as nutriment bloud and spirits to the Will before it is truly made our own It expecteth I say not greater courtship but more cordial friendship than a transient salute before it will unveil its glory and illustrate beautifie and bless the soul It is food and Physick it will nourish and heal but not by a bare look or hear-say nor by the reading of the prescript Could I procure the Reader to do his part I doubt not but this Treatise will suffice on its part to bring in that light which the Sagae the Lemures and Daemones of Atheism Infidelity and Ungodliness will not be able to endure But I am far from expecting universal success no not if I brought a Book from Heaven The far greatest part have unprepared minds and will not come up to the price of truth And nothing is more sure than that recipitur ad modum recipientis Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli These drones imagine that they are fit to judge of a Scripture-difficulty or of an argument concerning the mysteries of Religion before they know what it is to be a Man or understand the Alphabet of Nature even those points which supernatural Revelations presuppose such uncapableness in the Reader is as a great hinderance as the want of solid proof and evidence in the Writer Most men are drowned in filthy sensuality or worldly cares and their relish is vitiated by luscious vanities their reason is debased by subjection to the flesh and darkned and debilitated by long alienation from its proper work and yet they are so constituted of ignorance and pride that they can neither understand plain truth nor perceive that it is long of themselves that they understand it not And â—othfulness and sensuality have so far conquered humanity it self even the natural love of truth and of themselves that they will take up with what their play-fellows have taught them and venture their souls and their everlasting concernments â—nless they can secure them by an idle gamesome â—leshly life or grow wise by the short superficial studies of an alienated unwilling tired mind Unless the great things of God and Immortality will â—e savingly known by a few distracted thoughts of a discomposed mind or the rambling talk of their companions whose heads are as unfurnished and giddy as their own or by the cursory perusal of a few Books which cross not their carnal interest and humour in the midst of their more beloved employments and delights they will neither be solid Christians nor wise and honest men If God will be conversed with in the midst of their feasting cups and oaths in their pride and revelling and with their whores if he will be found of them that hate his holiness and all that love it and seriously obey him then God shall be their God and Christ shall be their Saviour and if this be the way they may become good Christians But if retired serious thoughts be necessary and an honest faithfulness to what they know they must be excused They that know that it is not an hours perusal of a book of Astronomy Geometry Musick Physick c. which will serve to make them skilful in these Arts do expect to attain far higher wisdom by inconsiderable industry and search and will not be wise unless they can be taught by vision in their dreams or in the crowd and noise of worldly business and of fleshly lusts I find that it is a difficult task which I have undertaken to be the instructer of such men if I be large and copious their laziness will not suffer them to read it if I be concise I cannot satisfie their expectations for they think nothing well proved if every objection be not answered which idle cavilling brains can bring Neither have they sufficient attentiveness for brevity nor will their ignorance allow them to understand it The contradicting vices of their minds do call for impossibilities for the cure Their Incapacity saith It must be a full explication or I cannot apprehend the sense or truth Their averseness and slothfulness saith It must be short or I shall be tired with it or cannot have while to read it I cannot answer both these expectations to the full but though the greatness of the matter have made the Book bigger than I intended the nauseating stomack of most Readers hath perswaded me to avoid unnecessary words and as big as the Book is I must tell the Reader that the style is so far from redundancies though some things be oft repeated that if he will not chew the particular words but swallow them whole and bestow his labour only on the Sentences I shall suppose that he hath not read the Book Ficinus very truly noteth that while children and youth are sufficiently conscious of their ignorance to keep in a learning course they may do well but when they first grow to a confidence of their own understandings and at ripeness of age imagine that their wits are ripe and think that their unfurnished minds because they have a natural quickness are competent judges of all that they read then they are most in danger of infidelity and of being undone for ever from 18 to 28 being the most perilous age But if God keep them as humble diligent learners till they have orderly gone through their course of studies and sanctifie their greener youthful knowledge they then grow up to be confirmed Christians Ficin de Verit. Rel. cap. 3. It is therefore the diligence and patience of the Reader which I still intreat and not his belief for I will beg nothing of his understanding but justice to the truth but supposing God's help do trust to the cogencie of evidence Yet I must tell you that I expect the Reader by the truths which he learneth should be able himself to answer an hundred trivial objections which are here passed by and that in particular textual difficulties he have recourse to Commentaries and Tractates on those subjects for this Book is long enough already He that will diligently consider the connection of the consequent Propositions to the Antecedent and will understand what he readeth as he goeth along will see that I give him sufficient proof of all which I desire him to assent to But I make no doubt but a hasty and half-witted Reader can find objections and words enough against the plainest truth here written and such as he thinks do need a particular answer When an understanding Reader would be offended with me if I should recite them I had more compassion on the sober Reader than for the humouring of every brainsick Sceptick to stand proving that two and two are four I write for such as are willing to be wise and happy and that at dearer rates than jesting For others I must leave them whether I will or no to be wise too late And for those capricious brains who deride our ordinary preaching as begging and supposing that which we do not prove
and blessedness of the Life to come that they say nothing of it that is ever likely to make any considerable number set their hearts on Heaven and to live a heavenly Life 9. They were so unacquainted with the nature and will of God that they taught and used such a manner of Worship as tended rather to delude and corrupt men than to sanctifie them 10. They medled so little with the inward sins and duties of the heart especially about the holy Love of God and their goodness was so much in outward acts and in meer respect to men that they were not like to sanctifie the Soul or make the Man good that his actions might be good but only to polish men for Civil Societies with the addition of a little Varnish of Superstition and Hypocrisie 11. Their very style is either suitable to dead speculation as a Lecture of Metaphysicks or sleight and dull and unlike to be effectual to convert and sanctifie mens Souls 12. Almost all is done in such a disputing sophistical way and clogg'd with so many obscurities uncertainties and self-contradictions and mixt in heaps of Physical and Logical Subtilties that they were unfit for the common peoples benefit and could tend but to the benefit of a few 13. Experience taught and still teacheth the World that Holy Souls and Lives that were sincerely set upon God and Heaven were strangers amongst the Disciples of the Philosophers and other Heathens Or if it be thought that there were some such among them certainly they were very few in comparison of true Christians and those