trinity of, souls; because there is in us, if not three dis-
tinct souls, yet differing faculties, that can and do subsist
apart in different subjects, and yet in us are thus united
as to make but one soul and substance. If one soul
were so perfect as to inform three distinct bodies, that
were a pretty trinity. Conceive the distinct number of
three, not divided nor separated by the intellect, but
actually comprehended in its unity, and that a per-
fect trinity. I have often admired the mystical way of
Pythagoras, and the secret magick of numbers. "Be-
ware of philosophy," is a precept not to be received in
too large a sense: for, 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 and roundles to mount the pinnacles
and highest pieces of divinity. The severe schools shall
never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that
this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, where-
in, as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal
shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in
that invisible fabrick.

Sect. 13.--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
therein, is an ample recompense for all my endeavours,
in what part of knowledge soever. Wisdom is his most