44 of a `Religious and Divine Faith. Vol. IL in them, that is, of which they can give no account from themfelves. And this is not a ftubborn belief, and an obftinate conceit of a thing : but a good man, who is infpired, when he refle&s upon himfelf, and this affurance which he finds in himfelf, he can give a rational. account of it to himfelf. Thus he finds that it is a foreign impreflion, and doth not fpring from himfelf, nor bath its rife from thence; therefore he afcribes it to fome Spirit without himfelf; and he believes that there is a God that can .communicate himfelf to the minds and fpirits of men s and that his Goodnefs is fuch, that he will :nor fuffer them to be under a neceflìty of delufion, which they molt be, if when they have the. higheft Affurance and fatisfa&ion, that fuch a thing is a Divine Revelation, they may be deceived. And then likewife he confiders the matter of the Re- velation, which if it do not eontradi& any effential and neceflary fundamental Notion of his underftánding, he thinks himfelf bound to entertain it Upon this affurance. I fay, good Men may give themfelves this rational fatisfadion : for Ì grant a wicked Man, that reje&s and difobeys the Truth of God, may fo provoke him, as to give him up to flrosg Delsfions, to believe lies ; and he may be as confident of a Lie, as agood Man is of Truth. But as this is not unjuft fromGod in reference to the Perfons, fo it is no prejudice to the affurance which goodMen may have of Di- vine Revelation. And this Allurance is fuch, as it is not in the power of any evil Spirit toconvey to us, concerning a Delufion ; or if it be in his power, he is not permitted todo it to any who have not highly provoked God, by rejedting the. Truth, to give, Wm up to tirosig Deluftons, to believeLies : and that fuch Perfons fhould be ob- noxious to fuch Delufions, as it is not unjuft in reference to them, fo neither is it any prejudice to the Aflùrance which good Men may have of fuch Revelations, which are truly and really Divine. But for the other ways of difcerning true Revelation from falle, which the yews, mention ; as that the Spirit of God always works upon the Underftanding, as well as the Imagination, and in confequence with the ufe of Reafon and Underfianding, and gives fome fenfible notice of its feifing upon Men, I think all thefe to be un- certain, if they be examined. And if the loll which they mention, viz: this that I have infifted upon, be true, all the other are fuperfluous. For what need any other Sign to allure a Man that that is a Divine Revelation, which carries along with it cleat fatisfa&ion and full affurance that it is fuch ? So that it remains now, that we fix upon Come particular ways whereby the Perron, that bath a Divine Revelation, may be allured of it ; and this I fhali do by thefe. Propofitions. Firfl, That God can work in the Mind of Man a firm perfwafion of a thing; by giving him a clear and vigorous perception of it ; and if fo, Thep Gad can accompany his own Revelations with fuch a clear and overpoweringLight as fhall difcover to us the Divinity of them, and fatisfie us thereof beyond all, doubt and fcruple. And this no Man can doubt of, that confiders the vaft Power and Influence which God, who made the Soul of Man, and perle&ly knows the Frame of ir, mutt needs have upon the Mind ano Underftanding of Man. Secondlÿ, God never perfwades aMan of any thing that eontradi&s the Natural and Effential Notions of his Mind and Underitanding. For this would be to de- ftroy his own Workmanfhip, and to impofe that upon theUnderftanding of a Man, which whillt it retains its own Nature, and remains what it is, it cannot poflibly admit, For inftance, we cannot imagine that God can perfwade any Man that there is no God : for he that believes any thing as. from God, mutt neceffarily be- lieve there is a God 9 therefore it is impoffible that he can be perfwaded of this as from God, that there is no God ; and that he is not Wife and Jufi, and Good and Powerful ; and that he is nót to be honour'd and lov'd by all reafonable Crea- tures : becaufe thefe do clearly and immediately eontradi& the molt effentiai and fundamental Notions of our Minds concerning God, and the refpe& which is due tohim : not only becaufe it is unworthy of God to go about to perfwade a Manof a Falíhood 5 but becaufe it is impoffible in the nature of the thing, that theMind
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