; as, but for passages in St. Paul, we should most of us believe; the serpent speaking, the names of the trees, and so on; and the whole account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis seems to me clearly to say: — "The literal fact you could not comprehend if it were related to you; but you may conceive of it as if it had taken place thus and thus."
Ib.
s. 1. p. 166.
That in some things our nature is cross to the divine commandment, is not always imputable to us, because our natures were before the commandment.
This is what I most complain of in Jeremy Taylor's ethics; namely, that he constantly refers us to the deeds or
phenomena
in time, the effluents from the source, or like the
species
of Epicurus; while the corrupt nature is declared guiltless and irresponsible; and this too on the pretext that it was prior in time to the commandment, and therefore not against it. But time is no more predicable of eternal reason than of will; but not of will; for if a will be at all, it must be
ens spirituale