him only to replenish and be present by his essence in the highest heaven as some are wont to speak would they not confess it were a meaner and much lower thought to suppose that presence circumscribed within the so unconceivably narrower limits as the walls of an house If they would pretend to ascribe to him some perfection beyond this by supposing his essential presence commensurable to the vaster territory of the highest heavens even by the same supposition should they deny to him greater perfection than they ascribe For the perfection which in this kind they should ascribe were finite only but that which they should deny were infinite Again they will however acknowledge omnipotency a perfection included in the notion of an absolutely perfect Being therefore they will grant he can create another world for they do not pretend to believe this infinite and if they did by their supposition they should give away their cause at any the greatest distance we can conceive from this therefore so far his power can extend it self But what his power without his being what then is his power something or nothing nothing can do nothing therefore not make a world It is then some Being and whose Being is it but his own Is it a created Being That is to suppose him first impotent and then to have created omnipoteecy when he could do nothing Whence by the way we may see to how little purpose that distinction can be applyed in the present case of essential and virtual contact where the essence and virtue cannot but be the same But shall it be said he must in order to the creating such another world locally move thither where he designs it I ask then but can he not at the same time create thousands of worlds at any distance from this round about it No man can imagine this to be impossible to him that can do all things Wherefore of such extent is his power and consequently his Being Will they therefore say he can immensly if he please diffuse his Being but he voluntarily contracts it 'T is answered that is altogether impossible to a Being that is whatsoever it is by a simple and absolute necessity for whatsoever it is necessarily it is unalterably and eternally or is pure act and in a possibility to be nothing which it already is not Therefore since God can every where exert his power he is necessarily already every where And hence Gods immensity is the true reason of his immobility there being no imaginable space which he doth not necessarily replenish Whence also the supposition of his being so confined as was said is immediately repugnant to the notion of a necessary Being as well as of an absolutely perfect which hath been argued from it We might moreover add that upon the same supposition God might truly be said to have made a creature greater than himself for such this universe apparently were and that he can make one as they must confess who deny him not to be omnipotent most unconceivably greater Nothing therefore seems more manifest than that God is immense or as we may express it extrinsecally infinite with respect to place as well as intrinsecally in respect to the plenitude of his being and perfection Only it may be requisite to consider briefly what is said against it by the otherwise minded that pretend not to deny his infinity in that other sense Wherein that this discourse swell not beyond just bounds their strength viz. of argument for it will not be so seasonable here to discuss with them the Texts of Scripture wont to be insisted on in this matter shall be viewed as it is collected and gathered up in one of them And that shall be Curcellaeus who gives it as succinctly and fully as any I have met with of that sort of men The Doctrine it self we may take from him thus First on the negative part by way of denial of what we have been hitherto asserting he says The foundation that is of a distinction of Maresius's to which he is replying for so occasionally comes in the discourse viz. the infinity of the Divine Essence is not so firm as is commonly thought And that therefore it may be thought less firm he thinks fit to cast a slur upon it by making it the Doctrine of the Stoicks exprest by Virgil Jovis omnia plena as if it must needs be false because Virgil said it though I could tell if it were worth the while where Virgil speaks more agreeably to this sense than ours according to which he might as well have interpreted this passage as divers Texts of Scripture And then his Authority might have been of some value And by Lucan who helps it seems to disgrace and spoil it Jupiter est quodcunque vides quocunque moveris he might if he had a mind to make it thought Paganish have quoted a good many more but then there might have been some danger it should pass for a common notion Next he quotes some passages of Fathers that import dislike of it About which we need not concern our selves For the question is not what this or that man thought And then for the positive account of his own judgment in the case having recited divers Texts out of the Bible that seemed as he apprehended to make against him He would have us believe that these all speak rather of Gods providence and power by which he concerns himself in all our works words and thoughts wheresoever we live than of the absolute infinity of his Essence And afterwards That God is by his Essence in the supreme heaven where he inhabits the inaccessible light but thence he sends out from himself a spirit or a certain force whether he pleases by which he is truly present and works there But proceed we to his Reasons which he saith are not to be contemned We shall therefore not contemn them so far as not to take notice of them which trouble also the Reader may please to be at and afterward do as he thinks fit 1. That no difference can be conceived between God and creatures if God as they commonly speak be wholly in every point or do fill all the points of the universe with his whole Essence For so whatsoever at all is will be God himself Answ. And that is most marvellous that the in-being of one thing in another must needs take away all their difference and confound them each with other which sure would much rather argue them distinct For certainly it cannot without great impropriety be said that any thing is in it self And is both the container and contained How were these thoughts in his mind and these very notions which he opposes to each other so as not to be confounded with his mind and consequently with one another So that it 's a great wonder he was not of both opinions at once And how did he think his soul to be in his body which though substantially united
since it is evident that there is some necessary Being otherwise nothing could ever have been and that without action nothing could be from it Since also all change imports somewhat of passion and all passion supposes action and all action active power and active power an original seat or subject that is self-active or that hath the power of action in and of it self For there could be no derivation of it from that which hath it not and no firstderivation but from that which hath it originally of it self And a first derivation there must be since all things that are or ever have been furnisht with it and not of themselves must either mediately or immediately have derived it from that which had it of it self It is therefore manifest that there is a necessary self-active Being The cause and Author of this perpetually variable state and frame of things And hence 6. Since we can frame no notion of life which self-active power doth not at least comprehend as upon trial we shall find that we cannot it is consequent that this Being is also originally vital and the root of all vitality such as hath life in or of it self and from whence it is propagated to every other living thing And so as we plainly see that this sensible world did sometime begin to be 't is also evident it took its beginning from a Being essentially vital and active that had it self no beginning Nor can we make a difficulty to conclude that this Being which now we have shewn is active and all action implies some power is 7. Of vast and mighty Power we will not say infinite lest we should step too far at once not minding now to discuss whether creation require infinite power when we consider and contemplate the vastness of