Plain and Intelligible; and then let him firmly Believe as far as he Understands. Let him believe firmly, and without any base Equivocation or Fallacy, that there is but ONE God, the fole and only invisible Object of Any Divine Worship whatsoever: And Think and Speak of him, and Worship him under that plain and perfonal Diftinction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which most exprefly runs thro' the whole Style of the New Teftament; and leaves the Incomprehenfible Nature of thatUnity and Diftinction (as common Sence would direct him) to the great Author of our Faith himself. Let him believe Chrift to be The only begotten Son of God, in the most Full and most Obvious Import of those Words; that is, in as much Truth and Reality as one Man is the Son of Another : And leave the Real manner of that Divine Incomprehenfible Generation to the Veracity of God; who propofed his Revelations to be Understood and Believed, by way of Accommodation to the Method of Thinking and Speaking amongst Men. Let him believe that Chrift, by his Death, did as Truly and Actualy make an Atonement to God for our Sins; as one Man works an Atonement and Reconciliation to Another for the Offences of a Third Perfon: And leave the Unintelligible Reality, and ineffable Manner of that Divine Operation for the Subject of eternal Contemplation and Praise in another World. And fo likewife in every Other Inftance of what goes under the Name of Mystery in the Gofpel: Let

him believe the Blood of Chrift hath the fame intrinfic Vertue and Efficacy, for the Real and Actual cleanfing of the Soul from the Guilt and Pollution of Sin; that Water hath for the washing any Filth or Dirt off from the Body. That the Interceffion made in our behalf by Chrift is as Truly, and Realy, and Actualy fuch; as if it were a ftrictly Proper and Literal Interceffion. That Men fhall undergo a great and glorious Change at the Refurrection of the Juft; as Truly as a Man is here changed from the Point of Death, to a ftate of Perfect Health; or from the Condition of a Slave, to the Glory of a Kingdom. Let Men I fay Believe as far as they thus perfectly and clearly Underftand, without perplexing and confoundingthemfelves or others with what is Incomprehenfible, and then they answer all the Ends of an Evangelical Faith: and do fulfil the whole Purpole of God in all his divine Revelations.

IF Men would come about to this Primitive Temper and Spirit of Believing; and leave off darkning and difturbing the Faith of Chriftians, which is plain in itself, by blending what is obvious and Intelligible with what is Unintelligible and Incomprehenfible: Then we shall relinquish all Analogy; and there will be no occafion for obviating all their pretended Abfurdities and Contradictions, by fhewing how we are under a Neceffity of apprehending things fpiritual and divine in Types only and Sym

bolical

bolical Representations. But fince the profess'd and open Arians, and Socinians, and Deifts, and Freethinkers have utterly declin'd the Natural and Easy way of Believing; laying afide all that is obvious and Intelligible in the Doctrines of the Gospel, on account of what is altogether Unconceivable and ineffable. And fince our modern Clandeftine Arians have, from their grofs Ideas of three Human Perfons, or rather even three Bodily Subftances, argued the Son and Holy Ghost to be actualy and intirely Separate from the Father, as we conceive Three Men to be Separate from one another; and confequently Subordinate and Inferior to him. And fince thefe Enemies of Revelation have gained fo great a Point, as to draw off the Learned and worthy Defenders of Chriftianity from the Plain and open Field of Battle, into Unknown Ground full of inextricable Mazes and Windings: Where they are obliged to Engage them by undertaking Solutions of what is never to be folved; by Explaining what is Inexplicable; and by elaborate Illustrations of things altogether in the Dark. Since, I fay, this is evidently the prefent State and Condition of Christianity among us; the Doctrine of Divine Analogy is now become abfolutely neceffary; and is like to continue fo as long as this Strain of Infidelity fo prevailing in our Age fhall laft; which it is to be fear'd may, in a greater or lefs Degree, be tranfmitted down to the latest Posterity.

2

THE Reason why I have, in this Preliminary Treatife, began with the first Rudiments of Knowledge; and traced the Procedure of the Understanding thro' every Step, from Ideas of Senfation up to our Conceptions of things Supernatural and Spiritual, may not perhaps be foon difcerned: Yet I doubt not but the Neceffity of it will evidently appear hereafter, when Men come to fee the great Usefulness and Advantage of applying this Doctrine to our prefent Controverfies with all Sorts of Unbelievers together with the Difficulty of that Application, so as to run neither into the ftrictly Literal and Proper Acceptation of Scripture Terms, on the one hand; nor into mere Metaphor and Allufion only, on the other.

I HOPE I need not apologize for diftinguishing the feveral Kinds of Knowledge with fome Exactnefs; together with that Kind of Evi dence which is proper to each of them. The Mind of every judicious Reader must suggest to him, what Light and Direction it adminifters for the Procedure of the Understanding in general, as well as in Matters of Natural and Reveal'd Religion in particular; and what endless Confufion and Uncertainty may hereby be prevented in all our Religious Controverfies and Difputes: Efpecialy if he hath obferved, how these have all arifen from abfurdly fuppofing the feveral Heads of Knowledge aboveU

mentioned

mentioned to differ only in Degree, and not in Kind; from blending and confounding the different Kinds of Proof and Evidence peculiar to each of them; from Mens infifting upon a Proof and Evidence peculiar to One Kind of Knowledge for that of Another, which is of a quite different Nature, and will not admit of it; from Oppoling the different Kinds of Knowledge and Evidence to one another, which are each of them perfect in their Kind, and must never be fuppofed to interfere or clash with one another; and laftly from not distinguishing between a blind Implicit Affent of the Mind upon the bare Word or Teftimony of another, and that Faith which refults from a full Conviction to Reafon of the Truth of what is believed.

СНА Р. VII.

Of the farther Improvement of Knowledge by Relations reveal'd.

E have now by feveral Steps brought

WE

the Mind of Man to the utmost Bounds of that Knowledge, which it can poffibly arrive at by the Strength of its own unaffifted Faculties; and where all the declared Enemies of Revelation and Mystery take up their Reft. Whatever Knowledge it obtains beyond that included