APHORISM III.

It is the glory of the Gospel charter and the Christian constitution, that its author and head is the Spirit of truth, essential Reason as well as absolute and incomprehensible Will. Like a just monarch, he refers even his own causes to the judgment of his high courts.--He has his King's Bench in the reason, his Court of Equity in the conscience; that the representative of his majesty and universal justice, this the nearest to the king's heart, and the dispenser of his particular decrees. He has likewise his Court of Common Pleas in the understanding, his Court of Exchequer in the prudence. The laws are his laws. And though by signs and miracles he has mercifully condescended to interline here and there with his own hand the great statute-book, which he had dictated to his amanuensis, Nature; yet has he been graciously pleased to forbid our receiving as the king's mandates aught that is not stamped with the Great Seal of the conscience, and countersigned by the reason.