few very dark and diseased and defective with us a Childe at ten years old will know more of God and shew more true piety than did any of their Philosophers with us poor women and labouring persons do live in that holiness and heavenliness of minde and conversation which the wisest of the Philosophers never did attain I spake of this before but here also thought meet to shew you the difference between the effect of Christs doctrine and the Philosophers 2. And that all this is justly to be imputed to Christ himself I shall now prove 1. He gave them a perfect pattern for his holy obedient heavenly Life in his own person and his conversation here on Earth 2. His Doctrine and Law requireth all this holiness which I described to you You finde the Prescript in his Word of which the holy Souls and Lives of men are but a transcript 3. All his Institutions and Ordinances are but means and helps to this 4. He hath made it the condition of mans Salvation to be thus holy in sincerity and to desire and seek after perfection in it He taketh no other for true Christians indeed nor will save any other at the last 5. All his comforting Promises of mercy and defence are made only to such 6. He hath made it the Office of his Ministers through the World to perswade and draw men to this Holiness And if you hear the Sermons and read the Books which any faithfull Minister of Christ doth preach or write you will soon see that this is the business of them all And you may soon perceive that these Ministers have another kinde of preaching and writing than the Philosophers had more clear more congruous more spiritual more powerfull and likely to win men to Holiness and Heavenliness When our Divines and their Philosophers are compared as to their promoting of true Holiness verily the latter seem to be but as Glow-worms and the former to be the Candles for the Family of God And yet I truly value the wisdom and virtue which I finde in a Plato a Seneca a Cicero an Antonine or any of them If you say our advantage is because coming after all we have the helps of all even of those Philosophers I answer mark in our Books and Sermons whether it be any thing but Christianity which we preach It is from Christ and Scripture that we fetch our Doctrine and not from the Philosophers we use their helps in Logick Physicks c. But that 's nothing to our Doctrine He that taught me to speak English did not teach me the Doctrine which I preach in English And he that teacheth me to use the Instruments of Logick doth not teach me the doctrine about which I use them And why did not those Philosophers by all their art attain to that skill in this Sacred work as the Ministers of Christ do when they had as much or more of the Arts than we I read indeed of many good Orations then used even in those of the Emperour Julian there is much good and in Antonine Arrian Epictetus Plutarch more And I read of much taking-Oratory of the Bonzii in Japan c. But compared to the endeavours of Christian Divines they are poor pedantick barren things and little sparks and the success of them is but answerable 7. Christ did before hand promise to send his Spirit into mens Souls to do all this work upon all his Chosen And as he promised just so he doth 8. And we finde by experience that it is the preaching of Christs doctrine by which the work is done It is by the reading of the sacred Scripture or hearing the Doctrine of it opened and applyed to us that Souls are thus changed as is before described And if it be by the medicines which he sendeth us himself by the hands of his own Servants that we are healed we need not doubt whether it be he that healed us His Doctrine doth it as the instrumental Cause for we finde it adapted thereunto and we finde nothing done upon us but by that Doctrine nor any remaining effect but what is the impression of it But his Spirit inwardly reneweth us as the Principal cause and worketh with and by the Word For we finde that the Word doth not work upon all nor upon all alike that are alike prepared But we easily perceive a voluntary distinguishing choice in the operation And we finde a power more than can be in the words alone in the effect upon our selves The heart is like the Wax and the Word like the Seal and the Spirit like the hand that strongly applyeth it We feel upon our hearts that though nothing is done without the Seal yet a greater force doth make the impression than the weight of the Seal alone could cause By this time it is evident that this work of Sanctification is the attestation of God by which he publickly owneth the Gospel and declareth to the World that Christ is the Saviour and his Word is true For 1. It is certain that this work of Renovation is the work of God For 1. It is his Image on the Soul It is the life of the Soul as flowing from his Holy Life wherein are contained the Trinity of Perfections It is the Power of the Soul by which it can overcome the Flesh the World and the Devil which without it none is able to do It is the
matter of fact indeed by common sense but their sufficiency and gifts by which they carried on their ministry were suddenly given them by the holy Ghost when Christ himself was ascended from them And Paul that had conferred with none of them yet preached the same Gospel being converted by a voice from heaven in the heat of his persecution 3. Their doctrine containeth so many and mysterious particulars that they could never have concorded in it all in their way 4. And their labours did so disperse them about the world that many new emergent cases must needs have cast them into several minds or ways if they had not agreed by the unity of that Spirit which was the common Teacher of them all § 25. 7. That the Disciples of Christ divulged his Miracles and Resurrection in the same Place and Age where the truth or falshood might soon have been search'd out and yet that the bitterest enemies either denied not or confuted not their report is apparent partly by their confessions and partly by the non-existence of any such confutations That the Disciples in that Age and Country did divulge these Miracles is denied by none for it was their employment and by it they gathered the several Churches and their writings not long after written declare it to this day That the enemies confuted not their report appeareth 1. not only in the Gospel-history which sheweth that they denyed not many of his Miracles but imputed them to conjuration and the power of Satan but also by the disputes and writings of the Jews in all Ages since which do go the same way 2. And if the enemies had been able to confute these Miracles no doubt but they would have done it having so much advantage wit and malice Object Perhaps they did and their writings never come to our knowledge Answ The unbelieving Jews were as careful to preserve their writings as any other men and they had better advantage to do it than the Christians had and therefore if there had been any such writings yea or verbal confutations the Jews of this age had been as like to have received them as all the other antient writings which they yet receive Josephus his testimony of Christ is commonly known and though some think it so full and plain that it is like to be inserted by some Christian yet they give no proof of their opinion and the credit of all copies justifieth the contrary except only that these words are like to have been thrust in This is Christ which some Annotator putting into the Margin might after be put into the Text. And that the Jews wanted not will or industry to confute the Christians appeareth by what Justin Martyr saith to Tryphon of their malice That they sent out into all parts of the world their choicest men to perswade the people against the Christians that they are Atheists and would abolish the Deity and that they were convict of gross impiety § 26. 8. The great diversity of believers and reporters of the Gospel Miracles doth the more fully evince that there was no conspiracy for deceit There were learned and unlearned Jews and Gentils rich and poor men and women some that followed Christ and some as Paul that perhaps never saw him and for all these to be at once inspired by the holy Ghost and thenceforth unanimously to accord and concur in the same doctrine and work doth shew a supernatural cause § 27. 