Glass but for different ends and nobler purposes And yet who will deny but that there are great multitudes of lucid Stars even beyond the reach of the best Telescopes and that every visible Star may have opake Planets revolve about them which we cannot discover Now if they were not created for Our sakes it is certain and evident that they were not made for their own For Matter hath no life nor perception is not conscious of its own existence nor capable of happiness nor gives the Sacrifice of Praise and Worship to the Author of its Being It remains therefore that all Bodies were formed for the sake of Intelligent Minds and as the Earth was principally designed for the Being and Service and Contemplation of Men why may not all other Planets be created for the like Uses each for their own Inhabitants which have Life and Understanding If any man will indulge himself in this Speculation he need not quarrel with revealed Religion upon such an account The Holy Scriptures do not forbid him to suppose as great a Multitude of Systems and as much inhabited as he pleases 'T is true there is no mention in Moses's Narrative of the Creation of any People in other Planets But it plainly appears that the Sacred Historian doth only treat of the Origins of Terrestrial Animals he hath given us no account of God's creating the Angels and yet the same Author in the ensuing parts of the Pentateuch makes not unfrequent mention of the Angels of God Neither need we be sollicitous about the condition of those Planetary People nor raise frivolous Disputes how far they may participate in the Miseries of Adam's Fall or in the benefits of Christ's Incarnation As if because they are supposed to be Rational they must needs be concluded to be Men For what is Man not a Reasonable Animal merely for that is not an adequate and distinguishing Definition but a Rational Mind of such particular Faculties united to an Organical Body of such a certain Structure and Form in such peculiar Laws of Connexion between the Operations and Affections of the Mind and the Motions of the Body Now God Almighty by the inexhausted fecundity of his creative Power may have made innumerable Orders and Classes of Rational Minds some in their natural perfections higher than Humane Souls others inferior But a Mind of superior or meaner capacities than Humane would constitute a different Species though united to a Humane Body in the same Laws of Connexion and a Mind of Humane Capacities would make another Species if united to a different Body in different Laws of Connexion For this Sympathetical Union of a Rational Soul with Matter so as to produce a Vital communication between them is an arbitrary institution of the Divine Wisdom there is no reason nor foundation in the separate natures of either substance why any Motion in the Body should produce any Sensation at all in the Soul or why This motion should produce That particular Sensation rather than any other God therefore may have join'd Immaterial Souls even of the same Class and Capacities in their separate State to other kinds of Bodies and in other Laws of Union and from those different Laws of Union there will arise quite different affections and natures and species of the compound Beings So that we ought not upon any account to conclude that if there be Rational Inhabitants in the Moon or Mars or any unknown Planets of other Systems they must therefore have Humane Nature or be involved in the Circumstances of Our World And thus much was necessary to be here inculcated which will obviate and preclude the most considerable objections of our Adversaries that we do not determine the Final Causes and Usefulness of the Systematical parts of the World merely as they have respect to the Exigencies or Conveniencies of Humane Life Let us now turn our thoughts and imaginations to the Frame of our System if there we may trace any visible footsteps of Divine Wisdom and Beneficence But we are all liable to many mistakes by the prejudices of Childhood and Youth which few of us ever correct by a serious scrutiny in our riper years and a Contemplation of the Phaenomena of Nature in their Causes and Beginnings What we have always seen to be done in one constant and uniform manner we are apt to imagin there was but that one way of doing it and it could not be otherwise This is a great error and impediment in a disquisition of this nature to remedy which we ought to consider every thing as not yet in Being and then diligently examin if it must needs have been at all or what other ways it might have been as possibly as the present and if we find a greater Good and Utility in the present constitution than would have accrued either from the total Privation of it or from other frames and structures that might as possibly have been as It we may then reasonably conclude that the present constitution proceeded neither from the necessity of material Causes nor the blind shuffles of an imaginary Chance but from an intelligent and Good Being that formed it that particular way out of choice and design And especially if this Usefulness be conspicuous not in one or a few instances only but in a long train and series of Things this will give us a firm and infallible assurance that we have not pass'd a wrong Judgment I. Let us proceed therefore by this excellent Rule in the contemplation of Our System 'T is evident that all the Planets receive Heat and Light from the body of the Sun Our own Earth in particular would be barren and desolate a dead dark lump of Clay without the benign influence of the Solar Rayes which without question is true of all the other Planets It is good therefore that there should be a Sun to warm and cherish the Seeds of Plants and excite them to Vegetation to impart an uninterrupted Light to all parts of his System for the Subsistence of Animals But how came the Sun to be Luminous not from the necessity of natural Causes or the constitution of the Heavens All the Planets might have moved about him in the same Orbs and the same degrees of Velocity as now and yet the Sun might have been an opake and cold Body like Them For as the six Primary Planets revolve about Him so the Secondary ones are moved about Them the Moon about the Earth the Satellites about Iupiter and others about Saturn the one as regularly as the other in the same Sesquialteral proportion of the times of their Periodical Revolutions to the Semidiameters of their Orbs. So that though we suppose the present Existence and Conservation of the System yet the Sun might have been a Body without Light or Heat of the same kind with the Earth and Iupiter and Saturn But then what horrid darkness and desolation must have reign'd in the World It had been unfit for the Divine
that imagin they could recover to the World many new and noble Countries in the most happy and temporate Climates without any damage to the old ones could this same Mass of the Ocean be lodged and circumscribed in a much deeper Channel and and within narrower Shores For by how much they would diminish the present extent of the Sea so much they would impair the Fertility and Fountains and Rivers of the Earth because the quantity of Vapors that must be exhaled to supply all these would be lessened proportionally to the bounds of the Ocean for the Vapors are not to be measured from the bulk of the Water but from the space of the Surface So that this also doth inferr the superlative Wisdom and Goodness of God that he hath treasured up the Waters in so deep and spacious a Storehouse the place that he hath founded and appointed for them X. But some men are out of Love with the features and mean of our Earth they do not like this rugged and irregular Surface these Precipices and Valleys and the gaping Channel of the Ocean This with them is Deformity and rather carries the face of a Ruin or a rude and indigested Lump of Atoms that casually convened so than a Work of Divine Artifice They would have the vast Body of a Planet to be as elegant and round as a factitious Globe represents it to be every where smooth and equable and as plain as the Elysian Fields Let us examin what weighty reasons they have to disparage the present constitution of Nature in so injurious a manner Why if we suppose the Ocean to be dry and that we look down upon the empty Channel from some higher Region of the Air how horrid and ghastly and unnatural would it look Now admitting this Supposition Let us suppose too that the Soil of this dry Channel were covered with Grass and Trees in manner of the Continent and then see what would follow If a man could be carried asleep and placed in the very middle of this dry Ocean it must be allowed that he could not distinguish it from the inhabited Earth For if the bottom should be unequal with Shelves and Rocks and Precipices and Gulfs these being now apparel'd with a vesture of Plants would only resemble the Mountains and Valleys that he was accustomed to before But very probably he would wake in a large and smooth Plain for though the bottom of the Sea were gradually inclin'd and sloping from the Shore to the middle yet the additional Acclivity above what a Level would seem to have would be imperceptible in so short a prospect as he could take of it So that to make this Man sensible what a deep Cavity he was placed in he must be carried so high in the Air till he could see at one view the whole Breadth of the Channel and so compare the depression of the Middle with the elevation of the Banks But then a very small skill in Mathematicks is enough to instruct us that before he could arrive to that distance from the Earth all the inequality of Surface would be lost to his View the wide Ocean would appear to him like an even and uniform Plane uniform as to its Level though not as to Light and Shade though every Rock of the Sea was as high as the Pico of Teneriff But though we should grant that the dry Gulf of the Ocean would appear vastly hollow and horrible from the top of a high Cloud yet what a way of reasoning is this from the freaks of Imagination and impossible Suppositions Is the Sea ever likely to be evaporated by the Sun or to be emptied with Buckets Why then must we fancy this impossible dryness and then upon that fictitious account calumniate Nature as deformed and ruinous and unworthy of a Divine Author Is there then any physical deformity in the Fabrick of a Humane Body because our Imagination can strip it of its Muscles and Skin and shew us the scragged and knotty Backbone the gaping and ghastly Jaws and all the Sceleton underneath We have shewed before that the Sea could not be much narrower than it is without a great loss to the World and must we now have an Ocean of mere Flats and Shallows to the utter ruin of Navigation for fear our heads should turn giddy at the imagination of gaping Abysses and unfathomable Gulfs But however they may say the Sea-shores at least might have been even and uniform not crooked and broken as they are into innumerable Angles and Creeks and Inlets and Bays without Beauty or Order which carry the Marks more of Chance and Confusion than of the production of a wise Creator And would not this be a fine bargain indeed to part with all our Commodious Ports and Harbours which the greater the In-let is are so much the better for the imaginary pleasure of an open and streight Shore without any retreat or shelter from the Winds which would make the Sea of no use at all as to Navigation and Commerce But what apology can we make for the horrid deformity of Rocks and Crags of naked and broken Cliffs of long Ridges of barren Mountains in the convenientest Latitudes for Habitation and Fertility could but those rude heaps of Rubbish and Ruins be removed out of the way We have one general and sufficient answer for all seeming defects or disorders in the constitution of Land or Sea that we do not contend to have the Earth pass for a Paradise or to make a very Heaven of our Globe we reckon it only as the Land of our peregrination and aspire after a better and a coelestial Country 'T is enough if it be so framed and constituted that by a carefull Contemplation of it we have great reason to acknowledge and adore the Divine Wisdom and Benignity of its Author But to wave this general Reply let the Objectors consider that these supposed irregularities must necessarily come to pass from the establish'd Laws of Mechanism and the ordinary course of Nature For supposing the Existence of Sea and Mountains if the Banks of that Sea must never be jagged and torn by the impetuous assaults or the silent underminings of Waves if violent Rains and Tempests must not wash down the Earth and Gravel from the tops of some of those Mountains and expose their naked Ribbs to the face of the Sun if the Seeds of subterraneous Minerals must not ferment and sometimes cause Earthquakes and furious eruptions of Volcano's and tumble down broken Rocks and lay them in confusion then either all things must have been over-ruled ruled miraculously by the immediate interposition of God without any mechanical Affections or settled Laws of Nature or else the body of the Earth must have been as fixed as Gold or as hard as Adamant and wholly unfit for Humane Habitation So that if it was good in the sight of God that the present Plants and Animals and Humane Souls united to Flesh
