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
to be restrained from putting us into motion and against a reluctant act of our will we are not moved but with great difficulty to them that will give themselves and us the trouble This being I say the case with us and it being also obvious to our observation that it is so very much alike in these mentioned respects with brute creatures how unconceivable is it that the directive principle of their motions and ours should be so vastly and altogether unlike whatsoever greater perfection is required with us as to those more noble and perfect functions and operations which are found to belong to us That is that in us an act of will should signifie so very much and be for the most part necessary to the beginning the continuing the stopping or the varying of our motions and in them nothing like it nor any thing else besides only that corporal principle which he assigns as common to them and us the continual heat in the heart which he calls a sort of fire nourished by the bloud of the veins the instruments of motion already mention'd and the various representations and impressions of external objects as there and elsewhere he expresses himself upon which last though much is undoubtedly to be attributed to it that so main a stress should be laid as to the diversifying of motion seems strange when we may observe so various motions of some silly creatures as of a fly in our window while we cannot perceive and can scarce imagine any change in external objects about them yea a swarm of flies so variously frisking and plying to and fro some this way others that with a thousand diversities and interferings in their motion and some resting while things are in the same state externally to them all So that what should cause or cease or so strangely vary such motions is from thence or any thing else he hath said left unimaginable As it is much more how in creatures of much strength as a Bear or a Lion a paw should be moved sometimes so gently and sometimes with so mighty force only by meer mechanism without any directive principle that is not altogether corporal But most of all how the strange regularity of motion in some creatures as of the Spider in making its web and the like should be owing to no other than such causes as he hath assigned of the motions in general of brute creatures And what though some motions of our own seem wholly involuntary as that of our eye-lids in the case which he supposes doth it therefore follow they must proceed from a principle only corporal as if our soul had no other act belonging to it but that of willing which he doth not down-right say but that it is its only or its chief act and if it be its chief act only what hinders but that such a motion may proceed from an act that is not chief or that it may have a power that may sometimes step forth into act and in greater matters than that without any formal deliberated command or direction of our will So little reason is there to conclude that all our motions common to us with beasts or even their motions themselves depend on nothing else than the conformation of the members and the course which the spirits excited by the heat of the heart do naturally follow in the brain the nerves and the muscles after the same manner with the motion of an automation c. But as to the matter of sensation his account seems much more defective and unintelligible that is how it should be performed as he supposes every thing common to us with beasts may be without a soul. For admit that it be as who doubts but it is by the instruments which he assigns we are still to seek what is the sentient or what useth these instruments and doth sentire or exercise sense by them That is suppose it be performed in the brain and that as he says by the help of the nerves which from thence like small strings are stretcht forth unto all the other members suppose we have the three things to consider in the nerves which he recites Their interiour substance which extends it self like very slender threds from the brain to the extremities of all the other members into which they are knit The very thin little skins which inclose these and which being continued with those that inwrap the brain do compose the little pipes which contain these threds and lastly the animal spirits which are convey'd down from the brain through these pipes Yet which of these is most subservient unto sense That he undertakes elsewhere to declare viz. that we are not to think which we also suppose some nerves to serve for sense others for motion only as some have thought but that the inclosed spirits serve for the motion of the members and those little threds also inclosed for sense Are we yet any nearer our purpose Do these small threds sentire are these the things that ultimately receive and discern the various impressions of objects And since they are all of one sort of substance how comes it to pass that some of them are seeing threds others hearing threds others tasting c. Is it from the divers and commodious figuration of the organs unto which these descend from the brain But though we acknowledge and admire the curious and exquisite formation of those organs and their most apt usefulness as organs or instruments to the purposes for which they are designed yet what do they signifie without a proportionably apt and able agent to use them or percipient to entertain and judge of the several notices which by them are only transmitted from external things That is suppose we a drop of never so pure and transparent liquor or let it be three diversly tinctured or coloured and lest they mingle kept asunder by their distinct infolding coats let these encompass one the other and together compose one little shining globe are we satisfied that now this curious pretty ball can see nay suppose we it never so conveniently situate suppose we the forementioned strings fastned to it and these being hollow well replenisht with as pure air or wind or gentle flame as you can imagine yea and all the before described little threds to boot can it yet do the feat nay suppose we all things else to concur that we can suppose except a living principle call that by what name you will and is it not still as uncapable of the act of seeing as a ball of clay or a pebble stone or can the substance of the brain it self perform that or any other act of sense for it is superfluous to speak distinctly of the rest any more than the pulp of an apple or a dish of curds So that trace this matter whither you will within the compass of your assigned limits and you are still at the same loss range through the whole
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
undoubtingly say the same thing and then since there is a reason for this judgment what can be devised to be the reason but that there are so manifest characters and evidences of skill in the composure as are not attributeable to any thing else Now here I would further demand is there any thing in this reason yea or no Doth it signifie any thing or is it of any value to the purpose for which it is alledg'd surely it is of very great in as much as when it is considered it leaves it not in a mans power to think any thing else and what can be said more potently and efficaciously to demonstrate But now if this reason signifie any thing it signifies thus much that wheresoever there are equal characters and evidences of skill at least where there are equal a skilful Agent must be acknowledged And so it will in spight of cavil conclude universally and abstractly from what we can suppose distinctly signified by the terms of Art and Nature that whatsoever effect hath such or equal characters of skill upon it did proceed from a skilful cause That is that if this effect be said to be from a skilful cause as such viz. as having manifest characters of skill upon it then every such effect viz. that hath equally manifest characters of skill upon it must be with equal reason concluded to be from a skilful cause We will acknowledge skill to act and wit to contrive very distinguishable things and in reference to some works as the making some curious automaton or self-moving Engine are commonly lodg'd in divers subjects that is the contrivance exercises the wit and invention of one and the making the manual dexterity and skill of others But the manifest characters of both will be seen in the effect That is the curious elaborateness of each several part shews the later and the order and dependence of parts and their conspiracy to one common end the former Each betokens design or at least the Smith or Carpenter must be understood to design his own part that is to do as he was directed Both together do plainly bespeak an Agent that knew what he did And that the thing was not done by chance or was not the casual product of only being busie at random or making a careless stir without aiming at any thing And this no man that is in his wits would upon sight of the whole frame more doubt to assent unto than that two and two make four And he would certainly be thought mad that should profess to think that only by some one 's making a blustering stir among several small fragments of brass iron and wood these parts happened to be thus curiously formed and came together into this frame of their own accord Or lest this