9. There were dissentions upon many accidents and some of them to the utmost distance which would certainly have detected the fallacy if there had been any such in the matters of fact so easily detected 1. In Christ's own family there was a Judas who betrayed him for mony This Judas was one that had followed Christ and seen his Miracles and had been sent out to preach and wrought miracles himself If there had been any collusion in all this what likelier man was there in the world to have detected it yea and his conscience would never have accused but justified him he need not to have gone and hanged or precipitated himself and said I have sinned in betraying the innocent bloud The Pharisees who hired him to betray his Master might by mony and authority have easily procured him to have wrote against him and detected his fraud if he had been fraudulent it would have tended to Judas his justification and advancement But God is the great defender of truth 2. And there were many baptized persons who were long in good repute and communion with the Christians who fell off from them to several Sects and Heresies not denying the dignity and truth of Christ but superinducing into his doctrine many corrupting fancies of their own such as the Judâ—izâ—rs the Simonians the Nicolaitans the Ebonites the Cerinthians the Gnosticks the Valentinians Basilidians and many more And many of these were in the days of the Apostles and greatly troubled the Churches and hindred the Gospel insomuch as the Apostles rise up against them with more indignation than against the Infidels calling them dogs wolves evil workers deceivers bruit beasts made to be taken and destroyed c. They write largely against them they charge the Churches to avoid them and turn away from them and after a first and second admonition to reject them as men that are self-condemned c. And who knoweth not that among so many men thus excommunicated vilified and thereby irritated some of them would certainly have detected the deceit if they had known any deceit to have been in the reports of the afore-said Miracles Passion would not have been restrained among so many and such when they were thus provoked 3. And some in those times as well as in all following ages have forsaken the faith and apostatized to open infidelity and certainly their judgment their interest and their malice would have caused them to detect the fraud if they had known any in the matters of fact of these Miracles For it is not possible that all these causes should not bring forth this effect where there was no valuable impediment If you again say It may be they did detect such frauds by words or writings which come not to our knowledge I answer again 1. The Jews then that have in all ages disputed and written against Christianity would certainly have made use of some such testimony instead of charging all upon Magick and the power of the devil 2. And it is to me a full evidence that there were no such deniers of the Miracles of Christ when I find that the Apostles never wrote against any such nor contended with them nor were ever put to answer any of their writings or objections When all men will confess that their writings must needs be written according to the state and occasion of those times in which they wrote them and if then there had been any books or reasonings divulged against Christ's miracles they would either have wrote purposely against them
and various instances these exceptions do but confirm the general truth that such there are I have said so much of them in two other Writings that I shall now say no more but this That those Judges ordinarily condemn them to die who themselves have been most incredulous of such things that so great numbers were condemned in Suffolk Norfolk and Essex about twenty years ago that left the business past all doubt to the Judges Auditors and Reverend Ministers yet living who were purposely sent with them for the fuller inquisition That the testimonies are so numerous and beyond exception recorded in the many Volumes written on this subject by the Malleus Maleficorum Bodin Remigius and other Judges who condemned them that I owe no man any further proof than to desire him to read the foresaid Writings wherein he shall find Men and Women Gentlemen Scholars Doctors of Divinity of several qualities and tempers all confessedly guilty and put to death for this odious sin And he shall find what compacts they made with the Devil promising him their Souls or their service and renouncing their Covenant with God All which doth more than intimate that men have Souls to save or lose and that there is an Enemy of Souls who is most sollicitous to destroy them or else to what end would all this be When people are in wrath and malice desirous of revenge or in great discontents or too eagerly desirous after overhasty knowledge in any needless speculation the Devil hath the advantage to appear to them and offer them his help and draw them into some contract with him implicit at least if not explicit I have my self been too incredulous of these things till cogent evidence constrained my belief Though it belong not to us to give account why Satan doth it or why upon no more or why God permitteth it yet that so it is in point of fact it cannot be rationally denyed And therefore we have so much sensible evidence that there is a happiness and misery after this life which the Devil believeth though Atheists do not 2. And though some are as incredulous of Apparitions yet evidence hath confuted all incredulity I could make mention of many but for the notoriety I will name but two which it is easie to be satisfied about The one is the Apparition in the shape of Collonel Bowen in Glamorganshire to his Wife and Family speaking walking before them laying hold on them hurting them in time of Prayer the man himself then living from his Wife in Ireland being one that from Sect to Sect had proceeded to Infidelity if not to Atheism and upon the hearing of it came over but durst not goe to the place The thing I have by me described largely and attested by learned godly Ministers that were at the place and is famous past contradiction 2. But to name no more he that will read a small Book called The Devil of Mascon written by Mr. Perreand and published by Dr. Peter Moulin will see an instance past all question The Devil did there for many months together at certain hours of the day hold discourse with the inhabitants and publikely disputed with a Papist that challenged him and when he had done turn'd him and cast him down so violently that he went home distracted He would sing and jest and talk familiarly with them as they do with one another He would answer them questions about things done at a distance and would carry things up and down before them and yet never seen in any shape All this was done in the house of the said Mr. Perreand a Reverend faithfull Minister of the Protestant Church in the hearing of persons of both Professions Papists and Protestants that ordinarily came in for above three months at Mascon a City of France And at last upon earnest Prayer it ceased Mr. Perreands piety and honesty was well known and attested to me by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery now Lord President of Munster in Ireland and attested to the World by his most learned worthy honourable Brother Mr. Robert Boyl in an Epistle before the Book neither of them persons apt to be over-credulous of such unusual things yet both fully satisfied of the truth of this story by Mr. Perreands own Narratives with whom they were very familiar See the other Testimonies cited in my Saints Rest Part 2. Q. But how doth this signifie that there is any future state for man Answ 1. Commonly these Apparitions do expresly referr to some sin or duty which are regardable in order to a further Life Sometimes they come to terrifie Murderers or other great Offenders and sometimes the Devil hath killed men outright which yet were no more painfull than another death if it fetcht not their souls into a greater misery sometimes they are used to tempt people to sin to witchcraft to revenge to idolatry and