observed because every Point was agreeable to the notions of the greater Party But when they heard of the Resurrection of the Dead the interruption and clamour became universal so that here the Apostle was obliged to break off and depart from among them What could be the reason of this general dissent from the notion of the Resurrection since almost all of them believed the Immortality of the Soul St. Chrysostom hath a conceit that the Athenians took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the original word for Resurrection to be preached to them as a Goddess and in this fancy he is follow'd by some of the Moderns The ground of the conjecture is the 18th verse of this Chapter where some said What will this Babler say other some He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strange Deities which comprehends both Sexes because he preached unto them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iesus and the Resurrection Now say they it could not be said Deities in the plural number unless it be supposed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Goddess as well as Iesus a God But we know such a permutation of Number is frequent in all Languages We have another example of it in the very Text As certain also of your own Poets have said For we are also his Off-spring And yet the Apostle meant only one Aratus the Cilician his Countryman in whose Astronomical Poem this passage is now extant So that although he preached to the Athenians Jesus alone yet by a common mode of speech he might be called a setter forth of strange Gods 'T is my opinion that the general distaste and clamour proceeded from a mistake about the nature of the Christian Resurrection The word Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was well enough known amongst the Athenians as appears at this time from Homer Aeschylus and Sophocles they could hardly then possibly imagin it to signifie a Goddess But then it always denoted a returning from the State of the Dead to this present World to eat and drink and converse upon Earth and so after another period of Life to die again as before And Festus a Roman seems to have had the same apprehensions about it For when he declares the case of St. Paul his Prisoner to King Agrippa he tells him That the Accusation was only about certain questions of the Jewish Superstition and of one Iesus which was dead whom Paul affirmed to be alive So that when the Athenians heard him mention the Resurrection of the Dead which according to their acceptation of the word was a contradiction to common Sense and to the Experience of all Places and Ages they had no patience to give any longer attention His words seemed to them as idle tales as the first news of our Saviour's Resurrection did to the Apostles themselves All interrupted and mocked him except a few that seem to have understood him aright which said they would hear him again of this matter Just as when our Saviour said in an Allegorical and Mystical sense Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you the Hearers understood him literally and grosly The Iews therefore strove among themselves saying How can this man give us his Flesh to eat this is a hard saying who can hear it And from that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him I have now gone through this excellent Discourse of the Apostle in which many most important Truths are clearly and succinctly deliver'd such as the Existence the Spirituality and All sufficiency of God the Creation of the World the Origination of Mankind from one common stock according to the History of Moses the Divine Providence in over-ruling all Nations and People the new Doctrine of Repentance by the preaching of the Gospel the Resurrection of the Dead and the appointed Day of an universal Judgment To all which particulars by God's Permission and Assistance I shall say something in due time But at present I have confined my self to that near and internal and convincing Argument of the Being of God which we have from Humane Nature it self and which appears to be principally here recommended by St. Paul in the words of the Text That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us For in him that is by his power we live and move and have our being The Proposition which I shall speak to from this Text is this That the very Life and Vital Motion and the Formal Essence and Nature of Man is wholly owing to the power of God and that the consideration of our Selves of our own Souls and Bodies doth directly and nearly conduct us to the acknowledgment of his Existence And 1. I shall prove That there is an immaterial Substance in us which we call Soul and Spirit essentially distinct from our Bodies and that this Spirit doth necessarily evince the Existence of a Supreme and Spiritual Being And 2. That the Organical Structure of Humane Bodies whereby they are fitted to live and move and be vitally informed by the Soul is unquestionably the workmanship of a most wise and powerfull and beneficent Maker But I will reserve this latter part for the next opportunity and my present undertaking shall be this To evince the Being of God from the consideration of Humane Souls 1. And first I say there is an immaterial Substance in us which we call Soul essentially distinct from our Bodies I shall lay it down as self-evident That there is something in our Composition that thinks and apprehends and reflects and deliberates that determines and doubts consents and denies that wills and demurrs and resolves and chooses and rejects that receives various sensations and impressions from external objects and produces voluntary motions of several parts of our Bodies This every man is conscious of neither can any one be so Sceptical as to doubt of or deny it that very doubting or denying being part of what I would suppose and including several of the rest in their Idea's and Notions And in the next place 't is as self-evident that these Faculties and Operations of Thinking and Willing and Perceiving must proceed from something or other as their efficient Cause meer Nothing being never able to produce any thing at all So that if these powers of Cogitation and Volition and Sensation are neither inherent in Matter as such nor producible in Matter by any motion and modification of it it necessarily follows that they proceed from some cogitative Substance some incorporeal Inhabitant within us which we call Spirit and Soul 1. But first these Faculties of Sensation and Perception are not inherent in Matter as such For if it were so what monstrous absurdities would follow Every Stock and Stone would be a percipient
more to such persons that are either so disingenuous or so stupid as to profess to believe That all the natural Powers and acquired Habits of the Mind that penetrating Understanding and accurate Judgment that strength of Memory and readiness of Wit that Liberality and Justice and Prudence and Magnanimity that Charity and Beneficence to Mankind that ingenuous fear and awfull Love of God that comprehensive Knowledge of the Histories and Languages of so many Nations that experienced Insight into the works and wonders of Nature that rich Vein of Poetry and inexhausted Fountain of Eloquence those lofty flights of Thought and almost intuitive Perception of abstruse Notions those exalted Discoveries of Mathematical Theorems and Divine Contemplations all these admirable Endowments and Capacities of humane Nature which we sometimes see actually existent in one and the same Person can proceed from the blind shuffling and casual clashing of Atoms I could as easily take up with that senseless assertion of the Stoicks That Vertues and Vices and Sciences and Arts and Fancies and Passions and Appetites are all of them real Bodies and distinct Animals as with this of the Atheist That they can all be derived from the Power of meer Bodies 'T is utterly incredible and impossible and we cannot without indignation go about to refute such an absurd imagination such a gross contradiction to unprejudiced Reason And yet if the Atheists had not been driven from all their posts and their subterfuges if we had not pursued their Atoms through all their turnings and windings their cells and recesses their interferings and justlings they would boast that they could not be answer'd and make a mighty flutter and triumph Nay though they are so miserably confounded and baffled and can offer no further explication of the Cause and the Manner yet they will Sixthly urge matter of Fact and Experience that meer Body may produce Cogitation and Sense For say they do but observe the actions of some Brutes how nearly they approach to humane Reason and visibly discover some glimpses of Understanding and if that be performed by the pure Mechanism of their Bodies as many do allow who yet believe the Being of God and an immaterial Spirit in Man then 't is but raising our Conceptions and supposing Mankind to be Engines of a finer Make and Contexture and the business is done I must confess that the Cartesians and some others men that have given no occasion to be suspected of Irreligion have asserted that Brutes are meer Machins and Automata I cannot now engage in the Controversie neither is there any necessity to do so for Religion is not endanger'd by either opinion If Brutes be said to have Sense and Immaterial Souls what need we be concern'd whether those Souls shall be immortal or annihilated at the time of Death This objection supposes the Being of God and He will do all things for the wisest and best ends Or if Brutes be supposed to be bare Engins and Machins I admire and adore the divine Artifice and Skill in such a wonderfull contrivance But I shall deny then that they have any Reason or Sense if they be nothing but Matter Omnipotence it self cannot create cogitative Body And 't is not any imperfection in the power of God but an incapacity in the Subject The Idea's of Matter and Thought are absolutely incompatible And this the Cartesians themselves do allow Do but convince Them that Brutes have the least participation of Thought or Will or Appetite or Sensation or Fancy and they 'll readily retract their Opinion For none but besotted Atheists do joyn the two Notions together and believe Brutes to be rational or sensitive Machins They are either the one or the other either endued with Sense and some glimmering Rays of Reason from a higher Principle than Matter or as the Cartesians say they are purely Body void of all Sensation and Life and like the Idols of the Gentiles they have eyes and see not ears and hear not noses and smell not they eat without hunger and drink without thirst and howl without pain They perform the outward material actions but they have no inward Self-consciousness nor any more Perception of what they do or suffer than a Looking Glass has of the Objects it reflects or the Index of a Watch of the Hour it points to And as one of those Watches when it was first presented to the Emperour of China was taken there for an Animal so on the contrary our Cartesians take brute Animals for a sort of Watches For considering the infinite distance betwixt the poor mortal Artist and the Almighty Opificer the few Wheels and Motions of a Watch and the innumerable Springs and Organs in the Bodies of Brutes they may affirm as they think without either absurdity or impiety that they are nothing but moving Automata as the fabulous Statues of Daedalus bereaved of all true life and vital Sensation which never act spontaneously and freely but as Watches must be wound up to set them a going so their Motions also are excited and inhibited are moderated and managed by the Objects without them 2. And now that I have gone through the six parts that I proposed and sufficiently shewn that Sense and Perception can never be the product of any kind of Matter and Motion it remains therefore that it must necessarily proceed from some Incorporeal Substance within us And though we cannot conceive the manner of the Soul's Action and Passion nor what hold it can lay on the Body when it voluntarily moves it yet we are as certain that it doth so as of any Mathematical Truth whatsoever or at least of such as are proved from the Impossibility or Absurdity of the Contrary a way of Proof that is allowed for infallible Demonstration Why one motion of the Body begets an Idea of Pleasure in the Mind another an Idea of Pain why such a disposition of the Body induces Sleep another disturbs all the operations of the Soul and occasions a Lethargy or Frenzy this Knowledge exceeds our narrow Faculties and is out of the reach of our discovery I discern some excellent Final causes of such a vital Conjunction of Body and Soul but the instrumental I know not nor what invisible Bands and Fetters unite them together I resolve all that into the sole Pleasure and Fiat of our Omnipotent Creator whose Existence which is my last Point is so plainly and nearly deducible from the established proof of an Immaterial Soul that no wonder the resolved Atheists do so labour and bestir themselves to fetch Sense and Perception out of the Power of Matter I will dispatch it in three words For since we have shewn that there is an Incorporeal Substance within us whence did that proceed and how came it into Being It did not exist from all Eternity that 's too absurd to be supposed nor could it come out of nothing into Being without an Efficient Cause Something therefore must have created our
