fects on us, or how it comes thus to affect us. And yet this Ignorance of ours doth not hinder us from the Ufe or Advantage that Nature defign'd us in thefe Senfations; nor does our transferring to the Objects themfelves the Names that we give our own Perceptions of them, draw any evil Confequences after it: on the contrary, they ferve the Ufes of Life, as well as if we knew the very things themfelves. The Sun by giving me the Senfation of Light, directs and refreshes me, as much as if I knew what its Nature and true Substance are. For in truth, Men are no farther concerned to know the Nature of any thing, than as it relates to them, and has fome effect on them. And if they know the Effects of outward things, and how far they are to use or avoid them, it is fufficient.

If then fuch Knowledge of natural things, as only fhews the effects they have on us, be fufficient to all the Ufes of Life, though we do not know what they are in themfelves; why should not the like Representation of God and his Attributes be fufficient for the Ends of Religion, though we be ignorant of his and their Nature?

Every one knows that Steddinefs, Regularity, and Or- . der, do always proceed from Wisdom. When therefore we observe these in the highest degree in all the Works of God, fhall we not fay that God is infinitely wife, because we are ignorant what that really is in itself which produces fuch ftupendous Effects? though after all Wisdom, as in us, be as different from what we call fo in God; as Light in our Conception is different from the Motion in the Air that causes it.

§. XVII. We all of us feel a tendency to the Earth, which we call Gravity; but none ever yet was able to give any fatisfactory account of its Nature or Caufe: but inafmuch as we know that falling down a Precipice will crush us to pieces, the Senfe we have of this Effect of it, is fufficient to make us careful to avoid fuch a Fall. And in like manner, if we know that breaking God's Commands will provoke him to deftroy us, will not this be fufficient to oblige us to Obedience, though we be ignorant what it is we call Anger in him?

Hh 4

§ XVIIL

§ XVIII. I might go through all the Notices we have of natural Things, and fhew that we only know and diftinguish them by the Effects they produce on our Senses, and make you fenfible that fuch Knowledge fufficiently ferves the Purposes of Life. And no Reason can be given why the Representations given us in Scripture of God and divine Things, though they do only fhew us the Effects that proceed from them, fhould not be fufficient to answer the Purposes of Religion.

Particularly we afcribe Fore-knowledge to God, because we are certain that he cannot be furprized by any Event, nor be at any loss what he is to do when it happens. And thereby we give him all the Perfection we can, and affure ourfelves that we cannot deceive him.

After the fame manner we ascribe Predeftination to him, and conceive him as predetermining every thing that comes to pafs, because all his Works are as fteddy and certain, as if he had predetermined them after the fame manner that wile Men do theirs.

We farther represent him as abfolutely free, and all his Actions as arifing only from himself, without any other Confideration but that of his own Will; because we are fure, the Obligations we owe to him are as great as if he acted in this wife. We are as much obliged to magnify his free Mercy and Favour to us, to humble our Minds before him, and return our tribute of Gratitude to him, as if our Salvation intirely proceeded from his mere Good-will and 'Pleasure, without any thing being required on our part in order to it.

§ XIX. Let me in the fourth Place obferve, that as we transfer the Actions of our own Minds, our Powers, and Virtues, by analogy to God, and speak of him as if he had the like; fo we proceed the fame way in the Representations we make to one another of the Actions of our Minds, and afcribe the Powers and Faculties of Bodies to the Tranfactions that pafs in them. Thus to weigh things, to penetrate, to reflect, are proper Actions of Bodies, which we transfer to our Understandings, and commonly fay, that the Mind weighs or penetrates things, that it reflects on itself, or

Actions;

Actions; thus to embrace or reject, to retain or let flip, are corporeal Performances, and yet we afcribe the first to the Will, and the last to the Memory. And it is manifest that this does not cause any Confufion in our Notions: though none will deny but there is a vast difference between weighing a piece of Money in a Scale, and confidering a thing in our Minds; between one Body's paffing thro' another, which is properly penetrating, and the Understanding's obtaining a clear Notion of a thing hard to be comprehended. And fo in all the reft, there is indeed a refemblance and analogy between them, which makes us give the fame Names to each but to compare them in all particulars, and expect they fhould exactly answer, would run us into great Abfurdities. As for example, it would be ridiculous to think that weighing a thing in our Minds should have all the Effects, and be accompany'd with all the Circumstances that are obfervable in weighing a Body.