superstition to which use they are common among many of the Indians And all this intimateth some further hurt which sin doth men after this present life which they take not here for their pain but their pleasure 2. Many of these Apparitions say that they are the souls of such and such persons that have lived here If it be so then the question is granted And whether it be so I suppose is to us uncertain For why a condemned Soul may not appear as well as Satan notwithstanding that both of them are in that state of misery which is called Hell I yet could never hear any sure proof But because this is uncertain 3. At least it sheweth us that these evil Spirits are neer us and able to molest us and therefore are ordinarily restrained and that their natures are not as to any elevation so distant from ours but that a converse there may be and therefore that it is very probable that when the souls of the Wicked are separated from their bodies they shall be such as they or have more converse with them and that the good Spirits shall be the companions of the souls of men that here were not far unlike themselves When we perceive that we live among such invisible Spirits it is the easier to believe that we shall live with such of them hereafter as we are most like 3. I may adde to these the instance of satanical Possessions For though many diseases may have of themselves very terrible and strange effects yet that the Devil I mean some evil Spirit doth operate in many is past all contradiction some will speak Languages which they never learnt some will tell things done far off some will have force and actions which are beyond their proper natural ability Most great Physicians how incredulous soever have been forced to confess these things and abundance of them have written particular instances And the manner of their transportations their horrid blasphemies against God with other carriages do commonly intimate a life to come and a desire that Satan hath to
nor they could not come to be acquainted with Physical impossibilities are not the matter of crimes or of condemnation § 19. If any persons are brought by these means alone to repent unfeignedly of an ungodly uncharitable and intemperate life and to love God unfeignedly as their God above all and to live a holy obedient life God will not condemn such persons though they wanted supernatural Revelation of his will As I shewed before § 6. § 20. When sinners stand at many degrees distant from God and a holy life and mercy would draw them nearer him by degrees they that have help and mercy sufficient in suo genere to have drawn them nearer God and refused to obey it do forfeit the further helps of mercy and may justly perish and be forsaken by him though their help was not immediately sufficient to all the further degrees of duty which they were to do These things as clear in their proper light I stand not to prove because I would not be unnecessarily tedious to the Reader And so much of GODLINESS or Religion as revealed by Natural Light Obj. But all Heathens and Infidels find not all this in the Book of Nature which you say is there Answ I speak not of what men do see but what they may see if they will improve their Reason All this is undeniably legible in the Book of Nature but the infant the ideot the illiterate the scholar the smatterer the Doctor the considerate the inconsiderate the sensual the blinded and the willing diligent enquirer do not equally see and read that which is written in the same characters to all PART II. Of CHRISTIANITY and Supernatural Revelation CHAP. I. Of the great need of a clearer Light or fuller Revelation of the Will of God than all that hath been opened before WHILST I resolved upon a deep and faithful search into the grounds of all Religion and a review and trial of all that I had my self believed I thought meet first to pass by Persons and shut up my Books and with retired Reason to read the Book of Nature only and what I have there found I have justly told you in the former Part purposely omitting all that might be controverted by any considerable sober reason that I might neither stop my self nor my Reader in the way and that I might not deceive my self with plausible consequences of unsound or questionable antecedents nor discourage my Reader by the casting of some doubtful passages in his way which might tempt him to question all the rest For I know what a deal of handsome structure may fall through the falsness of some one of the supports which seemed to stand a great way out of sight And I have been wearied my self with subtil discourses of learned men who in a long series of Ergo's have thought that they have left all sure behind them when a few false suppositions were the life of all And I know that he who interposeth any doubtful things doth raise a diffidence in the Reader 's mind which maketh him suspect that the ground he standeth on is not firm and whether all that he readeth be not meer uncertain things Therefore leaving things controvertable for a fitter place and time I have thus far taken up so much as is plain and sure which I find of more importance and usefulness to my own information and confirmation than any of those controvertible points would be if I could never so certainly determine them And now having perused the Book of Nature I shall cast up the account and try what is yet wanting and look abroad into the opinions of others in the world and search whence that which is yet wanting may be most fully and safely and certainly supplied § 1. And first when I look throughout the world I find that though all the evidence aforesaid for the necessity of a holy virtuous life be unquestionable in naturâ rerum yet most of the world observe it not or discern but little of it nor much regard the light without or the secret witness of their consciences within Natural light or evidence is so unsuccessful in the world that it loudly telleth us something is yet wanting what ever it is We can discern what it is which is necessary to man's happiness but we can hardly discern whether de facto any considerable number at best do by the teaching of nature alone attain it When we enquire into the Writings of the best of the Philosophers we find so little evidence of real holiness that is of the foresaid Resignation Subjection and Love to God as God that it leaveth us much in doubt whether indeed they were holy themselves or not and whether they made the Knowledge Love Obedience and Praise of God the end and business of their lives However there is too great evidence that the world lieth in darkness and wickedness where there is no more than natural light § 2. I find therefore that the discovery of the will of God concerning our duty and our end called The Law of Nature is a matter of very great difficulty to them that have no supernatural light to help them Though all this is legible in Nature which I have thence transcribed yet if I had not had another Teacher I know not whether ever I should have found it there Nature is now a very hard book when I have learnt it by my Teachers help I can tell partly what is there but at the first perusal I could not understand it It requireth a great deal of time and study and help to understand that which when we do understand it is as plain to us as the high-way § 3. Thence it must needs follow that it will be but few that will attain to understand the necessary parts of the Law of Nature aright by that means alone and the multitude will be lest in darkness still The common people have not leisure for so deep and long a search into nature as a few Philosophers made nor are they disposed to it And though reason obligeth them in so necessary a case to break through all difficulties they have not so full use of their reason as to do it Obj. But as Christian Teachers do instruct the people in that which they cannot have leisure to search out themselves so why may not Philosophers who have leisure for the search in s truct the people quickly who have not leisure to find out the truth without instruction Answ Much might be done if all men did their best But 1. The difficulty is such that the learned themselves are lamentably imperfect and unsatisfi'd as I shall further shew 2. Though the vulgar cannot search out the truth without help yet is it necessary that by help they come to see with their own eyes and rest not in a humane belief alone especially when their Teachers are of so many minds that they know not which of them to believe To learn the truth
