assigned but only from Airs and Ethers and Waters and such like Physical and Material things And he seemed to me to deal just as if one having affirmed that Socrates did all by Mind Reason and Vnderstanding afterward undertaking to declare the Causes of all my Actions as particularly of My Sitting here at this time should render it after this manner Because forsooth my Body is compounded of Bones and Nerves which Bones being solid have Joynts in them at certain distances and Nerves of such a nature as that they are capable of being both Intended and Remitted Wherefore my Bones being lifted up in the Joynts and my Nerves some of them intended and some remitted was the cause of the bending of my Body and of my sitting down in this place He in the mean time neglecting the true and proper Cause hereof which was no other than this Because it seemed good to the Athenians to condemn me to die as also to my self most Just rather to submit to their censure and undergo their punishment than by slight to escape it for certainly otherwise these Nerves and Bones of mine would not have been here now in this posture but amongst the Megarensians and Beotians carried thither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Opinion of the Best had I not thought it Better to submit to the sentence of the City than to escape the same by flight Which kind of Philosophers saith he do not seem to me to distinguish betwixt the True and Proper Cause of things and the Cause Sine qua non that without which they could not have been effected And such are they who devise many odd Physical Reasons for the firm Settlement of the Earth without any regard to that Power which orders all things for the Best as having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine Force in it but thinking to find out an Atlas far more strong and immortal and which can better hold all things together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Good and Fit being not able in their Opinions to Hold or Bind any Thing From which passage of Plato's we may conclude that though Anaxagoras were so far convinced of Theism as in Profession to mak One Infinite Mind the Cause of all things Matter only excepted yet he had notwithstanding too great a Tang of that Old Material and Atheistical Philosophy of his Predecessors still hanging about him who resolved all the Phaenomena of Nature into Physical and nothing into Mental or Final Causes And we have the rather told this long story of him because it is so exact a Parallel with the Philosophick Humour of some in this present Age who pretending to assert a God do notwithstanding discard all Mental and Final Causality from having any thing to do with the Fabrick of the World and resolve all into Material Necessity and Mechanism into Vortices Globuli and Striate Particles and the like Of which Christian Philosophers we must needs pronounce that they are not near so good Theists as Anaxagoras himself was though so much condemned by Plato and Aristotle forasmuch as he did not only assert God to be the Cause of Motion but also the Governour Regulator and Methodizer of the same for the production of this Harmonious System of the World and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cause of Well and Fit Whereas these utterly reject the Latter and only admitting the Former will needs suppose Heaven and Earth Plants and Animals and all things whatsoever in this orderly Compages of the World to have resulted meerly from a certain Quantity of Motion or Agitation at first impressed upon the Matter and determin'd to Vortex XXXI The Chronology of the old Philosophers having some uncertainty in it we shall not Scrupulously concern our selves therein but in the next place consider Parmenides Xenophanes his Auditor and a Philosophick Poet likewise but who conversing much with two Pythagoreans Amenias and Diochoetes was therefore look'd upon as one that was not a little addicted to the Pythagorick Sect. That this Parmenides acknowledged Many Gods is evident from what hath been already cited out of him notwithstanding which he plainly asserted also One Supreme making him as Simplicius tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cause of all those other Gods of which Love is said to have been first produced Which Supreme Deity Parmenides as well as Xenophanes called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One that was All or the Vniverse but adding thereunto of his own that it was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immovable Now though it be true that Parmenides his Writings being not without obscurity some of the Ancients who were less acquainted with Metaphysical Speculations understood him Physically as if he had asserted the whole Corporeal Vniverse to be all but One Thing and that Immovable thereby destroying together with the Diversity of things all Motion Mutation and Action which was plainly to make Parmenides not to have been a Philosopher but a Mad man Yet Simplicius a man well acquainted with the Opinions of Ancient Philosophers and who had by him a Copy of Parmenides his Poems then scarce but since lost assures us that Parmenides dreamt of no such matter and that he wrote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not concerning a Physical Element or Principle but concerning the True Ens or the Divine Transcendency Adding that though some of those Ancient Philosophers did not distinguish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Natural things from Supernatural yet the Pythagoreans and Xenophones and Parmenides and Empedocles and Anaxagoras did all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 handle these Two distinctly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 however by reason of their obscurity it were not perceived by many for which cause they have been most of them misrepresented not only by Pagans but also by Christian Writers For as the same Simplicius informs us Parmenides propounded Two several Doctrines one after another the First concerning Theological and Metaphysical things called by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Truth the Second concerning Physical and Corporeal things which he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Opinion The Transition betwixt which was contained in these Verses of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Former of which Doctrines Parmenides asserted One Immoveable Principle but in the Latter Two movable ones Fire and Earth He speaking of Souls also as a certain Middle or Vinculum betwixt the Incorporeal and the Coporeal World and affirming that God did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes send and translate Souls from the Visible to the Invisible Regions and sometimes again on the contrary from the Invisible to the Visible From whence it is plain that when Parmenides asserted his One and All Immovable he spake not as a Physiologer but as a Metaphysician and Theologer only Which indeed was a thing so evident that Aristotle himself though he had a mind to obscure Parmenides his sence that he might have a fling at him in his
they plunge themselves into Fear for they who are without Hope can never be free from Fear Endless of necessity must the Fears and Anxieties of those men be who shake off that One Fear of God that would only preserve them from Evil and have no Faith nor Hope in him Wherefore we might conclude upon better grounds than the Atheists do of Theism that Atheism which hath no foundation at all in Nature nor in Reason springs first from the Imposture of Fear For the Faith of Religion being the Substance or Confidence of such things not seen as are to be Hoped for Atheistick Insidelity must needs on the contrary be a certain heavy Diffidence Despondence and Misgiving of Mind or a Timorous Distrust and Disbelief of Good to be Hoped for beyond the reach of Sense namely of an Invisible Being Omnipotent that exerciseth a Just Kind and Gracious Povidence over all those who commit their ways to him with an endeavour to please him both here in this Life and after Death But Vice or the Love of Lawless Liberty prevailing over such Disbelieving persons makes them by degrees more and more desirous that there should be no God that is no such Hinderer of their Liberty and to count it a happiness to be freed from the Fear of him whose Justice if he were they must needs be obnoxious to And now have we made it Evident that these Atheists who make Religion and the Belief of a God to proceed from the Imposture of Fear do first of all disguise the Deity and put a Monstrous Horrid and Affrightful Vizard upon it transforming it into such a thing as can only be Feared and Hated and then do they conclude concerning it as well indeed they may that there is no such thing as this really Existing in Nature but that it is only a Mormo or Bugbear raised up by mens Fear and Phansie Of the Two it might better be said that the Opinion of a God sprung from mens Hope of Good than from their Fear of Evil but really it springs neither from Hope nor Fear however in different Circumstances it raises both those Passions in our Minds nor is it the Imposture of any Passion but that whose Belief is supported and Sustained by the strongest and clearest Reason as shall be declared in due place But the Sense of a Deity often Preventing Ratiocination in us and urging it self more Immediately upon us it is certain that there is also besides a Rational Belief thereof a Natural Prolepsis or Anticipation in the Minds of men concerning it which by Aristotle is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Vaticination Thus have we sufficiently confuted the First Atheistick Pretence to salve the Phaenomenon of Religion and the Belief of a God so generally entertained from the Imposture of Fear we come now to the Second That it proceeded from the Ignorance of Causes also or Mens want of Philosophy they being prone by reason of their Innate Curiosity where they find no Causes to make or feign them and from their Fear in the Absence of Natural and Necessary Causes to imagine Super-natural and Divine this also affording them a handsom Cover and Pretext for their Ignorance For which cause these Atheists stick not to affirm of God Almighty what some Philosophers do of Occult Qualities that he is but Persugium Asylum Ignorantiae a Refuge and Shelter for mens Ignorance that is in plain and downright Languâ—ge The meer Sanctuary of Fools And these two things are here commonly joyned together by these Atheists both Fear and Ignorance of Causes as which joyntly concurr in the Production of Theism Because as the Fear of Children raises up Bugbears especially in the Dark so do they suppose in like manner the Fear of men in the Darkness of their Ignorance of Causes especially to raise up the Mormo Spectre or Phantasm of a God which is thus intimated by the Epicurean Poet Omnia Caecis In tenebris Metuunt And accordingly Democritus gave this account of the Original of Theism or Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That when in old times men observed strange and affrightful things in the Meteors and the Heaven as Thunder Lightning Thunderbolts Eclipses they not knowing the Causes thereof being terrified thereby presently imputed them to the Gods And Epicurus declares this to have been the reason why he took such great pains in the study of Physiology that by finding out the Natural and Necessary Causes of things he might be able to free both himself and others from the Terrour of a God which would otherwise Invade and Assault them the Importunity of mens minds when-ever they are at a loss for Natural Causes urging them so much with the Fear Suspicion and Jealousie of a Deity Wherefore the Atheists thus dabling in Physiology and finding out as they conceive Material and Mechanical Causâ—s for some of the Phaenomâ—na of Nature and especially for such of them as the unskilful Vulgar some times impute to God himâ—elf when they can prove Eclipses for example to be no Miracles and render it probable that Thunder is not the Voice of God Almighty himself as it were roaring above in the Heavens meerly to affright and amaze poor Mortals and make them quake and tremble and that Thunderbolts are not there flung by his own hands as the direful messengers of his wrath and displeasure they presently conclude triumphantly thereupon concerning Nature or Matter that it doth Ipsa suâ per se sponte omnia Diis agere expers Do all things alone of it self without a God But we shall here make it appear in a few Instances as briefly as we may that Philosophy and the True Knowledge of Causes leads to God and that Atheism is nothing but Ignorance of Causes and of Philosophy For first no Atheist who derives all from sensless Atoms or Matter is able to assign any Cause at all of Himself or give any true account of the Original of his own Soul or Mind it being utterly Unconceivable and Impossible that Soul and Mind Sense Reason and Vnderstanding should ever arise from Irrational and Sensless Matter however modified or result from Atoms devoid of all manner of Qualities that is from meer Magnitude Figure Site and Motion of Parts For though it be indeed absurd to say as these Atheists alledge that Laughing and Crying Things are made out of Laughing and Crying Principles Et Ridere potest non ex Ridentibu ' factus Yet does it not therefore follow that Sensitive and Rational Beings might result from a Composition of Irrational and Sensless Atoms which according to the Democritick Hypothesis have nothing in them but Magnitude Figure Site and Motion or Rest. Because Laughing and Crying are Motions which result from the Mechanism of Humane Bodies in such a manner Organized but Sense and Vnderstanding are neither Local Motion nor Mechanism And the Case will be the very same both in the Anaximandrian or Hylopathian and in the
Animals the True and Proper Cause of Motion or the Determination thereof at least is not the Matter it self Organized but the Soul either as Cogitative or Plastickly-Self Active Vitally united thereunto and Naturally Ruling over it But in the whole World it is either God himsel◠Originally impressing a certain Quantity of Motion upon the Matter of the Universe and constantly conserving the same according to that of the Sripture In him we Live Move which seems to have been the Sence also of that Noble Agrigentine Poet and Philosopher when he described God to be only A Pure or Holy Mind that with swift thoughts agitates the whole World or else it is Instrumentally an Inferiour Created Spirit Soul or Life of Nature that is a Subordinate Hylarchical Principle which hath a Power of Moving Matter Regularly according to the Direction of a Superiour Perfect Mind And thus do we see again that Ignorance of Causes is the Seed of Atheism and not of Theism no Atheists being able to assign a true Cause of Motion the Knowledge whereof plainly leadeth to a God Furthermore those Atheists who acknowledge no other Principle of things but Sensless Matter Fortuitously moved must needs be Ignorant also of the Cause of that Grand Phaenomenon called by Aristotle the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Well and Fit in Nature that is of the most Artificial Frame of the whole Mundane System in General and of the Bodies of Animals in Particular together with the Conspiring Harmony of all For they who boasted themselves able to give Natural Causes of all things whatsoever without a God can give no other Cause at all of this Phaenomenon but only that the World Happened by Chance to be thus made as it is Now they who make Fortune and Chance to be the only Cause of this so Admirable Phaenomenon the most Regular and Artificial Frame and Harmony of the Vniverse they either make the meer Absence and Want of a Cause to be a Cause Fortune and Chance being nothing else but the Absence or want of an Intending Cause Or else do they make their own Ignorance of a Cause and They know not How to be a Cause as the Author of the Leviathan interprets the meaning hereof Many times saith he men put for Cause of Natural Events their own Ignorance but disguised in other words as when they say that Fortune is the Cause of things Contingent that is of things whereof they know no Cause Or they affirm against all Reason one Contrary to be the Cause of another as Confusion to be the Cause of Order Pulchritude and Harmony Chance and Fortune to be the Cause of Art and Skill Folly and Nonsence the Cause of the most Wise and Regular Contrivance Or Lastly they deny it to have any Cause at all since they deny an Intending Cause and there cannot Possibly be any other Cause of Artificialness and Conspiring Harmony than Mind and Wisdom Councel and Contrivance But because the Atheists here make some Pretences for this their Ignorance we shall not conceal any of them but bring them all to light to the end that we may discover their Weakness and Foolery First therefore they Pretend that the World is not so Artificially and Well made but that it might have been made much Better and that there are many Faults and Flaws to be found therein from whence they would infer that it was not made by a God he being supposed by Theists to be no Bungler but a Perfect Mind or a Being Infinitely Good and Wise who therefore should have made all things for the Best But this being already set down by it self as a Twelfth Atheistick Objection against a Deity we must reserve the Confutation thereof for its proper place Only we shall observe thus much here by the way That those Theists of Later times who either because they Fancy a meer Arbitary Deity or because their Faith in the Divine Goodness is but weak or because they Judge of things according to their own Private Appetites and Selfish Passions and not with a Free Uncaptivated Vniversality of Mind and an Impartial Regard to the Good of the Whole or because they look only upon the Present Scene of things and take not in the Future into consideration nor have a Comprehensive View of the whole Plot of Divine Providence together or lastly because we Mortals do all stand upon too Low a Ground to take a commanding view and Prospect upon the whole Frame of things and our shallow Understandings are not able to fathom the Depths of the Divine Wisdom nor trace all the Methods and Designs of Providence grant That the World might have been made much Better than now it is which indeed is all one as to say that it is Not Well made these Neoterick Christians I say seem hereby to give a much greater advantage to the Atheists than the Pagan Theists themselves heretofore did who stood their Ground and generously maintained against them that Mind being the Maker of all things and not Fortune or Chance nor Arbitary Self-will and Irational Humour Omnipotent the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is Absolutely the Best in every case so far as the Necessity of things would admit and in compliance with the Good of the Whole was the Measure and Rule both of Nature and Providence Again the Atomick Atheists further alledge that though there be many things in the world which serve well for Vses yet it does not at all follow that therefore they were made Intentionally and Designedly for those Vses because though things Happen by Chance to be so or so Made yet may they serve for something or other afterward and have their several Vses Consequent Wherefore all the things of Nature Happened say they by Chance to be so made as they are and their several Uses notwithstanding were Consequent or Following thereupon Thus the Epicurean Poet Nil ideo natum est in Corpore ut Vti Possemus sed quod Natum est id procreat Vsum. Nothing in mans Body was made out of design for any Vse but all the several Parts thereof happening to be so made as they are their Vses were Consequent thereupon In like manner the Old Atheistick Philosophers in Aristotle concluded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Former Teeth were made by Material or Mechanical Necessity Thin and Sharp by means whereof they became fit for Cutting but the Jaw-Teeth Thick and Broad whereby they became Vseful for the Grinding of Food But neither of them were Intended to be such for the sake of these Vses but Happened by Chance only And the like concerning all the other Parts of the Body which seem to be made for Ends. Accordingly the same Aristotle represents the sence of those ancient Atheists concerning the other Parts of the Universe or Things of Nature that they were all likewise made such by the Necessity of Material or Mechanical Motions Vndirected and yet had nevertheless their several
them assigned meerly from Matter and Mechanism or the Necessary and Vnguided Motion thereof without Design or Intention for Ends and Good Wherefore to say that the Bodies of Animals became such meerly because the Fluid Seed by Motion Happened to make such Traces and beget such Stamina and Lineamentâ— as out of which that Compages of the whole resulted is not to assign a Cause of them but to Dissemble Smother and Conceal their True Efficient Cause which is the Wisdom and Contrivance of that Divine Architect and Geometer making them every way fit for the Inhabitation and uses of their respective Souls Neither indeed can we banish all Final that is all Mental Causality from Philosophy or the Consideration of Nature without banishing at the same time Reason and Vnderstanding from our selves and looking upon the Things of Nature with no other Eyes than Brutes do However none of the Ancient Atheists would ever undertake to assign Necessary Causes for all the Parts of the Bodies of Animals and their Efformation from meer Matter Motion and Mechanism Those small and pitiful attempts in order thereunto that have been made by some of them in a few Instances as that the Spina Dorsi came from the Flexure of the Bodies of Animals when they first sprung out of the Earth the Intestines from the Flux of Humours excavating a crooked and winding Channel for it self and that the Nostrils were broke open by the Eruption of breath these I say only showing the Vnfeisableness and Impossibility thereof And therefore Democritus was so wise as never to pretend to give an Account in this way of the Formation of the Foetus he looking upon it as a thing absolutely Desperate nor would he venture to say any more concerning it as Aristotle informeth us than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it always cometh so to pass of necessity but stopp'd all further Enquiry concerning it after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That to demand about any of these things for what Cause it was thus was to demand a Beginning of Infinite As if all the Motions from Eternity had an Influence upon and Contribution to whatsoever Corporeal thing was now produced And Lucretius notwithstanding all his swaggering and boasting that He and Epicurus were able to assign Natural and Necessary Causes for every thing without a God hath no where so much as one word concerning it We conclude therefore that Aristotle's Judgment concerning Final Causes in Philosophy is much to be preferred before that of Democritus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Both kind of Causes Material and Final ought to be declared by a Physiologer but especially the Final the End being the Cause of the Matter but the Mâ—tter not the Cause of the End And thus do we see plainly that the Atomick Atheists are utterly ignorant of the Cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Râ—â—uâ—ar and Artificial Frame of thâ— things in Nâ—ture and consâ—quently of the whâ—le Mundane Sâ—stem the True Knowledge whereof nâ—câ—ssâ—rily leadeth to a God But it is prodigiously strange that these Atheists should in this their Ignorance and Sottâ—shnâ—ss be Justified by any Professed Theists and Christians of Later times who Atomizing in their Physiology also would fain perswade us in like manner that this whole Mundane System together with Plants and Animals was derived meerly from the Necessary and Vnguided Motion of the Small Particles of Matter at first turned round in a Vortex or else jumbled all together in a Chaos without any Intention for Ends and Good that is without the Direction of any Mind God in the mean time standing by only as an Idle Spâ—ctator of this Lusus Atomorum this Sportful Dance of Atoms and of the various Results thereof Nay these Mechanick Theists have here quite outstripped and out-done the Atomick Atheists themselves they being much more Immodest and Extravagant than ever those were For the Professed Atheists durst never venture to affirm that this Regular System of things Resulted from the Fortuitous Motions of Atoms at the very first before they had for a long time together produced many other Inept Combinations or Aggregate Forms of particular things and Nonsensical Systems of the whole And they supposed also that the Regularity of things here in this world would not always continue such neither but that some time or other Confusion and Disorder would break in again Moreover that besides this World of ours there are at this very instant Innumerable other worlds Irregular and that there is but One of a Thousand or ten Thousand amongst the Infinite Worlds that have such Regularity in them The reason of all which is because it was generally taken for granted and look'd upon as a Common Notion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle expresseth it that None of those things which are from Fortune or Chance come to pass constantly and always alike But our Mechanick or Atomick Theists will have their Atoms never so much as once to have Fumbled in these their Fortuitous Motions nor to have produced any Inept System or Incongruous Forms at all but from the very first all along to have taken up their Places and have Ranged themselves so Orderly Methodically and Discreetly as that they could not possibly have done it better had they been Directed by the most Perfect Wisdom Wherefore these Atomick Theists utterly Evacuate that grand Argument for a God taken from the Phaenomenon of the Artificial Frame of things which hath been so much insisted on in all Ages and which commonly makes the strongest impression of any other upon the Minds of men they leaving only certain Metaphysical Arguments for a Deity which though never so good yet by reason of their Subtilty can do but little Execution upon the Minds of the Generality and even amongst the Learned do oftentimes beget more of Doubtful Disputation and Scepticism than of Clear Conviction and Satisfaction The Atheists in the mean time laughing in their sleeves and not a little triumphing to see the Cause of Theism thus betrayed by its professed Friends and Assertors and the Grand Argument for the same totally Slurred by them and so their work done as it were to their hands for them Now as this argues the greatest Insensibility of Mind or Sottishness and Stupidity in Pretended Theists not to take the least notice of the Regular and Artificial Frame of things or of the Signatures of the Divine Art and Wisdom in them nor to look upon the World and things of Nature with any Other Eyes than Oxen and Horses do so are there many Phaenomena in Nature which being partly Above the Force of these Mechanick Powers and partly Contrary to the same can therefore never be Salved by them nor without Final Causes and some Vital Principle As for example that of Gravity or the Tendency of Bodies Downward the Motion of the Diaphragma in Respiration the Systole and Diastole of the Heart which was before declared to be a Muscular Constriction and
Plutarch in Herodotus as spoken Universally Plutarch himself restraining the Sense thereof to his Evill Principle Plato's ascribing the World to the Divine Goodness who therefore made all things most like Himself The true meaning of this Proverb That the Deity affecteth to Humble and Abase the Pride of men Lucretius his Hidden Force that hath as it were a Spite to all Overswelling Greatnesses could be no other then the Deity Those amongst Christians who make the worst Representation of God yet Phansy him Kind and Gracious to Themselves Page 659 660 True that Religion often expressed by the Fear of God Fear Prima Mensura Deitatis the First Impression that Religion makes upon men in this Lapsed State But this not a Fear of God as Mischievous and Hurtfull nor yet as a meer Arbitrary Being but as Just and an Impartiall Punisher of Wickedness Lucretius his acknowledging mens Fear of God to be conjoyned with a Conscience of Duty A Naturall Discrimination of Good and Evill with a Sense of an Impartiall Justice presiding over the World and both Rewarding and Punishing The Fear of God as either a Hurtfull or Arbitrary and Tyrannicall Being which must needs be joyned with something of Hatred not Religion but Superstition Fear Faith and Love Three Steps and Degrees of Religion to the Son of Sirach Faith better Defined in Scripture then by any Scholasticks God such a Being as if he were not Nothing more to be Wished for Page 660 661 The Reason why Atheists thus mistake the Notion of God as a Thing onely to be Feared and consequently Hated from their own Ill Nature and Vice The latter disposing them so much to think that there is no Difference of Good and Evill by Nature but onely by Law which Law Contrary to Nature as Restraint to Liberty Hence their denying all Naturall Charity and Acknowledging no Benevolence or Good Will but what arises from Imbecillity Indigency and Fear Their Friendship at best no other then Mercatura Utilitatum Wherefore if there were an Omnipotent Deity this according to the Atheistick Hypothesis could not have so much as that Spurious Love or Benevolence to any thing because standing in Need of Nothing and Devoid of Fear Thus Cotta in Cicero All this asserted also by a late Pretender to Politicks He adding thereunto that God hath no other Right of Commanding then his Irresistible Power nor men any Obligation to obey him but onely from their Imbecillity and Fear or because they cannot Resist him Thus do Atheists Transform the Deity into a Monstrous Shape an Omnipotent Being that hath neither Benevolence nor Justice in him This indeed a Mormo or Bugbear Page 661 662 But as this a false Representation of Theism so the Atheistick Scene of things most Uncomfortable Hopeless and Dismall upon severall Accounts True that no Spightfull Designs in Sensless Atoms in which Regard Plutarch Preferred even this Atheistick Hypothesis before that of an Omnipotent Mischievous Being However no Faith nor Hope neither in Sensless Atoms Epicurus his Confession that it was better to believe the Fable of the Gods then that Materiall Necessity of all things asserted by the other Atheistick Physiologers before himself But he not at all mending the Matter by his supposed Free Will The Panick Fear of the Epicureans of the Frame of Heaven's Cracking and this Compilement of Atoms being dissolved into a Chaos Atheists running from Fear plunge themselves into Fear Atheism rather then Theism from the Imposture of Fear Distrust and Disbelief of Good But Vice afterwards prevailing in them makes them Desire there should be No God Page 663 664 Thus the Atheists who derive the Origin of Religion from Fear First put an Affrightfull Vizard upon the Deity and then conclude it to be but a Mormo or Bugbear the Creature of Fear and Phancy More likely of the Two that the Opinion of a God sprung from Hope of Good then Fear of Evill but neither of these True it owing its Being to the Imposture of no Passion but supported by the Strongest and clearest Reason Nevertheless a Naturall Prolepsis or Anticipation of a God also in mens Minds Preventing Reason This called by Plato and Aristotle a Vaticination Page 664 665 The Second Atheistick Pretence to salve the Phaenomenon of Religion from the Ignorance of Causes and mens innate â—uriosity Vpon which Account the Deity said by them to be nothing but an Asylum of Ignorance or the Sanctuary of Fools next to be Confuted Page 665 That the Atheists both Modern and Ancient here commonly Complicate these Two together Fear and Ignorance of Causes making Theism the Spawn of both as the Fear of Children in the Dark raises Bugbears and Spectres Epicurus his Reason why he took such great pains in the Study of Physiology that by finding out the Naturall Causes of things he might free men from the Terrour of a God that would otherwise Assault their Minds ibid. The Atheists thus Dabbling in Physiology and finding out Materiall Causes for some of those Phaenomena which the unskilfull Vulgar salve onely from a Deity therefore Confident that Religion had no other Originall then this Ignorance of Causes as also that Nature or Matter does all things alone without a God But we shall make it manifest That Philosophy and the True Knowledge of Causes Lead to a Deity and that Atheism from Ignorance of Causes and want of Philosophy Page 665 666 For First No Atheist who derives all from Senslesse Matter can possibly assign any Cause of Himself his own Soul or Mind it being Impossible that Life and Sense should be Naturally produced from what Dead and Sensless or from Magnitudes Figures Sites and Motions An Atheistick Objection nothing to the purpose That Laughing and Crying things are made out of Not-Laughing and Crying Principles because these result from the Mechanism of the Body The Hylozoists never able neither to produce Animal Sense and Consciousness out of what Sensless and Inconscious The Atheists supposing their own Life and Understanding and all the Wisedom that is in the World to have sprung meerly from Sensless Matter and Fortuitous Motion Grossely Ignorant of Causes The Philosophy of Our Selves and True Knowledge of the Cause of our own Soul and Mind brings to God Page 666 667 Again Atheists Ignorant of the Cause of Motion by which they suppose all things done this Phaenomenon being no way Salvable according to their Principles First undeniably certain That Motion not Essential to all Body or Matter as such because then there could have been no Mundane System no Sun Moon Earth c. All things being continually Torn in Pieces and Nothing Cohering Certain also That Dead and Sensless Matter such as that of Anaximander Democâ—itus and Epicurus cannot Move it self Spontaneously by Will or Appetite The Hylozoists further considered elsewhere Democritus could assign no other Cause of Motion then this That one Body moved another from Eternity Infinitely without any First Cause or Mover Thus also a Modern Writer To
Assert an Infinite Progress in the Causes of Motion according to Aristotle to assign no Cause thereof at all Epicurus though an Exploder of Qualities forced here to fly to an Occult Quality of Gravity Which as Absurd in Infinite Space and without any Centre of Rest so indeed nothing but to make his own Ignorance and He Knows not Why to be a Cause The Motion of Body from the Activity of something Incorporeal Though Motion taken for Translation be a Mode of Matter yet as it is taken for the Vis Movens a Mode or Energy of Something that is Incorporeal and Self-Active The Motion of the whole Corporeal Universe Originally from the Deity Thus the Ignorance of the Cause of Motion another Ground of Atheism Page 667 669 Thirdly The Atheists also Ignorant of the Cause of that Grand Phaenomenon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Regular and Artificial Frame of the Mundane System and of the Bodies of Animals together with the Harmony of all They who boast they can give Causes of all things without a God able to give no Cause of this but onely that it Happened by Chance so to be This either to make the Absence of a Cause a Cause Chance being but the Absence of an Intending Cause or their Own very Ignorance of the Cause and They Know not Why to be a Cause or to make One Contrary the Cause of Another Confusion of Order and Harmony Chance of Art and Skill or Lastly to deny it to have any Cause at all since they deny an Intending Cause Page 669 But here the Atheists make several Pretenâ—es for this their Ignorance First That the World is not so Well Made but that it might have been much Better and many Flaws to be found therein whereas a God or Perfect Being would have Bungled in Nothing but have made all things after the Best manner But this a Twelfth Athâ—istick Argumentation and the Confutation thereof to be expected afterward Reasons why some Modern Theists give Atheists so much advantage here as to acknowledge Things be Ill Made whilst the Ancient Pagan Theists stood their Ground and generously maintained that Mind being the Maker of all things and not Blind Fortune or Chance nor Arbitrary Will and Irrational Humane Omnipotent the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is Absolutely the Bâ—st in order to the Good of the Whole so far as the Necessity of things would admit the Measure and Rule of Nature and Providence Page 669 670 Again the Atomick and Epicurean Atheists Pretend That though many things serve for Uses yet it does not therefore folâ—ow that they were made Intentionally for those Uses because things that Happen by Chance may have Uses Consequent Thus Lucretius and the old Atheistick Philosophers before Aristotle of the Parts of the Bodies of Animals and all other things The Answer That when things consist of many Parts all Artificially Proportioned together with much Curiosity as for example the Eye no man who considers the Anatomy thereof and its whole Structure can reasonably conclude that it Happened so to be made and the Use of Seeing Followed but that it was made Intentionally for the Use of Seeing But to maintain that not onely Eyes Happened to be so made and the Use of Seeing Followed but also Ears and a Mouth and Feet and Hands and all the other parts Organical and Similar without any of which the Whole would be Inept or Vseless all their several Uses Vn-Intended following Gross Insensibility and Stupidity Galen of the Use of Parts Page 671 672 Democritus his Dotages Countenanced also by Cartesius His Book of Meteors first written with design to Salve all those Phaenomena without a God but Vnsuccessfully Nevertheless we acknowledge That God and Nature doe all things in the most Frugal and Compendious way and that the Mechanick Powers are taken in so far as they will serviceably comply with the Intellectual Platform But Nature not Mechanical and Fortuitous onely but also Vital and Artificial the Archeus of the whole World ibid. Again Atheists further Pretend That though it may well seem strange that Matter Fortuitously Moved should at the very First fall into such a Regularity and Harmony as is now in the World yet not at all strange that Atoms moving from all Eternity and making all manner of Combinations and Contexturâ—s and trying all Experiments should after innumerable other Inept and Discongruous Forms at length fall into such a System as This. They say therefore That the Earth at first brought forth divers Monstrous and Irregular Shapes of Animals some wanting Feet some Hands some without a Mouth c. to which the Ancients added Centaurs Scylla's and Chimaera's mixtly Boviform and Hominiform Animals Though Epicurus ashamed to own these would seem to exclude them but without Reason But because we have now no such Irregular Shapes Produced out of the Earth they say that the Reason is because none could Continue and Propagate their kind by Generation but onely such as Happened to be fitly made Thus Epicurus and the Atheists before Aristotle They also adde hereunto their Infinite Worlds amongst which they Pretend not one of a Thousand or of Ten thousand hath so much Regularity in it as this of ours Lastly they Presage likewise that this World of ours shall not always continue such but after a while fall into Confusion and Disorder again and then may we have Centaurs Scylla's and Chimaera's as before Page 672 674 Nevertheless because this Universal and Constant Regularity of things for so many Ages together is so Puzzling they would perswade us that the Sensless Atoms Playing and Toying up and down from Eternity without any Care or Thought were at length Taught by the Necessity of things and driven to a kind of Trade or Habit of Artificialness and Methodicalness Page 674 675 To all which Atheistick Pretences Replied First That this an Idle Dream or Impudent Forgery That there was once an Inept Mundane System and in this World of ours all manner of Irregular Shapes of Animals not onely because no Tradition of any such thing but also because no Reason possibly to be given why such should not be Produced out of the Earth still though they could not Continue long That also Another Atheistick Dream That in this World of ours all will quickly fall into Confusion and Nonsense again And as their Infinite Worlds an Impossibility so their Assertion of the Irregularity of the supposed other Worlds well enough Answered by a Contrary Assertion That were every Planet a Habitable Earth and every Fixed Star a Sun having all more or fewer such Habitable Planets moving round about them and none of them Desert or Un-inhabited there would not be found so much as one Ridiculous or Inept System amongst them all the Divine Act being Infinite Page 675 Again That the Fortuitous Motions of Sensless Atoms should in length of Time grow Artificial and contract a Habit or Trade of Acting as Regularly as if directed
