which being for Contrivance and Counsel as it were the Master-piece of Divine Skill in Matter God statedly beholds this singular Work of his own Hands when arrived at due Maturity with such a favourable Aspiration as is no less or but a little less than that which he vouchsafeth to the Inhabitants of the Intellectual World And as we see much what the same measure of strength as suppots a weight will serve to raise it so same the favourable Aspiration that upholds an Intellectual Creature in Being is of force sufficient to raise it into Being Therefore such Aspiration will give Being to a Conscious Life as preserves the Mental Natures of the Invisible World 2. But then this Aspiration being included in the Divine favourable intuition on what his hand hath curiously wrought in these lower parts of the Earth Psa 139.15 though it hath a Conscious Life for its effect yet it is not a separate Conscious Life but a Conscious Life enlivening that accurate frame of Matter now a conscious Life vitally United to a Humane Body is a rational Soul 3. And because this Soul doth result from the Divine Aspiration on a being framed by the course of Natural Causes in the material System of this World therefore it is not Properly Created nor yet Miraculous but Natural 4. Yet this Soul cannot be said to be therefore educed out of the powers of Matter because the Divine Aspiration is not of that kind which concurs with Corporeal Motions but such as is afforded to the Intellectual Natures though upon the approbation of this singular piece of Divine Workmanship in this World of Bodies 5. He that said of the Humane Soul Creatur infundendo or infunditur Creando spoke something this way but whether expresly enough needs not be inquired since the Scripture assures us that the Lord who Created the whole frame of this Visible World besides that does form the Spirit of Man within him That the Spirit in Man being by the Inspiration of the All-mighty Zech. 12.1 Job 32.8.27.3 Gen. 2.7 is Intellectual and the breath in our Nostrils our Spirit and Life is the Spirit of God which he Breathed into Mans Nostrils by which he became a living Soul So that if Brutes have Souls and they be educed out of the Powers of Matter yet the Soul of Man according to a course settled by God in Nature being a Conscious Life is by a Divine Aspiration correspondent to those of the Superiour World By which it appears Mans Nature participates both of this and the other World in its Constitution 6. Therefore the Son of God who is God being one Person with Man hath thereby a new alliance both to the Material and Intellectual World and a new Cognation both with the Coelestial and Terrestial Inhabitants and because the Union of God and Man in Christ is Mystical Cap. 10.8 therefore the whole Kingdom of God is put into a Mystical state and frame upon this new Cognation with all things in Heaven and Earth 7. And if according to the Opinion of some of the most celebrated Philosophers in this Age the motion of every part of Matter does really so diffuse it self that the whole System of Matter is affected thereby and if withal the parts that make up the Intellectual World have a correspondent Communion amongst themselves then by this Union of God and Man there is as it were a new Leaven which may be sufficient in Gods due time to Leaven the Mass of the whole Creation And Christs Resurrection is a Specimen of its efficacy and a ground of our expectation But should this prove only to be their Conjecture and not the Natural way of efficiency yet we are however sufficiently assured that the effect shall be produced and that in Christ all things in Heaven and Earth shall be recollected into one Eph. 1.10 Col. 1.17 18 19 20. 2 Thes 2.1 Acts. 3.21 and that there shall be a restitution of all things whereby they shall be restored into one blessed frame 8. The Mystical constitution of the Divine Kingdom being therefore for the restoration of the Natural Kingdom in a renewed integrity it is a form of Government which in its Nature and design is manifestly subordinate to the Original Government of the Divine Kingdom in its Primitive institution 9. If then the Supream Governour be the same yet as King of this Mystical Kingdom he is less than the King of the Natural Kingdom not in himself or Naturally but in the state of a Governour or Politically the Antients call it Oeconomically But in plain terms the sense stands thus God that humbleth himself when he inspects the things that are done in Heaven and in Earth however he undertakes the Government and Management of them does yet more humble himself when for the good of the Creation Psal 113.6 he governs the Universe in the Mystical constitution for the redintegrating of the Natural Kingdom into one blessed frame 10. Whereas then God in the first Subsistence of the Divine Nature that is God the Father is first in the Address as Lord of the Natural Kingdom so God even the same God in the second Subsistence of the Divine Nature that is God the Son is first in the Address as Lord of the Mystical Kingdom considered as Mystical and Subordinate because God manifest in the Flesh is the Pillar and Ground of Truth and the confessedly great Mystery of Godliness 11. Before the Mystery was made known therefore the stile Lord did more directly and more usually indigitate God the Father as we find in the old Testament but since the Mystery is to be acknowledged by all the Subjects of Gods Kingdom the Title of Lord doth more directly denote God the Son and is therefore in the new Testament most