The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

When there is no right method or order of knowledge, there is no true and solid knowledge. It is distraction, and not knowing, ⟨p. 170⟩to begin at the top, and to lay the foundation last, and reduce things certain to things uncertain. And it is no wiselier done of Atheists, who argue from their apprehensions of other things, against the Beings or Perfections of God. As when they say, [There is much evil in the world permitted by God; and there is death, and many tormenting pains befall even the innocent brutes; and there are wars and confusions, and ignorance and wickedness, have dominion in the earth: Therefore God is not perfectly good; nor perfectly wise, and just, and powerful in his government of the world.] The error in the method of arguing here, helpeth to continue their blindness. That God is perfectly good, is prius cognitum: Nothing is more certain than that he, who is the cause of all the derived goodness in the whole Universe, must have as much or more than all himself: Seeing therefore that Heaven and Earth, and all things, bear so evident a witness to this truth, this is the foundation, and first to be laid, and never more questioned, nor any argument brought against it. For all that possibly can be said against it; must be à minus notis, from that which is more obscure. Seeing then that it is most certain by sense, that calamities and evils are in the world; and no less certain that there is a God, who is most perfectly good; it must needs follow that these two are perfectly consistent; and that some other cause of evil must be found out, than any imperfection in the chief good. But as to the Being of things, and Order in the world, it followeth not that They must be as g•od and perfect as their Maker and Governor is himself: nor one part as good and perfect in it self as any other. Because it was not the Creator's purpose when he made the world, to make another God, that should be equal with himself (for two Infinite Beings and Perfections, is a contradiction.) But it was his will to imprint such measures of his own likeness and excellencies upon the creatures, and with such variety, as his wisdom saw fittest; the reasons of which are beyond our search: The Divine Agency, as it is in him the Agent, is perfect: But the effect hath those measures of goodness which he was freely pleased to communicate.

When there is no right method or order of knowledge, there is no true and solid knowledge. It is distraction, and not knowing,