the work performed by it Unto which if we were to make our estimate by nothing else we must at least judge this power to be proportionable For when our eyes behold an effect exceeding the power of any cause which they can behold our mind must step in and supply the defect of our feebler sense so as to make a judgment there is a cause we see not equal to this effect As when we behold a great and magnificent fabrick and entring in we see not the master or any living thing which was Cicero's Observation in reference to this present purpose besides Mice or Weasles we will not think that Mice or Weasels built it Nor need we in a matter so obvious insist further But only when our severer Reason hath made us confess our further contemplation should make us admire a power which is at once both so apparent and so stupendous Corollary And now from what hath been hitherto discoursed it seems a plain and necessary consectary That this world had a cause divers from the matter whereof it is composed For otherwise matter that hath been more generally taken to be of it self altogether unactive must be stated the only cause and fountain of all the action and motion that is now to be found in the whole Universe Which is a conceit wild and absurd enough not only as it opposes the common judgment of such as have with the greatest diligence enquired into things of this nature But as being in it self manifestly impossible to be true As would easily appear if it were needful to press farther Dr. More 's reasonings to this purpose which he hath done sufficiently for himself And also that otherwise all the great and undeniable changes which continually happen in it must proceed from its own constant and eternal action upon it self while it is yet feigned to be a necessary being with the notion whereof they are notoriously inconsistent Which therefore we taking to be most clear may now the more securely proceed to what follows CHAP. III. Wisdom asserted to belong to this Being The production of this world by a mighty Agent destitute of Wisdom impossible On consideration of 1. What would be adverse to this production 2. What would be wanting some effects to which a designing cause will on all hands be confessed necessary as having manifest characters of skill and design upon them Absurd here to except the works of nature Wherein at least equal characters of Wisdom and design to be seen as in any the most confessed pieces of Art Instanced in the frame and Motion of heavenly bodies A mean unphilosophical temper to be more taken with novelties than common things of greater importance Further instance in the composition of the bodies of Animals Two contrary causes of mens not acknowledging the Wisdom of their Maker herein Progress is made from the consideration of the parts and frame to powers and functions of Terrestrial Creatures Growth Nutrition Propagation of kind Spontaneous motion Sensation The pretence considered that the bodies of Animals are machines 1. How improbable it is 2. How little to the purpose The powers of the humane soul. It appears notwithstanding them it had a cause By them a wise and intelligent cause It is not matter That not capable of Reason They not here reflected on who think reasonable souls made of refined matter by the Creator Not being matter nor arising from thence it must have a Cause that is intelligent 9. Goodness also belonging to this Being WE therefore add That this being is Wise and Intelligent as well as powerful upon the very view of this world it will appear so vast power was guided by equal wisdom in the framing of it Though this is wont to be the principal labour in evincing the existence of a Deity viz. the proving that this universe owes its rise to a wise and designing cause as may be seen in Cicero's excellent performance in this kind and in divers later Writers Yet the placing so much of their endeavour herein seems in great part to have proceeded hence that this hath been chosen for the great medium to prove that it had a cause divers from it self But if that once be done a shorter way and it fully appear that this world is not it self a necessary Being having the power of all the action and motion to be found in it of it self which already seems plain enough And it do most evidently thence also appear to have had a cause foreign to or distinct from it self though we shall not therefore the more carelesly consider this subject yet no place of doubt seems to remain but that this was an Intelligent cause and that this world was the product of wisdom and counsel and not of meer power alone For what imagination can be more grosly absurd than to suppose this orderly frame of things to have been the result of so mighty power not accompanied or guided by wisdom and counsel that is as the case must now unavoidably be understood that there is some being necessarily existent of an essentially active nature of unconceivably vast and mighty power and vigour destitute of all
Being is self-active that is which is at present meant not such as acts upon it self but that hath the power of acting upon other things in and of it self without deriving it from any other Or at least that there is such a Being as is eternal uncaused c. having the power of action in and of it self For either such a Being as hath been already evinced is of it self active or unactive or either hath the power of action of it self or not If we will say the latter let it be considered what we say and to what purpose we say it First we are to weigh what it is we affirm when we speak of an eternal uncaused independent necessary Being that is of it self totally unactive or destitute of any active power If we will say there is some such thing we will confess when we have called it something it is a very silly despicable idle something and a something if we look upon it alone as good as nothing For there is but little odds between being nothing and being able to do nothing We will again confess eternity self-origination independency necessity of existence to be very great and highly dignifying attributes and that import a most unconceivable excellency For what higher glory can we ascribe to any being than to acknowledge it to have been from eternity of it self without being beholden to any other and to be such as that it can be and cannot but be in the same state self-subsisting and self-sufficient to all eternity And what unconceivable myriads of little sensless Deities must we upon that supposition admit as would appear if it were fit to trouble the Reader with an explication of the nature and true notion of matter which the being now supposed must be found to be But what can our reason either direct or endure that we should so uncongruously misplace so magnificent attributes as these and ascribe the prime glory of the most excellent Being unto that which is next to nothing What might further be said to demonstrate the impossibility of a self-subsisting and self-original unactive being will be here unseasonable and pre-occupying But if any in the mean time will be so sullen as to say such a thing Let it 2. be considered to what purpose they say it Is it to exclude a necessary self-active being But it can signifie nothing to that purpose For such a Being they will be forced to acknowledge let them do what they can besides putting out their own eyes notwithstanding For why will they acknowledge any necessary Being at all that was ever of it self Is it not because they cannot otherwise for their hearts tell how it was ever possible that any thing at all could come into being But finding that something is they are compell'd to acknowledge that something hath ever been necessarily and of it self No other account could be given how other things came to be But what doth it signifie any thing towards the giving an account of the original of all other things to suppose only an eternal self-subsisting unactive Being Did that cause other things to be Will not their own breath choak them if they attempt to utter the self-contradicting words an unactive cause i. e. Efficient or Author of any thing And do they not see they are as far from their mark or do no more towards the assigning the original of all other things by supposing an eternal unactive Being only than if they supposed none at all That what can do nothing