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book_n	believe_v	scripture_n	write_v	2,819	5	5.7819	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27428	The folly and unreasonableness of atheism demonstrated from the advantage and pleasure of a religious life, the faculties of humane souls, the structure of animate bodies, & the origin and frame of the world : in eight sermons preached at the lecture founded by ... Robert BOyle, Esquire, in the first year MDCXCII / by Richard Bentley ...	Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.	1699 (1699)	Wing B1931; ESTC R21357	132,610	286

Souls out of Nothing and that Something since nothing can give more than it has must it self have all the Perfections that it hath given to them There is therefore an immaterial and intelligent Being that created our Souls which Being was either eternal it self or created immediately or ultimately by some other Eternal that has all those Perfections There is therefore Originally an Eternal Immaterial Intelligent Creator all which together are the Attributes of God alone And now that I have finished all the parts which I proposed to discourse of I will conclude all with a short application to the Atheists And I would advise them as a Friend to leave off this dabbling and smattering in Philosophy this shuffling and cutting with Atoms It never succeeded well with them and they always come off with the loss Their old Master Epicurus seems to have had his Brains so muddled and confounded with them that he scarce ever kept in the right way though the main Maxim of his Philosophy was to trust to his Senses and follow his Nose I will not take notice of his doting conceit that the Sun and Moon are no bigger than they appear to the Eye a foot or half a yard over and that the Stars are no larger than so many Glow-worms But let us see how he manages his Atoms those Almighty Tools that do every thing of themselves without the help of a Workman When the Atoms says he descend in infinite space very ingeniously spoken to make High and Low in Infinity they do not fall plumb down but decline a little from the Perpendicular either obliquely or in a Curve and this Declination says he from the direct Line is the cause of our Liberty of Will But I say this Declination of Atoms in their Descent was it self either necessary or voluntary If it was necessary how then could that Necessity ever beget Liberty if it was voluntary then Atoms had that power of Volition before and what becomes then of the Epicurean Doctrine of the fortuitous Production of Worlds The whole business is Contradiction and ridiculous Nonsense 'T is as if one should say that a Bowl equally poized and thrown upon a plain and smooth Bowling-Green will run necessarily and fatally in a direct Motion but if it be made with a Byas that may decline it a little from a straight Line it may acquire by that Motion a Liberty of Will and so run spontaneously to the Jack It would behoove the Atheists to give over such trifling as this and resume the old solid way of confuting Religion They should deny the Being of the Soul because they cannot see it This would be an invincible Argument against us for we can never exhibit it to their Touch nor expose it to their View nor shew them the Colour and Complexion of a Soul They should dispute as a bold Brother of theirs did That he was sure there was no God because says he if there was one he would have struck me to Hell with Thunder and Lightning that have so reviled and blasphemed him This would be an Objection indeed Alas all that we could answer is in the next words to the Text That God hath appointed a day in which he will judge all the world in Righteousness and that the Goodness and Forbearance and Long-suffering of God which are some of his Attributes and Essential Perfections of his Being ought not to be abused and perverted into arguments against his Being But if this will not do we must yield our selves overcome for we neither can nor desire to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them and give them such experimental Conviction of the Existence of God So that they ought to take these Methods if they would successfully attack Religion But if they will still be medling with Atoms be hammering and squeezing Understanding out of them I would advise them to make use of their own Understandings for the Instance Nothing in my opinion could run us down more effectually than that For we readily allow that if any Understanding can possibly be produced by such clashing of senseless Atoms 't is that of an Atheist that hath the fairest Pretensions and the best Title to it We know it is the Fool that hath said in his heart there is no God And 't is no less a Truth than a Paradox That there are no greater Fools than Atheistical Wits and none so credulous as Infidels No Article of Religion though as demonstrable as the Nature of the thing can admit hath credibility enough for them And yet these same cautious and quick sighted Gentlemen can wink and swallow down this sottish Opinion about Percipient Atoms which exceeds in Incredibility all the Fictions of Aesop's Fables For is it not every whit as likely or more that Cocks and Bulls might discourse and Hinds and Panthers hold Conferences about Religion as that Atoms can do so that Atoms can invent Arts and Sciences can institute Society and Government can make Leagues and Confederacies can devise Methods of Peace and Stratagems of War And moreover the Modesty of Mythology deserves to be commended the Scenes there are laid at a distance 'T is once upon a time in the Days of Yore and in the Land of Utopia there was a Dialogue between an Oak and a Cedar whereas the Atheist is so impudently silly as to bring the Farce of his Atoms upon the Theatre of the present Age to make dull senseless Matter transact all publick and private Affairs by Sea and by Land in Houses of Parliament and Closets of Princes Can any Credulity be comparable to this If a Man should affirm that an Ape casually meeting with Pen Ink and Paper and falling to scribble did happen to write exactly the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbs Would an Atheist believe such a story and yet he can easily digest as incredible as that that the innumerable Members of a Humane Body which in the style of the Scripture are all written in the Book of God and may admit of almost infinite Variations and Transpositions above the xxiv Letters of the Alphabet were at first fortuitously scribled and by meer accident compacted into this beautifull and noble and most wonderfully usefull Frame which we now see it carry But this will be the Argument of my next Discourse which is the second Proposition drawn from the Text That the Admirable 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 To which Almighty Creator together with the Son and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory and Majesty and Power both now and from henceforth evermore Amen A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Structure and Origin of Humane Bodies PART I. The Third SERMON preached May 2. 1692. Acts XVII 27. That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him