should be thought to intimate too rude a representation of their conceit who think this world to have fallen into this frame and order wherein it is by the agitation of the moving parts or particles of matter without the direction of a wise mover and that we may also make the case as plain as is possible to the most ordinary capacity We will suppose for instance that one who had never before seen a watch or any thing of that sort hath now this little engine first offered to his view can we doubt but he would upon the meer sight of its figure structure and the very curious workmanship which we will suppose appearing in it presently acknowledge the Artificers hand But if he were also made to understand the use and purpose for which it serves and it were distinctly shewn him how each thing contributes and all things in this little fabrick concur to this purpose the exact measuring and dividing of time by minutes hours and months he would certainly both confess and praise the great ingenuity of the first inventer But now if a by-stander beholding him in this admiration would undertake to shew a profounder reach and strain of wit and should say Sir you are mistaken concerning the composition of this so much admired piece it was not made or designed by the hand or skill of any one there were only an innumerable company of little atoms or very small bodies much too small to be perceived by your sense that were busily frisking and plying to and fro about the place of its nativity and by a strange chance or a stranger fate and the necessary laws of that motion which they were unavoidably put into by a certain boisterous undesigning mover they fell together into this small bulk so as to compose it into this very shape and figure and with this same number and order of parts which you now behold One squadron of these busie particles little thinking what they were about agreeing to make up one wheel and another some other in that proportion which you see Others of them also falling and becoming fixed in so happy a posture and situation as to describe the several figures by which the little moving fingers point out the hour of the day and day of the month And all conspired to fall together each into its own place in so lucky a juncture as that the regular motion failed not to ensue which we see is now observed in it What man is either so wise or so foolish for it is hard to determine whether the excess or defect should best qualifie him to be of this faith as to be capable of being made believe this piece of natural history And if one should give this account of the production of such a trifle would he not be thought in jest But if he persist and solemnly profess that thus he takes it to have been would he not be thought in good earnest mad And let but any sober reason judge whether we have not unspeakably more manifest madness to contend against in such as suppose this world and the bodies of living creatures to have fallen into this frame and orderly disposition of parts wherein they are without the direction of a wise and designing cause And whether there be not an incomparably greater number of most wild and arbitrary suppositions in their fiction than in this Besides the innumerable supposed repetitions of the same strange chances all the world over even as numberless not only as productions but as the changes that continually happen to all the things produced And if the concourse of atoms could make this world why not for it is but little to mention such a thing as this a Porch or a Temple or an House or a City as Tully speaks in the before recited place which were less operous and much more easie performances It is not to be supposed that all should be Astronomers Anatomists or natural Philosophers that shall read these lines And therefore it is intended not to insist upon particulars and to make as little use as is possible of terms that would only be agreeable to that supposition But surely such general easie reflections
internal parts and how they each of them perform their distinct offices If we could discern the continual motion of the blood how it is conveyed by its proper conduits from its first source and fountain partly downwards to the lower intrails if rather it ascend not from thence as at least what afterwards becomes bloud doth partly upwards to its admirable elaboratory the heart where it is refined and furnished with fresh vital spirits and so transmitted thence by the distinct vessels prepared for this purpose could we perceive the curious contrivance of those little doors by which it is let in and out on this side and on that the order and course of its circulation its most commodious distribution by two social chanels or conduit-pipes that every where accompany one another throughout the body Could we discern the curious artifice of the brain its ways of purgation and were it possible to pry into the secret chambers receptacles of the less or more pure spirits there perceive their manifold conveyances and the rare texture of that net commonly call'd the wonderful one Could we behold the veins arteries and nerves all of them arising from their proper and distinct originals and their orderly dispersion for the most part by pairs and conjugations on this side and that from the middle of the back with the curiously wrought branches which supposing these to appear duly diversified as so many more duskish strokes in this transparent frame they would be found to make throughout the whole of it were every smaller fibre thus made at once discernable especially those innumerable threds into which the spinal marrow is distributed at the bottom of the back and could we through the same medium perceive those numerous little machines made to serve unto voluntary motions which in the whole body are computed by some to the number of four hundred and thirty or thereabouts or so many of them as according to the present supposition could possibly come in view and discern their composition their various and elegant figures round square long triangular c. and behold them do their offices and see how they ply to and fro and work in their respective places as any motion is to be performed by them Were all these things I say thus made liable to an easie and distinct view who would not admiringly cry out how fearfully and wonderfully am I made And sure there is no man sober who would not upon such a sight pronounce that man mad that should suppose such a production to have been a meer undesigned casualty At least if there be any thing in the world that may be thought to carry sufficiently convincing evidences in it of its having been made industriously and on purpose not by chance would not this composition thus offered to view be esteemed to do so much more Yea and if it it did only bear upon it characters equally evidential of wisdom and design with what doth certainly so though in the lowest degree it were sufficient to evince our present purpose For if one such instance as this would bring the matter no higher than to a bare equality that would at least argue a maker of man's body as wise and as properly designing as the Artificer of any such slighter piece of workmanship that may yet certainly be concluded the effect of skill and design And then enough might be said from other instances to manifest him unspeakably superiour And that the matter would be brought at least to an equality upon the supposition now made there can be no doubt if any one be judge that hath not abjur'd his understanding and his eyes together And what then if we Jay aside that supposition which only somewhat gratifies fancy and imagination doth that alter the case or is there the less of wisdom and contrivance expressed in this work of forming mans body only for that it is not so easily and suddenly obvious to our sight Then we might with the same reason say concerning some curious piece of carved work that is thought fit to be kept lock'd up in a Cabinet when we see it that there was admirable workmanship shewn in doing it but as soon as it is again shut up in its repository that there was none at all Inasmuch as we speak of the objective characters of wisdom and design that are in the thing it self though they must some way or other come under our notice otherwise we can be capable of arguing nothing from them yet since we have sufficient assurance that there really are svch characters in the structure of the body of man as have been mentioned and a thousand more than have been thought necessary to be mentioned here It is plain that the greater or less facility of finding them out so that we be at a certainty that they are Whether by the slower and more gradual search of our own eyes or by relying upon the testimony of such as have purchased themselves that satisfaction by their own labour and diligence is meerly accidental to the thing it self we are discoursing of And neither adds to nor detracts from the rational evidence of the present argument Or if it do either the more abstruse paths of Divine Wisdom in this as in other things do rather recommend it the more to our adoration and reverence than if every thing were obvious and lay open to the first glance of a more careless eye The things which we are sure or may be if we do not shut our eyes the wise Maker of this world hath done do sufficiently serve to assure us that he could have done this also that is have made everything in the frame and shape of our bodies conspicuous in the way but now supposed if he had thought it fit He hath done greater things And since he hath not thought that fit we may be bold to say the doing of it would signifie more trifling and less design It gives us a more amiable and comely representation of the Being we are treating of that his works are less for oftentation than use And that his Wisdom and other Attributes appear in them rather to the instruction of sober than the gratification of vain minds We may therefore confidently conclude that the figuration of the humane body carries with it as manifest unquestionable evidences of design as any piece of humane artifice that most confessedly in the judgment of any man doth so And therefore had as certainly a designing cause We may challenge the world to shew a disparity unless it be that the advantage is unconceivably great on our side For would not any one that hath not abandon'd at once both his reason and his modesty be asham'd to confess and admire the skill that is shewn in making a Statue or the picture of a man that as one ingeniously says is but the shadow of his skin and deny the wisdom that appears in the composure of his body it self that contains so