them to perceive its holyness and worth Where it is indeed sincerely practised And is most dishonoured and misunderstood through the wickedness of Hypocrites who profess it As the Impress on the Wax doth make the Image more discernable than the Sculpture on the Seal but the Sculpture is true and perfect when many accidents may render the Impressed image imperfect and faulty So is it in this case To a diligent Enquirer Christianity is best known in its Principles delivered by Christ the Author of it and indeed is no otherwise perfectly known because it is no where else perfectly to be seen But yet it is much more visible and taking with unskilfull superficial Observers in the Professors Lives For they can discern the good or evil of an action who perceive not the nature of the Rule and Precepts The vital form in the Rose-tree is the most excellent part but the beauty and sweetness of the Rose is more easily discerned Effects are most sensible but causes are most excellent And yet in some respect the Practice of Religion is more excellent than the Precepts in as much as the Precepts are Means to Practice For the end is more excellent than the Means as such A poor man can easilyer perceive the worth of Charity in the person that cloatheth and feedeth and relieveth him than the worth of a treatise or sermon of Charity Subjects easily perceive the worth of a wise and holy and just and mercifull King or Magistrate in his actual Government who are not much taken with the Precepts which require yet more perfection And among all descriptions historical Narratives like Zenophons Cyrus do take most with them Doubtless if ever the Professors of Christianity should live according to their own Profession they would thereby overcome the opposition of the World and propagate their Religion with greatest success through all the Earth Because no man can well judge of the Truth of a doctrine till he first know what it is I think it here necessary to open the true nature of the Christian Religion and tell men truly what it is Partly because I perceive that abundance that profess it hypocritically by the meer power of Education Laws and Custom of their Countrey do not understand it and then are the easilyer tempted to neglect or contemn it or forsake it if strongly tempted to it even to forsake that which indeed they never truely received And because its possible some Aliens to Christianity may peruse these lines Otherwise were I to speak only to those that already understand it I might spare this description § 7. The CHRISTIAN RELIGION containeth two Parts 1. All Theological Verities which are of Natural Revelation 2. Much more which is supernaturally revealed The supernatural Revelation is said in it to be partly written by God partly delivered by Angels partly by inspired Prophets and Apostles and partly by Jesus Christ himself in person § 8. The supernatural Revelation reciteth most of the Natural because the searching of the great Book of Nature is a long and difficult work for the now-corrupted dark and slothfull minde of the common sort of men § 9. These supernatural Revelations are all contained 1. Most copiously in a Book called The Holy Bible or Canonical Scriptures 2. More summarily and contractedly in three Forms called The Belief The Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandements and most briefly and summarily in a Sacramental Covenant This last containeth all the Essential parts most briefly and the second somewhat fuller explaineth them and the first the holy Scriptures containeth also all the Integral parts or the whole frame § 10. Some of the present Professors of the Christian Religion do differ about the authority of some few Writings called Apocrypha whether they are to be numbred with the Canonical Books of God or not But those few containing in them no considerable points of doctrine different from the rest the controversie doth not very much concern the substance or doctrinal matter of their Religion § 11. The sacred Scriptures are written very much Historically the Doctrines being interspersed with the History § 12. This sacred Volume containeth two Parts The first called The Old Testament containing the History of the Creation and of the Deluge and of the Jewish Nation till after their Captivity As also their Law and Prophets The second called The New Testament containing the History of the Birth and Life and Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ The sending of his Apostles the giving of the Holy Ghost the course of their Ministry and Miracles with the summ of the doctrine preached first by Christ and then by them and certain Epistles of theirs to divers Churches and persons more fully opening all that doctrine § 13. The summ of the History of the Old Testament is this That in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth with all things in them Viz. That having first made the Intellectual superiour part of the World and the matter of the Elementary World in an unformed Mass he did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give light The second day he separated the rarified Passive Element called Fire expanding it from the Earth upwards to be a separation and medium of action between the superiour and inferiour parts The third day he separated the rest of the Passive Element Earth and Water into their proper place and set their bounds and made individual Plants with their specifick forms and virtue of generation The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Starrs for Luminaries to the Earth either then forming them or then appointing them to that Office but not revealing their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made Fishes and Birds with the power of generation The sixth day he made the terrestrial Animals and Man with the like generative Power And the seventh day he appointed to be a Sabbath of Rest on which he would be solemnly worshipped by Mankinde as our CREATOR Having made one Man and one Woman in his own Image that is with Intellects Free-will and executive Power in wisdom holiness and aptitude to Obey him and with Dominion over the sensitive and vegetative and inanimate Creatures he placed them in a Garden of pleasure wherein were two Sacramental Trees one called The Tree of Life and the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil And besides the Law of Nature he tryed him only with this positive prohibition that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge Whereupon the Devil who before this was fallen from his first state of innocency and felicity took occasion to perswade the Woman that Gods Threatning was not true that he meant not as he spake that he knew Man was capable of greater Knowledge but envyed him that happiness and that the eating of that Fruit was not the way to death as God had threatned but to Knowledge and
