as we have shewn cannot be inherent in It but are the Sensations of some other Substance without it It cannot be the Brain then which imagins those qualities to be in it self But they may say 't is not the Gross Substance of the Brain that causes Perception but the Animal Spirits that have their residence there which are void of sensible qualities because they never fall under our Senses by reason of their minuteness But we conceive by our Reason though we cannot see them with our Eyes that every one of these also hath a determinate figure they are Spheres or Cubes or Pyramids or Cones or of some shape or other that is irregular and nameless and all these are but Modes and Affections of Magnitude and the Idea's of such Modes can no more be subsistent in the Atoms so modified than the Idea of Redness was just now found to be inherent in the Blood or that of Whiteness in the Brain And what relation or affinity is there between a minute Body and Cogitation any more than the greatest Is a small drop of Rain any wiser than the Ocean or do we grind inanimate Corn into living and rational Meal my very Nails or my Hair or the Horns and Hoofs of a Beast may bid as fair for Understanding and Sense as the finest Animal Spirits of the Brain 3. But Thirdly they will say 't is not the Bulk and Substance of the Animal Spirits but their Motion and Agility that produces Cogitation and Sense If then Motion in general or any degree of its velocity can beget Cogitation surely a Ship under sail must be a most intelligent Creature though while she lies at Anchor those Faculties be asleep some cold Water or Ice may be phlegmatick and senseless but when it boils in a Kettle it has wonderfull Heats of Thinking and Ebullitions of Fancy Nay the whole corporeal Mass all the brute and stupid Matter of the Universe must upon these terms be allowed to have Life and Understanding since there is nothing that we know of in a state of absolute Rest. Those things that seem to be at rest upon the surface of the Earth are daily wheel'd about its Axis and yearly about the Sun with a prodigious swiftness 4. But Fourthly they will say 't is not Motion in general that can do these feats of Sensation and Perception but a particular sort of it in an Organized Body through the determinate Roads and Channels of Muscles and Nerves But I pray among all the kinds of Motion whether straight or circular or parabolical or in what curve they please what pretence can one make to Thinking and Liberty of Will more than another Why do not these persons make a Diagram of these cogitative Lines and Angles and demonstrate their Properties of Perception and Appetite as plainly as we know the other properties of Triangles and Circles But how little can any Motion either circular or other contribute to the production of Thought No such circular Motion of an Atom can be all of it existent at once it must needs be made gradually and successively both as to place and time for Body cannot at the same instant be in more places than one So that at any instant of time the moving Atom is but in one single point of the Line Therefore all its Motion but in that one point is either future or past and no other parts are coexistent or contemporary with it Now what is not present is nothing at all and can be the efficient of nothing If Motion then be the cause of Thought Thought must be produced by one single Point of Motion a Point with relation to time as well as to place And such a Point to our Conceptions is almost equivalent to Permanency and Rest or at least to any other Point of any Motion whatsoever What then is become of the privilege of that organical Motion of the Animal Spirits above any other Again we have shewn that this circular and other Motion is but the successive Flux of an Atom and is never existent together and indeed is a pure Ens Rationis an operation of the Soul which considering past motion and future and recollecting the whole by the Memory and Fancy calls this by one denomination and that by another How then can that Motion be the efficient of Thought which is evidently the Effect and the Product of it 5. But Fifthly they will say farther which is their last refuge that 't is not Motion alone or under this or that Denomination that produceth Cogitation but when it falls out that numerous Particles of Matter aptly disposed and directed do interfere in their Motions and strike and knock one another this is it which begets our Sensation All the active power and vigour of the Mind our Faculties of Reason Imagination and Will are the wonderfull result of this mutual Occurse this Pulsion and Repercussion of Atoms Just as we experience it in the Flint and the Steel you may move them apart as long as you please to very little purpose but 't is the Hitting and Collision of them that must make them strike Fire You may remember I have proved before that Light and Heat and the rest of those Qualities are not such Idea's in the Bodies as we perceive in our Selves So that this smiting of the Steel with the Flint doth only make a Comminution and a very rapid Whirling and Melting of some Particles but that Idea of Flame is wholly in Us. But what a strange and miraculous thing should we count it if the Flint and the Steel instead of a few Sparks should chance to strike out Definitions and Syllogisms And yet it 's altogether as reasonable as this sottish opinion of the Atheists That dead senseless Atoms can ever justle and knock one another into Life and Understanding All that can be effected by such encounters of Atoms is