can no more be the productive cause of another than that which is nothing Wherefore by the same Reason that hath constrained us to acknowledge an eternal uncaused independent necessary Being we are also unavoidably led to acknowledge this Being to be self-active or such as hath the power of action in and of it self Or that there is certainly such a Being that is the cause of all the things which our sense tells us are besides existent in the world For what else is left us to say or think will we think fit to say that all things we behold were as they are necessarily existent from all eternity That were to speak against our own eyes which continually behold the rise and fall of living things of whatsoever sort or kind that can come under their notice And it were to speak against the thing it self that we say and to say and unsay the same thing in the same breath For all the things we behold are in some respect or other internal or external continually changing and therefore could never long be beheld as they are And to say then they have been continually changing from eternity and yet have been necessarily is unintelligible and flat non-sense For what is necessarily is always the same and what is in this or that posture necessarily that is by an intrinsick simple and absolute necessity which must be here meant must be ever so Wherefore to suppose the world in this or that state necessarily and yet that such a state is changeable is an impossible and self-contradicting supposition And to say any thing is changing from eternity signifies it is always undergoing a change which is never past over that is that it is eternally unchang'd and is ever the same For the least imaginable degree of change is some change What is in any the least respect changed is not in every respect the same suppose then any thing in this present state or posture and that it is eternally changing in it either a new state and posture is acquired or not If it be the former was temporary and hath an end and therefore the just and adequate measure of it was not eternity which hath no end much less of the change of it or the transition from the one state to the other But if no new state or posture be acquired which any the least gradual alteration would make then it is eternally unchanged in any the least degree Therefore eternal changing is a manifest contradiction But if it be said though eternity be not the measure of one change it may be of infinite changes endlesly succeeding one another Even this also will be found contradictions and impossible For not to trouble the Reader with the more intricate controversie of the possibility or impossibility of infinite or eternal succession about which they who have a mind may consult others If this signifie any thing to the present purpose it must mean the infinite or eternal changes of a necessary being And how these very terms do clash with one another methinks any sound mind might apprehend at the first mention of them And how manifestly repugnant the things are may be collected from what hath been said and especially from what was thought more fit to be annexed in the Margin But now since we find that the present state of things is changeable and actually changing and that what is changable is not necessarily and of it self And
our selves if they or any as fluid finer matter were the immediate subjects of it It is therefore however sufficiently evident and out of question that the humane soul be its own substance what it will must have an efficient divers from matter which it was our present intendment to evince And so our way is clear to proceed to The second enquiry whether it be not also manifest from the powers and operations which belong to it as it is reasonable that it must have had an intelligent efficient That is since we find and are assured that there is a sort of Being in the world yea somewhat of our selves and that hath best right of any thing else about us to be called our selves that can think understand deliberate argue c. And which we can most certainly assure our selves whether it were pre-existent in any former state or no is not an independent or uncaused Being and hath therefore been the effect of some cause whether it be not apparently the effect of a wise Cause And this upon supposition of what hath been before proved seems not liable to any the least rational doubt For it is already apparent that it is not it self matter and if it were it is however the more apparent that its cause is not matter Inasmuch as if it be it self matter its powers and operations are so much above the natural capacity of matter as that it must have had a cause so much more noble and of a more perfect nature than that as to be able to raise and improve it beyond the natural capacity of matter which it was impossible for that it self to do Whence it is plain it must have a cause divers from matter Wherefore this its immaterial cause must either be wise and intelligent or not so But is it possible any man should ever be guilty of a greater absurdity than to acknowledge some certain immaterial Agent destitute of Wisdom the only cause and fountain of all that wisdom that is or hath ever been in the whole race of mankind That is as much as to say that all the wisdom of mankind hath been caused without a cause For it is the same thing after we have acknowledged any thing to be caused to say it was caused by no cause as to say it was caused by such a cause as hath nothing of that in it whereof we find somewhat to be in the effect Nor can it avail any thing to speak of the disproportion or superiour excellency in some effects to their second or to their only partial causes As that there are sometimes learned children of unlearned parents For who did ever in that case say the parents were the productive causes of that learning or of them as they were learned Sure that learning comes from some other cause But shall it then be said the souls of men have received their being from some such immaterial Agent destitute of wisdom and afterward their wisdom and intellectual ability came some other way by their own observation or by institution and precept from others whence then came their capacity of observing or of receiving such instruction Can any thing naturally destitute even of seminal reason as we may call it or of any aptitude or capacity tending thereto ever be able to make observations or receive instructions whereby at length it may become rational And is not that capacity of the soul of man a real something or is there no difference between being capable of reason and uncapable what then did this real something proceed from nothing or was the soul it self caused and this its capacity uncaused or was its cause only capable of intellectual perfection but not actually furnished therewith But if it were only capable surely its advantages for the actual attainment thereof have been much greater than ours Whence it were strange if that capacity should never have come into act And more strange that we should know or have any ground to pretend that it hath not But that there was an actual exercise of wisdom in the production of the reasonable soul is most evident For is it a necessary being that we have proved it is not It is therefore a contingent and its being depended on a free cause into whose pleasure only it was resolvable that it should be or not be And which therefore had a dominion over its own acts If this bespeak not an intelligent Agent what doth And though this might also be said concerning every thing else which is not necessarily and so might yield a more general argument to evince a free designing cause yet it concludes with greater evidence concerning the reasonable soul whose powers and operations it is so manifestly impossible should have proceeded from matter And therefore even that vain and refuted pretence it self that other things might by the necessary laws of its motion become what they are can have less place here Whence it is more apparent that the reasonable soul must have had a free and intelligent cause that used liberty and counsel in determining that it should be and especially that it should be such a sort of thing as we find it is For when we see how aptly its powers and faculties serve for their proper and peculiar operations who that is