who lived before His coming, who upon obscure prophesies and mystical Types could raise a belief, and expect apparent impossibilities.
X. 'Tis true, there is an edge in all firm belief, and with an easie Metaphor we may say, the Sword of Faith; but in these obscurities I rather use it in the adjunct the Apostle gives it, a Buckler; under which I conceive a wary combatant may lye invulnerable. Since I was of understanding to know we knew nothing, my reason hath been more pliable to the will of Faith; I am now content to understand a mystery without a rigid definition, in an easier and Platonick description. That allegorical description of Hermes[1] pleaseth me beyond all the Metaphysical definitions of Divines. Where I cannot satisfy my reason, I love to humour my fancy: I had as live you tell me that anima est angelus hominis, est Corpus Dei, [the soul is man's angel, God's body] as Entelechia;[2]— Lux est umbra Dei, [Light is God's shadow] as actus perspicui.[3] Where there is an obscurity too deep for our Reason, 'tis good to sit down with a description, periphrasis, or adumbration; for by acquainting our Reason how unable it is to display the visible and obvious effects of Nature, it becomes more humble and submissive unto the subtleties of Faith ; and thus I teach my haggard[4] and unreclaimed Reason to stoop unto the lure of Faith. I believe there was already a tree whose fruit our unhappy Parents tasted, though, in the same Chapter when God forbids it, 'tis positively said, the plants of the field were not yet grown, for God had not caus'd it to rain upon the earth. I believe that the Serpent, (if we shall literally understand it,) from his proper form and figure, made his motion on his belly before the curse. I find the tryal of the Pucellage and virginity of Women, which God ordained the Jews, is very fallible. Experience and History informs me, that not onely many particular Women, but likewise whole Nations, have escaped the curse of Childbirth, which God seems to pronounce upon the whole Sex. Yet do I believe that all this
- ↑ <The description alluded to, "God is a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere," is said not to be found in the books which pass under the name of the fabulous Hermes Trismegistus.
- ↑ Aristotle's word for "actual being."
- ↑ The active force of the clear.
- ↑ Intractable: used of a hawk.