the Second Book The Confutation of the Divine Fate Immoral There is a large Account given of the Pagan Polytheism to satisfy a very considerable Objection that lay in our way from thence Against the Naturality of the Idea of God as Including Oneliness and Singularity in it For had that upon enquiry been found True which is so commonly taken for granted That the generality of the Pagan Nations had constantly Scattered their Devotions amongst a multitude of Self-Existent and Independent Deities they acknowledging no One Sovereign Numen This would much have Stumbled the Naturality of the Divine Idea But now it being on the Contrary clearly Proved That the Pagan Theologers all along acknowledged One Sovereign and Omnipotent Deity from which all their other Gods were Generated or Created we have thereby not onely Removed the forementioned Objection out of the way but also Evinced That the Generality of mankind have constantly had a certain Prolepsis or Anticipation in their Minds concerning the Actual Existence of a God according to the True Idea of him And this was the rather done Fully and Carefully by us because we had not met with it sufficiently performed before A. Steuchus Eugubinus having laboured mâ—st in this Subject from whose profitable Industry though we shall no way detract yet whosoever will compare what he hath written with ours will find no Just Cause to think ours Superfluous and Unnecessary much less a Transcription out of his In which besides other things there is no Account at all given of the Many Pagan Poetical and Political Gods what they were which is so great a part of our Performance to prove them Really to have been but the Polyonymy of one God From whence it follows also That the Pagan Religion though sufficiently Faulty yet was not altogether so Nonsensical as the Atheists would represent it out of design that they might from thence infer all Religion to be nothing but a meer Cheat and Imposture they worshipping onely One Supreme God in the several Manifestations of his Goodness Power and Providence throughout the World together with his Inferiour Ministers Nevertheless we cannâ—t deny that being once engaged in this Subject we thought our Selves the more Concerned to doe the business thoroughly and effectually because of that Controversy lately Agitated concerning Idolatry which cannot otherwise be Decided then by giving a True Account of the Pagan Religion and the so Confident Affirmations of some That none could possibly be Guilty of Idolatry in the Scripture Sense who Believed One God the Creator of the whole world Whereas it is most certain on the contrary that the Pagan Polyteism and Idolatry consisted not in worshipping Many Creators or Uncreateds but in giving Religious Worship to Creatures besides the Creator they directing their Devotion as Athanasius plainly affirmeth of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To One Uncreated onely but besides him to many Created Gods But as for the Polemick Management of this Controversy concerning Idolatry we leave it to other Learned Hands that are already engaged in it Moreover We have in this Fourth Chapter largely Insisted also upon the Trinity The Reason whereof was Because it came in our way and our Contents engaged us thereunto in order to the giving a full Account of the Pagan Theology it being certain that the Platonicks and Pythagoreans at least if not other Pagans also had their Trinity as well as Christians And we could not well avoid the Comparing of these Two together Vpon which Occasion we take notice of a Double Platonick Trinity the One Spurious and Adulterated of some latter Platonists the Other True and Genuine of Plato himself Parmenides and the Ancients The Former of which though it be Opposed by us to the Christian Trinity and Confuted yet betwixt the Latter and that do we find a Wonderfull Correspondence which is Largely Pursued in the Platonick Christians Apology Wherein notwithstanding nothing must be lookt upon as Dogmatically Asserted by us but onely Offered and Submitted to the Judgment of the Learned in these Matters We confining our selves in this Mysterious Point of the Holy Trinity within the Compass of those its Three Essentials declared First That it is not a Trinity of meer Names and Words or of Logical Notions onely But of Persons or Hypostases Secondly That none of those Persons or Hypostases are Creatures but all Uncreated And Lastly That they are all Three Truely and Really One God Nevertheless we acknowledge That we did therefore the more Copiously insist upon this Argument because of our then Designed Defence of Christianity we conceiving that this Parallelism betwixt the Ancient or Genuine Platonick and the Christian Trinity might be of some use to satisfy those amongst us who Boggle so much at the Trinity and look upon it as the Choak-Pear of Christianity when they shall find that the Freest Wits amongst the Pagans and the Best Philosophers who had nothing of Superstition to Determine them that way were so far from being shy of such an Hypothesis as that they were even Fond thereof And that the Pagans had indeed such a Cabbala amongst them which some perhaps will yet hardly believe notwithstanding all that we have said might be further convinced from that memorable Relation in Plutarch of Thespesius Solensis who after he had been lookt upon as Dead for Three days Reviving Affirmed amongst other things which he thought he saw or heard in the mean time in his Ecstasy This Of Three Gods in the Form of a Triangle pouring in Streams into one another Orpheus his Soul being said to have arrived so far accordingly as from the Testimonies of other Pagan Writers we have proved that a Trinity of Divine Hypostases was a part of the Orphick Cabbala True indeed our Belief of the Holy Trinity is Founded upon no Pagan Cabbala's but onely Scripture Revelation it being that which Christians are or should be all Baptized into Nevertheless these things are Reasonably noted by us to this end That that should not be made a Prejudice Against Christianity and Revealed Religion nor lookt upon as such an Affrightfull Bugbear or Mormo in it which even Pagan Philosophers themselves and those of the most Accomplished Intellectuals and Uncaptivated Minds though having neither Councils nor Creeds nor Scriptures had so great a Propensity and Readiness to entertain and such a Veneration for In this Fourth Chapter We were necessitated by the Matter it self to run out into Philology and Antiquity as also in the other Parts of the Book we do often give an Account of the Doctrine of the Ancients which however some Over-severe Philosophers may look upon Fastidiously or Undervalue and Depretiate yet as we conceived it often Necessary so possibly may the Variety thereof not be Ungratefull to others and this Mixture of Philology throughout the Whole Sweeten and Allay the Severity of Philosophy to them The main thing which the Book pretends to in the mean time being the Philosophy of Religion But for our
parts we neither call Philology nor yet Philosophy our Mistress but serve our selves of Either as Occasion requireth As for the Last Chapter Though it Promise onely a Confutation of all the Atheistick Grounds yet do we therein also Demonstrate the Absolute Impossibility of all Atheism and the Actual Existence of a God We say Demonstrate not A Priori which is Impossible and Contradictious but by Necessary Inference from Principles altogether Vndeniable For we can by no means grant to the Atheists That there is no more then a Probable Persuasion or Opinion to be had of the Existence of a God without any Certain Knowledge or Science Nevertheless it will not follow from hence That whosoever shall Read these Demonstratâ—ons of ours and Vnderstand all the words of them must therefore of Necessity be presently Convinced whether he will or no and put out of all manner of Doubt or Hesitancy concerning the Existence of a God For we Believe That to be True which some have Affirmed That were there any Interest of Life any Concernment of Appetite and Passion against the Truth of Geometricall Theorems themselves as of a Triangle's Having Three Angles Equall to Two Right whereby mens Judgements might be Clouded and Bribed Notwithstanding all the Demonstrations of them many would remain at least Sceptical about them Wherefore meer Speculation and Dry Mathematical Reason in Minds Vnpurified and having a Contrary Interest of Carnality and a heavy Load of Infidelity and Distrust sinking them down cannot alone beget an Unshaken Confidence and Assurance of so High a Truth as this The Existence of One Perfect Understanding Being the Original of all things As it is certain also on the contrary That Minds Cleansed and Purged from Vice may without Syllogisticall Reasonings and Mathematical Demonstrations have an Vndoubted Assurance of the Existence of a God according to that of the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Purity Possesses men with an Assurance of the Best things whether this Assurance be called a Vaticination or Divine Sagacity as it is by Plato and Aristotle or Faith as in the Scripture For the Scripture-Faith is not a meer Believing of Historicall Things and upon Inartificiall Arguments or Testimonies onely but a Certain Higher and Diviner Power in the Soul that peculiarly Correspondeth with the Deity Notwithstanding which Knowledge or Science added to this Faith according to the Scripture Advice will make it more Firm and Stedfast and the better able to resist those Assaults of Sophisticall Reasonings that shall be made against it In this Fifth Chapter as sometimes elsewhere we thought Our selves concerned in Defence of the Divine Wisdome Goodness and Perfection against Atheists to maintain with all the Ancient Philosophick Theists the Perfection of the Creation also or that the Whole System of things taken all together could not have been Better Made and Ordered then it is And indeed This Divine Goodness and Perfection as Displaying and Manifesting it self in the Works of Nature and Providence is supposed in Scripture to be the very Foundation of our Christian Faith when that is Defined to be the Substance and Evidence Rerum Sperandarum that is of Whatsoever is by a Good man to be hoped for Notwithstanding which it was far from our Intention therefore to Conclude That Nothing neither in Nature nor Providence could be Otherwise then it is or That there is Nothing left to the Free Will and Choice of the Deity And though we do in the Third Section insist largely upon that Ancient Pythagorick Cabbala That Souls are always United to some Body or other as also That all Rationall and Intellectuall Creatures consist of Soul and Body and suggest several things from Reason and Christian Antiquity in favour of them both yet would we not be Vnderstood to Dogmatize in either of them but to Submit all to better Judgments Again we shall here Advertise the Reader though we have Caution'd concerning it in the Book it self That in our Defence of Incorporeal Substance against the Atheists However we thought our selves concerned to say the utmost that possibly we could in way of Vindication of the Ancients who generally maintained it to be Unextended which to some seems an Absolute Impossibility yet we would not be supposed Ourselves Dogmatically to Assert any more in this Point then what all Incorporealists agree in That there is a Substance Specifically distinct from Body namely such as Consisteth Not of Parts Separable from one another and which can Penetrate Body and Lastly is Self-Active and hath an Internal Energy distinct from that of Locall Motion And thus much is undeniably Evinced by the Arguments before proposed But whether this Substance be altogether Unextended or Extended otherwise then Body we shall leave every man to make his own Judgment concerning it Furthermore We think fit here to Suggest That whereas throughout this Chapter and Whole Book we constantly Oppose the Generation of Souls that is the Production of Life Cogitation and Understanding out of Dead and Sensless Matter and assert all Souls to be as Substantiall as Matter it self This is not done by us out of any fond Addictedness to Pythagorick Whimseys nor indeed out of a meer Partiall Regard to that Cause of Theism neither which we were engaged in though we had great reason to be tender of that too but because we were enforced thereunto by Dry Mathematicall Reason it being as certain to us as any thing in all Geometry That Cogitation and Understanding can never possibly Result out of Magnitudes Figures Sites and Locall Motions which is all that ourselves can allow to Body however Compounded together Nor indeed in that other way of Qualities is it better Conceiveable how they should emerge out of Hot and Cold Moist and Dry Thick and Thin according to the Anaximandrian Atheism And they who can persuade themselves of the Contrary may Believe That any thing may be Caused by any thing upon which Supposition we confess it Impossible to us to prove the Existence of a God from the Phaenomena In the Close of this Fifth Chapter Because the Atheists do in the Last place Pretend Theism and Religion to be Inconsistent with Civil Sovereignty we were necessitated briefly to Unravel and Confute all the Atheistick Ethicks and Politicks Though this more properly belong to our Second Book Intended Where we make it plainly to appear That the Atheists Artificiall and Factitious Justice is Nothing but Will and Words and That they give to Civil Sovereigns no Right nor Authority at all but onely Belluine Liberty and Brutish Force But on the contrary as we Assert Justice and Obligation not Made by Law and Commands but in Nature and Prove This together with Conscience and Religion to be the onâ—ly Basis of Civil Authority so do we also maintain all the Rights of Civil Sovereigns giving both to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's And now having made all our Apologies and Reflexions we have
That the first Elements Fire water Air and Earth were all made by Nature and Chance without any Art or Method and then that the bodies of the Sun Moon and Stars and the whole Heavens were afterward made out of those Elements as devoid of all manner of Life and only fortuitously moved and mingled together and lastly that the whole Mundane System together with the orderly Seasons of the year as also Plants Animals and Men did arise after the same manner from the mere Fortuitous Motion of sensless and stupid Matter In the very same manner does Plato state this Controversie again betwixt Theists and Atheists in his Philebus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whether shall we say O Protarchus that this whole Vniverse is dispensed ond ordered by a mere Irrational Temerarious and Fortuitous Principle and so as it happens or contrariwise as our fore-fathers have instructed us that Mind and a certain Wonderful Wisdom did at first frame and does still govern all things Wherefore we conclude that Plato took no notice of any other Form of Atheism as then set on foot than such as derives all things from a mere Fortuitous Principle from Nature and Chance that is the unguided Motion of Matter without any Plastick Artificialness or Methodicalness either in the whole Universe or the parts of it But because this kind of Atheism which derives all things from a mere Fortuitous Nature had been managed two manner of ways by Democritus in the way of Atoms and by Anaximander and others in the way of Forms and Qualities of which we are to speak in the next place therefore the Atheism which Plato opposes was either the Democritick or the Anaximandrian Atheism or else which is most probable both of them together IX It is hardly imaginable that there should be no Philosophick Atheists in the world before Democritus and Leucippus Plato long since concluded that there have been Atheists more or less in every Age when he bespeaks his young Atheist after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The full sence whereof seems to be this Neither you my Son nor your friends Democritus Leucippus and Protagoras are the first who have entertained this Opinion concerning the Gods but there have been always some more or less sick of this Atheistick Disease Wherefore we shall now make a diligent search and enquiry to see if we can find any other Philosophers who Atheized before Democritus and Leucippus as also what Form of Atheism they entertained Aristotle in his Metaphysicks speaking of the Quaternio of Causes affirms that many of those who first Philosophized assigned only a Material Cause of the whole Mundane System without either Intending or Efficient Cause The reason whereof he intimates to have been this because they asserted Matter to be the only Substance and that whatsoever else was in the World besides the substance or bulk of Matter were all nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 different Passions and Affections Accidents and Qualities of Matter that were all Generated out of it and Corruptible again into it the Substance of Matter always remaining the same neither Generated nor Corrupted but from Eternity unmade Aristotle's words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most of those who first philosophized took notice of no other Principle of things in the Vniverse than what is to be referred to the Material Cause for that out of which all things are and out of which they are first made and into which they are all at last corrupted and resolved the Substance always remaining the same and being changed only in its Passions and Qualities This they concluded to be the first Original and Principle of all things X. But the meaning of these old Material Philosophers will be better understood by those Exceptions which Aristotle makes against them which are Two First that because they acknowledged no other Substance besides Matter that might be an Active Principle in the Universe it was not possible for them to give any account of the Original of Motion and Action 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though all Generation be made never so much out of something as the Matter yet the question still is by what means this cometh to pass and what is the Active Cause which produceth it because the Subject-matter cannot change it self As for example neither Timber nor Brass is the cause that either of them are changed for Timber alone does not make a Bed nor Brass a Statue but there must be something else as the Cause of the Change and to enquire after this is to enquire after another Principle besides Matter which we would call that from whence Motion springs In which words Aristotle intimates that these old Material Philosopers shuffled in Motion and Action into the World unaccountably or without a Cause forasmuch as they acknowledged no other Principle of Things besides Passive Matter which could never move change or alter it self XI And Aristotle's second Exception against these old Material Philosophers is this that since there could be no Intending Causality in Sensless and Stupid Matter which they made to be the only Principle of all things they were not able to assign 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any Cause of Well and Fit and so could give no account of the Regular and Orderly Frame of this Mundane System 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That things partly are so well in the World and partly are made so well cannot be imputed either to Earth or Water or any other sensless Body much less is it reasonable to attribute so noble and Excellent an Effect as this to mere Chance or Fortune Where Aristotle again intimates that as these Material Philosophers shuffled in Motion into the world without a Cause so likewise they must needs suppose this Motion to be altogether Fortuitous and Unguided and thereby in a manner make Fortune which is nothing but the absence or defect of an Intending Cause to supply the room both of the Active and Intending Cause that is Efficient and Final Whereupon Aristotle subjoyns a Commendation of Anaxagoras as the first of the Ionick Philosophers who introduced Mind or Intellect for a Principle in the Universe that in this respect he alone seemed to be sober and in his wits comparatively with those others that went before him who talked so idly and Atheistically For Anaxagoras his Principle was such saith Aristotle as was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at once a cause of Motion and also of Well and Fit of all the Regularity Aptitude Pulchritude and Order that is in the whole Universe And thus it seems Anaxagoras himself had determined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anaxagoras saith that Mind is the only Cause of Right and Well this being proper to Mind to aim at Ends and Good and to order one thing Fitly for the sake of another Whence it was that Anaxagoras concluded Good also as well as Mind to have been a Principle of the Universe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the room of them his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Similar Atoms endued from Eternity with all Manner of Forms and Qualities Incorruptibly XVI We have made it manifest that those Material Philosophers described by Aristotle were absolute Atheists not merely because they made Body to be the only Substance though that be a thing which Aristotle himself justly reprehends them for also in these words of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They who suppose the World to be one uniform thing and acknowledge only one nature as the matter and this Corporeal or indued with Magnitude it is evident that they erre many ways and particularly in this that they set down only the Elements of Bodies and not of Incorporeal things though there be also things Incorporeal I say we have not concluded them Atheists merely for this reason because they denied Incorporeal Substance but because they deduced all things whatsoever from Dead and Stupid Matter and made every thing in the World besides the bare Substance of Matter devoid of all Quality Generable and Corruptible Now we shall take notice of an Objection made by some late Writers against this Aristotelick Accusation of the old Philosophers founded upon a passage of Aristotle's own who elsewhere in his Book De Coelo speaking of the Heaven or World plainly affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all the Philosophers before himself did assert the World to have been Made or have had a Beginning From whence these Writers infer that therefore they must needs be all Theists and hold the Divine Creation of the World and consequently that Aristotle contradicts himself in representing many of them as Atheists acknowledging only one Material Principle of the whole Universe without any Intending or Efficient Cause But we cannot but pronounce this to be a great Errour in these Writers to conclude all those who held the World to have been Made therefore to have been Theists whereas it is certain on the contrary that all the First and most Ancient Atheists did in Aristotle's language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Make or Generate the World that is suppose it not to have been from Eternity but to have had a Temporary Beginning as likewise that it was Corruptible and would sometime or other have an End again The sence of which Atheistick Philosophers is represented by Lucretius in this manner Et quoniam docui Mundi Mortalia Templa Esse Nativo consistere Corpore Coelum Et quaecunque in eo siunt fientque necess◠Esse ea Dissolvi And there seems to be indeed a Necessity in reason that they who derive all things from a Fortuitous Principle and hold every thing besides the Substance of Matter to have been Generated should suppose the World to have been Generated likewise as also to be Corruptible Wherefore it may well be reckoned for one of the Vulgar Errours That all Atheists held the Eternity of the World Moreover when Aristotle subjoins immediately after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that though the Ancient Philosophers all held the World to have been Made yet notwithstanding they were divided in this that some of them supposed for all that that it would continue to Eternity such as it is others that it would be Corrupted again the former of these who conceived the World to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Made but Eternal were none of them Atheists but all Theists Such as Plato whom Aristotle seems particularly to perstringe for this who in his Timaeus introduceth the Supreme Deity bespeaking those Inferiour Gods the Sun Moon and Stars supposed by that Philosopher to be Animated after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those things which are made by me are Indissoluble by my will and though every thing which is compacted be in its own nature dissolvable yet it is not the part of one that is good to will the dissolution or destruction of any thing that was once well made Wherefore though you are not absolutely Immortal nor altogether Indissolvable yet notwithstanding you shall not be dissolved nor ever die My will being a stronger Band to hold you together than any thing else can be to loosen you Philo and other Theists followed Plato in this asserting that though the world was Made yet it would never be Corrupted but have a Post-eternity Whereas all the Ancient Atheists namely those who derived the Original of things from Nature and Fortune did at once deny both Eternities to the World Past and Future Though we cannot say that none but Atheists did this for Empedocles and Heraclitus and afterward the Stoicks did not only suppose the World likewise Generated and to be again Corrupted but also that this had been and would be done over and over again in Infinite vicissitudes Furthermore as the World's Eternity was generally opposed by all the Ancient Atheists so it was maintained also by some Theists and that not only Aristotle but also before him by Ocellus Lucanus at least though Aristotle thought not fit to take any notice of him as likewise the latter Platonists universally went that way yet so as that they always supposed the World to have as much depended upon the Deity as if it had been once Created out of Nothing by it To conclude therefore neither they who asserted the world's Generation and Temporary Beginning were all Theists nor they who maintained its Eternity all Atheists but before Aristotle's time the Atheists universally and most of the Theists did both alike conclude the World to have been Made the difference between them lying in this that the one affirmed the World to have been Made by God the other by the Fortuitous Motion of Matter Wherefore if we would put another difference betwixt the Theists and Atheists here as to this particular we must distinguish betwixt the System of the World and the Substance of the Matter For the Ancient Atheists though they generally denied the Eternity of the World yet they supposed the Substance of the Matter not only to have been Eternal but also Self-existent and Independent upon any other Being they making it the first Principle and Original of all things and consequently the only Numen Whereas the Genuine Theists though many of them maintained the Worlds Eternity yet they all concluded both the Form and Substance of it to have always depended upon the Deity as the Light doth upon the Sun The Stoicks with some others being here excepted XVII Aristotle tells us some were of opinion that this Atheistick Philosophy which derives all things from sensless and stupid Matter in the way of Forms and Qualities was of great Antiquity and as old as any Records of Time amongst the Greeks and not only so but also that the Ancient Theologers themselves entertained it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are some who conceive that even the most ancient of all and the most remote from this present Generation and they also who first Theologized did Physiologize after this
And therefore though it be One yet notwithstanding it consists of Different and Contrary things For there being Hostility in its Parts it is nevertheless Friendly and Agreeable in the Whole after the same manner as in a Dramatick Poem Clashings and Contentions are reconciled into one Harmony And therefore the Seminary and Plastick Nature of the World may fitly be resembled to the Harmony of Disagreeing things Which Plotinick Doctrine may well pass for a Commentary upon Empedocles accordingly as Simplicius briefly represents his sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Empedocles makes Two Worlds the one Vnited and Intelligible the other Divided and Sensible and in this lower Sensible World he takes notice both of Vnity and Discord It was before observed that Heraclitus likewise did assert a Regular and Artificial Nature as the Fate of things in this Lower World for his Reason passing thorough the Substance of all things or Ethereal Body which was the Seed of the Generation of the Vniverse was nothing but that Spermatick or Plastick Nature which we now speak of And whereas there is an odd Passage of this Philosophers recorded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that neither any God nor Man made this World which as it is justly derided by Plutarch for its Simplicity so it looks very Atheistically at first sight yet because Heraclitus hath not been accompted an Atheist we therefore conceive the meaning of it to have been this That the World was not made by any whatsoever after such a manner as an Artificer makes an House by Machins and Engins acting from without upon the Matter Cumbersomly and Moliminously but by a certain Inward Plastick Nature of its own And as Hippocrates followed Heraclitus in this as was before declared so did Zeno and the Stoicks also they supposing besides an Intellectual Nature as the Supreme Architect and Master-builder of the World another Plastick Nature as the Immediate Workman and Operatour Which Plastick Nature hath been already described in the words of Balbus as a thing which acts not Fortuitously but Regularly Orderly and Artificially and Laertius tells us it was defined by Zeno himself after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature is a Habit moved from it self according to Spermatick Reasons or Seminal Principles perfecting and containing those several things which in determinate times are produced from it and acting agreeably to that from which it was secreted Lastly as the Latter Platonists and Peripateticks have unanimously followed their Masters herein whose Vegetative Soul also is no other than a Plastick Nature so the Chymists and Paracelsians insist much upon the same thing and seem rather to have carried the Notion on further in the Bodies of Animals where they call it by a new name of their own the Archeus Moreover we cannot but observe here that as amongst the Ancients They were generally condemned for down-right Atheists who acknowledged no other Principle besides Body or Matter Necessarily and Fortuitously moved such as Democritus and the first Ionicks so even Anaxagoras himself notwithstanding that he was a professed Theist and plainly asserted Mind to be a Principle yet because he attributed too much to Material Necessity admitting neither this Plastick Nature nor a Mundane Soul was severely censured not only by the Vulgar who unjustly taxed him for an Atheist but also by Plato and Aristotle as a kind of spurious and imperfect Theist and one who had given great advantage to Atheism Aristotle in his Metaphysicks thus represents his Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anaxagoras useth Mind and Intellect that is God as a Machin in the Cosmopoeia and when he is at a loss to give an accompt of things by Material Necessity then and never but then does he draw in Mind or God to help him out but otherwise he will rather assign any thing else for a Cause than Mind Now if Aristotle censure Anaxagoras in this manner though a professed Theist because he did but seldom make use of a Mental Cause for the salving of the Phaenomena of the World and only then when he was at a loss for other Material and Mechanical Causes which it seems he sometimes confessed himself to be what would that Philosopher have thought of those our so confident Mechanists of later times who will never vouchsafe so much as once to be beholding to God Almighty for any thing in the Oeconomy of the Corporeal World after the first Impression of Motion upon the Matter Plato likewise in his Phaedo and elsewhere condemns this Anaxagoras by name for this very thing that though he acknowledged Mind to be a Cause yet he seldom made use of it for salving the Phaenomena but in his twelfth de Legibus he perstringeth him Unnamed as one who though a professed Theist had notwithstanding given great Encouragement to Atheism after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some of them who had concluded that it was Mind that ordered all things in the Heavens themselves erring concerning the Nature of the Soul and not making that Older than the Body have overturned all again for Heavenly Bodies being supposed by them to be full of Stones and Earth and other Inanimate things dispensing the Causes of the whole Vniverse they did by this means occasion much Atheism and Impiety Furthermore the same Plato there tells us that in those times of his Astronomers and Physiologers commonly lay under the prejudice and suspicion of Atheism amongst the vulgar merely for this reason because they dealt so much in Material Causes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Vulgar think that they who addict themselves to Astronomy and Physiology are made Atheists thereby they seeing as much as is possible how things come to pass by Material Necessities and being thereby disposed to think them not to be ordered by Mind and Will for the sake of Good From whence we may observe that according to the Natural Apprehensions of Men in all Ages they who resolve the Phaenomena of Nature into Material Necessity allowing of no Final nor Mental Causality disposing things in order to Ends have been strongly suspected for Friends to Atheism 7. But because some may pretend that the Plastick Nature is all one with an Occult Quality we shall here show how great a Difference there is betwixt these Two For he that asserts an Occult Quality for the Cause of any Phaenomenon does indeed assign no Cause at all of it but only declare his own Ignorance of the Cause but he that asserts a Plastick Nature assigns a Determinate and proper Cause nay the only Intelligible Cause of that which is the greatest of all Phaenomena in the World namely the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Orderly Regular and Artificial Frame of things in the Universe whereof the Mechanick Philosophers however pretending to salve all Phaenomena by Matter and Motion assign no Cause at all Mind and Understanding is the only true Cause of Orderly Regularity and he that asserts a Plastick Nature asserts Mental Causality in
