ble for the soul to remain in so uncertain and unconfined an infinity, for she would be bewildered, and at a stand, like one, who confounded by the turning of his head, not any more knowing where he is, lets himself fall down and although she could, being stupified, incapable of moving, and seized with terror and admiration, she would not be able in any manner to have communion with God, to pray to him, call upon him, acknowledge him, honor him; which are the first and principal points of all religion: for in these performances, it is necessary, that he be conceived with some quality, good, powerful, wise, understanding, and accepting our good intentions. It is necessary, and cannot be otherwise in this present state of life, that every one frame and represent to himself an image of the Deity, which he may regard, address, adhere to, and which may be as his God. This the soul does, by raising her imagination above all things, and conceiving with all her might an infinite goodness, power, and perfection. For the utmost and highest degree, any one can rise to by the greatest stretch of apprehension, is his God, and serves him for an image of the Deity: an image nevertheless false, that is deficient and imperfect; for the Deity being, as hath been said, unimaginable and infinite, to which the soul cannot be said to approach by any conception, either near or far off, nor can form any true image, more than of a thing it knows not at all; it is sufficient she make it the least false, least imperfect, the most high, and the most pure she can."

It will possibly be said, that Charron is a divine too much suspected to deserve that his principles should be regarded. We will remove this objection, and say that Arnobius has expressed himself in such a manner, as will highly justify the answer of Simonides. Has he not said that our words can express nothing concerning the nature of God, and that we ought to be silent, if we would form an idea of him; and to the

end that our loose conjectures may make some search into this matter, as under a cloud, and in the dark, we ought to shut close our mouth? "O immense, O supreme Creator of things invisible! O thou unseen, and uncomprehended by any beings!-thou art the first cause, the place of beings, and the space, the foundation of all things that are, infinite, unbegotten, immortal, everlasting, alone, whom no corporeal form can represent, no limits can bound, without quality, quantity, without situation and motion, of whom nothing can be said or expressed in the language of mortal men of whom, that thou mayst be known, we must be silent; and that wandering suspicion may search thee out in the dark, nothing is even to be uttered."* It would be no small ignorance to tell me, that this passage ought to be reckoned amongst the errors of Arnobius; for all who have read his Commentators may have seen, that the most orthodox fathers of the church have agreed with him in his opinion. Be pleased to read the commentators on these words of Minutius Felix. "Nobis ad intellectum pectus angustum est: et ideo sic eum (Deum) digne æstimamus, dum inestimabilem dicimus. Eloquar quemadmodum sentio, magnitudinem Dei, qui se putat nosse, minuit; qui non vult minuere, non novit. Nec nomen Deo quæras.+-Our mind is too narrow to comprehend; and therefore we esteem God as we ought when we believe him inestimable: I will plainly declare what I think, whoever believes that he knows the immensity of God, diminishes it: he that will not lessen it, owns he knows it not. Neither do thou seek for the name of God." You will find that they refer you to innumerable passages, wherein the ancient fathers agree with Arnobius in this matter. And observe, that the Jesuit Lescaloperius alleges these very words of Minutius Felix, to confirm the remark he had made, that the wisest and most modest Arnob. lib. i, pag. m. 17. Minut. Felix, p. m. 143.

philosophers confess every where, that God is not only invisible and inexpressible, but also unintelligible. Art. SIMONIDes.

SOCINIANISM.

GIVE me leave to impart to my readers an observation that was made in my hearing against those who say that all the ingenious Italians who forsook Calvinism to set up a new Arianism, designed to form a greater party than that of the reformers of Germany and Geneva. It is supposed, that though they believed mysteries, they pretended to oppose them in order to have many followers. The captivating of the understanding to the belief of three persons in the Divine Nature, and of a God-Man, is a heavy yoke for reason; Christians are therefore very much eased when freed from such a yoke; and consequently it is probable that vast crowds will follow a man who removes so great a burthen. Behold the reason why those Italians who fled into Poland denied the Trinity, the hypostatical union, original sin, absolute predestination, &c. They thought that since Calvin, shaking off the necessity of believing all the incomprehensible things contained in Transubstantiation, brought over many people to him, they should make a greater progress still if they rejected all the inconceivable doctrines which that reformer had preserved. But it may be answered, that they had been very silly and unworthy of their Italian education if they had made use of such an expedient.

The speculative mysteries of religion are little troublesome to the people; they will, indeed, tire a professor of divinity, very intent upon them in order to explain them, and answer the objections of the heretics. Some other studious men, who examine them with great curiosity, may also be troubled by the resistance of their reason, but all other men are at perfect ease about it; they believe, or fancy they believe, all that

is said of them, and quietly rest in that persuasion. Wherefore he would not be far from fanaticism who could imagine that citizens and peasants, soldiers and gentlemen, would be freed from a heavy yoke if they were dispensed from believing the Trinity, and the hypostatical union. They like much better a doctrine that is mysterious, incomprehensible, and above reason they are more apt to admire what they do not comprehend; they form to themselves an idea of it more sublime, and also more comfortable. All the ends of religion are much better to be found in incomprehensible things; they inspire a greater admiration, respect, fear, and constancy. If false religions have had their mysteries, it is because they have been forged by the ape of the true one. God, out of his infinite wisdom, has accommodated himself to the state of man, by mixing darkness with light in his revelation. In one word, it must be granted that in certain matters incomprehensibility causes approbation. If a man had a mind to invent a hypothesis only for philosophers, and such as might be called Religio Medici," it is likely he would think himself obliged to lay aside the doctrines difficult to be comprehended; but then he must not have the vanity to expect to be followed by the multitude. If he had

66

a mind to satisfy his vanity in that respect, he should do as the hero of Lorenzo Gratian, who says, that El Heroe platique incomprehensibilidades de caudal : ---and that he discovers himself without being comprehended.---Gran treta en arte de entendie ostentarse al concimiento, pero no a la comprehension."* But granting that those Italians have been so silly as to think that people would be freed from an intolerable yoke, if they were dispensed from believing the Trinity, &c., must we also grant that they thought the prohibition of civil and military employments

* Father Bouhours, Entretiens d'Ariste, pag. m. 54.

would not be a yoke a thousand times heavier than that which they intended to break? Will any one be so unreasonable as to require that we should have such a notion of those men, who wanted neither wit nor address as every body owns?

What I am going to say will, doubtless, resolve the question. When men of parts, designing to set up a new sect, pitch upon a loose method, and substitute an easy doctrine in the room of a difficult one, it may be said that they do not hit upon the most proper method to succeed in their design; but it ought not to be supposed that they are contented to suppress speculative mysteries, and that they keep the whole practical part, and even aggravate the yoke of the moral precepts. And yet this is supposed concerning the founders of the Socinian heresy, and therefore what is said of their design is a mistake. They are more rigid than other Christians about the prohibition of revenge and the contempt of worldly honours; they are not for any mitigated or figurative explications of such texts of the Scripture as relate to morality. They have revived the severity of the primitive church, which did not approve that the faithful should concern themselves with magistracies, and should have any hand in the death of their neighbour, so far that they would not have them to accuse malefactors. The prohibition of civil and military offices is a heavier burthen than the prohibition of revenge, for it excludes the expedients both of deceiving one's self and also of deceiving others. Those who preach most earnestly against revenge find out a thousand distinctions to elude that precept. Some say they do not hate their neighbour as he is a man, but as he is an enemy of God; others protest that they do him no harm to revenge a private quarrel, but for God's glory. This is approving, by the help of some distinctions, what we pretend to condemn. Some deceive themselves; others are mere hypocrites, who deceive the