commonly attributed to Jesus Christ though they be both one Lord as well as one God 12. The Son therefore being Lord of the Divine Kingdom in its Mystical and Subordinate State in treating with his Subjects will have occasion to speak of himself as less than his Father in many of the affairs of the Mystical Kingdom and Government especially in and about the change of the Natural into the Mystical Frame though he be the same God Lord with the Father For God doth humble himself more in condescending to Govern the World in this State than in the first Natural Constitution of his Kingdom The Son therefore is less than the Father not only as Man but also as God Governing the Divine Kingdom in the Mystical State John 3.35 Mat. 11.27 Acts 2.32 Joh. 10.20 1 Cor. 11.3 John 6.38 1 Cor. 3.23 1 Cor. 15.27 Phil. 2.7 Zech. 3.8 Joh 17.5 Accordingly we read the Sons Power is given is received of the Father he receives command from the Father the head of Christ is God even the Father for he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him Christ is Gods who put all things
Life void of all Sence and Perception for though its Efficacy should be so great that it is sufficient to move the mass of matter Locally yet for want of contrivance it can only make an impetuous jostle a confused jumble 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or promiscuous medly of Matter but not a World It is therefore the Agency of a conscious Life that can take cognizance of its own doings in it self and move Matter with design to produce a regular structure of stupendious Mechanism as is that of this visible World in a due proportion order and subserviency of all its parts Cap 2.7 now such a conscious Life is a Mind 12. Yet neither is this the Agency of a Mind that is indeed sagacious enough if it happens to advert to frame such a stately Edifice but yet in its self is wholy indifferent and unconcerned whether there be any beauty or usefulness in the whole or any part of it for though such a Mind may chance to make some very few or very small parts with some proportionableness yet it is absolutely incredible that many or the considerable parts should have any comely order or good serviceableness at all but that the whole material System should be Erected by such utterly heedless Agency into such a goodly Fabrick as is this which we behold with our Eyes is altogether impossible and is perfectly contradictious to the very Nature and Reason of Fortuitousness It is therefore the Agency of such a Mind as hath resentments is Pleased or Displeased Approves or Disapproves its own doings But a Mind indued with such resentments is a Spirit Cap 2.9 That being then to whose Agency the whole material World does owe its present frame is nothing else but a Spirit which worketh all in all by the counsel of his own Will If therefore the Supream Being is the maker of ths World he is not of a material or any other nature but Spiritual 13. This is the Conclusion that we were directly to deduce That no other Being but a Spirit is the Maker of the World But I did not prove but suppose that the World had a Maker yet that follows likewise as a Corollary Thus The force which we feel causes all Local motion is not natural to matter but contingent whencesoever this force happened to matter it is the cause of the World's frame It is certain no force whencesoever it is that moves not by counsel could cause such motions as are in the Worlds frame but all force that moves by counsel is the efficacy of a vital mental spiritual agency therefore the World that was framed by such force Chap. 2.9 was made by the Agency of a Spirit These two documents of Nature are both confirmed by Scripture which teaches expresly that God is a Spirit and in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth 14. Now since God the Maker of the World is a Spirit and the supream Being the Perfections that are included in his being the Most High do speak no other than a Spiritual nature in God for be they never so high as they are Most High they argue him to be no other Most High Being but the Most High Spirit hence then we can infer from the nature of the thing that God is therefore the Most High Life the Most High Understanding the Most High Will but not the Most High Being of any other sort and whatsoever is not the Most High Spirit is not by Nature God The Scripture teaches God is Life God is Light God is Love to confirm us in this 15. Mr. Rich. Baxter following St. Austin hath spoke a great deal of those three and has observed that a Trinity in Unity is imprinted upon the whole frame of Nature but then confesses whether we call those three Life Light and Love or Life Intellect and Will They are not the Trinity of Persons and that they are not is manifest from these Principles for since these three express the Essential Nature of a Spirit they cannot be the Three Persons in the Divinity because if we should take every one of these three by it self for one of the Three Persons we shall then divide the one Nature into three instead of giving the same intire Nature in three Personal Subsistences 16. If there be no other Supream Spirit Subsisting at all but only this one single Supream Spirit it is manifest then in the Reason of the thing there is no more three Gods though this One Supream Spirit subsists intirely in Three distinct personal Subsistences then there is if it subsists onely in One personal Subsistence This I note in the first place to secure our Conception of God as One whether there be One Person of the God-head