so doth prove the Divine approbation of his Doctrine without which he could not have the command of mens Souls 7. Note also that the Gospel proposeth to the Soul of man both Truth and Goodness and the Truth is in order to the Good and subservient to it That Christ is indeed the Saviour and his Word infallibly true is believed that we may be made partakers of his Salvation and of the Grace and Glory promised And when the Spirit by the Gospel hath regenerated and renewed any Soul he hath given him part of that grace in possession and hath procreated in him the habitual love of God and of holiness with a love to that Saviour and holy Word which brought him to it So that this Love is now become as a new Nature to the Soul and this being done the Soul cleaveth now as fast to Christ and the Gospel by Love as by Belief not that love becometh an irrational causless love nor continueth without the continuance of Belief or Belief without the Reasons and Evidence of Verity and Credibility But Love now by concurrence greatly assisteth Faith it self and is the faster hold of the two so that the Soul that is very weak in its Reasoning faculty and may oft lose the sight of these Evidences of truth which it did once perceive may still hold fast by this holy Love As the man that by reasoning hath been convinced that hony is sweet will easilier change his mind than he that hath tasted it so Love is the Souls taste which causeth its fastest adherence to God and to the Gospel If a caviller dispute with a loving child or parent or friend to alienate their hearts from one another and would perswade them that it is but dissembled love that is professed to them by their relations and friends Love will do more here to hinder the belief of such a slander than Reason alone can do and where Reason is not strong enough to answer all that the caviller can say yet Love may be strong enough to reject it And here I must observe how oft I have noted the great mercy of God to abundance of poor people whose reasoning faculty would have failed them in temptations to Atheism and Infidelity if they had not had a stronger hold than that and their Faith had not been radicated in the Will by Love I have known a great number of women who never read a Treatise that pleaded the Cause of the Christian Religion nor were able to answer a crafty Infidel that yet in the very decaying time of Nature at fourscore years of age and upward have lived in that sense of the Love of God and in such Love to him and to their Saviour as that they have longed to die and be with Christ and lived in all humility charity and piety such blameless exemplary heavenly Lives in the joyfull expectation of their Change as hath shewed the firmness of their Faith and the Love and Experience which was in them would have rejected a temptation to Atheism and Unbelief more effectually than the strongest Reason alone could ever do Yet none have cause to reproach such and say Their Wills lead their Vnderstandings and they customarily and obstinately believe they know not why for they have known sufficient reason to believe and their understandings have been illuminated to see the truth of true Religion and it was this knowledge of Faith which bred their Love and Experience but when that is done as Love is the more noble and perfect operation of the Soul having the most excellent object so it will act more powerfully and prevailingly and hath the strongest hold Nor are all they without Light and Reason for their belief who cannot form it into arguments and answer all that is said against it Obj. But may not all this which you call Regeneration and the Image of God be the meer power of fantasie and affectation and may not all these people force themselves like melancholy persons to conceit that they have that which indeed they have not Answ 1. They are not melancholly persons that I speak of but those that are as capable as any others to know their own minds and what is upon their own hearts 2. It is not one or two but millions 3. Nature hath given man so great acquaintance with himself by a power of perceiving his own operations that his own cogitations and desires are the first thing that naturally he can know and therefore if he cannot know them he can know nothing If I cannot know what I think and what I love and hate I can know nothing at all 4. That they are really minded and affected as they seem and have in them that love to God and Heaven and Holiness which they profess they shew to all the world by the effects 1. In that it ruleth the main course of their lives and disposeth of them in the world 2. In that these apprehensions and affections over-rule all their worldly fleshly interest and cause them to deny the pleasures of the flesh and the profits and honours of the world 3. In that they are constant in it to the death and have no other mind in their distress when as Seneca saith Nothing feigned is of long continuance for all forc'd things are bending back to their natural state 4. In that they will lay down their lives and forsake all the world for the hopes which faith in Christ begetteth in them And if the objectors mean that all this is true and yet it is but upon delusion or mistake that they raise these hopes and raise these affections I answer This is the thing that I am disproving 1. The love of God and a holy mind and life is not a dream of the Soul or a deliration I have proved from Natural reason in the first Book that it is the end and use and perfection of man's faculties that if God be God and man be man we are to love him above all and to obey him as our absolute Sovereign and to live as devoted to him and to delight in his love Man were more ignoble or miserable than a beast if this were not his work And is that a dream or a delusion which causeth a man to live as a man to the ends that he was made for and according to the nature and use of his reason and all his faculties 2. While the proofs of the excellency and necessity of a holy life are so fully before laid down from natural and supernatural revelation the Objector doth but refuse to see in the open light when he satisfieth himself with a bare assertion that all this is no sufficient ground for a holy life but that it is taken up upon mistake 3. All the world is convinced at one time or other that on the contrary it is the unholy fleshly worldly life which is the dream and dotage and is caused by the grossest error and deceit Object But how
advantage of honour to his mercy and in the fullest demonstration of that love and goodness which may win our love And where will you find this done but in Jesus Christ alone 2. You must distinguish between Anger and Justice when God is said to be angry it meaneth no more but that he is displeased with sin and sinners and executeth his governing-justice on them 3. You must distinguish between sufferings in themselves considered and as in their signification and effects God loved not any mans pain and suffering and death as in it self considered and as evil to us no not of a sacrificed beast but he loveth the demonstration of his truth and justice and holiness and the vindication of his Laws from the contempt of sinners and the other good ends attained by this means and so as a means adapted to such ends he loveth the punishment of sin Object XV. It is a suspicious sign that he seeketh but to set up his name and get disciples that he maketh it so necessary to salvation to believe in him and not only to repent and turn to God Answ He maketh not believing in him necessary sub ratione finis as our holiness and love to God is but only sub ratione medii as a means to make us holy and work us up to the love of God He proclaimeth himself to be the Way the Truth and the Life by whom it is that we must come to the Father and that he will save to the uttermost all that come to God by him Heb. 7.25 Joh. 14.6 So that he commandeth Faith but as the bellows of Love to kindle in us the heavenly flames And I pray you how should he do this otherwise Can we learn of him if we take him for a deceiver Will we follow his example if we believe him not to be our pattern Will we obey him if we believe not that he is our Lord Will we be comforted by his gracious promises and covenant and come to God with ever the more boldness and hope of mercy if we believe not in his Sacrifice and Merits Shall we be comforted at death in hope that he will justifie us and receive our souls if we believe not that he liveth and will judge the world and is the Lord of life and glory Will you learn of Plato or Aristotle if you believe not that they are fit to be your Teachers Or will you take Physick of any Physician whom you trust not but take him for a deceiver Or will you go in the Vessel with a Pilot or serve in the Army under a Captain whom you cannot trust To believe in Christ which is made so necessary to our justification and salvation is not a dead opinion nor the joyning with a party that cryeth up his name But it is to become Christians indeed that is to take him unfeignedly for our Saviour and give up our selves to him by resolved consent or covenant to be saved by him from sin and punishment and reconciled to God and brought to perfect holiness and glory This is true justifying and saving faith And it is our own necessities that have