Principle of Gravitation or by impulse of ambient Bodies It is plain here is no difference as to this whether the World be Infinite or Finite so that the same Arguments that we have used before may be equally urged in this Supposition And though we should concede that these Revolutions might be acquired and that all were settled and constituted in the present State and Posture of Things yet we say the continuance of this Frame and Order for so long a duration as the known Ages of the World must necessarily infer the Existence of God For though the Universe was infinite the now Fixt Stars could not be fixed but would naturally convene together and confound System with System because all mutually attracting every one would move whither it was most powerfully drawn This they may say is indubitable in the case of a Finite World where some Systems must needs be Outmost and therefore be drawn toward the Middle but when Infinite Systems succeed one another through an Infinite Space and none is either inward or outward may not all the Systems be situated in an accurate Poise and because equally attracted on all sides remain fixed and unmoved But to this we reply That unless the very mathematical Center of Gravity of every System be placed and fixed in the very mathematical Center of the Attractive Power of all the rest they cannot be evenly attracted on all sides but must preponderate some way or other Now he that considers what a mathematical Center is and that Quantity is infinitely divisible will never be persuaded that such an Universal Equilibrium arising from the coincidence of Infinite Centers can naturally be acquired or maintained If they say that upon the Supposition of Infinite Matter every System would be infinitely and therefore equally attracted on all sides and consequently would rest in an exact Equilibrium be the Center of its Gravity in what Position soever this will overthrow their very Hypothesis For at this rate in an infinite Chaos nothing at all could be formed no Particles could convene by mutual Attraction because every one there must have Infinite Matter around it and therefore must rest for ever being evenly balanced between Infinite Attractions Even the Planets upon this principle must gravitate no more toward the Sun than any other way so that they would not revolve in curve Lines but fly away in direct Tangents till they struck against other Planets or Stars in some remote regions of the Infinite Space An equal Attraction on all sides of all Matter is just equal to no Attraction at all and by this means all the Motion in the Universe must proceed from external Impulse alone which we have proved before to be an incompetent Cause for the Formation of a World And now O thou almighty and eternal Creator having considered the Heavens the work of thy fingers the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained with all the company of Heaven we laud and magnify thy glorious Name evermore praising thee and saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy Glory Glory be to thee O Lord most High A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Origin and Frame of the World The Third and Last PART The Eighth SERMON preached December 5. 1692. Acts XIV 15 c. That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein Who in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling our hearts with Food and Gladness HAving abundantly proved in our Last Exercise That the Frame of the present World could neither be made nor preserved without the Power of God we shall now consider the structure and motions of our own System if any characters of Divine Wisdom and Goodness may be discoverable by us And even at the first and general View it very evidently appears to us which is our FOURTH and Last Proposition That the Order and Beauty of the Systematical Parts of the World the Discernible Ends and Final Causes of them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Meliority above what was necessary to be do evince by a reflex Argument that it could not be produced by Mechanism or Chance but by an Intelligent and Benign Agent that by his excellent Wisdom made the Heavens But before we engage in this Disquisition we must offer one necessary Caution that we need not nor do not confine and determin the purposes of God in creating all Mundane Bodies merely to Humane Ends and Uses Not that we believe it laborious and painfull to Omnipotence to create a World out of Nothing or more laborious to create a great World than a small one so as we might think it disagreeable to the Majesty and Tranquillity of the Divine Nature to take so much pains for our sakes Nor do we count it any absurdity that such a vast and immense Universe should be made for the sole use of such mean and unworthy Creatures as the Children of Men. For if we consider the Dignity of an Intelligent Being and put that in the scales against brute inanimate Matter we may affirm without over-valuing Humane Nature that the Soul of one vertuous and religious Man is of greater worth and excellency than the Sun and his Planets and all the Stars in the World If therefore it could appear that all the Mundane Bodies are some way conducible to the service of Man if all were as beneficial to us as the Polar Stars were formerly for Navigation as the Moon is for the flowing and ebbing of Tides by which an inestimable advantage accrues to the World for her officious Courtesie in long Winter Nights especiaally to the more Northern Nations who in a continual Night it may be of a whole month are so pretty well accommodated by the Light of the Moon reflected from frozen Snow that they do not much envy their Antipodes a month's presence of the Sun if all the Heavenly Bodies were thus serviceable to us we should not be backward to assign their usefulness to Mankind as the sole end of their Creation But we dare not undertake to shew what advantage is brought to Us by those innumerable Stars in the Galaxy and other parts of the Firmament not discernible by naked eyes and yet each many thousand times bigger than the whole body of the Earth If you say they beget in us a great Idea and Veneration of the mighty Author and Governour of such stupendous Bodies and excite and elevate our minds to his adoration and praise you say very truly and well But would it not raise in us a higher apprehension of the infinite Majesty and boundless Beneficence of God to suppose that those remote and vast Bodies were formed not merely upon Our account to be peept at through an Optick
of the Atheist That it was first contrived and introduced by Politicians to bring the wild and straggling Herds of Mankind under Subjection and Laws Out of thy own mouth shalt thou be judged thou wicked servant Thou say'st that the wise Institutors of Government Souls elevated above the ordinary pitch of men thought Religion necessary to Civil Obedience Why then dost thou endeavour to undermine this Foundation to undo this Cement of Society and to reduce all once again to thy imaginary State of Nature and Original Confusion No Community ever was or can be begun or maintain'd but upon the Basis of Religion What Government can be imagin'd without Judicial Proceedings and what methods of Judicature without a Religious Oath which implies and supposes an Omniscient Being as conscious to its falshood or truth and a revenger of Perjury So that the very nature of an Oath and therefore of Society also is subverted by the Atheist who professeth to acknowledge nothing superiour to himself no omnipresent observer of the actions of men For an Atheist to compose a System of Politicks is as absurd and ridiculous as Epicurus's Sermons were about Sanctity and Religious Worship But there was hope that the Doctrine of absolute uncontroulable Power and the formidable name of Leviathan might flatter and bribe the Government into a toleration of Infidelity We need have no recourse to notion and supposition we have sad experience and convincing example before us what a rare Constitution of Government may be had in a whole Nation of Atheists The Natives of Newfoundland and New France in America as they are said to live without any sense of Religion so they are known to be destitute of its advantages and blessings without any Law or form of Community without any Literature or Sciences or Arts no Towns no fixed Habitations no Agriculture no Navigation And 't is entirely owing to the power of Religion that the whole World is not at this time as barbarous as they And yet I ought not to have called these miserable Wretches a Nation of Atheists They cannot be said to be of the Atheist's opinion because they have no opinion at all in the matter They do not say in their hearts There is no God for they never once deliberated if there was one or no. They no more deny the Existence of a Deity than they deny the Antipodes the Copernican System or the Satellites Iovis about which they have had no notion or conception at all 'T is the Ignorance of those poor Creatures and not their Impiety their Ignorance as much to be pitied as the Impiety of the Atheists to be detested and punish'd 'T is of mighty importance to the Government to put some timely stop to the spreading Contagion of this Pestilence that walketh by day that dares to disperse its cursed seeds and principles in the face of the Sun The Fool in the Text had only said in his heart There is no God he had not spoken it aloud nor openly blasphem'd in places of publick resort There 's too much reason to fear that some of all orders of men even Magistracy it self have taken the Infection a thing of dreadfull consequence and most imminent danger Epicurus was somewhat wiser than ordinary when he so earnestly advised his Disciples against medling in publick affairs He knew the nature and tendency of his own Philosophy that it would soon become suspected and odious to a Government if ever Atheists were employ'd in places of Trust. But because he had made one great Rule superior to all That every man's only Good was pleasure of Body and contentment of Mind hence it was that men of ambitious and turbulent Spirits that were dissatisfied and uneasie with Privacy and Retirement were allowed by his own Principle to engage in matters of State And there they generally met with that fortune which their Master foresaw Several Cities of Greece that had made experiment of them in Publick Concerns drove them out as Incendiaries and Pests of Commonweals by severe Edicts and Proclamations Atheism is by no means tolerable in the most private condition but if it aspire to authority and power if it acquire the Command of an Army or a Navy if it get upon the Bench or into the Senate or on a Throne What then can be expected but the basest Cowardice and Treachery but the foulest prevarication in Justice but betraying and selling the Rights and Liberties of a People but arbitrary Government and tyrannical Oppression Nay if Atheism were once as I may say the National Religion it would make its own Followers the most miserable of men it would be the Kingdom of Satan divided against it self and the Land would be soon brought to desolation Iosephus that knew them hath inform'd us that the Sadduces those Epicureans among the Jews were not only rough and cruel to men of a different Sect from their own but perfidious and inhumane one towards another This is the genuine spirit and the natural product of Atheism No man that adheres to that narrow and selfish Principle can ever be Just or Generous or Gratefull unless he be sometime overcome by Good-nature and a happy Constitution No Atheist as such can be a true Friend an affectionate Relation or a loyal Subject The appearance and shew of mutual Amity among them is wholly owing to the smallness of their number and to the obligations of a Faction 'T is like the Friendship of Pickpockets and Highwaymen that are said to observe strict Justice among themselves and never to defraud a Comrade of his share of the Booty But if we could imagine a whole Nation to be Cut-purses and Robbers would there then be kept that square-dealing and equity in such a monstrous den of Thieves And if Atheism should be supposed to become universal in this Nation which seems to be design'd and endeavour'd though we know the gates of Hell shall not be able to prevail farewell all Ties of Friendship and Principles of Honour all Love for our Country and Loyalty to our Prince nay farewell all Government and Society it self all Professions and Arts and Conveniencies of Life all that is laudable or valuable in the World May the Father of Mercies and God of Infinite Wisedom reduce the Foolish from their Errors and make them wise unto Salvation Confirm the Sceptical and wavering Minds and so prevent Us that stand fast in all our doings and further us with his continual help that we may not be of them that draw back unto Perdition but of them that believe to the saving of the Soul Amen Matter and Motion cannot think OR A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM From the Faculties of the Soul The Second SERMON preached April 4. 1692. Acts XVII 27. That they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us for in him we Live and Move and have our Being