not besides himself can think that such a thing was made by one that knew not what he was doing or that such powers were not given on purpose for such operations And what is the capacity but a power that should sometime be reduced into act and arrive to the exercise of reason it self Now was it possible any thing should give that power that had it not any way that is in the same kind or in some more excellent and noble kind For we contend not that this Agent whereof we speak is in the strict and proper sense rational taking that term to import an ability or faculty of inferring what is less known from what is more For we suppose all things equally known to him which so far as is requisite to our present design that is the representing him the proper object of Religion or of that honour which the dedication of a Temple to him imports we may in due time come more expresly to assert And that the knowledge which is with us the end of reasoning is in him in its highest perfection without being at all beholden to that means that all the connexion of things with one another lie open to one comprehensive view and are known to be connected but not because they are so We say is it conceivable that mans knowing power should proceed from a cause that hath it not in the same or this more perfect kind And may use those words to this purpose not for their authority which we expect not should be here significant but the convincing evidence they carry with them He that teacheth man knowledge shall not he know That we may derive this matter to an issue 't is evident
nature Whereby he was not only able to make such a world but did possess eternally and invariably in himself all that he is and hath We cannot conceive that all to be less than absolutely universal and comprehensive of whatsoever can lie within the whole compass of Being For when we find that among all other Beings which is most certainly true not only of actual but all possible Beings also how perfect soever they are or may be in their own kinds none of them nor all of them together are erver can be of that perfection as to be of themselves without dependence on somewhat else as their productive yea and sustaining cause we see besides that their cause hath all the perfection some way in it that is to be found in them all There is also that appropriate perfection belonging thereto that it could be and eternally is yea and could not but be only of it self by the underived and incommunicable excellency of its own Being And surely what includes in it all the perfection of all actual and possible Beings besides its own for there is nothing possible which some cause yea and even this cannot produce unconceivably more must needs be absolutely and every way perfect Of all which perfections this is the radical one that belongs to this common Cause and Author of all things that he is necessarily and only self-subsisting For if this high Prerogative in point of Being had been wanting nothing at all had ever been Therefore we attribute to God the greatest thing that can be said or thought and not what is wholly divers from all other perfection but which contains all others in it when we affirm of him that he is necessarily of himself For though when we have bewildered and lost our selves as we soon may in the contemplation of this amazing subject we readily indulge our wearied minds the case and liberty of resolving this high excellency of self or necessary existence in a meer negation and say that we mean by it nothing else than that he was not from another Yet surely if we would take some pains with our selves and keep our slothful shifting thoughts to some exercise in this matter though we can never comprehend that vast fulness of perfection which is imported in it for it were not what we plead for if we could comprehend it Yet we should soon see and confess that it contains unspeakably more than a negation even some great thing that is so much beyond our thoughts that we shall reckon we have said but a little in saying we cannot conceive it And that when we have stretcht our understandings to the utmost of their line and measure though we may suppose our selves to have conceived a great deal there is infinitely more that we conceive not Wherefore that is a sober and most important truth which is occasionally drawn forth as is supposed from the so admired D. Cartes by the urgent objections of this very acute friendly adversary That the inexhaustible power of God is the reason for which he needed no cause And that since that unexhausted power or the immensity of his essence is most highly positive therefore he may be said to be of himself positively i. e. not as if he did ever by any positive efficiency cause himself which is most manifestly impossible but that the positive excellency of his own being was such as could never need nor admit of being caused And that seems highly eternal which is so largely insisted on by Doctor Jackson and divers others that what is without cause must also be without limit of being Because all limitation proceeds from the cause of a thing which imparted to it so much and no more which argument though it seem neglected by Des Cartes and is opposed by his Antagonist Yet I cannot but judge that the longer one meditates the less he shall understand how any thing can be limited ad intra or from it self c. As the Author of the Tentam. Phys. Theol. speaks But that we may entertain our selves with some more particular considerations of this necessary Being which may evince that general assertion of its absolute plenitude or fulness of essence It appears to be such As is first at the greatest imaginable distance from non-entity For what can be at a greater than that which is necessarily which signifies as much as whereto not to be is utterly impossible Now an utter impossibility not to be or the uttermost distance from no Being seems plainly to imply the absolute plenitude of all Being And if here it be said that to be necessarily and of it self needs be understood to import no more than a firm possession of that being which a thing hath be it never so scant or minute a portion of being I answer without insisting upon the ambiguity of the words to be it seems indeed so If we measure the signification of this expression by its first and more obvious appearance But if you consider the matter more narrowly you will find here is also signified the nature and kind of the Being possessed as well as the manner of possession viz. that it is a Being of so excellent and noble a kind as that it can subsist alone without being beholden which is so great an excellency as that it manifestly comprehends all other or is the foundation of all that can be conceived besides Which they that fondly dream of necessary matter not considering unwarily make one single atom a more excellent thing than the whole frame of heaven and earth That being supposed simply necessary this the meerest piece of hap-hazard the strangest chance imaginable and beyond what any but themselves could ever have imagined And which being considered would give us to understand that no minute or finite being can be necessarily And hence we may see what it is to be nearer or at a further distance from not-being For these things that came contingently into being or at the pleasure of a free cause have all but a finite and limited being whereof some having a smaller portion of being than others approach so much the nearer to not-being Proportionably what hath its being necessarily and of it self is at the farthest distance from no-being as comprehending all being in it self Or to borrow the expressions of an elegant Writer translated into our own Language We have much more non-essence than essence If we have the essence of a man yet not of the Heavens or of Angels We are confined and limited within a particular essence but God who is what he is comprehendeth all possible essences Nor is this precariously spoken or as what may be hoped to be granted upon courtesie But let the matter be rigidly examined and discussed and the certain truth of it will most evidently appear For if any thing be in this sense remoter than other from no-Being it must either be what is necessarily of it self or what is contingently at the pleasure
