improbable, and all such improbabilities will make it seem incredible, and the incredibility of a part makes the whole seem incredible; and thus men will be infidels, or feed their infidelity by every thing that themselves are ignorant of; and make it the chief reason why they will not believe or learn, because they do not already know and fully understand the things to be learned and believed: and so God must be accused in every thing that moles and worms are ignorant of.

When the Jews acknowledged the prophets to be of God, and sometimes would profess to receive and obey any message that God should send by them, yet when they heard what it was in particular, which he sent, then, if it did not suit with their interest and carnal reason, they would not believe it, or obey it, but rather persecute the messenger, and think, that surely such a message could never come from God; so that they must like the particular matter before they would believe that it was of God and so God's word shall not be God's word, unless it please the blind and carnal reason of man.

So you may find they used the prophet Jeremiah; (Jer. xlii.;) they entreat the prophet to go for them to God, by prayer, and for advice, and bind themselves with seeming resolution to obey; saying, "The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things, for the which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us; whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee, that it may be well with us when we obey," &c. One would have thought that these men would have believed, and obeyed any thing that God should send to them, after such a vow as this; and yet, when they heard that the message was contrary to their own minds and opinions, (c. xliii. 1, 2,) it is said, that "all the proud men' gave this answer; "Thou speakest falsely, the Lord our God hath not sent thee to say this."

A full instance you have of the like corrupt disposition in John vi. When Christ doth but tell them that he is the bread that came down from heaven, the Jews murmur; (ver. 41;) but when he insisted on it, that "He was the living bread, and that he would give his flesh for the life of the world, and that he that eateth him should live for ever," these spiritual things they did not understand, but understood him carnally, and thereupon reject the truth, because they understood it not; so that (ver. 52) they fall a striving among themselves against

Christ's words; saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Even like Nicodemus, "How can these things be?" They will not believe it is true, or that it can be, till they know, themselves, "How it can be:" and when Christ yet pressed home the mystery further, even some of his own "disciples, when they heard this, said, This a hard saying, who can hear it?" (Ver. 60.) And though Christ proceeded to open the mystery to them, and spake that more plainly which he had spoken allegorically; yet it is said, (ver. 66,) that "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him;" insomuch, that he asked the twelve, whether they would go also, intimating the greatness of the number of revolters upon this slight occasion; forsooth, because he spake that which they understood not, and would have taught them, what they had not humility and patience enough to learn; and because they did not reach it at the first hearing, therefore they thought it improbable and incredible. Many more such instances we might give you from Scripture, but, alas! it is a truth that needs no further proof; there are as many living witnesses of it as there are men on earth; the unregenerate being conquered by this corruption, and the regenerate weakened and hindered much by the remnants of it.

For the further improvement of this observation, I shall, first, open further the nature and workings of this corruption; secondly, and then show the reasons of it; and, lastly, make some application of all.

1. Sometimes the weak intellect of man is stalled at the quiddity or nature of things; and then, being arrogant as well as ignorant, it will not believe that there is such a thing, because - he cannot reach to know what it is.

On this account, some question, whether man have an immortal soul, because they cannot reach to know, as they expect, what that soul is: and some will not believe there is such a thing as the Spirit of God dwelling in his people, because they know not what that Spirit is: and some think that there is no such thing as inherent, sanctifying grace, or the image of God renewed upon the souls of the regenerate; but that all talk of these spiritual, supernatural changes are mere fancies and conceits; and all because they know not what this sanctity and gracious inclination is. They think there is no such thing as communion with God, because they know not what it is; nor any such thing as a spirit of prayer, because they know not what it is.

And, indeed, if this were a wise and right reasoning, then there should be nothing in being, but what we know the formal nature of, which is as gross a conceit as most in the world. What if you know not what an angel or spirit is, doth it follow that there is none? What if you know not what is beyond the visible creatures out of sight, doth it follow that there is nothing beyond our sight? By this rule you may say that there is no God; nay, all the world must needs say so, if this were right reasoning, for no man hath a true formal knowledge of God's essence, and therefore must say there is no God, because they know not what God is ; nay, it is a great question whether such men must not deny the being of almost all God's creation; for it is but little that we know of the forms of things, in comparison of what we are ignorant of. You know not what the fire is, nor what the light is, nor what the air and wind is; for all the great pretences of the world. Men are ignorant of the formal nature of these: and will you therefore say that there is no such thing as fire, or light, or air, or wind? You know not the formal nature of the sun or moon: is there, therefore, no sun or moon? Alas! there is not a pile of grass, nor the smallest creeping thing, that you thoroughly know, and yet you know that such things there are. A beast knows not what a man is, and yet he apprehendeth that there is such a creature : and no man thoroughly knoweth what he is himself, and yet he knoweth that he is.

