hate, &c., we know that we have a power of soul to do all this, for no one doth that which he is not made able to do.

Q. 6. And what do you next know of yourself?

A. When I know what I do, and that I can do it, I know next that I am a substance, endued with this power; for nothing hath no power, nor act, it can do nothing.

Q.7. What know you next of yourself?

A. I know that this substance, which thinketh, understandeth, and willeth, is an unseen substance; for neither I, nor any mortal man, seeth it; and that is it which is called a spirit.

Q. 8. What next perceive you of yourself?

A. I perceive that in this one substance there is a threefold power, marvellously but one, and yet three, as named from the objects and effects; that is, 1. A power of mere growing motion, common to plants. 2. A power of sense common to beasts. 3. And a power of understanding and reason, about things above sense, proper to a man; three powers in one spiritual substance.

Q. 9. What else do you find in yourself?

A. I find that my spiritual substance, as intellectual, hath also a threefold power in one; that is, 1. Intellectual life, by which I move and act my faculties, and execute my purposes. 2. Understanding. 3. And will, and that these are marvellously diverse, and yet one.

Q. 10. What else find you by yourself?

A. I find that this unseen spirit is here united to a human body, and is in love with it, and careth for it, and is much limited by it, in its perceivings, willings, and workings; and so that a man is an incorporate, understanding spirit, or a human soul and body.

Q. 11. What else perceive you by yourself?

A. I perceive that my higher powers are given me to rule the lower, my reason to rule my senses and appetite, my soul to rule and use my body, as man is made to rule the beasts.

Q. 12. What know you of yourself, as related to others? A. I see that I am a member of the world of mankind, and that others are better than I, and multitudes better than one; and that the welfare of mankind depends much on their duty to one another; and therefore that I should love all according to their worth, and faithfully endeavour the good of all.

Q. 13. What else know you of yourself?

A. I know that I made not myself, and maintain not myself in life and safety, and therefore that another made me and maintaineth me; and I know that I must die by the separation of my soul and body.

Q. 14. And can we tell what then becomes of the soul?

A. I am now to tell you but how much of it our nature tells us, the rest I shall tell you afterward; we may know, 1. That the soul, being a substance in the body, will be a substance out of it, unless God should destroy it, which we have no cause to think he will. 2. That life, understanding, and will, being its very nature, it will be the same after death, and not a thing of some other kind. 3. That the soul, being naturally active, and the world full of objects, it will not be a sleepy or inactive thing. 4. That its nature here being to mind its interest in another life, by hopes or fears of what will follow, God made not its nature such in vain, and therefore that good or evil in the life that is next will be the lot of all.

CHAP. III.

Of the Natural Knowledge of God and Heaven.

Q. I. You have told me how we know the things which we see and feel, without us and within us; but how can we know any things which we neither see nor feel, but are quite above us?

A. By certain effects and signs which notify them how little else did man differ from a beast, if he knew no more than he seeth and feeleth? Besides what we know from others that have seen; you see not now that the sun will rise to-morrow, or that man must die; you see not Italy, Spain, France; you see no man's soul: and yet we certainly know that such things are and will be.

Q. 2. How know you that there is any thing above us, but what we see?

A. 1. We see such things done here on earth, which nothing doth, or can do, which is seen. What thing, that is seen, can give all men and beasts their life, and sense, and safety? And so marvellously form the bodies of all, and govern all the matters of the world? 2. We see that the spaces above us,

where sun, moon, and stars are, are so vast, that all this earth is not so much to them, as one inch is to all this land. And we see that the regions above us excel in the glory of purity and splendour: and when this dark spot of earth hath so many millions of men, can we doubt whether those vast and glorious parts are better inhabited? 3. And we find that the grossest things are the basest, and the most invisible the most powerful and noble; as our souls are above our bodies: and therefore the most vast and glorious worlds above us must have the most invisible, powerful, noble inhabitants."

Q. 3. But how know you what those spirits above us are? A. 1. We partly know what they are, by what they do with us on earth. 2. We know much what they are, by the knowledge of ourselves. If our souls are invisible spirits, essentiated by the power of life, understanding, and will, the spirits above us can be no less, but either such or more excellent. And he that made us must needs be more excellent than his work. Q. 4. How know you who made us?

A. He that made all things must needs be our Maker, that is God.

Q. 5. What mean you by God? and what is he?

A. I mean the eternal, infinite, glorious Spirit, and Life, most perfect in active power, understanding and will, of whom, and by whom, and to whom, are all things; being the Creator, Governor, and End of all. This is that God whom all things do declare.