THE Folly and Unreasonableness OF ATHEISM Demonstrated from The Advantage and Pleasure of a Religious Life The Faculties of Humane Souls The Structure of Animate Bodies The Origin and Frame of the World In EIGHT SERMONS Preached at the Lecture Founded by The Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esquire In the First Year MDCXCII By RICHARD BENTLEY D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary and Library-Keeper to His MAJESTY The Fourth Edition Corrected LONDON Printed by I. H. for H. Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1699. To my most Honoured Patrons TRUSTEES appointed by the Will of the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esq The Right Reverend Father in God THOMAS Lord Bishop of Lincoln Sir Henry Ashurst Kt and Baronet Sir Iohn Rotheram Serjeant at Law Iohn Evelyn senior Esquire Most Honoured GOD having disposed the Heart of that incomparable Person the Honourable Robert Boyle Esquire lately deceased the Glory of our Nation and Age whose Charity and Goodness were as universal as his Learning and Fame To settle an Annual Salary for some Divine or Preaching Minister who shall be enjoyned to perform the Offices following 1. To preach Eight Sermons in the Year for proving the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels viz. Atheists Deists Pagans Iews and Mahometans not descending to any Controversies that are among Christians themselves These Lectures to be on the First Monday of the respective Months of Ianuary February March April May September October November in such Church as the Trustees shall from time to time appoint 2. To be assisting to all Companies and encouraging them in any Undertaking for propagating the Christian Religion 3. To be ready to satisfie such Real Scruples as any may have concerning those Matters and to answer such New Objections or Difficulties as may be started to which good Answers have not yet been made You have been pleased to believe me able in some measure to perform these Offices and to command this First Essay to be made publick I am very sensible of the great Honour as well as the great Extent and Difficulty of the Task and shall endeavour to the utmost of my poor ability to answer the religious and generous Design of that Excellent Person and the good Opinion you have entertained of My most Honoured Patrons Your very obliged and humble Servant R. Bentley March 17. 1691 2. THE Folly of Atheism And what is now called DEISM Even with Respect to The PRESENT LIFE The First SERMON preached March 7. 1691 2. Psalm XIV v. 1. The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good I Shall not now make any enquiry about the time and occasion and other circumstances of composing this Psalm nor how it comes to pass that with very little variation we have it twice over both here the 14th and again number the 53d Not that these and such-like are not important considerations in themselves but that I think them improper now when we are to argue and expostulate with such persons as allow no Divine Authority to our Text and profess no greater or it may be they will say less Veneration for these Sacred Hymns than for the profane Songs of Anacreon or Horace So that although I my self do really believe that all such as say in their Hearts There is no God are foolish and corrupt both in Understanding and Will because I see infinite Wisdom it self has pronounced them to be so nevertheless this Argument would at present have no force upon these men till in due time and method we have evinced the sufficient Authority of Holy Scripture But however there are other Books extant which they must needs allow of as proper Evidence even the mighty Volumes of visible Nature and the everlasting Tables of Right Reason wherein if they do not wilfully shut their Eyes they may read their own Folly written by the Finger of God in a much plainer and more terrible Sentence than Belshazzar's was by the Hand upon the Wall And as the impious Principles of these persons do preclude any argumentation from the Revealed Word of God so they prevent us also from speaking at present to the second part of the Text. The whole Verse hath apparently two Propositions the one denoting the Folly of Atheism The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God the second declaring the Corruption and Flagitiousness of Life which naturally attend it They are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good Now this latter part to a genuine Atheist is meer Iargon as he loves to call it an empty sound of words without any signification He allows no Natural Morality nor any other distinction of Good and Evil Just and Unjust than as Human Institution and the Modes and Fashions of various Countries denominate them The most Heroical Actions or detestable Villanies are in the nature of things indifferent to his approbation if by secrecy they are alike conceal'd from Rewards or Punishments from Ignominy or Applause So that till we have proved in its proper place the eternal and essential Difference between Virtue and Vice we must forbear to urge Atheists with the Corruption and Abominableness of their Principles But I presume the first part of the Text the Folly and sottishness of Atheism which shall be the subject of this Discourse will be allowed to come home to their Case since they make such a noisy pretence to Wit and Sagacity and I believe several of them first engage in that Labyrinth of Nonsense and Folly out of an absurd and preposterous affectation of seeming Wiser than their Neighbours But before I proceed any farther it will be necessary to clear and vindicate this expression of the Psalmist The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God For I know not any Interpreters that will allow it to be spoken of such as flatly deny the Being of God but of them that believing his Existence do yet seclude him from directing the Affairs of the World from observing and judging the Actions of Men. I suppose they might be induced to this from the commonly received notion of an Innate Idea of God imprinted upon every Soul of Man at their Creation in Characters that can never be defaced Whence it will follow that Speculative Atheism does only subsist in Our speculation whereas really Humane Nature cannot be guilty of the crime that indeed a few sensual and voluptuous Persons may for a season eclipse this native Light of the Soul but can never so wholly smother and extinguish it but that at some lucid intervals it will recover it self again and shine forth to the conviction of their Conscience And therefore they believed that the words would not admit of a strict and rigorous Interpretation but ought to be so temper'd and accommodated to the nature of things as that they may describe those profane persons who though they do not nor can really doubt in their