though he be not far from every one of us for in him we Live and Move and have our Being I Have said enough in my last to shew the fitness and pertinency of the Apostle's Discourse to the persons he address'd to whereby it sufficiently appears that he was no Babler as some of the Athenian Rabble reproached him not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a busie prating Fellow as in another language they say Sermones serere and Rumores serere in a like mode of Expression that he did not talk at random but was throughly acquainted with the several humours and opinions of his Auditors And as Moses was learned in all the Wisdom of the Aegyptians so it is manifest from this Chapter alone if nothing else had been now extant that St. Paul was a great Master in all the Learning of the Greeks One thing further I shall observe from the words of the Text before I enter upon the Subject which I proposed that it requires some Industry and Consideration to find out the Being of God we must seek the Lord and feel after him before we can find him by the Light of Nature The search indeed is not very tedious nor difficult He is not far from every one of us for in him we live and move and have our Being The Consideration of our Mind and Understanding which is an incorporeal Substance independent from Matter and the contemplation of our own Bodies which have all the stamps and characters of excellent Contrivance these alone though we look upon nothing abroad do very easily and proximately guide us to the wise Author of all things But however as we see in our Text some Thoughts and Meditation are necessary to it and a man may possibly be so stupid or wilfully ignorant or perverse as not to have God in all his thoughts or to say in his heart There is none And this being observed we have an effectual answer to that Cavil of the Atheists who make it an objection against the Being of God that they do not discover him without any Application in spite of their corrupt Wills and debauch'd Understandings If say they such a God as we are told of had created and formed us surely he would have left upon our Minds a native and indeleble Inscription of Himself whereby we must needs have felt him even without seeking and believed in him whether we would or no. So that these Atheists being conscious to themselves that they are void of such Belief which they say if God was would actually and necessarily be in them do bring their own wicked Doubting and Denying of God as Evidence against his Existence and make their very Infidelity an argument for it self To which we reply That God hath endu'd Mankind with Powers and Abilities which we call natural Light and Reason and common Sense by the due use of which we cannot miss of the Discovery of his Being and this is sufficient But as to that original Notion and Proposition GOD IS which the Atheist pretends should have been actually imprinted on us antecedently to all use of our Faculties we may affirm that the absence of such a Notion doth not give the least presumption against the truth of Religion because though God be supposed to be yet that Notion distinct from our Faculties would not be requisite nor is it asserted by Religion First it would not be requisite because without any such primitive Impression we can easily attain to the knowledge of the Deity by the sole use of our Natural Reason And again such an Impression would have render'd the Belief of a God irresistible and necessary and thereby have bereaved it of all that is good and acceptable in it For as the taking away the Freedom of Humane Will and making us meer Machins under fatal Ties and Impulses would destroy the very nature of Moral Vertue so likewise as to Faith there would be nothing worthy of praise and recompence in it if there were left no possibility of Doubting or Denying And secondly such a radical Truth GOD IS springing up together with the Essence of the Soul and previous to all other Thoughts is not asserted by Religion No such thing that I know of is affirmed or suggested by the Scriptures There are several Topics there used against the Atheism and Idolatry of the Heathens such as the visible marks of Divine Wisdom and Goodness in the Works of the Creation the vital Union of Souls with Matter and the admirable Structure of animate Bodies and the like But if our Apostle had asserted such an anticipating Principle engraven upon our Souls before all Exercise of Reason what did he talk of seeking the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him since if the knowledge of him was in that manner innate and perpetual there would be no occasion of seeking nor any hap or hazard in the finding Such an Inscription would be self evident without Reasoning or Study and could not fail constantly to exert its Energy in their Minds What did he talk of the Unknown God and ignorantly worshipping when if such an Original Signature were always inherent in their hearts God could not be unknown to or ignorantly worshipp'd by any That primary Proposition would have been clear and distinct and efficacious and universal in the minds of Men. S. Paul therefore it appears had no apprehension of such a First Notion nor made use of it for an argument which since whosoever hath it must needs know that he hath it if it be not believed before by the Adversary is false and if it be believed is superfluous and is of so frail and brittle a texture that whereas other arguments are not answered by bare denying without contrary Proof the meer doubting and disbelieving of this must be granted to be ipso facto the breaking and confuting of it Thus much therefore we have proved against the Atheist that such an original irresistible Notion is neither requisite upon supposition of a Deity nor is pretended to by Religion so that neither the Absence of it is any argument against the Being of God nor a supposed false Assertion of it an objection against the Scripture 'T is enough that all are furnish'd with such Natural Powers and Capacities that if they seriously reflect if they seek the Lord with meditation and study they cannot fail of finding and discovering him whereby God is not left without witness but the Atheist without excuse And now I haste to the second Proposition deduced from the Text and the argument of my present Discourse That the organical Structure of humane Bodies whereby they are fitted to live and move and be vitally informed by the Soul is unquestionably the workmanship of a most wise and powerfull and beneficent Maker First 'T is allowed and acknowledged by all parties that the Bodies of Men and other Animals are excellently well fitted for Life and Motion and Sensation and the several parts of them
well adapted and accommodated to their particular Functions The Eye is very proper and meet for seeing the Tongue for tasting and speaking the Hand for holding and lifting and ten thousand Operations beside and so for the inward Parts the Lungs are suitable for Respiration the Stomach for Concoction the Lacteous Vessels for the Reception of the Chyle the Heart for the Distribution of the Blood to all the parts of the Body This is matter of Fact and beyond all dispute and in effect is no more than to say that Animals are Animals for if they were deprived of these Qualifications they could not be so This therefore is not the matter in Question between us and the Atheists But the Controversie is here We when we consider so many constituent parts in the Bodies of Men all admirably compacted into so noble an Engine in each of the very Fingers for example there are Bones and Gristles and Ligaments and Membranes and Muscles and Tendons and Nerves and Arteries and Veins and Skin and Cuticle and Nail together with Marrow and Fat and Blood and other Nutricious Juices and all those solid Parts of a determinate Size and Figure and Texture and Situation and each of them made up of Myriads of little Fibres and Filaments not discoverable by the naked Eye I say when we consider how innumerable parts must constitute so small a member as the Finger we cannot look upon It or the whole Body wherein appears so much Fitness and Use and Subserviency to infinite Functions any otherwise than as the effect of Contrivance and Skill and consequently the Workmanship of a most Intelligent and Beneficent Being And though now the Propagation of Mankind be in a settled method of Nature which is the instrument of God yet we affirm that the first Production of Mankind was by the immediate Power of the Almighty Author of Nature and that all succeeding Generations of Men are the Progeny of one primitive Couple This is a Religious Man's account of the Frame and Origination of himself Now the Atheists agree with us as to the Fitness of Man's Body and its several Parts to their various Operations and Functions for that is visible and past all contradiction but they vehemently oppose and horribly dread the Thought That this Usefulness of the Parts and the Whole should first arise from Wisdom and Design So that here will be the point in debate and the subject of our present Undertaking Whether this acknowledged Fitness of Humane Bodies must be attributed as we say to a wise and good God or as the Atheist averr to dead senseless Matter They have contrived several tricks and methods of Deceit one repugnant to another to evade if possible this most cogent Proof of a Deity All which I will propose and refute and I hope to make it appear that here as indeed every where but here certainly in the great Dramatick Poem of Nature is dignus Deo vindice Nodus a necessity of introducing a God And first I will answer what Exceptions they can have against Our account and secondly I will confute all the Reasons and Explications they can give of their Own 1. First I will answer what Exceptions they can have against Our account of the Production of Mankind And they may object That the Body it self though pretty good in its kind and upon their Hypothesis nevertheless doth not look like the Workmanship of so great a Master as is pretended by Us that infinite Wisdom and Goodness and Power would have bestowed upon us more Senses than five or at least these five in a much higher Perfection that we could never have come out of the Hands of the Almighty so subject to numerous Diseases so obnoxious to violent Deaths and at best of such a short and transitory Life They can no more ascribe so sorry an Effect to an Omniscient Cause than some ordinary piece of Clock-work with a very few motions and uses and those continually out of order and quickly at an end to the best Artist of the Age. But to this we reply First as to the five Senses it would be rash indeed to affirm That God if he had pleased could not have endued us with more But thus much we may averr That though the Power of God be infinite and perfect yet the Capacities of Matter are within limits and bounds Why then doth the Atheist suspect that there may possibly be any more ways of Sensation than what we have already Hath he an Idea or Notion or Discovery of any more So far from that that he cannot make any addition or progress in those very Senses he hath further than they themselves have informed him He cannot imagine one new Colour or Tast or Smell beside those that have actually fallen under his Senses Much less can he that is destitute of an entire Sense have any Idea or Representation of it as one that is born Deaf hath no Notion of Sounds or Blind of Colours and Light If then the Atheist can have no Imagination of more Senses than five why doth he suppose that a Body is capable of more If we had double or triple as many there might still be the same suspicion for a greater number without end and the Objection therefore in both cases is equally unreasonable and groundless Secondly we affirm that our Senses have that degree of Perfection which is most fit and suitable to our Estate and Condition For though the Eye were so piercing as to descry even opake and little Objects some hundreds of Leagues off even that improvement of our sight would do us little service it would be terminated by neighbouring Hills and Woods or in the largest and evenest plain by the very convexity of the Earth unless we could always inhabit the tops of Mountains and Cliffs or had Wings too to fly aloft when we had a mind to take a Prospect And if Mankind had had Wings as perhaps some extravagant Atheist may think us deficient in that all the World must have consented to clip them or else Humane Race had been extinct before this time nothing upon that supposition being safe from Murder and Rapine Or if the Eye were so acute as to rival the finest Microscopes and to discern the smallest Hair upon the leg of a Gnat it would be a curse and not a blessing to us it would make all things appear rugged and deformed the most finely polish'd Chrystal would be uneven and rough The sight of our own selves would affright us The smoothest Skin would be beset all over with ragged Scales and bristly Hairs And beside we could not see at one view above what is now the space of an Inch and it would take a considerable time to survey the then mountainous bulk of our own Bodies Such a Faculty of sight so disproportion'd to our other Senses and to the Objects about us would be very little better than Blindness it self And again God hath furnished us with
Invention and Industry so that by optical Glasses we can more than supply that imaginary defect of our own Eyes and discover more remote and minute Bodies with that assistance than perhaps the most whimsical Atheist would desire to do without it So likewise if our Sense of Hearing were exalted proportionably to the former what a miserable condition would Mankind be in What whisper could be low enough but many would over-hear it What Affairs that most require it could be transacted with secrecy and whither could we retire from perpetual humming and buzzing every breath of Wind would incommode and disturb us we should have no quiet or sleep in the silentest nights and most solitary places and we must inevitably be struck Deaf or Dead with the noise of a clap of Thunder And the like inconveniences would follow if the Sense of Feeling was advanced to such a degree as the Atheist requires How could we sustain the pressure of our very Cloaths in such a condition much less carry burthens and provide for conveniences of Life We could not bear the assault of an Insect or a Feather or a puff of Air without pain There are examples now of wounded persons that have roared for anguish and torment at the discharge of Ordnance though at a very great distance what insupportable torture then should we be under upon a like concussion in the Air when all the whole Body would have the tenderness of a Wound In a word all the Changes and Emendations that the Atheists would make in our Senses are so far from being Improvements that they would prove the utter Ruin and Extirpation of Mankind But perhaps they may have better success in their complaints about the Distempers of the Body and the Shortness of Life We do not wonder indeed that the Atheist should lay a mighty stress upon this Objection For to a man that places all his Happiness in the Indolency and Pleasure of Body what can be more terrible than Pain or a Fit of Sickness nothing but Death alone the most dreadfull thing in the world When an Atheist reflects upon Death his very Hope is Despair and 't is the crown and top of his Wishes that it may prove his utter Dissolution and Destruction No question if an Atheist had had the making of himself he would have framed a Constitution that could have kept pace with his insatiable Lust been invincible by Gluttony and Intemperance and have held out vigorous a thousand years in a perpetual Debauch But we answer First in the words of St. Paul Nay but O Man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus We adore and magnifie his most holy Name for his undeserved Mercy towards us that he made us the Chief of the visible