either the imparting or receiving of Motion or a new determination and direction of its Course Matter when it acts upon Matter can communicate nothing but Motion and that we have shew'd before to be utterly unable to produce those Sensations And again how can that Concussion of Atoms be capable of begetting those internal and vital Affections that Self-consciousness and other Powers and Energies that we feel in our Minds seeing they only strike upon the outward Surfaces they cannot inwardly pervade one another they cannot have any penetration of Dimensions and Conjunction of Substance But it may be these Atoms of theirs may have Sense and Perception in them but they are refractary and sullen and therefore like Men of the same Tempers must be bang'd and buffeted into Reason And indeed that way of Argumentation would be most proper and effectual upon these Atheistical Atomists themselves 'T is a vigorous Execution of good Laws and not rational Discourses only either neglected or not understood that must reclaim the profaneness of those perverse and unreasonable Men. For what can be said
Chance when there is so many Millions odds against any assignable Experiment 't is in vain to expect it should ever succeed even in endless Duration But though we should concede it to be simply possible that the Matter of Chaos might convene into great Masses like Planets yet it 's absolutely impossible that those Masses should acquire such revolutions about the Sun Let us suppose any one of those Masses to be the Present Earth Now the annual Revolution of the Earth must proceed in this Hypothesis either from the Summ and Result of the several motions of all the Particles that formed the Earth or from a new Impulse from some external Matter after it was formed The former is apparently absurd because the Particles that form'd the round Earth must needs convene from all points and quarters toward the middle and would generally tend toward its Center which would make the whole Compound to rest in a Poise or at least that overplus of Motion which the Particles of one Hemisphere could have above the other would be very small and inconsiderable too feeble and languid to propell so vast and ponderous a Body with that prodigious velocity And secondly 't is impossible that any external Matter should impell that compound Mass after it was formed 'T is manifest that nothing else could impell it unless the Aethereal Matter be supposed to be carried about the Sun like a Vortex or Whirlpool as a Vehicle to convey it and the rest of the Planets But this is refuted from what we have shewn above that those Spaces of the Aether may be reckon'd a mere Void the whole Quantity of their Matter scarce amounting to the weight of a Grain 'T is refuted also from Matter of Fact in the Motion of Comets which as often as they are visible to Us are in the Region of our Planets and there are observed to move some in quite contrary courses to Theirs and some in cross and oblique ones in Planes inclined to the Plane of the Ecliptick in all kinds of Angles which firmly evinces that the Regions of the Aether are empty and free and neither resist nor assist the Revolutions of Planets But moreover there could not possibly arise in the Chaos any Vortices or Whirlpools at all either to form the Globes of the Planets or to revolve them when formed 'T is acknowledged by all that inanimate unactive Matter moves always in a streight Line nor ever reflects in an Angle nor bends in a Circle which is a continual reflexion unless either by some external Impulse that may divert it from the direct motion or by an intrinseck Principle of Gravity or Attraction that may make it describe a curve line about the attracting Body But this latter Cause is not now supposed and the former could never beget Whirlpools in a Chaos of so great a Laxity and Thinness For 't is matter of certain experience and universally allowed that all Bodies moved circularly have a perpetual endeavour to recede from the Center and every moment would fly out in right Lines if they were not violently restrain'd and kept in by contiguous Matter But there is no such restraint in the supposed Chaos no want of empty room there no possibility of effecting one single Revolution in way of a Vortex which necessarily requires if Attraction be not supposed either an absolute Fulness of Matter or a pretty close Constipation and mutual Contact of its Particles And for the same reason 't is evident that the Planets could not continue their Revolutions about the Sun though they could possibly acquire them For to drive and carry the Planets in such Orbs as they now describe that Aethereal Matter must be compact and dense as dense as the very Planets themselves otherwise they would certainly fly out in Spiral Lines to the very circumference of the Vortex But we have often inculcated that the wide Tracts of the Aether may be reputed as a mere extended Void So that there is nothing in this Hypothesis that can retain and bind the Planets in their Orbs for one single moment but they would immediately desert them and the neighbourhood of the Sun and vanish away in Tangents to their several Circles into the Abyss of Mundane Space II. Secondly we affirn that mutual Gravitation or spontaneous Attraction cannot possibly be innate and essential to Matter By Attraction we do not here understand what is improperly though vulgarly called so in the operations of drawing sucking pumping c. which is really Pulsion and Trusion and belongs to that Common Motion which we have already shewn to