or Three and it is not amiss to observe that because the most high Being is the Supream Spirit all other Natures such matter is are in their condition obnoxious to the Spiritual Nature 17. But it can hardly be worth while to note that though Nature Form Frame Fashion and such like Words do in their derivation seem to connote the first rise of things yet Use hath frequently applyed them to signifie only the things as they are in their several kinds without our thinking how they came to be what they are and so it must needs do when we speak of the Divine Nature which is Eternal In like manner Existence seems to insinuate the first coming of things into Being but in use it hath obtained most commonly to import no more than that a thing is in being and Subsistence signifies the same with Existence only connotes some permanency of Existence CHAP. IV. Of the Spiritual Agency and Subsistence 1. VVE are now more distinctly to remark the sufficiency of the Spiritual Nature and the rather because our business in this World of Bodies is such as may deceive us Our Work as parts of this corporeal System is only moving the parts of matter from place to place staying or altering such Local motion and this we do not without straining and contention hereupon we are apt to over-value this Power which is but an appendage and that accidental to the most eminent Functions of a conscious Life as being no more than a consequent of the Minds superiority over that baser Nature Now seeing the most radicalagency of the Spiritual Life and that which discriminates it from other Natures is as we see Chap. 2 3. 4. that whereby it discerns betwixt Existence and Non-Existence or betwixt something and nothing This would tempt us to suspect that a Minds Essential Agency is to give or annul this being of things which it conceives in it self and that in proportion to its sufficiency but should this be true yet it would be too great an ascent to make at one step and would but amuse shoud it be so abruptly expressed the easier way though somewhat farther about I like best which will be by considering first Lifes Agency as Intellectual and then as
Being higher than our selves yea and higher than any Being that is Finite but God never conceives of any Being Existent or Possible so high as himself nor yet that his own Being might have been higher than it is either of these being not to be conceived even by that Mind that adequately and positively conceives Infinity it self for this is the condition of a Being that is absolutely the most high 2. In perfect agreement with this dictate of Nature the Scripture makes the Title of the most High to be the usual incommunicable Psal 83.18 Deut. 4.17 Esay 40.25 44.6 8. and most august Characteristick of Majesty truly Divine This is signified by God's calling himself the Holy One and asking to whom we would liken him or should he be equal I am the first I am the last and besides Me there is no God is there a God besides Me Yea there is no God I know not any The like reason does teach of all those perfections which are included in his being the most High for they are all absolute and infinite If then there be no such most high Being there is no God either of a material spiritual or any other nature 3. Let us then proceed to enquire of what nature the most High Being is now because matter how far soever it lies extended is such a substance as may exist and yet not act at all therefore such a Nature may exist and lie exposed to the Agency of another Being now a Nature that may be obnoxious to the Agency of another is certainly not the most high Being that is possible therefore God is not matter and if matter it self in its utmost extent be not God much less can any part or modification of such a bulky substance be the supream Being therefore the material World which is nothing else but such stuff in different modifications of its parts cannot be the most high Being 4. Because local motion is nothing else but a passage whereby the parts of matter being divided does shift their position amongst them selves therefore local motion is not force for as much as shifting of place or position is not force though force may be required to make the change of place we find when we carry a stone forward in our hand that the passage of the stone hath no more force than our hand puts into it and our hand puts no more force into that passage of the stone than we will or than our will puts into our hands and yet we feel a force present in all moved matter Now since the whole mass of mâ—tter is of such a nature that it may exist and yet not Act at all therefore this force is not the substance of matter nor Essential nor Natural nor an inseparable Property but is contingent to it yea even to those parts of matter which have ever been in motion if any such there be 5. This force is contingent to matter whether it moves the matter by mere chance or by counsel for though there be an Essential difference betwixt chance and counsel yet that an Agent by counsel did chuse to move the matter is manifestly contingent to the material Nature 6. And because some have weakly imagin'd that matter may have been Eternally I observe that this force will no less be contingent to matter whether it happened to it in time or from Eternity for the bare difference of a Finite and Infinite duration makes no difference in the natural reason of things If two parallel lines were drawn out infinitum this would not alter their parallism but the same distance they have where I stand they keep though