4. Therefore he neither prevaricates with others nor practises double dealing himself, by using one set of doctrines for the closet, and another for the world. For both contain the same matter and conduce to the same point: the latter being no more than a version from the long-winded, uniform, correct, refined language of philosophy, into the concise, loose, figurative, fluctuating manner of expression, fit for common discourse. It has been shown upon several occasions before, that reason has not the immediate command of our active powers, which are conducted by affections and desires whose views, being short and confined, turn from time to time upon certain marks of pursuit hanging just before them, and we, being so constantly habituated to this state of mind in ourselves, cannot ordinarily comprehend otherwise even of God himself. Wherefore we are excusable in practising this manner of comprehension, provided we render it as refined and celestial as our imagination will bear, striving to exclude all impurities or gross commixtures that can possibly be spared without leaving the idea too thin to be sensible. And this possibility is relative to times and persons: for when bodily disorders obscure our faculties, when the hurry of business leaves no room for reflection, if our talents be small, our education low, our profession or converse confining us to vulgar objects, we shall not be able to raise them above gross and sensible ideas. Therefore that conception is pure and clean to every man, which is the purest and cleanest he can entertain.

For my part, when I reflect that it is possible I may outlive my own understanding, as they say Sir Isaac Newton did, to whom his own theorems became unintelligible mysteries, or be debilitated in my faculties by some paralytic disorder; I cannot expect to have the benefit of what little refinements I have made shift to spin out in the foregoing sheets: therefore am desirous of laying up a stock of such sentiments, as I can then retain to be my comfort in my second childhood. And when I consider how many people are occupied in the lowest offices of life, who with the care and opportunities afforded me, might perhaps have run greater lengths than I can pretend to; I cannot content myself with framing speculations for the amusement of such only as were brought up at the university, without thinking of the peasant, the laborer, and the cookmaid.

Yet the imagination may be made susceptible of pure ideas gradually, but it cannot be done hastily nor by violence, nor pouring more at once into the vessel than it will take: so the business is to observe every little step that may be made in the approach towards the state whereinto we would bring it. If men of thought

would take care to agree a little better among themselves, they would find much might be done upon the vulgar by general consent and example. Of which we have sufficient experience in the difference between the present world and the ancient for they could not do without images, sacrifices, numerous rites and corporeal ingredients in their idea of the Deity, which are now wholly banished from the lowest of our people.

5. Yet are we still liable unthinkingly to fall into little artifices for working upon the divine affections, as we work upon one another. The child finds it can prevail upon its mother's fondness by fretfulness and complaining: so we murmur and grumble against Providence, and fret when things fall out contrary to our liking. We can sometimes influence our fellow-creatures by our estimation of their conduct, and shame them out of their inobservance of us by taking it in dudgeon: so we arraign the justice of God, pass our censure upon his proceedings, and take it amiss that less righteous and less deserving people are better dealt with than ourselves on the other hand, we may win upon one another by expressions of our good opinion and readiness to oblige: so we expect to raise a fondness in God by our oblations, our assiduities, our uncommon zeal in his service, and flattering him in our thoughts, persuading ourselves that we see a rectitude and wisdom in dispensations where we really do not.

This timorousness of offending the divine delicacy, as I may call it, has proved a main obstacle against true freedom of thought, and improvement as well in science as belief. For because our friends may be disgusted with us for an unseasonable sincerity, and soothed by politeness and complaisance: therefore we dare not examine our own thoughts impartially, for fear God should see them at the same time, and take distaste at them. But if we have any latent scruple or infidelity within us, it is in vain to dissemble with the Searcher of hearts, and highly expedient for ourselves that we should know it: for unless the distemper be discovered, there is no applying remedies for the cure of it.

Nevertheless, a man may sometimes be brought into an opinion by persuading himself that he has it, or got rid of a misapprehension by forbearing to contemplate it; and the state of our bodily humors, or unfavorable circumstances, will now and then raise a temporary notion that is not our settled opinion: in which cases there is no better way than to banish what disturbs us from our reflection, or reserve it for a more favorable season of calmer and clearer judgment: for there are some sores that may be made to heal themselves only by keeping them covered from the air. that there is a discretion to be observed upon this article, as well

as all others relating to the purity of our ideas: something gross and human we must mingle in our conceptions of God, because it is unavoidable, and more we must not mingle than is unavoidable.

Therefore it is a very nice point to distinguish exactly what is ́necessary to give a solid body to our Religion, that it may not evaporate, yet without retaining a single particle more of caput mortuum than requisite to fix the spirit: as likewise to discern what is necessary for other people, though mischievous and improper for ourselves. Herein lies the great difficulty in modelling the popular or exoteric doctrines, so that while all agree in outward form or profession, each may hold them in the utmost degree of purity whereof he is respectively capable. And this being a matter of equal importance and nicety, it becomes us daily to purify our conceptions, and enlarge them so far as they can bear: for in so doing we shall purify our conduct, and secure a steady, unruffled serenity of mind.

