Incitement to others to imitate the fame Vertue.

(2) That to Honour thofe that were eminent in fuch a manner, was chiefly to honour God, whofe diftinguishing Communications made them

fo

(3.) That to Address and Supplicate to fuch as Mediators, was a morê Modeft and Reverential Address to God, than if we applyed immediately to himself.

(4.) That by applying to those who had been fo nearly touched with our Infirmities, and our Sins themselves not excepted, we were fure to find the more Compaffionate and tender Advocates. I doubt not but Men in that Age were qualified to argue for their Humours as well as they can now, and we know that Wifdom has carried this point in the Church of Rome, even at this day, this day of Meridian, that is of Gospel Light.

Thus

Thus Wifdom brought Idolatry into the World.

The fecond Inftance I proposed to evince it a dangerous Guide in Matters of Religion, was this: That Wildom (or let me indifferently call it Reason, a Name more in vogue and more used in reference to the prefent Subject, but it means purely the fame thing; I fay) It was Wildom or Reason that firft wa fted Man's Confcience, and brought Sin into the World.

There has been a time when Human Wisdom or Reafon had a fairer pretence to Conduct than ever it will have again. In Paradife where it was without the Oppofition of Appetite, without the Byafs of Prejudice, without the Cloud of Perturbations, who can think but that it had then more Power and Freedom to conduct wifely, than ever it could pretend to fince? But therefore if it failed then in point of Conduct,

A

this must needs pafs for an Argument to abate some of that Veneration, which the Opinionative are willing fhould be afcrib'd to it, under this State of fo unhappy a Change; Let us then confider the Scene of things as it lay at that time.

God then charged our first Parents not to eat of the Tree in the midft of the Garden; binding his Charge with this Sanction, That they fhould die when they did it: Now at that time there was not any φρόνημα σαρκός, Νέο Law of the Members warring against the Law of the Mind; no Rebellion of Ap. petite against the Dictates of Underftanding: To fuppofe there was, would be to suppose our first Parents faln even before the Fall, and to have been made under the fame Disorder, that their Po fterity now complains of. And accor dingly we find in holy Scripture that the Sin of our firft Parents in that cafe is diftinguished from thofe of all their Off Spring: For whereas other Mens C 2

Sins

Sins are generally calledis, Lufts, we may observe that their Sin is always called dán, Deception: The Apoftle calls it fo no less than thrice,

án, that is, a Deception or Impofture that they fuffered to pals upon their Understanding: Whereof we may take an Illustration from a Scriptural Passage, 1 Kings 13. where we find a young Prophet of Judah sent to denounce God's Judgments against Jeroboam in Bethel; who withal received a Command that he should neither Eat nor Drink in that Place. Now it no way appears that the violence of this young Prophet's Appetite did raise in him any de. fire to difobey this Command; on the contrary, he was upon his return refolvedly and contentedly, without either Eating or Drinking; fo that 'tis plain his Appetite did not constrain him to tranfgrefs: But an old Prophet of the Place (moved probably with Envy that the Honour of this Meffage had

been

been conferr❜d on a Prophet of Judah, and not on himself) addreffes to him with an Impofture; telling him that God did reverse his former Order, and did now give him Liberty to Eat and Drink in Bethel: As confequently he did, and thereupon received the Reward that is due to him who disobeys a certain Command, for the sake of an uncertain Suggestion. With the like Imposture and Fiction it was that the old Serpent addrefs'd himself to our firft Parents; implying by the Tendency of all his Difcourfe that God had either diffembled his real Will in his former Order, or at least that he had now Revers'd it; So that now they should not Die, but on the contrary receive great advantage from the Eating of the Fruit: And hereupon they proceeded to Eat it, being drawn afide to do so, not from the violence of Appetite, but from the temerity of Reason; which fuffered them to believe an uncertain Sug

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