be insufficient for the formation of a World But we now mean as we have explain'd it before such a power and quality whereby all parcels of Matter would mutually attract or mutually tend and press to all others so that for instance two distant Atoms in vacuo would spontaneously convene together without the impulse of external Bodies Now fiirst we say if our Atheists suppose this power to be inherent and essential to Matter they overthrow their own Hypothesis there could never be a Chaos at all upon these terms but the present form of our System must have continued from all Eternity against their own Supposition and what we have proved in our Last For if they affirm that there might be a Chaos notwithstanding innate Gravity then let them assign any Period though never so remote when the diffused Matter might convene They must confess that before that assigned Period Matter had existed eternally inseparably endued with this principle of Attraction and yet had never attracted nor convened before in that infinite duration which is so monstrous an absurdity as even They will blush to be charged with But some perhaps may imagin that a former System might be dissolved and reduced to a Chaos from which the present System might have its Original as that Former had from another and so on new Systems having grown out of old ones in infinite Vicissitudes from all past eternity But we say that in the Supposition of innate Gravity no System at all could be dissolved For how is it possible that the Matter of solid Masses like Earth and Planets and Stars should fly up from their Centers against its inherent principle of mutual Attraction and diffuse it self in a Chaos This is absurder than the other That only supposed innate Gravity not to be exerted This makes it to be defeated and to act contrary to its own Nature So that upon all accounts this essential power of Gravitation or Attraction is irreconcilable wirh the Atheist's own Doctrine of a Chaos And secondly 't is repugnant to Common Sense and Reason 'T is utterly unconceivable that inanimate brute Matter without the mediation of some Immaterial Being should operate upon and affect other Matter without mutual Contact that distant Bodies should act upon each other through a Vacuum without the intervention of something else by and through which the action may
purposes in creating vegetable and sensitive and rational Creatures It was therefore the contrivance and choice of a Wise and Good Being that the Central Sun should be a Lucid Body to communicate warmth and light and life to the Planets around him II. We have shewed in our Last that the concentric Revolutions of the Planets about the Sun proceed from a compound Motion a Gravitation toward the Sun which is a constant Energy infused into Matter by the Author of all things and a projected transverse Impulfe in Tangents to their several Orbs that was impress'd at first by the Divine Arm and will carry them around till the end of the World But now admitting that Gravity may be essential to Matter and that a transverse Impulse might be acquired too by Natural Causes yet to make all the Planets move about the Sun in circular Orbs there must be given to each a determinate Impulse these present particular degrees of Velocity which they now have in proportion to their Distances from the Sun and to the quantity of the Solar Matter For had the Velocities of the several Planets been greater or less than they are now at the same distances from the Sun or had their Distances from the Sun or the quantity of the Sun's Matter and consequently his Attractive Power been greater or less than they are now with the same Velocities they would not have revolved in concentric Circles as they do but have moved in Hyperbola's or Parabola's or in Ellipses very Eccentric The same may be said of the Velocities of the Secondary Planets with respect to their Distances from the Centers of Their Orbs and to the Quantities of the Matter of those Central Bodies Now that all these Distances and Motions and Quantities of Matter should be so accurately and harmoniously adjusted in this great Variety of our System is above the fortuitous Hits of blind material Causes and must certainly flow from that eternal Fountain of Wisdom the Creator of Heaven and Earth who always acts Geometrically by just and adequate numbers and weights and measures And let us examin it further by our Critical Rule Are the present Revolutions in circular Orbs more beneficial than the other would be If the Planets had moved in those Lines above named sometimes they would have approached to the Sun as near as the Orb of Mercury and sometimes have exorbitated beyond the distance of Saturn and some have quite left the Sun without ever returning Now the very constitution of a Planet would be corrupted and destroyed by such a change of the Interval between it and the Sun no living thing could have endured such unspeakable excesses of Heat and Cold all the Animals of our Earth must inevitably have perished or rather never have been So that as sure as it is good very good that Humane Nature should exist so certain it is that the circular Revolutions of the Earth and Planets rather than those other Motions which might as possibly have been do declare not only the Power of God but his Wisdom and Goodness III. It is manifest by our last Discourse that the Aethereal Spaces are perfectly fluid they neither assist nor retard neither guide nor divert the Revolutions of the Planets which rowl through those Regions as free and unresisted as if they