Writings) they are, if puffible, more impudent than the Quakers, who blafphemoufly father all their Nonsense and Lyes upon the Holy Ghoft: This must be a Property of the Soul, which is impoffible, or infused by fome other Being, if it were true; if they cannot give the fame Evidence, as all Nations required in the fame Cafes; they should be treated, as all Nations treated fuch Impoftors.

Each, without any better Pretence to Evidence, gives Judgment, as he says, from his Soul; and forms it into a Maxim by his Mouth, which only proves it to be complicated Nonfenfe, or fublimated Madness. They talk of the eternal Reafon of God, to put their way of knowing, and his upon a Level; that he may have no other way to know, or judge, but as they please.

So of the eternal Law of Nature, which (if they allow a God) afferts, that it was not created and form'd, and that he cannot alter thofe Laws; fo can work no Miracles, to prove that Nature is fubje& to him; or if he thought fit, to give a Revelation to prove it.

So the eternal Relation of things, (if they allow a God) they affert the things are eternal; there could be no Relation

of

;

of things, before the things had being; that he cannot alter his Refolutions to his Subjects, if they renounce Subjection to him; However that he cannot punish a Man or Nation in this World he could not order one Nation to destroy another, or to take their Land, even one to take the Goods of another from him: If Man gets Poffeffion he holds by this Relation, and not at the Pleasure of God: fo it would be unjuft, contrary to eternal Right to take his Estate or Goods, from him, or him from them, by Death; it ought to hold throughout. But paffing over that; they affert, that he cannot in the next World punish Men eternally a parte poft, for temporal Crimes: I am afraid they will, to their eternal Shame, find some fort of eternal Laws, which will fuperfede all theirs. Who is fit to judge, of what is eternally fit to be done, they who are juft and eternal, or a Malefactor, a Mushroom?

Such Reasonings, as that nothing can produce nothing, and as Matter is, or was produced, there must be a firft Cause &c. I fear are set up for prefent Convenience, and may be taken down at pleasure: and if they once get us to depend upon fuch, for our only Evidence, they will fome

time make use of it for another purpose, to prove the reverse.

I hope the Writings of thefe Animals, will be an Evidence to Pofterity, to fhew how far illiterate ambitious Men can run themselves, and others; and be an Antidote against that Poifon, and a Warning to others, from giving a loofe to their Imaginations.

May nothing be remembered of our Pretenders to be Divines, but that they did not know the Difference between the Scriptures, and the Writings of the Heathens; did not know what the Heathens worshipped, nor what the Ifraelites worfhipped; but to this Hour, continually, even from the Pulpit, ftun us, with Citations out of the Heathens, and apply them to Jehovah: nor of the Intent, of the Services of the Chriftian Jews, which are Evidence for the Chriftian Syftem; but plague us with the Morality of the Heathens, who then had loft all Notions, even of their false Deity, of another State, fo of Rewards or Punishments.

Whatever Faculties God gave to the firft Man, if he could forfeit the State, or part of the Faculties, fo be fubject to new Terms; what remained of thofe Faculties, (which were fitted for, and of

ufe

1

use to, him in his first State) could not ferve him in his fecond, without a new Donation of Faculties, fitted for that State, or a Revelation.

Whatever they pretend may be deducible from Obfervations, upon the Powers and Actions of inanimate or animated Agents, by the Power given by God to the Body and Soul of Man; if they will allow it paffible for Man, who they allow to be a free Agent, to misuse that Power; and if Men have misused or misapplied that Power, that Power can never bar God, (if they will allow it poffible for him to give a Declaration of his Will,) from declaring what he has determined to do with Men, who have mifapplied that Power and upon what Terms he will be pleased to fet Men, in Statu quo; nor prescribe the manner in which he fhail publifh it, or do it; much lefs, prove they are at liberty to confider, or not confider, what he has declared to be his Will, in that Cafe; ftill much less, to enable them to find means to come into his Favour upon any other Terms, than thofe he has appointed. The Knowledge of Nature, from Senfe, if that were understood to Perfection, nay even the Deductions of the Soul from that Knowledge, in these

Cafes,

;

Cafes, can do nothing, without the Co-fcience of the Soul by Revelation.

Whatever any Man afferts, with any of the different Degrees of Affurance, as it may be, wife Men have faid fo, it is reasonable, I have it by or from Tradition, it must be fo, it is fo, I can or have, or another hath, demonstrated it to be fo, I have the Spirit which tells me fo, (which laft, is Blafphemy and an impudent Lye) except he can fhew, that he can read and understand the original divine Revelation, and fhew 'tis faid fo there, and that no other Texts contradict that Conftruction; or that he can, without any Data, but fuch as the Scriptures, conftrued as aforefaid, allow; or demonftrate it to Senfe: It paffes for no Authority with me, and ought to pafs for none with any other. Human Rela tions of indifferent things at distance in time or place, may be likely, or unlikely, or impoffible to be true; and the two first depend upon many Circumstances, and may be admitted upon Probability, or rejected npon Improbability, or more particularly, as they agree or difagree with what is reveal'd; but nothing of Moment, except it agrees with Scripture, VOL. VIII, E

is