matter into so useful and happy a conjuncture as that such a quality might result or to speak more suteably to the most How if you had not been shewn the way would you have thought it were to be done or which way would you have gone to work to turn meat and drink into flesh and bloud Nor is propagation of their own kind by the creatures that have that faculty implanted in them less admirable or more possible to be imitated by any humane device Such productions stay in their first descent Who can by his own contrivance find out a way of making any thing that can produce-another like it self What machine did ever man invent that had this power And the ways and means by which it is done are such though he that can do all things well knew how to compass his ends by them as do exceed not our understanding only but our wonder And what shall we say of spontaneous motion wherewith we find also creatures endowed that are so mean and despicable in our eyes as well as our selves that is that so silly a thing as a fly a gnat c. should have a power in it to move it self or stop its own motion at its own pleasure How far have all attempted imitations in this kind fallen short of this perfection and how much more excellent a thing is the smallest and most contemptible insect than the most admired machine we ever heard or read of as Archytas Tarintinus his Dove so anciently celebrated or more lately Regiomontanus his Fly or his Eagle or any the like Not only as having this peculiar power above any thing of this sort but as having the sundry other powers besides meeting in it whereof these are wholy destitute And should we go on to instance further in the several powers of sensation both external and internal the various instincts appetitions passions sympathies antipathies the powers of memory and we might add of speech that we find the inferiour orders of creatures either necessarily furnish'd with or some of them as to this last dispos'd unto How should we even over-do the present business and too needlesly insult over humane wit which we must suppose to have already yeilded the cause in challenging it to produce and offer to view an hearing seeing-engine that can imagine talk is capable of hunger thirst of desire anger fear grief c. as its own creature concerning which it may glory and say I have done this Is it so admirable a performance and so ungainsayable an evidence of skill and wisdom with much labour and long travel of mind a busie restless agitation of working thoughts the often renewal of frustrated attempts the varying of defeated trials this way and that at length to hit upon and by much pains and with a slow gradual progress by the use of who can tell how many sundry sorts of instruments or tools managed by more possibly than a few hands by long hewing hammering turning filing to compose one only single machine of such a frame and structure as that by the frequent re-inforcement of a skilful hand it may be capable of some and that otherwise but a very short-liv'd motion And is it no argument or effect of wisdom so easily and certainly without labour error or disappointment to frame both so infinite a variety of kinds and so innumerable individuals of every such kind of living creatures that cannot only with the greatest facility move themselves with so many sorts of motion downwards upwards many of them to and fro this way or that with a progressive or circular a swifter or a slower motion at their own pleasure but can also grow propagate see hear desire joy c. Is this no work of wisdom but only blind either fate or chance of how strangely perverse and odd a complexion is that understanding if yet it may be called an understanding that can make this judgment And they think they have found out a rare knack and that gives a great relief to their diseased minds who have learn'd to call the bodies of living creatures even the humane not excepted by way of diminution machines or engines too But how little cause there is to hug or be fond of this fansie would plainly appear If first we would allow our selves leasure to examine with how small pretence this appellation is so placed and applied And next if it be applied rightly to how little purpose it is alledg'd or that it signifies nothing to the exclusion of divine wisdom from the formation of them And for the first because we know not a better let it be considered how defective and unsatisfying the account is which the great and justly admired master in this faculty gives how divers of those things which he would have to be so are performed only in the mechanical way For though his ingenuity must be acknowledged in his modest exception of some nobler operations belonging to our selves from coming under those rigid necessitating laws yet certainly to the severe enquiry of one not partially addicted to the sentiments of so great a wit because they were his it would appear there are great defects and many things yet wanting in the account which is given us of some of the meaner of those functions which he would attribute only to organiz'd matter or to use his own expression to the conformation of the members of the body and the course of the spirits excited by the heat of the heart c. For howsoever accurately he describes the instruments and the way his account seems very little satisfying of the principle either of spontaneous motion or of sensation As to the former though it be very apparent that the muscles seated in that opposite posture wherein they are mostly found paired throughout the body the nerves and the animal spirits in the brain and suppose we that glandule seated in the inmost parts of it are the instruments of the motion of the limbs and the whole body yet what are all these to the prime causation or much more to the spontaneity of this motion And whereas with us who are acknowledged to have such a faculty independent on the body an act of will doth so manifestly contribute so that when we will our body is moved with so admirable facility and we feel not the cumbersome weight of an arm to be lift up or of our whole corporeal bulk to be moved this way or that by a slower or swifter motion Yea and when as also if we will we can on the sudden in a very instant start up out of the most composed sedentary posture and put our selves upon occasion into the most violent course of motion or action But if we have no such will though we have the same agile spirits about us we find no difficulty to keep in a posture of rest and are for the most part not sensible of any endeavour or urgency of those active particles as if they were hardly
body and what can you find but flesh and bones marrow and bloud strings and threds humour and vapour and which of these is capable of sense These are your materials and such like order them as you will put them into what method you can devise and except you can make it live you cannot make it so much as feel much less perform all other acts of sense besides unto which these tools alone seem as unproportionable as a plough-share to the most curious sculpture or a pair of tongs to the most melodious musick But how much more unconceivable it is that the figuration and concurrence of the foremention'd organs can alone suffice to produce the several passions of love fear anger c. whereof we find so evident indications in brute creatures it is enough but to hint And but that all persons do not read the same Books it were altogether unnecessary to have said so much after so plain demonstration already extant that matter howsoever modified is uncapable of sense Nor would it seem necessary to attempt any thing in this kind in particular and direct opposition to the very peculiar sentiments of this most ingenious Author as he will undoubtedly be reckon'd in all succeeding time who when he undertakes to shew what sense is and how it is performed makes it the proper business of the Soul comprehends it under the name of Cogitation naming himself a thinking thing adds by way of question what is that