the World but the Fortuitous Mechanists who exploding Final Causes will not allow Mind and Vnderstanding to have any Influence at all upon the Frame of things can never possibly assign any Cause of this Grand Phaenomenon unless Confusion may be said to be the Cause of Order and Fortune or Chance of Constant Regularity and therefore themselves must resolve it into an Occult Quality Nor indeed does there appear any great reason why such men should assert an Infinite Mind in the World since they do not allow it to act any where at all and therefore must needs make it to be in Vain 8. Now this Plastick Nature being a thing which is not without some Difficulty in the Conception of it we shall here endeavour to do these Two things concerning it First to set down a right Representation thereof and then afterwards to show how extremely the Notion of it hath been Mistaken Perverted and Abused by those Atheists who would make it to be the only God Almighty or First Principle of all things How the Plastick Nature is in general to be conceiv'd Aristotle instructs us in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the Naupegical Art that is the Art of the Shipwright were in the Timber it self Operatively and Effectually it would there act just as Nature doth And the Case is the same for all other Arts If the Oecodomical Art which is in the Mind of the Architect were supposed to be transfused into the Stones Bricks and Mortar there acting upon them in such a manner as to make them come together of themselves and range themselves into the Form of a complete Edifice as Amphion was said by his Harp to have made the Stones move and place themselves Orderly of their own accord and so to have built the Walls of Thebes Or if the Musical Art were conceived to be immediately in the Instruments and Strings animating them as a Living Soul and making them to move exactly according to the Laws of Harmony without any External Impulse These and such like Instances in Aristotle's Judgment would be fit Iconisms or Representations of the Plastick Nature That being Art it self acting Immediately upon the Matter as an inward Principle in it To which purpose the same Philosopher adds that this thing might be further illustrated by an other Instance or Resemblence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature may be yet more clearly Resembled to the Medicinal Art when it is imployed by the Physician in curing himself So that the meaning of this Philosopher is that Nature is to be conceived as Art Acting not from without and at a Distance but Immediately upon the thing it self which is Formed by it And thus we have the first General Conception of the Plastick Nature That it is Art it self acting immediately on the Matter as an Inward Principle 9. In the next Place we are to observe that though the Plastick Nature be a kind of Art yet there are some Considerable Preeminences which it hath above Humane Art the First whereof is this That whereas Humane Art cannot act upon the Matter otherwise than from without and at a distance nor communicate it self to it but with a great deal of Tumult and Hurliburly Noise and Clatter it using Hands and Axes Saws and Hammers and after this manner with much ado by Knocking 's and Thrustings slowly introducing its Form or Idea as for Example of a Ship or House into the Materials Nature in the mean time is another kind of Art which Insinuating it self Immediately into things themselves and there acting more Commandingly upon the Matter as an Inward Principle does its Work Easily Cleaverly and Silently Nature is Art as it were Incorporated and Imbodied in matter which doth not act upon it from without Mechanically but from within Vitally and Magically 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Here are no Hands nor Feet nor any Instrument Connate or Adventitious there being only need of Matter to work upon and to be brought into a certain Form and Nothing else For it is manifest that the Operation of Nature is different from Mechanism it doing not its Work by Trusion or Pulsion by Knocking 's or Thrustings as if it were without that which it wrought upon But as God is Inward to every thing so Nature Acts Immediately upon the Matter as an Inward and Living Soul or Law in it 10. Another Preeminence of Nature above Humane Art is this That whereas Humane Artists are often to seek and at a loss and therefore Consult and Deliberate as also upon second thoughts mend their former Work Nature on the contrary is never to seek what to do nor at a stand and for that Reason also besides another that will be Suggested afterwards it doth never Consult nor Deliberate Indeed Aristotle Intimates as if this had been the Grand Objection of the old Atheistick Philosophers against the Plastick Nature That because we do not see Natural Bodies to Consult or Deliberate therefore there could be Nothing of Art Counsel or Contrivanee in them but all came to pass Fortuitously But he confutes it after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is absurd for Men to think nothing to be done for Ends if they do not see that which moves to consult although Art it self doth not Consult Whence he concludes that Nature may Act Artificially Orderly and Methodically for the sake of Ends though it never Consult or Deliberate Indeed Humane Artists themselves do not Consult properly as they are Artists but when ever they do it it is for want of Art and because they are to seek their Art being Imperfect and Adventitious but Art it self or Perfect Art is never to seek and therefore doth never Consult or Deliberate And Nature is this Art which never hesitates nor studies as unresolved what to do but is always readily prompted nor does it ever repent afterwards of what it hath formerly done or go about as it were upon second thoughts to alter and mend its former Course but it goes on in one Constant Unrepenting Tenor from Generation to Generation because it is the Stamp or Impress of that Infallibly Omniscient Art of the Divine Understanding which is the very Law and Rule of what is Simply the Best in every thing And thus we have seen the Difference between Nature and Humane Art that the Latter is Imperfect Art acting upon the Matter from without and at a Distance but the Former is Art it self or Perfect Art acting as an Inward Principle in it Wherefore when Art is said to imitate Nature the meaning thereof is that Imperfect Humane Art imitates that Perfect Art of Nature which is really no other than the Divine Art it self as before Aristotle Plato had declared in his Sophist in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those things which are said to be done by Nature are indeed done by Divine Art 11. Notwithstanding which we are to take notice in the next place that as Nature
Mechanical It cannot be denied but that even some of the ancient Religious Atomists were also too much infected with this Mechanizing Humour but Renatus Cartesius hath not only out-done them all herein but even the very Atheists themselves also as shall be shewed afterward And therefore as much as in him lies has quite disarmed the World of that grand Argument for a Deity taken from the Regular Frame and Harmony of the Vniverse To which Gross Miscarriage of his there might be also another added That he seems to make Matter Necessarily Existent and Essentially Infinite and Eternal Notwithstanding all which we cannot entertain that Uncharitable Opinion of him that he really designed Atheism the Fundamental Principles of his Philosophy being such as that no Atheistick Structure can possibly be built upon them But shortly after this Cartesian Restitution of the Primitive Atomology that acknowledgeth Incorporeal Substance we have had our Leucippus and Democritus too who also revived and brought again upon the Stage that other Atheistick Atomology that makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sensless and Lifeless Atoms to be the only Principles of all things in the Vniverse thereby necessarily excluding besides Incorporeal Substance and Immortality of Souls a Deity and Natural Morality as also making all Actions and Events Materially and Mechanically necessary Now there could be no Satisfactory Confutation of this Atheistick Hypothesis without a fair Proposal first made of the several Grounds of it to their best advantage which we have therefore endeavoured in the Former Chapter The Answers to which Atheistick Arguments ought according to the Laws of Method to be reserved for the Last Part of the whole Treatise where we are positively to determine the Right Intellectual System of the Vniverse it being properly our Work here only to give an Account of the Three False Hypotheses of the Mundane System together with their several Grounds Nevertheless because it might not only seem Indecorous for the Answers to those Atheistick Arguments to be so long deferred and placed so far behind the Arguments themselves but also prove otherwise really Inconvenient we shall therefore choose rather to break those Laws of Method neglecting the Scrupulosity thereof and subjoyn them immediately in this place craving the Readers Pardon for this Preposterousness It is certain that the Source of all Atheism is generally a Dull and Earthy Disbelief of the Existence of things beyond the Reach of Sense and it cannot be denied but that there is something of Immorality in the Temper of all Atheists as all Atheistick Doctrine tends also to Immorality Notwithstanding which it must not be therefore concluded that all Dogmatick Atheists came to be such merely by means of Gross Intemperance Sensuality and Debauchery Plato indeed describes one sort of Atheists in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such who together with this Opinion that all things are void of Gods are acted also by Intemperance of Pleasures and Pains and hurried away with Violent Lusts being Persons otherwise endued with strong Memories and quick Wits And these are the Debauched Ranting and Hectoring Atheists But besides These that Philosopher tells us that there is another Sort of Atheists also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such who though they think there be no Gods at all yet notwithstanding being naturally disposed to Justice and Moderation as they will not do Outragious and Exorbitant things themselves so they will shun the Conversation of wicked debauched persons and delight rather in the Society of those that are Fair and Just. And these are a sort of Externally honest or Civilized Atheists Now what that thing is which besides Gross Sensuality and Debauchery might tempt men to entertain Atheistick Opinions the same Philosopher also declares namely that it is an Affectation of Singularity or of seeming Wiser than the Generality of Mankind For thus when Clinias had disputed honestly against Atheists from those Vulgar Topicks of the Regularity and Harmony of the Universe observable in the Courses of Sun Moon and Stars and the Seasons of the Year and of the common Notions of Mankind in that both Greeks and Barbarians generally agreed in this that there were Gods thinking he had thereby made a Sufficient Confutation of Atheism the Athenian Hospes hereupon discovers a great Fear and Jealousie which he had lest he should thereby but render himself an Object of Contempt to Atheists as being a conceited and scornful Generation of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I am afraid of those wicked men the Atheists lest they should despise you For you are ignorant concerning them when you think the only Cause of Atheism to be Intemperance of Pleasures and Lusts violently hurrying mens Souls on to a wicked Life Clin. What other Cause of Atheism can there be besides this Ath. That which you are not aware of who live remotely namely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A certain grievous Ignorance which yet notwithstanding hath the appearance of the greatest Wisdom And therefore afterwards when that Philosopher goes about to propose the Atheistick Hypothesis he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which to many seemeth to be the Wisest and Profoundest of all Doctrines And we find the same thing at this very day that Atheists make a great Pretence to Wisdom and Philosophy and that many are tempted to maintain Atheistick Opinions that they may gain a Reputation of Wit by it Which indeed was one Reason that the rather induced us nakedly to reveal all the Mysteries of Atheism because we observed that so long as these things are concealed and kept up in Huggermugger many will be the rather apt to suspect that there is some great Depth and Profundity of Wisdom lodged in them and that it is some Noble and Generous Truth which the Bigotick Religionists endeavour to smoother and oppress Now the Case being thus it was pertinently suggested also by the forementioned Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it must needs be a Matter of no small moment for any one to make it appear that they who maintain wicked Atheistical Opinions do none of them reason rightly but grosly fumble in all their Ratiocinations And we hope to effect this in our present Undertaking to make it evident that Atheists are no such Conjurers as though they hold no Spirits they would be thought to be no such Gigantick men of Reason nor Profound Philosophers but that notwithstanding all their Pretensions to Wit their Atheism is really nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most Grievous Ignorance Sottishness and Stupidity of Mind in them Wherefore we shall in the next place Conjure down all those Devils raised and displayed in their most Formidable Colours in the Precedent Chapter or rather we shall discover that they are really nothing else but what these Atheists pretend God and Incorporeal Spirits to be Mere Phantastick Spectres and Impostures Vain Imaginations of deluded Minds utterly devoid of all Truth and Reality Neither shall we only Confute
is the Cause of those other things that are Made something 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that was Self-originated and Self-existing and which is as well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Incorruptible and Vndestroyable as Ingenerable whose Existence therefore must needs be Necessary because if it were supposed to have happened by Chance to exist from Eternity then it might as well happen again to Cease to Be. Wherefore all the Question now is what is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Ingenerable and Incorruptible Self-originated and Self-existent Thing which is the Cause of all other things that are Made IV. Now there are Two Grand Opinions Opposite to one another concerning it For first some contend that the only Self-existent Vnmade and Incorruptible Thing and First Principle of all things is Sensless Matter that is Matter either perfectly Dead and Stupid or at least devoid of all Animalish and Conscious Life But because this is really the Lowest and most Imperfect of all Beings Others on the contrary judge it reasonable that the First Principle and Original of all things should be that which is Most Perfect as Aristotle observes of Pherecydes and his Followers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they made the First Cause and Principle of Generation to be the Best and then apprehending that to be endewed with Conscious Life and Vnderstanding is much a Greater Perfection than to be devoid of both as Balbus in Cicero declares upon this very occasion Nec dubium quin quod Animans sit habeátque Mentem Rationem Sensum id sit melius quà m id quod his careat they therefore conclude That the only Vnmade thing which was the Principle Cause and Original of all other things was not Sensless Matter but a Perfect Conscious Vnderstanding Nature or Mind And these are they who are strictly and properly called Theists who affirm that a Perfectly Conscious Vnderstanding Being or Mind existing of it self from Eternity was the Cause of all other things and they on the contrary who derive all things from Sensless Matter as the First Original and deny that there is any Conscious Vnderstanding Being Self-existent or Vnmade are those that are properly called Atheists Wherefore the true and genuine Idea of God in general is this A Perfect Conscious Vnderstanding Being or Mind Existing of it self from Eternity and the Cause of all other things V. But it is here observable that those Atheists who deny a God according to this True and Genuine Notion of him which we have declared do often Abuse the Word calling Sensless Matter by that Name Partly perhaps as indeavouring thereby to decline that odious and ignominious name of Atheists and partly as conceiving that whatsoever is the First Principle of things Ingenerable and Incorruptible and the Cause of all other things besides it self must therefore needs be the Divinest Thing of all Wherefore by the word God these mean nothing else but that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnmade or Self-existent and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or First Principle of things Thus it was before observed that Anaximander called Infinite Matter devoid of all manner of Life the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God and Pliny the Corporeal World endewed with nothing but a Plastick Vnknowing Nature Numen as also others in Aristotle upon the same account called the Inanimate Elements Gods as Supposed First Principles of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these are also Gods And indeed Aristotle himself seems to be guilty of this miscarriage of Abusing the word God after this manner when speaking of Love and Chaos as the two first Principles of things he must according to the Laws of Grammar be understood to call them both Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concerning these two Gods how they ought to be ranked and which of them is to be placed first whether Love or Chaos is afterwards to be resolved Which Passage of Aristotle's seems to agree with that of Epicharmus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Chaos is said to have been made the first of the Gods unless we should rather understand him thus That Chaos was said to have been made before the Gods And this Abuse of the Word God is a thing which the learned Origen took notice of in his Book against Celsus where he speaks of that Religious Care which ought to be had about the use of Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He therefore that hath but the least consideration of these things will take a Religious care that he give not improper names to things left he should fall into a like miscarriage with those who attribute the name of God to Inanimate and Sensless matter Now according to this false and spurious Notion of the word God when it is taken for any Supposed First Principle or Self-existent Unmade Thing whatsoever that be there neither is nor can be any such things as an Atheist since whosoever hath but the least dram of Reason must needs acknowledge that Something or other Existed from Eternity Vnmade and was the Cause of those other things that are Made But that Notion or Idea of God according to which some are Atheists and some Theists is in the strictest sence of it what we have already declared A Perfect Mind or Consciously Vnderstanding Nature Self-existent from Eternity and the Cause of all other things The genuine Theists being those who make the First Original of all things Universally to be a Consciously Vnderstanding Nature or Perfect Mind but the Atheists properly such as derive all things from Matter either perfectly Dead and Stupid or else devoid of all Conscious and Animalish Life VI. But that we may more fully and punctually declare the true Idea of God we must here take notice of a certain Opinion of some Philosophers who went as it were in a middle betwixt both the Former and neither made Matter alone nor God the Sole Principle of all things but joyned them both together and held Two First Principles or Self-existent Vnmade Beings independent upon one another God and the Matter Amongst whom the Stoicks are to be reckoned who notwithstanding because they held that there was no other Substance besides Body strangely confounded themselves being by that means necessitated to make their Two First Principles the Active and the Passive to be both of them really but One and the self-same Substance their Doctrine to this purpose being thus declared by Cicero Naturam dividebant in Res Duas ut Altera esset Efficiens Altera autem quasi huic se praebens ex qua Efficeretur aliquid In eo quod Efficeret Vim esse censebant in eo quod Efficeretur Materiam quandam in Vtroque tamen Vtrumque Neque enim Materiam ipsam ohaerere potuisse si nullâ Vi contineretur neque Vim sine aliqua Materia
Manicheans both of which though they made some slight Pretences to Christianity yet were not by Christians owned for such But it is certain that besides these and before them too some of the Professed Pagans also entertained the same Opinion that famous Moralist Plutarchus Chaeronensis being an Undoubted Patron of it which in his Book De Iside Osiride he represents with some little difference after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Generation and Constitution of this World is mixt of contrary Powers or Principles the one Good the other Evil yet so as that they are not both of equal force but the Better of them more prevalent notwithstanding standing which it is also absolutely impossible for the Worser Power or Principle to be ever Vtterly destroyed much of it being always intermingled in the Soul and much in the Body of the Vniverse there perpetually tugging against the Better Principle Indeed learned men of later times have for the most part look'd upon Plutarch here but either as a bare Relater of the Opinion of other Philosophers or else as a Follower only and not a Leader in it Notwithstanding which it is evident that Plutarch was himself heartily Engaged in this Opinion he discovering no small fondnâ—ss for it in sundry of his other Writings as for Example in his Platonick Questions where he thus declares himself concerning it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or else that which is often affirmed by us is true that a Mad Irrational soul and an unformed disorderly Body did coexist with one another from Eternity neither of them having any Generation or Beginning And in his Timaean Psychogonia he does at large industriosly maintain the same there and elsewhere endeavouring to establish this Doctrine as much as possibly he could upon Rational Foundations As First that Nothing can be Made or Produced without a Cause and therefore there must of necessity be some Cause of Evil also and that a Positive one too he representing the Opinion of those as very ridiculous who would make the Nature of Evil to be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Accidental Appendix to the World and all that Evil which is in it to have come in only by the by and by Consequence without any Positive Cause Secondly that God being Essentially Good could not possibly be the Cause of Evil where he highly applauds Plato for removing God to the greatest distance imaginable from being the Cause of Evil. Thirdly that as God could not so neither could 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matter in it self devoid of all form and Quality be the Cause of Evil noting this to have been the Subterfuge of the Stoicks Upon which account he often condemns them but uncertainly sometimes as such who affigned No Cause at all of Evils and sometimes again as those who made God the Cause of them For in his Psychogonia he concludes that unless we acknowledge a Substantial Evil Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Stoical Difficulties will of necessity overtake and involve us who introduce Euil into the World from Nothing or Without a Cause since neither that which is Essentially Good as God nor yet that which is devoid of all Quality as Matter could possibly give being or Generation to it But in his Book against the Stoicks he accuses them as those who made God Essentially Good the Cause of Evil. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Themselves make God being Good the Principle and cause of Evil since Matter which is devoid of Quality and recieves all its Differences from the Active Principle that moves and forms it could not possibly be the Cause thereof Wherefore Evil must of necessity eithercome from Nothing or else it must come from the Active and Moving Principle which is God Now from all these Premises joyned together Plutarch concludes that the Phaenomenon of Evil could no otherwise possibly be salved than by supposing a Substantial Principle for it and a certain Irrational and Maleficent Soul or Daemon Vnmade and Coexisting with God and Matter from Eternity to have been the Cause thereof And accordingly he resolves that as whatsoever is Good in the Soul and Body of the Vniverse and likewise in the Souls of Men and Daemons is to be ascribed to God as its only Original so whatsoever is Evil Irregular and Disorderly in them ought to be imputed to this other Substantial Principle a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Irrational and Maleficent Soul or Daemon which insinuating it sâ—lf every where throughout the World is all along intermingled with the Better Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that neither the Soul of the Vniverse nor that of Men and Daemons was wholly the Workmanship of God but the Lower Brutish and Disorderly part of them the Effect of the Evil Principle But besides all this it is evident that Plutarch was also strongly possessed with a Conceit that nothing Substantial could be Created no not by Divine Power out of Nothing Preexisting and therefore that all the Substance of whatsoever is in the World did Exist from Eternity Vnmade so that God was only the Orderer or the Methodizer and Harmonizer thereof Wherefore as he concluded that the Corporeal World was not Created by God out of Nothing as to the Substance of it but only the Preexisting Matter which before moved Disorderly was brought into this Regular Order and Harmony by him In like manner he resolved that the Soul of the World for such a thing is always supposed by him was not made by God out of Nothing neither nor out of any thing Inanimate and Soulless Preexisting but out of a Preexisting Disorderly Soul was brought into an Orderly and Regular Frame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. There was Vnformed Matter before this Orderly World was made which Matter was not Incorporeal nor Vnmoved or Inanimate but Body discomposed and acted by a Furious and Irrational Mover the Deformity whereof was the Disharmony of a Soul in it devoid of Reason For God neither made Body out of that which was No-Body nor Soul out of No-soul But as the Musician who neither makes Voice nor Motion does by ordering of them notwithstanding produce Harmony so God though he neither made the Tangible and Resisting Substance of Body nor the Phantastick and Self-moving Power of Soul yet taking both those Principles preexisting the one of which was Dark and Obscure the other Turbulent and Irrational and orderly disposing and Harmonizing of them he did by that means produce this most beautiful and perfect Animal of the World And further to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God was not the Cause or Maker of Body simply that is neither of Bulk nor Matter but only of that Symmetry and Pulchritude which is in Body and that likeness which it hath to himself Which same ought to be concluded also concerning the Soul of the World that the Substance of it was not made by God neither nor yet that it was
always the Soul of this World but at first a certain Self-moving Substance endowed with a Phantastick Power Irrational and Disorderly Existing such of it self from Eternity which God by Harmonizing and introducing into it fitting Numbers and Proportions Made to be the Soul and Prince of this Generated World According to which Doctrine of Plutarch's in the supposed Soul of the World though it had a Temporary beginning yet was it never Created out of Nothing but only that which preexisted disorderly being acted by the Deity was brought into a Regular Frame And therefore he concludes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soul partaking of Mind Reason and Harmony is not only the Work of God but also a Part of him nor is it a thing so much made by him as from him and existing out of him And the same must he likewise affirm concerning all other Souls as those of Men and Demons that they are either all of them the Substance of God himself together with that of the Evil Demon or else certain Delibations from both if any one could understand it blended and confounded together He not allowing any new Substance at all to be created by God out of nothing preexistent It was observed in the beginning of this Chapter that Plutarch was an Assertor of two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-existent Principles in the Universe God and Matter but now we understand that he was an Earnest Propugnor of another Third Principle as himself calls it besides them both viz. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mad Irrational and Maleficent Soul or Daemon So that Plutarch was both a Triarchist and a Ditheist an Assertor of Three Principles but of Two Gods according to that forementioned Notion of a God as it is taken for an Animalish or Perceptive Being Self-existent We are not ignorant that Plutarch endeavours with all his might to perswade this to have been the constant Belief of all the Pagan Nations and of all the Wisest men and Philosophers that ever were amongst them For this saith he in his Book De Iside Osiride is a most ancient Opinion that hath been delivered down from Theologers and Law-makers all along to Poets and Philosophers and though the first Author thereof be Vnknown yet hath it been so firmly believed every where that the Footsteps of it have been imprinted upon the Sacrifices and Mysteries or Religious Rites both of Barbarians and Greeks Namely That the World is neither wholly Vngoverned by any Mind or Reasan as if all things floated in the streams of Chance and Fortune nor yet that there is any one Principle steering and guiding all without Resistance or Control because there is a Confused Mixture of Good and Evil in every thing and nothing is Produced by Nature sincere Wherefore it is not one only Dispenser of things who as it were out of several Vessels distributeth those several Liquors of Good and Evil mingling them together and dashing them as he pleaseth But there are two Distinct and Contrary Powers or Principles in the World One of them always leading as it were to the Right hand but the other tugging a Contrary way Insomuch that our whole Life and the whole World is a certain Mixture and Confusion of these Two at least this Terrestrial World below the Moon is such all being every where full of Irregularity and Disorder For if nothing can be Made without a Cause and that which is Good cannot be the Cause of Evil there must needs be a distinct Principle in Nature for the Production of Evil as well as Good And this hath been the Opinion of the Most and Wisest Men some of them affirming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there are Two Gods as it were of Contrary Crafts and Trades one whereof is the Maker of all Good and the other of all Evil but others calling the Good Principle only a God and the Evil Principle a Daemon as Zoroaster the Magician Besides which Zoroaster and the Persian Magi Plutarch pretends that the Footsteps of this Opinion were to be found also in the Astrology of the Chaldeans and in the Mysteries and Religious Rites not only of the Egyptians but also of the Grecians themselves and lastly he particularly imputes the same to all the most famous of the Greek Philosophers as Pythagoras Empedocles Heraclitus Anaxagoras Plato and Aristotle though his chiefest endeavour of all be to prove that Plato was an Undoubted Champion for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Plato was not guilty of that Miscarriage of Later Philosophers in overlooking the Third Power which is between the Matter and God and thereby falling into the Grossest of all Absurdities That the Nature of Evils was but an Accidental Appendix to the World and came into it merely by chance no body knows how So that those very Philosophers who will by no means allow to Epicurus the Smallest Declension of his Atoms from the Perpendicular alledging that this would be to introduce a Motion without a Cause and to bring something out of Nothing themselves do notwithstanding suppose all that Vice and Misery which is in the World besides innumerable other Absurdities and Inconveniences about Body to have come into it merely by Accidental Consequence and without having any Cause in the First Principles But Plato did not so but devesting Matter of all Qualities and Differences by means whereof it could not possibly be made the Cause of Evils and then placing God at the greatest distance from being the Cause thereof he consequently resolved it into a Third Vnmade Principle between God and the Matter an Irrational Soul or Demon moving the Matter disorderly Now because Plutarch's Authority passeth so uncontrolled and his Testimony in this particular seems to be of late generally received as an Oracle and consequently the thing taken for an Unquestionable Truth that the Ditheistick Doctrine of a Good and Evil Principle was the Catholick or Universal Doctrine of the Pagan Theists and particularly that Plato above all the rest was a Professed Champion for the same we shall therefore make bold to examine Plutarch's Grounds for this so confident Assertion of his and principally concerning Plato And his Grounds for imputing this Opinion to Plato are only these Three which follow First because that Philosopher in his Politicus speaks of a Necessary and Innate Appetite that may sometimes turn the Heavens a contrary way and by that means cause Disorder and Confusion Secondly because in his Tenth De Legibus he speaks of Two kinds of Souls whereof One is Beneficent but the other Contrary And Lastly because in his Timaeus he supposeth the Matter to have been Moved disorderly before the World was made which implies that there was a Disorderly and Irrational Soul consisting with it as the Mover of it Matter being unable â—o move it self But as to the First of these Allegations out of Plato's Politicus we shall only observe that that Philosopher as if it had been purposely to prevent such an
as also that there was no Theogonia nor Temporary Production of the Inferiour Gods from these Verses of his according to Grotius his Correction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nempe Dî semper fuerunt atque nunquam intercident Haec quae dico semper nobis rebus in iisdem se exhibent Extitisse sed Deorum Primum perhibetur Chaos Quînam verò nam de nihilo nîl pote primum existere Ergo nec Primum profecto quicquam nec fuit Alterum Sed quae nunc sic appellantur alia fient postmodum Where though he acknowledges this to have been the General Tradition of the ancient Theists That Chaos was before the Gods and that the Inferior Mundane Gods had a Temporary Generation or Production with the World yet notwithstanding does he conclude against it from this Ground of Reason because Nothing could procede from Nothing and therefore both the Gods and indeed whatsoever else is Substantial in the World was from Eternity Unmade only the Fashion of things having been altered Moreover Diodorus Siculus affirms the Chaldeans likewise to have asserted this Dogma of the Worlds Eternity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Chaldeans affirm the Nature of the World to be Eternal and that it was neither Generated from any Beginning nor will ever admit Corruption Who that they were not Atheists for all that no more than Aristotle appears from those following words of that Historiographer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They believe also that the Order and Disposition of the World is by a certain Divine Providence and that every One of those things which come to pass in the Heavens happens not by chance but by a certain determinate and firmly ratified Judgment of the Gods However it is a thing known to all that the Generality of the later Platonists stiffly adhered to Aristotle in this neither did they onely assert the Corporeal World with all the Inferior Mundane Gods in it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ingenerate and to have existed from Eternity but also maintained the same concerning the Souls of Men and all other Animals They concluding that no Souls were Younger than Body or the World and because they would not seem to depart from their Master Plato therefore did they endeavour violently to force this same sence upon Plato's words also Notwithstanding which concerning these Latter Platonists it is here observable that though they thus asserted the World and all Inferior Gods and Souls to have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to that stricter sence of the Word declared that is to have had no Temporary Generation or Beginning but to have Existed from Eternity yet by no means did they therefore conceive them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-originated and Self-existing but concluded them to have been all derived from one sole Self-existent Deity as their Cause which therefore though not in order of Time yet of Nature was before them To this purpose Plotinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mind or God was before the World not as if it existed before it in Time but because the World proceeded from it and that was in order of Nature First as the cause thereof and its Archetype or Paradigm the World also always subsisting by it and from it And again elsewhere to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things which are said to have been made or Generated were not so Made as that they ever had a Beginning of their Existence but yet they were Made and will be always Made in another sence nor will they ever be destroyed otherwise than as being dissolved into those Simple Principles out of which some of them were compounded Where though the World be said never to have been Made as to a Temporary beginning yet in another sence is it said to be always Made as depending upon God perpetually as the Emanative Cause thereof Agreeably whereunto the Manner of the Worlds Production from God is thus declared by that Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They do not rightly who Corrupt and Generate the World for they will not understand what Manner of Making or Production the World had to wit by way of Effulgency or Eradiation from the Deity From whence it follows that the World must needs have been so long as there was a God as the Light was coeve with the Sun So likewise Proclus concludes that the World was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always Generated or Eradiated from God and therefore must needs be Eternal God being so Wherefore these Latter Platonists supposed the same thing concerning the Corporeal World and the Lower Mundane Gods which their Master Plato did concerning his Higher Eternal Gods that though they had no Temporary Production yet they all depended no less upon one Supreme Deity than if they had been made out of Nothing by Him From whence it is manifest that none of these Philosophers apprehended any Repugnancy at all betwixt these Two Things Existence from Eternity and Being Caused or produced by Another Nor can we make any great Doubt but that if the Latter Platonists had been fully convinced of any Contradictious Inconsistency here they would readily have disclaimed that their so beloved Hypothesis of the Worlds Eternity it being so far from Truth what some have supposed that the Assertors of the Worlds Eternity were all Atheists that these Latter Platonists were led into this Opinion no otherwise than from the sole Consideration of the Deity to wit its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 its Essential Goodness and Generative Power or Emanative Fecundity as Proclus plainly declares upon the Timaeus Now though Aristotle were not Acted with any such Divine Enthusiasm as these Platonists seem to have been yet did he notwithstanding after his sober Manner really maintain the same thing That though the World and Inferior Mundane Gods had no Temporary Generation yet were they nevertheless all Produced from One Supreme Deity as their Cause Thus Simplicius represents that Philosopher's Sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle would not have the World to have been made so as to have had a Beginning but yet nevertheless to have been produced from God after some other manner And again afterward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle though making God the Cause of the Heaven and its Eternal Motion yet concludes it notwithstanding to have been Ingenerate or Vnmade that is without Beginning However we think sit here to observe that though Aristotle do for the most part express a great deal of Zeal and Confidence for that Opinion of the Worlds Eternity yet doth he sometimes for all that seem to flag a little and speak more Languidly and Sceptically about it as for Example in his Book De Partibus Animalium where he treats concerning an Artificial Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is more likely that the Heaven was
