in the broad and beaten path, and not the lefs to be valued because overtaken in the common road; yet, by following each other in the fame unvaried track of formal cultivation, with a facred care never to deviate from it, philofophers, both divine and human, confirm many errors, without improving any truths and though, in the other mode of proceeding, errors are perhaps more liable to be incurred, they will be foon detected; and, from the ease and liberality which it profeffes, no fooner detected than abandoned.

THEOLOGY is the queen of fciences. To this all the other parts of learning should minifter and fubferve: "the virgins that be

her fellows fhould bear her company," to cultivate the understanding, and to prepare the heart, for this fublimer application. To train the mind in the gradual search of knowledge; to raise it from one fubject to another, as it gathers ftrength; to direct its progreffion from science to science; to facilitate and enlarge its comprehenfion, whilst the exercife of its faculties is confined within the

sphere

fphere of their distinct and proper action; to know its capacity and extent when stretched out to their utmoft reach; and, above all, to reft contented in the virtuous fruition of truth, whatever it may be, or however found, is that philofophic difcipline of their diviner part, in which mortals may repose their pride and honour. Whilft it raises the intellect to the fummit of all knowledge, it fubdues the will to virtue, and engages the imagination in the fupport and ornament of both; and, by an useful culture, prepares the mind, as a bridal chamber, for the reception and entertainment of thofe diviner truths, which will exalt that honour into a more permanent and fubftantial glory.

CHAP.

CHAP. I.

Of the Theological PRINCIPLE, and its Effect upon the Mind.

HE kinds of Truth, which form the feveral departments of human learning belonging to the different provinces of the Theoretic, the Practic, and the Poetic, mind, are the inferences and deductions of natural Reason from principles exifting in the nature and confiitution of fubjects, material or mental, to which they refpectively relate.

And thus a part of that truth, which in the divine Mind is univerfal, and intuitive, is, by the ufe of Senfe and Reafon, conveyed progreffively into the human; where it exists

* See p. 66 of the first vol.

according

according to the nature of the fubjects from which it is derived, and in proportion to the Mind in which it is ".

But truth, as hath been obferved, is originally of the nature and effence of God; an attribute of his omnifcient mind. Infinite regions and volumes of truth muft, therefore, lie repofed in that univerfal and unbounded intellect, which fees all things without a medium, out of the reach of our fenfes to apprehend, our reafon to investigate, or our beft faculties to conceive; both for want of principles, and for want of miud.

If the natural operations of the Deity, which are the exertions of his Power, governing and disposing the material fyftem of the universe by the inftrumentality of second causes, form a labyrinth of dark and difficult investigation to human reafon; if, after our ablest and most fuccefsful researches, many of the works of natúre are only partially difcovered, and fome remain totally concealed: the moral difpenfa

See p. 12, 13, of the first vol. d Ibid. p. 10.

4

с

• Ibid. p. 186.

c Ibid. p. 6.

tions

tions flowing from his Wifdom, that more myfterious attribute, which are more imme diately administered by an act of his omnifcient mind, and removed from the obfervation of external fenfe, muft form a fystem of more dark and myfterious contrivance, unfathomable in its fublimer parts as the profundity of his will. All the parts of this profounder difpenfation, which lie out of the reach of the human faculties, if they are ever made the subject of our knowledge, must be derived into the mind from a principle or ground of evidence, different both from External and Internal Senfe, and communicated by an inftrument different from that of Reafon.

Our great philofopher, whofe clear and comprehenfive mind arranged the departments and marked the confines of all learning, has diftinguished this Principle of divine knowledge from those of human by a general divifion. All knowledge is allotted a twofold information; the one originating from Senfe, "the other from Inspiration. And this dif

f Baconus De Augm. Sc. lib. iii. cap. 1.

tination,