Creation and freely acquit his Goodness from any imputation of Unkindness that he has placed us no higher Secondly Religion gives us a very good account of the present Infirmity of our Bodies Man at his first Origin was a Vessel of Honour when he came first out of the Hands of the Potter endued with all imaginable Perfections of the Animal Nature till by Disobedience and Sin Diseases and Death came first into the World Thirdly The Distempers of the Body are not so formidable to a Religious Man as they are to an Atheist He hath a quite different judgment and apprehension about them he is willing to believe that our present condition is better for us in the Issue than that uninterrupted Health and Security that the Atheist desires which would strongly tempt us to forget God and the concerns of a better Life Whereas now he receives a Fit of Sickness as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the kind Chastisement and Discipline of his Heavenly Father to wean his Affections from the World where he is but as on a Journey and to fix his thoughts and desires on things above where his Country and his Dwelling is that where he hath placed his Treasure and Concerns there his heart may be also Fourthly Most of the Distempers that are incident to us are of our own making the effects of abused Plenty and Luxury and must not be charged upon our Maker who notwithstanding out of the Riches of his Compassion hath provided for us store of excellent Medicines to alleviate in a great measure those very Evils which we bring upon our selves And now we are come to the last Objection of the Atheist That Life is too short Alas for him what pity 't is that he cannot wallow immortally in his sensual Pleasures But if his Life were many whole Ages longer than it is he would still make the same Complaint Brevis est hic fructus homullis For Eternity and that 's the thing he trembles at is every whit as long after a thousand years as after fifty But Religion gives Us a better prospect and makes us look beyond the gloomy Regions of Death with Comfort and Delight When this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality We are so far from repining at God that he hath not extended the period of our Lives to the Longaevity of the Antediluvians that we give him thanks for contracting the Days of our Trial and receiving us more maturely into those Everlasting Habitations above that he hath prepared for us And now that I have answer'd all the Atheist's Exceptions against Our account of the Production of Mankind I come in the next place to examine all the Reasons and Explications they can give of their own The Atheists upon this occasion are divided into Sects and which is the mark and character of Error are at variance and repugnancy with each other and with themselves Some of them will have Mankind to have been thus from all Eternity But the rest do not approve of infinite Successions but are positive for a Beginning and they also are subdivided into three Parties the first ascribe the Origin of Men to the Influence of the Stars upon some extraordinary Conjunction or Aspect Others again reject all Astrology and some of these mechanically produce Mankind at the very first Experiment by the action of the Sun upon duly prepared Matter but others are of opinion that after infinite blundering and miscarrying our Bodies at last came into this Figure by meer Chance and Accident There 's no Atheist in the World that reasons about his Infidelity which God knows most of them never do but he takes one of these four Methods I will refute them every one in the same order that I have named them the two former in the present Discourse reserving the others for another occasion I. And First the Opinion of those Atheists that will have Mankind and other Animals to have subsisted eternally in infinite Generations already past will be found to be flat Non-sence and Contradiction to it self and repugnant also to matter of Fact First it is
must allow therefore that Bodies were endowed with the same affections and tendencies then as ever since and that if an Ax-head be supposed to float upon water which is specifically much lighter than it it had been supernatural at that time as well as in the days of Elisha And this is all that I desire him to acknowledge at present So that he may admit of those Arguments as valid and conclusive against his Hypothesis that are fairly drawn from the present powers of Matter and the visible constitution of the World Now that we may come to the point All Matter is either Fluid or Solid in a large acceptation of the words that they may comprehend even all the middle degrees between extreme Fixedness and Coherency and the most rapid intestine motion of the Particles of Bodies Now the most cavilling Atheist must allow that a solid inanimate Body while it remains in that state where there is none or a very small and inconsiderable change of Texture is wholly incapable of a vital production So that the first Humane Body without Parents and without Creator if such an one ever was must have naturally been produced in and constituted by a Fluid And because this Atheist goes mechanically to work the universal Laws of Fluids must have been rigidly observed during the whole process of the Formation Now this is a Catholick Rule of Staticks That if any Body be bulk for bulk heavier than a Fluid it will sink to the bottom of that Fluid and if lighter it will float upon it having part of it self extant and part immersed to such a determinate depth as that so much of the Fluid as is equal in Bulk to the immersed part be equal in Gravity to the whole And consequently if several portions of one and the same Fluid have a different specifick gravity the heavier will always in a free vessel be gradually the lower unless violently shaken and blended together by external concussion But that cannot be in our present case For I am unwilling to affront this Atheist so much as to suppose him to believe that the first organical Body might possibly be effected in some Fluid portion of Matter while its Heterogeneous parts were jumbled and confounded together by a Storm or Hurricane or Earthquake To be sure he will rather have the primitive Man to be produced by a long process in a kind of digesting Balneum where all the heavier Lees may have time to subside and a due Aequilibrium be maintain'd not disturb'd by any such rude and violent shocks that would ruffle and break all the little Stamina of the Embryon if it were a making before Now because all the parts of an undisturb'd Fluid are either of equal Gravity or gradually placed and storied according to the differences of it any concretion that can be supposed to be naturally and mechanically made in such a Fluid must have a like structure of its several parts that is either be all over of a similar Gravity or have the more ponderous parts nearer to its Basis. But there need no more concessions than this to extinguish these supposed First-born of Nature in their very formation For suppose a Humane Body to be a forming in such a Fluid in any imaginable posture it will never be reconcileable to this Hydrostatical Law There will be always something lighter beneath and something heavier above because Bone or what is then the Stuff and Rudiments of Bone the heaviest in specie will be ever in the midst Now what can make the heavier particles of Bone ascend above the lighter ones of Flesh or depress these below those against the tendency of their own Nature This would be wholly as miraculous as the swimming of Iron in Water at the command of Elisha and as impossible to be as that the Lead of an Edifice should naturally and spontaneously mount up to the Roof while lighter materials employ themselves beneath it or that a Statue like that in Nebuchadnezzar's Vision whose Head was of fine and most ponderous Gold and his Feet of lighter materials Iron and Clay should mechanically erect it self upon them for its Basis. Secondly Because this Atheist goes mechanically to work he will not offer to affirm That all the parts of the Embryon could according to his explication be formed at a time This would be a supernatural thing and an effectual refutation of his own Principles For the Corpuscles of Matter having no consciousness of one anothers acting at least before or during the Formation as will be allowed by that very Atheist that attributes Reason and Perception to them when the Formation is finished they could not consent and make a compact together to carry on the work in several places at once and one party of them be forming the Brain while another is modelling the Heart and a third delineating the Veins No there must be according to Mechanism a successive and gradual operation Some few Particles must first be united together and so by apposition and mutual connexion still more and more by degrees till the whole System be completed and a Fermentation must be excited in some assignable place which may expand it self by its Elastical power and break through where it meets with the weakest resistance and so by that so simple and mechanical action may excavate all the various Ducts and Ventricles of the Body This is the only general account as mean as it appears to be that this Machin of an Atheist can give of that fearfull and wonderfull Production Now to confute these Pretences First There is that visible Harmony and Symmetry in a Humane Body such a mutual communication of every vessel and member of it as gives an internal evidence that it was not formed successively and patch'd up by piece-meal So uniform and orderly a system with innumerable Motions and Functions all so placed and constituted as never to interfere and clash one with another and disturb the Oeconomy of the whole must needs be ascribed to an Intelligent Artist and to such an Artist as did not begin the matter unprepared and at a venture and when he was put to a stand paused and hesitated which way he should proceed but he had first in his comprehensive Intellect a complete Idea and Model of the whole Organical Body before he enter'd upon the Work But Secondly if they affirm That mere Matter by its mechanical Affections without any design or direction could form the Body by steps and degrees what member then do they pitch upon for the foundation and cause of all the rest Let them shew us the beginning of this Circle and the first Wheel of this Perpetual Motion Did the Blood first exist antecedent to the formation of the Heart But that is to set the Effect before the Cause because all the Blood that we know of is made in and by the Heart having the quite different form and qualities of Chyle before it comes thither Must
prove that Humane Race was neither 1 from Everlasting without beginning nor 2 owes its beginning to the Influence of Heavenly Bodies nor 3 to what they call Nature that is the necessary and mechanical motions of dead senseless Matter I proceed now to examin the fourth and last Plea of the Enemies to Religion and their own Souls That Mankind came accidentally into the World and hath its Life and Motion and Being by mere Chance and Fortune We need not much wonder that this last Opinion should obtain almost universally among the Atheists of these times For whereas the Other require some small stock of Philosophy to understand or maintain them This Account is so easie and compendious that it needs none at all and consequently is the more proper and agreeable to the great Industry and Capacity of the most numerous Party of them For what more easie to say than that all the Bodies of the first Animals and Plants were shuffled into their several Forms and Structures fortuitously that is these Atheists know not how nor will trouble themselves to endeavour to know For that is the meaning of Chance and yet this is all that they say or can say to the great Matter in question And indeed this little is enough in all reason and could they impose on the rest of Mankind as easily as delude themselves with a notion That Chance can effect a thing it would be the most expedite and effectual means to make their Cause victorious over Vertue and Religion For if you once allow them such an acceptation of Chance you have precluded your self they think from any more reasoning and objecting against them The Mechanical Atheist though you grant him his Laws of Mechanism is nevertheless inextricably puzzled and baffled with the first Formation of Animals for he must undertake to determine all the various Motions and Figures and Positions and Combinations of his Atoms and to demonstrate that such a quantity of Motion impressed upon Particles so shaped and situated will necessarily range and dispose them into the Form and Frame of an Organical Body an attempt as difficult and unpromising of success as if he himself should make the Essay to produce some new Kinds of Animals out of such senseless Materials or to rebuild the moving and living Fabrick out of its dust in the grave But the Atheist that we are now to deal with if you do but concede to him that Fortune may be an Agent presumes himself safe and invulnerable secure above the reach of any further disputes For if you proceed to ask questions and bid him assign the proper Causes and determinate Manner of that fortuitous Formation you thereby deny him what you granted before and take away the very Hypothesis and the Nature of Chance which supposeth that no certain Cause or Manner of it can possibly be assigned And as the stupidity of some Libertines that demand a sight of a Spirit or Humane Soul to convince them of its existence hath been frequently and deservedly exposed because whatsoever may be the object of our Sight must not be a Soul or Spirit but an opake Body so this Atheist would tax us of the like Nonsense and Contradiction if after he hath named to us Fortune or Chance we should expect from him any particular and distinct account of the Origin of Mankind Because it is the very essence and notion of his Chance to be wholly