made by such a Cause as this if it were Made and that it is maintained by such a Cause than that Mortal Animals should be so which yet is a thing more generally acknowledged Now it was before declared that Aristotle's Artificial Nature was nothing but the mere Executioner or Opificer of a Perfect Mind that is of the Deity which Two therefore he sometimes joyns together in the Cosmopoeia affirming that Mind and Nature that is God and Nature were the Cause of this Universe And now we see plainly that though there was a Real Controversie amongst the Pagan Theologers especially from Aristotle's time downward concerning the Cosmogonia and Theogonia according to the Stricter notion of those words the Temporary Generation or Production of the World and Inferior Gods or whether they had any Beginning or no yet was there no Controversie at all concerning the Self-existency of them but it was Universally agreed upon amongst them That the World and the Inferior Gods however supposed by some to have existed from Eternity yet were nevertheless all derived from one Sole Self-existent Deity as their Cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being either Eradiated or Produced from God Wherefore it is observable that these Pagan Theists who asserted the Worlds Eternity did themselves distinguish concerning the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orium Natum Factum as that which was Equivocal and though in one sence of it they denied that the World and Inferior Gods were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet notwithstanding did they in another sence clearly affirm the same For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say they strictly and properly taken is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which in respect of time passed out of Non-existence into Being or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which being not before afterwards was Nevertheless they acknowledge that in a larger sence this Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be taken also for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which doth any way depend upon a Superior Being as its Cause And there must needs be the same Equivocation in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that this in like manner may be taken also either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that which is Ingenerate in respect of Time as having no Temporary Beginning or else for that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ingenerate or Vnproduced from any Cause in which latter sence that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Vnmade is of equal force and extent with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is Self-subsistent or Selforiginated and accordingly it was used by those Pagan Theists who concluded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That Matter was Vnmade that is not only existed from Eternity without Beginning but also was Self-existent and Independent upon any Superior Cause Now as to the Former of these two sences of those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Generality of the ancient Pagans and together with them Plato affirmed the World and all the Inferior Gods to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have been Made in Time or to have had a Beginning for whatever the Latter Platonists pretend this was undoubtedly Plato's Notion of that word and no other when he concluded the World to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forasmuch as himself expresly opposes it to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is Eternal But on the contrary Aristotle and the Later Platonists determined the World and all the Inferior Gods to be in this sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as had no Temporary Beginning but were from Eternity However according to the later Sence of those words all the Pagan Theologers agreed together that the World and all the Inferior Gods whether having a Beginning or Existing from Eternity were notwithstanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 produced or derived from a Superior Cause and that thus there was only One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Vnproduced and Self-existent Deity who is said by them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Superior to a Cause and Older than any Cause he being the Cause of all things besides himself Thus Crantor and his Followers in Proclus zealous Assertors of the Worlds Eternity determined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the World with all the Inferior Mundane Gods in it notwithstanding their Being from Eternity might be said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is orti or made as being produced from another Cause and not Self-originated or Self-existing In like manner Proclus himself that grand Champion for the Worlds Eternity plainly acknowledged notwithstanding the Generation of the Gods and World in this sence as being produced from a Superior Cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We call it the Generations of the Gods meaning thereby not any Temporary Production of them but their Ineffable Procession from a Superior First Cause Thus also Salustius in his Book de Diis Mundo where he contends the World to have been from Eternity or without Beginning yet concludes both it and the other Inferiour Gods to have been made by One Supreme Deity who is called by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the First God For saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God or the First Cause having the greatest power or being Omnipotent ought therefore to make not only Men and other Animals but also Gods and Demons And accordingly this is the Title of his 13. Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How Eternal things may be said to be Made or Generated It is true indeed as we have often declared that some of the Pagan Theists asserted God not to be the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only Vnmade and Self-existent Being but that Matter also was such nevertheless this Opinion was not so generally received amongst them as is commonly supposed and though some of the ancient Fathers confidently impute it to Plato yet there seems to be no sufficient ground for their so doing and Porphyrius Jamblychus Proclus and other Platonists do not only professedly oppose the same as false but also as that which was dissonant from Plato's Principles Wherefore according to that larger Notion of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as taken synonymously with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there were Very many of the Pagan Theologers who agreed with Christians in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God is the only Ingenerate or Vnmade Being and that his very Essence is Ingenerability or Innascibility all other things even Matter it self being made by him But all the rest of them only a few Ditheists excepted though they supposed Matter to be Self-existent yet did they conclude that there was only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely One Vnmade or Vnproduced God and that all their other Gods were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in One sence or other if not as Made in Time yet at least as Produced from a Superiour Cause Nothing now remaineth but onely that we shew how
suspicable that it was really a Design or Policy of the Devil by imitating the Miracles of our Saviour Christ both in Apollonius and Vespasian to counter-work God Almighty in the Plot of Christianity and to keep up or conserve his own Usurped Tyranny in the Pagan World still Nevertheless we shall here show Apollonius all the favour we can and therefore suppose him not to have been one of those more foul and black Magicians of the common sort such as are not only grosly sunk and debauched in their Lives but also knowingly do Homage to Evil Spirits as such for the gratification of their Lusts but rather one of those more refined ones who have been called by themselves Theurgists such as being in some measure freed from the grosser Vices and thinking to have to do only with good Spirits nevertheless being Proud and Vainglorious and affecting Wonders and to transcend the Generality of Mankind are by a Divine Nemesis justly exposed to the illusions of the Devil or Evil Spirits cunningly insinuating here and aptly accommodating themselves to them However concerning this Apollonius it is undeniable that he was a zealous Upholder of the Pagan Polytheism and a stout Champion for The Gods he professing to have been taught by the Samian Pythagoras his Ghost how to Worship these Gods Invisible as well as Visible and to have converse with them For which cause he is stiled by Vopiscus Amicus verus Deorum A true Friend of the Gods that is a hearty and sincere Friend to that old Pagan Religion now assaulted by Christianity in which not One only True God but a Multiplicity of Gods were Worshipped But notwithstanding all this Apollonius himself was a clear and undoubted Asserter of One Supreme Deity as is evident from his Apologetick Oration in Philostratus prepared for Domitian in which he calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God who is the Maker of the whole Vniverse and of all things And as he elsewhere in Philostratus declares both the Indians and Egyptians to have agreed in this Theology insomuch that though the Egyptians condemn'd the Indians for many other of their Opinions yet did they highly applaud this Doctrine of theirs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God was the Maker both of the Generation and Essence of all things and that the cause of his making them was his Essential Goodness So doth he himself very much commend this Philosophy of Jarchas the Indian Brachman viz. That the whole World was but One Great Animal and might be resembled to a Vast Ship wherein their are many Inferiour subordinate Governours under One Supreme the Oldest and Wisest as also expert Mariners of several sorts some to attend upon the Deck and others to climb the Masts and order the Sails 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which the first and highâ—st seat is to be given to That God who is the Generatour or Creator of this great Animal and the next under it to those Gods that govern the several parts of it respectively so that the Poets were to be approved of here when they affirm that there are Many Gods in the Heavens Many in the Seas Many in the Rivers and Fountains Many also upon the Earth and some under the Earth Wherein we have a true representation of the old Paganick Theology which both Indians and Egyptians and European Poets Greek and Latin all agreed in That there is One Supreme God the Maker of the Universe and under him Many Inferiour Generated Gods or Understanding Beings Superiour to Men appointed to govern and preside over the several parts thereof who were also to be religiously honoured and worshipped by Men. And thus much for Apollonius Tyanaeus The first Pagan Writer against Christianity was Celsus who lived in the times of Adrian and was so professed a Polytheist that he taxes the Jews for having been seduced by the Frauds of Moses into this Opinion of One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those silly Shepherds and Herdsmen following Moses their Leader and being seduced by his Rustick frauds came to entertain this Belief that there was but One only God Nevertheless this Celsus himself plainly acknowledged amongst his Many Gods One Supreme whom he sometimes calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the First God sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greatest God and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Supercelestial God and the like and he doth so zealously assert the Divine Omnipotence that he casts an imputation upon the Christians of derogating from the same in that their Hypothesis of an Adversary Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Christians are erroneously led into most wicked Opinions concerning God by reason of their great ignorance of the Divine Enigms whilst they make a certain Adversary to God whom they call the Devil and in the Hebrew Language Satan And affirm contrary to all Piety that the Greatest God having a mind to do good to men is disabled or withstood by an Adversary resisting him Lastly where he pleads most for the worship of Demons he concludes thus concerning the Supreme God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But God is by no means any where to be laid aside or left out neither by Day nor by Night neither in Publick nor in Private either in our Words or Actions but in every thing our Mind ought constantly to be directed towards God A Saying that might very well become a Christian. The next and greatest Champion for the Pagan Cause in Books and Writings was that Famous Tyrian Philosopher Malchus called by the Greeks Porphyrius who published a Voluminous and elaborate Treatise containing Fifteen Books against the Christians and yet He notwithstanding was plainly as zealous an Assertor of One Supreme Deity and One Onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnmade or Self-existent Principle of all things as any of the Christians themselves could be he strenuously opposing that forementioned Doctrine of Plutarch and Atticus concerning Three Unmade Principles a Good God an Evil Soul or Demon and the Matter and endeavouring to demonstrate that all things whatsoever even Matter it self was derived from One Perfect Understanding Being or Self-originated Deity The Sum of whose Argumentation to which purpose we have represented by Proclus upon the Timaeus Page 119. After Porphyrius the next eminent Antagonist of Christianity and Champion for Paganism was Hierocles the Writer of that Book entituled in Eusebius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Lover of the Truth which is noted to have been a Modester Inscription than that of Celsus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or True Oration For if Eusebius Pamphili were the Writer of that Answer to this Philalethes now Extant as we both read in our Copies and as Photius also read then must it needs be granted that Hierocles the Author of it was either contemporary with Porphyrius or else but little his Junior Moreover this Hierocles seems plainly to be the person intended by Lactantius in
back again only to him so that this Oracle is irreprehensible and full of our Doctrine And it is very observable that these very same Oracles expresly determined also that Matter was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnmade or Self-existent but derived in like manner from the Deity Which we learn from Proclus upon Plato's Timaeus where when he had positively asserted that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One thing the Cause of all things and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Supreme Good being the Cause of all things is also the Cause of Matter he confirms this Assertion of his from the Authority of the Oracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From this Order also do the Oracles deduce the Generation of the Matter in these words From thence that is from One Supreme Deity altogether proceeds the Genesis of the Multivarious Matter Which unquestionably was one of those very Magick or Chalday Oracles and it may be further proved from hence because it was by Porphyrius set down amongst them as appears from Aeneas Gazeus in his Theophrastus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither was Matter void of Generation or Beginning which the Chaldeans and Porphyrius teach thee he making this the Title of a whole Book published by him The Oracles of the Chaldeans in which it is confirmed that Matter was Made Moreover that there was also in these Magick or Chalday Oracles a clear Signification of a Divine Triad hath been already declared But we shall here produce Proclus his Testimony for it too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus the Divinely Delivered or Inspired Theology affirmeth the whole World to have been completed from these Three Psyche or the Mundane Soul therein speaking concerning that Zeus or Jupiter who was above the Maker of the World in this manner c. For we have already declared that Proclus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Theology of Divine Tradition or Revelation is one and the same thing with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Oracles To which Testimony of Proclus we might also â—upeâ—add that Oracle cited out of Damascius by Patritius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the whole World shineth forth a Triad or Trinity the 〈…〉 a Monad or Perfect Vnity Than which nothing can be plaâ—â—e XVII And now we pass out of Asia into Europe from Zorâ—â—sâ—â—â— to Orpheus It is the Opinion of some Eminent Philologers of Lâ—tâ—er times That there never was any such Man as Orpheus buâ— only in Fairy-land and that the whole History of Orpheus was nothing bâ—â— a mere Romantick Allegory utterly devoid of all Truth and Reality But there is nothing alledged for this Opinion from Antiquity save only this one Passage of Cicero's concerning Aristotle Orpheum Poctam docet Aristoteles nunquam fuisse Aristotle teacheth that there never was any such man as Orpheus the Poet in which notwithstanding Aristotle seems to have meant no more than this that there was no such Poet as Orpheus Senior to Homer or that the Verses vulgarly called Orphical were not written by Orpheus However if iâ— should be granted that Aristotle had denied the Existence of such a man there seems to be no reason at all why his Single Testimony should here preponderate against that Universal Consent of all Antiquity which is for one Orpheus the Son of Oeager by birth a Thracian the Father or Chief Founder of the Mythical and Allegorical Theology amongst the Greeks and of all their most Arcane Religious Rites and Mysteries who is commonly supposed to have lived before the Trojan War that is in the time of the Israelitish Judges or at least to have been Senior both to Hesiod and Homer and also to have died a Violent Death most affirming him to have been torn in pieces by Women For which cause in that Vision of Herus Pamphylius in Plato Orpheus his Soul being to come down again into another Body is said to have chosen rather that of a Swan a reputed Musical Animal than to be born again of a Woman by reason of that great hatred which he had conceived of all Woman-kind for his suffering such a Violent Death from them And the Historick Truth of Orpheus was not only acknowledged by Plato but also by Isocrates Seniour to Aristotle likewise in his Oration in the praise of Busiris and confirmed by that sober Historiographer Diodorus Siculus he giving this Accompt of Orpheus That he was a man who diligently applied himself to Literature and having learn'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Mythical Part of Theology travelled into Egypt where he attain'd to further knowledge and became the greatest of all the Greeks in the Mysterious Rites of Religion Theological Skill and Poetry To which Pausanias addeth that he gained great authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As being believed to have found out Expiations for wicked Actions Remedies for Diseases and Appeasments of the Divine Displeasure Neither was this History of Orpheus contradicted by Origen when Celsus gave him so fit an occasion and so strong a Provocation to do it by his Preferring Orpheus before our Saviour Christ. To all which may be added in the last place that it being commonly concluded from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Greeks derived their Teletae and Mysteries of Religion from the Thracians it is not so reasonable to think with the Learned Vossius that Xamolxis was the Founder of them and not Orpheus this Xamolxis being by most reported to have been Pythagoras his Servant and consequently too much a Juniour and though Herodotus attribute more Antiquity to him yet did he conceive him to have been no other than a Daemon who appearing to the Thracians was worshipped by them whereas in the mean time the General Tradition of the Greeks derived the Thracian Religious Rites and Mysteries from Orpheus and no other according to this of Suidas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is commonly said that Orpheus the Thracian was the First Inventor of the Religious Mysteries of the Greeks and that Religion was from thence called Threscheia as being a Thracian Invention Wherefore though it may well be granted that by reason of Orpheus his great Antiquity there have been many Fabulous and Romantick things intermingled with his History yet there appears no reason at all why we should disbelieve the Existence of such a Man But though there were such a man as Orpheus yet may it very well be question'd for all that Whether any of those Poems commonly entitled to him and called Orphical were so ancient and indeed written by him And this the rather because Herodotus declares it as his own Opinion that Hesiod and Homer were the ancientest of all the Greek Poets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that those other Poets said to have been before them were indeed Juniors to them meaning hereby in all probability Orpheus Musaeus and Linus As also because Aristotle seems plainly to have followed Herodotus in this he mentioning the Orphick Poems in
Doctrine belonging thereunto which all were not alike capable of he elsewhere observing this to be that Wisdom that St. Paul spake amongst the Perfect From whence he concludes that Celsus vainly boasted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For I know all things belonging to Christianity when he was acquainted only with the exteriour Surface of it But concerning the Egyptians this was a thing most notorious and observed by sundry other Writers as for Example Clemens of Alexandria a man also well acquainted with the affairs of Egypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Egyptians do not reveal their Religious Mysteries promiscuously to all nor communicate the knowledge of Divine things to the Profane but only to those who are to succeed in the Kingdom and to such of the Priests as are judged most fitly qualified for the same upon account both of their Birth and Education With which agreeth also the Testimony of Plutarch he adding a further Confirmation thereof from the Egyptian Sphinges 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When a mongst the Egyptians there is any King chosen out of the Military Order he is forthwith brought to the Priests and by them instructed in that Arcane Theology which conceals Mysterious Truths under obscure Fables and Allegories Wherefore they place Sphinges before their Temples to signifie that their Theology contained a certain Arcane and Enigmatical Wisdom in it And this meaning of the Sphinges in the Egyptian Temples is confirmed likewise by Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore do the Egyptians place Sphinges before their Temples to declare thereby that the Doctrine concerning God is Enigmatical and Obscure Notwithstanding which we acknowledge that the same Clemens gives another interpretation also of these Sphinges or Conjecture concerning them which may not be unworthy to be here read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But perhaps the meaning of those Egyptian Sphinges might be also to signifie that the Deity ought both to be Loved and Feared to be Loved as benigne and propitious to the Holy but to be Feared as inexorably just to the Impious the Sphinx being made up of the Image both of a Man and a Lion Moreover besides these Sphinges the Egyptians had also Harpocrates and Sigalions in their Temples which are thus described by the Poet QuÃque premunt vocem digitóque silentia suadent They being the Statues of Young men pressing their Lips with their Finger The meaning of which Harpocrates is thus expressed by Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Harpocrates of the Egyptians is not to be taken for an Imperfect and Infant God but for the President of mens Speech concerning the Gods that is but imperfect balbutient and inarticulate and the Regulator or Corrector of the same his Finger upon his Mouth being a Symbol of Silence and Taciturnity It is very true that some Christians have made another Interpretation of this Egyptian Harpocrates as if the meaning of it had been this That the Gods of the Egyptians had been all of them really nothing else but Mortal Men but that this was a Secret that was to be concealed from the Vulgar Which Conceit however it be witty yet is it devoid of Truth and doubtless the meaning of those Egyptian Harpocrates was no other than this That either the Supreme and Incomprehensible Deity was to be adored with Silence or not spoken of without much caution and circumspection or else that the Arcane Mysteries of Theology were not to be promiscuously communicated but concealed from the profane Vulgar Which same thing seems to have been allso signified by that yearly Feast kept by the Egyptians in honour of Thoth or Hermes when the Priests eating Honey and Figs pronounced those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Truth is sweet As also by that Amulet which Isis was fabled to have worn about her the interpretation whereof was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 True speech This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Arcane and Recondite Theology of the Egyptians was concealed from the Vulgar Two manner of ways by Fables or Allegories and by Symbols or Hieroglyphicks Eusebius informs us that Porphyrius wrote a Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concerning the Allegorical Theology both of the Greeks and Egyptians And here by the way we may observe that this business of Allegorizing in matters of Religion had not its first and only Rise amongst the Christians but was a thing very much in use among the Pagan Theologers also and therefore Celsus in Origen commends some of the Christians for this that they could Allegorize ingeniously and handsomly It is well known how both Plutarch and Synesius Allegorized those Egyptian Fables of Isis and Osiris the one to a Philosophical the other to a Political sence And the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks which were Figures not answering to Sounds or Words but immediately representing the Objects and Conceptions of the Mind were chiefly made use of by them to this purpose to express the Mysteries of their Religion and Theology so as that they might be concealed from the prophane Vulgar For which cause the Hieroglyphick Learning of the Egyptians is commonly taken for one and the same thing with their Arcane Theology or Metaphysicks And this the Author of the Questions and Answers ad Orthodoxos tells us was anciently had in much greater esteem amongst the Egyptians than all their other Learning and that therefore Moses was as well instructed in this Hieroglyphick Learning and Metaphysical Theology of theirs as in their Mathematicks And for our parts we doubt not but that the Mensa Isiaca lately published containing so many strange and uncouth Hieroglyphicks in it was something of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Arcane Theology of the Egyptians and not meer History as some imagine Though the late confident Oedipus seem to arrogate too much to himself in pretending to such a certain and exact Interpretation of it Now as it is reasonable to think that in all those Pagan Nations where there was another Theology besides the Vulgar the principal part thereof was the Doctrine of One Supreme and Vniversal Deity the Maker of the whole World so can it not well be conceived what this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Arcane and Mysterious and Enigmatick Theology of the Egyptians so much talked of should be other than a kind of Metaphysicks concerning God as One Perfect Incorporeal Being the Original of all things We know nothing of any Moment that can be objected against this save only that which Porphyrius in his Epistle to Anebo an Egyptian Priest writeth concerning Chaeremon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chaeremon and others acknowledge nothing before this Visible and Corporeal World alledging for the countenance of their Opinion such of the Egyptians as talk of no other Gods but the Planets and those Stars that fill up the Zodiack or rise together with them their Decans and Horoscopes and Robust Princes as they call them whose names are
Independent upon the Deity since according to the best and most ancient Writers his Dyad was no Primary but a Secondary Thing only and derived from his Monad the sole Original of all things Thus Diogenes Laertius tells us that Alexander who wrote the Successions of Philosophers affirmed he had found in the Pythagorick Commentaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That a Monade was the Principle of all things but that from this Monade was derived infinite Duality as Matter for the Monade to work upon as the Active Cause With which agreeth Hermias affirming this to be one of the greatest of all the Pythagorick Mysteries that a Monade was the sole Principle of all things Accordingly whereunto Clomens Alexandrinus cites this Passage out of Thearidas an ancient Pythagorean in his Book concerning Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The true Principle of all things was only One for this was in the beginning One and Alone Which words also seem to imply the World to have had a Novity of Existence or beginning of Duration And indeed however Ocellus Lucanus write yet that Pythagoras himself did not hold the Eternity of the World may be concluded from what Porphyrius records of him where he gives an Account of that his superstitious abstinence from Beans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That at the beginning things being confounded and mingled together the Generation and Secretion of them afterwards proceeded by degrees Animals and Plants appearing at which time also from the same putrified Matter sprung up both Men and Beans Pythagoras is generally reported to have held a Trinity of Divine Hypostases and therefore when St. Cyril affirmeth Pythagoras to have called God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Animation of the whole Heavens and the Motion of all things adding that God was not as some supposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the Fabrick of the World but whole in the whole this seems properly to be understood of that Third Divine Hypostasis of the Pythagorick Trinity namely the Eternal Psyche Again when God is called in Plutarch according to Pythagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mind it self this seems to be meant properly of his Second Hypostasis the Supreme Deity according to him being something above Mind or Intellect In like manner when in Cicero Pythagoras his Opinion concerning the Deity is thus represented Deum esse animum per naturam rerum omnium intentum commeantem ex quo Animi nostri carperentur That God was a Mind passing through the whole Nature of things from whom our Souls were as it were decerped or cut out And again Ex universa mente Divina delibatos esse animos nostros this in all probability was to be understood also either of the Third or Second Divine Hypostasis and not of the First which was properly called by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Vnity and Monade and also as Plutarch tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Goodness it self Aristotle plainly affirmeth that some of the ancient Theologers amongst the Pagans made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Love to be the First Principle of all things that is the Supreme Deity and we have already shewed that Orpheus was one oft hese For when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Delightful Love and that which is not blind but full of Wisdom and Counsel is made by him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-perfect and the Oldest of all Things it is plain that he supposed it to be nothing less than the Supreme Deity Wherefore since Pythagoras is generally affirmed to have followed the Orphick Principles we may from hence presume that he did it in this also Though it be very true that Plato who called the Supreme Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as Pythagoras did dissent from the Orphick Theology in this and would not acknowledge Love for a name of the Supreme Deity as when in his Symposion in the person of Agatho he speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though I should readily grant to Phaedrus many other things yet I cannot consent to him in this that Love was Older than Saturn and Japet but on the contrary I do affirm him to be the Youngest of the Gods as he is always youthful They who made Love Older than Saturn as well as Japhet supposed it to be the Supreme Deity wherefore Plato here on the contrary affirms Love not to be the Supreme Deity or Creator of all but a Creature a Certain Junior God or indeed as he afterwards adds not so much a God as a Daemon it being a thing which plainly implies Imperfection in it Love saith he is a Philosopher whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no God philosophizeth nor dâ—sires to be made wise because he is so already Agreably with which Doctrine of his Plotinus determines that Love is peculiar to that middle rank of Beings called Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every Soul is a Venus which is also intimated by Venus her Nativity and Loves being begotten with her wherefore the Soul being in its right natural state Loves God desiring to be united with him which is a pure heavenly and virgin Love but when it descends to Generation being courted with these Amorous allurements here below and deceived by them it changeth that its Divine and Heavenly Love for another Mortal one but if it again shake off these lascivious and wanton Loves and keep it self chast from them returning back to its own Father and Original it will be rightly affected as it ought But the reason of this difference betwixt the Orpheists and Plato that the former made Love to be the Oldest of all the Gods but the latter to be a Junior God or Daemon proceeded only from an Equivocation in the word Love For Plato's Love was the Daughter of Penia that is Poverty and Indigency together with a mixture of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Riches and being so as it were compounded of Plenty and Poverty was in plain language no other than the Love of Desire which as Aristotle affirmeth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accompanied with Grief and Pain But that Orphick and Pythagorick Love was nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infinite Riches and Plenty a Love of Redundancy and Overflowing Fulness delighting to communicate it self which was therefore said to be the Oldest of all things and most Perfect that is the Supreme Deity according to which notion also in the Scripture it self God seems to be called Love though the word be not there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to say the Truth Parmenides his Love however made a Principle somewhere by Aristotle seems to be neither exactly the same with the Orphick nor yet with the Platonick Love it being not the Supreme Deity and yet the First of the Created Gods which appears from Simplicius his connecting these Two
