of Saturn Hence follows that when any one says the World has been from Eternity as it is at present their Words must be a little qualified and mean no more than that the Substance or general Compages of the World may have been Eternal though the several Parts of it both in Heaven and Earth or all alternately have undergone very considerable Changes and Alterations 2. Let us next enquire into the Reasons which might tempt Men to this Opinion of the World's Eternity And they seem to be two First because they could perceive no Changes no Symptoms of the Generation or Corruption of the World And Secondly because they could give no reasonable Account of the World's Origin and Production The first we find in Ocellus Lucanus and Aristotle and all their winding and circular Disputes for the Impossibility of its Generation from the Impossibility of its Corruption vice versa terminate in this Like the Argument against the Dissolution of the World mention'd by the Scoffers in St. Peter For since the Fathers fell asleep all Things continue as they were from the Beginning of the Creation And to this we may return the same Answer That they who can see no Indications of a changeable Nature must needs be willingly ignorant and for clearing their Eye sight may be referr'd unto the preceding Paragraph And if seeing or not seeing can be an Argument on either side it can be only against them For we do see and are positively assured of very great Changes in the World and if it had a Beginning newly form'd Mankind might have sensible Convictions of it But if the World be Eternal it requires a very large Faith to look back into its Certainty and no Mortal could ever have a sensible or ocular Demonstration of it The Second Reason we take from the conceited Humour of Aristotle who being too much given to contemn and deride others and servilely following his own Reason to the assigning a Cause for the smallest Matters laugh'd at all Accounts of the World 's Original and judged the Defenders of it little better than mad This hasty Shooting of his Bolt proceeded from the Excess of his Pride or the Defectiveness of his own Reason He could have no satisfying Notion when or by what means or in what manner the World was made And how should any thing be done without Aristotle's knowing it We will not enquire into his profound Skill in the whole Circle of Physicks his rare Definitions of Substance Form Time Motion c. his accurate Discovery of Meteors except Comets which you heard something of lately and the familiar Acquaintance he had with the substantial Forms and occult Qualities of Nature We will only ask his Disciples What they can think of the Generation of Man Can you tell how such Rational Beings as we are attain our Maturity and Perfection What are the constituent Principles of our Nature How the Body is form'd and organized At what time the Soul is united to it or how an Immaterial can operate on a Material Being and receive Impressions from it Or for perchance you may be disposed to smile at the former Questions How meer Matter and the rude Elements of Life can expand themselves to the Production and Exercise of those Noble Functions of Sensation Cogitation Memory c. Consider a while of it and by that time you can return a satisfying Answer to these Questions we may give you as satisfying an Account of the Formation of the World But if this little World be a Province too difficult for your Undertaking What Humility do our Contemplations of the Universe require And how absurd must it be to assert the Eternity of the World upon those Principles which either prove that there are no Men in the World or that they are all Eternal For instance If it be impossible there should be any Communion between a Material and an Immaterial Being or that mere Matter should think Reason and remember c. as the Difficulties are inexplicable on each side then there are no Men in the World and how big soever we may look we are no better than those Apparitions and Shades of the Night which poor ignorant People are so commonly frighted with Or if you are not pleased with that since we could have our Beginning neither from Matter nor Spirit for chuse which you will 't is an easie matter to puzzle you then we must have been and shall be for ever just as we are at present and all the Histories and Evidences of Life and Death are to be rejected as fabulous Fears Fancies and Traditions This is exactly your way of dealing with us You ask us two or three puzzling Questions about the Origin and Formation of the World and because we do not explain it entirely to your Satisfaction therefore it must be Eternal 3. Our third Reflection shall fall on the Novelty of this Opinion and its arrogant breaking in upon the Prescriptions of Antiquity When Time had worn off the Reverence with the uniform Attestations of Tradition the World 's Original began to be debated by the weak Reason of Man And the wrangling Philosophers raising up Difficulties which they could not lay again like so many Evil Spirits let loose upon the