unaccountable and if an account could be given of it it would then no longer be Chance but Mechanism or a necessary production of certain Effects from certain Causes according to the Universal Laws of Motion Thus we are to know that if once we admit of Fortune in the Formation of Mankind there is no further enquiry to be made no more Difficulties to be solved and no Account to be demanded And who then can admire if the inviting easiness and compendiousness of this Assertion should so dazle the Eyes of our Atheist that he overlooks those gross Absurdities that are so conspicuous in it 1 For first if this Atheist would have his Chance or Fortune to be a real and substantial Agent as the Vulgar seem to have commonly apprehended some making it a Divinity others they do not conceive what he is doubly more stupid and more supinely ignorant than those Vulgar in that he assumes such a notion of Fortune as besides its being erroneous is inconsistent with his Atheism For since according to the Atheists the whole Universe is Corpus mane Body and nothing else this Chance if it do really and physically effect any thing must it self be Body also And what a numerous train of Absurdities do attend such an assertion too visible and obvious to deserve to be here insisted on For indeed it is no less than flat contradiction to it self For if this Chance be supposed to be a Body it must then be a part of the common Mass of Matter and consequently be subject to the universal and necessary Laws of Motion and therefore it cannot be Chance but true Mechanism and Nature 2 But secondly if he forbear to call Chance a real Agent and is content to have it only a Result or Event since all Matter or some portion of it may be naturally exempt from these supposed Mechanical Laws and be endowed with a power of spontaneous or fortuitous Motion which power when it is exerted must produce an Effect properly Casual and therefore might constitute the first Animate Bodies accidentally against the supposed natural tendency of the Particles of those Bodies even this second Assertion is contrary to common Sense as well as common Observation For how can he conceive that any parcel of dead Matter can spontaneonsly divert and decline it self from the line of its motion without a new impulse from external Bodies If it can intrinsically stir it self and either commence its Motion or alter its course it must have a principle of self-activity which is Life and Sense But Sense I have proved formerly to be incompatible with mere Bodies even those of the most compound and elaborate textures much more with single Atoms or solid Particles of Matter that having no intestine motion of Parts are destitute of the first foundation and capacity of Life And moreover though these Particles should be supposed to have this internal principle of Sense it would still be repugnant to the notion of Chance because their Motions would not then be Casual but Voluntary not by Chance but Choice and Design And Again we appeal to Observation whether any Bodies have such a power of Fortuitous Motion we should surely have experiment of it in the effects of Nature and Art No Body would retain the same constant and uniform Weight according to its Bulk and Substance but would vary perpetually as that spontaneous power of Motion should determin its present tendency All the various Machins and Utensils would now and then play odd Pranks and Capricio's quite contrary to
their proper Structures and Designs of the Artificers Whereas on the contrary all Bodies are observed to have always a certain and determinate Motion according to the degrees of their External Impulse and their inward Principle of Gravitation and the Resistance of the Bodies they occurr with which therefore is without Error exactly foreseen and computed by sagacious Artists And if ever Dead Matter should deviate from this Motion it could not proceed from it self but a supernatural Agent and ought not to be called a Chance but a Miracle For Chance is but a mere name and really Nothing in it self a Conception of our own Minds and only a Compendious way of speaking whereby we would express That such Effects as are commonly attributed to Chance were verily produced by their true and proper Causes but without their designing to produce them And in any Event called Casual if you take away the real and physical Causes there remains nothing but a simple Negation of the Agents intending such an Event which Negation being no real Entity but a Conception only of Man's Intellect wholly extrinsecal to the Action can have no title to a share in the production As in that famous Example which Plutarch says is the only one where Fortune is related to have done a thing artificially when a Painter having finish'd the Picture of a Horse excepting the loose Froth about his Mouth and his Bridle and after many unsuccessfull essays despairing to do that to his satisfaction in a great rage threw his Spunge at it all besmear'd as it was with the Colours which fortunately hitting upon the right place by one bold stroke of Chance most exactly supplied the want of Skill in the Artist even here it is manifest that considering the Quantity and Determination of the Motion that was impressed by the Painter's hand upon the Spunge com pounded with the specifick Gravity of the Spunge and resistance of the Air the Spunge did mechanically and unavoidably move in that particular line of Motion and so necessarily hit upon that part of the Picture and all the paint that it left there was as certainly placed by true natural Causes as any one stroke of the Pencil in the whole Piece So that this strange effect of the Spunge was fortuitous only with respect to the Painter because he did not design nor forsee such an effect but in it self and as to its real Causes it was necessary and natural In a word the true notion of Fortune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoteth no more than the Ignorance of such an event in some Knowing Agent concerned about it So that it owes its very Being to Humane Understanding and without relation to that is really Nothing How absurd then and ridiculous is the Atheist that would make this Fortune the cause of the Formation of Mankind whereas manifestly there could be no such Thing or Notion in the World as Fortune till Humane Nature was actually formed It was Man that first made Fortune and not Fortune that produced Man For since Fortune in its proper acceptation supposeth the Ignorance of something in a subject capable of Knowledge if you take away Mankind such a Notion hath no Existence neither with relation to Inanimate Bodies that can be conscious of nothing nor to an Omniscient God that can be ignorant of nothing And so likewise the adequate Meaning of Chance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is distinguished from Fortune in that the latter is understood to befall only Rational Agents but Chance to be among Inanimate Bodies is a bare Negation that signifies no more than this That any Effect among such Bodies ascribed to Chance is really produced by Physical Agents according to the established Laws of Motion but without their Consciousness of concurring to the Production and without their Intention of such an Effect So that Chance in its true sense is all one with Nature and both words are used promiscuously by some ancient Writers to express the same thing And we must be wary lest we ascribe any real Subsistence or Personality to this Nature or Chance for it is merely a notional and imaginary thing an abstract Universal which is properly Nothing a Conception of our own making occasion'd by our reflecting upon the settled Course of things denoting only thus much That all those Bodies move and act according to their essential properties and qualities without any consciousness or intention of so doing So that in this genuine acceptation of Chance here is nothing supposed that can supersede the known Laws of Natural Motion and thus to attribute the Formation of Mankind to Chance is all one with the former Atheistical Assertion that ascribes it to Nature or Mechanism and consequently it hath received a prolix and sufficient Refutation in my preceding Discourse 3 But thirdly 't is likely that our Atheist may willingly renounce the Doctrine of Chance as a thing differing from Nature and may allow it to be the same thing and that too no real and substantial Agent but only an abstract intellectual Notion but still he hath another Expedient in reserve which is a middle and safe way between the former rigorous Mechanism and the extravagancies of Fortuitous Motion viz. That at the Beginning all things 't is true proceded necessarily and fatally according to the Mechanical powers and affections of Matter but nevertheless the several Kinds of Animals were not formed at the first trial and effort without one error or miscarriage as strict Mechanism would suppose but there was an immense Variety of Ferments and Tumors and Excrescences of the Soil pregnant and big with Foetus's of all imaginable shapes and structures of Body Millions of which were utterly uncapable of Life and Motion being the Molae as it were and the Abortions of Mother Earth and many of those that had Life and Powers to preserve their own Individuals yet wanted the due means of Propagation and therefore could not transmit their Species to the following Ages and that those few only that we now find in Being did happen for he cannot express it but by the Characters of a Chance to have all the parts necessary not only for their own Lives but for the Continuation of their Kinds This is the favourite Opinion among the Atheists and the most plausible of all by which they think they may elude that most formidable Argument for the Being of God from the admirable contrivance of Organical Bodies and the exquisite fitness of their several Parts for those Ends and Uses they are put to and seem to have been designed for For say they since those innumerable Instances of Blunder and Deformity were quickly removed out of Knowledge and Being it is plain that no Animals ought now to be found but such as have due Organs necessary for their own nourishment and increase of their Kinds so that this Boasted Usefulness of Parts which makes Men attribute their Origination to an intelligent and wise Agent is really
no argument at all because it follows also from the Atheists Assertion For since some Animals are actually preserved in Being till now they must needs all of them have those parts that are of Use and Necessity but That at first was only a Lucky Hit without Skill or Design and ever since is a necessary condition of their Continuation And so for instance when they are urged with the admirable Frame and Structure of the Eye which consists of so great a Variety of Parts all excellently adapted to the Uses of Vision that to omit Mathematical Considerations with relation to Opticks hath its many Coats and Humours transparent and colourless lest it should tinge and sophisticate the Light that it lets in by a natural Jaundice that hath its Pupil so constituted as to admit of Contraction and Dilatation according to the differing degrees of Light and the Exigencies of seeing that hath Eye lids so commodiously placed to cleanse the Ball from Dust to shed necessary moisture upon it through numerous Glandules and to be drawn over it like a Curtain for the convenience of sleep that hath a thousand more Beauties in its figure and texture never studied nor admired enough they will briskly reply that they willingly concede all that can be said in the commendation of so noble a member yet notwithstanding they cannot admit for good reasoning He that formed the Eye shall not he see For it was blind Nature alone or Matter mechanically moved without consciousness or direction that made this curious Organ of Vision For the short of the matter is this This elegant structure of the Eye is no more than is necessary to Seeing and this noble faculty of Seeing is no more than is necessary to Life and consequently is included in the very suppositions of any Animals living and continuing till now though those be but the very few that at the beginning had the good fortune to have Eyes among many millions of Monsters that were destitute of them sine vultu caeca reperta and therefore did fatally perish soon after their Birth And thus when we insist on other like arguments of Divine Wisdom in the frame of Animate Bodies as the artificial Position of many Myriads of Valves all so situate as to give a free passage to the Blood and other Humors in their due Chanels and Courses but not permit them to regurgitate and disturb the great Circulation and Oeconomy of Life as the Spiral and not Annulary Fibres of the Intestines for the better Exercise of their Functions as the provident furnishing of Temporary parts for the Foetus during the time of gestation which are afterwards laid aside as the strange sagacity of little Insects in choosing fit Places for the Exclusion of their Eggs and for the provision of proper food when the young ones are hatcht and need it as the ardent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or natural Affection in those Animals whose off-spring cannot at first procure their own sustenance but must infallibly perish if not fed by the Parents as the untaught Instincts and Impresses upon every species directing them without imitation or deliberation to the ready knowledge of proper food to one and the best way of their preservation and defence and to the never-failing propagation of their own kind what-ever Considerations of this nature you propose to this Atheist as indeed such Instances are innumerable all evidently setting forth the Almighty's Wisdom and Goodness to such as are able to judge and will judge impartially he hath this one subterfuge from them all That these things are mistaken for tokens of Skill and Contrivance though they be but necessary Consequences of the present Existence of those