and which the blessed apostle, who had been an eye wit ness of his glory, says, "The angels desire to look into, 1 Pet. i. 12. can none of them however be perverted to a sense of being repugnant to reason; because not impossible to infinite love, or infinite power; who could abase himself from his glory, and be made flesh in a virgin; could work all miracles, and the greatest of all, the raising of himself from the dead; and could ascend up where he was before. All which are agreeable to right reason, and appear so with ravishment to the enlightened and sanctified, especially with the evidence of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which confirmeth the humble believer in the saving faith and knowledge of these things to the end. And I am glad of this occasion to distinguish to thee (ingenuous reader) that though no divine truths are contrary to natural reason; yet, as they far transcend it, they are not comprehensible by it, as other truths within the reach of its capacity are: as no nature below man, nor qualified with reason as he is, can possibly know as he knows. Which observation is not of the least importance to us; for if it therefore follows, "That no man knows the things of God, but by the Spirit of God," 1 Cor. ii. 11, then can no man without the revelation of the same Spirit, know the mystery of the Divine Power by which he was created, and by which he must be eternally saved and blessed. Grace therefore (or the Divine Spirit, by its influence and inspiration) must be received and obeyed as an infallible oracle, if we would know and pursue those things which tend to our present and future happiness; as also the authority of the holy scriptures submitted to, as having proceeded from the same grace, of which they faithfully testify, and of that which is necessary to be by us believed and practised.

The excellency and necessity of which divine.record to himself, man certainly must acknowledge, when he considers, that that alone has given him an account of his own origin (which, what man could have known?) And that he still may the better understand himself, of his lapse and corruption from that excellence and glory of his nature (in which he was created) by departing from

the truth into a fable and notion of independency of nature, and sufficiency of wisdom without God. So that he is become as the beasts which perish, as to the necessity of dissolution to his mortal part; and in his greatest natural honour, may, in that respect, be compared to them; which is sufficient to humble him under the sense of his weak elementary state, with all the glory and advan tages that may attend it.

But if man will not be convinced of the imperfection and vanity of this nature, by the infirmities and miseries to which it is continually subject; or of the glory of the eternal majesty, by the infinite wonders thereof, throughout the universe; rejecting the testimony of his own senses, of every created thing, and of the scriptures of truth; nor yet behold his glory in the appearance of the Saviour, which he reveals in every conscience: then must his blindness be concluded incurable, and his destruction unavoidable.

FINIS.

འ་་་་་་་་་་་་འཙྪ