many things omitted, which might have been inferted; but the conftant reading of the Holy Scriptures will fupply unto you that defect: I have chofen only in this paper to mention fuch things which are feafonable for you upon this occafion. God Almighty hath not been wanting to you in admonition, correction, mercy and deliverance; neither hath your father been wanting to you in education, counfel, care and expence. pray God Almighty blefs all unto you. This is the prayer of Your loving Father', MATTHEW HALE. I 'From the ending of this Letter, as well as from some internal passages of it, it would rather appear to have been composed for a Son than a Grandson of Sir Matthew Hale's, as printed in the title to it, p. 223, though it is thus given in most of the old editions. A BRIEF ABSTRACT OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1.THAT there is one, and but one, most glorious God, eternal, incomprehenfible, perfectly happy, infinite in wisdom, power and goodness, filling all places, but comprehended in no place; full of juftice, mercy, truth and perfection. 2. That this God, though but one in effence, is yet three in number of his fubfiftence, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 3. That this God, in the beginning of time, created the world, commonly called the Heaven and Earth, which he ftill governs by his Power, Wisdom, and Providence. And this he did, 1. for the manifestation and glory of his wifdom, power, and goodness: 2. for the communication of his beneficence, goodnefs and bounty to the things which he thus made, according to their feveral natures and capacities. 4. That having finished this inferior world, called the earth, and furnished it with all things neceffary and convenient for the ufe and convenience of the nobler creature which he intended, he created the firft man Adam, and the first woman Eve, the common parents of all mankind: from whom all the men and women in the world are derived by natural propagation. 5. To these first parents of mankind, Almighty God gave fome endowments or conftituent parts, that are common to all mankind, as well as to them: namely, namely, 1. terreftrial or earthly bodies; for the firft man was made out of the earth; and the bodies of all other men, though they are derived to them by ordinary generation, yet their bodies are terreftrial or elementary bodies: 2. fpiritual and immortal fouls, endued not only with the power of vegetation, as herbs and trees; nor only with the power of fenfe and perception and appetite, as the brute beafts; but alfo with the power of understanding and liberty of will, whereby he obtains a kind above all other vifible creatures befides. And this Soul, hus endued with the power of understanding and will, doth not die with the body; but it is immortal and never dies. And this is called a reasonable foul; whereby we understand, and think, and confider, and remember, and choose one thing, and refuse another; whereby we have a capacity to know Almighty God, his works, his will, and to obey and obferve it; and to perform all the actions that belong to a reafonable creature. 3. A power of propagation of their kind, by the mutual conjunction of fexes, by virtue of that divine benediction, given to man, as well as to fenfible creatures, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. By virtue of which benediction, all the families of mankind that were, or are, or fhall be upon the face of the earth, are in the courfe of ordinary generation derived from the first parents of mankind. 4. A power and right of dominion over the inferior creatures, which he doth exercife, partly by the ordination and appointment of their creation, and partly by the advantage of his understanding faculty and though this dominion be in fome fort weakened and decayed by the fall of our first parents, yet it ftill, in a great measure, continues to the children of men. 6. But fome privileges our firft parents had in their ftate of innocence, which by their fall hath been much impaired and loft, and not derived to their pofterity: 1. A ftate of perfect innocence, free from all in and finful contagion. 2. A ftate of happiness and blessed nels, |