Creatures For he that supposeth any Animals to subsist doth by that very supposition allow them every Member and Faculty that are necessary to subsistence such as are those we have just now enumerated And therefore unless we can prove à priori and independent of this Usefulness now that Things are once supposed to have existed and propagated That among almost infinite Trials and Essays at the beginning of things among millions of monstrous Shapes and imperfect Formations a few such Animals as now exist could not possibly be produced these After-Considerations are of very little moment because if such Animals could in that way possibly be formed as might live and move and propagate their Beings all this admired and applauded Usefulness of their several Fabricks is but a necessary condition and consequence of their Existence and Propagation This is the last pretence and sophistry of the Atheists against the Proposition in my Text That we received our Life and Being from a Divine Wisdom and Power And as they cannot justly accuse me of any ways concealing or balking their grand Objection so I believe these following Considerations will give them no reason to boast That it cannot receive a just and satisfactory Answer 1 First therefore we affirm that we can prove and have done it already by arguments à priori which is the challenge of the Atheists that these Animals that now exist could not possibly have been formed at first by millions of trials For since they allow by their very Hypothesis and without standing to that Courtesie we have proved it before that there can be no casual or spontaneous Motion of the Particles of Matter it will follow that every single Monster among so many supposed Myriads must have been mechanically and necessarily formed according to the known Laws of Motion and the temperament and quality of the Matter that it was made of Which is sufficient to evince that no such Monsters were or could have been formed For to denominate them even Monsters they must have had some rude kind of Organical Bodies some Stamina of Life though never so clumsy some System of Parts compounded of Solids and Liquids that executed though but bunglingly their peculiar Motions and Functions But we have lately shewn it impossible for Nature unassisted to constitute such Bodies whose structure is against the Law of Specifick Gravity So that she could not make the least endeavour towards the producing of a Monster or of any thing that hath more Vital and Organical Parts than we find in a Rock of Marble or a Fountain of Water And again though we should not contend with them about their Monsters and Abortions yet since they suppose even the perfect Animals that are still in being to have been formed mechanically among the rest and only add some millions of Monsters to the reckoning they are liable to all the Difficulties in the former Explication and are expresly refuted through the whole preceding Sermon where it is abundantly shown that a Spontaneous Production is against the Catholick Laws of Motion and against Matter of Fact a thing without Example not only in Man and the nobler Animals but in the Smallest of Insects and the Vilest of Weeds though the Fertility of the Earth cannot be said
to convince us that in natural corruptions and dissolutions Atoms are not reduc'd to Nothing which surely would be needless if the very Idea of Atoms imported Self existence And yet if one Atom do not include so much in its Notion and Essence all Atoms put together that is all the Matter of the Universe can not include it So that upon the whole matter since Creation is no contradiction since God hath certainly created nobler Substances than Matter and since Matter is not necessarily eternal it is most reasonable to believe that the eternal and Self-existent God created the material World and produced it out of Nothing And then as to the last Proposition that Motion as an Attribute or Property of Matter cannot have been from Eternity That we may wave some Metaphysical Arguments which demonstrate that Local Motion cannot be positively eternal we shall only observe in two Words That if Matter be not essentially eternal as we have shewed before much less can Motion be that is but the adjunct and accident of it Nay though we should concede an Eternity to Matter yet why must Motion be coaeval with it which is not only not inherent and essential to Matter but may be produced and destroyed at the pleasure of free Agents both which are flatly repugnant to an eternal and necessary Duration I am aware how some have asserted that the same quantity of Motion is always kept up in the World which may seem to favour the Opinion of its infinite Duration but that Assertion doth solely depend upon an absolute Plenum which being refuted in my next Discourse it will then appear how absurd and false that conceit is about the same quantity of Motion how easily disproved from that Power in Humane Souls to excite Motion when they please and from the gradual increase of Men and other Animals and many Arguments besides Therefore let this also be concluded That Motion has not been eternal in an infinite past Duration Which was the last thing to be proved A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Origin and Frame of the World PART II. The Seventh SERMON preached Novemb. 7. 1692. Acts XIV 15 c. That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein Who in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling our hearts with Food and Gladness WHen we first enter'd upon this Topic the demonstration of God's Existence from the Origin and Frame of the World we offer'd to prove four Propositions 1. That this present System of Heaven and Earth cannot possibly have subsisted from all Eternity 2. That Matter consider'd generally and abstractly from any particular Form and Concretion cannot possibly have been eternal Or if Matter could be so yet Motion cannot have coexisted with it eternally as an inherent property and essential attribute of Matter These two we have already established in the preceding Discourse we shall now shew in the third place 3. That though we should allow the Atheists that Matter and Motion may have been from everlasting yet if as they now suppose there were once no Sun nor Stars nor Earth nor Planets but the Particles that now constitute them were diffused in the mundane Space in manner of a Chaos without any concretion or coalition those dispersed Particles could never of themselves by any kind of Natural motion whether call'd Fortuitous or Mechanical have conven'd into this present or any other like Frame of Heaven and Earth I. And first as to that ordinary Cant of illiterate and puny Atheists the fortuitous or casual Concurse of Atoms that compendious and easie Dispatch of the most important and difficult affair the Formation of a World besides that in our next undertaking it will be refuted all along I shall now briefly dispatch it from what hath been formerly said concerning the true notions of Fortune and Chance Whereby it is evident that in the Atheistical Hypothesis of the World's production Fortuitous and Mechanical must be the self-same thing Because Fortune is no real entity nor physical essence but a mere relative signification denoting only this That such a thing said to fall out by Fortune was really effected by material and necessary Causes but the Person with regard to whom it is called Fortuitous was ignorant of those Causes or their tendencies and did not design or foresee such an effect This is the only allowable and genuine notion of the word Fortune But thus to affirm that the World was made fortuitously is as much as to say That before the World was made there was some Intelligent Agent or Spectator who designing to do something else or expecting that something else would be done with the Materials of the World there were some occult and unknown motions and tendencies in Matter which mechanically formed the World beside his design or expectation Now the Atheists we may presume will be loth to assert a fortuitous Formation in this proper sense and meaning whereby they will make Understanding to be older than Heaven and Earth Or if they should so assert it yet unless they will affirm that the Intelligent Agent did dispose and direct the inanimate Matter which is what we would bring them to they must still leave their Atoms to their mechanical Affections not able to make one step toward the production of a World beyond the necessary Laws of Motion It is plain then that Fortune as to the matter before us is but a synonymous word with Nature and Necessity It remains that we examine the adequate meaning of Chance which properly signifies That all events called Casual among inanimate Bodies are mechanically and naturally produced according to the determinate figures and textures and motions of those Bodies with this negation only That those inanimate Bodies are not conscious of their own operations nor contrive and cast about how to bring such events to pass So that thus to say that the World was made casually by the concourse of Atoms is no more than to affirm that the Atoms composed the World mechanically and fatally only they were not sensible of it nor studied and consider'd about so noble an undertaking For if Atoms formed the World according to the essential properties of Bulk Figure and Motion they formed it mechanically and if they formed it mechanically without perception and design they formed it casually So that this negation of Consciousness being all that the notion of Chance can add to that of Mechanism We that do not dispute this matter with the Atheists nor believe that Atoms ever acted by Counsel and Thought may have leave to consider the several names of Fortune and Chance and Nature and Mechanism as one and the same Hypothesis Wherefore once for all to overthrow all possible Explications which Atheists have
or may assign for the formation of the World we will undertake to evince this following Proposition II. That the Atoms or Particles which now constitute Heaven and Earth being once separate and diffused in the Mundane Space like the supposed Chaos could never without a God by their Mechanical affections have convened into this present Frame of Things or any other like it Which that we may perform with the greater clearness and conviction it will be necessary in a discourse about the Formation of the World to give you a brief account of some of the most principal and systematical Phaenomena that occur in the World now that it is formed 1. The most considerable Phaenomenon belonging to Terrestrial Bodies is the general action of Gravitation whereby All known Bodies in the vicinity of the Earth do tend and press toward its Center not only such as are sensibly and evidently Heavy but even those that are comparatively the Lightest and even in their proper place and natural Elements as they usually speak as Air gravitates even in Air and Water in Water This hath been demonstrated and experimentally proved beyond contradiction by several ingenious Persons of the present Age but by none so perspicuously and copiously and accurately as by the Honourable Founder of this Lecture in his incomparable Treatises of the Air and Hydrostaticks 2. Now this is the constant Property of Gravitation That the weight of all Bodies around the Earth is ever proportional to the Quantity of their Matter As for instance a Pound weight examin'd Hydrostatically of all kinds of Bodies though of the most different forms and textures doth always contain an equal quantity of solid Mass or corporeal Substance This is the ancient Doctrine of the Epicurean Physiology then and since very probably indeed but yet precariously asserted But it is lately demonstrated and put beyond controversie by that very excellent and divine Theorist Mr. Isaac Newton to whose most admirable sagacity and industry we shall frequently be obliged in this and the following Discourse I will not entertain this Auditory with an account of the Demonstration but referring the Curious to the Book it self for full satisfaction I shall now proceed and build upon it as a Truth solidly established That all Bodies weigh according to their Matter provided only that the compared Bodies be at equal distances from the Center toward which they weigh Because the further they are removed from the Center the lighter they are decreasing gradually and uniformly in weight in a duplicate proportion to the Increase of the Distance 3. Now since Gravity is found proportional to the Quantity of Matter there is a manifest Necessity of admitting a Vacuum another principal Doctrine of the Atomical Philosophy Because if there were every where an absolute plenitude and density without any empty pores and interstices between the Particles of Bodies then all Bodies of equal dimensions would contain an equal Quantity of Matter and consequently as we have shew'd before would be equally ponderous so that Gold Copper Stone Wood c. would have all the same specifick weight which Experience assures us they have not neither would any of them descend in the Air as we all see they do because if all Space was Full even the Air would be as dense and specifically as heavy as they If it be said that though the difference of specifick Gravity may proceed from variety of Texture the lighter Bodies being of a more loose and porous composition and the heavier more dense and compact yet an aethereal subtile Matter which is in a perpetual motion may penetrate and pervade the minutest and inmost Cavities of the closest Bodies and adapting it self to the figure of every Pore may adequately fill them and so prevent all vacuity without increasing the weight To this we answer That that subtile Matter it self must be of the same Substance and Nature with all other Matter and therefore It also must weigh proportionally to its Bulk and as much of it as at any time is comprehended within the Pores of a particular Body must gravitate jointly