Theologer only Xenophanes his One and All being nothing else but God Whom he proved to be One solitary Being from hence because God is the Best and Most Powerful of all things and there being many degrees of Entity there must needs be something Supreme to rule over all Which Best and most Powerful Being can be but One. He also did demonstrate it to be Vnmade as likewise to be neither Finite nor Infinite in a certain sence as he removed both Motion and Rest from God Wherefore when he saith that God always remaineth or resteth the same he understands not this of that Rest which is opposite to Motion and which belongs to such things as may be moved but of a certain other Rest which is both above that Motion and its Contrary From whence it is evident that Xenophanes supposed as Sextus the Philosopher also affirmeth God to be Incorporeal a Being unlike to all other things and therefore of which no Image could be made And now we understand that Aristotle dealt not ingenously with Xenophanes when from that expression of his that God was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spheryform he would infer that Xenophanes made God to be a Body and nothing else but the Round Corporeal World Animated which yet was repugnant also to another Physical Hypothesis of this same Xenophanes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there were Infinite Suns and Moons by which Moons he understood Planets affirming them to be all habitable Earths as Cicero tells us Wherefore as Simplicius resolves God was said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spheryform by Xenophanes only in this sence as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every way like and uniform However it is plain that Xenophanes asserting One God who was All or the Universe could not acknowledge a Multitude of Partial Self-existent Deities Heraclitus was no Clear but a Confounded Philosopher he being neither a Good Naturalist nor Metaphysician and therefore it is very hard or rather impossible to reconcile his Several Opinions with one another Which is a thing the less to be wondred at because amongst the rest of his Opinions this also is said to have been One That Contradictories may be true and his writings were accordingly as Plato intimates stuft with Unintelligible Mysterious Non-sence For First he is affirmed to have acknowledged no other Substance besides Body and to have maintained That All things did Flow and nothing Stand or remain the same and yet in his Epistles according to the common opinion of Philosophers at that time doth he suppose the Prae Post-existence of Humane Souls in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. My soul seemeth to vaticinate and presage its approaching dismission and freedom from this its prison and looking out as it were through the cracks and cranies of this body to remember those its native Regions or Countries from whence descending it was cloathed with this Flowing Mortal Body which is made up and constipated of Flegm Choler Serum Blood Nerves Bones and Flesh. And not only so but he also there acknowledgeth the Souls Immortality which Stoicks allowing its Permanency after Death for some time at least and to the next Conflagration did deny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Body shall be fatally changed to something else but my Soul shall not die or perish but being an Immortal thing shall fly away mounting upwards to Heaven those Etherial Houses shall receive me and I shall no longer converse with men but Gods Again though Heraclitus asserted the Fatal Necessity of all things yet notwithstanding was he a strict Moralist and upon this accompt highly esteemed by the Stoicks who followed him in this and other things and he makes no small pretence to it himself in his Epistle to Hermodorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have also had my difficult Labours and Conflicts as well as Hercules I hâ—ve conquer'd Pleasures I have conquer'd Riches I have conquer'd Ambition I have subdued Cowardise and Flattery neither Fear nor Intemperance can control me Grief and Anger are afraid of me and fly away from me These are the Victories for which I am crowned not by Eurystheus but as being made Master of my self Lastly though Heraclitus made Fire to be the First Principle of all things and hath some odd Passages imputed to him yet notwithstanding was he a Devout Religionist he supposing that Fiery Matter of the whole Universe Animantem esse Deum to be an Animal and God And as he acknowledged Many Gods according to that which Aristotle recordeth of him That when some passing by had espied him sitting in a smoaky Cottage he bespake them after this manner Introite nam hic Dii sunt Come in I pray for here there are Gods also he supposing all places to be full of Gods Demons and Souls so was he an undoubted Asserter of One Supreme Numen that governs all things and that such as could neither be represented by Images nor confined to Temples For after he had been accused of Impiety by Euthycles he writes to Hermodorus in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But O you unwise and unlearned teach us first what God is that so you may be believed in accusing me of Impiety Tell us where God is Is he shut up within the Walls of Temples Is this your Piety to place God in the dark or to make him a Stony God O you unskilful know ye not that God is not made with hands and hath no basis or fulcrum to stand upon nor can be inclosed within the Walls of any Temple the whole World variegated with Plants Animals and Stars being his Temple And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Am I Impious O Euthycles who alone know what God is Is there no God without Altars or are Stones the only witnesses of him No his own Works give testimony to him and principally the Sun Night and Day bear witness of him the Earth bringing forth fruits declares him the Circle of the Moon that was made by him is a Heavenly Testimony of him In the next place Anaxagoras the Clazomenian Philosopher comes to be considered whose Predecessors of the Ionick Order after Thales as Anaximander Anaximenes and Hippo were as hath been already observed Materialists and Atheists they acknowledging no other Substance besides Body and resolving all things into the Motions Passions and Affections of it Whence was that cautious advice given by Jamblichus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prefer the Italick Philosophy which contemplates Incorporeal Substances by themselves before the Ionick which principally considers Bodies And Anaxagoras was the first of these Ionicks who went out of that Road for seeing a necessity of some other Cause besides the Material Matter being not able so much as to move it self and much less if it could by Fortuitous Motion to bring it self into an Orderly System and Compages he therefore introduced Mind into the Cosmopoeia as the Principal Cause of the Universe
which also was the Demiurgus the Maker both of other Souls and of the whole World As Plato had before expresly affirmed him to be the Inspirer of all Life and Creator of Souls or the Lord and Giver of Life And likewise declared that amongst all those things which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Congenerous and Cognate with our Humane Souls there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing any where to be found at all like unto it So that Plato though he were also a Star-worshipper and Idolater upon other grounds yet in all probability would he not at all have approved of Plotinus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Souls being of the same Species with that Third Hypostasis of the Divine Triad but rather have said in the Language of the Psalmist It is he that hath made us and not we our selves we are his People and the Sheep of his Pasture Notwithstanding all which a Christian Platonist or Platonick Christian would in all probability Apologize for Plato himself and the ancient and most Genuine Platonists and Pythagoreans after this manner First That since they had no Scriptures Councils nor Creeds to direct their steps in the Darkness of this Mystery and to confine their Language to a Regular Uniformity but Theologized all Freely and Boldly and without any Scrupulosity every one according to his own private apprehensions it is no wonder at all if they did not only speak many times unadvisedly and inconsistently with their own Principles but also plainly wander out of the Right Path. And that it ought much rather to be wondred at that living so long before Christianity as some of them did they should in so Abstruse a Point and Dark a Mystery make so near an approach to the Christian Truth afterwards revealed than that they should any where fumble or fall short of the Accuracy thereof They not only extending the True and Real Deity to Three Hypostases but also calling the Second of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason or Word too as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mind or Intellect and likewise the Son of the First Hypostasis the Faâ—her and affirming him to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Artificer and Cause of the whole World and Lastly describing him as the Scripture doth to be the Image the Figure or Character and the Splendour or Brightness of the First This I say our Christian Platonist supposes to be much more wonderful that this so Great and Abstruse a Mystery of Three Eternal Hypostases in the Deity should thus by Pagan Philosophers so long before Christianity have been asserted as the Principle and Original of the whole World it being more indeed than was acknowledged by the Nicene Fathers themselves they then not so much as determining that the Holy Ghost was an Hypostasis much less that he was God But Particularly as to their Gradual Subordination of the Second Hypostasis to the First and of the Third to the First and Second our Platonick Christian doubtless would therefore plead them the more excusable because the Generality of Christian Doctors for the First Three Hundred years after the Apostles times plainly asserted the same as Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus the Author of the Recognitions Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Gregorius Thaumaturgus Dionysius of Alexandria Lactantius and many others All whose Testimonies because it would be too tedious to set down here we shall content our selves only with one of the last mentioned Et Pater Filius Deus est Sed Ille quasi exuberans Fons Hic tanquam defluens ex eo Rivus Ille tanquam Sol Hic tanquam Radius à Sole porrectus Both the Father and the Son is God But he as it were an Exuberant Fountain this as a Stream derived from him He like to the Sun This like to a Ray extended from the Sun And though it be true that Athanasius writing against the Arians does appeal to the Tradition of the Ancient Church and amongst others cites Origen's Testimony too yet was this only for the Eternity and Divinity of the Son of God but not at all for such an Absolute Co-equality of him with the Father as would exclude all Dependence Subordination and Inferiority those Ancients so Unanimously agreeing therein that they are by Petavius therefore taxed for Platonism and having by that means corrupted the Purity of the Christian Faith in this Article of the Trinity Which how it can be reconciled with those other Opinions of Ecclesiastick Tradition being a Rule of Faith and the Impossibility of the Visible Churches Erring in any Fundamental Point cannot easily be understood However this General Tradition or Consent of the Christian Church for Three Hundred years together after the Apostles Times though it cannot Justifie the Platonists in any thing discrepant from the Scripture yet may it in some measure doubtless plead their excuse who had no Scripture Revelation at all to guide them herein and so at least make their Error more Tolerable or Pardonable Moreover the Platonick Christian would further Apologize for these Pagan Platonists after this manner That their Intention in thus Subordinating the Hypostases of their Trinity was plainly no other than to exclude thereby a Plurality of Co-ordinate and Independent Gods which they supposed an absolute Co-equality of them would infer And that they made only so much Subordination of them as was both necessary to this purpose and unavoidable the Juncture of them being in their Opinion so close that there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing Intermedious or that could possibly be Thrust in between them But now again on the otherhand whereas the only ground of the Co-Equality of the Persons in the Holy Trinity is because it cannot well be conceived how they should otherwise all be God since the Essence of the Godhead being Absolute Perfection can admit of no degrees these Platonists do on the contrary contend that notwithstanding that Dependence and Subordination which they commonly suppose in these Hypostases there is none of them for all that to be accounted Creatures but that the General Essence of the Godhead or the Vncreated Nature truly and properly belongeth to them all according to that of Porphyrius before cited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Essence of the Godhead proceedeth to Three Hypostases Now these Platonists conceive that the Essence of the Godhead as common to all the Three Hypostases of their Trinity consisteth besides Perfect Intellectuality in these Following things First In Being Eternal which as we have already showed was Plato's Distinctive Character betwixt God and the Creature That whatsoever was Eternal is therefore Vncreated and whatsoever was not Eternal is a Creature He by Eternity meaning the having not only no Beginning but also a Permanent Duration Again In having not a Contingent but Necessary Existence and therefore being Absolutely Vndestroyable which perhaps is included also in the Former Lastly In being not Particular but
able to beget the Father nor the Holy Ghost to Produce either Father or Son and therefore neither of these two Latter is absolutely the Cause of all things but only the First And upon this account was that First of these Three Hypostases who is the Original Fountain of all by Macrobius styled Omnipotentissimus Deus the Most Omnipotent God he therein implying the Second and Third Hypostases Nous and Psyche to be Omnipotent too but not in a perfect Equality with him as within the Deity they are compared together however ad Extra or Outwardly and to Us they being all One are Equally Omnipotent And Plotinus writeth also to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If the First be absolutely Perfect and the First Power then must it needs be the Most Powerful of all Beings other Powers only imitating and partaking thereof And accordingly hereunto would the Platonick Christian further pretend that there are sundry places in the Scripture which do not a little favour some Subordination and Priority both of Order and Dignity in the Persons of the Holy Trinity of which none is more obvious than that of our Saviour Christ My Father is greater than I which to understand of his Humanity only seemeth to be less reasonable because this was no news at all that the Eternal God the Creator of the whole World should be Greater than a Mortal Man born of a woman And thus do divers of the Orthodox Fathers as Athanasius himself St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Chrysostome with several others of the Latins interpret the same to have been spoken not of the Humanity but the Divinity of our Saviour Christ. Insomuch that Petavius himself expounding the Athanasian Creed writeth in this manner Pater Major Filio ritè catholicè pronuntiatus est à plerisque Veterum Origine Prior sine reprehensione dici solet The Father is in a right Catholick manner affirmed by most of the ancients to be Greater than the Son and he is commonly said also without reprehension to be Before him in respect of Original Whereupon he concludeth the true meaning of that Creed to be this that no Person of the Trinity is Greater or Less than other in respect of the Essence of the Godhead common to them all Quia Vera Deitas in nullo esse aut Minor aut Major potest because the true Godhead can be no where Greater or Less but that notwithstanding there may be some Inequality in them as they are Hic Deus and Haec Persona This God and That Person It is true indeed that many of those ancient Fathers do restrain and limit this Inequality only to the Relation of the Persons one to another as the Father's Begetting and the Son 's being Begotten by the Father and the Holy Ghost Proceeding from both they seeming to affirm that there is otherwise a perfect Equality amongst them Nevertheless several of them do extend this Difference further also as for example St. Hilary a zealous Opposer of the Arians he in his Book of Synods writing thus Siquis Vnum dicens Deum Christum autem Deum ante secula Filium Dei Obsecutum Patri in Creatione omnium non consitetur Anathema sit And again Non exaequamus vel conformamus Filium Patri sed Subjectum intelligimus And Athanasius himself who is commonly accounted the very Rule of Orthodoxality in this Point when he doth so often resemble the Father to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sun or the Original Light and the Son to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Splendour or Brightness of it as likewise doth the Nicene Council and the Scripture it self he seems hereby to imply some Dependence of the Second upon the First and Subordination to it Especially when he declareth that the Three Persons of the Trinity are not to be look'd upon as Three Principles nor to be resembled to Three Suns but to the Sun and its Splendour and its Derivative Light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it appears from the similitude used by us that we do not introduce Three Principles as the Marcionists and Manicheans did we not comparing the Trinity to Three Suns but only to the Sun and its Splendour So that we acknowledge only one Principle As also where he approves of this of Dionysius of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is an Eternal Light which never began and shall never cease to be wherefore thâ—re is an Eternal Splendour also coexistent with him which had no beginning neither but was Alwayes Generated by him shining out before him For if the Son of God be as the Splendour of the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Always Generated then must he needs have an Essential Dependence upon the Father and Subordination to him And this same thing further appears from those other resemblances which the same Dionysius maketh of the Father and the Son approved in like manner also by Athanasius viz. to the Fountain and the River to the Root and the Branch to the Water and the Vapour for so it ought to be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appeareth from his Book of the Nicene Synod where he affirmeth the Son to have been begotten of the Essence or Substance of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Splendour of the Light and as the Vapour of the Water adding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For neither the Splendour nor the Vapour is the very Sun and the very Water nor yet is it Aliene from it or a stranger to its nature but they are both Effluxes from the Essence or Substance of them as the Son is an Efflux from the Substance of the Father yet so as that he is no way diminished or lessened thereby Now all these similitudes of the Fountain and the River the Root and the Branch the Water and the Vapour as well as that of the Sun and the Splendour seem plainly to imply some Dependence and Subordination And Dionysius doubtless intended them to that purpose he asserting as Photius informeth us an Inferiority of Power and Glory in the Second as likewise did Origen before him both whose Testimonies notwithstanding Athanasius maketh use of without any censure or reprehension of them Wherefore when Athanasius and the other Orthodox Fathers writing against Arius do so frequently assert the Equality of all the Three Persons this is to be understood in way of opposition to Arius only who made the Son to be Unequal to the Father as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a different Essence from him One being God and the other a Creature they affirming on the contrary that he was Equal to the Father as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Essence with him that is as God and not a Creature Notwithstanding which Equality there might be some Subordination in them as Hic Deus and Haec Persona to use Petavius
Trinity was doubtless Anti-Arian or else the Arian Trinity Anti-Platonick the Second and Third Hypostases in the Platonick Trinity being both Eternal Infinite and Immutable And as for those Platonick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gradations so much spoken of these by St. Cyril's leave were of a different Kind from the Arian there being not the Inequality of Creatures in them to the Creator Wherefore Socrates the Ecclesiastick Historian not without Cause wonders how those Two Presbyters Georgius and Timotheus should adhere to the Arian Faction since they were accounted such great Readers of Plato and Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It seems to me wonderful how those Two Persons should persist in the Arian Perswasion one of them having always Plato in his hands and the other continually breathing Origen Since Plato no where affirmeth his First and Second Cause as he was wont to call them to have had any beginning of their Existence and Origen every where confesseth the Son to be Coeternal with the Father Besides which Another Reason for this Apology of the Christian Platonist was because as the Platonick Pagans after Christianity did approve of the Christian Doctrine concerning the Logos as that which was exactly agreeable with their own so did the Generality of the Christian Fathers before and after the Nicene Council represent the Genuine Platonick Trinity as really the same thing with the Christian or as approaching so near to it that they differed chiefly in Circumstances or the manner of Expression The Former of these is Evident from that famous Passage of Amelius Contemporary with Plotinus recorded by Eusebius St. Cyril and Theodoret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this was the Logos or Word by whom Existing from Eternity according to Heraclitus all things were made and whom that Barbarian also placeth in the rank and dignity of a Principle affirming him to have been with God and to be God and that all things were made by him and that whatsoever was made was Life and Being in him As also that he descended into a Body and being cloathed in Flesh appeared as a Man though not without demonstration of the Divinity of his Nature But that afterwards being Loosed or Separated from the same he was Deified and became God again such as he was before he came down into a Mortal Body In which words Amelius speaks favourably also of the Incarnation of that Eternal Logos And the same is further manifest from what St. Austin writeth concerning a Platonist in his time Initium Sancti Evangelii cui nomen est secundum Johannem quidam Platonicus sicut à sancto Sene Simpliciano qui posteà Mediolanensi Ecclesiae praesedit Episcopus solebamus audire aureis Literis conscribendum per omnes Ecclesias in locis eminentissimis proponendum esse dicebat We have often heard from that holy man Simplicianus afterward Bishop of Millain that a certain Platonist affirmed the beginning of St. John 's Gospel deserved to be writ in Letters of Gold and to be set up in all the most Eminent places throughout the Christian Churches And the latter will sufficiently appear from these following Testimonies Justin Martyr in his Apology affirmeth of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That he gave the Second place to the Word of God and the Third to that Spirit which is said to have moved upon the waters Clemens Alexandrinus speaking of that Passage in Plato's Second Epistle to Dionysius concerning the First Second and Third writeth thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I understand this no otherwise than that the Holy Trinity is signified thereby the Third being the Holy Ghost and the Second the Son by whom all things were made according to the Will of the Father Origen also affirmeth the Son of God to have been plainly spoken of by Plato in his Epistle to Hermias and Coriscus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Celsus who pretendeth to know all things and who citeth so many other passages out of Plato doth purposely as I suppose dissemble and conceal that which he wrote concerning the Son of God in his Epistle to Hermias and Coriscus where he calls him the God of the whole Vniverse and the Prince of all things both present and future afterwards speaking of the Father of this Prince and Cause And again elsewhere in that Book he writeth to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither would Celsus here speaking of Chistians making Christ the Son of God take any notice of that passage in Plato 's Epistle before mentioned concerning the Framer and Governour of the whole world as being the Son of God lest he should be compelled by the Authority of Plato whom he so often magnifieth to agree with this Doctrine of ours that the Demiurgus of the whole World is the Son of God but the First and Supreme Deity his Father Moreover St. Cyprian or who ever were the Author of the Book inscribed De Spiritu Sancto affirmeth the Platonists First and Vniversal Psyche to be the same with the Holy Ghost in the Christian Theology in these words Hujus Sempiterna Virtus Divinitas cum in propria natura ab Inquisitoribus Mundi antiquis Philosophis propriè investigari non posset Subtilissimis tamen intuiti conjecturis Compositionem Mundi distinctis Elementorum affectibus praesentem omnibus Animam adfuisse dixerunt quibus secundum genus ordinem singulorum vitam praeberet motum intransgressibiles figeret Metas Stabilitatem assignaret Vniversam hanc Vitam hunc motum hanc rerum Essentiam Animam Mundi vocaverunt In the next place Eusebius Caesariensis gives a full and clear Testimony of the Concordance and Agreement of the Platonick at least as to the main with the Christian Trinity which he will have to have been the Cabala of the ancient Hebrews thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Oracles of the Hebrews placing the Holy Ghost after the Father and the Son in the Third Rank and acknowledging a Holy and Blessed Trinity after this manner so as that this Third Power does also transcend all Created Nature and is the First of those Intellectual Substances which proceed from the Son and the Third from the First Cause see how Plato Enigmatically declareth the same things in his Epistle to Dionysius in these words c. These things the Interpreters of Plato refer to a First God and to a Second Cause and to a Third the Soul of the World which they call also The Third God And the Divine Scriptures in like manner rank the Holy Trinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost in the place or degree of a Principle But it is most observable what Athanasius himself affirmeth of the Platonists that though they derived the Second Hypostasis of their Trinity from the First and the Third from the Second yet they supposed both their Second and Third Hypostases to be Vncreated and therefore does he send the Arians to
Stratonick or Hylozoick Atheism because Sense and Conscious Vnderstanding could no more result either from those Qualities of Heat and Cold Moist and Dry contempered together or from the meer Organization of Inanimate and Sensless Matter than it could from the Concursus Motus Ordo Positura Figurae of Atoms devoid of all manner of Qualities Had there been once nothing but Sensless Matter Fortuitously Moved there could never have emerged into Being any Soul or Mind Sense and Vnderstanding because no Effect can possibly transcend the Perfection of its Cause Wherefore Atheists supposing Themselves and all Souls and Minds to have sprung from Stupid and Sensless Matter and all that Wisdom which is any where in the World both Political and Philosophical to be the Result of meer Fortune and Chance must needs be concluded to be Grosly Ignorant of Causes which had they not been they could never have been Atheists So that Ignorance of Causes is the Seed not of Theism but of Atheism true Philosophy and the Knowledge of the Cause of our Selves leading necessarily to a Deity Again Atheists are Ignorant of the Cause of Motion in Bodies also by which notwithstanding they suppose all things to be done that is they are never able to Salve this Phaenomenon so long as they are Atheists and acknowledge no other Substance besides Matter or Body For First it is undeniably certain that Motion is not Essential to all Body as such because then no Particles of Matter could ever Rest and consequently there could have been no Generation nor no such Mundane System produced as this is which requires a certain Proportionate Commixture of Motion and Rest no Sun nor Moon nor Earth nor Bodies of Animals since there could be no Coherent Consistency of any thing when all things flutter'd and were in continual Separation and Divulsion from one another Again it is certain likewise that Matter or Body as such hath no Power of Moving it self Freely or Spontaneously neither by Will or Appetite both because the same Inconvenience would from hence ensue likewise and because the Phaenomena or Appearances do plainly evince the contrary And as for that Prodigiously Absurd Paradox of some few Hylozoick Atheists that all Matter as such and therefore every Smallest Particle thereof hath not only Life Essentially belonging to it but also Perfect Wisdom and Knowledge together with Appetite and Self-moving Power though without Animal Sense or Consciousness this I say will be elsewhere in due place further confuted But the Generality of the ancient Atheists that is the Anaximandrians and Democriticks attributed no manner of Life to Matter as such and therefore could ascribe no Voluntary or Spontaneous Motion to the same but Fortuitous only according to that of the Epicurean Poet already cited Nam certè neque Consilio Primordia rerum Ordine se quaeque atque sagaci mente locarunt Nec quos quaeque darent Motus pepigere profectó Wherefore these Democriticks as Aristotle somewhere intimates were able to assign no other Cause of Motion than only this That One Body moved another from Eternity Infinitely so that there was no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no First Vnmoved Mover ever to be found because there is no Beginning nor First in Eternity From whence probably that Doctrine of some Atheistick Stoicks in Alex. Aphrodisius was derived That there is no First in the rank and order of Causes In the footsteps of which Philosophers a Modern Writer seemeth to have trodden when declaring himself after this manner Si quis ab Effectu quocunque ad Causam ejus Immediatam atque inde and Remotiorem ac sic perpetuò ratiocinatione ascenderit non tamen in aeternum procedere poterit sed defatigatus aliquando deficiet If any one will from whatsoever Effect ascend upward to its Immediate Cause and from thence to a Remoter and so onwards perpetually in his Ratiocination yet shall he never be able to hold on thorough all Eternity but at length being quite tyred out with his Journey be forced to desist or give over Which seems to be all one as if he should have said One thing Moved or Caused another Infinitely from Eternity in which there being no Beginning there is consequently no First Mover or Cause to be reach'd unto But this Infinite Progress of these Democriticks in the Order of Causes and their shifting off the Cause of Motion from one thing to another without end or beginning was rightly understood by Aristotle to be indeed the Assigning of No Cause of Motion at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They acknowledging saith he no First Mover according to Nature must needs make an idle Progress Infinitely that is in the Language of this Philosopher assign no Cause at all of Motion Epicurus therefore to mend the matter though according to the Principles of the Atomick Physiology he discarded all other Qualities yet did he notwithstanding admit this One Quality of Gravity or Ponderosity in Atoms pressing them continually downwards in Infinite Space In which as nothing could be more Absurd nor Vnphilosophical than to make Vpwards and Downwards in Infinite Space or a Gravity tending to no Centre nor Place of Rest so did he not assign any Cause of Motion neither but only in effect affirm the Atoms therefore to tend Downwards because they did so a Quality of Gravity signifying only an Endeavour to tend Downwards but Why or Wherefore no body knows And it is all one as if Epicurus should have said that Atoms moved Downwards by an Occult Quality he either betaking himself to this as an Asylum a Sanctuary or Refuge for his Ignorance or else indeed more absurdly making his very Ignorance it self disguized under that name of a Quality to be the Cause of Motion Thus the Atheists universally either assigned no Cause at all for Motion as the Anaximandrians and Democriticks or else no True one as the Hylozoists when to avoid Incorporeal Substance they would venture to attribute Perfect Vnderstanding Appetite or Will and Self-moving Power to all Sensless Matter whatsoever But since it appears plainly that Matter or Body cannot Move it self either the Motion of all Bodies must have no manner of Cause or else must there of necessity be some other Substance besides Body such as is Self-active and Hylarchical or hath a Natural Power of Ruling over Matter Upon which latter account Plato rightly determin'd that Cogitation which is Self-activity or Autochinesie was in order of Nature before the Local Motion of Body which is Heterochinesie Though Motion considered Passively in Bodies or taken for their Translation or Change of Distance and Place be indeed a Corporeal thing or a Mode of those Bodies themselves moving yet as it is considered Actively for the Vis Movens that Active Force which causes this Translation or Change of Place so is it an Incorporeal thing the Energy of a Self-Active Substance upon that sluggish Matter or Body which cannot at all move it self Wherefore in the Bodies of
