remain as records. Now in all such bodies, many alterations are often made after a minute or first draught is agreed on, before the matter is brought to full perfection; so these alterations, as most of them are small and inconsiderable, were made between the time that they were first subscribed, and the last voting of them. But the original records, which if extant would have cleared the whole matter, having been burnt in the fire of London, it is not possible to appeal to them; yet what has been proposed may serve, I hope, fully to clear the difficulty.

I now go to consider the Articles themselves.

ARTICLE I.

Of Faith in the Holy Trinity.

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without bodie, parts or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible; and in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,

THE natural order of things required, that the first of all Articles in Religion should be concerning the Being and Attributes of God: for all other doctrines arise out of this. But the title appropriates this to the Holy Trinity; because that is the only part of the Article which peculiarly belongs to the Christian Religion; since the rest is founded on the principles of natural Religion.

There are six heads to be treated of, in order to the full opening of all that is contained in this Article.

1. That there is a God.

2. That there is but one God.

3. Negatively, That this God hath neither body, parts, nor passions.

4. Positively, That he is of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness.

5. That he at first created, and does still preserve all things, not only what is material and visible, but also what is spiritual and invisible.

6. The Trinity is here asserted.

These being all points of the highest consequence, it is very necessary to state them as clearly, and to prove them as fully, as may be.

The first is, That there is a God. This is a proposition, which in all ages has been so universally received and believed, some very few instances being only assigned of such as either have denied or doubted of it, that the very consent of so many ages and nations, of such different tempers and languages, so vastly remote from one another, has been long esteemed a good argument, to prove that either there is somewhat in the nature of man, that by a secret sort of instinct does dictate this to him; or that

1.

all mankind has descended from one common stock; and ART. that this belief has passed down from the first man to all his posterity. If the more polite nations had only received this, some might suggest, that wise men had introduced it as a mean to govern human society, and to keep it in order: or, if only the more barbarous had received this, it might be thought to be the effect of their fear, and their ignorance: but since all sorts, as well as all ages of men have received it, this alone goes a great way to assure us of the being of a God.

To this two things are objected, first, That some nations, such as Soldania, Formosa, and some in America, have been discovered in these last ages, that seem to acknowledge no Deity. But to this, two things are to be opposed: 1st, That those who first discovered these countries, and have given that account of them, did not know them enough, nor understand their language so perfectly as was necessary to enable them to comprehend all their opinions and this is the more probable, because others, that have writ after them, assure us, that they are not without all sense of religion, which the first discoverers had too hastily affirmed: some prints of religion begin to be observed among those of Soldania, though it is certainly one of the most degenerated of all nations. But a second answer to this is, That those nations, of whom these reports are given out, are so extremely sunk from all that is wise or regular, great and good in human nature, so rude and untractable, and so incapable of arts and discipline, that if the reports concerning them are to be believed, and if that weakens the argument from the common consent of mankind of the one hand, it strengthens it on another, while it appears that human nature, when it wants this impression, it wants with it all that is great or orderly in it; and shews a brutality almost as low and base as is that of beasts. Some men are born without some of their senses, and others without the use of reason and memory: and yet those exceptions do not prove that the imperfections of such persons are not irregularities against the common course of things: the monstrousness as well as the miseries of persons so unhappily born, tend to recommend more effectually the perfection of human nature. So if these nations, which are supposed to be without the belief of a God, are such a low and degenerated piece of human nature, that some have doubted whether they are a perfect race of men or not, this does not derogate from, but rather confirms the force of this argument, from the general consent of all nations.

ART.

I.

A second exception to this argument is, That men have not agreed in the same notions concerning the Deity: some believing two Gods, a good and a bad; that are in a perpetual contest together: others holding a vast number of Gods, either all equal or subaltern to one another: and some believing God to be a corporeal being, and that the sun, moon, and stars, and a great many other beings, are Gods: since then, though all may acknowledge a Deity in general, they are yet subdivided into so many different conceits about it, no argument can be drawn from this supposed consent; which is not so great in reality, as it seems to be. But, in answer to this, we must observe, that the constant sense of mankind agreeing in this, that there is a superior Being that governs the world, shews, that this fixed persuasion has a deep root: though the weakness of several nations being practised upon by designing men, they have in many things corrupted this notion of God. That might have arisen from the tradition of some true doctrines vitiated in the conveyance. Spirits made by God to govern the world by the order and under the direction of the Supreme Mind, might easily come to be looked on as subordinate Deities: some evil and lapsed spirits might in a course of some ages pass for evil Gods. The apparitions of the Deity under some figures might make these figures to be adored: and God being considered as the supreme Light, this might lead men to worship the sun as his chief vehicle: and so by degrees he might pass for the supreme God. Thus it is easy to trace up these mistakes to what may justly be supposed to be their first source and rise. But still the foundation of them all was a firm belief of a superior nature, that governed the world. Mankind agreeing in that, an occasion was thereby given to bad and designing men to graft upon it such other tenets as might feed superstition and idolatry, and furnish the managers of those impostures with advantages to raise their own authority. But how various soever the several ages and nations of the world may have been as to their more special opinions and rites; yet the general idea of a God remained still unaltered, even amidst all the changes that have happened in the particular forms and doctrines of religion.

Another argument for the being of God is taken from the visible world, in which there is a vast variety of beings curiously framed, and that seem designed for great and noble ends. In these we see clear characters of God's eternal power and wisdom. And that is thus to be made

out.

It is certain, that nothing could give being to itself;

L.

so the things which we see, either had their being from ART. all eternity, or were made in time: and either they were from all eternity in the same state, and under the same revolutions of the heavens, as they are at present, or they fell into the order and method, in which they do now roll, by some happy chance; out of which all the beauty and usefulness of the creation did arise. But if all these suppositions are manifestly false, then it will remain, that if things neither were from all eternity as they now are, nor fell into their present state by chance, then there is a superior Essence, that gave them being, and that moulded them as we see they now are. The first branch of this, that they were not as now they are from all eternity, is to be proved by two sorts of arguments; the one intrinsecal, by demonstrating this to be impossible; the other moral, by shewing that it is not at all credible. As to the first, it is to be considered, that a successive duration made up of parts, which is called Time, and is measured by a successive rotation of the heavens, cannot possibly be eternal, For if there were eternal revolutions of Saturn in his course of thirty years, and eternal revolutions of days as well as years, of minutes as well as hours, then the one must be as infinite as the other; so that the one must be equal to the other, both being infinite; and yet the latter are some millions of times more than the other; which is impossible. Further; of every past duration, as this is true, that once it was present; so this is true, that once it was to come; this being a necessary affection of every thing that exists in time: if then all past durations were all once future, or to be, then we cannot conceive such a succession of durations eternal, since once every one of them was to come. Nor can all this, or any part of it, be turned against us, who believe that some beings are immortal, and shall never cease to be; for all those future durations have never actually been, but are still produced of new, and so continued in being. This argument may seem to be too subtile, and it will require some attention of mind to observe and discover the force of it; but after we have turned it over and over again, it will be found to be a true demonstration. The chief objection that lies against it is, that in the opinion of those who deny that there are any indivisible points of matter, and that believe that matter is infinitely divisible, it is not absurd to say, that one infinite is more than another: for the smallest crum of matter is infinite, as well as the whole globe of the earth and therefore the revolutions of Saturn may be infinite, as well as the revolutions of days, though the