made this faith so necessary as a means to our own salvation And shall we make it necessary for our selves and then quarrel with him for making it necessary in his Covenant Object XVI If Christ were the Son of God and his Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost and the Scriptures were God's Word they would excel all other men and writings in all true rational worth and excellency whereas Aristotle excelleth them in Logick and Philosophy and Cicero and Demosthenes in Oratory and Seneca in ingenious expressions of morality c. Answ You may as well argue that Aristotle was no wiser than a Minstrel because he could not fiddle so well nor than a Painter because he could not limn so well or than a harlot because he could not dress himself so neatly Means are to be estimated according to their fitness for their ends Christ himself excelled all mankind in all true perfections and yet it became him not to exercise all mens arts to shew that he excelleth them He came not into the world to teach men Architecture Navigation Medicine Astronomy Grammar Musick Logick Rhetorick c. and therefore shewed not his skill in these The world had sufficient helps and means for these in Nature It was to save men from sin and hell and bring them to pardon holiness and heaven that Christ was incarnate and that the Apostles were inspired and the Scriptures written and to be fitted to these ends is the excellency to be expected in them and in this they excell all persons and writings in the world As God doth not syllogize or know by our imperfect way of ratiocination but yet knoweth all things better than syllogizers do so Christ hath a more high and excellent kind of Logick and Oratory and a more apt and spiritual and powerful style than Aristotle Demosthenes Cicero or Seneca He shewed not that skill in methodical healing which Hippocrates and Galen shewed But he shewed more and better skill when he could heal with a word and raise the dead and had the power of life and death so did he bring more convincing evidence than Aristotle and perswaded more powerfully than Demosthenes or Cicero And though this kind of formal learning was below him and below the inspired messengers of his Gospel yet his inferiour servants an Aquinas a Scotus an Ockam a Scaliger a Ramus a Gassendus do match or excel the old Philosophers and abundance of Christians equalize or excel a Demosthenes or Cicero in the truest Oratory 2. His mercy had a general design for the salvation of all sorts and ranks of men and therefore was not to confine it self to a few trifling pedantick Logicians and Orators or those that had learned to speak in their new-made words and phrases but he must speak in the common Dialect of all those whom he would instruct and save As the Statutes of the land or the Books of Physick which are most excellent are written in a style which is fitted to the subject matter and to the Readers and not in Syllogisms or terms of Logick so was it more necessary that it should be with the doctrine of salvation The poor and unlearned were the greatest number of those that were to be converted and saved by the Gospel and still to use the holy Scriptures 3. There is greater exactness of true Logical method in some parts of the Scripture as e. g. in the Covenant of Faith the Lord's Prayer and the Decalogue than any is to be found in Aristotle or Cicero though men that understand them not do not observe it The particular Books of Scripture were written at several times and on several occasions and not as one methodical system though the Spirit that indited it hath made it indeed a methodical system agreeably to its design but if you saw the doctrines
necessitating force than a man moveth as a stone because it is irresistibly moved and hath no power to forbear any act which it performeth or to do it otherwise than it doth For if there be no power habits or dispositions antecedent to motion but motion it self is all then there is one and the same account to be given of all actions good and bad I did it because I was irresistibly moved to it and could no more do otherwise than my pen can choose to write There is then no virtue or vice no place for Laws and moral Government further than they may be tacklings in the engine which necessitateth whatsoever is done amiss is as much imputable to God the first mover as that which is done-well If you shoot an arrow which killeth your friend the arrow could not hinder it if you make or set your watch amiss though one motion causeth another yet the errour of all is resolved into the defect of the first cause They that killed Henry the 3. and Henry the 4. Kings of France may say that as the knife could not resist the motion of their hand so neither could they the motion of the superiour cause that moved them and so on to the first No Traitors or Rebels can resist the power which acteth them therein any more than the dust can resist the wind which stirreth it up And so you see what cometh of all the Government of God and Man and of all Laws and Judgments Justice and Injustice Right and Wrong And how little cause you have to be angry with the Thief that robbeth you or the man that cudgelleth you any more than with the staff But of this I refer you to the foresaid writing of Bishop Bromhal against Mr. Hobs allowing you to make the most you can of his Reply We are certain by the operations of things that there is a difference in their natural powers and virtues and not only in their quantity figure and motion God hath not made only homogeneal undifferenced matter there are plainly now exceeding diversities of natural excellencies virtues and qualities in the things we see And he that will say that by motion only God made this difference at first doth but presumptuously speak without book without all proof to make it credible and taketh on him to know that which he knoweth that he knoweth not Is not the virtue and goodness of things as laudable as their quantity and motion Why then should we imagine so vast a disproportion in the image of God upon his works as to acknowledge the magnitude and motion incomprehensible and to think that in virtue and goodness of nature they are all alike and none is more noble or more like himself than a clod of earth We see that the natures of all things are suited to their several uses Operari sequitur esse Things act as they are There is somewhat in the nature of a bird or beast or plant which is their fitness to their various motions If only motion made that fire to day which yesterday was but a stone why doth not the strongest wind so much as warm us or why doth it so much cool us Why doth not the snow make us as warm as a fleece of wool the wool doth move no more than the snow and the matter of it appeareth to be no more subtil Indeed man can give to none of his works a nature a life or virtue for the operation which he desireth He can but alter the magnitude and figure and motion of things and compound and mix them and conjoyn them and these Epicureans seem to judge of the works of God by mans But he who is Being Life and Intelligence doth accordingly animate his noble Engines and give them natures and vertues for their operations and not only make use of matter and weight where he findeth it as our Mechanicks themselves can do Debasing all the noblest of Gods works is unbeseeming a true Philosopher who should search out the virtues and goodness as well as the greatness of them But I have been longer in answering this first Objection than I can afford to be about the rest unless I would make a Book of this which I call but the Conclusion I will adde but this one thing more That in case it were granted the Epicureans that the soul is material it will be no disproving of its immortality nor invalidate any of my former arguments for a life of retribution after this To which purpose consider these things 1. That where matter is simple and not compounded it hath no tendency to corruption Object Matter is divisible and therefore corruptible how simple soever Answ It is such as may be divided if God please and so the soul is such as God can destroy But we see that all parts of matter have a wonderful tendency to unity and have a tendency to a motus aggregativus