Relaxation and there-not Mechanical but Vital We might also add amongst many others the Intersection of the Plains of the Equator and Ecliptick or the Earth's Diurnal Motion upon an Axis not Parallel with that of the Ecliptick nor Perpendicular to the Plain thereof For though Carâ—esius would needs imagine this Earth of ours once to have been a Sun and so it self the Centre of a lesser Vortex whose Axis was then Directed after this manner and which therefore still kept the same Site or Posture by reason of the Striate Particles finding no fit Pores or Traces for their passage thorough it but only in this Direction yet does he himself confess that because these Two Motions of the Earth the Annual and Diurnal would be much more conveniently made upon Parallel Axes therefore according to the Laws of Mechanism they should perpetually be brought nearer and nearer together till at length the Equator and the Ecliptick come to have their Axes Parallel to one another Which as it hath not yet come to pass so neither hath there been for these last two Thousand years according to the best Observations and Judgments of Astronomers any nearer approach made of them to one another Wherefore the Continuation of these â—wo Motions of the Earth the Annual and Diurnal upon Axes differâ—nt or not Parallel is resolvable into nothing but a Final and Mental Cause or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was Best it should be so the Variety of the Seasons of the year depending hereupon But the greatest of all the particular Phaenomena is the Organization and Formation of the Bodies of Animals consisting of such Variety and Curiosity which these Mechanick Philosophers being no way able to give an account of from the Necessary Motion of Matter Vnguided by Mind for Ends prudently therefore break off their System there when they should come to Animals and so leave it altogether untouch'd We acknowledge indeed that there is a Posthumous Piece extant imputed to Cartesius and entituled De la Formation du Foetus wherein there is some Pretence made to salve all this by Fortuitous Mechanism But as the Theory thereof is wholly built upon a False Supposition sufficiently confuted by the Learned Harvey in his Book of Generation That the Seed doth Materially enter into the Composition of the Egg so is it all along Precarious and Exceptionable nor does it extend at all to the Differences that are in several Animals or offer the least Reason why an Animal of one Species or Kind might not be Formed out of the Seed of another It is here indeed Pretended by these Mechanick Theists that Final Causes therefore ought not to be of any Regard to a Philosopher because we should not arrogate to Our selves to be as Wise as God Almighty is or to be Privy to his Secrets Thus in the Metaphysical Meditations Atque ob hanc Vnicam Rationem totum illud Causarum genus quod à Fine peti solet in Rebus Physicis nullum Vsum habere existimo non enim absque Temeritate me puto investigare posse Fines Dei And again likewise in the Principles of Philosophy Nullas unquam Rationes circa Res Naturales à Fine quem Deus aut Natura in iis faciendis sibi proposuit admittimus quia non tantum nobis debemus arrogare ut ejus Consiliorum participes esse possimus But the Question is not Whether we can always reach to the Ends of God Almighty and know what is Absolutely Best in every case and accordingly make Conclusions that therefore the thing is or ought to be so but Whether any thing at all were made by God for Ends and Good otherwise than would of it self have resulted from the Fortuitous Motion of Matter Nevertheless we see no Reason at all why it should be thought Presumption or Intrusion into the Secrets of God Almighty to affirm that Eyes were made by him for the End of Seeing and accordingly so contrived as might best conduce thereunto and Ears for the End of Hearing and the like This being so plain that nothing but Sottish Stupidity or Atheistick Incredulity masked perhaps under an Hypocritical Veil of Humility can make any doubt thereof And therefore Aristotle justly reprehended Anaxagoras for that Absurd Aphorism of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Man was therefore the Wisest or most Solert of all Animals because he Chanced to have hands He not doubting to affirm on the Contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it was far more reasonable to think that because Man was the Wisest or most Solert and Active of all Animals therefore he had Hands given him For Nature saith he distributeth as a Wise man doth what is suitable to every one and it is more Proper to give Pipes to one that hath Musical Skill than upon him that hath Pipes to bestow Musical Skill Wherefore these Mechanick Theists would further alledge and that wiâ—h some more Colour of Reason That it is below the Dignity of God Almighty to condescend to all those mean and trivial Offices and to do the Things of Nature himself immediatly as also that it would be but a Botch in Nature if the Defects thereof were every where to be supplied by Miracle But to this also the Reply is easie That though the Divine Wisdom it self contrived the System of the whole World for Ends and Good yet Nature as an Inferiour Minister immediately Executes the same I say not a Dead Fortuiâ—â—us and meerly Mechanichal but a Vital Orderly and Artificial Nature Which Nature asserted by most of the Ancient Philosophers who were Theists is thus described by Proclus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature is the Last of all those Causes that Fabricate this Corporeal and Sensible world and the utmost bound of Incorporeal Substances Which being full of Reasons and Powers Orders and Presides over all Mundane affairs It proceeding according to the Magic Oracles from that Supreme Goddess the Divine Wisdom which is the Fountain of all Life as well Intellectual as that which is Concrete with Matter Which Wisdom this Nature always essentially depending upon passes through all things unhinderably by means whereof even Inanimate things partake of a kind of Life and things Corruptible remain Eternal in their Species they being contained by its Standing Forms or Ideas as their Causes And thus does the Oracle describe Nature as presiding over the whole Corporeal Word and perpetually turning round the Heavens Here have we a Description of One Vniversal Substantial Life Soul or Spirit of Nature Subordinate to the Deity besides which the same Proclus elsewhere supposeth other Particular Natures or Spermatick Reasons in those Words of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After the first Soul are there particular Souls and after the Vniversal Nature Particular Natures Where it may be
Superfluous Now this Previous Obligation to Civil Obedience cannot be derived as the forementioned Writer De Cive and of the Leviathan supposes from mens Private Vtility only because every man being Judge of this for himself it would then be Lawful for any Subject to Rebel against his Sovereign Prince and to Poyson or Stab him whensoever he could reasonably perswade himself that it would tend to his own Advantage or that he should thereby procure the Sovereignty Were the Obligation to Civil Obedience Made only by mens Private Vtility it would as easily be Dissolved by the same It remaineth therefore that Conscience and Religious Obligation to Duty is the only Basis and Essential Foundation of a Polity or Common-Wealth without which there could be no Right or Authority of Commanding in any Sovereign nor Validity in any Laws Wherefore Religious Obligation cannot be thought to be the Fiction or Imposture of Civil Sovereigns unless Civil Sovereignty it self be accounted a Fiction and Imposture or a thing which hath no Foundation in Nature but is either wholly Artificial or Violent Moreover had a Religious Regard to the Deity been a meer Figment or Invention of Politicians to promote their own Ends and keep men in Obedience and Subjection under them then would they doubtless have so framed and contrived it as that it should have been every way Flexible and Compliant namely by perswading the world that whatsoever was Commanded by themselves was agreeable to the Divine Will and whatever was Forbidden by their Laws was displeasing to God Almighty and would be Punished by him God ruling over the World no otherwise than by and in these Civil Sovereigns as his Vicegerents and as the only Prophet's and Interpreters of his will to men So that the Civil Law of every Country and the Arbitrary will of Sovereigns should be acknowledged to be the only Measure of Just and Unjust there being nothing Naturally such the only Rule of Conscience and Religion For from Religion thus Modelled Civil Sovereigns might think to have an Absolute Power or an Infinite Right of Doing or Commanding whatsoever they pleased without exception nothing being Vnlawful to them and their Subjects being always Obliged in Conscience without the least Scruple to Obey But this is but a meer Larva of Religion and would be but a Mocketory of God Almighty and indeed this is the only Religion that can be called a Political Figment Neither could the generality of mankind be ever yet thus perswaded that the Arbitrary Will of Civil Sovereigns was the only Rule of Justice Conscience and that God Almighty could Command nothing nor Reveal his will concerning Religion to mankind otherwise than by these as his Prophets and Interpreters True Religion Conscience are no such Waxen things Servilely Addicted to the Arbitrary Wills of men but Immorigerous Stiff and Inflexible they respecting the Deity only his Eternal or Everlasting Laws and his Revealed Will with which whensoever Humane Laws clash a thing not impossible they conclude that then God ought to be Obeyed and not Men. For which Cause the Prophane Politicians declare open war against this Religion as a thing utterly Inconsistent with Civil Sovereignty because it introduces a Fear greater than the Fear of the Leviathan namely that of Him who can inflict Eternal Punishments after Death as also because it clashes with that monstrous Infinite and Vnlimited Power of theirs which is such a Thing as is not attributed by Genuine Theists to God Almighty himself a Power of making their meer Arbitrary Will the Rule of Justice and not Justice the Rule of their Will Thus does a Modern Writer of Politicks condemn it for Seditious Doctrine tending to the Dissolution of a Common Wealth That Subjects may make a Judgment of Good and Evil Just and Vnjust or have any other Conscience besides the Law of the Land As also this That Subjects may Sin in obeying the Commands of their Sovereign He likewise adds That it is Impossible a Common Wealth should stand where any other than the Sovereign hath a Power of giving greater rewards than Life and of inflicting greater punishments than Death Now Eternal Life is a greater reward than the Life present and Eternal torment than the Death of Nature Wherefore God Almighty being the Dispenser of Eternal Rewards and Punishments this is all one as if he should have said It is impossible a Common Wealth should stand where the Belief of a God who can Punish with Eternal Torments after this Life is entertained Thus does the same Writer declare That if the Superstitious Fear of Spirits whereof God is the Chief and things depending thereupon were taken away men would be much more fitted than they are for Civil Obedience And that they who assert the Immortality of Souls or their capability of receiving punishments after Death fright men from obeying the Laws of their Countrey with Empty names as men fright Birds from the Corn with an Empty Dublet a Hat and a Crooked Stick And accordingly He concludes that Civil Sovereigns do not only make Justice but Religion also and that no Scripture or Divine Revelation can Oblige unless it be first made Law or stamped with their Authority Now since that which can make Religion and Gods must it self needs be greater than all Gods it follows according to the Tenour of this Doctrine that the Civil Sovereign is in Reality the Supreme Numen Or else at least that the Leviathan the King over all the Children of Pride is the Highest Deity next to Sensless Omnipotent Matter the One of these being the Atheists Natural the Other their Artificial God Nevertheless we shall here observe by the way that whilst these Atheistick Politicians thus endeavour to Swell up the Civil Sovereign and to bestow upon him an Infinite Right by removing to that end out of his way Natural Justice Conscience Religion and God himself they do indeed thereby absolutely devest him of all Right and Authority since the Subject is now no longer Obliged in Conscience to Obey him and so in stead of True Right and Authority they leave him nothing but meer Bruitish Force Wherefore since Theism and True Religion are thus plainly disowned and disclaimed by these Politicians as altogether Inconsistent with their Designs they cannot be supposed to have been the Figments of Civil Sovereigns or the meer Creatures of Political Art And thus have we abundantly confuted those three Atheistick Pretences to salve the Phaenomenon of Religion from Fear and the Ignorance of Causes and the Fiction of Politicians But since besides those Ordinary Phaenomena before mentioned which are no way Salvable by Atheists there are certain other Phaenomena Extraordinary that either immediately prove a God and Providence or else that there is a Rank of Vnderstanding Beings Invisible Superiour to men from whence a Deity may be afterwards inferred namely these Three Especially Apparitions Miracles and Prophecies Where the Atheists Obstinatly denying Matter of
is some confirmation of the Truth of Christianity the Scripture insisting so much upon these Evil Demons or Devils and declaring it to be one design of our Saviour Christ's coming into the World to oppose these Confederate Powers of the Kingdom of Darkness and to rescue mankind from the Thraldom and Bondage thereof As for Wizards and Magicians Persons who associate and confederate themselves in a peculiar manner with these Evil Spirits for the gratification of their own Revenge Lust Ambition and other Passions besides the Scriptures there hath been so full an attestation given to them by persons unconcerned in all Ages that those our so confident Exploders of them in this present Age can hardly escape the suspicion of having some Hankring towards Atheism But as for the Demoniacks and Energumeni It hath been much wondred that there should be so many of them in our Saviour's time and hardly any or none in this present Age of ours Certain it is from the Writings of Josephus in sundry places that the Pharisaick Jews were then generally possessed with an Opinion of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demoniacks men Possessed with Devils or Infested by them And that this was not a meer Phrase or Form of Speech only amongst them for persons very Ill-affected in their Bodies may appear from hence that Josephus declares it as his opinion concerning the Demons or Devils that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirits or Souls of wicked men deceased getting into the Bodies of the Living From hence it was that Jews in our Saviour's time were not at all Surprised with his casting out of Devils it being usual for them also then to Exorcise the same an Art which they pretended to have learn'd from Solomon Of whom thus Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God also taught Solomon an Art against Demons and Devils for the benefit and Cure of men Who composed certain Incantations by which diseases are cured and left forms of exorcisms whereby Devils are expelled and driven away Which Method of curing prevails much amongst us at this very day Notwithstanding which we think it not at all probable what a late Atheistick Writer hath asserted that the heads of the Jews were then all of them so full of Demons and Devils that they generally took all manner of Bodily Diseases such as Feavers and Agues and Dumbness and Deafness for Devils Though we grant that this very thing was imputed by Plotinus afterward to the Gnosticks that they supposed all Diseases to be Devils and therefore not to be cured by Physick but expelled by Words or Charms Thus he En. 2. Lib. 9. c. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now when they affirm Diseases to be Demons or Devils and pretend that they can expel them by words undertaking to do the same they hereby indeed render themselves considerable to the vulgar who are wont not a little to admire the powers of Magicians But they will not be able to perswade wise men that Diseases have no natural Causes as from Repletion or Inanition or Putrefaction or the like Which is a thing manifest from their cure they being oftentimes removed by purgation and bleeding and abstinence Vnless perhaps these men will say that the Devil is by this means Starved and made to Pine away Nor can we think that the Jews in our Saviour's time either supposed all Mad-men to be Demoniacks or all Demoniacks Mad-men though this latter seems to be asserted by an Eminent Writer of our own we reading of Devils cast out from others besides Mad-men and of a woman which had a Spirit of Infirmity only and was bowed together and could not lift up her self which is said by our Saviour Christ to have been bound by Satan Wherefore the sense of the Jews formerly seems to have been this that when there was any unusual and extraordinary Symptoms in any bodily Distemper but especially that of Madness this being look'd upon something more than Natural was imputed by them to the Possession or Infestation of some Devil Neither was this proper to the Jews only at that time to suppose Evil Demons to be the Causes of such bodily diseases as had extraordinary Symptoms and especially Madness but the Greeks and other Gentiles also were embued with the same Perswasion as appeareth from Apollonius Tyanaeus his curing a Laughing Demoniack at Athens he ejecting that Evil Spirit by threats and menaces who is said at his departure to have tumbled down a Royal Porch in the City with great noise As also from his freeing the City of Ephesus from the Plague by stoning an old Ragged Beggar said by Apollonius to have been the Plague which appeared to be a Demon by his changing himself into the form of a Shagged Dog But that there is some Truth in this Opinion and that at this very day Evil Spirits or Demons do sometimes really Act upon the Bodies of men and either Inflict or Augment bodily Distempers and Diseases hath been the Judgment of two very experienced Physicians Sennertus and Fernelius The Former in his Book De Mania Lib. 1. cap. 15. writing thus Etsi sine ulla Corporis Morbosa Dispositione Deo permittente hominem Obsidere Occupare Daemon possi◠tamen quandoque Morbis praecipuè Melancholicis sese immiscet Daemon forsan frequentius hoc accidit quam saepè creditur Although the Devil may by Divine permission Possess men without any Morbid Disposition yet doth he usually intermingle himself with Bodily Diseases and especially those of Melancholy and perhaps this cometh to pass ostner than is commonly believed or suspected The other in his De Abditis rerum Causis where having attributed real Effects upon the bodies of men to Witchcraft and Enchantment he addeth Neque solum morbos verum etiam Daemonas scelerati homines in corpora immittunt Hi quidem visuntur Furoris quadam specie distorti hoc uno tamen à Simplici Furore distant quod summè ardua obloquantur praeterita occulta renuntient assidentiúmque arcana reserent Neither do these wicked Magicians only inflict Diseases upon mens Bodies but also send Devils into them By means whereof they appear distorted with a kind of fury and madness which yet differs from a Simple Madness or the Disease so called in this that they speak of very high and difficult matters declare things past unknown and discover the Secrets of those that sit by Of which he subjoyns two Notable Instances of Persons well known to himself that were plainly Demoniacal Possessed or Acted by an Evil Demon one whereof shall be afterwards mentioned But when Maniacal Persons do not only discover Secrets and declare things Past but Future also besides this speak in Languages which they had never learnt this puts it out of all doubt and question that they are not meer Mad men or Maniaci but Demoniacks or Energumeni And that since the time of our Saviour Christ there have been often
said They have well spoken that which they have spoken I will raise them up a Prophet from among their Brethren like unto thee and put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him and whosoever will not hearken to the words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him Which is all one as if he should have said I will no more speak to them with Thunder and Lightning nor reveal my will with a Terrible Voyce out of Flaming Fire but the next great Manifestation of my self or further Revelation of my Will shall be by a Prophet from amongst their own Brethren I putting my words into his mouth and speaking to them by him Whose words they shall be as much obliged to hearken to as if I had spoken them as before from the top of the Fiery Mount And that they may have no Colour for their Disbelieving this great Prophet especially or their disobeying of him I plainly declare that whosoever cometh in my Name and does True and Real Miracles shall be acknowledged undoubtedly for a True Prophet sent by me and accordingly Believed and Obeyed and none rejected under the Notion of False Prophets but only such as either do not Real Miracles or else if they do come in the name of Other Gods or Exhort to Idolatry Nevertheless our Saviour Christ wrought other Miracles also of a higher Nature by the Immediate Power of God Almighty himself as for example when before himself he raised Lazarus who had been dead four days to life since it cannot be conceived to be in the Power of Created Spirits whether Bad or Good when ever they please to bring back the Souls of men deceased to their Bodies again or change the Laws of Nature and Fate However it must not be thought that God will ever set this Seal of his to a Lye or that which is plainly contrary to the Light and Law of Nature The conclusion is that though all Miracles promiscuously do not immediatly prove the Existence of a God nor Confirm a Prophet or whatsoever Doctrine yet do they all of them evince that there is a Rank of Invisible Vnderstanding Beings Superiour to men which the Atheists commonly deny And we read of some such Miracles also as could not be wrought but by a Power Perfectly Super Natural or by God Almighty himself But to deny and disbelieve all Miracles is either to deny all Certainty of Sense which would be indeed to make Sensation it self Miraculous or else monstrously and unreasonably to derogate from Humane Testimonies and History The Jews would never have so stifly and pertinaciously adhered to the Ceremonial Law of Moses had they not all along believed it to have been unquestionably confirmed by Miracles and that the Gentiles should at first have entertained the Faith of Christ without Miracles would it self have been The Greatest of Miracles The Last Extraordinary Phaenomenon proposed was that of Divination Oracles Prophecies or Predictions of Future Events otherwise Unforeknowable to men which either Evince a God or at least that there are Vnderstanding Beings Superiour to men For if there be Presention or Foreknowledge of such Future Events as are to Humane Understanding alone altogether Unforeknowable then is it certain that there is some more Perfect Vnderstanding or Knowledge in the World than that of men And thus is that Maxim of the Ancient Pagan Theists in the Genuine and proper sense thereof unquestionably true Si Divinatio est Dii sunt If there be Divination or Presention of Future Events Vndiscoverable by men then are there Gods which in their Language was no more than to say Vnderstanding Beings Superiour to men Wherefore we must here distinguish of Oracles and Predictions after the same manner as we did before of Mirâ—â—les that they may be of Two Kinds First such as might proceed only from the Natural Presaging Power of Created Spirits Superiour to men whether called Angels or Demons For these being supposed to have not only clearer understandings than men and a greater insight into Nature but also be reason of their Agility and Invisibility opportunity of knowing things remotely distant and of being privy to mens Secret Machinations and Consultations it is easily conceivable that many Future Events nigh at hand which cannot be foreknown by men may be probably at least foreseen by them and that without any Miraculous Divine Revelation their Causes being already in Being As men learned in Astronomy can foretel Eclipses of the Sun and Moon which to the Vulgar are altogether Unforeknowable And as Princes or States-men that are furnished with great Intelligence Foreign and Domestick can presage more of War and Peace either at home or abroad and of the Events of Kingdoms than Ignorant Plebeians And such were those Predictions which Democritus though otherwise much addicted to Atheism allowed of Cicero Writing thus of him Plurimis Locis gravis auct or Democritus Praesensionem rerum futurarum comprobat Democritus a grave Writer doth in many places approve of the Presention of Future Events The reason whereof was because he supposed certain Vnderstanding Beings Superiour to men called by him Idols which having a larger Comprehension of things and other advantages of Knowledge could therefore foretel many Future Events that men were ignorant of And though perhaps it may be thought that Democritus would not have entertained this Opinion of the Foreknowledge of Humane Events had he not asserted the Necessity of all humane Actions and Volitions but held Liberty of Will as Epicurus afterwards did as if this were Inconsistent with all manner of Presage and Probable or Conjectural Foreknowledge yet is it certain that there is not so much Contingency in all Humane Actions by reason of this Liberty of Will as heretofore was by Epicurus and still is by many supposed it being plain that men act according to an Appearance of Good and that in many cases and circumstances it may be Foreknown without any Divine Revelation what such or such persons would do As for example that a voluptuous Person having a strong Temptation to satisfie his Sensual Appetite and that without incurring any inconvenience of shame or punishment would readily close with the same Besides which such Invisible Spirits as Angels or Demons may sometimes Predict also what themselves Cause and Effect Secondly there is another Sort of Predictions of Future Events which cannot be imputed to the Natural Presaging Faculty of any such Created Spirits but only to the Supernatural Prescience of God Almighty or a Being Infinitely Perfect As when Events remotely distant in time and of which there are yet no immediate Causes actually in Being which also depend upon many circumstances and a long Series of things any one of which being otherwise would alter the case as likewise upon much Uncertainty of Humane Volitions which are not always necessarily linked and concatenated with what goes before but often loose and free
and upon that Contingency that arises from the Indifferency or Equality of Eligibility in Objects Lastly such things as do not at all depend upon External Circumstances neither nor are caused by things Natural Anteceding but by some Supernatural Power I say when such Future Events as these are foretold and accordingly come to pass this can be ascribed to no other but such a Being as Comprehends Sways and Governs all and is by a peculiar Priviledge or Prerogative of its own Nature Omniscient Epicurus though really he therefore rejected Divination and Prediction of Future Events because he denied Providence yet did he pretend this further reason also against it because it was a thing Absolutely Inconsistent with Liberty of Will and Destructive of the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divination is a thing which hath no Existence nor possibility in nature and if there were such a thing it would take away all Liberty of Will and leave nothing in mens own Power Thus also Carneades in Cicero maintained Ne Apollinem quidem futura posse dicere nisi ea quorum Causas Natura ita contineret ut ea fieri necesse esset That Apollo himself was not able to foretel any future Events other than such as had Necessary Causes in Nature antecedent And some Christian Theists of latter times have in like manner denied to God Almighty all Foreknowledge of Humane Actions upon the same pretence as being both Inconsistent with mens Liberty of Will and Destructive thereof For say they If mens Actions be Free then are they Vnforeknowable they having no Necessary Causes and again if there be any Foreknowledge of them then can they not be Free they being ipso facto Necessitated thereby But as it is certain that Prescience does not destroy the Liberty of mans Will or impose any Necessity upon it mens Actions being not therefore Future because they are Foreknown but therefore Foreknown because Future and were a thing never so Contingent yet upon supposition that it will be Done it must needs have been Future from all Eternity So is it extreme Arrogance for men because themselves can Naturally Foreknow nothing but by some Causes Antecedent as an Eclipse of the Sun or Moon therefore to presume to measure the knowledge of God Almighty according to the same Scantling and to deny him the Prescience of Humane Actions not considering that as his Nature is Incomprehensible so his Knowledge may well be looked upon by us as such too that which is Past our finding out and Too Wonderful for us However it must be acknowledged for an Undoubted Truth that no Created Being can Naturally and Of it self Foreknow any Future Events otherwise than in and by their Causes Anteceding If therefore we shall find that there have been Predictions of such Future Events as had no Necessary Antecedent Causes as we cannot but grant such Things therefore to be Foreknowable So must we needs from thence infer the Existence of a God that is a Being Supernatural Infinitely Perfect and Omniscient since such Predictions as these could have proceeded from no other Cause That there is Foreknowledge of Future Events to men Naturally Unforeknowable hath been all along the Perswasion of the Generality of Mankind Thus Cicero Vetus opinio est jam usque ab Heroicis ducta temporibus eaque Populi Romani omnium Gentium firmata consensu Versari quandam inter homines Divinationem quam Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellant id est Praesensionem Scientiam rerum Futurarum This is an Old opinion derived down all along from the Heroick times or the Mythical Age and not only entertained amongst the Romans but also confirmed by the consent of all Nations that there is such a thing as Divination and Presension or Foreknowledge of Future Events And the same Writer elsewhere in the Person of Balbus Quamvis nihil tam irridet Epicurus quà m Praedictionem rerum Futurarum mihi videtur tamen vel maximè confirmare Deorum Providentia consuli rebus humanis Est enim profecto Divinatio quae multis locis rebus temporibus apparet cùm in privatis tùm maximè in publicis Multa cernunt Aruspices multa Augures provident multa Oraculis providentur multa Vaticinationibus multa Somniis multa portentis Although Epicurus deride nothing more then the Prediction of Fature things yet does this seem to me to be a great confirmation of the Providence of the Gods over humane affairs Because there is certainly Divination it appearing in many Places Things and Times and that not only Private but especially Publick Soothsayers foresee many things the Augurs many many things are declared by Oracles many by Prophecies many by Dreams and many by Portents And indeed that there were even amongst the Pagans Predictions of Future Events not discoverable by any Humane Sagacity which accordingly came to pass and therefore argue a Knowledge superiour to that of men or that there are certain Invisible understanding Beings or Spirits seems to be undenyable from History And that the Augurs themselves were sometimes not Unassisted by these Officious Genii is plain from that of Attius Navius before mentioned as the circumstances thereof are related by Historians that Tarquinius Priscus having a mind to try what there was in this skill of Augury Dixit ei se cogitare quiddam id possétne fieri consuluit Ille augurio acto posse respondet Tarquinius autem dixit se cogitasse cotem novaculâ posse praecidi tum Attium jussisse experiri ita Cotem in Comitium illatam inspectante Rege Populo novaculâ esse discissam Told Navius that he Thought of something and he would would know of him Whether it could be done or no. Navius having performed his Augurating Ceremonies replied that the thing might be done Whereupon Priscus declared what his Thought was namely that a Whetstone might be cut in two with a Razor Navius willed them to make trial wherefore a Whetstone being brought immediatly into the Court it was in the sight of the King and all the People divided with a Razor But the Predictions amongst those Pagans were for the most part only of the Former Kind such as proceeded meerly from the Natural Presaging Faculty of these Demons this appearing from hence because their Oracles were often expressed Ambiguously so as that they might be taken either way those Demons themselves it seems being then not confident of the Event as also because they were sometimes plainly mistaken in the Events And from hence it was that they seldom Ventured to foretel any Events remotely distant but only what were nigh at hand and shortly to come to pass and therefore might be Probably Conjectured of from things then in being Notwithstanding which we acknowledge that there are some Few Instances of Predictions amongst the Pagans of the other Kind Such as that intimated by Cicero in his Book of Divination where he declareth the Doctrine of Diodorus concerning Necessity
Existence of a God we must of necessity explode this New Sceptical Hypothesis of the Possibility of our Understandings being so made as to Deceive us in all our Clearest Perceptions by means whereof we can be Certain of the Truth of nothing and to use our utmost endeavour to remove the same In the First place therefore we affirm That no Power how great soever and therefore not Omnipotence it self can make any thing to be indifferently either True or False this being plainly to take away the Nature both of Truth and Falshood or to make them nothing but Words without any Signification Truth is not Factitious it is a thing which cannot be Arbitrarily Made but Is. The Divine Will and Omnipotence it self now supposed by us hath no Imperium upon the Divine Vnderstanding for if God understood only by Will he would not understand at all In the next place we add that though the Truth of Singular Contingent Propositions depends upon the Things themselves Existing without as the Measure and Archetype thereof yet as to the Vniversal and Abstract Theorems of Science the Terms whereof are those Reasons of Things which Exist no where but only in the Mind it Self whose Noemata and Ideas they are the Measure and Rule of Truth concerning them can be no Foreign or Extraneous thing Without the mind but must be Native and Domestick to it or contained Within the mind it Self and therefore can be nothing but its Clear and Distinct Perception In these Intelligible Ideas of the Mind whatsoever is Clearly Perceived to Be Is or which is all one is True Every Clear and Distinct Perception is an Entity or Truth as that which is Repugnant to Conception is a Non-Entity or Falshood Nay The very Essence of Truth here is this Clear Perceptibility or Intelligibility and therefore can there not be any Clear or Distinct Perception of Falshood Which must be acknowledged by all those who though granting False Opinions yet agree in this that there can be no False Knowledge For the Knowledge of these Vniversal Abstract Truths is nothing but the Clear and Distinct Perception of the several Ideas of the mind and their Necessary Relations to one another Wherefore to say that there can be no False Knowledge is all one as to say that there can be no Clear and Distinct Perâ—eptions of the Ideas of the mind False In False Opinions the Perception of the Vnderstanding Power it self is not False but only Obscure It is not the Vnderstanding Power or Nature in us that Erreth but it is We Our Selves who Err when we rashly and unwarily assent to things not Clearly Perceived by it The upshot of all is this that since no Power how great soever can make any thing indifferently to be True and since the Essence of Truth in Vniversal Abstract things is nothing but Clear Perceptibility it follows that Omnipotence cannot make any thing that is False to be clearly Perceived to Be or Create such Minds and Vnderstanding Faculties as shall have as Clear Conceptions of Falshoods that is of Non-Entities as they have of Truths or Entities For example no Rational Understanding Being that knows what as Part is and what a Whole What a Cause and what an Effect could possibly be so made as clearly to Conceive the Part to be greater than the Whole or the Effect to be before the Cause or the like Wherefore we may presume with Reverence to Say that there could not possibly be a world of Rational Creatures made by God either in the Moon or in some other Planet or else where that should Clearly and Distinctly Conceive all things contrary to what are clearly Perceived by us nor could our Humane Faculties have been so made as that we should have as clear Conceptions of Falshoods as of Truths Mind or Vnderstanding Faculties in Creatures may be made more or less Weak Imperfect and Obscure but they could not be made False or such as should have Clear and Distinct Conceptions of that which Is not because every Clear Perception is an Entity and though Omnipotence can make Something out of Nothing yet can it not make Something to be Nothing nor Nothing Something All which is no more than is generally acknowledged by Theologers when they affirm that God Almighty himself cannot do things Contradictious there being no other reason for this assertion but only this because Contradictiousness is Repugnant to Conception So that Conception and Knowledge are hereby made to be the Measure of all Power even Omnipotence or Infinite Power it Self being determined thereby from whence it follows that Power hath no Dominion over Vnderstanding Truth and Knowledge nor can Infinite Power make any thing whatsoever to be Clearly Conceivable For could it make Contradictious things clearly Conceivable then would it Self be able to Do them because whatsoever can be Clearly Conceived by any may unquestionably be Done by Infinite Power It is true indeed that Sense considered alone by it self doth not reach to the Absoluteness either of the Natures or of the Existence of things without us it being as such nothing but Seeming Appearance and Phancy And thus is that Saying of some antient Philosophers to be understood that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every Phantasie is True namely because Sense and Phancy reach not to the Absolute Truth and Falshood of things but Contain themselves only within Seeming and Appearance and every Appearance must needs be a true Appearance Notwithstanding which it is certain that Sense often represents to us Corporeal things otherwise than indeed they are which though it be not a Formal yet is it a Material Falsity Wherefore Sense in the Nature of it is not Absolute but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Relative to the Sentients And by Sense alone without any mixture of Reason or Understanding we can be certain of no more concerning the things without us but only this that they So Seem to us Hence was that of the ancient Atomick Philosophers in Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither you nor any man else can be certain that every other man and Brute Animal hath all the very same Phantasms of Colours that himself hath Now were there no other Perception in us but that of Sense as the old Aetheistick Philosophers concluded Knowledge to be Sense then would all our Humane Perceptions be meerly Seeming Phantastical and Relative and none of them reach to the Absolute Truth of things Every one in Protagoras his Language would then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Think or Opine only his Own things all his Truths being Private and Relative to himself And that Protagorean Aphorism were to be admitted also in the Sense of that Philosopher that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every man is the Measure of all things to himself and That no one man's Opinion was righter than anothers but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Which Seemed to Every one was to him True to whom it Seemed all Truth