6. But there is still another branch of purity, which consists in separating our idea of God from all external objects of nastiness and impurity and here the exoteric doctrine runs directly contrary to the esoteric. For the latter describes him omnipresent and omniscient, filling the whole immensity of space, beholding all his works and their works without exception: alike present in the kitchen as in the chapel, at the hog-sty as at the sacred altar; observing us in our follies as well as our serious employments; alike attentive to us in our necessary uncleannesses as in our fervent devotions. I should here, according to my ordinary method, particularize in some striking instances, where we could not reasonably exclude the divine presence, nor observance: but I refrain, lest, while I labor to convince the understanding, I might shock the imagination. But whoever will cast a momentary glance upon what his own reflection may suggest, will instantly feel how inexpedient it is to entertain conceptions of everything we know to be true, and how necessary to provide one system for the closet, and another for our familiar use.

For we are not to conceit ourselves that we carry the real essences even of common things in our minds, much less of the most excellent and glorious of all Beings: we apprehend them only in types and colors drawn out upon our sensory. It has been observed before that the God we worship is no more than an idol framed out of human materials, picked up from our own composition. Therefore though the divine Essence be more than Ithuriel's spear, incapable of defilement by any ordures, however surrounded or intimately penetrated by it, and being nauseated or

any ways affected by any objects however disgustful or loathsome: yet the idea in our imagination may be polluted by filthiness clinging to it. Such then being the case, and it having pleased God to subject us to some base employments and offensive objects we cannot avoid it behoves us to lay aside every idea of that sort when we think of him. Which shows the extravagance of those enthusiasts, who exhort us literally to have God always in our thoughts, and do every action of our lives with intention to please him because this must continually draw us into gross offences against his purity. For if every time we shifted or washed our hands, or cut our corns, or did other things I do not care to name, we were to do them with direct intention to please him; it would be more likely to debase and contaminate than ennoble and sanctify our minds, to degrade him below ourselves, than raise us to a nearer resemblance with him.

7. And as the grossness of our imaginations obliges us to exclude our idea of God from certain places unsuitable for his reception so the narrowness of them compels us to confine him to some particular place of residence. For omnipresence is by much too large an idea for our comprehensions to grasp; we cannot conceive an immensity of space, much less the thought of one uncompounded individual Being; existent throughout the whole capaciousness of space. For we take our notions of magnitude from body which occupies a larger or smaller room, in proportion to the quantity of matter, or number of parts contained in it, or the distance whereto they are stretched from one another : and with respect to the presence of perceptive Beings we distinguish between that and the place of their existence; for while standing in one spot, we apprehend everything done in our presence, that passes within a compass wherein we can discern it distinctly. Our imagination being habituated to this manner of conception by the objects wherewith we are continually conversant, we cannot cast it into any other form when we contemplate the supreme Being; to whom therefore we assign a peculiar habitation, yet extending his presence beyond the place of his

existence.

But because we ourselves cannot be present in one place without being absent from others, and become familiarized to things appearing continually in our presence, it would vilify, and, I may say, vulgarize the Almighty, to imagine him resident among ourselves, and what must follow of course in our thoughts engaged among the trifling scenes that occupy our notice. Therefore we say God is in heaven and we upon earth, that he dwells in the heaven of heavens, in the centre of inaccessible light. Now it

is no matter where we suppose this heaven to be, whether above the clouds, or in the ether, or supercelestial regions, it were better not to examine the point too minutely, but leave every one at liberty to place it where he finds most convenient to his own imagination; only taking care to fix it in some spot from whence the ever-wakeful eye of Providence may behold distinctly all the concerns of the earth, the courses of nature, the workings of fortune, the secret chambers of darkness, and inmost recesses of the human heart.

8. This limited imagination of the Deity renders him capable of locomotion (an article that can never find admittance in the esoteric creed so that he can go forth to plan out the spaces for a new world, to lay the foundations of the steadfast mountains, to set bounds to the restless ocean, to clothe the ground with all the variety of vegetables, to give command to his elements and seasons by the word of his mouth, and to survey his works with complacence, beholding them very good. Nor will it be incongruous to represent him descending upon great occasions to interfere in the administration of affairs below: riding in whirlwinds, upheaving redundant seas, shaking the solid ground with earthquakes, rending the heavens with tremendous thunders, turning the scale of victory, rescuing nations from destruction, giving the turn to critical events, determining the fall of kingdoms. For there cannot be an operation without an immediate presence of the agent, nor can our narrow minds conceive him present in an unusual place without a removal from his ordinary residence: but our thoughts are too busied in seasons of extraordinary events to reflect that a presence in one place implies an absence from elsewhere.

And it will be expedient for the like reason to apprehend him peculiarly present at some certain times and places, when we withdraw from our usual scenes and occupations; for then it will rather raise than sully our imaginations: but of this I may have occasion to treat more particularly in some succeeding chapter. If any one shall find these images too gross for his use, he will do right to refuse them admittance: but as the best of us have something vulgar in our composition, we may employ some popular ideas without hurt to the purity of our refined theory; and we shall reap this advantage from bringing ourselves acquainted with the management of them, that we shall be better able to help our neighbors by preventing them from falling into a grossness they can avoid. And an open-hearted, truly benevolent man will strive to think as well as act, not for himself alone, but for the benefit of as many as he can do service to either way.