discovery of any rational faculty than some beasts to the impugning the universal rationality of mankind Besides that your contrary profession is no sufficient argument of your contrary perswasion much less that you never had any stamp or impression of a Deity upon your minds or that you have quite raz'd it out It is much to be suspected that you hold not your contrary perswasion with that unshaken confidence and freedom from all fearful and suspicious mis-givings as that you have much more reason to brag of your dis-belief for the strength than you have for the goodness of it And that you have those qualmish fits which bewray the impression at least to your own notice and reflection if you would but allow your selves the liberty of so much converse with your selves that you will not confess and yet cannot utterly deface But if in this you had quite won the day and were masters of your design were it not pretty to suppose that the common consent of mankind would be a good argument of the existence of a Deity If it be so universal as to include your vote and suffrage as no doubt it is without you a better than you can answer but that when you have made an hard shift to withdraw your assent you have undone the Deity and Religion Doth this cause stand and fall with you Unto which you can contribute about as much as the fly to the triumph was that true before which now your hard-la-boured dissent hath made false But if this impression were simply universal so as also to include you it matters not what men would say or object against it it is to be supposed they would be in no disposition to object any thing But what were to be said or what the case it self objectively considered would admit And though it would not as now it doth not admit of any thing to be said to any purpose yet the same thing were still to be said that you now say And if we should but again unsuppose so much of the former supposition as to imagine that some few should have made their escape and disburdened themselves of all apprehensions of God Would they not with the same impudence as you now do say that all Religion were nothing else but Enthusiastical Fanaticism And that all mankind besides themselves were enslaved fools And for the meer irresistableness of this impression 'T is true it would take away all disposition to oppose but it may be presumed this is none of the rational evidence which we suppose you to mean when you admit if you do admit that some way or other the existence of such a Being might be possibly made so evident as to induce a rational certainty thereof For to believe such a thing to be true only upon a strong impulse how certain soever the thing be is not to assent to it upon a foregoing reason Nor can any in that case tell why they believe it but that they believe it You will not sure think any thing the truer for this only that such and such believe it with a sturdy confidence 'T is true that the universality and naturalness of such a perswasion as pointing us to a common cause thereof affords the matter of an argument or is a medium not contemptible nor capable of answer as hath been said before But to be irresistibly captivated into an assent is no medium at all but an immediate perswasion of the thing it self without a reason Therefore must it yet be demanded of Atheistical persons what means that you yet have not would you think sufficient to have put this matter out of doubt Will you say some kind of very glorious apparitions becoming the majesty of such a one as this Being is represented would have satisfied But if you know how to phansie that such a thing as the Sun and other luminaries might have been compacted of a certain peculiar sort of atoms coming together of their own accord without the direction of a wise Agent yea and consist so long and hold so strangely regular motions How easie would it be to object that with much advantage against what any temporary apparition be it as glorious as you can imagine might seem to signifie to this purpose Would dreadful loud voices proclaiming him to be of whose existence you doubt have serv'd the turn It is likely if your fear would have permitted you to use your wit you would have had some subtil inventions how by some odd rancounter of angry atoms the air or clouds might become thus terribly vocal And when you know already that they do sometimes salute your ears with very loud sounds as when it thunders there is little doubt but your great wit can devise a way how possibly such sounds might become articulate And for the sense and coherent import of what were spoken you that are so good at conjecturing how things might casually happen would not be long in making a guess that might serve that turn also Except you were grown very dull and barren and that fancy that served you to imagine how the whole frame of the universe and the rare structure of the bodies of animals yea and even the reasonable soul it self might be all casual productions cannot now devise how by chance a few words for you do not say you expect long orations might fall out to be sense though there were no intelligent speaker But would strange and wonderful effects that might surprise and amaze you do the business we may challenge you to try your faculty and stretch it to the uttermost and then tell us what imagination you have formed of any thing more strange and wonderful than the already extant frame of nature in the whole and the several parts of it Will he that hath a while considered the composition of the world the exact and orderly motions of the Sun Moon and Stars the fabrick of his own body and the powers of his soul expect yet a wonder to prove to him there is a God But if that be the complexion of your minds that it is not the greatness of any work but the novelty and surprisingness of it that will convince you It is not rational evidence you seek Nor is it your Reason but your idle curiosity you would have gratified which deserves no more satisfaction than that fond wish that one might come from the dead to warn men on earth lest they should come into the place of torment And if such means as these that have been mentioned should be thought necessary I would ask are they necessary to every individval person so as that no man shall be esteemed to have had sufficient means of conviction who hath not with his own eyes beheld some such glorious apparition or himself heard some such terrible voice or been the immediate witness or subject of some prodigious wonderful work Yea or will tht once seeing hearing or feeling them suffice Is it not necessary there
should be a frequent repetition and renewal of these amazing things lest the impression wearing off there be a relapse and a gradual sliding into an oblivion and unapprehensiveness of that Beings existence whereof they had sometime received a conviction Now if such a continual iteration of these strange things were thought necessary would they not hereby soon cease to be strange And then if their strangeness was necessary by that very thing wherein their sufficiency for conviction is said to consist they should become useless Or if by their frequent variations which it is possible to suppose a perpetual amusement be still kept up in the minds of men and they be always full of consternation and wonder Doth this temper so much befriend the exercise of Reason or contribute to the sober consideration of things As if men could not be rational without being half mad And indeed they might soon become altogether so by being but a while beset with objects so full of terror as are by this supposition made the necessary means to convince them of a Deity And were this a fit means of ruling the world of preserving order among mankind what business could then be followed who could intend the affairs of their callings who could either be capable of governing or of being governed while all mens minds should be wholly taken up either in the amazed view or the suspenceful expectation of nought else but strange things To which purpose much hath been of late with so excellent reason discoursed by a worthy Author that it is needless here to say more And the aspect and influence of this state of things would be most pernicious upon Religion that should be most served thereby And which requires the greatest severity and most peaceful composure of mind to the due managing the exercises