with that Body so that if the Presence of this aethereal Matter made an absolute Fulness all Bodies of equal dimensions would be equally heavy which being refuted by experience it necessarily follows that there is a Vacuity and that notwithstanding some little objections full of cavil and sophistry mere and simple Extension or Space hath a quite different nature and notion from real Body and impenetrable Substance 4. This therefore being established in the next place it's of great consequence to our present enquiry if we can make a computation How great is the whole Summ of the Void spaces in our system and what proportion it bears to the corporeal substance By many and accurate Trials it manifestly appears that Refined Gold the most ponderous of known Bodies though even that must be allowed to be porous too because it 's dissoluble in Mercury and Aqua Regis and other Chymical Liquors and because it 's naturally a thing impossible that the Figures and Sizes of its constituent Particles should be so justly adapted as to touch one another in every Point I say Gold is in specifick weight to common Water as 19 to 1 and Water to common Air as 850 to 1 so that Gold is to Air as 16150 to 1. Whence it clearly appears seeing Matter and Gravity are always commensurate that though we should allow the texture of Gold to be intirely close without any vacuity the ordinary Air in which we live and respire is of so thin a composition that 16149 parts of its dimensions are mere emptiness and Nothing and the remaining One only material and real substance But if Gold it self be admitted as it must be for a porous Concrete the proportion of Void to Body in the texture of common Air will be so much the greater And thus it is in the lowest and densest region of the Air near the surface of the Earth where the whole Mass of Air is in a state of violent compression the inferior being press'd and constipated by the weight of all the incumbent But since the Air is now certainly known to consist of elastick or springy Particles that have a continual tendency and endeavour to expand and display themselves and the dimensions to which they expand themselves to be reciprocally as the Compression it follows that the higher you ascend in it where it is less and less compress'd by the superior Air the more and more it is rarified So that at the height of a few miles from the surface of the Earth it is computed to have some million parts of empty space in its texture for one of solid Matter And at the height of one Terrestrial Semid not above 4000 miles the Aether is of that wonderfull tenuity that by an exact calculation if a small Sphere of common Air of one Inch Diameter already 16149 parts Nothing
will never be able to prove that therefore Men would be so vivacious as they would have us believe Nay perhaps the contrary may be inferr'd if we may argue from present experience For the Inhabitants of the Torrid Zone who suffer the least and shortest recesses of the Sun and are within one step and degree of a Perpetual Aequinox are not only shorter lived generally speaking than other Nations nearer the Poles but inferior to them in Strength and Stature and Courage and in all the capacities of the Mind It appears therefore that the gradual Vicissitudes of Heat and Cold are so far from shortning the thread of man's Life or impairing his intellectual Faculties that very probably they both prolong the one in some measure and exalt and advance the other So that still we do profess to adore the Divine Wisdom and Goodness for this variety of Seasons for Seed-time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter VIII Come we now to consider the Atmosphere and the exterior Frame and Face of the Globe if we may find any tracks and footsteps of Wisdom in the Constitution of Them I need not now inform you that the Air is a thin fluid Body endued with Elasticity or Springiness and capable of Condensation and Rarefaction and should it be much more expanded or condensed than it naturally is no Animals could live and breath it is probable also that the Vapours could not be duly raised and supported in it which at once would deprive the Earth of all its ornament and glory of all its living Inhabitants and Vegetables too But 't is certainly known and demonstrated that the Condensation and Expansion of any portion of the Air is always proportional to the weight and pressure incumbent upon it so that if the Atmosphere had been either much greater or less than it is as it might easily have been it would have had in its lowest region on the Surface of the Earth a much greater density or tenuity of texture and consequently have been unserviceable for Vegetation and Life It must needs therefore be an Intelligent Being that could so justly adapt it to those excellent purposes 'T is concluded by Astronomers that the Atmosphere of the Moon hath no Clouds nor Rains but a perpetual and uniform serenity because nothing discoverable in the Lunar Surface is ever covered and absconded from us by the interposition of any clouds or mists but such as rise from our own Globe Now if the Atmosphere of Our Earth had been of such a Constitution there could nothing that now grows or breaths in it have been formed or preserved Humane Nature must have been quite obliterated out of the Works of Creation If our Air had not been a springy elastical Body no Animal could have exercised the very function of Respiration and yet the ends and uses of Respiration are not served by that Springiness but by some other unknown and singular Quality For the Air that in exhausted Receivers of Air-pumps is exhaled from Minerals and Flesh and Fruits and Liquors is as true and genuine as to Elasticity and Density or Rarefaction as that we respire in and yet this factitious Air is so far from being fit to be breathed in that it kills Animals in a moment even sooner than the very absence of all Air than a Vacuum it self All which do inferr the most admirable Providence of the Author of Nature who foreknew the necessity of Rains and Dews to the present structure of Plants and the uses of Respiration to Animals and therefore created those correspondent properties in the Atmosphere of the Earth IX In the next place let us consider the ample provision of Waters those inexhausted Treasures of the Ocean and though some have grudged the great share that it takes of the Surface of the Earth yet we shall propose this too as a conspicuous mark and character of the Wisdom of God For that we may not now say that the vast Atlantick Ocean is really greater Riches and of more worth to the World than if it was changed into a fifth Continent and that the Dry Land is as yet much too big for its Inhabitants and that before they shall want Room by increasing and multiplying there may be new Heavens and a new Earth We dare venture to affirm that these copious Stores of Waters are no more than necessary for the present constitution of our Globe For is not the whole Substance of all Vegetables mere modified Water and consequently of all Animals too all which either feed upon Vegetables or prey upon one another Is not an immense quantity of it continually exhaled by the Sun to fill the Atmosphere with Vapors and Clouds and feed the Plants of the Earth with the balm of Dews and the fatness of Showrs It seems incredible at first hearing that all the Blood in our Bodies should circulate in a trice in a very few minutes but I believe it would be more surprizing if we knew the short and swift periods of the great Circulation of Water that vital Blood of the Earth which composeth and nourisheth all things If we could but compute that prodigious Mass of it that is daily thrown into the channel of the Sea from all the Rivers of the World we should then know and admire how much is perpetually evaporated and cast again upon the Continents to supply those innumerable Streams And indeed hence we may discover not only the Use and Necessity but the Cause too of the vastness of the Ocean I never yet heard of any Nation that complained they had too broad or too deep or too many Rivers or wished they were either smaller or fewer they understand better than so how to value and esteem those inestimable gifts of Nature Now supposing that the multitude and largeness of Rivers ought to continue as great as now we can easily prove that the extent of the Ocean could be no less than it is For it 's evident and necessary if we follow the most fair and probable Hypothesis that the Origin of Fountains is from Vapors and Rain that the Receptacle of Waters into which the mouths of all those Rivers must empty themselves ought to have so spacious a Surface that as much Water may be continually brushed off by the Winds and exhaled by the Sun as besides what falls again in Showers upon its own Surface is brought into it by all the Rivers Now the Surface of the Ocean is just so wide and no wider for if more was evaporated than returns into it again the Sea would become less if less was evaporated it would grow bigger So that because since the memory of all ages it hath continu'd at a stand without considerable variation and if it hath gain'd ground upon one Country hath lost as much in another it must consequently be exactly proportioned to the present constitution of Rivers How rash therefore and vain are those busie Projectors in Speculation
p. 101. Helmont Imago Ferment c. p. 92. Edit 1652. Serm 2. Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato X. de Legibus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emped Psal. 94. 9. Lucret. Lib. 5. Multaque tum tellus etiam Portenta creare c. Lucret 5. Lucret. lib. 4. Nil ideo quoniam natum est in corpore ut uti Possemus sed quod natum est id procreat usum Plinius Strabo Lucret. 5. Dictis dabit ipsa fidem res Forsitan graviter terrarum motibus orbis Omnia conquassari in parvo tempore cernes Palaeph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Incredibilibus Cicero de Natura Deorum 2. 37. Lucret. 5. Hinc ubi quaeque loci regio opportuna dabatur Crescebant uteri c. ibidem Inde loci mortalia saecla creavit Multa modis multis varia ratione coorta 〈◊〉 Arithmet cap. de Progressione Lucret. 5. Verum ut opinor habet novitatem Summa recensque Natura est mundi neque pridem exordia cepit Cesalpin Berigard Gen. 1. 28. Lucret. 5. Isai. 28. 29. Chap. 17. V. 2. Psal. 19. 1. Jer. 51. 15. Psal. 148. 5 147. 8. 65. 2. Lucret. 5. Praeterea coeli rationes ordine certo Et varia annorum cernebant tempora verti lib. 6. Nam bene qui didicere Deos securum agere aevum Si tamen interea mirantur c. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. 2. Quis hunc hominem dixerit qui cum tam certâ—s coeli motus tam ratos astrorum ordines c. Plutarch de plac phil 1. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ver. 8. Lucret. Lib. 6. Ver. 17. Ver 9. Luke 18 42. 8. 48 Matt. 13. 58. Mark 6. 5. Vanini Dial p. 439. Chrys. ad locum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is volo Acts 4. 20. Iohn 7. 7. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is possum Vid. Budaei Comm. L Gr. See John ch 9. and Matt. 16. 14. Luk. 23. 8 Mark 8 12. Matt. 17. 15. 15. 22. Luke 8. 4. Luke 22. 51. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 17. v. 34. Cicero pro Flacco Adsunt Athenienses unde humanitas doctrina religio fruges jura leges ortae atque in omnes terras distributae putantur Isoc Paneg. Diod. Sic. 13. See John 21. 25. and 2 Cor. 12. 12. Wer. 11. Eunapius cap. 2. Ver. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys. ad loc Ephorus apud Strab. lib. 14. Steph voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 14. 18. Acts 2. Ver. 7. Ver. 15. Ver. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athenaeus 6. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ver. 15. * Mortales sumus similes vobis homines So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If I die a common Expression in Gr. Writers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. See Acts 4. 27. 14. 5. 26. 17. Gal. 2. 14. Acts 17. 30. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that they read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Horat. Nec siquid miri faciat natura Deos id Tristes ex alto coeli demittere tecto Serm. III. Horat. Car. 1. 12. By the first Proposition By the third Proposition Serm II. Serm. VII Lucret. Lib. 1. Serm. V. p. 6 7. Serm. V. p. 12 13. Mr. Boyle's Physicom Exp. of Air Hydrostat Paradoxes Lucret. lib. 1. Newton Philos Natur Princ. Math. lib. 3. prop. 6. Mr. Boyle of Air and Porosity of Bodies Mr. Boyle ibid. Newton Philos. Nat. Principia Math. p. 503. * Diod. Sicul. lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apoll. Rhodius lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Lucret. Nec regione loci certa nec tempore certo Serm. V. p. 32. Newton ibidem p. 480. Vide Serm. VI. Ser. VIII Newton Philosophiae Naturalis Princ. Math. lib. III. Psal. 148. Psal. 8. Newton Phil. Natur Princip Math. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Gen. 1. Newton ibidem p. 415. Tacquet de Circulorum volutionibus Gen. 8. See Mr. Boyle of the Air. Mr. Boyle's Second Continuation of Physicomechanical Exp. about the Air. Lucret. Et mare quod late terrarum distinet oras Psal. 104. Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatam Naturam rerum tanta stat praedita culpa Principio quantum coeli regit impetus ingens Inde avidam partem montes Sylvaeque ferarum Possedere tenent rupes vastaeque paludes Et mare quod late terrarum distinit oras Lucret. lib. 5. Heb. 11. Gen. 1. Deut. 33. 15. Vide Aelian var. Hist. lib. III. * Virg Aen 6. At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti ibid. Hoc superate jugum ib. Et tumulum coepit †Flours worthy of Paradise which not nice Art In Beds and curious Knots but Nature boon Pour'd forth profuse on Hill and Dale and Plain Paradise Lost lib. 4. ‖ For Earth hath this variety from Heaven Of Pleasure situate in Hill and Dale Ibid. lib. 6. Serm. V. Prov. 3.