they reached through an infinite space so the same contingency which is between matter and the force that moves matter now must have been between them from all Eternity if matter had been moved from Eternity Matter is therefore such an un-active nature in it self that it could never have commenced any Action in its self had not such force happened to it either in time or Eternity therefore all the motion of matter which is now in the World is the effect of that adventitious force whencesoever that force happened to it 7. Because all motion is the effect of the adventitious force therefore neither the parts of matter nor their motion is the cause of the motion of other parts which a removed by their pressure but that contingent force which moved the first parts does move the others afterwards as this appears by experience so it is the foundation of all the Laws of local motion which are delivered to us by modern Naturalists 8. Since therefore this force is the cause of all the motion and the system of matter is framed into its fashion by motion whatever is the cause of the frame of the World is the Author of this force this force therefore is active in causing the motion of matter but is it self the efficacy of the agency of that active Being which is the Framer of the World if such a one there be 9. Let us then here suppose and afterwards prove what we do Believe that it is God the Supream Being whose agency by its efficacy did frame the World then this agency does not only act upon the surface or outsides of Bodies because then the efficacy of this agency upon the interior parts of such Bodies depends upon the impenetrability extrusion and other modes of the exterior parts of such moved Bodies Now no agency whose efficacy depends upon the condition of other Beings can be the agency of the Supream Being whose agency is and acts without dependance The divine agency acts therefore not as an effort by external pulsion but acting imminently in its self doth move matter locally 10. The mutual resistance in the internal parts of a Body as in the case of a bent-bow or spring though the inward parts shou'd be all affected with it is yet nevertheless no Agency at all but is the stopage of the passage of some subtile moved matter caused by the Obstructive configuration of the Parts in a rigid or solid Body Therefore the divine efficacy that moves matter Acting imminently in it self and intimately in all the Pores of moved matter is the cause of all reaction and Elastick renitency from the internal pressure in Bodies but seeing it does cause this by imminent Agency in it self therefore it is a pure Energy Now a pure Energy acting imminently in it self which though it moveth matter yet doth not locally move it self Chap. 2.4 is a vital Energy and such Agency is the Agency of Life and if we mark it we have in our selves experience of such an Agency in the motions whereby we execute those Actions which we call properly humane Therefore the force of the Supream Being moving all moved matter is the Efficacy of a vital Agency and consequently there is Life in the Supream Being if he be the Maker of the World 11. Yet is not this the Agency of a
blessed Perfections For God subsists in vital Agency conceiving his own Nature as God is really true he does also really subsist by being so conceived God absolutely wills the Being of his own Nature and as God is really holy he does also really subsist by being so willed He that denies this denies in Reason the Being of the Supream Spirit he that confesses it confesses Three real Subsistences of the Most High Being God says of himself I am that I am and conformably we may say he is Existence in a Subsistence and he is no less so in real Truth and he is no less so in real Holiness And when we have said this we may perceive we have said at once that he is the Supream Spirit and that he subsists in a Trinity of real Subsistences if we do but observe that there is no Truth but what subsists in a Mind the Truth of a notion in a notional Subsistence and the Truth of a thing in a real Subsistence and that there is no Holiness but what subsists in a Will If therefore we do not disbelieve God's real Truth and Holiness traducing thereby his great and terrible Name Jehovah we are in reason to confess the ever Blessed Trinity CHAP. VI. The Natural and Moral Consequenâ—â— 1. BEfore we proceed to the Scripture Evidence we may observe First some Natural Secondly some Moral Consequents reserving the Practical to the close of all In deducing the preceeding account of the Trinity I oft used the terms because and consequently which are to be understood as causal or consequential in arguing not in the reason of the Existence For we having in our Mind a prior Evidence of one Divine Perfection or Subsistence do thereby discern that this perfection or subsistence is of such a Condition that it does not subsist without another but in the Divine Nature or its Subsistences There is no Cause or Consequent there being nothing in God before or after either in causation or in time But we perceive the Divine Mind doth not substantially subsist conceiving the Divine Nature if the Divine Nature doth not also substantially subsist in conceptu And the Divine Nature being spiritual doth not in its two first subsistences will its own real subsistence if it does not also really and substantially subsist being willed by an Almighty volition By this whole process therefore we are to understand that the Divine Nature is such that according to its condition it does