)

image, by an orderly and deep impreffion; yea, till the Goodness of the matter become as nutriment, bloud and fpirits to the Will, before it is truly made our own. It expecteth (I fay not greater courtship, but more cordial friendship, than a tranfient falute, before it will unveil its glory, and illuftrate; beautifie and blefs the foul. It is food and Phyfick it will nourish and heal: but not by a bare look or hear-fay, nor by the reading of the prefcript. Could I procure the Reader to do his part, I doubt not but this Treatife will fuffice on its part, to bring in that light, which the Sage, the Lemures and Damones of Atheism, Infidelity and Ungodliness will not be able to endure.

But I am far from expecting univerfal fuccefs no not if I brought a Book from Heaven. The far greateft part have unprepared minds, and will not come up to the price of truth. And nothing is more fure than that recipitur ad modum recipientis, & Pro captu lectoris habent fua fata libellt. Thefe drones imagine, that they are fit to judge of a Scripture-difficulty, or of an argument concerning the myfteries of Religion, before they know what it is to be a Man, or understand the Alphabet of Nature, even thofe points which fupernatural Revelations prefuppofe: fuch uncapableness in the Reader is as a great hinderance, as the want of folid proof and evidence in the Writer. Moft men are drowned in filthy fenfuality, or worldly cares; and their relish is vitiated by lufcious vanities, their reafon is debafed by fubje&tion to the flesh, and darkned and debilitated by long alienation from its proper work and yet they are so constituted of ignorance and pride, that they can neither un

derstand

derstand plain truth, nor perceive that it is long And of themselves that they understand it not. flothfulness and fenfuality have fo far conquered humanity it felf, even the natural love of truth and of themselves, that they will take up with what their play-fellows have taught them, and venture their fouls and their everlasting concernments, unless they can fecure them by an idle, gamefome, fleshly life, or grow wife by the fhort fuperficial ftudies of an alienated, unwilling, tired mind. Unlefs the great things of God and Immortality, will be favingly known by a few distracted thoughts of a difcompofed mind, or the rambling talk of their companions, whofe heads are as unfurnished and giddy as their own; or by the curfory perufal of a few Books, which cross not their carnal interest and humour in the midst of their more beloved employments and delights, they will neither be folid Chriftians, nor wife and honeft men. If God will be converfed with in the midst of their feafting, cups and oaths,in their pride,and revelling, and with their whores; if he will be found of them that hate his holiness, and all that love it, and seriously obey him, then God fhall be their God, and Chrift fhill be their Saviour, and if this be the way, they may become good Chriftians: But if retired ferious thoughts be neceffary, and an honeft faithfulness to what they know, they must be excufed: They that know that it is not an hours perufal of a book of Aftronomy, Geometry, Mufick, Phyfick, &c. which will ferve to make them skilful in these Arts, do expect to attain far higher wisdom, by inconfi derable industry and fearch; and will not be wife unless they can be taught by vifion in their dreams,

or

or in the crowd and noise of worldly business, and of fleshly lufts.

I find that it is a difficult task which I have undertaken, to be the inftructer of fuch men: if I be large and copious, their laziness will not fuffer them to read it: if I be concife, I cannot fatis fie their expectations; for they think nothing well proved, if every objection be not answered, which idle cavilling brains can bring: Neither have they fufficient attentiveness for brevity, nor will their ignorance allow them to understand it. The contradicting vices of their minds, do call for impoffibilities for the cure. Their Incapacity faith, Ic must be a full explication, or I cannot apprehend the fenfe or truth. Their averfeness and flothfulness faith, It must be fhort, or I thall be tired with it, or cannot have while to read it. I cannot answer both thefe expectations to the full: but though the greatness of the matter have made the Book bigger than I intended, the naufeating ftomack of most Readers hath perfwaded me to avoid unneceflary words: and as big as the Book is, I muft tell the Reader, that the ftyle is fo far from redundancies (though fome things be oft repeated) that if be will not chew the particular words, but swallow them whole, and beftow his labour only on the Sentences, I shall suppose that he hath not read the Book.

Ficinus very truly noteth, that while children and youth are fufficiently confcious of their ignorance, to keep in a learning courfe, they may do well; but when they first grow to a confidence of their own understandings, and at ripeness of age imagine, that their wits are ripe, and think that their unfurnished

minds (because they have a natural quickness ) are competent judges of all that they read, then they are most in danger of infidelity, and of being undone forever; (from 18 to 28 being the most perilous age.) But if God keep them as bumble diligent learners, till they have orderly gone through their course of studies, and fanctifie their greener youthful knowledge; they then grow up to be confirmed Chriftians. Ficin,de Verit. Rel.cap. 3. It is therefore the diligence and patience of the Reader which I ftill intreat, and not his belief: for I will beg nothing of his understanding, but justice to the truth, but (fuppofing God's help) do trust to the cogencie of evidence.

Yet I must tell you, that I expect the Reader, by the truths which he learneth, should be able himself to answer an hundred trivial objections, which are here paffed by: and that in particular textual difficulties, he have recourfe to Commencaries and Tractates on those subjects: for this Book is long enough already. He that will diligently confider the connection of the confequent Propofitions to the Antecedent, and will understand what he readeth as he goeth along, will fee that I give him fufficient proof of all which I defire him to affent to. But I make no doubt but a hafty and halfwitted Reader can find objections and words enough against the plainest truth here written; and fuch as he thinks do need a particular answer. When an understanding Reader would be offended with me, if I fhould recite them. I had more compaflion on the fober Reader, than for the humouring of every brainfick Sceptick, to ftand proving that two and two are four. I write for fuch as are willing to

(b)

be

be wife and happy, and that at dearer rates than jefting: For others, I must leave them, whether I will or no, to be wife too late.

And for thofe capricious brains who deride our ordinary preaching, as begging and fuppofing that which we do not prove, when they have bere, and in other fuch writings, found our fundamentals proved, let them hereafter excufe our fuperftructure, and not think that every Sermon must be spent in proving our Christianity and Creed.

In the first part of this Book, I give you noteftimonies from the Chriftian writings or authorities, because I suppose the Reader to be one that doth not believe them; and my business is only to prove Natural Verities by their proper evidence: But left any should think that there is not fo much legible in Nature, because the wifest Heathens faw it not, I have cited in the margin their atteftations to most particulars, to fhew that indeed they did confefs the fame, though lefs diftinctly and clearly than they might have done, (as I have plainly proved.) But, being many years feparated from my Books, I was forced to do this part less exactly than I would have done, had I been near my own or any other Library. Again, I feriously profess, that I am so confident of the juft proofs and evidences of truth here given, that I fear nothing as to fruftrate the fuccefs, but the Reader's Incapacity, (through balfwittedness or wickedness) or his Laziness in a curfory and negligent perufal of what is concifely but evidently propofed. It's true that Seneca faith, [Magna debet effe eloquentia, que invitis placet. Í I may adde, Et Veritatis evidentia quæ cæcis, malignis vel ignavis prodeft. And who feeleth not the

truth