and Perception being but Seeming and Relative But here lies one main difference betwixt Vnderstanding or Knowledge and Sense that whereas the Latter is Phantastical and Relative only the Former reacheth beyond Phancy and Appearance to the Absoluteness of Truth For as it hath been already declared whatsoever is clearly and distinctly Perceived in things Abstract and Vniversal by any one Rational Being in the whole world is not a Private thing and True to Himself only that perceived it but it is as some Stoicks have called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Publick Catholick and Vniversal Truth it obtains every where and as Empedocles sang of Natural Justice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is extended throughout the Vast Aether and through Infinite Light or Space and were there indeed Infinite Worlds all thickly peopled with Rational Animals it would be alike True to every one of them Nor is it Conceivable that Omnipotence it self could create any such Understanding Beings as could have Clear and Distinct Perceptions of the contrary to all that is Perceived by us no more than it could Do things Contradictious But in all Probability because Sense is indeed but Seeming Phantastical and Relative this is the Reason that some have been so prone and inclinable to suspect the like of Vnderstanding and all Mental Perception too that this also is but Seeming and Relative and that therefore mens Minds or Vnderstandings might have been so made by an Arbitrary Omnipotent Deity as clearly and distinctly to Perceive every thing that is False But if notwithstanding all that hath been said any will still sing over the Old Song again That all this which hath been hitherto declared by us is indeed True If our Humane Faculties be True or Rightly Made but we can go no further than our Faculties and whether these be True or no no man can ever be certain We have no other Reply to make but that this is an over Stiff and Heavy Adherence to a Prejudice of their own Minds that not only Sense but also Reason and Vnderstanding and all Humane Perception is meerly Seeming or Phantastical and Relative to Faculties only but not reaching to the Absoluteness of any Truth and that the Humane Mind hath no Criterion of Truth at all within it self Nevertheless it will probably be here further Objected That this is too great an Arrogance for Created Beings to pretend to an Absolute Certainty of any thing it being the Sole Priviledge and Prerogative of God Almighty to be Infallible who is therefore Styled in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Only Wise To which we briefly answer that the Deity is the first Original Fountain of Truth and Wisdom which is said to be The Brightness of the Everlasting Light the Vnspotted Mirrour of the Power of God and the Image of his Goodness The Divine Word is the Archetypal Pattern of all Truth it is Ignorant of Nothing and knoweth all things Infallibly But Created Beings have but a Derivative Participation hereof their Understandings being Obscure and they Erring in many things and being Ignorant of more And it seems to be no Derogation from Almighty God to suppose that Created Minds by a Participation of the Divine Mind should be able to know Certainly that Two and Two make Four that Equals added to Equals will make Equals that a Whole is greater than the Part and the Cause before the Effect and that nothing can be Made without a Cause and such like other Common Notions which are the Principles from whence all their knowledge is derived And indeed were Rational Creatures never able to be Certain of any such thing as this at all what would their Life be but a meer Dream or Shaddow and themselves but a Ridiculous and Pompous Piece of Phantastick Vanity Besides it is no way Congruous to think that God Almighty should make Rational Creatures so as to be in an utter Impossibility of ever attaining to any Certainty of his own Existence or of having more than an Hypothetical Assurance thereof If our Faculties be True which possibly may be otherwise then is there a God We shall conclude this Discourse against the Cartesian Scepticism with that of Origens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Knowledge is the only thing in the World which Creatures have that is in its own Nature firm they having here something of Certainty but no where else Wherefore we having now that which Archimedes required Some Firm Ground and Footing to stand upon such a Certainty of Truth in our Common Notions as that they cannot Possibly be False without which nothing at all could be proved by Reason we shall in the next place endeavour not to shake or dissettle any thing thereby which was the Undertaking of that Geometrician but to Confirm and Establish the Truth of God's Existence and that from the very Idea of him hitherto made good and defended against all the Assaults of Atheists It is well known that Cartesius hath lately made a Pretence to do this with Mathematical Evidence and Certainty and he dispatches the business briefly after this manner God or a Perfect Being includeth Necessary Existence in his very Idea and therefore he Is. But though the Inventor of this Argument or rather the Reviver of that which had been before used by some Scholasticks affirmeth it to be as Good a Demonstration for the Existence of a God from His Idea as that in Geometry for a Triangles having Three Angles equal to Two right is from the Idea of a Triangle yet nevertheless it is certain that by one means or other this Argument hath not hitherto proved so Fortunate and Successful there being many who cannot be made sensible of any Efficacy therein and not a few who Condemn it for a meer Sophism As for our selves we neither have any mind to quarrel with other mens Arguments Pro Deo nor yet would we be thought to lay stress in this Cause upon any thing which is not every way Solid and Substantial Wherefore we shall here endeavour to set down the Utmost that Possibly we can both Against this Argument and For it Impartially and Candidly and then when we have done leave the Intelligent Readers to make their own Judgement concerning the Same Against it in this manner First Because we can Frame an Idea in our own minds of an Absolutely Perfect Being including Necessary Existence in it it will not at all follow from thence that therefore there is such a Perfect Being Really Existing without our minds we being able to frame in our minds the Ideas of many other things that never were nor will be All that can be certainly inferred from the Idea of a Perfect Being seems to be this that if it contain nothing which is Contradictious to it then it is Not Impossible but that there might be such a Being actually Existing But the strength of this Argument not lying meerly in this that because we have an Idea of a Perfect
is Communicable that is all the Possibilities of things that may be made by it and their respective Truths Mind and Knowledge in the very Nature of it supposing the Actual Existence of an Omnipotent or Infinitely Powerful Being as its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Intelligible It being nothing but the Comprehension of the Extent of Infinite or Divine Power and the Measure of the same And from hence it is Evident also that there can be but One only Original Mind or no more than One Vnderstanding Being Self Existent all other Minds whatsoever Partaking of one Original Mind and being as it were Stamped with the Impression or Signature of one and the same Seal From whence it cometh to pass that all Minds in the several Places and Ages of the World have Ideas or Notions of Things Exactly Alike and Truths Indivisibly the Same Truths are not multiplied by the Diversity of Minds that apprehend them because they are all but Ectypal Participations of one and the same Original or Archetypal Mind and Truth As the same Face may be Reflected in several Glasses and the Image of the same Sun may be in a thousand Eyes at once beholding it and One and the same Voyce may be in a thousand Eares listning to it so when Innumerable Created Minds have the same Ideas of Things and Understand the Same Truths it is but One and the same Eternal Light that is Reflected in them all that Light which enlighteneth Every man that cometh into the World or the same Voyce of that One Everlasting Word that is never Silent Reechoed by them Thus was it concluded by Themistius that one man by Teaching could not Possibly beget in the Mind of another the very same Notions Conceptions and Knowledges which himself had in his own Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Were not the Minds both of the Teacher and of the Learner as it were Printed and Stamped alike As also that men could not Possibly so confer together as they do presently apprehending one anothers meaning and raising up the very Same senses in their Minds and that meerly by Occasion of Words and Sounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Were there not some One Mind which all men did Partake of As for that Anti-Monarchical Opinion of Many Vnderstanding Beings or Minds Self Originated and Independent none of which therefore could be Omnipotent it is neither Conceivable how such should all agree in the same Truths there being no Common Measure of Truth betwixt them no more than any Common Rule of their Wills nor indeed how they should have any Knowledge or Vnderstanding at all properly so called that being the Comprehension of the Possibilities of things or of the Extent of Infinite Power whereas according to this Hypothesis there is no Infinite Power at all the Power of each of those Many supposed Principles or Deities being Limited and Finite and therefore indeed not Creative of any thing neither since that which could Create one thing could Create all and consequently would have all depending upon it We conclude therefore That from the Nature of Mind and Knowledge it is Demonstrable That there can be but One Original and Self-Existent Mind or Vnderstanding Being from which all other Minds were derived And now have we more Copiously than we designed Confuted the First Atheistick Argument we having not only asserted the Idea of God and fully Answered and refelled all the Atheistick Pretences against the same but also from this very Idea of God or a Perfect Being Demonstrated his Existence We shall dispatch the following Atheistick Objections with more brevity WE come in the next place to the Achilles of the Atheists their Invincible Argument against a Divine Creation and Omnipotence because Nothing could come from Nothing It being concluded from hence that whatsoever Substantially or Really Is was from all Eternity Of It Self Unmade or Vncreated by any Deity Or else thus By God is alwayes Understood a Creator of some Real Entity or other out of Nothing but it is an Vndoubted Principle of Reason and Philosophy an Undenyable Common Notion That Nothing can be made out of Nothing and therefore there can be no such Creative Power as this And here we shall perform these Three Things First we shall show That in some Senses this is indeed an Vnquestionable Truth and Common Notion That Nothing can come from Nothing and what those Senses are Secondly We shall make it evident that in the Sense of this Atheistick Objection it is Absolutely False That Nothing can come from Nothing or be made out of Nothing and that a Divine Creation and Omnipotence can be no way Impugned from the forementioned Principle rightly Understood Thirdly and Lastly We shall prove That as from this Principle or Common Notion Nothing out of Nothing there can be no Execution at all done against Theism or a Divine Creation so from the very Same rightly Understood the Impossibility of all Atheism may be Demonstratively Proved it bringing Something out of Nothing in an Impossible Sense as also the Existence of a God Evinced We grant therefore in the First place that this is in some Sense an Vndoubted Principle of Reason or an Vndeniable Common Notion that Nothing can come from Nothing For First it is Unquestionably True That Nothing which once was not could ever Of It self come into Being or That Nothing could bring it Self out of Non-Existence into Being That Nothing can take Beginning of Existence from it Self or That Nothing can be Made or Produced without an Efficient Cause And from hence as hath been already Intimated is it Demonstratively Certain that every thing was not Made but that there is something Necessarily Self Existent and which could not But Be. For had every thing been Made then must something of Necessity have been Made out of Nothing by It Self which is Impossible Again As Nothing which was Not could ever Of It self come into Being or be Made without an Efficient Cause so is it certain likewise that Nothing can be Efficiently Caused or Produced by that which hath not in it at least Equal if not Greater Perfection as also Sufficient Power to Produce the same We say Nothing which was not could ever be brought into Being by that which hath not Formally Equal Perfection in it because Nothing can Give what it hath not and therefore so much of the Perfection or Entity of the Effect as is greater than that of the supposed Cause so much thereof must needs come from Nothing or be made without a Cause Moreover whatsoever hath Equal Perfection to another thing could not therefore Cause or Produce that other thing because it might either have no Active Power at all as Matter hath not it being meerly Passive or else no Sufficient Active and Productive Power As for Example though it be not Impossible That Motion which once was not should be Produced yet is it Impossible that it should be ever Produced without a Sufficient Cause Wherefore
of that Earthy Body into its Elements Certainly it can be no other than this Pneumatical or Spirituous Body which we now speak of For in this are Seated as their Subject the Irascible and Concupiscible Passions and they are inseparable from the same nor could they be in the Soul disunited from all Body And that Soul which is freed from these would be forthwith freed from Generation nor would it be concerned in those Subterraneous Judicatories and Prisons but be carried up aloft to the higher Celestial Regions c. After which he endeavours further to confirm this Opinion from the Vulgar Phaenomena 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Furthermore that there is such a Pneumatical Spirituous Vaporous or Airy Body which accompanieth Souls Vnpurged after Death is evident also from the Phaenomena themselves For what account can otherwise be given of those Spectres or Phantasms which appear Shadow-like about Graves or Sepulchres since the Soul it self is neither of any Figure nor yet at all Visible Wherefore these Ancients say that Impure Souls after their departure out of this Body wander here up and down for a certain space in their Spirituous Vaporous and Airy Body appearing about Sepulchres and haunting their former Habitations For which cause there is great reason that we should take care of Living Well as also of abstaining from a Fouler and Grosser diet these Ancients telling us likewise that this Spirituous Body of ours being fouled and incrassated by Evil Diet is apt to render the Soul in this Life also more Obnoxious to the Disturbances of Passions And here Philoponus goes on to gratifie us with a further Account of some other of the Opinions of these Ancients concerning this Spirituous or Airy Body accompanying the Soul after Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They further add that there is Something of the Plantal and Plastick Life also Exercised by the Soul in those Spirituous or Airy Bodies after Death they being Nourished too though not after the same manner as these Gross Earthy Bodies of ours are here but by Vapours and that not by Parts or Organs but throughout the Whole of them as Sponges they imbibing every where those Vapours For which cause they who are wise will in this Life also take care of using a Thinner and Dryer Diet that so that Spirituous Body which we have also at this present time within our Grosser Body may not be Clogged and Incrassed but Attenuated Over and above which those Ancients made use of Catharms or Purgations to the same end and purpose also For as this Earthy Body is washed by Water so is that Spirituous Body Cleansed by Cathartick Vapours some of these Vapours being Nutritive others Purgative Moreover these Ancients further declared concerning this Spirituous Body that it was not Organized but did the Whole of it in every Part throughout exercise all Functions of Sense the Soul Hearing and Seeing and Perceiving all Sensibles by it every where For which Cause Aristotle himself affirmeth in his Metaphysicks That there is properly but One Sense and but One Sensory He by this One Sensory meaning the Spirit or Subtle Airy Body in which the Sensitive Power doth all of it through the Whole immediately apprehend all Variety of Sensibles And if it be demanded How it comes then to pass that this Spirit appears Organized in Sepulchres and most commonly of Humane Form but sometimes in the Form of some other Animals to this those Ancients Replied That their appearing so frequently in Humane Form proceedeth from their being Incrassated with Evil Diet and then as it were stamped upon with the Form of this Exteriour Ambient Body in which they are as Crystal is Formed and Coloured like to those things which it is fastned in or Reflects the Image of them And that their having sometimes other different Forms proceedeth from the Phantastick Power of the Soul it self which can at pleasure transform this Spirituous Body into any shape For being Airy when it is Condensed and Fixed it becometh Visible and again Invisible and Vanishing out of Sight when it is Expanded and Rarefied Now from these Passages cited out of Philoponus it further appeareth that the Ancient Asserters of the Souls Immortality did not suppose Humane Souls after Death to be quite strip'd Stark Naked from all Body but that the Generality of Souls had then a certain Spirituous Vaporous or Airy Body accompanying them though in different Degrees of Purity or Impurity Respectively to themselves As also that they conceived this Spirituous Body or at least something of it to hang about the Soul also here in this Life before Death as its Interiour Indument or Vestment which also then sticks to it when that other Gross Earthly Part of the Body is by Death put off as an Outer Garment And some have been inclinable to think by reason of certain Historick Phaenomena these Two to be things so distinct that it is not Impossible for this Spirituous Body together with the Soul to be Locally separated from the other Grosser Body for some time before Death and without it And indeed thus much canâ—ot be denied that our Soul Acteth not Immediatly only upon Bones Flesh and Brains and other such like Gross Parts of this Body but first and chiefly upon the Animal Spirits as the Immediate Instruments of Sense and Phancy and that by whose Vigour and Activity the other Heavy and Unwieldy Bulk of the Body is so nimbly Moved And therefore we know no reason but we may assent here to that of Porphyrius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Blood is the Food and Nourishment of the Spirit that is that Subtle Body called the Animal Spirits and that this Spirit is the Vehicle of the Soul or the more Immediate Seat of Life Nevertheless the same Philoponus there addeth that according to these Ancients besides the Terrestial Body and this Spirituous and Airy Body too there is yet a Third kind of Body of a Higher Rank then either of the Former peculiarly belonging to such Souls after Death as are Purged and Cleansed from Corporeal Affections Lusts and Passions called by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A Luciform and Celestial and Ethereal Body The Soul saith he continueth either in the Terrestrial or the Aereal Body so long 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vntil that having Purged it self it be carried aloft and freed from Generation And then doth it put off both the Irascible and Concupisciple Passions at once together with this Second Vehicle or Body which we call Spirituous Wherefore these Ancients say that there is another Heavenly Body always conjoyned with the Soul and Eternal which they call Luciform and Star-like For it being a Mundane thing must of necessity have some Part of the World as a Province allotted to it which it may administer And since it is always Moveable and ought always to Act it must have a
if no Body from Eternity was Ever able to Move it self and yet there must of necessity be some Active Cause of that Motion which is in the World since it could not Cause it self then is there unquestionably some Other Substance besides Body which having a Power of Moving Matter was the First Cause of Motion it Self being Vnmoved Moreover it is certain from hence also That there is another Species of Action distinct from Local Motion and such as is not Heterochinesie but Autochinesie or Self-Activity For since the Local Motion of Body is Essentially Heterochinesie not Caused by the Substance it self Moving but by something else Acting upon it that Action by which Local Motion is First Caused cannot be it self Local Motion but must be Autochinesie or Self-Activity That which is not a Passion from any other Agent but springs from the immediate Agent it self which Species of Action is called Cogitation All the Local Motion that is in the World was First Caused by some Cogitative or Thinking Being which not Acted upon by any thing without it nor at all Locally Moved but only Mentally is the Immoveable Mover of the Heaven or Vortices So that Cogitation is in Order of Nature before Local Motion and Incorporeal before Corporeal Substance the Former having a Natural Imperium upon the Latter And now have we not only Confuted the Ninth Atheistick Argument from Motion but also Demonstrated against the Democritick Atheists from their own Principle that there is an Incorporeal and Cogitative Substance the First Immoveable Mover of the Heavens and Vortices that is an Incorporeal Deity But the Democritick Atheist will yet make a futher Attempt to prove that there can be Nothing Self-Moving or Self-Active and that no Thinking Being could be a First Cause He laying his Foundation in this Principle That Nothing taketh its Beginning from it self but from the Action of some other Agent without it From whence he would infer that Cogitation it self is Heterochinesie the Passion of the Thinker and the Action of something without it no Cogitation ever rising up of it self without a Cause and that Cogitation is indeed Nothing but Local Motion or Mechanism and all Living Vnderstanding Beings Machines Moved from without and then make this Conclusion That therefore no Vnderstanding Being could possibly be a First Cause He further adding also that no Vnderstanding Being as such can be Perfectly Happy neither as the Deity is supposed to be because Dependent upon Something without it and this is the Tenth Atheistick Argumentation Where we shall First consider that which the Democritick Atheist makes his Fundamental Principle or Common Notion to disprove all Autochinesie or Self-Activity by That Nothing taketh Beginning from it self but from the Action of some other thing without it Which Axiom if it be Understood of Substantial Things then is it indeed acknowledged by us to be unquestionably true it being the same with this That No Substance which once was not could ever possibly cause it self or bring it self into Being but must take its Beginning from the Action of something else but then it will make Nothing at all against Theism As it is likewise True That No Action whatsoever and therefore no Cogitation taketh Beginning from it self or causeth it self to be but is always produced by some Substantial Agent but this will no way advantage the Atheist neither Wherefore if he would direct his Force against Theism he ought to understand this Proposition thus That No Action whatsoever taketh Beginning from the Immediate Agent which is the Subject of it but from the Action of some other thing without it or That Nothing can Move or Act otherwise then as it is Moved and Acted upon by something else But this is only to beg the Question or to Prove the thing in Dispute Identically That Nothing is Self-Active because Nothing can Act from it self Whereas it is in the mean time undeniably certain That there could not possibly be any Motion or Action at all in the Universe were there not something Self-Moving or Self-Active for as much as otherwise all that Motion or Action would be a Passion from Nothing and be Made without a Cause And whereas the Atheists would further prove that no Cogitation Taketh its Beginning from the Thinker but always from the Action of some other thing without it after this manner Because it is Conceivable why This Cogitation rather then that should start up at any time were there not some Cause for it without the Thinker Here in the first place we freely grant that our Humane Cogitations are indeed commonly Occasioned by the Incursions of Sensible Objects upon us as also that the Concatenations of those Thoughts and Phantasms in us which are distinguished from Sensations whether we be asleep or awake do many times depend upon Corporeal and Mechanical Causes in the Brain Notwithstanding which that all our Cogitations are Obtruded and Imposed upon us from without and that there is no Transition in our Thoughts at any time but such as had been before in Sense which the Democritick Atheist averrs this is a Thing which we absolutely deny For had we no Mastery at all over our Thoughts but they were all like Tennis Balls Bandied and Struck upon us as it were by Rackets from without then could we not steadily and constantly carry on any Designs and Purposes of Life But on the contrary that of Aristotle's is most true as will be elsewhere further Proved that Man and all Rational Beings are in some sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Principle of Actions subordinate to the Deity which they could not possibly be were they not also a Principle of Cogitations and had some Command over them but these were all as much determined by Causes without as the Motions of the Weathercock are The Rational Soul is it self an Active and Bubling Fountain of Thoughts that perpetual and Restless Desire which is as Natural and Essential to us as our very Life Continually Raising up and Protruding New and New Ones in us which are as it were Offered to us Besides which we have also a further Self Recollective Power and a Power of Determining and Fixing our Mind and Intention upon some certain Objects and of Ranging our Thoughts accordingly But the Atheist is here also to be taught yet a Further Lesson that an Absolutely Perfect Mind such as the Deity is supposed to be doth not as Aristotle writeth of it g d = fo Sometimes Vnderstand and sometime not Vnderstand it being Ignorant of Nothing nor Syllogizing about any thing but comprehending all Intelligibles with their Relations and Verities at once within it self and its Essence and Energie being the same Which Notion if it be above the Dull Capacity of Atheists who measure all Perfection by their own Scantling this is a thing that We cannot help But as for that Prodigious Paradox of Atheists that Cogitation it self is nothing but Local Motion or Mechanism we
the Regurgitation of the Faeces upward towards the Ventricle The First Atheistick Instance of the Faultiness of things in the Frame of Nature is from the Constitution of the Heavens and the Disposition of the Aequator and Ecliptick intersecting each other in an Angle of Three and Twenty Degrees and upwards whereby as they pretend the Terrestrial Globe is rendred much more Uninhabitable than otherwise it might be But this is built upon a False Supposition of the Ancients that the Torrid Zone or all between the Tropicks was utterly Uninhabitable by reason of the Extremity of Heat And it is certain that there is nothing which doth more demonstrate a Providence than this very thing it being the most Convenient Site or Disposition that could be devised as will appear if the Inconveniences of other Dispositions be considered especially these Three First If the Axes of those Circles should be Parallel and their Plains Coincident Secondly If they should Intersect each other in Right Angles and Thirdly which is a Middle betwixt both If they should cut one another in an Angle of Forty Five Degrees For it is evident that each of these Dispositions would be attended with far greater Inconveniences to the Terrestrial Inhabitants in respect of the Length of Days and Nights Heat and Cold. And that these two Circles should continue thus to keep the same Angular Intersection when Physical and Mechanick Causes would bring them still nearer together this is a farther Eviction of a Providence also In the next place the Atheist supposes that according to the general Perswasion of Theists the world and all things therein were Created only for the Sake of Man he thinking to make some advantage for his Cause from hence But this seemeth at first to have been an Opinion only of some strait-laced Stoicks though afterward indeed recommended to others also by their own Self-love their Over Weaning and Puffy Conceit of themselves And so Fleas and Lice had they Understanding might conclude the Bodies of other greater Animals and Men also to have been made only for them But the Whole was not properly made for any Part but the Parts for the Whole and the Whole for the Maker thereof And yet may the things of this Lower World be well said to have been Mâ—de Principally though not Only for Man For we ought not to Monopolize the Divine Goodness to our selves there being other Animals Superiour to us that are not altogether Unconcerned neither in this Visible Creation and it being reasonable to think that Even the Lower Animals likewise and whatsoever hath Conscious Life was made partly also to Enjoy it self But Atheists can be no Fit Judges of Worlds being made Well or Ill either in general or respectively to Mankind they having no Standing Measure for Well and Ill without a God and Morality nor any True Knowledge of themselves and what their own Good or Evil Consisteth in That was at first but a Froward Speech of some sullen discontented Persons when things falling not out agreeably to their own Private Selfish and Partial Appetites they would Revenge themselves by Railing upon Nature that is Providence and calling her a Stepmother only to Mankind whilst she was a Fond Partial and Indulgent Mother to other Animals and though this be Elegantly set off by Lucretius yet is there nothing but Poetick Flourish in it all without any Philosophick Truth The Advantages of Mankind being so notoriously conspicuous above those of Brutes But as for Evils in general from whence the Atheist would conclude the God of the Theist to be either Impotent or Envious it hath been already declared that the True Original of them is from the Necessity of Imperfect Beings and the Incompossibility of things but that the Divine Art and Skill most of all appeareth in Bonifying these Evils and making them like Discords in Musick to contribute to the Harmony of the Whole and the Good of Particular Persons Moreover a great part of those Evils which men are afflicted with is not from the Reality of Things but only from their own Phancy and Opinions according to that of the Moralist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not Things themselves that disturb men but only their Own Opinions concerning things and therefore it being much in our own Power to be freed from these Providence is not to be Blamed upon the account of them Pain is many times nearly linked with Pleasure according to that Socratick Fable That when God could not reconcile their Contrary Natures as he would he Tyed them Head and Tayl together And good men know that Pain is not the Evil of the Man but only of the Part so affected as Socrates also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It goes no further than the Leg where it is But this is many times very Serviceable to free us from the Greater Evils of the Mind upon which all our Happiness dependeth To the Atheists who acknowledge no Malum Culpae No Evil of Fault Turpitude or Dishonesty Death is the Greatest and most Tragical of all Evils But though this according to their forlorn Hypothesis be nothing less than an Absolute Extinction of Life yet according to the Doctrine of the Genuine Theists which makes all Souls Substantial no Life of it self without Divine Annihilation will ever quite Vanish into Nothing any more than the Substance of Matter doth And the Ancient Pythagoreans and Platonists have been here so Kind even to the Souls of Brutes also as that they might not be left in a State of Inactivity and Insensibility after Death as to bestow upon them certain Subtle Bodies which they may then continue to Act in Nor can we think otherwise but that Aristotle from this Fountain derived that Doctrine of his in his Second Book De Gen. An. c. 3. where after he had declared the Sensitive Soul to be Inseparable from Body he addeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Souls therefore seem to have another Body and Diviner than that of the Elements and as themselves differ in Dignity and Nobility so do these Bodies of theirs differ from one another And afterwards calling this Subtle Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Spirit he affirmeth it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Analogous to the Element of the Stars Only as Galen and S. Austin and others have conceived Aristotle deviated here from the Pythagoreans in this that he supposed the Sensitive Soul it self to be really nothing else but this Very Subtle and Star-like Body and not a distinct Substance from it using it only as a Vehicle Nevertheless he there plainly affirmeth the Mind or Rational Soul to be really distinct from the Body and to come into it From Without Pre-Existing and consequently should acknowledge also its After-Immortality But whatsoever Aristotles Judgment were which is not very Material it is Certain that Dying to the Rational or Humane Soul is nothing but a withdrawing into the Tyring-house and putting off the Clothing of this Terrestrial Body
Co-Extended with its Rayes and Light it would see and perceive every Atom of Matter that it s out stretched Beams reached to and touched Now all Created Beings are themselves in some sense but the Rayes of the Deity which therefore cannot but Feel and Sensibly Perceive all these its own Effluxes and Emanations Men themselves can order and manage Affairs in several distant Places at once without any Disturbance and we have innumerable Notions of things in our Mind that lie there easily together without Crowding one another or Causing any Distraction to us Nevertheless the Minds of weak Mortals may here be somewhat eased and helped by considering what hath been before suggested That there is no necessity God Almighty should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do all things himself Immediately and Drudgingly but he may have his Inferiour Ministers and Executioners under him to discharge him of that Supposed Encumberment As First of all an Artificial Plastick Nature which without Knowledge and Animal Consciousness disposes the Matter of the Universe according to the Platform or Idea of a Perfect Mind and forms the Bodies of all Animals And this was the Reason why we did before insist so much upon this Artificial Regular and Methodical Nature namely that Divine Providence might neither be excluded from having an Influence upon all things in this Lower World as resulting only from the Fortuitous Motions of Sensless Matter unguided by any Mind nor yet the Deity be supposed to do every thing it self Immediatly and Miraculously without the Subservient Ministery of any Natural Causes which would seem to us Mortals to be not only a Violent but also an Operose Cumbersom and Moliminous Business And thus did Plato acknowledge that there were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Certain Causes of a Prudent that is Artificial and Orderly Nature which God makes use of as Subservient to himself in the Mundane Oeconomy Besides which those Instincts also impressed upon Animals and which they are Passive to directing them to Act for Ends either not understood or not attended to by them in order to their own Good and the Good of the Universe are another part of that Divine Fate which inserted into things themselves is the Servant and Executioner of Providence Above all which there are yet other Knowing and Vnderstanding Ministers of the Deity as its Eyes and Hands Demoniack or Angelick Beings appointed to preside over Mankind all Mundane Affairs and the Things of Nature they having their several distinct Offices and Provinces assigned them Of which also Plato thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are certain Rulers or Presidents appointed by that Supreme God who Governs the whole world over all the several things and Parts therein even to the smallest Distribution of them All which Inferiour Causes are constantly over looked and supervised by the Watchful Eye of God Almighty himself who may also sometimes Extraordinarily Interpose We need not therefore restrain and confine Divine Providence to a Few Greater things only as some do that we may thereby consult the ease of the Deity and its Freedom from Distraction but may and ought to Extend it to all things whatsoever Small as well as Great And indeed the Great things of the World cannot well be ordered neither without some regard to the Small and Little 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As Architects affirm that great stones cannot be well placed together in a Building without little Neither can Generals of Armies nor Governours of Families nor Masters of Ships nor Mechanick Artificers discharge their several Functions and do their Works respectively as they ought did they not mind the Small things also as well as the Great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the forementioned Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us not therefore make God Almighty Inferiour to Mortal Opificers who by one and the same Art can order Small things as well as Great and so suppose him to be Supine and negligent Nevertheless the Chief Concernment and Employment of Divine Providence in the World is the Oeconomy of Souls or Government of Rational Beings which is by Plato contracted into this Compendium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. There is no other work left for the Supreme Governour of all then only to Translate Better Souls into Better places and Conditions and Worser into Worser or as he after addeth to dispose of every one in the world in such a manner as might best render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue victorious and triumphant over Vice And thus may the slow and Imperfect wits of Mortals be satisfied that Providence to the Deity is no Moliminous Laborious and Distractious thing But that there is no higher Spring of Life in Rational Animals than Contracted Self Love and that all Good Will and Benevolence arises only from Indigency and Imbecillity and That no Being whatsoever is concerned in the welfare of any other thing but only what it self stands in Need of and Lastly therefore That what is Irresistibly Powerful and Needs nothing would have no manner of Benevolence nor concern it self in the Good and Welfare of any thing whatsoever This is but another Idol of the Atheists Den and only argues their Bad Nature Low-sunck Minds and Gross Immorality And the same is to be said also of that other Maxim of theirs That what is perfectly Happy would have nothing at all To Do but only enjoy its own Ease and Quiet whereas there is nothing more troublesome to our selves than this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this having Nothing to Do and the Activity of the Deity or a Perfect Being is altogether as Easie to it as its Essence The Atheistick Queries come next to be Answered which being but Three are Naturally to be disposed in this order First If there were a God or Perfect Being who therefore was sufficiently Happy in the enjoyment of himself Why would he go about to make a World Secondly If he must needs make a World why did he not make it sooner this Late production thereof looking as if he had but newly awaked out out of a long sleep throughout Infinite Past Ages or else had in length of time contracted a Satiety of his Solitude Thirdly and Lastly What Tools or Instruments what Machines or Engines had be or How could he move the Matter of the whole world especially if Incorporeal because then he would run through all things and could not lay hold nor fasten upon any thing To the First therefore we say That the reason why God made the World was from his own Overflowing and Communicative Goodness that there might be other Beings also Happy besides him and enjoy themselves Nor does this at all clash with God's making of the world for his own Glory and Honour though Plotinus were so shy of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is ridiculous to say that God made the world that he might be Honoured this being to transfer the affections of humane Artificers and Statuaries upon him