Earth they tempted Men from the Acknowledgment of their Primitive Cause and deceived them with the Insinuations of becoming wise nay wiser than their Forefathers Aristotle all over his Physical Discourses musters up the Opinion of preceding Philosophers gives no Intimations of any that believed as he did but disputes against Melissus Parmenides Heraclitus Empedocles Leucippus Democritus Anaxagoras Timaeus Plato c. pleasing himself no doubt in the Singularity of his Notion and sufficiently confuting the World's Genesis by finding some Flaw in the Solutions of it or shewing their Repugnancy to each other A little Tract of Ocellus indeed deprives Aristotle of the Glory which the first Inventer of so fine an Hypothesis might expect some Copies of which Tract came probably to his hands tho' as it happen'd all did not If this Ocellus be the same whom Diogenes Laertius mentions as we will not suborn the appearing Advantages both in Ocellus and Diogenes to witness against it the Opinion of the World's Eternity bears something a more ancient Date than the Time of Aristotle But alas What is this to the whole Stream of unsuspected Antiquity Consult the Archaeologies of all Ages and if you find the most ancient Monuments of Reason and Intelligence taking the Tradition of the World 's Original for granted where can you expect to find more competent Judges All those in Caldaea Assyria Persia Phaenicia Egypt Greece Italy Palestine c. who lived nearest the Beginning which Moses speaks of do likewise speak of it as a Matter never controverted But when those Reverend Worthies were gone off the Stage from whose Repute for Learning and laborious Inquiries and Capacity for knowing most of
to answer a great many troublesome Questions How senseless disorderly Matter could possibly jump into Thought and Order Apply your Mind to the Motions and supposed Results of Matter and follow the Guidance of it through its visible Train and Consequences how fatal soever the Event may prove Mind only what you say and compare it with what you see and with Faithfulness expect the Issue I. Something which you cannot believe is any other than Matter in Motion hath produced such intelligent thinking Beings as we call Men. Let us come from whence you will here we are governing using and recreating ourselves with inferiour Creatures debating the Nature of Truth and Falshood Good and Evil and managing our Affairs with much Wisdom and Precaution II. We lift up our Eyes to Heaven and there we observe the Sun and the Stars Bodies of a wonderful Magnitude moving in an indeterminable Space in an invariable Order and at a vast Distance from us Hath our Atoms provided so rarely for us as to frame such a glorious Canopy merely for our Benefit for such mortal Machines such Tools of Necessity to look upon Is all Nonsense and nothing but vain glistering beyond this Earth of ours Or if we might have a compleat View of the Glories represented to us in so narrow a compass might we not expect to meet with our Match and find Beings which have Sense and Thought and Reason as well as we III. And if it be a Piece of Folly and Presumption in Man to think himself the only Wise it is not much less to think himself the Wisest Being in the Universe The Barbarous Americans before their Commerce and Acquaintance with the European World might with much greater Reason suppose themselves the most Polite and Knowing the most Skilful in all Arts and Sciences of any People upon Earth because they had Knowledge and Skill bearing some Proportion to an Earthly State but the Wisest of us all are much short of what may be expected and supposed in Heaven Could you have so mean an Opinion of Nature as to stint the Powers thereof to the Production of Beings no better than our selves Could you be so weak as to fancy the Intelligences in all even infinitely distant Apartments are of the same Kind and Capacities equally unhappy equally perplexed about the Origin and Ministration and End of Things and as ignorant of Us as we are of Them That Nature should not make one Being that could give a more certain Account of its Operations than we can and enquire why any one should believe otherwise it may be answered from the different Contextures and Varieties of Matter If indeed all the Habitations in the Universe were of the same kind it makes the Argument more probable That all the Inhabitants might be of the same kind too But if there be great Variety in the Coalition and Segregations of Matter if the more fine active and tenuious be separated from the more gross heavy and unactive if some Parts of the Universe have sensibly and certainly more Heat and Vigour than others Why should we not believe as much Variety in the ruling Inhabitants that are placed therein It will not be needful at this time to give a Scheme of the World or to reflect on the Foolishness of Epicurus who thought the Sun not above two Foot broad or about the Bigness of a pretty large Wheel which needs only being laugh'd at The innumerable Worlds supposed by him will serve our Turn