hich have unhinged the brains of better heads, they have never
stretched the membranes of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities
enough in religion for an active faith; I love to lose myself in a
mystery, to pursue my reason to an _O altitudo!_ I can answer all the
objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution of
Tertullian: "It is certain because it is impossible."

_II.--THE DIVINE WISDOM_

In my solitary and retired imagination I remember I am not alone; and
therefore forget not to contemplate Him and His attributes who is ever
with me, especially those two mighty ones, His wisdom and eternity. With
the one I recreate, with the other I confound, my understanding; for who
can speak of eternity without a solecism, or think thereof without an
ecstasy?

In this mass of Nature there is a set of things that carry in their
front, though not in capital letters, yet in stenography and short
characters, something of divinity; which, to wiser reasons, serve as
luminaries in the abyss of knowledge, and to judicious beliefs as scales
to mount the pinnacles of divinity.

That other attribute wherewith I recreate my devotion is His wisdom, in
which I am happy; and for the contemplation of this only, do not repent
me that I was bred in the way of study. The advantage I have of the
vulgar, with the content and happiness I conceive therein, is an ample
recompense for all my endeavours in what part of knowledge soever.
Wisdom is His most beauteous attribute; no man can attain unto it; yet
Solomon pleased God when he desired it. He is wise because He knows all
things; and He knows all things because He made them all; but His
greatest knowledge is in comprehending that He made not--that is,
Himself. The wisdom of God receives small honour from those heads that
rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire His works. Those
highly magnify Him whose judicious inquiry into His acts, and a
deliberate research into His creatures, return the duty of a devout and
learned admiration. Every essence, created or uncreated, hath its final
cause and some positive end both of its essence and operation. This is
the cause I grope after in the works of Nature; on this hangs the
providence of God.

That Nature does nothing in vain is the only indisputable axiom in
philosophy. There are no grotesques in Nature, nor anything framed to
fill up unnecessary spaces. I could never content my contemplation with
those