because all is originally and essentially in God, and from him derived to us, and all our good, our mercy, our truth, our justice, is but an imitation of his, it follows demonstratively, that what is unjust in men, and what is falsehood in our intercourses, is therefore false or unjust, because it is contrary to the eternal pattern: and therefore whatsoever our reason does rightly call unjust, or hypocrisy, or falsehood, must needs be infinitely far from God; and those propositions which asperse God with any thing of this nature, are so far from being the word of God, or an article of faith, or a mystery of religion, that it is blasphemous and false, hateful to God and good men.

41. In these things there is the greater certainty, because there is the less variety and no mystery; these things which in God we adore as attributes, being the lines of our duty, the limits and scores we are to walk by; therefore as our reason is here best instructed, so it cannot easily be deceived, and we can better tell what is right reason in these things, than in questions not so immediately relative to duty and morality.

42. But yet this rule also holds in every thing where reason is, or can be, right; but with some little difference of expression, but generally thus:

43. (1.) Whatsoever right reason says cannot be done, we cannot pretend from Scripture, that it belongs to God's almightiness to do it; it is no part of the divine omnipotency, to do things contradictory; for that is not to be done which is not, and it is no part of power to do that which is not an act or effect of power. Now in every contradictory, one part is a nonentity, a nothing, and therefore by power cannot be produced; and to suppose it producible, or possible to be effected by an almighty power, is to suppose an almighty power to be no power, or to do that which is not the effect of power.

44. But I need say no more of this, for all men grant it, and all sects and varieties of Christians endeavour to clear their articles from inferring contradictions, as implicitly confessing, that it cannot be true, to which any thing that is true, is contradictory. Only some men are forced by their interest and opinions to say, that although to human reason some of their articles seem to have in them contradictions,

yet it is the defect of their reason, and their faith is the more excellent, by how much reason is more at a loss. So do the Lutherans about the ubiquity of Christ's body, and the Papists about transubstantiation, and the Calvinists about absolute reprobation, as being resolved upon the propositions, though heaven and earth confute them. For if men can be safe from argument with such a little artifice as this, then no error can be confuted, then there is nothing so absurd but may be maintained, and a man's reason is useless in inquiry and in probation; and (which is to me very considerable) no man can, in any article, be a heretic, or sin against his conscience. For to speak against the words of Scripture, is not directly against our conscience, there are many ways to escape, by interpretation or authority; but to profess an article against our reason, is immediately against our conscience; for reason and conscience dwell under the same roof, and eat the same portions of meat, and drink the same chalice: the authority of Scripture is superinduced, but right reason is the eternal word of God; " The kingdom of God, that is within us ;" and the best portions of Scripture, even the law of Jesus Christ, which in moral things is the eternal law of nature, is written in our hearts, is reason, and that wisdom to which we cannot choose but assent; and therefore in whatsoever he goes against his reason, he must needs go against his conscience, because he goes against that, by which he supposes God did intend to govern him, reason not having been placed in us as a snare and a temptation, but as a light and a star to lead us by day and night. It is no wonder that men maintain absurd propositions, who will not hear great reason against them, but are willing to take excuses and pretences for the justification of them.

45. (2.) This is not to be understood, as if God could do nothing, but what we can with our reason comprehend or know how. For God can do every thing, but we cannot understand every thing: and therefore infinite things there are, or may be, which our reason cannot master; they are above our understanding, but are to be entertained by faith. It is not to be said or believed, that God can do what right reason says cannot be: but it must be said and believed that God can do those things, to which our understanding cannot, by all its powers ministered here below, attain. For since

God is omnipotent, unless we were omniscient, we could not understand all that he can do; but although we know but little, yet we know some propositions which are truths taught us by God, and they are the measures whereby we are to speak and believe concerning the works of God.

46. For it is to be considered, whatsoever is above our understanding, is not against it: 'supra' and 'secundum' may consist together in several degrees: thus we understand the divine power of working miracles, and we believe and know God hath done many: and although we know not how our dead bones shall live again, yet our reason tells us, that it is within the power of God to effect it; and therefore our faith need not be troubled to believe it. But if a thing be against our understanding, it is against the work of God, and against a truth of God, and therefore is no part, and it can be no effect of the divine power: many things in nature are above our understanding, and no wonder if many things in grace are so too; "The peace of God passeth all understanding, yet we feel something of it, and hope for more, and, long for all, and believe what we yet cannot perceive. But I consider further :

