the New Testament, or the Old, and from thence to prepossess one's mind against the whole. The right method had been, first to consider the whole matter, and from so general a view to descend to more particular inquiries: Whereas they suffered their minds to be forestalled with prejudices, so that they never examined the matter impartially.

To the greatest part of this he seemed to assent, only he excepted to the belief of Mysteries in the christian religion; which he thought no man could do, since it is not in a man's power to believe that which he cannot comprehend, and of which he can have no notion.

The believing of mysteries, he said, made way for all the jugglings of priests; for they, getting the people under them in that point, set out to them what they pleased; and giving it a hard name, and calling it a mystery, the people were tamed, and easily believed it.

The restraining a man from the use of

women, except one in the way of marriage, and denying the remedy of divorce, he thought unreasonable impositions on the freedom of mankind. And the business of the clergy, and their maintenance, with the belief of some authority and power conveyed in their orders, looked, as he thought, like a piece of contrivance. And why, said he, must a man tell me, I cannot be saved, unless I believe things against my reason, and then that I must pay him for telling me of them? These were all the exceptions, which at any time I heard from him. to christianity. To which I made these

answers.

For mysteries, it is plain, there is in every thing somewhat unaccountable. How animals or men are formed in their mothers' wombs; how seeds grow in the earth; how the soul dwells in the body, and acts and moves it; how we retain the figures of so many words or things in our memories, and how we draw them out so easily and orderly in our thoughts or discourses; how sight and hearing are so

quick and distinct; how we move, and how bodies were compounded and united.

These things, if we follow them into all the difficulties that we may raise about them, will appear every whit as unaccountable as any mystery of religion. And a blind or deaf man would judge sight or. hearing as incredible, as any mystery may be judged by us; for our reason is not equal to them. In the same rank, different degrees of age or capacity raise some far above others; so that children cannot fathom the learning, nor weak persons the counsels of more illuminated minds. Therefore it was no wonder if we could not understand the divine essence. We cannot imagine how two such different natures as soul and body should so unite together, and be mutually affected with one another's concerns; and how the soul has one principle of reason, by which it acts intellectually, and another of life, by which it joins to the body and acts vitally; two principles so widely differing both in their nature and

operation, and yet united in one and the same person. There might be as many hard arguments brought against the possibility of these things, which yet every one knows to be true, from speculative notions, as against the mysteries mentioned in the Scriptures.

As that of the trinity; that in one essence there are three different principles of operation, which, for want of terms fit to express them by, are called persons, and - ́ are called in the Scripture, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and that the second of these did unite himself in a most intimate manner with the human nature of Jesus Christ; and that the sufferings he underwent were accepted of God as a sacrifice for our sins; who thereupon conferred on him a power of granting eternal life to all that submit to the terms on which he offers it: and that the matter of which our bodies once consisted, which may be as justly called the bodies we laid down at our deaths, as these can be said to be the bodies we formerly lived in, being refined and made

more spiritual, shall be reunited to our souls, and become a fit instrument for them in a more perfect state: and that God inwardly bends and moves our wills, by such impressions as he can make on our bodies and minds.

These, which are the chief mysteries of our religion, are neither so unreasonable, that any other objection lies against them, but this, that they agree not with our common notions; nor so unaccountable, that somewhat like them cannot be assigned in other things, which are believed really to be, though the manner of them cannot be apprehended.

So this ought not to be any just objection to the submission of our reason to what we cannot so well conceive, provided our belief of it be well grounded. There have been too many niceties brought indeed rather to darken than explain these ; they have been defended by weak argu. ments, and illustrated by similes not al ways so very apt and pertinent. And new subtilties have been added, which