SECT. II.

Wherein is confider'd how or after what manner the Ideas of things are in God.

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us,

1. [ERE I muft beg my kind Reader not to be too Inquifitive in his Researches into the Deep things of God, which the longest Line of Humane Thought will in vain attempt ever to fathom. Or if I cannot fet bounds to his Curiofity, I muft however govern my own, and in this Senfe alfo not be high-minded, but Fear. For fure if there be any Knowledge that is too high and wonderful for and fuch as we cannot perfectly attain unto, this may be well prefumed to be it, and if our Philofophy after fo many bold and daring Attempts does yet but float; as it were upon the Surface of the Natural, Ture it may well be excufed (at least for the present Effay) from diving very far into the Bowels of the Intelligible World, and if after fo many Diffections and Anatomizings even of Humane Bodies, we know not yet, as the Wife Man obferves, how the Bones do grow in the Womb of her that is with Child, much less may we be fuppofed able to understand the way of the Spirit, or to render an exact account how the Ideas or Archetypal Forms of things do arife in the Eternal Mind, how they flow from, or are contain❜d in the Fruitful All-pregnant Bofom of the Divinity.

a General and Grofs Delineation of it as may serve to fhew the Intelligibility of the Notion, and of what farther Improvement it is in it felf capable, cafting the reft under a Religious Shade, and leaving it to the Study and Contemplation of Angels, and to the Comprehenfions of that Angelified State, when that Glory of God which Mofes defired to have shewn to him, fhall fhine out in its full Luftre upon our Souls, and we shall fee him as he is, fine speculo, & fine enigmate.

3. In the mean time if we thus conceive and explain the inanner of the Divine Ideality, it may fuf ficiently answer the Purposes as well as the Pretenfions of a Modest Theory. God is a Being infinite in Effence and Perfection, and accordingly muft be supposed to have all the conceivable Degrees of it in himself. And tho' for this very Reason he cannot be perfectly imitated by any thing out of himself (foto imitate him, being the fole Privilege of him who is the Brightness of his Glory, and the exprefs Image of his Substance) yet again for the very fame Reafon he must be conceiv'd in various Degrees to be Imitable and Participable, even ad extra. For he that has all Conceivable Degrees of Being and Perfe tion, must be supposed to have fome that even a Creature may imitate and participate, or that may be capable ofan Out-being or Exiftence. Now according as the Effence of God is thus or thus imitable, or in this or that degree Participable by Things without, foit may be faid to be Exhibitive or Represen tative of fuch Things; or to have the Ideas of them in it felf,which accordingly (to refolve them into their last and most explicit Account) will be found to be no other than certain precife Degrees of Being or Per

fection

fection in God, that may be Imitated or Participated by Things out of him. So that the Essence of God may be faid to reprefent Things in the fame Proportion as they can Imitate or Participate him in the feveral Degrees of his Effential Perfection, that is in fhort, he has the Ideas of them as he is imitable by them. The Divine Effence conceiv'd as imitable in fuch a Degree is in God, fuch an Idea, or the Idea of fuch a thing, the fame Divine Effence conceiv'd as imitable in another Degree is in him another Idea, or the Idea of another thing, and fo on throughout the whole Scale of Being, from firft or mere Matter (the neareft to nothing, and the fartheft Creatural Projection from God) to the most Excellent of created Intelligences.

4. More diftinctly yet The Effence of God as only inadequately confider'd, and partially imitable is the Idea of a Creature in general, and as imitable to fuch a certain Degree or Meafure it is, the Idea of this or that Creature, which accordingly when Actual, it reprefents as imitated by it according to those Limitations or Imperfections which belong to this or that kind of Being refpectively. Not that thefe Beings imitate any Imperfection in God (in whom there is nothing but abfolute Perfection) but that they imitate his Perfection imperfectly, nor do his Ideas reprefent the Imperfections of the Creatures any otherwife than as the All-perfect Effence of God is imperfectly imitated by them. For indeed properly Tpeaking all Idea is of Being (that which is not, not being capable of any Reprefentation, efpecially by that which Effentially is) and God reprefents them in the fame Proportion as they imitate him.

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5. But

5. But they imitate him inadequately only and in part; and does he reprefent them fo? No, he reprefents them intirely, because even that Inadequation as I may fay, of his infinite Effence answers most perfectly and intirely to theirs. But when I fay that God reprefents them in the fame Proportion as they imitate him, my Meaning is, that as they imitate nothing but Being and Perfection in him (He being that Light in which there is no Darkness at all) fo he reprefents nothing but Being and Perfection in them. He does not therefore reprefent their Imperfections, whether Negative, as in natural and regular, or Privative, as in unnatural and irregular Productions. He reprefents only what is Pofitive in them, that precisely which they imitate in him, or of him, and becaufe they imitate him deficiently,

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He does indeed reprefent imperfect Beings, but not their Imperfections or Defects. And as for these their Defects, they arife in them not from their Imitation of him, but from their imitating him no farther than they do, that is indeed from their not imitating him. Only with this very obfervable Difference, that in regular Productions, the Limitation or Imperfection proceeds from their imperfect imitation of the Divine Effence at large, whereas in irregular Productions (fuch as we term Monsters) it proceeds from their imitating their proper Specific Idea imperfectly.

Contemplating himself he fees in what degrees and ways his Effence is imitable or participable. And he need but confult the fame Omniform Mirrour to fee the Things that actually exift, whofe Natures thofe Ideal Reasons which he has of them in himself, will fufficiently reprefent to him. And in this I go no farther than even the common Metaphyficks of the Schools (as well as their Divinity) has gone before me, in founding the Knowledge of God upon his Ideality. For fo fays a confiderable Writer of that Character, Dico oportere aliquid effe in Deo quod repræfentet res creatas. Fit enim intellectio per repræfentationem objecti intelligibilis ad Intellectum. Illa autem repræSentatio, non eft per Species a Creaturis acceptas, prout alias fit noftra Intellectio. Eft igitur aliquid intimius Deo, quod res Creatas repræfentet. Eftq; id effentia ipfa Dei, que eft quafi lucidiffimum fpeculum, in quo, citra additionem Specierum, relucent omnes Effentie & perfectiones rerum Creatarum. Ipfa igitur ad eas repræfentandas fufficiens eft. Cumq; is modus intelligendi: Sit Eminentiffimus, gratis Confingitur alius. In which Words he pleads exprefly for two Things. 1. For the Neceffity of Ideas in God, 2. For the Sufficency of thefe Ideas in order to all the Purposes of Knowledge and Understanding, without the help of any Created Species. But that indeed there is no occafion for them I need not fhew now confidering what has been faid upon it already * elfe