subsist in Trinity but the cause of its doing so is not assigned only the cause of our apprehending it From hence we see that the three real subsistences being natural in the Deity since the Deity is Eternal the Nature and all its three real subsistences are therefore coeternal As we would say whether matter be Temporary or Eternal its subsistence and its three dimensions are all Contemporary or Coeternal 2. By the like reason we see there are no more than three distinct real subsistences of the Deity For since the supream life light and benevolence or the supream life mind and will do compleat or are the intire spiritual nature there are neither fewer nor more subsistences than agree to the reason of such a nature And as that has appeared to be no less than three so we find no more belong to such a being About thirty years ago came forth a Pamphlet of the Origenian Doctrine which as I remember was to this effect The super-abundant fulness of Being in the Deity did represent it self in a second subsistence which though somewhat rebated in its perfections was yet nevertheless really Divine and so proceeded to a third which was inferiour to the second but yet truly Divine likewise and then the Divine faecundity being so far exhausted that there could be no more Beings truly Divine what was made afterwards was Created Celestial Spirits and the Souls of the World and then Matter a substance wholly passive and then what was not wholly substance such as material forms which some account evanid substances others moods and accidents of matter and so being quite effected it ceased But this should not have been given us as the Origenian nor yet as the Genuine Platonick Doctrine of the Trinity if we may believe the Factors of that Philosophy for that they say was nearer the truth if not the very truth whence soever its Heathen Author came by it But whether Plato receiv'd it from the Jews who in his time and before had their Synagogues for Worship in Greece or from others that learned it from them or from some Ancient Tradition or from the reason of the thing which I have shewed to be practicable we are no ways concerned to know But it is true this Scheme was consonant to the opinion of the later Platonists and from some such invented model of old the Arrian Heresie seems to have had its rise some few Texts of Scripture being pressed by force to serve the Hypothesis For this whole draught is meer presumption and arbitrary fiction which though it be laden with a thousand absurdities yet has no ground to support it but the pretty fancy of a gradation whereby they would avoid what they account the too great distance betwixt the Divine Nature and the Created But since God is infinitely Blessed over all there will be an infinite distance betwixt the perfections of his Nature and those of all Natures not infinite So that this is a Fabrick erected without any Foundation and would not answer the use it was designed for though it had been never so well supported Such finenesses may indeed serve to entertain the leisure of a Reader but every considerative Man frames the Counsels of his Life upon the solid Evidence of Nature and not on the concinnity of a pickquaint Wit And to speak a sad truth the licentiousness of Hypothesis-Makers hath done unspeakable mischief to the present Age that is of it self but too much addicted to the gaity of Romantick Conceits But for what concerns the Divine Being in this devised Scheme we may observe that it is plainly frivolous for should the reason why the prime spiritual Nature does subsist in no more than three representations be as he says it is because the faecundity of the Divine Being was exhausted so far that it could yield no more afterward with the like reason we are to affirm that God made Matter which is the prime Corporeal Nature to subsist only in three dimensions for this very Reason even because there was not stuff enough in it to replenish four dimensions or more But as we see well enough that the too great consumption of matter is not the reason why it subsists only in three dimensions but because the Corporeal Nature is perfectly compleat in these three and an extended substance is uncapable of more In like manner we learn that the Deity exists in no more than three subsistences not for lack of any suffiâ—iency for then he is not the Supream Being but because
Nature tells us ch 6.14 and the Scripture affirms it Psal 51.12 Establish me with thy free Spirit which Spirit is the Fountain of all liberty Natural and Moral for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty When the Scripture teaches that God swears by his own Life we are sure he therein doth no more than what he had a right to do and therefore he has his life in the disposal of his own will which he gages as he pleases and so all things stand in the infinite holiness of the most absolute free-will of God both by Natural and Supernatural Evidence 10. Lastly Nature teaches these three real distinct Subsistences are really Personal ch 7. and the Scripture owns it for Christ acknowledges the Holy Ghost hath Personal Rights but that he should not speak of himself but should take of that which was the Sons and shew it to the Disciples and presently thereupon informs us of the distinct Personal Rights of the Father and the Son all things that the Father hath are mine says the Son where we see though they all have right to the same things yet each hath his own distinct right here asserted according to that all thine are mine and mine are thine and therefore