Plato, and some verses of Menander, besides many other testimonies, make it appear that the notion of these things was entertained by the wiser sort both of Philosophers and Poets,* and that which they held of a world to come is a topic sufficient to argue from, for the being of a God in the world that is.

III. If he do suspicere, look upwards to a rank of creatures above himself, I mean good and evil spirits, of which the heathens were not ignorant; witness their large discourses of dæmons, of intelligences, and of a bonus et malus genius. For if such creatures as angels be acknowledged, so good, holy, wise and powerful as they are said to be by all that take notice of them, they must havea maker, better, holier, wiser and more powerful than themselves; seeing the cause is always more noble than the effect, and hath that perfection which it communicates much more eminent in itself. If there be devils, whose mischief and might are both of them so confessedly great, there must needs be a God to restrain and countermand them; else the world would soon be turned into a mere hell, full of nothing but abominations and confusion.

§ 3. IV. If he do despicere, look downward to things below himself, whose nature is inferior to that of man; the contemplation of elements,

της.

* Μηδὲν πλανήθης, ἐς ν Αδείκρισις, ἥν περ ποιήσει Θεὸς ὁ πάντων δεσπο Menand.

plants and brute beasts, will extort the confession of a deity. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork."* Nor these alone, which have so much of magnificence in them: but the least fly, if it could be anatomized, would be found to have in it more miracles than parts; such proportion of members, distinction of offices, correspondence of instruments, as speaketh the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker. Well might Job say, as he did," Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee, and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.

Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?" +

V. If he do inspicere, look within himself, and that either to the composition of his body, or to the dictates of his conscience. We are so fearfully and wonderfully made, that the great physician Galen, though a heathen, being amazed at the wisdom which he discovered in the frame of every member in man's body, could no longer contain himself, but fell to praising the Creator in a hymn. As for conscience there is nothing more common than for wicked men after the commission of gross sins to be inwardly tor

Psal. xix. 1.

+ Job xii. 7, 8, 9.

‡ Psal. cxxxix. 14. § Galen, lib. 3. de usu partium, compono hic canticum in Creatoris nostri laudem, &c. Multa miser timeo, quia feci multa proterve, exemplique metu terreor ipse mei. Ovid, 1. Amor. Eleg. 1.

mented and affrighted by reason of somewhat it suggests, the substance whereof is, that there is a God, and that he will judge them for what they have done. Calvin telleth us of a certain profane fellow who was ranting at his inn, and blasphemously wresting that of the Psalmist, "the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, and the earth hath he given to the children of men;" as if God left us to do what we list upon earth, confining himself and his providence to the heavens ; thereby as far as he openly durst disavowing a deity. Whereupon he was struck suddenly with extreme torments in his body, and began to cry out, O God, O God. So natural it is even for the worst of mankind to acknowledge a God in their extremities; and for others more ingenuous, even among those that want Scripture-light (as Tertullian hath observed) to be frequently saying, "God seeth. I commend it to God; God will recompense :" which drew from him an exclamation that must be warily understood, "O the testimony of a soul naturally Christian!"*

$4. VI. If he do circumspicere, look round about him to the various occurrences in the world; the great deliverances vouchsafed to some, the great calamities brought upon others, both beyond all expectation, "The Lord is, and can not but be known by the judgments which he

O testimonium animæ naturaliter Christianæ! Tertull. Apolog.

pre

executeth so by the blessings which he bestoweth. Who can see a Daniel rescued from reasonable lions, unreasonable men, a Moses served in an ark of bulrushes, a Noah in a deluge of waters, others in a furnace of fire? Who can behold a Pharaoh plagued, a Herod eaten up with worms, an Achitophel making away with himself, a Judas bursting asunder in the midst, an Arius voiding of his bowels, and not cry out, as it is in the Psalm, "Verily there is a reward for the righteous; doubtless there is a God that judgeth in the earth ?"† We meet with a passage in Atheneus not unworthy, as I conceive, to be taken notice of, and recorded here. When at a public meeting in some place of receit, a beam of the house suddenly falling had dashed out the brains of a notoriously wicked man in the sight of many by-standers' to whom he was known; one Stratonicus brake out into a speech so emphatical in the Greek, that it can hardly be translated without much loss, yet take it thus: Sirs, said he, the beam of light which I have, convinceth me that there is a God; if any of you be otherwise minded, this beam of wood may suffice to beget in him the same persuasion.

§ 5. But notwithstanding all this, as it fared with the wise men from the east, who, although they were assured by the appearance of a star that

* Psal. ix. 16.

+ Psal. lviii. last. ‡*Andgis doxã ci'or Deoí, es' dè più ci'oi doxã ei'ri. Athen. Deipnoso phist. 1. 8.

a King of the Jews was born, yet needed the prophet's manuduction to give them notice who he was, and where they might find him: so though natural reason improved can make it appear that there is a God, yet there is a necessity of Scripture revelation to inform us who and what he is, in regard of his Essence, Subsistence, and Attributes; in all these the written word goes far beyond whatever was or could be discerned in Nature's school, and becomes the fountain of that literal knowledge of which we are now to treat,

EXERCITATION III.

Reason's three ways of discovering God, fall short of manifesting what he is. The expres sion in Exod. iii. 14, most comprehensive. A brief exposition thereof. Satan's impudence. Nature and Art both unable to discover the Trinity. What scripture revealeth about it. Basil's memento. Julian's impiety. Socinians branded. The three persons compared to those three wells in Genes. xxvi.

1. Divines tell us of three ways whereby reason goes to work in her enquiry after God ; but none of them all is able to make a full discovery of his essence. The first is via causalitatis, when from the creatures, whereof God is