as well We have here Heat and Cold Light and Darkness and a Constitution tolerably suited for bearing these Changes But when we see one Star differing from another Star in Glory we must suppose a more glorious and beatifying Concourse of Atoms if you please in some Parts than in others where a Light too splendid for mortal Eye to approach and a Heat too vigorous for Flesh and Blood to endure adorns and refines both the Place and the Products of it The Blackness and Tawniness caused by too near Approaches to the Sun is little other than the Scum of a filthy and over-heated Nature But those Beings whose Inheritance is in superabounding Light must have Natures pure and defecate clarified from the Dregs and Corruptions of an Earthly State not so properly corpus as quasi corpus a Body if we must call it a Body tenuious and spiritual differing in proportion as much from us as Heaven from Earth Thus you are led at least unto the Heathen Deities unto an innumerable Company of Heavenly Intelligences or if we may begin to speak in the Language of Christianity to the Acknowledgment of Angels and Archangels IV. Nor is it reasonable for us to stop here but on the same Foundation we may raise our Belief of a Supream Intelligence in whom the several Powers and Perfections in Nature do most eminently concenter Those Principles from whence we infer the Existence of Beings in all Ranks of Perfection higher and more excellent than our selves may without much begging of the Question be supposed to prove the Existence of one Most High And if our Materialists shall require for this some evident Symptoms and Indications in Nature and shall profess their Belief of Superiour Intelligences from the Appearance of more blessed and glorious Habitations but not of a Supream Intelligence because the Existence of a most Blessed Place which may be the Throne Palace or Residence of the Supream Being is not so visible unto them it may be answered 1. That they beg the Question as much as we They suppose there is no Supream Intelligence we suppose there is and so far we are equal nay considering the Ranks of Beings have the Advantage in Their own Hypothesis 2. That the Unity of the God-head tho' a certain Truth is not absolutely necessary to the Enforcement of Religion for the most ignorant Heathen whose Faith and Reason could not carry them beyond a Multitude of Gods were nevertheless very Devout and Religious in their Way So that whether there be one God or more you cannot but be under a Divine Influence to a Religious Life 3. That our Belief of a Supream Being need not depend on the supereminency of any particular Place The Glory of the Highest may manifest itself all over the Universe in measures suitable to the Dignity of Place and Persons And tho one Place may not in itself be really more glorious than all the rest yet it may be rendred relatively so by the Glory of his Presence 4. They who deny the supereminency of any particular Place speak contrary to the common Appearances of Matter Of all Things within the compass of our View and Vortex the Sun makes the most astonishing and brightest Show And if any Religious Person will say that the Supream Being hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun the modern Epicureans even on their own Principles can only oppose a pretty confident Assertion by a more confident Denial And if any shall
the Ages most doubted of Mankind might receive the best Information when Tradition which in this Case is a better Rule than Reason grew weaker and weaker by passing through so many Hands then that became a Controversie which before was none and some who envied the Reputation would not yield unto the Authority of former Ages Matter of Fact is not to be known by Reason but by Testimony And since for much above 3000 Years after the Beginning which we contend for we have a Cloud of Witnesses in distinct Ages and Countries which appear for us and not one against us This shews That the nearer to that Beginning the clearer was the Certainty the stronger the Belief of it And this Weight of Universal Consent ought much to over-ballance any Arguments whatsoever which some later Pretenders to Reason in their private Contemplations and Retirements shall suggest 4. Our next Essay shall be to make the best of this Hypothesis And tho' the Reasons for it be weak and the Tradition against it strong yet you must know its chief Defenders were not such an Ungodly Generation as would now pervert and abuse it You therefore whom the Supposal of this World's Eternity makes unmindful of God look unto the Rock from whence it was hewn and hear what the first of your Race profess concerning the Divine Nature Life keeps our Earthly Tabernacles from falling in pieces and the Cause of this is the Soul And Harmony conserves the World and the Cause of this is God The Sphere of the Moon is the Isthmus or Partition between a changeable Life and Immortality The Regions above being the Possession of God and Divine Natures and those below of mutable Nature and Contention God gives