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the fubtilties of faith: and thus Í teach my haggard and unreclaimed reason to stoop unto the lure of faith. I believe there was already a tree whose fruit our unhappy parents tafted, though in the fame chapter, when God forbids it, 'tis pofitively faid, the plants of the field were not yet grown; for God had not caused it to rain upon the earth. *I believe that the ferpent, (if we shall literally understand it) from his proper form and figure, made his motion on his belly before the curse. I find the trial of the pucellage and virginity of women, which God ordained the Jews, is very fallible. experience and history informs me, that not only many particular women, but likewife whole nations have escaped the curfe of childbirth, which God feems to pronounce upon the whole Sex; yet do I believe that all this is true,

which indeed my reafon would perfuade

fwade me to be false; and this I think is no vulgar part of faith to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to reafon, and against the arguments of our proper fenfes.

SECT. XI.

In my folitary and retired imagination,

Neque enim, cum porticus, aut me lectulus accepit, defum mihi.—

I remember I am not alone, and therefore forget not to contemplate him and his attributes who is ever with me, especially thofe two mighty ones, his wisdom and eternity; with the one I recreate, with the other I confound my understanding: for * who can speak of eternity without a folecifm, or think thereof without an extafie? time we may comprehend; 'tis but five days older then ourselves, and hath the fame Horoscope with the world: but to retire fo far back as to apprehend a begin

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beginning, to give fuch an infinite ftart foreward, as to conceive, an end in an effence that we affirm hath neither the one nor the other; it puts my reafon to Saint Pauls Sanctuary; my philofophy dares not fay the angels can do it: God hath not made a creature that can comprehend him, 'tis the privilege of his own nature; I am that I am, was his own definition unto Mofes; and it was a short one, to confound mortality, that durft question God, or ask him what he was; indeed he only is, all others have been and fhall be, but in eternity there is no diftinction of tenfes and therefore that terrible term predeftination, which hath troubled fo many weak heads to conceive, and the wifeft to explain, is in refpect to God no prescious determination of our eftates to come, but a definitive blast of his will already fulfilled, and at the inftant that he first decreed it; for to his eternity which Exodus 111.13.14.15 000

Ex XIV. 4J.

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RELIGIO MEDICI.

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is indivifible, and altogether, the laft trump is already founded, the reprobates in the flame, and the bleffed in Abraham's bofom. Saint Peter speaks modeftly, when he faith, a thousand years to God are but as one day for to speak like a Philosopher, thofe continued instances of time which flow into a thousand years make not to him one moment; what to us is to come, to his eternity is prefent, his whole duration being but one permanent point without fucceffion, parts, flux, or divifion.

SECT. XII.

There is no attribute that adds more difficulty to the mystery of the trinity, where, tho' in a relative way of Father and Son, we must deny a priority, I wonder how Aristotle could conceive the world eternal, or how he could make good two eternities: his fimilitude of a triangle, comprehended in a fquare,

doth

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doth fomewhat illuftrate the trinity of our fouls, and that the triple unity of God; * for there is in us not three, but a trinity of fouls, because there is in us, if not three distinct fouls, yet differing faculties, that can, and do fubfift apart in different fubjects, and yet in us are fo united as to make but one foul and fubftance; if one foul were fo perfect as to inform three diftinct bodies, that were a petty trinity: conceive the distinct number of three, not divided nor feparated by the intellect, but actually comprehended in its unity, and that is a perfect trinity. I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the fecret magick of numbers; beware of philofophy, is a precept not to be received in too large a fenfe; for in this mafs of nature there is a fet of things that carry in their front, tho' not in capital letters, yet in stenography, and short characters, fomething of divinity,

which

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