of it How little would that contribute to pious and devout converses with God that should certainly keep mens minds in a continual commotion and hurry This course as our present condition is what could it do but craze mens understandings as a too bright and dazling light causeth blindness or any over-excelling sensible object destroys the sense so that we should soon have cause to apply the Arabian Proverb Shut the windows that the house may be light And might learn to put a sense not intollerable upon those passages of some mystical Writers that God is to be seen in a Divine cloud or darkness as one and with closed eyes as another speaks though what was their very sense I will not pretend to tell Besides that by this means there would naturally ensue the continual excitation of so vexatious and enthralling passions so servile and tormenting fears and amazements as could not but hold the souls of men under a constant and comfortless restraint from any free and ingenuous access to God or conversation with him Wherein the very life of Religion consists And then to what purpose doth the discovery and acknowledgment of the Deity serve Inasmuch as it is never to be thought that the existence of God is a thing to be known only that it may be known But that the end it serves for is Religion A complacential and chearful adoration of him and application of our selves with at once both dutiful and pleasant affections towards him That were a strange means of coming to know that he is that should only tend to destroy or hinder the very end it self of that knowledge Wherefore all this being considered it is likely it would not be insisted upon as necessary to our being perswaded of Gods existence that he should so multiply strange and astonishing things as that every man might be a daily amazed beholder and witness of them And if their frequency and constant iteration be acknowledged not necessary but shall indeed be judged wholly inconvenient more rare discoveries of him in the very ways we have been speaking of have not been wanting What would we think of such an appearance of God as that was upon Mount Sinai when he came down or caused a sensible Glory to descend in the sight of all that great people wherein the several things concurred that were above-mentioned Let us but suppose such an appearance in all the concurrent circumstances of it as that is said to have been That is we will suppose an equally great assembly or multitude of people is gathered together and a solemn forewarning is given and proclaimed among them by appointed Heraulds or Officers of State that on such a prefixed day now very nigh at hand the Divine Majesty and Glory even his Glory set in Majesty will visibly appear and shew it self to them They are most severely enjoyned to prepare themselves and be in readiness against that day Great care is taken to sanctifie the people and the place Bounds are set about the designed Theatre of this great appearance All are strictly required to observe their due and awful distances and abstain from more audacious approaches and gazings lest that terrible glory break out upon them and they perish An irreverent or disrespectful look they are told will be mortal to them or a very touch of any part of this sacred inclosure In the morning of the appointed day there are thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the hallowed Mount. The exceeding loud sound of Trumpet proclaims the Lords descent He descends in fire the flames whereof invelope the trembling Mount now floored with a Saphyr pavement clear as the body of heaven And ascend into the middle region or as it is exprest into the midst or heart of the heavens The voice of words a loud and dreadful voice audible to all that mighty Assembly in which were 600000 men probably more than a million of persons issues forth from amidst that terrible glory pronouncing to them that I am Jehovah thy God And thence proceeding to give them precepts so plain and clear so comprehensive and full so unexceptionably just and righteous so agreeable to the nature of man and subservient to his good that nothing could be more worthy the great Creator or more aptly sutable to such a sort of creatures It is very likely indeed that such a demonstration would leave no spectator in doubt concerning the existence of God and would puzzle the Philosophy of the most sceptical Atheist to give an account otherwise of the Phaenomenon And if such could devise to say any thing that should seem plausible to some very easie half-witted persons that were not present they would have an hard task of it to quiet the minds of those that were or make them believe this was nothing else but some odd conjuncture of certain fiery atoms that by some strange accident happened into this occursion and conflict with one another or some illusion of phansie by which so great a multitude were all at once imposed upon So as that they only seemed to themselves to hear and see what they heard and saw not
some of them think it highly improbable but from others of them plainly impossible that the history of this appearance should have been a contrived piece of falshood Yea and though as was said the view of such a thing with ones own eyes would make a more powerful impreson upon our phansie or imagination yet if we speak of rational evidence which is quite another thing of the truth of a matter of fact that were of this astonishing nature I should think it were much at least if I were credibly told that so many hundred thousand persons saw it at once as if I had been the single unaccomcompanied spectator of it my self Not to say that it were apparently in some respect much greater could we but obtain of our selves to distinguish between the pleasing of our curiosity and the satisfying of our reason So that upon the whole I see not why it may not be concluded with the greatest confidence that both the supposed existence of a Deity is possible to be certainly known to men on earth in some way that is sutable to their present state that there are no means fitter to be ordinary than those we already have and that more extraordinary additional confirmations are partly therefore not necessary and partly not wanting Again it may be further demanded as that which may both immediately serve our main purpose and may also shew the reasonableness of what was last said Is it sufficiently evident to such Subjects of some great Prince as live remote from the Royal Residence that there is such a one now ruling over them To say no is to raze the foundation of civil Government and reduce it wholly to domestical by such a Ruler as may ever be in present view Which yet is upon such terms never possible to be preserved also It is plain many do firmly enough believe that there is a King reigning over them who not only never saw the King but never saw the splendor of his Court the pomp of his attendance or it may be never saw the man that had seen the King And is not all dutiful and loyal obedience wont to be challenged and paid of such as well as his other Subjects Or would it be thought a reasonable excuse of disloyalty that any such persons should say they had never seen the King or his Court Or a reasonable demand as the condition of required subjection that the Court be kept sometime in their Village that they might have the opportunity of beholding at least some of the Insignia of Regality or more splendid appearances of that Majesty which claims subjection from them much more would it be deemed unreasonable and insolent that every Subject should expect to see the face of the Prince every day otherwise they will not obey nor believe there is any such person Whereas it hath been judged rather more expedient and serviceable to the continuing the veneration of Majesty and in a Monarchy of no mean reputation for wisdom and greatness that the Prince did very rarely offer himself to the view of the people Surely more ordinary and remote discoveries of an existing Prince and Ruler over them the effects of his power and the influences of his government will be reckoned sufficient even as to many parts of his Dominions that possibly through many succeeding generations never had other And yet how unspeakably less sensible less immediate less constant less necessary less numerous are the effects and