Q. 6. How know you that there is such a God?

A. By his works (and I shall afterwards tell you more fully by his word). Man did not make himself; beasts, birds, fishes, trees, and plants, make not themselves: the earth, and water, and air, made not themselves: and if the souls of men have a maker, the spirits next above them must have a maker and so on, till you come to a first cause, that was made by none. There must be a first cause, and there can be but one.

Q. 7. Why may not there be many gods, or spirits, that were made by none, but are eternally of themselves?

A. Because it is a contradiction; the same would be both perfect and imperfect perfect, because he is of himself eternally, without a cause, and so dependent upon none and yet imperfect, because he hath but a part of that being that is said to be perfect: for many are more than one, and all make Rom. i. 19, 20, 21.

up the absolute, perfect Being, and one of them is but a part of all and to be a part, is to be imperfect. However many subordinate created spirits may unfitly be called gods, there can be but one uncreated God, in the first and proper sense.

Q. 8. How know you that God is eternal, without beginning? A. Because else there was a time when there was nothing, if there were a time when there was no God. And then there never would have been any thing: for nothing can make nothing. Q. 9. But how can man conceive of an eternal, uncaused Being?

A. That such a God there is, is the most certain, easy truth, and that he hath all the perfection before described: but neither man nor angel can know him comprehensively.

Q. 10. What mean you by his infiniteness?

A. That his being and perfection have no limits or measure, but incomprehensibly comprehend all places and beings.

Q. 11. What is this God to us?

A. He is our Maker, and therefore our absolute Owner, our Supreme Ruler, and our chief Benefactor, and ultimate End. Q. 12. And how stand we related to him? What duty do we owe him? And what may we expect from him?

A. We are his creatures, and all that we are, and have, is of him; we are his subjects, made with life, reason, and free-will to be ruled by him: he is the infinite good, and love itself. Therefore we owe him perfect resignation, perfect obedience, and perfect complacency and love all that we are, and all that we have, and all that we can do, is due to him in the way of our obedience; to pay which, is our own rectitude and felicity, as it is our duty but all this you may much better learn from his word, than nature alone can teach it you. Though man's nature, and the frame of nature about us, so fully proveth what I have said, as leaveth all the ungodly without excuse.

CHAP. IV.

Of God's Kingdom, and the Government of Man, and Pro

vidence.

Q. 1. I PERCEIVE that nothing more concerneth us, than to know God, and our relation and duty to him, and what hope

1

we have from him: therefore, I pray you, open it to me more fully, and first tell me where God is?

A. God being infinite, is not confined in any place, but all place and things are in God; and he is absent from none, but as near to every thing as it is to itself.

Q. 2. Why then do you say that he is in heaven, if he be as much on earth, and every where?

A. God is not more or less in one place, than another, in his being, but he is apparent, and known to us by his working, and so we say, he is in heaven, as he there worketh and shineth forth to the most blessed creatures in heavenly glory. As we say the sun is where it shineth: or, to use a more apt comparison, the soul of man is indivisibly in the whole body, but it doth not work in all parts alike; it understandeth not in the foot, but in the head; it seeth not, heareth not, tasteth not, and smelleth not, in the fingers or lower parts, but in the eye, the ear, and other senses in the head; and therefore when we talk to a man, it is his soul that we talk to, and not his flesh, and yet we look him in the face; not as if the soul were no where but in the face or head, but because it only worketh and appeareth there by those senses, and that understanding which we converse with: even so, we look up to heaven, when we speak to God; not as if he were no where else, but because heaven is the place of his glorious appearing and operation, and as the head and face of the world, where all true glory and felicity is, and from whence it descendeth to this earth, as the beams of the sun do from his glorious centre.

Q. 3. You begin to make me think that God is the soul of the world, and that we must conceive of him in the world, as we do of the soul of man in his body.

A. You cannot better conceive of God, so you will but take in the points of difference, which are very great; for no creature known to us doth resemble God without vast difference.

The differences are such as these. First, the soul is part of the man, but God is not a part of the world, or of being: for to be a part is to be less than the whole, and so to be imperfect. Secondly, we cannot say that the soul is any where out of the body, but the world is finite, and God is infinite, and therefore God is not confined to the world. 3. The soul ruleth not a body, that hath a distinct understanding and free-will of its own to receive its laws, and therefore ruleth it not by proper law, but by despotical motion: but God ruleth men that have