and answers a thing doubting understanding affirming denying willing nilling and also imagining and exercising sense says expresly it is evident to all that it is the Soul that exercises sense not the body in as direct words as the so much celebrated Poet of old The only wonder is that under this general name of Cogitation he denies it unto Brutes under which name he may be thought less fitly to have included it than to have affirmed them uncapable of any thing to which that name ought to be applied as he doth not only affirm but esteems himself by most firm reasons to have proved And yet that particular reason seems a great deal more pious than it is cogent which he gives for his chusing this particular way of differencing brutes from humane creatures viz. lest any prejudice should be done to the doctrine of the humane souls immortality There being nothing as he truly says that doth more easily turn off weak minds from the path of virtue than if they should think the souls of brutes to be of the same nature with our own and therefore that nothing remains to be hoped or feared after this life more by us than by flies or pismires For sure there were other ways of providing against that danger besides that of denying them so much as sense other than meerly organical as he somewhere alleviates the harshness of that position but without telling us what use's these organs and the making them nothing else but well formed machines But yet if we should admit the propriety of this appellation and acknowledge the thing it self intended to be signified by it that all the powers belonging to meer brutal nature are purely mechanical and no more To what purpose is it here alledg'd or what can it be understood to signifie what is lost from our cause by it And what have Atheists whereof to glory For was the contrivance of these machines theirs were they the Authors of this rare invention or of any thing like it or can they shew any product of humane device and wit that shall be capable of vying with the strange powers of those machines or can they imagine what so highly exceeds all humane skill to have fallen by chance and without any contrivance or design at all into a frame capable of such powers and operations If they be machines they are as that free-spirited Author speaks to be considered as a sort of machine made by the hand of God which is by infinite degrees better ordered and hath in it more admirable motions than any that could ever have been formed by the art of man Yea and we might add so little disadvantage would accrue to the present cause what ever might to some other by this concession that rather if it were not a wrong to the cause which justly disdains we should alledge any thing false or uncertain for its support this would add much we will not say to its victory but to its triumph that we did acknowledge them nothing else than meer mechanical contrivances For since they must certainly either be such or have each of them a soul to animate and inable them to their several functions it seems a much more easie performance and is more conceivable and within the nearer reach of humane apprehension that they should be furnish'd with such a one than be made capable of so admirable operations without it and the former though it were not a surer were a more amazing unsearchable and less comprehensible discovery of the most transcendent wisdom than the latter But because whatsoever comes under the name of cogitation is assigned to some higher cause than mechanism and that there are operations belonging to man which lay claim to a reasonable soul as the immediate principle and author of them we have yet this further step to advance that is to consider the most apparent evidence we have of a wise designing Agent in the powers and nature of this more excellent and among things more obvious to our notice the noblest of his productions And were it not for the slothful neglect of the most to study themselves we should not here need to recount unto men the common and well-known abilities and excellencies which peculiarly belong to their own nature They might take notice without being told that first as to their intellectual faculty they have somewhat about them that can think understand frame notions of things that can rectifie or supply the false or defective representations which are made to them by their external senses and fansies that can conceive of things far above the reach and sphere of sense the moral good or evil of actions or inclinations what there is in them of rectitude or pravity whereby they can animadvert and cast their eye inward upon themselves Observe the good or evil acts or inclinations the knowledge ignorance dulness vigour tranquility trouble and generally the perfections or imperfections of their own minds That can apprehend the general natures of things the future existence of what yet is not with the future appearance of that to us which as yet appears not Of which last sort of power the confident assertion no man can have a conception of the future needs not against our experience make us doubt especially being inforced by no better than that pleasant reason there subjoyned for the future is not yet that is to say because it is future and so which is all this reason amounts to
we cannot conceive it because we cannot For though our conceptions of former things guide us in forming notions of what is future yet sure our conception of any thing as future is much another sort of conception from what we have of the same thing as past as appears from its different effects for if an object be apprehended good we conceive of it as past with sorrow as future with hope and joy If evil with joy as past with fear and sorrow as future And which above all the rest discovers and magnifies the intellectual power of the humane soul that they can form a conception howsoever imperfect of this absolute perfect Being whereof we are discoursing Which even they that acknowledge not its existence cannot deny except they will profess themselves blindly and at a venture to deny they know not what or what they have not so much as thought of They may take notice of their power of comparing things of discerning and making a judgment of their agreements and disagreements their proportions and disproportions to one another Of affirming or denying this or that concerning such or such things and of pronouncing with more or less confidence concerning the truth or falshood of such affirmations or negations And moreover of their power of arguing and inferring one thing from another so as from one plain and evident principle to draw forth a long chain of consequences that may be discerned to be linked therewith They have withal to consider the liberty and the large capacity of the humane will which when it is its self rejects the dominion of any other than the supreme Lord and refuses satisfaction in any other than the supreme and most comprehensive good And upon even so hasty and transient a view of a thing furnished with such powers and faculties we have sufficient occasion to bethink our selves How came such a thing as this into being whence did it spring or to what original doth it owe it self More particularly we have here two things to be discoursed First that notwithstanding so high excellencies the soul of man doth yet appear to be a caused being that sometime had a beginning Secondly That by them it is sufficiently evident that it owes it self to a wise and intelligent cause As to the former of these we need say the less because that sort of Atheists with whom we have chiefly now to do deny not humane souls to have had a beginning as supposing them to be produced by the bodies they animate by the same generation and that such generation did sometimes begin That only rude and wildly moving matter was from eternity and that by infinite alterations and commixtures in that eternity it fell at last into this orderly frame and state wherein things now are and became prolifick so as to give beginning to the several sorts of living things which do now continue to propagate themselves The mad folly of which random fancy we have been so largely contending against hitherto The other sort who were for an eternal succession of generations have been sufficiently refuted by divers others and partly by what hath been already said in this discourse and we may further meet with them ere it be long We in the mean time find not any professing Atheism to make humane souls as such necessary and self-original beings Yet it is requisite to consider not only what persons of Atheistical perswasions have said but what also they possibly may say And moreover some that have been remote from Atheism have been prone upon the contemplation of the excellencies of the humane soul to over-magnifie yea and even no less than deifie it 'T is therefore needful to say somewhat in this matter For if nothing of direct and down-right Atheism had been The rash hyperboles as we will charitably call them and unwarrantable rhetorications of these latter should they obtain to be lookt upon and received as severe and strict assertions of Truth were equally destructive of Religion as the other more strangely bold and avowed opposition to it Such I mean as have spoken of the Souls of men as parts of God one thing with him a