f XX. Now to apply this, let us confider that Love,` Hatred, Wisdom, Knowledge, and Foreknowledge, are properly Faculties or Actions of our Minds; and we afcribe them to God after the fame manner that we do Reflection, Penetrating, Discovering, Embracing, or Rejecting, to our intellectual Actions and Faculties, because there is fome analogy and proportion between them. But then we ought to remember that there is as great a difference between these, when attributed to God, and as they are in us, as between weighing in a Balance and Thinking, in truth infinitely greater; and that we ought no more to expect that the one fhould in all refpects and Circumftances answer the other, than that Thinking in all things fhould correfpond to Weighing. Wou'd you not be furpriz'd to hear a Man deny, and obftinately perfift in it, that his Mind can reflect upon it felf, because it is impoffible that a Body, from whence the Notion is originally taken, fhould move or act on itself; And is it not equally abfurd to argue that what we call Fore-knowledge in God, cannot confift with the Contingency or Freedom of Events, because our Prescience, from whence we transfer the Notion to the divine Understanding, could not, if it were certain? And is it not equally

a fuffi

a fufficient answer to both, when we fay that the Reflection of Bodies, tho' in many Circumstances it resembles that Action of the Mind which we call fo, yet in other Particulars they are mighty unlike? And tho' the Fore-knowledge that we have in fome things, resembles what we term so in God, yet the Properties and Effects of these in other particulars, are infinitely different.

Nor can we think that whatever is impoffible in the one, must be likewise fo in the other. 'Tis impoffible Motion fhould be in a Body, except it be mov'd by another, or by fome other external Agent; and it requires a Space in which it is perform'd, and we can measure it by Feet and Yards; but we should look on him as a very weak Reasoner, that would deny any Motion to be in the Mind, because he could find none of those there. And we should think that we had fufficiently answer'd this Objection, by telling him that these two Motions are of very different Natures, tho' there be fome analogy and proportion between them. And fhall not the fame Anfwer fatisfy those that argue against the divine Fore-knowledge, Predestination, and other Actions attributed to God, because many things are fuppofed poffible to them, which are impoffible to us?

§ XXI. It may be objected against this Doctrine that if it be true, all our Defcriptions of God, and Difcourfes concerning him, will be only Figures and Metaphors; that he will be only figuratively merciful, juft, intelligent, and fore-knowing: and perhaps in time, Religion and all the Mysteries thereof, will be loft in mere Figures.

But I answer, that there is great difference between the analogical Representations of God, and that which we commonly call Figurative. The common ufe of Figures is to represent things that are otherwife very well known, in fuch a manner as may magnifie or leffen, heighten or adorn the Ideas we have of them. And the defign of putting them in this foreign Drefs, as we may call it, is to move our Paffions, and ingage our Fancies more effectually than the true and naked view of them is apt to do, or perhaps ought. And from hence it too often happens that these Figures are employ'd to deceive us, and make us think better or worse of things than they really deferve.

But

But the Analogies and Similitudes that the holy Scriptures or our own Reafon frame of divine Things, are of another nature, the use of them is to give us fome Notion of things whereof we have no direct Knowledge, and by that means lead us to a Perception of the Nature, or at leaft of fome of the Properties and Effects of what our Understandings cannot directly reach, and in this Cafe to teach us how we are to behave ourselves towards God, and what we are to do in order to obtain a more perfect Knowledge of his Attributes.

XXII. And whereas in ordinary figurative Representations, the thing exprefs'd by the Figure is commonly of much less moment than that to which it is compar'd: in thefe Analogies the Cafe is otherwife, and the things reprefented by them have much more Reality and Perfection in them, than the things by which we represent them. Thus weighing a thing in our Minds, is a much more noble and perfect Action, than examining the Gravity of a Body by Scale and Balance, which is the original Notion from whence it is borrow'd; and Reflection as in our Underftandings is much more confiderable than the rebounding of one hard Body from another, which yet is the literal Senfe of Reflection. And after the fame manner, what we call Knowledge and Fore-Knowledge in God, have infinitely more reality in them, and are of greater moment than our Understanding or Prefcience, from whence they are transferr❜d to him; and in truth, these as in Man are but faint Communications of the divine Perfections, which are the true Originals, and which our Powers and Faculties more imperfectly imitate than a Picture does a Man: and yet if we reason from them by Analogy and Proportion, they are fufficient to give us fuch a Notion of God's Attributes, as will oblige us to fear, love, obey, and adore him.

If we lay these things together, I fuppofe, they will furnifh us with fufficient Reasons to fatisfy us why the holy Scriptures represent Divine things to us by Types and Similitudes, by Comparisons and Analogies, and by transferring to God the Notions of fuch Perfections as we ob

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