if you separate them Earth inclineth to earth and water to water and air to air and fire to fire 2. All Philosophers agree to what I say who hold that matter is eternal either à parte ante or à parte post For if matter be eternal the soul's materiality may consist with its eternity 3. Yea all without exception do agree that there is no annihilation of matter when there is a dissolution Therefore if the soul be a simple uncompounded being though material it will remain the same This therefore is to be set down as granted us by all the Infidels and Atheists in the world that man's soul what ever it is is not annihilated when he dieth if it be any kind of substance material or immaterial And they that call his temperament his soul do all acknowledge that there is in the composition some one predominant principle more active or noble than the rest and of the duration of this it is that we enquire which no man doth deny though some deny it to be immaterial But this will be further opened under the rest of the Objections The reasons of my many words in answering this Objection I give you in the words of a late learned Conciliator Philosophiae Platonicae explicationi diutius immorati sumus quod res maximas cognitione dignissimas complectatur Habet i◠quoque prae coeteris quod ad aeternas primitivas rationes mentem erigat eamque à fluxis perituris rebus advocatam ad eas quae sola intelligentia percipiuntur convertat Qua quidem in re infinitum prope momentum est Nam obruimur turbâ Philosophorum qui nimis fidunt sensibus nihil praeter corpora intelligi posse contendunt Atque ut mihi videtur nulla perniciosior pestis in vitam humanam potest invadere nihil quod magis religioni adversetur Joh. Bapt. du Hamel in Conscens veteris novae Philos Praefat. OBJECTION II. BY Sense Imagination Cogitation Reason you cannot prove the Soul to be incorporeal because the Bruits partake of
vis veritatis quae contra hominum ingenia calliditatem sole tiam contraque fictas omnium insidâ—as facile se per se ipsam defendat Cicer pâ—o Caelâ— Even between the carnal hypocritical nominal Christian and the true Christian as Gal. 4.29 As then he that was born after the Flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so it is now See her story in Fuller's Worthy's of England * Which Mr. Weld of New-England hath printed And upon Mr. Stubs his Extenuation in his Book for Sir Henry Vane against me in Letters since he hath fully confirmed The many Miracles mentioned by such credible persons as Augustine de Civit. Dei and other learned holy men deserve some credit sure Victor Uticensis telleth of many Confessors whose tongues were cut out by the Arrian Vandal Hunnerichus who spake freely without tongues And Aenaeas Gazaeus in a notable Treatise for the Immortality of the Soul saith the same and that he saw them himself and hath more such Wonders Ego novi multa bonorum virorum corpora quae etiam phalanges daemonum tantopere terretent quantopere ipsi vexabant hominem abs se captum atque obsessum itemque morbos innumeros quibus curandis ars medica non sufficeret ipsa facile curarent perpurgarent omninoque auferrent Id. ibid. page 411. B.P. Even Cicero speaking of some sacrilegious impious persons could observe Qui vero ex his omnium scelerum principes fuerunt praeter caeteros in omni Religione impii non solum vita cruciati vel cum cruciatu ut Lambinus atque dedecore verum etiam sepultura ac justis exequiis caruerunt Lib. 2. de leg p. 245. And to the objection that it oft falleth out otherwise and that the best suffer most he answereth Non recte existimamus quae poena sit divina opinionibus vulgi rapimur in errorem neâ—vera cernimus Morte aut dolore corporis aut luctu animi aut offenfione judicii hominum miserias ponderamus quae fateor humana esse multis bonis viris accidisse sceleris autem poena tristis praeter cos eventus qui sequuntur per se ipsa maxima est Videmus eos qui nisi odissent patriam nun quam inimici nobis fuissent ardentes cum cupiditate tum metu tum conscientia quid agâ—rent modo timentes vicissim contemnentes Religiones And he concludeth Duplicem poenam esse Divinam quod constaret ex vexandis vivorum animis eâ famâ mortuorum ut corum exitium judicio vivorum gaudio comprobetur Ibid. I desire the learned Reader to read the three Miracles which Aen. Gazaeus saith he saw with his own eyes in his Theophrast in Bib. Pat. Gr. To. 2. page 414 415. The first of an old man that raised one from the dead The second of a good man that when he was dying promised his Scholar that was blind that within seven days he should have his fight which accordingly came to pass The third of the Confessions before mentioned that by prayer could speak most articulately without tongues All these he professeth he saw with his own eyes And the rationality and piety of his writings maketh his testimony the more credible Lege Palladii Historiam Lausiac cap. 52. de Miraculo ab ipso viso Though I know that as Apparitions so Miracles are too oft counterfeit yet all that are recorded by the antient Doctors and Historians cannot be so thought especially when we have seen something like them Of the abundance of Witches at that time read Bishop Hall Sol. 15. p. 53 54. Read Edm. Bower of the Salisbury Witch Porphyry was so convinced of the truth of Daniel's Prophey that he is fain to say That it was written after the things were fulfilled saith Grot. Imòiâ— Petri miracula Phlegon Adriani Imperatoris libertus in Annalibus suis commemoravit inâ—uit Grotius de Verit. Rel. l. 3. Fuit vero prodigiorum apud sepulchra editorum tanta frequentia tot corum testes ut etiam Porphyrio ejus rei confessionem expresserit inquit Grot. l. 3. I know what a stir is made about Josephus testimony of Christ some accounting it currant and some as foisted in by some Christian but I doubt not to say that to those who well consider all the middle opinion of B. Usher will appear to be far the most probable viz. That the whole sentence is currant except those words This was Christ And that some Christian having wrote those words as expository in the margin of his book they afterward crept thence into the text Athenagoras tells M. Aurel. Antoninus the Emperour and L. Aur. Commodus to whom he wrote Nec dubito quin vos etiam doctissimi sapientissimi Principes historias scripta Moses Esaiae Hieremiae reliquorum Prophetarum aliqua ex parte cognoveritis Sed vobis relinquo qui libros novistis studiosius in illorum prophetias inquirere ac perpendere c. Apol. p. in B. p. 56 57. And it 's like that Antonine learned somewhat from the Scriptures as well as Severus if he so well knew them and thence received some of his wisdom and virtue Omnis credendi difficultas non temere ex futili nulliusque judidicii opinione nascitur sed ex valida causa verisimilitudine plurimum munita Tum enim incredulitas rationem justam habet quum ipsa res de qua non creditur quiddam incredibile continet Nam rebus quae dubitandi causam non habent non credere eorum est qui sano judicio in discutienda veritate minime utuntur Athenagor leg pag. 82. Si animus fit quinta illa non nominata magis quam intellecta natura multo integâ—iora puriora sunt ut à terra longissime se efferant Cicer. Tuscul Qu. l. 1. p. 223. Leg. Nazianz. Orat. 26. 32. Magni autem est ingenii revocare mentem a sensibus cogitationem a consuetudine abducere Cicero Tuscul Qu. l. 1. p. 222. See Part 1. Chap. 5. Pardon the Repetitions here for the reasons after-mentioned See before in the Marg. of Chap. 5. Part 1. the Collection of Christoph Simpson of Trinity in Unity in the Harmony of Musical Concordance in The Division-Violist pag. 17. Read Campanella's Metaphysicks and his Atheismus triumphatus of this Richardus in Opuscul ad S. Bernard de appropriatis personarum inquit Quod Potentia Sapientia Bonitas sunt notissima quid sint apud nos qui ex visibilibus invisibilia Dei per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspicimus Et quoniam in Elementis plantis brutis reperitur Potentia sine sapientia in Homine in Angelo reperitur Potentia sed non sine sapientia Et in Lucifero reperitur Potentia Sapientia sine Bonitate Charitate seâ— Bona Voluntate Sed in Homine bono bonoque in Angelo non datur Bona Voluntas nisi adsit Posse Scire Igitur