particle of Divine breath an extract or derivation of himself That have not feared to apply to them his most peculiar attributes or say that of them which is most appropriate and incommunicably belonging to him alone Nay to give them his very name and say in plain words they were God Now it would render a Temple alike insignificant to suppose no worshipper as to suppose none who should be worshipped And what should be the worshiper when our souls are thought the same thing with what should be the object of our worship But methinks when we consider their necessitous indigent state their wants and cravings their pressures and groans their grievances and complaints we should find enough to convince us they are not the self-originate or self-sufficient being And might even despair any thing should be plain and easie to them with whom it is a difficulty to distinguish themselves from God Why are they in a state which they dislike wherefore are they not full and satisfied why do they wish and complain is this God-like But if any have a doubt hanging in their minds concerning the unity of souls with one another or with the soul of the world let them read what is already extant And supposing them thereupon distinct Beings there needs no more to prove them not to be necessary independent uncaused ones than their subjection to so frequent changes their ignorance doubts irresolution and gradual progress to knowledge certainty and stability in their purposes their very being united with these bodies in which they have been but a little while as we all know whereby they undergo no small change admitting them to have been pre-existent and wherein they experience so many Yea whether those changes import any immutation of their very essence or no the repugnancy being so plainly manifest of the very terms necessary and changeable And inasmuch as it is so evident that a necessary being can receive no accession to it self than it must always have or keep it self after the same manner and in the same state that if it be necessarily such or such as we cannot conceive it to be but we must in our own thoughts affix to it some determinate state or other it must be eternally such and ever in that particular unchanged state Therefore be the perfection of our souls as great as our most certain knowledge of them can possibly allow us to suppose it 't is not yet so great but that we must be constrained to confess them no necessary self-criginate Beings and by consequence dependent ones that owe themselves to some cause Nor yet that we may pass over to the other strangely distant extreme is the perfection of our souls so little as to require less than an intelligent cause endow'd with the wisdom which we assert and
challenge unto the truly necessary uncaused Being Which because he hath no other rival or competitor for the glory of this production than only the fortuitous jumble of the blindly moving particles of matter our enquiry here will only be whose image the thing produced bears or which it more resembles stupid sensless unactive matter or at the best only supposed moving though no man upon the Atheists terms can imagine how it came to be so or the active intelligent Being whom we affirm the cause of all things and who hath peculiarly entituled himself the Father of Spirits That is we are to consider whether the powers and operations belonging to the Reasonable Soul do not plainly argue 1. That it neither rises from nor is meer matter whence it will be consequent it must have an efficient divers from matter 2. That it owes it self to an intelligent efficient As to the former we need not deal distinctly and severally concerning their original and their nature For if they are not meer matter it will be evident enough they do not arise from thence So that here all will be summ'd up in this enquiry whether Reason can agree to matter We shall therefore wave the consideration of their conceits concerning the manner of the first origination of men as that their whole being was only a production of the earth Whereof the Philosophical account deserves as much laughter instead of confutation as any the most fabulously Poetical That is how they were formed as also the other animals in certain little bags or wombs of the earth out of which when they grew ripe they broke forth c. And only consider what is said of the constitution and nature of the humane soul it self Which is said to be compos'd of very well polish'd the smoothest and the roundest atoms and which are of the neatest fashion and every way you must suppose the best condition'd the whole Country could afford of a more excellent make as there is added than those of the fire it self And these are the things you must know which think study contemplate frame syllogisms make Theorems lay plots contrive business act the Philosopher the Logician the Mathematician Statesman and every thing else only you may except the Priest for of him there was no need This therefore is our present theme whether such things as these be capable of such or any acts of reason yea or no And if such a matter may admit of serious discourse in this way it may be convenient to proceed viz. either any such small particle or atom for our business is not now with Des Cartes but Epicurus alone is rational or a good convenient number of them assembled and most happily met together It is much to be feared the former way will not do For we have nothing to consider in any of these atoms in its solitary condition besides its magnitude its figure and its weight and you may add also its motion if you could devise how it should come by it And now because it is not to be thought that all atoms are rational for then the stump of a tree or a bundle of straw might serve to make a soul of for ought we know as good as the best it is to be considered by which of those properties an atom shall be entituled to the priviledge of being rational and the rational atoms be distinguished from the rest Is it their peculiar magnitude or size that so far ennobles them Epicurus would here have us believe that the least are the fittest for this turn Now if you consider how little we must suppose them generally to be according to his account of them That is that looking upon any of those little motes a stream whereof you may perceive when the Sun shines in at a window and he doubts not but many Myriads of even ordinary atoms go to the composition of any one of these scarcely discernable motes how sportful a contemplation were it to suppose one of those furnished with all the powers of a reasonable soul though its likely they would not laugh at the jest that think thousands of souls might be conveniently plac'd upon the point of a needle And yet which makes the matter more admirable that very few except they be very carefully pickt and chosen can be found among those many myriads but will be too big to be capable of rationality Here sure the fate is very hard of those that come nearest the size but only by a very little too much corpulency happen to be excluded as unworthy to be counted among the rational atoms But sure if all sober reason be not utterly lost and squandered away among these little entities it must needs be judged altogether imcomprehensible why if upon the account of meer littleness any atom should be capable of reason all should not be so And then we could not but have a very rational world At least the difference in this point being so very small among them and they being all so very little methinks they should all be capable of some reason and have only less or more of it according as they are bigger and less But there is little doubt that single property of less magnitude will not be stood upon as the characteristical difference of rational and irrational Atoms and because their more or less gravity is reckon'd necessarily and so immediately to depend on that for those Atoms cannot be thought porous but very closely compacted each one within it self this it is likely will as little be depended on And so their peculiar figure must be the more trusted to as the differencing thing And because there is in this respect so great a variety among this little sort of people or Nation as this Author somewhere calls them whereof he gives so punctual an account as if he had been the Generalissimo of all their Armies and were wont to view them at their Rendzevous to form them into Regiments and Squadrons and appoint them to the distinct services he found them aptest for No doubt it was a difficulty to determine which sort of figure was to be pitcht on to make up the rational regiment But since this power was absolute and there was none to gain-say or contradict the round figure was judged best and most deserving this honour Otherwise a reason might have been asked and it might have been a greater difficulty to have given a good one why some other figure might not have done as well unless respect were had to fellow-Atoms and that it was thought they of this figure could better associate for the present purpose and that we shall consider of by and by we now proceed on the supposition that possibly a single Atom by the advantage of this figure might be judg'd capable of this high atchievement And in that case it would not be impertinent to enquire whether if an Atom were perfectly round and so very rational but by an