47. There are some things in reason which are certainly true, and some things which reason does infallibly condemn : our blessed Saviour's argument was certain, "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye perceive me to have:" therefore I am no spirit: and St. John's argument was certain, “That which we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears, and which our hands have handled of the Word of life, that we preach," that is, we are to believe what we see and hear and feel; and as this is true in the whole religion, so it is true in every article of it. If right sense and right reason tell us clearly, that is, tell us so that there is no absurdness, or contradiction, or unreasonableness, in it, we are to believe it, as we are to believe God; and if an angel from heaven should tell us any thing against these propositions, I do not doubt but we would reject him. Now if we inquire what things are certainly true or false; I must answer, that in the first place I reckon prime principles and contradictions: in the next place, those things which are manifestly absurd: but if it be asked further, which things are manifestly absurd, and what it is to be manifestly absurd? there can no more

answer be given to this, than to him who asks, How shall I know whether I am in light or in darkness? If therefore it be possible for men to dote in such things as these, their reason is useless in its greatest force and highest powers: it must therefore be certain, that if the parts of a contradiction or a right reason be put in bar against a proposition, it must not pretend to be an article of faith; and to pretend God's omnipotency against it, is to pretend his power against his truth. God can deliver us from our enemies, when to human reason it seems impossible, that is, when we are destitute of all natural help, and proper causes and probabilities of escape, by what we see or feel; that is, when it is impos sible to men, it may be possible with God; but then the faith which believes that God can do it, is also very right reason: and if we hope he will do it, there is more than faith in it, but there is nothing in it beyond reason, except love also be there.

48. The result is this: (1.) Our reason is below many of the works, and below all the power, of God, and therefore cannot perceive all that God hath, or can, or will do, no more than an owl can stare upon the body of the sun, or tell us what strange things are in that immense globe of fire. But when any thing that is possible, is revealed, reason can consent; but if reason cannot consent to it when it is told of it, then it is nothing, it hath no being, it hath no possibility; whatsoever is in our understanding, is in being: for that which is not, is not intelligible; and to what reason cannot consent, in that no being can be supposed.

49. (2.) Not only what is impossible to reason, is possible in faith, but if any thing be really absurd or unreasonable, that is, against some truth, in which human reason is really instructed, that is a sufficient presumption against a proposition, that it cannot be an article of faith. For even this very thing, I mean, an avoiding of an absurdity, or an inconvenience, is the only measure and rule of interpreting very many places of Scripture. For why does not every Christian pull out his right eye, or cut off his hand, and leg, that he might enter into heaven halt and blind? why do not we believe that Christ is a door, and a vine, and a stone, since these things are dogmatically affirmed in Scripture? but that we expound scriptures as we confute them who deny princi

ples, by declaring that such senses or opinions introduce evil and foolish consequents, against some other truth in some faculty or other in which human reason is rightly taught. Now the measure and the limit of this, is that very thing which is the reason of this, and all the preceding discourse,One truth cannot be against another:-if therefore your opinion or interpretation be against a truth, it is false, and no part of faith. A commandment cannot be against a revelation, a privilege cannot be against a promise, a threatening cannot mean against an article, a right cannot be against a duty; for all reason, and all right, and all truth, and all faith, and all commandments, are from God, and therefore partake of his unity and his simplicity.

50. (3.) This is to be enlarged with this advice, that in all questions of the sense of Scripture, the ordinary way is to be presumed before the extraordinary: and if the plain way be possible, and reasonable, and useful, and the extraordinary of no other use, but to make wonder and strange. ness to the belief of the understanding, we are to presume for that, and to let this alone, because that hath the advantage of reason, it being more reasonable that God will keep the methods of his own creation, and bring us to him by ways with which we are acquainted, and by which we can better understand our way to him, than that he will do a miracle to no purpose, and without necessity; God never doing any thing for the ostentation, but very many things for the manifestation, of his power: for his wisdom and his power declare each other, and in every thing where he shews his mightiness, he also shews his wisdom, that is, he never does any thing without great reason. And therefore the Roman doctrine of the holy sacrament suffers an intolerable prejudice, because it supposes daily heaps and conjugations of miracles, wholly to no purpose; since the real body can be taken by them to whom it does no good; and all the good can be conveyed to us, though the body be only taken in a spiritual sense; all the good being conveyed by moral instruments, and to spiritual effect; and therefore the ordinary way, and the sense which the church of England gives, is infinitely to be preferred, because it supposes no violences and effects of miracles, no cramps and convulsions to reason: and a man may receive the holy sacrament, and discourse of all its effects and mysteriousnesses.