motions which they found working in their own souls; and partly by some relics of Mosaical history that were | scattered amongst them.

Thus, then, I have represented unto you, as indifferently1 as I can, the state of this great controversy; and though I could easily tell you which part I do most easily incline to, yet I shall rather refer it to your own thoughts, with this intimation, that a modest hesitancy may be very lawful here; for if you will believe Gregory the Great, he tells you it is a question which cannot be determined in this life. However, it is enough for us that the spirit of a man, either by virtue of its constant creation, or by virtue of its first creation, is 'the candle of the Lord.'

2

24

As the soul is the shadow of a deity, so reason also is a weak and faint resemblance of God himself, whom therefore that learned emperor, M. Antoninus, calls the generative intelligence.' It is God that plants reason; it is He that gives it an increase, 'The reason of men has sprung from the reason of God.'3 The title of 'The Logos (word, intelligence) belongs to Christ himself, in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.' Reason first danced and triumphed in those eternal sunbeams, in the thoughts of God himself, who is the fountain and original of reason. And as His will is the rule of goodness, so His understanding is the rule of reason. For God himself is a most knowing and intellectual being; He is the first mover of entity, and does move determinately to a certain end, which speaks an intelligent agent; He does 'propound most choice designs, and blessed ends to Himself,' and is not that a work of reason? He does contrive,

1 Impartially.

* Λόγος σπερματικός.-Antonin. τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, p. 28. Glas. 1744.

* Ο λόγος ἀνθρώπων πέφυκ ̓ ἀπὸ θείου λόγου.

4 Ο λόγος.

• Determinate tendere in aliquem finem.

Col. ii. 3.

and dispose, and order means for accomplishing of them; and doth not that require understanding? He makes all beings instrumental and subordinate to Him; He moves all inferior wheels in a regular manner; He moves all the spheres of second causes in a harmonical way. Such blind entities as want intellectual eyes, He himself doth lead them and conduct them; and to others He gives an eye for their guidance and direction.

Now, He that hath framed an intellectual eye, shall not Psal. xciv. 9. He see? He that hath clothed the soul with light as with a garment, shall not He much more be clothed Himself with a fuller and purer brightness? In that which we esteem reason amongst men, there are many clouds and blemishes, many dark spots and wrinkles, that are scattered and conquered by this more glorious light. The soul is fain to climb up and ascend to knowledge by several steps and gradations, but His understanding is all at the same height and eminency. Man's reason is fain to spend time in knitting a proposition, in spinning out a syllogism, in weaving a demonstration; but He is infinitely beyond and above these first draughts and rudiments of knowledge; 1 Cor. xv. 52. He sees all 'in the twinkling of an eye;"1 at the first opening of His eye from everlasting, with one intellectual glance, He pierceth into the whole depth of entity, into all the dimensions of being. Man's understanding is fain to borrow a 'resemblance" from the object which presents to the mind the picture and portraiture of itself, and strikes the intellectual eye with a colour suitable and proportionable to it. But the divine understanding never receives the least tincture from an object, no likeness from without,' but views all things in the pure crystal of His own essence. He does not at all see Himself in the glass of the creatures, as we see Him, but He sees creatures in the 3 Species ab extra.

1 Ἐν ῥιπῇ ὀφθαλμοῦ.

• Species.

glass of His own being. How else should He see them from everlasting, before they were extant, before they were visible by any species of their own? God therefore doth primarily and principally look upon Himself, for He is 'the most illustrious of things conceivable;"1 He cannot have a more beautiful and satisfying object to look upon than His own face. The knowledge of God" is an object fit to enamour all understanding; for the more any being is abstracted from materiality, the more it is refined from material conditions, the more graceful and welcome it is to the understanding;-for matter does cloud and darken the gloss of being; it doth eclipse an object, and is no friend to intelligibility. So that God being a pure and immaterial spirit, must needs be the most excellent of conceivables," and a most adequate object for His own eye to look upon. And this understanding is Himself, it being 'immanent action,'* always dwelling with Him. 'The knowledge of God is the being of God," as the schoolmen speak. God is both all eye and all light;'" as suppose the bright body of the sun had a visive faculty, so as it could view and survey its own light and beams, and could by virtue of them look upon all other things, which its own light does unveil and discover, it would then give some languishing adumbration of a Deity, who is always looking upon His own perfections, and seeing creatures by His own light, by His own uncreated beams. For the idea and likeness of all things is in the being of God." Thus God, looking upon His own omnipotency, knows all possibilities; viewing His own determinations, He sees all futurities; looking upon His own wisdom, He beholds all

