet this grace is wholly his own
production?

Omnipotens hominem cum gratia salvat,
Ipsa suum consummat opus, cui tempus agendi
Semper adest quæ gesta velit; non moribus illi
Fit mora, non causis anceps suspenditur ullisa.

Why does not he work in us all to will and to do, not only that we can will, but that we shall will? for if the actual willing be any thing, it is his creation; we can create nothing, we cannot will unless he effect it in us: and why he does not do that which so well pleases him, and for the want of the doing of which he is so displeased, and yet he alone is to do it some way or other; human reason cannot give a wise or a probable account.

Nam prius immites populos urbesque rebelles,
Vincente obstantes animos pietate, subegit;
Non hoc consilio tantum hortatuque benigno
Suadens atque docens, quasi normam legis haberet
Gratia, sed mutans intus mentem atque reformans,
Vasque novum ex fracto fingens, virtute creandi.
Non istud monitus legis, non verba prophetæ,
Non præstata sibi præstat natura, sed unus
Quod fecit reficit. Percurrat Apostolus orbem,
Prædicet, hortetur, plantet, riget, increpet, instet,
Quaque viam verbo reseratam invenerit, intret ;
Ut tamen his studiis auditor promoveatur,

Non doctor neque discipulus, sed gratia sola
Efficit.

b

Where is the wise discourser, that can tell how it can be, that

a Prosper. c. 15. de Ingrat.

b Prosp. de Prædest. 55. cap. 8,

God foreknows certainly what I should do ten years hence, and yet it is free to me at that time, to will or not to will, to do or not to do, that thing? Where is the discerning searcher of secrets, that can give the reason why God should determine, for so many ages before, that Judas should betray Christ, and yet that God should kill him eternally for effecting the divine purpose, and foredetermined counsel? Well may we wonder that God should wash a soul with water, and with bread and wine nourish us up to immortality, and make real impresses upon our spirits by the blood of the vine, and the kidneys of wheat; but who can tell why he should choose such mean instruments to effect such glorious promises? since even the greatest things of this world had not been disproportionable instruments to such effects, nor yet too great for our understanding; and that we are fain to stoop to make these mean elements be even with our faith, and with our understanding. Who can divine, and give us the cause, or understand the reason, why God should give us so great rewards for such nothings, and yet damn men for such insignificant mischiefs, for thoughts, for words, for secret wishes, that effect no evil abroad, but only might have done, or, it may be, were resolved to be inactive: for if the goodness of God be so overflowing in some cases, we in our reason should not expect, that in such a great goodness there should be so great an aptness to destroy men greatly for little things: and if all mankind should join in search, it could never be told, why God should adjudge the heathen or the Israelites to an eternal hell, of which he never gave them warning, nor created fears great enough, to produce caution equal to their danger; and who can give a reason, why, for temporal and transient actions of sin, the world is to expect never-ceasing torments in hell to eternal ages? That these things are thus, we are taught in Scripture, but here our reason is not instructed to tell why or how; and therefore our reason is not the positive measure of mysteries, and we must believe what we cannot understand.

29. Thus they are to be blamed, who make intricacies and circles in mysterious articles, because they cannot wade through them; it is not to be understood why God should send his only Son from his bosom to redeem us, to pay our price; nor to be told why God should exact a price of him