And, for the soul itself, it is a most easy and obvious truth, that we have such a soul; but it is not so easy to give a definition of it. As the way to know that you have eyes in your head, and eye-sight, is not by seing those eyes or eye-sight, but by seeing other things by them: for the eye was not made to see itself, nor do we see the sight of the eye; but by that eye and sight we see other things, and thereby know that we have eyes and sight: for he that hath not eyes and eye-sight, can see nothing at all; so the intellective soul was not made directly to understand itself, and its own intellection, but to understand other things, and thereby to know that we have an intellectual soul: for he that understandeth, doth understand something, and thereby he understandeth that he doth understand, and so, that he hath an intellectual faculty: for he that hath not an intellectual soul can understand nothing at all; yet I will not presume to determine the controversy, whether the intellect do know its own and the will's elicit acts, by direct

intuition of the act itself. It is as unreasonable a thing, then, to doubt whether we have such intellectual souls, because they know not themselves directly or fully, as long as they know other things, as it is to doubt whether we have eyes, because they see not themselves, as long as they see external objects.

2. Moreover, this corruption doth often discover itself, in that men will not believe the truth of the thing revealed, because they cannot reach to understand the causes of it; so many will question God's decrees of predestination and preterition, because they cannot reach the cause. And many will deny the very work of creation, because they cannot know the way of creation. They will question whether they have immortal souls, because they cannot tell how they are caused, whether by seminal traduction and propagation, or by immediate creation? They will deny the work of God's differencing effectual grace, because they know not how it is given out, or wrought in the soul.

And as well might they deny that they have flesh or bones, till they better know how they were caused in the womb; and they may as well deny that they have any blood in their bodies, any nutrition or augmentation, till they better know the mystery of sanguification and other nutritive works; and as well may they say that the sun doth not shine, or warm us, till they know how it is that these are caused by the sun. They know not how the plants are animated and specified, nor how they suck their nutriment from the earth, and yet they know that such things are. They know not how the silly snail doth form her shell, or nature for her; or how the feathers of the peacock are so beautified; and the several sorts of birds, beasts, plants, fruits, are so diversified and adorned: and yet they know that such things are: or, as Christ telleth Nicodemus here, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and you hear the sound thereof, but know not whence it cometh," &c. And do we, therefore, say that there is no wind, because we know not whence it cometh, or what is the inferior cause of it? Will you say that the sea doth not ebb and flow, or there are no earthquakes, thunder, and lightning, because men do so little know the causes of them. Felix qui potuit, &c. It is not every man's lot to reach such causes; nor any man's on earth to know the causes of all things which he knoweth to be, nor fully the causes of any one.

3. Moreover, this folly of man's heart doth discover itself thus in that men will not believe the truths revealed by God, because they cannot see God's ends and reasons, and the use of

the things. Many an evident truth is rejected by the proud wit of foolish man, because God hath not told them why he hath so determined and ordered the business; or, if he have told it, yet they understand it not. So many infidels and Socinians do deny Christ's satisfaction as a ransom and sacrifice for sin, because they cannot see any reason for it, or necessity of it. They cannot see, but God may pardon sin without satisfaction and then, what need of all this ado, or what likelihood, that God would lay so much on his Son, or make so great a business of this work for our good, and his glory, if all was needless? and thus many deny the universal extent of his satisfaction, as being for all mankind, because they are not able to see the reason and use of it. They thrust in their dead quorsum as a sufficient answer to the most express words of God, and ask what good will it do men to be ransomed, and not saved. They fear not to say that this is a thing unbeseeming God, and such a weakness as men would not be guilty of: so that if we can prove that such a thing there is, they will not fear to charge it on God as his unreasonable weakness. The like we might show in many other points.

And must God unlock to us the reasons, ends, and uses of his truths and works before we will believe that such things are? We will allow parents to conceal the reasons and ends of many precepts from their children, and a prince to conceal the reasons of many laws, and to keep to himself the arcana imperii, the mysteries of state; and must God open all before he can be believed? Is not the wisdom and the will of God the most satisfying reason in the world? Must you have proper reasons and intentions in God; or will you have a cause of the first cause, or an end of the ultimate end of all? Alas! how little do the wisest men know of the use and ends of many a creature, over their heads, and under their feet, which their eyes behold; yea, how little know they of the use and ends of many a part of their own bodies! And yet they know that such things there are.

What abundance of 'whys' hath an arrogant infidel upon the reading of Scripture, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelation, which must all be satisfied before he will believe. Of all which God will one day satisfy them ; but not in the manner as they would have prescribed him.

4. Another expression of this arrogant ignorance is, when men will not believe the several truths of God, because they are not able to reconcile them, and place each one in its own order,