Parts and Learning, which I pray God to SanEtifie and Increase to you. Whereby you may perceive that I am not against your making ufe of your Reafon. No, I would only have you reafon rightly, and that you may do fo would have you by all Human Methods to improve and Cultivate your Reafon as much as you can, being well perfuaded that as a half-view of things makes Men Opiniative, Difputatious and Dogmatial, fo a Clear and thorough Light makes them Humble and diftrustful of themfelves, and that the more Cultivated and Improved any Man's Natural Reafon is, the easier it will be for him to Captivate it to the Obedience of Faith.

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Ince the Committing of these Papers to the Prefs I have had the pleasure to perufe Mr. Whifton's New Theory of the Earth, for which extraordinary and truly great Performance I return him all due Thanks, and am very glad to fee fo great a Mafter of Reason and Philofophy exprefs fo awful and reverential a regard to Religion in general, and in particular to the Sacred Myfteries of it, against which both Human Reason and Natural Philosophy have been of late fo abufively and prophanely imployed. How far this Ingenious and Learned Author makes good his great Undertaking, or whether this or the Former Theorist be most likely to be in the right, I fhall not take upon me to examin. I only make this Obfervation from both their wonderful Attempts, that whether they are in the right or no, as to their refpective Accounts of things, yet they have at leaft gone fo far and offer'd fo fairly towards a true Explanation of them, as to convince any Competent and indifferent Reader that the Mofaick Records concerning the greater Pheno

mena

As

mena of Creation and Providence are not really of fo defperate a Nature as they were once prefum'd to be, but are in themselves Capable of, and may perhaps in time actually have (if they have not already) a true natural Solution. for Inftance, a Univerfal Flood without a Miracle, or that the World fhould be wholly Drown'd in a Natural way, or according to the Laws of Motion already fettled, and by a Train of Causes already laid in Nature, has been hitherto thought an Incomprehenfible, and accordingly an Impoffible thing. But now if these two Mighty Genius's who have undertaken to give a Natural Account of this ftupendous Revolution have neither of them pitch'd upon the very precife way and manner whereby it was brought to pass, yet I think it cannot be denied but that they have faid enough between them to convince that the thing was naturally Poffible, and that a true Natural Account may be given of it, though they fhould be fuppofed not to have hit directly upon that which is fo. That is, I mean, they have represented it at least as a Conceivable thing, whether they themselves have had the good fortune to Conceive of it exactly as it was or no. Upon which it is very Natural and no lefs pertinent to the Concern in hand to make this further Reflection, that we fhould not be Overhafty to pronounce any thing (even of a Phyfical, much lefs of a Religious Nature) to be Impoffible, only because it appears to us to be Incomprehenfible. For befides that the Incomprehenfibility of a thing is (as this whole

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whole Difcourfe fhews) no certain Argument of its Impoffibility, and that what appears incomprehenfible to our Understandings may at the fame time be well Comprehended by thofe of Angels, not to fay of wifer Men, perhaps that which appears to us at present to be above all Comprehenfion may in procefs of time and upon further Reflexion and Experience fo brighten and clear up to our Minds, as to be Comprehended, or at least to be thought of a Comprehenfible and Poffible Nature even by our more improved felves. For the Incomprehenfibility of a thing as fuch being no Abfolute AffeEtion or Intrinsic Denomination of the thing it felf from its own Nature, but only fuch as affects it from without and in relation to the present Capacity of our Understandings, there needs no alteration in the Nature of the thing to make that Comprehenfible which was before Incomprehensible, a Change in our Understandings is fufficient, upon whofe greater improvement alone an Incomprehensible may become a Comprehensible Object. So that befides the Nullity of the Confequence from the Incomprehenfibility of a thing to its Impoffibility, even the Principle it felf from which that Confequence is pretended to be drawn may be remov'd by the prefent Comprehenfion of what pafs'd before with us for an Incomprehenfible Propofition. Upon both which Confiderations we are admonifh'd to be very Cautious how we conclude any thing in Nature, much more in Scripture, to be impoffible, because to us Incomprehenfible.

And

And 'tis the very ufe Mr. Whiston himself makes of the latter of them in the Conclufion of his excellent Work, from which I think it worth while to transcribe a Paffage both for the Advantage of the present Argument, and the greater Conviction of the Reader, to whom, as well as to my felf, it must be no little Satisfaction to fee the Sentiments of fo great an Author concur with mine.

The Measure of our prefent knowledge (fays he, P. 179.) ought not to be efteem'd the pitsion or Teft of Truth (the very Propofition almost in Terms of my Fourth Chapter) or to be oppofed to the Accounts receiv'd from prophane Antiquity, much less to the infpir'd writings. For notwithStanding that feveral particulars relating to the eldest Condition of the World and its great Catastrophe's, examin'd and compar'd with fo much Philofophy as was till lately known, were plainly unaccountable, and, naturally speaking, impoffible; yet we fee now Nature is more fully, more certainly, and more subftantially understood, that the fame things approve themfelves to be plain, eafie, and rational. 'Tis. therefore Folly in the highest degree to reject the Truth or Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures because we cannot give our Minds particular fatif faction as to the Manner, nay or even poffibility of "Some things therein afferted. Since we have feen fo many of those things, which feem'd the most incredible in the whole Bible, and gave the greatest Scruple and Scandal to Philofophic Minds, so fully and particularly attefted, and next to demonftrated from Certain Principles of Aftronomy and natural Know

ledge;