434 litp8 on? an:5 famíip 'Zook. SHORT CATECHISM,. for tbofethat have learned the firft. ueft. Hat do yoac believe concerning GOD? .fAnfw. There is one only GOD ; an Infinite Spirit of Life,Underitanding and Will, molt perfec4ly Powerful, Wife and Good ; The Father, the Word, and the Spirit : The Creator, Go- vernor and End of all things : Our Abfolute Owner, our moil Juft Ruler, and our molt Gracious and moll Amiable"Father. r. The word [GOD] fignifieth both the Nature and the Relations. I. Gods Nature or Ef fence is not known to us in it felf im- mediately, but in the glafs of the Creatures, as the caufe in the effefts ; And fpecially by Gods Image on our own Souls. Thereforewe have no names or words of God, but fuch as are borrowed from Creatures, as the firfi things iîgnified in our tile of them ; Though God only he fignified by them in this our application.` There fore we are fain to defcribe God in termes, z. Of generical notion. 2. Of formal or fpecifical notion. 3. Of accidental notion.. Though God is not properly matter or farm, genus or (*pales, nor accident. i . The generical no- tion is, dint he is a S P I R I T, which included.) the more ge- neral notions, of a SUBS TA N C E and a B E I N G, as diffina from accidents and nothing. A SPIRIT chiefly ìg: nifieth (not onely Negatively, that which is no Body, but alto Pofitively,) aim? Suhfance traufcending our fenfztive conception or apprehenfion ; which force call MetaphyReal matter : For be- fore we think what form or virtue A Spirit is palled of, we think of it as fomethingfhb;îantial, though not corporeal. But of the Iubftance of a S P I R IT as different from a Body, beforewe come to theformal iIrrues, we can have no fatisfying conception but its Purity, and tranfcendingthe molt perfeei fence. {_Whatever force fay of Penetrability.and indivilibility, which aar;' alto confiderable.) If any fay, that the true nature of Fire T. Affent.
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