instances of regal humane power and wisdom than of the Divine which latter we behold which way soever we look and feel in every thing we touch or have any sense of and may reflect upon in our very senses themselves and in all the parts and powers that belong to us And so certainly that if we would allow our selves the liberty of serious thoughts we might soon find it were utterly impossible such effects should ever have been without that only cause That without its influence it had never been possible that we could hear or see or speak or think or live or be any thing nor that any other thing could ever have been when as the effects that serve so justly to endear and recommend to us civil Government as peace safety order quiet possession of our rights we cannot but know are not inseparably and incommunicably appropriate or to be attributed to the person of this or that particular and mortal Governour but may also proceed from another yea and the same benefits may for some short time at least be continued without any such government at all Nor is this intended meerly as a rhetorical scheme of speech to beguile or amuse the unwary Reader But without arrogating any thing or attributing more to it than that it is an altogether inartificial and very defective but true and naked representation of the very case it self as it is 'T is professedly propounded as having somewhat solidly argumentative in it That is that whereas there is most confessedly sufficient yet there is unspeakably less evidence to most people in the world under civil government that there actually is such a government existent over them and that they are under obligation to be subject to it than there is of the existence of a Deity and the consequent reasonableness of Religion If therefore the ordinary effects and indications of the former be sufficient which have so contingent and uncertain a connexion with their causes while those which are more extraordinary are so exceeding rare with the most why shall not the more certain ordinary discoveries of the latter be judged sufficient though the most have not the immediate notice of any such extraordinary appearances as those are which have been before mentioned Moreover I yet demand further whether it may be thought possible for any one to have a full rational certainty that another person is a reasonable creature and hath in him a rational soul so as to judge he hath sufficient ground and obligation to converse with him and carry towards him as a man without the supposition of this the foundation of all humane society and civil conversation is taken away And what evidence have we of it whereunto that which we have of the being of God as the foundation of religious and godly conversation will not at least be found equivalent Will we say that meer humane shape is enough to prove such a one a man A Philosopher would deride us as the Stagyrites Disciples are said to have done the Platonick man But we will not be so nice We acknowledge it is if no circumstances concurr as suddain appearing vanishing transformation or the like that plainly evince the contrary so far as to infer upon us an obligation not to be rude and uncivil that we use no violence or carry our selves abusively towards one that only thus appears an humane creature Yea and to perform any duty of Justice or Charity towards him within our power which we owe to a man
one thought if darted in upon him at that time as 't is strange and more sad if it be not what becomes now of me if there prove to be a God! where are my mighty demonstrations upon which one may venture and which may cut off all fear and danger of future calamity in this dark unknown state I am going into shall I be the next hour nothing or miserable Or if I had opportunity shall I not have sufficient cause to proclaim as once one of the same fraternity did by way of warning to a surviving companion A Great and a Terrible God! a Great and a Terrible God! A Great and a Terrible God! I only add 'T is a most strangely mysterious and unaccountable Temper Such as is hardly reducible to its proper causes So that it would puzzle any mans enquiry to find out or even give but probable conjectures how so odd and preternatural a disaffection as Atheism should ever come to have place in an humane mind It must be concluded a very complicated disease and yet when our thoughts have fastned upon several things that have an aspect that way as none of them alone could infer it so it is hard to imagine how all of them together should ever come to deprave reasonable nature to such a degree 'T is first most astonishingly marvellous though it 's apparent this distemper hath its rise from an ill will that any man should so much as will that which the Atheist hath obtained of himself to believe or affect to be what he is The commonness of this vile disposition of will doth but sorrily shift off the wonder and only with those slight and trifling minds that have resigned the office of judging things to their more active senses and have learned the easie way of waving all enquiries about common things or resolving the account into this only that they are to be seen every day But if we allow'd our selves to consider this matter soberly we would soon find that howsoever it most plainly appear a very common plague upon the spirits of men and universal till a cure be wrought to say by way of wish No God or I would there were none Yet by the good leave of them who would thus easily excuse the thing the commonness of this horrid evil doth so little diminish that it increases the wonder Things are more strange as their causes are more hardly assignable What should the reason be that a Being of so incomparable excellency so amiable and alluring glory purity love and goodness is become undesirable and hateful to his own creatures That such creatures his more immediate peculiar off-spring stampt with his likeness the so vivid resemblances of his own spiritual immortal nature are become so wickedly unnatural towards their common and most indulgent Parent what to wish him dead to envie life and being to him from whom they have received their own 'T is strange as it is without a cause But they have offended him are in a revolt and sharply conscious of fearful demerits And who would not wish to live and to escape so unsupportable revenge 'T is still strange we would ever offend such a one Wherein were his Laws unequal his Government grievous But since we have this only is pertinent to be said by them that have no hope of forgiveness that are left to despair of reconciliation why do we sort our selves with Devils We profess not to be such Yea but we have no hope to be forgiven the sin we do not leave nor power to leave the sin which now we love This instead of lessening makes the wonder a miracle O wretched forlorn creature wouldst thou have God out of being for this I speak to thee who dost not yet profess to believe there is no God but dost only wish it The sustainer of the world The common Basis of all Being dost thou know what thou sayest Art thou not wishing thy self and all things into nothing This rather than humble thy self and beg forgiveness This rather than become again an holy pure obdeient creature and again blessed in him who first made thee so It can never cease I say to be a wonder we never ought to cease wondering that ever this befel the nature of man to be prone to wish such a thing that there were no God! But this is 't is true the too common case and if we will only have what is more a rarity go for a wonder How amazing then is it that if any man would even never so fain he ever can make himself believe there is no God! and shape his horrid course according to that most horrid misbelief By what fatal train of causes is this ever brought to pass Into what can we devise to resolve it Why such as have arrived to this pitch are much addicted to the pleasing of their senses and this they make their business so as that for a long time they have given themselves no leasure to mind objects of another nature especially that should any way tend to disturb them in their easie course Till they are gradually fallen into a forgetful sleep and the images of things are worn out with them that had only more slightly touch'd their minds before And being much used to go by the suggestions