1 Nobilissimum intelligibile.

* Præstantissimum intelligibile.

Dei scientia est Dei essentia.

4 Τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ.

Actio immanens.

• Ὅλος ὀφθαλμός, ὅλον φῶς.

7 Species et similitudo omnium est in Dei essentia.

varieties, all degrees and differences of being, which yet put not the least shadow of difference in Him; because the excellencies of all beings are treasured up in Him only by way of transcendency, not by collection, but by perfection," as the schools have it.

So that when God beholds all created beings by virtue of His own essence, yet you must not imagine that the formality of a creature is contained in an uncreated being, but only that there is enough of being there to give a representation of all being whatsoever. As when a glass reflects a face, there is not the least mutation in the glass, much less is the face any part of the glass's essence, though the glass give a sufficient resemblance of it; yet herein there is this disparity, that the glass of God's essence did represent a creature, before any created face could look into it; for God, looking upon Himself from eternity, did then know in what and how many ways anything could be made like to His own being;'2 and did know how far such a being would imitate His essence, and how far it would fall short of it. He saw that this being would come nearer, that that being would be more distant and remote from Him; this picture would be liker Him, that would show very little of Him. Now the actuality and existence of such an object is not requisite to the understanding of it, for how then could we conceive of a privation or of nonentity? How can we otherwise apprehend this, than by framing the notion of something positive in our minds, and supposing a total deficiency from it?

Thus, as they used to speak, 'Right is the index of itself and of wrong, and in every kind of thing the most illustrious is the measure and pattern of the rest ;' that

1 Per modum compositionis, sed per modum perfectionis.

2 Quot modis aliquid assimilari posset Ipsius essentiæ.

3 Rectum est index sui et obliqui, et nobilissimum in unoquoque genere est mensura et exemplar reliquorum.

First and Supreme Being, by the great example and pattern of Himself, can judge of all inferior and imperfect beings. Nor could He see them from eternity" any otherwise than in Himself, there being nothing else eternal but Himself; and in Himself He could clearly see them as we see effects in their cause. All created beings were eminently contained in the centre of one indivisible essence, who by His infinite virtue was to produce them all; who being an intelligent centre, did see those several lines that might be drawn from Him; and withal, being a free and a voluntary centre, did know how many lines He meant to draw from Himself.

Now you know, amongst men, a demonstration à priori is esteemed most certain and scientifical: 'Science is knowledge of things in their causes.' 2 God thus knew creatures, perfectly knowing Himself, who was the first cause of them all. This doth much speak the immutability of the eternal reason and wisdom in the mind of God, and doth remove all imperfections from it. For you see He did not move in an axiomatical way, 'by composition and division,' or 'by synthesis and analysis;'3 for He saw things by His own uncompounded and indivisible essence; much less did His knowledge improve itself in a syllogistical way, deducing and collecting one thing out of another. This is the schoolmen's meaning, when they tell us, 'God's knowledge is not ratiocinative,' that is, is not discursive." They that will light a candle may strike such sparks, but the sun and stars want no such light. Angels are above syllogisms, how much more is God himself? Nay, even amongst men, first principles are above disputings, above demonstrations. Now all things are more naked in respect of

1 Ab æterno.

3 Per compositionem et divisionem. Cognitio Dei non est ratiocinativa.

2 Scire est per causas cognoscere.

5 Non est discursiva.