parated by them, and yet their confequence is abfolutely falfe: For tho we have no Idea at all of the Chriftian Mysteries as they are in their Real Nature; yet we can both Know and Believe them under Analogical Reprefentations and Conceptions. So that thofe two Affertions of theirs will infer one Pofition abfolutely true; namely, That the Scripture terms expreffive of thofe Myfteries, first understood and apprehended literaly, and then transfer'd by Analogy to things Divine and Incomprehenfible, do contain as much folid and fubftantial Truth and Reality for an Object of our Knowledge and Faith, as when they are applied to things Natural and Human.

NAY, the Atheifts themselves find their account in laying afide and confounding this Analogy; for thus they argue. If God is Infinite, no finite human Understanding can have any Knowledge at all of him. It can't know him in the Whole, becaufe nothing finite can comprehend Infinity; nor can it know

any

any Part of him, there being no part of Infinity. To which 1 return the Apoftle's Answer, that tho' we can't be faid to know any Part of him; yet we are truly said to know him In part, as we fee the reflection of a fubstance in a looking-glass; that is, by Analogy with those Perfections we obferve in ourfelves, and in the things of Nature; the brightest Mirrour in which we now behold him. But they urge, there can be no Proportion or Similitude between Finite and Infinite, and confequently there can be no Analogy. That there can be no fuch Proportion or Similitude as there is between finite created Beings is granted; or as there is between any material substance and its Resemblance in the glass: and therefore wherein the Real Ground of this Analogy confifts, and what the Degrees of it are, is as incomprehenfible as the real Nature of God. But it is fuch an Analogy as he himself hath adapted to our Intellect, and made use of in his Revelations; and therefore we are fure it hath such a foun

dation in the Nature both of God and Man, as renders our Moral Reasonings concerning him and his Attributes folid, and just, and true.

I MUST not now stay to enlarge upon these things, and shall here only give fome account of my Design and Method in the further profecution of this Subject.

THE great Genius of the last Century, under the head of Revelation and the Mysteries of Religion, obferves how God bath vouchsafed to let himself down to our Capacities; founfolding bis Myfteries as that they may be best or most aptly perceived by us; and, as it were, grafting or inoculating his Revelations into thofe Notions and Conceptions of Reafon which are already in us. After which, he reckons a Treatise of Logic calculated for this very purpose, among his Defiderata. Itaque nobis res falubris videtur& imprimis utilis, fi Tractatus inftituatur fobrius & diligens, qui de ufu Rationis humanæ in Theologicis utiliter præcipiat, tanquam Divina quædam Diale

Etica. Utpote que futura fit inftar opiatæ cujufdam medicine; que non modo Speculationum, quibus fchola interdum laborat, inania confopiat; verum etiam controverfiarum Furores, quæ in Ecclefia tumultus cient, nonnihil mitiget. Ejuf modi Tractatum inter Defiderata ponimus; & Sophronem, five de legitimo usu Rationis humanæ in Divinis nominamus.

Now this is the very thing I aim at, and what I endeavour by this first Treatife to perform in fome degree. In which I propose rightly to state the whole Extent andLimits of human Understanding; to trace out the several steps and degrees of its Procedure from our first and fimple Perception of fenfible Objects, thro' the feveral operations of the pure Intellect upon them, till it grows up to its full Proportion of Nature: And to shew, how all our Conceptions of things fupernatural are then grafted on it by Analogy; and how from thence it extends itself immensely into all the Branches of Divine and Heavenly Knowledge.

SOME Treatife of this kind I forefaw was neceffary to be premised, before I cou'd proceed to the application of this Analogy to any of our Controversies in Religion; because of that strong Prejudice against it, from an opinion that it ultimately refolves all Religion into mere Figure and Allufion, and confequently brings it to nothing; and because of the many Errors and Prepoffeffions in the generality of young Students, taken up from falfe and pernicious Principles in fome of our Modern Writers of Logic and Metaphyfics. In order to obviate and remove thefe, I was to begin with the firft Rudiments of our Knowledge; to explain the several Properties of those Ideas of Senfation, which are the only Materials the Mind of Man hath to work upon; to lay open the true nature of Divine Analogy, how it differs from human Analogy, and how both differ from pure Metaphor: To fhew, how we neceffarily apply it to the conceiving the Divine Being and his Attributes; of what univerfal advantage it is in direct