Speculum theologiæ in Christo, or, A view of some divine truths which are either…

Tertullian enumerates divers Nations, and at last adds touching us, Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo tamen subdita sunt; the Evangelical Power entered there where the Roman could not. By such weak means to produce so great an effect, was a work worthy of Omnipotence.

Tertullian enumerates divers Nations, and at last adds touching us, Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo tamen subdita sunt; the Evangelical Power entred there where the Roman could not. By such weak means to produce so great an effect, was a work worthy of Omnipotence.

Moreover, the Divine Power will yet more appear, if we consider the things proposed in the Gospel. Narces the Roman-General, discontented at the Empress Sophia, to invite the Lombards into Italy, sent them many sorts of excellent fruits from thence. The Present being congruous to sense, the project took effect. The Gospel indeed proposes very excellent things to us. But they are so great, and so far above humane Nature, that the proposal, if not accompanied with a Divine Power, ⟨p. 126⟩would have been altogether ineffectual. I shall instance in two or three things:

1. It proposes super-rational Mysteries, such as the Doctrine of the Sacred Trinity. The Incarnation of the Son of God. The Satisfaction made to Justice by his Blood. These are objects of Faith, and so depend one upon another, that unless we believe the Trinity, we cannot believe the Incarnation; and unless we believe that, we cannot believe a Satisfaction; and without believing that, we cannot fulfil the condition of the Gospel, which requires us to rest upon Christ for salvation. These therefore are necessary objects of Faith; but without an Act of Divine Power, Faith in these cannot be had. Two things evidence this: the one is ex parte objecti, the things are above Reason. As the things of Reason are above Sense, so the things of Faith are above Reason: without a Revelation Reason could not have found out these Mysteries, after it, Reason cannot comprehend them. It may shadow them out by similitudes; but there is in them a light unapproachable, such as Reason cannot look into; an infinite Abyss, such as Reason cannot measure. The other is ex parte subjecti; man, who is to believe these things, is fallen, and in his fall not one or two faculties fell, but all of them; and among the rest his intellectual and believing faculties fell also. The intellect hath lost its subjection to God the Supreme Truth. The believing faculty centres in the Creature, and without the Power of Grace cannot lift up it self to supernatural Truths. A Divine Power is requisite, to captivate the understanding to the first Truth, to elevate the believing