by perfect Art and Wisedome This Atheistick Fanaticism Page 675 676 No more Possible That Dead and Sensless Matter Fortuitously Moved should at length be Taught and Necessitated by it self to produce this Artificial System of the World then that a dozen or more Persons unskilled in Musick and striking the Strings as it Happened should at length be Taught and Necessitated to fall into Exquisite Harmony Or that the Letters in the Writings of Plato and Aristotle though having so much Philosophick Sense should have been all Scribbled at randome More Philosophy in the Great Volume of the World then in all Aristotle's and Plato's Works and more of Harmony then in any Artificial Composition of Vocall Musick That the Divine Art and Wisedom hath printed such a Signature of it self upon the Matter of the Whole World as Fortune and Chance could never Counterfeit Page 676 677 But in the next place the Atheists will for all this undertake to Demonstrate That things could not Possibly be made by any Intending Cause for Ends and Uses as Eyes for Seeing Ears for Hearing from hence Because things were all in Order of Time as well as Nature before their Uses This Argument seriously propounded by Lucretius in this manner If Eyes were made for the Use of Seeing then of necessity must Seeing have been before Eyes But there was no Seeing before Eyes Therefore could not Eyes be made for the sake of Seeing Page 677 678 Evident that the Logick of these Atheists differs from that of all other Mortalls according to which the End for which any thing is designedly made is onely in Intention First but in Execution Last True that Men are Commonly excited from Experience of things and Sense of their Wants to Excogitate Means and Remedies but it doth not therefore follow that the Maker of the World could not have a Preventive Knowledge of whatsoever would be Usefull for Animals and so make them Bodies Intentionally for those Vses That Argument ought to be thus framed Whatsoever is made Intentionally for any End as the Eye for that of Seeing that End must needs be in the Knowledge and Intention of the Maker before the Actual Existence of that which is made for it But there could be no Knowledge of Seeing before there were Eyes Therefore Eyes could not be made Intentionally for the sake of Seeing Page 678 This the True Scope of the Premised Atheistick Argument however disguised by them in the first Propounding The Ground thereof Because they take it for granted That all Knowledge is derived from Sense or from the Things Known Pre-Existing without the Knower And here does Lucretius Triumph The Controversy therefore at last resolved into this Whether all Knowledge be in its own Nature Junior to Things for if so it must be Granted that the World could not be Made by any Antecedent Knowledge But this afterwards fully Confuted and Proved That Knowledge is not in its own Nature Ectypall but Archetypall and that Knowledge was Older then the World and the Maker thereof Page 679 But Atheists will Except against the Proving of a God from the Regular and Artificiall frame of things That it is unreasonable to think there should be no Cause in Nature for the Common Phaenomena thereof but a God thus Introduced to salve them Which also to suppose the world Bungled and Botcht up That Nature is the Cause of Naturall things Which Nature doth not Intend nor Act for Ends. Wherefore the Opinion of Finall Causality for things in Nature but an Idolum Specûs Therefore rightly banished by Democritus out of Physiology Page 679 680 The Answer Two Extreams here to be avoided One of the Atomick Atheists who derive all things from the Fortuitous Motion of Sensless Matter Another of Bigoticall Religionists who will have God to doe all things Himself Immediately without any Nature The Middle betwixt both That there is not onely a Mechanicall and Fortuitous but also an Artificiall Nature Subservient to the Deity as the Manuary Opificer and Drudging Executioner thereof True that some Philosophers have absurdly attributed their own Properties or Animal Idiopathies to Inanimate Bodies Nevertheless this no Idol of the Cave or Den to suppose the System of the World to have been framed by an Understanding Being according to whose Direction Nature though not it self Intending Acteth Balbus his Description of this Artificiall Nature in Cicero That there could be no Mind in us were there none in the Universe That of Aristotle True That there is more of Art in some things of Nature then in any thing Made by Men. Now the Causes of Artificiall things as a House or Clock cannot be declared without Intention for Ends. This Excellently pursued by Aristotle No more can the Things of Nature be rightly Vnderstood or the Causes of them fully Assigned meerly from Matter and Motion without Intention or Mind They who banish Finall or Mentall Causality from Philosophy look upon the Things of Nature with no other Eyes then Oxen and Horses Some pitifull Attempts of the Ancient Atheists to salve the Phaenomena of Animals without Mentall Causality Democritus and Epicurus so cautious as never to pretend to give an Account of the Formation of the Foetus Aristotle's Judgement here to be Preferred before that of Democritus Page 680 683 But nothing more Strange then that these Atheists should be justified in this their Ignorance by Professed Theists and Christians who Atomizing likewise in their Physiology contend that this whole Mundane System resulted onely from the Necessary and Unguided Motion of Matter either Turned Round in a Vortex or Jumbled in a Chaos without the Direction of any Mind These Mechanick Theists more Immodest then the Atomick Atheists themselves they supposing these their Atoms though Fortuitously moved yet never to have produced any Inept System or Incongruous Forms but from the very first all along to have Ranged themselves so Orderly as that they could not have done it better had they been directed by a Perfect Mind They quite take away that Argument for a God from the Phaenomena and that Artificiall Frame of things leaving onely some Metaphysicall Arguments which though never so good yet by reason of their Subtlety cannot doe so much Execution The Atheists Gratified to see the Cause of Theism thus betrayed by its professed Friends and the Grand Argument for the same totally Slurred by them Page 683 684 As this Great Insensibility of Mind to look upon the Things of Nature with no other Eyes then Brute Animals do so are there Sundry Phaenomena partly Above the Mechanick Powers and partly Contrary to the same which therefore can never be Salved without Mentall and Finall Causality As in Animals the Motion of the Diaphragma in Respiration the Systole and Diastole of the Heart Being a Muscular Constriction and Relaxation To which might be added others in the Macrocosm as the Intersection of the Planes of the Equator and Ecliptick or the Earth's Diurnall Motion upon an Axis not
Parallell with that of its Annual Cartesius his Confession that according to Mechanick Principles these should continually come nearer and nearer together which since they have not done Finall or Mentall Causality here to be acknowledged and because it was Best it should be so But the Greatest Phaenomenon of this kind the Formation and Organization of Animals which these Mechanists never able to give any Account of Of that Posthumous Piece of Cartesius De la Formation Du Foetus Page 684 685 Pretended That to assign Finall Causes is to presume our selves to be as Wise as God Almighty or to be Privy to his Counsells But the Question not Whether we can always reach to the Ends of God Almighty or know what is Absolutely Best in every Case and accordingly Conclude things therefore to be so but Whether any thing in the World be made for Ends otherwise then would have resulted from the Fortuitous Motion of Matter No Presumption nor Intrusion into the Secrets of God Almighty to say that Eyes were made by him Intentionally for the sake of Seeing Anaxagoras his Absurd Aphorism That Man was therefore the most Solert of all Animals because he Chanced to have Hands Far more Reasonable to think as Aristotle concludeth That because Man was the wisest of all Animals therefore he had Hands given him More proper to give Pipes to one that hath Musicall skill then upon him that hath Pipes to bestow Musicall skill Page 685 In the Last place The Mechanick Theists Pretend and that with some more plausibility That it is below the Dignity of God Almighty to perform all those Mean and Triviall Offices of Nature Himself Immediatly This Answered again That though the Divine Wisedom it Self Contrived the System of the whole for Ends yet is there an Artificial Nature under him as his Inferiour Minister and Executioner Proclus his Description hereof This Nature to Proclus a God or Goddess but onely as the Bodies of the Animated Stars were called Gods because the Statues of the Gods Page 685 686 That we cannot otherwise Conclude concerning these Mechanick Theists who derive all things in the Mundane System from the Necessary Motions of Sensless Matter without the Direction of any Mind or God but that they are Imperfect Theists or have a certain Tang of the Atheistick Enthusiasm the Spirit of Infidelity hanging about them Page 687 But these Mechanick Theists Counterbalanc'd by another sort of Atheists not Fortuitous nor Mechanicall namely the Hylozoists who acknowledge the works of Nature to be the works of Understanding and deride Democritus his Rough and Hooky Atoms devoid of Life they attributing Life to all Matter as such and concluding the Vulgar Notion of a God to be but an Inadequate Conception of Matter its Energetick Nature being taken alone by it self as a Compleat Substance These Hylozoists never able to satisfy that Phaenomenon of the One Agreeing and Conspiring Harmony throughout the whole Universe every Atom of Matter according to them being a Distinct Percipient and these Vnable to confer Notions with One another Page 687 Nor can the other Cosmo-Plastick Atheists to whom the whole World but one Huge Plant or Vegetable Endued with a Spermatick Artificiall Nature Orderly disposing the whole without Sense or Understanding doe any thing towards the Salving of This or any other Phaenomena it being Impossible That there should be any such Regular Nature otherwise then as Derived from and Depending on a Perfect Mind ibid. Besides these Three Phaenomena of Cogitation Motion and the Artificial Frame of things with the Conspiring Harmony of the Whole no way Salvable by Atheists Here further Added That those who asserted the Novity of the World could not possibly give an Account neither of the First Beginning of Men and other Animals not now Generated out of Putrefaction Aristotle sometimes doubtfull and staggering concerning the World's Eternity Men and all other Animals not produced at first by Chance either as Worms out of Putrefaction or out of Eggs or Wombs growing out of the Earth Because no Reason to be given why Chance should not as well produce the same out of the Earth still Epicurus his vain Pretence that the Earth as a Child-bearing Woman was now grown Effete and Barren Moreover Men and Animals whether first Generated out of Putrefaction or excluded out of Wombs or Egge-shells supposed by these Atheists themselves to have been produced in a Tender Infant-like State so that they could neither supply themselves with nourishment nor defend themselves from harms A Dream of Epicurus That the Earth sent forth streams of Milk after those her New-born Infants and Nurslings Confuted by Critolaus in Philo. Another Precarious Supposition or Figment of Epicurus That then no immoderate Heats nor Colds nor any blustering Winds Anaximander's way of Salving this Difficulty That Men were first generated and nourished in the bellies of Fishes till able to shift for themselves and then disgorged upon dry land Atheists swallow any thing rather then a God Page 688 689 Wherefore here being Dignus Vindice Nodus a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reasonably introduced in the Mosaick Cabbala to solve the same It appearing from all Circumstances put together that this whole Phaenomenon surpasses not onely the Mechanick but also the Plastick Powers there being much of Discretion therein However not denied but that the Ministery of Spirits Created before Man and other Terrestrial Animals might be here made use of As in Plato after the Creation of Immortal Souls by the Supreme God the Framing of Mortal Bodies is committed to Junior Gods Page 689 690 Furthermore Atheists no more able to Salve that ordinary Phaenomenon of the Conservation of Species by the Difference of Sexes and a due Proportion of Number kept up between Males and Females Here a Providence also Superiour as well to the Plastick as Mechanick Nature ibid. Lastly Other Phaenomena as Real though not Physical which Atheists cannot possibly Salve and therefore do commonly Deny as of Natural Justice or Honesty and Obligation the Foundation of Politicks and the Mathematicks of Religion And of Liberty of Will not onely That of Fortuitous Self-determination when an equal Eligibility of Objects but also That which makes men deserve Commendation and Blame These not commonly distinguished as they Ought Epicurus his endeavour to Salve Liberty of Will from Atoms Declining Vncertainly from the Perpendicular meer Madness and Frenzy Page 690 691 And now have we already Preventively Confuted the Third Atheistick Pretence to Salve the Phaenomenon of Theism from the Fiction and Imposture of Politicians we having proved That Philosophy and the true Knowledg of Causes inferre the Existence of a God Nevertheless this to be here further Answered Page 691 That States-men and Politicians could not have made such use of Religion as sometimes they have done had it been a meer Cheat and Figment of their own Civil Sovereigns in all the distant places of the World could not have so universally conspired in this one
Piece of State-craft or Cozenage nor yet have been able to possess the Minds of men every-where with such a constant Awe and Dread of an Invisible Nothing The World would long since have discovered this Cheat and suspected a Plot upon their Liberty in the Fiction of a God at least Governours themselves would have understood it many of which notwithstanding as much awed with the Fear of this Invisiblâ— Nothing as any Others Other Cheats and Juggles when once Detected no longer Practised But Religion now as much in Credit as ever though so long since Decried by Atheists for a Political Cheat. That Christianity a Religion Founded in no Humane Policy prevailed over the Craft and Power of all Civill Sovereigns and Conquered the Persecuting World by suffering Deaths and Martyrdoms This Presignified by the Prophetick Spirit Page 691 692 Had the Idea of God been an Arbitrarious Figment not conceivable hâ—w men should have universally agreed in the same and the Attributes belonging thereunto This Argument used by Sextus Nor that Civil Sovereigns themselves should so universally have Jumped in it Page 692 693 Furthermore Not Conceivable how this Thought or Idea of a God should have been Formed by any had it been the Idea of Nothing The Superficialness of Atheists in Pretending that Politicians by telling men of Such a thing put the Idea into their Minds No Notions or Idea's put into mens minds by Words but onely the Phantasms of the Sounds Though all Learning be not Remembrance yet is all Humane Teaching but Maieutical or Obstetricious not the Filling of the Soul as a Vessel by Pouring into it from without but the Kindling of it from within Words signifie nothing to him that cannot raise up within himself the Notions or Idea's correspondent to them However the Difficulty still remains How States-men themselves or the first Inventer of this Cheat could have framed any Notion at all of a Non-Entity Page 693 694 Here the Atheists Pretend That there is a Feigning Power in the Soul whereby it can make Idea's and Conceptions of Non-Entities as of a Golden Mountain or a Centaur and that by this an Idea of God might be framed though there be no such Thing Answer That all the Feigning Power of the Soul consisteth onely in Compounding Idea's of things that Really Exist Apart but not in that Conjunction The Mind cannot make any New Conceptive Cogitation which was not Before as the Painter or Limner cannot Feign Colours Moreover the whole of these Fictitious Idea's though it have no Actual yet hath it a Possible Entity The Deity it Self though it could Create a World out of Nothing yet can it not Create more Cogitation or Conception then Is or was always contained in its own Mind from Eternity nor frame a Positive Idea of that which hath no Possible Entity Page 694 695 The Idea of God no Compilement or Aggregation of things that Exist Severally apart in the World because then it would be a meer Arbitrarious thing and what Every one Pleased the contrary whereunto hath been before manifested Page 695 Again Some Attributes of the Deity nowhere else to be found in the whole World and therefore must be Absolute Non-Entities were there no God Here the Painter must Feign Colours and Create New Cogitation out of Nothing ibid. Lastly Vpon Supposition That there is no God it is Impossible not onely that there should be any for the Future but also that there should ever have been any whereas all Fictitious Idea's must have a Possible Entity since otherwise they would be Unconceivable and No Idea's ibid. Wherefore some Atheists will further Pretend That besides this Power of Compounding things together the Soul hath another Ampliating or Amplifying Power by both which together though there be no God Existing nor yet Possible the Idea of him might be Fictitiously Made those Attributes which are nowhere else to be found arising by way of Amplification or Augmentation of Something found in Men. Page 695 696 Answer First That according to the Principles of these Atheists that all our Conceptions are nothing but Passions from Objects without there cannot Possibly be any such Amplifying Power in the Soul whereby it could make More then Is. Thus Protagoras in Plato No man can Conceive any thing but what he suffers Here also as Sextus Intimateth the Atheists guilty of that Fallacy called a Circle or Diallelus For having First undiscernedly made the Idea of Imperfection from Perfection they then goe about again to make the Idea of Perfection out of Imperfection That men have a Notion of Perfection by which as a Rule they Judge things to be Imperfect Evident from that Direction given by all Theologers To Conceive of God in way of Remotion or Abstraction of all Imperfection Lastly Finite Things added together can never make up Infinite as more and more Time backward can never reach to Eternity without Beginning God differs from Imperfect things not in Degree but Kind As for Infinite Space said to consist of Parts Finite we certain of no more then this that the Finite World might have been made Bigger and Bigger Infinitely for which very Cause it could never be Actually Infinite Gassendus his Objection That the Idea of an Infinite God might as well be Feigned as that of Infinite Worlds But Infinite Worlds are but Words or Notions ill Put together or Combined Infinity being a Real Thing in Nature but Misapplied it being Proper onely to the Deity Page 696 697 The Conclusion That since the Soul can neither Make the Idea of Infinite by Amplification of Finite nor Feign or Create any New Cogitation which was not before nor make a Positive Idea of a Non-Entity certain that the Idea of God no Fictitious Thing Page 697 Further made Evident That Religion not the Figment of Civil Sovereigns Obligation in Conscience the Foundation of all Civil Right and Authority Covenants without this Nothing but Words and Breath Obligation not from Laws neither but before them or otherwise they could not Oblige Lastly This derived not from Utility neither Were Obligation to Civil Obedience Made by mens Private Utility then could it be Dissolved by the Same Wherefore if Religion a Fiction or Imposture Civil Sovereignty must needs be so too Page 697 698 Had Religion been a Fiction of Politicians they would then have made it every way Pliable and Flexible since otherwise it would not Serve their Turn nor consist with their Infinite Right Page 698 But Religion in its own Nature a Stiff Inflexible thing as also Justice it being not Factitious or Made by Will There may therefore be a Contradiction betwixt the Laws of God and of Men and in this case does Religion conclude That God ought to be Obeyed rather then Men. For this Cause Atheistick Politicians of Latter times declare against Religion as Inconsistent with Civil Sovereignty It destroying Infinite Right Introducing Private Judgment or Conscience and a Fear Greater then that of the Leviathan
be a Modification of Sensless Matter or Result from Figures Sites Motions and Magnitudes Humane Souls Substantiall and therefore according to this Doctrine must have been Never Made whereas Atheists stifly deny both their Prae and Post-Existence Those Pagan Theists who held the Eternity of Humane Minds supposed them notwithstanding to have Depended upon the Deity as their Cause Before Proved That there can be but One Understanding Being Self-Existent If Humane Souls Depend upon the Deity as their Cause then Doubtless Matter also Page 749 750 A Common but Great Mistake That no Pagan Theist ever acknowledged any Creative Power out of Nothing or else That God was the Cause of any Substance Plato's Definition of Effective Power in General and his Affirmation That the Divine Efficiency is that whereby things are Made after they had Not been Certain That he did not understand this of the Production of Souls out of Matter he supposing them to be Before Matter and therefore Made by God out of Nothing Prae-Existing All Philosophers who held the Immortality and Incorporeity of the Soul asserted it to have been Caused by God either in Time or from Eternity Plutarch's Singularity here Vnquestionable That the Platonists supposed One Substance to receive its whole Being from Another in that they derive their Second Hypostasis or Substance though Eternal from the First and their Third from Both and all Inferiour Ranks of Beings from all Three Plotinus Porphyrius Iamblichus Hierocles Proclus and Others derived Matter from the Deity Thus the Chaldee Oracles and the old Egyptian or Hermaick Theology also according to Iamblichus Those Platonists who supposed the World and Souls Eternal conceived them to have received their Being as much from the Deity as if Made in Time Page 750 752 Having now Disproved this Proposition Nothing out of Nothing in the Atheistick Sense viz. That no Substance was Caused or Derived its Being from Another but whatsoever is Substantial did Exist Of It self from Eternity Independently we are in the next place to make it appear also That were it True it would no more oppose Theism then it doth Atheism Falshoods though not Truths may Disagree Plutarch the Stoicks and Others who made God the Creatour of no Substance though not Genuine yet Zealous Theists But the Ancient Atheists both in Plato and Aristotle Generated and Corrupted All things that is Produced All things out of Nothing or Non-Existence and Reduced them into Nothing again the bare Substance of Matter onely Excepted The same done by the Democritick and Epicurean Atheists themselves the Makers of this Objection though according to the Principles of their own Atomick Physiology it is Impossible that Life and Unerstanding Soul and Mind should be meer Modifications of Matter As Theists give a Creative Power of All out of Nothing to the Deity so do Atheists to Passive and Dead Mattâ—r Wherefore this can be no Argument against Theism it Equally opposing Atheism Page 752 756 An Anacephalaeosis wherein Observable That Cicero makes De Nihilo fieri and Sine Causa To be made out of Nothing and to be made without a Cause One and the Self-same thing as also that he doth not Confine this to the Material Cause onely Our Third and Last Undertaking To Prove that Atheists Produce Real Entities out of Nothing in the First Impossible Sense that is Without a Cause Page 756 757 A Brief Synopsis of Atheism That Matter being the onely Substance is therefore the onely Un-made Thing and That whatsoever else is in the World besides the Bare Substance thereof was Made out of Matter or Produced from that alone Page 757 The First Argument When Atheists affirm Matter to be the onely Substance and all things to be Made out of that they Suppose all to be Made without an Efficient Cause which is to bring them from Nothing in an Impossible Sense Though Something may be Made without a Material Cause Prae-Existing yet cannot any thing Possibly be Made without an Efficient Cause Wherefore if there be any thing Made which was Not before there must of Necessity be besides Matter some other Substance as the Active Efficient Cause thereof The Atheistick Hypothesis supposes Things to be Made without any Active or Effective Principle Whereas the Epicurean Atheists Attribute the Efficiency of all to Local Motion and yet deny Matter or Body their onely Substance a Self-moving Power They hereby make all the Motion that is in the World to have been Without a Cause or to Come from Nothing all Action without an Agent all Efficiency without an Efficient Page 758 Again Should we grant these Atheists Motion without a Cause yet could not Dead and Sensless Matter together with Motion ever beget Life Sense and Understanding because this would be Something out of Nothing in way of Causality Local Motion onely Châ—nging the Modifications of Matter as Figure Place Site and Disposition of Parts Hence also those Spurious Theists Confuted who Conclude God to have done no more in the Making of the World then a Carpenter doth in the Building of a House upon this Pretence That Nothing can be made out of Nothing and yet suppose him to Make Souls out of Dead and Sensless Matter which is to bring them from Nothing in way of Causality Page 758 759 Declared before That the Ancient Italicks and Pythagoricks Proved in this manner That Souls could not possibly be Generated out of Matter because Nothing can come from Nothing in way of Causality The Subterfuge of the Atheistick Ionicks out of Aristotle That Matter being the onely Substance and Life Sense and Unâ—erstanding Nothing but the Passions Affections and Dispositions thereof the Production of them out of Matter no Production of any new Reall Entity Page 759 Answer Atheists taking it for granted That there is no other Substance besides Body or Matter therefore falsly conclude Life Sense and Understanding to be Accidents or Modes of Matter they being indeed the Modes or Attributes of Substance Incorporeal and Self-Active A Mode That which cannot be Conceived without the Thing whereof it is a Mode but Life and Cogitation may be Conceived without Corporeal Extension and indeed cannot be Conceived with it Page 759 760 The chief Occasion of this Errour from Qualities and Forms as Because the Quality of Heat and Form of Fire may be Generated out of Matter therefore Life Cogitation and Understanding also But the Atomick Atheists themselves Explode Qualities as things Really distinct from the Figure Site and Motion of Parts for this very reason Because Nothing can be made out of Nothing Causally The Vulgar Opinion of such Real Qualities in Bodies onely from mens mistaking their own Phancies Apparitions Passions Affections and Seemings for things Really Existing without them That in these Qualities which is distinct from the Figure Site and Motion of Parts not the Accidents and Modifications of Matter but of Our own Souls The Atomick Atheists infinitely Absurd when exploding Qualities because Nothing can come out
of Nothing themselves bring Life Sense and Understanding out of Nothing in way of Causality That Opinion Thâ—t Cogitation is Nothing but Local Motion and Men themselves meer Machines Prodigious Sottishness or Intolerable Impudence Page 760 762 Very Observable here That Epicurus himself having a Mind to assert Contingent Liberty confesseth that he could not doe this unlesse there were some such thing in the Principles because Nothing can be made out of Nothing or Caused by Nothing and therefâ—re does he Ridiculously feign a Third Motion of Atoms to salve that Phaenomenon of Free-Will Wherefore he must needs be guilty of an Impossible Production of Something out of Nothing when he brings Soul and Mind out of Dead and Sensless Atoms Were there no Substantial and Eternal Life and Understanding in the Universe there could none have been ever Produced because it must have come from Nothing or been Made without a Cause That Dark Philosophy which Educes not onely Real Qualities and Substantial Forms but also Souls themselves at least Sensitive out of the Power of the Matter Educes them Out of Nothing or Makes them without a Cause and so prepares a direct way to Atheism Page 762 763 They who suppose Matter otherwise then by Motion and by a kind of Miraculous Efficiency to Produce Souls and Minds attribute that Creative Power to this Sensless and Unactive Matter which themselves deny to a Perfect Being as an Absolute Impossibility Thus have we Demonstrated the Impossibility and Nonsense of all Atheism from this very Principle That Nothing can be made from Nothing or without a Sufficient Cause Page 763 764 Wherefore If no Middle betwixt these Two but all things must either Spring from a God or Matter Then is this also a Demonstration of the Truth of Theism by Deduction to Impossible Either there is a God or else all things are derived from Dead and Sensless Matter But this Latter is Impossible Therefore a God Nevertheless that the Existence of a God may be further Directly Proved also from the same Principle rightly understood Nothing out of Nothing Causally or Nothing Caused by Nothing neither Efficiently nor Materially Page 764 By these Steps First That there was never Nothing but Something or other did Exist Of It Self from Eternity Vn-made and Independently upon any thing else Mathematically Certain from this Principle Nothing from Nothing Had there been once Nothing there could never have been Anything Again Whatsoever did Exist Of It Self from Eternity must have so Existed Necessarily and not by any Free-Will and Choice Certain therefore That there is Something Actually in Being whose Existence Is and always Was Necessary Now that which Exists Necessarily Of It Self must have Necessity of Existence in its Nature which Nothing but a Perfect Being hath Therefore there Is a Perfect Being and Nothing Else besides this did Exist Of It Self from Eternity but All other things whatsoever whether Souls or Matter were Made by it To suppose any thing to Exist Of It Self Necessarily that hath no Necessary Existence in its Nature is to suppose that Necessary Existence to have Come from Nothing Page 764 765 Three Reasons why some Theists have been so Staggering and Scepticall about the Necessary Self-Existence of Matter First From an Idiotical Conceit That because Artificiall Things cannot be made by men but Out of Prae-Existent Matter therefore Nothing by God or a Perfect Being can be otherwise Made Secondly Because some of them have supposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Incorporeal Hyle or First Matter Un-made an Opinion Older then Aristotle Whereas this Really Nothing but a Metaphysical Notion of the Potentiality or Possibility of Things respectively to the Deity Lastly Because some of them have conceived Body and Space to be Really the same thing and Space to be Positively Infinite Eternal and Necessarily Existent But if Space be not the Extension of the Deity it Self as some suppose but of Body onely considered Abstractly from This or That and therefore Immoveably then no sufficient Ground for the Positive Infinity or the Indefinity thereof as Cartesius Imagined we being certain of no more then this That be the World and its Space or Extension never so Great yet it might be still Greater and Greater Infinitely for which very Cause it could never be Positively Infinite This Possibility of more Body and Space further and further Indefinitely or Without End as also its Eternity mistaken for Actual Space and Distance Positively Infinite and Eternall Nor is there perhaps any such great Absurdity in the Finiteness of Actual Space and Distance according to this Hypothesis as some conceive Page 765 766 Moreover the Existence of a God may be further proved from this Common Notion Nothing from Nothing Causally not onely because were there no God that Idea which we hâ—ve of a Perfect Being must have Come from Nothing and be the Conception of Nothing but also all the other Intelligible Idea's of our Minds must have Come from Nothing likewise they being not Derived from Sense All Minds and their Intelligible Idea's by way of Participation from One Perfect Omnipotent Being Comprehending it Self Page 766 767 However Certain from this Principle Nothing from Nothing or Nothing Caused by Nothing That Souls and Minds could never have Emerged out of Dead and Sensless Matter or from Figures Sites and Motions and therefore must either have all Existed Of Themselves Necessarily from Eternity or else be Created by the Deity out of Nothing Prae-Existing Concluded That the Existence of a God is altogether as certain as That our Humane Souls did not all Exist from Eternity Of themselves Necessarily Thus is the Second Atheistick Argumentation against Omnipotence or Divine Creation from that False Principle Nothing out of Nothing in the Atheistick Sense which is That Nothing could be brought out of Non-Existence into Being or No Substance derive its Whole Being from another Substance but all was Self-Existent from Eternity abundantly Confuted It having been Demonstrated That unless there be a God or a Perfect Omnipotent Being and Creatour Something must have Come from Nothing in the Impossible Sense that is have been Caused by Nothing or Made without a Cause Page 767 SECT III. THE Six following Atheistick Argumentations driving at these Two things The Disproving First of an Incorporeal and then of a Corporeal Deity next taken all together In way of Answer to which Three Things First To Confute the Atheistick Argumentations against an Incoâ—poreal Deity being the Third and Fourth Secondly To Shew That from the very Principles of the Atheistick Corporealism in their Fifth and Sixth Arguments Incorporeal Substance is Demonstrable And Lastly That therefore the Two following Atheistick Arguments built upon the Contrary Supposition are also Insignificant Page 767 Before we come to the Atheistick Arguments against an Incorporeal Deity Premised That though all Corporealists be not Atheists yet Atheists universally meer Corporealists Thus Plato in his Sophist writing of those who maintained That Nature Generated all