each of the three is a Person When St. Paul teaches that the Spirit does act dispose of and bestow things by the disposition of his own will this is what nothing but a Person can do nor can any other Person do so justly but the Owner or Lord of the things so disposed or bestowed I have thought for a Heathen Hierocles guess'd ingenuously that God did Create all the material substance of which the World was made or else he could not justly have framed the World because he would have medled with what was none of his own 11. Thus Nature by the reason of things and Scripture by the reason of speech do both teach the same Trinity in all Points the one by natural the other by instituted significancy Gods Works and Gods Word conspiring to assure us there is one God and three Persons For the Coincidence of the Rational and Scriptural account in all particulars I take to be the proper evidence of this truth because had the account been given upon an Hypothesis the coincidence of it with the Scripture had been only a proof of the good contrivance of its Maker but being all deduced from the very first Principles of Sense and Reason the Coincidence proves the truth of the thing it self and demonstrates there is no contrivance in it for where Nature leads there if no room left for invention but things must be taken as they are found in themselves The Arians begged a Days or a Minutes time for the making of their second and third God in this was a blunder in the device it self for a God cannot be made in less time than a Triangular Circle But I am not exposing their pretence in point of ingenuity but observing that when they say there are such made Gods without the evidence of Nature or Scripture this is Hypothesis and Fiction and therefore it will then be time enough to write serious Confutations of such imaginary Beings when it is become fashionable gravely to prove at large that Romances are not Histories 12. To the Divine Revelation of this Doctrine I might subjoyn the Authority of the Catholick Church whose Faith is delivered in our common Creeds and evince that these are perfectly conform to the Doctrine of the preceding Discourse but these being so well known I shall seem in the judgment of the intelligent Reader to write the same things over again out of meer formality Yet because the Adversaries do boast of their late attempts against the Athanasian Creed with such an insolence of glorying it is not amiss to remark particularly that there is no expression in all that Creed about the matter of the Trinity but what hath been above distinctly accounted for from Reason and Scripture what there concerns Christs Incarnation I shall consider afterwards I might also observe that the common Institusion of the Christian Schools giving an account of the Second Person from the Divine Wisdom and of the third from the Divine Love or Benevolence cannot be understood to differ from the main reason of what has here been taught So that besides the Divine Evidence Natural and Supernatural we have all that can be accounted Ecclesiastical Authority to confirm us in this Belief And as the Creeds and their Expositors so the form of Baptism in the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which is the very Text that all the Creeds themselves were purely designed to expound and is of Divine Appointment and irrefragable Authority does as a foederal Rite give further confirmation of the Truth of this Doctrine But being to give an account of the Mystery of the Trinity what concerns the nature of the Trinity in that Stipulation shall be there considered with its Covenant-use in the Christian State CHAP. IX The Adversaries Interpretations of the Scriptures IN the mean time having before shewed how the Unitarians have dealt with the Evidence of Reason I must here observe how they use that of Authority For having resolved all the General Councils and the Christian Doctors and Schools into the number of Adversaries they disclaim all Ecclesiastical Authority and assume to themselves the right of being their own Judges which Office so assumed in consequence they are to execute without a deference to the Judgment of the main body of Christians and if they be haughty with defiance to it Their demur to the Authority of the Christian Church being somewhat extraneous to the Merits of this Cause I need not examine Though Protestants indeed allow it not to be a proper jurisdiction yet all sober Christians must confess that it hath an argumentative force next to that which is Divine But since these Men had rather want so great a confirmation of their Faith then not to please themselves even to themselves be it the Rights of God and of his Church cannot be vacated by such Judges as Create their own Office 2. Though these men do not formally disown the Divine Authority of the Bible yet they treat all the Scripture proofs of the Trinity with great contempt and that they might seen to do so with less absurdity they take no notice of the great accession which that sacred Evidence acquires by the concurrence of so many circumstances in such a great number of Testimonies and variety of Expressions which adds a mighty force to what they would have if they were only to be considered asunder as we experience in all sorts of Evidence which is given us of the Existence of things And yet even against the single Texts they have nothing to alledge but some Evasions which are manifestly so far fetched that if charity did not bid us hope better they would tempt us to suspect instead of a serious Paraphrase