so we are fairly agreed to quit that pretence without more ado of their partaking reason from thence And are only left to weigh over again what hath been already said to evince the contrary that is how manifestly absurd it is to imagine that particles of matter by their peculiar size or weight or shape or motion or all of these together and that whether single or associated should be capable of reasoning If the former be the thing which is resolv'd to be stuck to that is that they are of themselves irrational but they become reasonable by their being united in such a prepared and organized body This requires to be a little further considered And to this purpose it is necessary to obviate a pittiful shift that it is possible some may think fit to use for the avoiding the force of this dilemma and may rely upon as a ground why they may judge this choice the more secure that is that they say they are rational by dependance on the body they animate because they are only found so united with one another there that there they have the first coalition there they are severed from such as serve not this turn there they are pent in and held together as long as its due temperament lasts which when it fails they are dissipated and so lose their great advantage for the acts of reason which they had in such a body What pleasure soever this may yield it will soon appear it does them little service For it only implies that they have their rationality of themselves so be it that they were together and not immediately from the body or any otherwise than that they are somewhat beholding to it for a fair occasion of being together as if it were else an unlawful assembly or that they knew not otherwise how to meet and hold together They will not say that the body gives them being for they are eternal and self-subsisting as they will have it Yea of themselves though the case be otherwise with the Cartesian particles undiminishable as to their size and as to their figure and weight unalterable So that they have neither their littleness their roundness nor their lightness from the body but only their so happy meeting Admit this and only suppose them to be met out of the body And why may not this be thought supposable If they be not rational till they be met they cannot have wit enough to scruple meeting at least somewhere else than in the body And who knows but such a chance may happen As great as this are by these persons supposed to have happened before the world could have come to this pass it is now at who can tell but such a number of the same sort of Atoms it being natural for things so much of a complexion and temper to associate and find out another might ignorantly and thinking no harm come together And having done so why might they not keep together Do they need to be pent in How are they pent in whilst in the body If they be dispos'd they have ways enough to get out And if they must needs be inclin'd to scatter when the crasis of the body fails surely a way might be found to hem them in if that be all at the time of expiration more tightly and closely than they could be in the body And what reason can be devised why being become rational by their having been assembled in the body they may not agree to hold together and do so in spite of fate or maugre all ordinary accidents when they find it convenient to leave it And then upon these no-way impossible suppositions according to their principles so far as can be understood with whom we have to do will they now be rational out of the body Being still endowed as they cannot but be with the same high priviledges of being little round and light and being still also together and somewhat more it may be at liberty to roll and tumble and mingle with one another than in the body If it be now affirmed they will in this case be rational at least as long as they hold together then we are but where we were And this shift hath but diverted us a little but so as it was easie to bring the matter again about to the same point we were at before Wherefore the shelter of the body being thus quite again forsaken this poor expulsed crew of dislodging Atoms are exposed to fight in the open air for their rationality against all that was said before But if this refuge and sanctuary of the body be not meerly pretended to but really and plainly trusted in and stuck to Then are we sincerely and honestly to consider what a body so variously organiz'd can do to make such a party of Atoms that of themselves are not so singly nor together become rational And surely if the cause were not saved before it is now deplorate and lost without remedy For what do they find here that can thus beyond all expectation improve them to so high an excellency Is it flesh or bloud or bones that puts this stamp upon them Think what is the substance of the nobler parts the liver or heart or brain that they should turn these before rational Atoms when they fall into them into irrational any more than if they were well soak'd in a quagmire or did insinuate themselves into a piece of soft dough But here they meet with a benign and kindly heat and warmth which comfortably fosters and cherishes them till at length it hath hatched them into rational But methinks they should be warm enough of themselves since they are supposed so much to resemble fire And however wherein do we find a flame of fire more rational than a piece of ice Yea but here they find a due temper of moisture as well as heat And that surely doth not signifie much for if the common maxim be true that the dry soul is the wisest they might have been much wiser if they had kept themselves out of the body And since its necessary the soul should consist of that peculiar sort of Atoms before describ'd and the organical body which must be said for distinction sake the soul being all this while supposed a body also consists of Atoms too that are of a much courser alloy methinks a mixture should not be necessary but an hinderance and great debasement rather to this rational composition Besides that it cannot be understood if it were necessary these Atoms should receive any tincture from the body in order to their being rational what they can receive or how they can receive any thing They have not pores that can admit an adventitious moisture though it were of the divinest nectar and the body could never so plentifully furnish them with it Wherein then lies the great advantage these Atoms have by being in the body to their commencing rational If there be such advantage why can it not be
the soul of man is not a necessary self-originate thing And had therefore some cause We find it to have knowledge or the power of knowing belonging to it Therefore we say so had its cause We rely not here upon the credit of vulgar maxims whereof divers might be mentioned but the reason of them or of the thing it self we alledge And do now speak of the whole entire cause of this being the humane soul or of whatsoever is causal of it or of any perfection naturally appertaining to it It is of an intelligent nature Did this intelligent nature proceed from an unintelligent as the whole and only cause of it That were to speak against our own eyes and most natural common sentiments And were the same thing as to say that something came of nothing For it is all one to say so and to say that any thing communicated what it had not to communicate Or which is alike madly absurd to say that the same thing was such and not such intelligent and not intelligent able to communicate an intelligent nature for sure what it doth it is able to do and not able for it is not able to communicate what it hath not at the same time It is hardly here worth the while to spend time in countermining that contemptible Refuge which is as uncapable of offending us as of being defended that humane souls may perhaps only have proceeded in the ordinary course of Generation from one another For that none have ever said any thing to that purpose deserving a confutation except that some sober and pious persons for the avoiding of some other difficulties have thought it more safe to assert the traduction of humane souls who yet were far enough from imagining that they could be total or first causes to one another And doubted not but they had the constant necessary assistance of that same Being we are pleading for acting in his own sphere as the first cause in all such as well as any other productions Wherein they nothing oppose the main design of this discourse And therefore it is not in our way to offer at any opposition unto them But if any have a mind to indulge themselves the liberty of so much dotage as to say the souls of men were first and only causes to one another Either they must suppose them to be material beings And then we refer them to what hath been already said shewing that their powers and operations cannot belong to matter nor arise from it Or immaterial and then they cannot produce one another in the way of generation For of what pre-existent substance are they made Theirs who beget them of that they can part with nothing separability at least of parts being a most confessed property of matter Or some other where will they find that other spiritual subsubstance that belong'd not inseparably to some individual being before And besides if it were