works yet, where it once gets footing, more powerfully on, the perfuafions and actions of men, than either of thofe two, or both together; men being most forwardly obedient to the impulfes they receive from themselves, and the whole man is fure to act more vigorously, where the whole man is carried by a natural motion; for ftrong conceit, like a new principle, carries all easily with it, when got above common sense; and freed from all restraint of reafon, and check of reflection, it is heightened into a divine authority, in concurrence with our own temper and inclination.

§ 8. Enthusiasm mistaken for feeing and feeling. THOUGH the odd opinions and extravagant actions enthufiafm has run men into, were enough to warn them againit this wrong principle, fo apt to mifguide them both in their belief and conduct; yet the love of fomething extraordinary, the cafe and glory it is to be inspir ed, and be above the common and natural ways of knowledge, fo flatters many mens lazinefs, ignorance and va nity, that when once they are got into this way of immediate revelation, of illumination without fearch, and of certainty without proof and without examination, it is a hard matter to get them out of it. Reason is loft upon them, they are above it; they fee the light infufed into their understandings, and cannot be mistaken; it is clear and visible there, like the light of bright funshine, fhows itself, and needs no other proof but its own evidence; they feel the hand of GCD moving them within, and the impulfes of the Spirit, and cannot be miftaken in what they feel: Thus they fupport themselves, and are fure reafon hath nothing to do with what they fee and feel in themfelves; what they have a fenfible experience of, admits no doubt, needs no probation. Would he not be ridiculous, who fhould require to have it proved to him, that the light fhines, and that he fees it? It is its own proof, and can have no other. When the Spirit brings light into our minds, it difpels darkness; we fee it, as we do that of the fun at noon, and need not the twilight of reason to show it us. This light from Heaven is ftrong, clear, and pure, carries its own

demonftration with it, and we may as rationally take a glow-worm to aflift us to discover the fun, as to exmine the celestial ray by our dim candle, reafon.

THIS is the way of talking of thefe men; they are fure becaufe they are fure, and their perfuations are right only becaule they are ftrong in them; for when what they fay is ftripped of the metaphor of feeing and feeling, this is all it amounts to, and yet thefe fimiles to impofe on them, that they ferve them for certainty in themfelves, and demonftration to others.

$10. Enthafafm, how to be difcovered. BUT to examine a little foberly this internal light, and this feeling on which they build fo much; thefe men have, they fay, clear light, and they fee; they have an awakened fenfe, and they feel; this cannot, they are fure, be difputed them; for when a man fays he fees or he feels, nobody can deny it him that he does fo. But here let me afk, This feeing, is it the perception of the truth of the proposition, or of this, that it is a revelation from GOD? This feeling, is it a perception of an inclination or fancy to do fomething, or of the ipit of GOD moving that inclination? These are two very different perceptions, and muft be carefully diftinguithed, if we would not impofe upon ourselves. I may perceive the truth of a propofition, and yet not perceive that it is an immediate revelation from GOD; 1 may perceive the truth of a propofition in Euclid, without its being, or my perceiving it to be a revelation; nay, I may perceive I came not by this knowledge in a natural way, and fo may conclude it revealed, without perceiving that it is a revelation from GOD; becaufe there be fpirits, which, without being divinely commiffioned, may excite thofe ideas in me, and lay them in fuch order before my mind, that I may perceive their connection; fo that the knowledge of any propofition coming into my mind I know not how, is not a perception that it is from GOD, much lefs is a ftrong perfuafion that it is true, a perception that it is from GOD, or so mach as true; but however it be called light and teeing, I