to Men Generative Faculties Organs and Appetites not for Pleasure but the Preservation of their kind And a little after They who altogether abstain from the Procreation of Children are injurious to the most honorable Bonds of Union but from irregular and reproachful Mixtures proceed a Generation of Wretches vile and abominable both to God and Man to Families and Cities God and Nature do nothing in vain All Men have a Notion or Conception of God and allot unto the Divine Nature the highest Place whether they be Greeks or Barbarians or whoever think of God For it is manifest an Everlasting Being ought to be fitted with an Everlasting Habitation We may very well think that by one first Mover these several heavenly Bodies or their Motions do subsist For you may observe in all other kinds of Life or Principles the Supereminence is in a first over all the rest God gives Compleatness to the whole and makes every particular Production perfect We ought to think of God as a Being most powerful for Strength most perfect in Beauty in Life immortal in Excellencies transcendent And what the Master is in a Ship the Driver in a Chariot the Leader in a Dance the Law in a City the General in an Army that is God in the World Except in as much as they in their respective Places direct with Wearisomness Toil and Care but he without Pain without Labour exempted from all Bodily Weaknesses whatsoever For being fix'd on an immovable Throne he moves all Things and turns them about according to his Pleasure It would be endless to transcribe Religious Expressions from the Followers of Aristotle Let is suffice to tell you That the latter Platonists embraced this Opinion of the World's Eternity and made a great deal to do to reconcile Plato first to Aristotle then to himself So that you will make this Hypothesis fight against God you must sight against the Pillars and main Upholders of it whose devout Elevations of Soul expressed in their several Ages a Reverence for the Deity and would have abhorr'd as a degenerous Brood the Blasphemers of it 5. All the Religious Principles by natural Light form'd in the Mind concerning God are indifferently well consistent with the World's Eternity Which you cannot but be satisfied in considering 1. Many Christian Philosophers believing the Beginning spoken of by Moses think it not impossible if God had so pleased for the World to have been made before even from Eternity They dare not limit the Power of God as not in Efficacy so not to Time And if any one will say an Eternal Cause may have an Eternal Effect they will not be positive in denying it In which Number you shall not be referred to some ancient Hereticks or to our late foolish Pre-Adamites but to the Debates among our most eminent School-men and Metaphysicians II. The later Platonists and Aristotelians argued for the World's Eternity chiefly from the Consideration of God's Eternal Goodness Which Argument of theirs is most clearly expressed by Sallustius and in the fewest Words 'T is necessary says he the World existing through the Goodness of God that as God is always Good the World should always Exist They recognize God as the Cause the Fountain the Parent of the Universe and affirm it the Effect Off-spring and Emanation from him Only they suppose a Being Eternally Good must be Eternally Communicative Which Reason by the way if it have any Force in it makes not so much for the Eternal Generation of the World as of the WORD and Son of God III. It does no way derogate from the spiritual Nature or Providence of God but supposes an Eternal Conservation and Direction of all Things under the Government of an Eternal Spirit Aristotle the most suspected Person acknowledges this And if Immaterial and Incorporeal Being or Substance be Iargon Tobu and Bobu 't is none of our Framing or Invention The Fear indeed of some Religious and the Hopes of some Irreligious Men may deserve our Notice As if that which supposes God to act by a Necessity of Nature must render instituted Religion absurd and to no purpose and vacate the Expectations of Reward or Dreads of Punishment This formidable Difficulty will soon vanish when it appears how preposterously it is made to work For if God acts by a Necessity of Nature that is his own Nature this ought to be matter of Joy and Comfort to the Good and Terror to the Wicked For it can signifie no more than that God is necessarily Holy Wise Good and Just and cannot act otherwise than according to the Eternal Rules and Dictates of Holiness Wisdom Goodness and Justice What Good may not the Righteous expect from this What Reason have not the Wicked instead of triumphing to tremble at it And with Respect to God it infringes not his Liberty it illustrates his Perfection IV. Nor are the general Arguments for God's Existence endanger'd by this Hypothesis as you may see by the Enumeration of some Particulars 1. We argue for God's Existence from the Necessity of acknowledging a first Principle of Motion Thus Every Thing moving hath Motion either essential to it or by Communication