pre-existent as it must be if a soul be generated out of it then they were not the first and only causes of this production And in another way than that of generation how will any go about to make a soul Let experience and the making of trial convince the undertakers By what power or by what art will they make a reasonable soul spring up out of nothing It might be hoped that thus without disputing the possibility of an eternal successive production of souls this shift may appear vain But if any will persist and say that how or in what way soever they are produc'd 'T is strange if they need any nobler cause than themselves for may not any living thing well enough be thought capable of producing another of the same kind or no more than equal perfection with it self To this we say besides that no one living thing is the only cause of another such Yet if that were admitted possible what will it avail For hath every soul that hath ever existed or been in being been produced in this way by another This it were ridiculous to say for if every one were so produced there was then some one before every one Inasmuch as that which produces must surely have been before that which is produced by it But how can every one have one before it A manifest contradiction in the very terms For then there will be one without the compass of every one And how is it then said to be every one There is then it seems one besides or more than all And so all is not all And if this be thought a sophism let the matter be soberly considered thus The soul of man is either a thing of that nature universally and consequently every individual soul as that it doth exist of it self necessarily and independently or not If it be Then we have however a wise intelligent being necessarily existing The thing we have been proving all this while Yet this concession we will not accept for though it is most certain there is such a being we have also proved the humane soul is not it Whence it is evidently a dependent being in its own nature that could never have been of it self had it not been put into being by somewhat else And being so in its own nature it must be thus with every one that partakes of this nature And consequently it must be somewhat of another nature that did put the souls of men into being Otherwise the whole stock and lineage of humane souls is said to have been dependent on a productive cause and yet had nothing whereon to depend And so is both caused by another and not caused And therefore since it is hereby evident it was somewhat else and of another nature than an humane soul by which all humane souls were produced into being We again say that distinct Being either was a dependent caused Being or not If not it being proved that the soul of man cannot but have had an intelligent or wise cause we have now what we seek An independent necessary intelligent Being If it do depend or any will be so idle to say so That however will infallibly and very speedily lead us to the same mark For though some have been pleased to dream of an infinite succession of individuals of this or that kind I suppose we have no dream as yet ready formed to come under confutation of infinite kinds or orders of beings gradually superiour one above another the inferiour still depending on the superiour and all upon nothing And therefore I conceive we may fairly take leave of this argument from the humane soul as having gained from it sufficient evidence of the existence of a necessary Being that is intelligent and designingly active being guided by wisdom and counsel in what it doth We might also if it were needful further argue the same thing from a power or ability manifestly superiour to and that exceeds the utmost perfection of humane nature viz. that of Prophesie or the prediction of future contingencies yea and
it is a most apparent and demonstrable truth For it is plain that all being and perfection which is not necessary proceeds from that which is as the cause of it And that no cause could communicate any thing to another which it had not some way in it self Wherefore it is manifestly consequent that all other being was wholly before comprehended in that which is necessary as having been wholly produced by it And what is wholly comprehended of another i. e. within its productive power before it be produced can be no real addition to it when it is Now what can be supposed to import fulness of Being and perfection more than this impossibility of addition or that there can be nothing greater or more perfect And now these considerations are mentioned without solicitude whether they be so many exactly distinct heads For admit that they be not all distinct but some are involved with others of them yet the same truth may more powerfully strike some understandings in one form of representation others in another And it suffices that though not severally they do together plainly evidence that the necessary Being includes the absolute entire fulness of all Being and perfection actual and possible within it self Having therefore thus dispatcht that former part of this undertaking the eviction of an every way perfect Being we shall now need to labour little in the other viz. Secondly the more express deduction of the infiniteness and onliness thereof For as to the former of these it is in effect the same thing that hath been already proved Since to the fullest notion infiniteness absolute perfection seems every way most fully to correspond For absolute perfection includes all conceivable perfection leaves nothing excluded And what doth most simple infiniteness import but to have nothing for a boundary or which is the same not to be bounded at all We intend not now principally infiniteness extrinsically considered with respect to time and place as to be eternal and immense do import But intrinsically as importing bottomless profundity of essence and the full confluence of all kinds and degrees of perfection without bound or limit This is the same with absoute perfection Which yet if any should suspect not to be so They might however easily and expresly prove it of the necessary Being upon the same grounds that have been already alledged for proof of that As that the necessary Being hath actuality answerable to the utmost possibility of the creature That it is the only root and cause of all other Being The actual cause of whatsoever is actually The possible cause of whatsoever is possible to be Which is most apparently true And hath been evidenced to be so by what hath been said so lately as that it needs not be repeated That is in short that nothing that is not necessarily and of it self could ever have been or can be but as it hath been or shall be put into Being by that which is necessarily and of it self So that this is as apparent as that any thing is or can be But now let sober reason judge whether there can be any bounds or limits set to the possibility of producible Being either in respect of kinds numbers or degrees of perfection Who can say or think when there can be so many sorts of creatures produced or at least individuals of those sorts that there can be no more Or that any creature is so perfect as that none can be made more perfect which indeed to suppose were to suppose an actual infiniteness in the creature And then it being however still but somewhat that is created or made how can its Maker but be infinite For surely no body will be so absurd as to imagine an infinite effect of a finite cause Either therefore the creature is or sometime may be actually made so perfect that it cannot be more perfect or not If not we have our purpose that there is an infinite possibility on the part of the creature always unreplete and consequently a proportionable infinite actuality of power on the Creators part Infinite power I say otherwise there were not that acknowledged infinite possibility of producible being For nothing is producible that no power can produce And I say infinite actual power because the Creator being what he is necessarily what power he hath not actually he can never have as was argued before But if it be said the creature either is or may sometime be actually so perfect as that it cannot be more perfect That as was said will suppose it actually infinite and therefore much more that its cause is so And therefore in this way our present purpose would be gained also But we have no mind to gain it this latter way as we have no need 'T is in it self plain to any one that considers that this possibility on the creatures part can never actually be filled up That it is a bottomless abyss in which our thoughts may still gradually go down deeper and deeper without end that is that still more might be produced or more perfect creatures and still more everlastingly without any bound which sufficiently infers what we aim at that the Creators actual power is proportionable And indeed the supposition of the former can neither consist with the Creators perfection nor with the imperfection of the creature it would infer that the Creators productive power might be exhausted that he could do no more and so place an actual boundary to him and make him finite It were to make the creature actually full of being that it could receive no more and so would make that infinite But it may be said since all power is in order to act and the very notion of possibility imports that such a thing of which it is said may some time be actual it seems very unreasonable to say that the infinite power of a cause cannot produce an infinite effect Or that infinite possibility can never become infinite actuality For that were to say and unsay the same thing of the same To affirm omnipotency and impotency of the same cause possibility and impossibility of the same effect How urgent soever this difficulty may seem there needs nothing but patience and attentive consideration to disintangle our selves and get through it For if we will but allow our selves the leasure to consider we shall find that power and possibility must here be taken not simply and abstractly but as each of them is in conjunction with infinite And what is infinite but that which can never be travell'd through or whereof no end can be ever arriv'd unto Now suppose infinite power had produced all that it could produce there were an end of it i. e. it had found limits and a boundary beyond which it could not go If infinite possibility were filled up there were an end of that also and so neither were infinite It may then be further urged that there is therefore no such thing as infinite power or