fuppofe it is at most but bel ef and affurance; and the propofition taken for a revelation, is not fach as they know to be true, but take to be true; for where a propofition is known to be true, revelation is needlefs; and it is hard to conceive how there can be a revelation to any one of what he knows alreally. If, therefore, it be a propofition which they are perfuaded, but do not know to be true, whatever they may call it, it is not feeing, but believing for thefe are two ways, whereby truth comes into the mind wholly diftinct, fo that one is not the other. What I fee, I know to be fo by the evidence of the thing itfelf, what I believe, I take to be fo upon the teftimony of another: But this teftimony I must know to be given, or clfe what ground have I of believing? I muft fee that it is GOD that reveals this to me, or elfe I fee nothing. The question then here is, how dɔ I know that GOD is the revealer of this to me; that this impreflion is made upon my mind by his holy Spirit, and that therefore I ought to obey it? If I know not this, how great foever the affurance is that I am poffeffed with, it is groundiefs; whatever light I pretend to, it is but enthusiasm for whether the propofition fuppofed to he revealed, be in itfelf evidently true or vilibly probable, or by the natural ways of knowledge uncertain, the propofition that must be well grounded, and manifefled to be true, is this, that GOD is the revealer of it, and that what I take to be a revelation is certainly put into my mind by him, and is not an illufion dropped in by fome other fpirit, or raifed by my own fancy; for if I miftake not, thefe men receive it for true, becaufe they prefume GOD revealed it. Does it not then ftand them upon, to examine on what grounds they prefume it to be a revelation from GOD? or elfe all their confidence is mere prefumption, and this light they are fo dazzled with is nothing but an ignis fatuus that leads them continually round in this circle; it is a revelation, because they firmly believe it; and they believe it, because it is a revelation.

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§ 11. Enthusiasm fails of Evidence, that the Propofition is from GOD.

In all that is of divine revelation, there is need of no other proof but that it is an infpiration from GOD; for he can neither deceive, nor be deceived. But how fhall it be known that any propofition in our minds is a truth infufed by GOD på truth that is revealed to us by him, which he declares to us, and therefore we ought to be lieve? Here it is that enthusiasm fails of the evidence it pretends to for men thus poffeffed boast of a light, whereby they fay they are enlightened, and brought into the knowledge of this or that truth. But if they know it to be a truth, they must know it to be fo, either by its own felf-evidence to natural reason, or by the ra tional proofs that make it out to be fo. If they fee and know it to be a truth, either of thefe two ways, they in vain fuppofe it to be a revelation; for they know it to be true by the fame way that any other man naturally may know that it is fo without the help of revelation; for thus all the truths, of what kind foever, that men uninfpired are enlightened with, came into their minds, and are established there. If they fay they know it to be true, becaufe it is a revelation from GOD, the reafon is good; but then it will be demanded how they know it to be a revelation from GOD? If they fay, by the light it brings with it, which fhines bright in their minds, and they cannot refift; I beseech them to confider, whether this be any more than what we have taken notice of already, viz. that it is a revelation, because they strongly believe it to be true; for all the light they fpeak of is but a ftrong, though ungrounded, perfuafion of their own minds, that it is a truth; for rational grounds from proofs that it is a truth, they muft acknowledge to have none; for then it is not received as a revelation, but upon the ordinary grounds that other truths are received; and if they believe it to be true because it is a revelation, and have no other reason for its being a revelation but because they are fully perfuaded without any other reafon that it is true, they believe it to be a revelation only because they ftrongly believe it to be a revelation;

which is a very unfafe ground to proceed on, either in our tenets or actions. And what readier way can there be to run ourselves into the most extravagant errors and mifcarriages, than thus to fet up fancy for our fupreme and fole guide, and to believe any propofition to be true, any action to be right, only becaufe we believe it to be fo? The ftrength of our perfuafions are no evidence at all of their own rectitude: crooked things may be as ftiff and unflexible as straight; and men may be as pofitive and peremptory in error as in truth. How come elfe the untractable zealots in different and oppofite parties? For if the light, which every one thinks he has in his mind, which in this cafe is nothing but the ftrength of his own perfuafion, be an evidence that it is from GOD, contrary opinions may have the fame title to be infpirations; and GOD will be not only the father of lights, but of oppofite and contradictory lights, leading men contrary ways; and contradictory propofitions will be divine truths, if an ungrounded strength of affurance be an evidence that any propofition is a divine revelation.

12. Firmness of Perfuafion no Proof that any Propofition is from GOD.

THIS cannot be otherwife, whilft firmness of perfuafion isade the cause of believing, and confidence of being in the right is made an argument of truth. St. Paul himself believed he did well, and that he had a call to it, when he perfecuted the Chriftians, whom he confidently thought in the wrong: but yet, it was he, and not they, who were mistaken. Good men are men still, liable to miftakes, and are fometimes warmly engaged in errors, which they take for divine truths, fhining in their minds with the clearest light.

13. Light in the Mind, what.

LIGHT, true light in the mind is, or can be nothing elfe but the evidence of the truth of any propofition; and if it be not a felf-evident propofition, all, the light it has, or can have, is from the clearnefs and validity of thofe proofs, upon which it is received. To talk of any other light in the understanding, is to put ourfelves in the dark, or in the power of the Prince of Dark