of sense they believe not what they neither see nor feel This is somewhat but does not reach the mark for there are many very great sensualists as great as they at least who never arrive hither but firmly avow it that they believe a Deity whatsoever mistaken notion they have of him whereupon they imagine to themselves impunity in their vicious course But these it may be said have so disaccustomed themselves to the exercise of their reason that they have no disposition to use their thoughts about any thing above the sphere of sense and have contracted so dull and sluggish a temper that they are no fitter to mind or employ themselves in any speculations that tend to beget in them the knowledge of God than any man is for discourse or business when he is fast asleep So indeed in reason one would expect to find it but the case is so much otherwise when we consider particular instances that we are the more perplex'd and intangled in this enquiry by considering how agreeable it is that the matter should be thus and observing that it proves oft-times not to be so Insomuch that reason and experience seem herein not to agree and hence we are put again upon new conjectures what the immediate cause of this strange malady should be For did it proceed purely from a sluggish temper of mind unapt to reasoning and discourse the more any were so the more dispos'd they should be to Atheism Whereas every one knows that multitudes of persons of dull and slow minds to any thing of ratiocination would rather you should burn their houses than tell them they did not believe in God and would presently tell you it
were pitty he should live that should but intimate a doubt whether there were a God or no. Yea and many somewhat more intelligent yet in this matter are shie of using their Reason and think it unsafe if not profane to go about to prove that there is a God lest they should move a doubt or seem hereby to make a question of it And in the mean time while they offer not at reasoning they more meanly supply that want after a sorry fashion from their education the tradition of their fore-fathers common example and the universal profession and practice of some Religion round about them and it may be only take the matter for granted because they never heard such a thing was ever doubted of or called in question in all their lives Whereas on the other hand they who incline to Atheism are perhaps some of them the greatest pretenders to Reason They rely little upon authority of former times and ages upon vulgar principles and maxims but are vogued great masters of Reason diligent searchers into the mysteries of nature and can philosophize as sufficiently appears beyond all imagination But 't is hoped it may be truly said for the vindication of Philosophy and them that profess it that modern Atheists have little of that to glory in and that their chief endowments are only their skill to please their senses and a faculty with a pittiful sort of drollery to tincture their cups and add a grace to their otherwise dull and flat conversation Yet all this howsoever being considered there is here but little advance made to the finding out whence Atheism should proceed For that want of reason should be thought the cause what hath been already said seems to forbid That many ignorant persons seem possest with a great awe of a Deity from which divers more knowing have delivered themselves And yet neither doth the former signifie any thing in just interpretation to the disrepute of Religion For truth is not the less true for that some hold it they know not how or why Nor doth the latter make to the reputation of Atheism inasmuch as men otherwise rational maysometimes learnedly dote But it confirms us that Atheism is a strange thing when its extraction and pedigree are so hardly found out and it seems to be directly of the lineage neither of knowledge nor ignorance neither sound Reason nor perfect Dotage Nor doth it at all urge to say and why may we not as well stand wondering whence the apprehension of a God and an addictedness to Religion should come when we find them peculiar neither to the more knowing nor the more ignorant For they are apparently and congruously enough to be derived from somewhat common to them both The impression of a Deity universally put upon the minds of all men which Atheists have made a shift to raze out or obliterate to that degree as to render it illegible and that cultivated by the exercise of Reason in some and in others less capable of that help somewhat confirmed by education and the other accessaries mentioned above Therefore is this matter still most mysteriously intricate that there should be one temper and perswasion agreeing to two so vastly different sorts of persons while yet we are to seek for a cause except what is most tremendous to think of from whence it should proceed that is common to them both And here is in short the sum of the wonder that any not appearing very grosly unreasonable in other matters which cannot be deny'd even of some of the more sensual and lewder sort of Atheists should in so plain and important a case be so beyond all expression absurd That they without scruple are pleased to think like other men in matters that concern and relate to common practice and wherein they might more colourably and with less hazard go out of the common road And are here only so dangerously and madly extravagant Theirs is therefore a particular madness the Dementia quoad hoc So much the stranger thing because they whom it possesses do only in this one case put off themselves and are like themselves and other men in all things else If they reckon'd it a glory to be singular they might as hath been plainly shewn more plausibly profess it as a principle that they are not bound to believe the existence of any secular Ruler and consequently not be subject to any longer than they see him and so subvert all Policy and Government or pretend an exemption from all obligation to any act of justice or to forbear the most injurious violence towards any man because they are not infallibly certain any one they see is an humane wight and so abjure all morality as they already have so great a part than offer with so fearful hazard to assault the Deity of whose existence if they would but think a while they might be most infallibly assured or go about to subvert the foundations of Religion Or if they would get themselves glory by great adventures or show themselves brave men by expressing a fearless contempt of Divine Power and Justice This fortitude is not humane These are without the compass of its object As Inundations Earthquakes c. are said to be unto which that any one should fearlesly expose himself can bring no profit to others nor therefore glory to him In all this harangue of discourse the design hath not been to fix upon any true cause of Atheism but to represent it a strange thing And an Atheist a Prodigy a Monster amongst mankind A dreadful spectacle forsaken of the common aids afforded to other men hung up in chains to warn others and let them see what an horrid creature man may make himself by voluntary aversion from God that made him In the mean time they upon whom this dreadful plague is not fallen may plainly see before them the object of that worship which is imported by a Temple An existing Deity a God to be worshipped Unto whom we shall yet see further reason to design and consecrate a Temple for that end and even our selves to become such when we have considered what comes next to be spoken of his Conversableness with men CHAP. VI. What is intended by Gods conversableness with men considered only as fundamental and presupposed to a Temple An account of the Epicurean Deity It s existence impossible any way to be proved if it did exist Nor can be affirmed to any good intent That such a Being is not God That the absolute perfection proved of God represents him a fit object of Religion From thence more particularly deduced to this purpose His Omnisciency Omnipotency Unlimited Goodness Immensity Curcellaeus 's Arguments again this last considered NOR is the thing here intended less necessary to a Temple and Religion than what we have hitherto been discoursing of For such a sort of Deity as should shut up it self and be reclus'd from all converse with men would leave us as