unbegotten c. in Phaedro Makes it the cause of all things and the ruler of all De Leg. l. 10. though his words there seem meant of the soul of the world Concerning which soul afterwards enquiring whether all ought not to account it God He answers Yes certainly except any one be come to extreme madness And whether an identity were not imagined of our souls with that of the world or with God is too much left in doubt both as to him and some of his followers To say nothing of modern Enthusiasts Dr. More 's Poem Antimonopsuchia His Immortality of the Soul Mr. Baxter's Appendix to the Reasons of Christian Religion c. XII * Gassend Epicur Syntag. As may be seen in the same Syntag. and in Epicurus's Epist. to Herodot in Laert. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. * Where yet it falls out somewhat crosly that the least and consequently the lightest should be thought fitter to be the matter of the rational soul because they are aptest for motion when yet no other cause is assigned of their motion besides their gravity which cannot but be more as they are bigger for no doubt if you should try them in a pair of scales the biggest would be found to outweigh whence also it should seem to follow that the heaviest having most in them of that which is the cause of motion should be the most moveable and so by consequence the biggest †That they are round oblong oval plain hooked rough smooth bunch-back'd c. XII XIII XIV XV. 1. II. * So that whatever there is of strength in that way of arguing the glory of it cannot be without injury appropriated to the present age much less to any particular person therein It having since Anselm been ventilated by divers others heretofore D. Scot. Dist. 2. Q. 2. Th. Aquin. P. 1. Q. 2 art 1. contra Gentil l. 1. c. 10. Bradwarden l. 1. c. 1. And by divers of late as is sufficiently known some rejecting others much confiding in it both of these former and of modern Writers Ad ob in Med. resp quartae Of the Essence and Attributes of God IV. Causin V. VI. * To which purpose we may take notice of the words of one not the less worthy to be named for not being reckoned of that forementioned order Si enim denominative de eo quippiam praedicaretur abstractum esset tum aliud ab ipso tum ipso prius Quod same impium est quare neque ens est led essentia neque bonus sed bonitas est Jul. Scal. Exerc. 365. †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Divinis Homi Co. 5. * Proclus in Plat. Theol. l. 2. c. 4. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plotinus Enn. 6. l. 9. c. 9. IX X. Now Bishop of Clogher in his Contemplat Metaphys For howsoever disputable it may be whether whatsoever is infinite can have nothing added to it yet it is without dispute that whatsoever is so full as that nothing can be added to it is infinite XII * Distinct. 2. Q. 2. Q. 1. * And we must suppose somewhat agreeable to this to be Plottinus his meaning when he denies knowledge to be in God and yet also denies that there is in him any ignorance that is that he means his intelligence is of an infinitely distinct and more excellent sort from that which he causes in us as appears by his annexed reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enn. 6. l. 9. c. 6. XIII 1. II. III. †Now were not that a most improper course and unsutable to the nature of man that should rather tend to destroy his reason or judgment than convince it Dr. Spencer of Prodigies * D. Areop l. de myster Theol. c. 1. †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Procl in Plat. Theol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 V. VI. VII VIII * Which story I confidently refer to being of late date and having had a certain and circumstantial account of it by one a very sober and intelligent person who had the Relation from him to whom that dreadful warning was given by his then lately deceased associate But I shall not by a particular relation gratifie the scorn of this sort of men who taking advantage from the sometimes deceived credulity of well-meaning people have but that way of answering all such things by the one word which served once so learnedly to confute Bellarmine Arist. Eth. l. 3. I. Ac designare quidem non licet quibus in locis Dii degant Cum ne noster quidem hic mundus digna sit illorum sedes Phil. Epicur Syntag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laertius l. 10. Epist. Epicur ad Pythâ—ci Quae molitio quae ferramenta qui vectes quae machinae qui ministri tanti muneris fuerunt Vell. apud Cicer. de natura Deorum Nihil beatius nihil omnino bonis omnibus affluentius excogitari potest Nihil enim agit nullis occupationibus est implicatus c. Id. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laert. ibid. Itaque imposuistis cervicibis nostris sempiternum aominum quem dies noctes timeremus Quis cnim non timeat omnia providentem cogitantem animadvertentem omnia ad se pertinere putantem curiosum plenum negotii Deum Vell. ubi supra Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jacere In terris oppressa gravi sub religione Primum Graius homo mortalis meaning Epicurus the first champion of Irreligion Lucret. To which purpose besides what we have in Laert. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 10. Much more is collected in the Syntagm Nam praestans Deorum natura hominum pietate coleretur cum aeterna esset beatissima Habet enim venerationem justam quicquid excellit Et metus omnis a vi atque ira Deorum pulsus esset Intelligitur enim a beata immortalique natura iram gratiam segregari Quibus remotis nullos a superis impendere metus c. Sect. 1. cap. 3. An mundum fecit in mundo homines ut ab hominibus coleretur At quid Deo cultus hominum confert beato nulla re indigenti Sect. 2. cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Plut. Adversus Colotem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unto which purpose is that also in Tully At etiam de sanctitate de pietate adversus Deos libros scripsit Epicurus At quomodo in his loquitur ut Coruncanium aut Scaevulam Pontifices maximos te audire dicas non eum qui subtulerit omnem funditus religionem Nec manibus ut Xerxes sed rationibus Templa Deorum aras averterit De natura Deorum Deos Strabones paetulos naevum habentes Silos Flaccos Frontones Capitones de Natura Deorum l. 1. Plutarch IV. V. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. D. Halicarnass Ant. Rom. l 2. See their Ambassadours Oration in Q. Curtius Lib. non posse suaviter vivi c. Vid. lib. maxime cum princip viris Pbil. c. VI. VII Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 7. c. 25. Id. l. 7. c. 24. vid. Xenoph. de Cyr. Paed. l. 5. Who though he expresly say not he knew all the Souldiers names but seems rather to mean it of their Officers for saith he he reckon'd it an absurd thing a Mechanick should know the names of all his Tools c. And a General not know the names of his Captains under him c. yet he saith the Souldiers wonder'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 VIII Qualis res est talis est rei cognitio Si itaque resisit incerta puta incertum est locus sit futurum an non non datur ulla certa ejus notitia Quomodo enim fieri potest ut certo sciatur ad fore quod certo futurum non est c. Strangius de voluntate Actionibus Dei c. l. 3. c. 6. as he there objects to himself Dr. More Of Bathymus in the same Dialogues IX In his Micrographia †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. Jud. de Abr. Both in his Dialogues and Enchiridion Metaphys XI De Vocibus Trinit Psov c. Unto which purpose speaks at large Volkelius de vera Relig. Quia enim Dei potentia sapientia ad res omnes extenditur uti potest as five imperium ideo ubique praesens omniaque numine suo complere dicitur c. l. 1. c. 27. Schliclingius Artic. de filio Dei Ad Ps. 139. 6 7. Nec loquitur David de spiritu sancto qui peculiaris quidem Dei spiritus est sed de spiritu Dei simpliciter Nec dicit spiritum istum ubique re esse sed tantum docet nullum esse locum ad quem is nequeat pertingere c. So also F. Socin Smalcius And though not altogether so expresly as the â—est Vorstius Creblius c. In his Dialogues