moved in a vacuum So that any of them might as possibly have moved in opposite Courses to the present and in Planes crossing the Plane of the Ecliptick in any kind of Angles Now if the System had been fortuitously formed by the convening Matter of a Chaos how is it conceivable that all the Planets both Primary and Secondary should revolve the same Way from the West to the East and that in the same Plane too without any considerable variation No natural and necessary Cause could so determin their motions and 't is millions of millions odds to an unit in such a Cast of a Chance Such an apt and regular Harmony such an admirable Order and Beauty must deservedly be ascribed to Divine Art and Conduct Especially if we consider that the smallest Planets are situated nearest the Sun and each other whereas Iupiter and Saturn that are vastly greater than the rest and have many Satellites about them are wisely removed to the extreme Regions of the System and placed at an immense Distance one from the other For even now at this wide interval they are observed in their Conjunctions to disturb one anothers motions a little by their gravitating Powers but if such vast Masses of Matter had been situated much nearer to the Sun or to each other as they might as easily have been for any mechanical or fortuitous Agent they must necessarily have caused a considerable disturbance and disorder in the whole System IV. But let us consider the particular Situation of our Earth and its distance from the Sun It is now placed so conveniently that Plants thrive and flourish in it and Animals live this is matter of fact and beyond all dispute But how came it to pass at the beginning that the Earth moved in its present Orb We have shown before that if Gravity and a Projected Motion be fitly proportion'd any Planet would freely revolve at any assignable distance within the Space of the whole System Was it mere Chance then or Divine Counsel and Choice that constituted the Earth in its present Situation To know this we will enquire if this particular Distance from the Sun be better for our Earth and its Creatures than a greater or less would have been We may be mathematically certain That the Heat of the Sun is according to the density of the Sun beams and is reciprocally proportional to the square of the distance from the Body of the Sun Now by this Calculation suppose the Earth should be removed and placed nearer to the Sun and revolve for instance in the Orbit of Mercury there the whole Ocean would even boil with extremity of Heat and be all exhaled into Vapors all Plants and Animals would be scorched and consumed in that fiery Furnace But suppose the Earth should be carried to the great Distance of Saturn there the whole Globe would be one Frigid Zone the deepest Seas under the very Equator would be frozen to the bottom there would be no Life no Germination nor any thing that comes now under our knowledge or senses It was much better therefore that the Earth should move where it does than in a much greater or less Interval from the Body of the Sun And if you place it at any other Distance either less or more than Saturn or Mercury you will still alter it for the worse proportionally to the Change It was situated therefore where it is by the Wisdom of some voluntary Agent and not by the blind motions of Fortune or Fate If any one shall think with himself How then can any Animal at all live in Mercury and Saturn in such intense degrees of Heat and
more to such persons that are either so disingenuous or so stupid as to profess to believe That all the natural Powers and acquired Habits of the Mind that penetrating Understanding and accurate Judgment that strength of Memory and readiness of Wit that Liberality and Justice and Prudence and Magnanimity that Charity and Beneficence to Mankind that ingenuous fear and awfull Love of God that comprehensive Knowledge of the Histories and Languages of so many Nations that experienced Insight into the works and wonders of Nature that rich Vein of Poetry and inexhausted Fountain of Eloquence those lofty flights of Thought and almost intuitive Perception of abstruse Notions those exalted Discoveries of Mathematical Theorems and Divine Contemplations all these admirable Endowments and Capacities of humane Nature which we sometimes see actually existent in one and the same Person can proceed from the blind shuffling and casual clashing of Atoms I could as easily take up with that senseless assertion of the Stoicks That Vertues and Vices and Sciences and Arts and Fancies and Passions and Appetites are all of them real Bodies and distinct Animals as with this of the Atheist That they can all be derived from the Power of meer Bodies 'T is utterly incredible and impossible and we cannot without indignation go about to refute such an absurd imagination such a gross contradiction to unprejudiced Reason And yet if the Atheists had not been driven from all their posts and their subterfuges if we had not pursued their Atoms through all their turnings and windings their cells and recesses their interferings and justlings they would boast that they could not be answer'd and make a mighty flutter and triumph Nay though they are so miserably confounded and baffled and can offer no further explication of the Cause and the Manner yet they will Sixthly urge matter of Fact and Experience that meer Body may produce Cogitation and Sense For say they do but observe the actions of some Brutes how nearly they approach to humane Reason and visibly discover some glimpses of Understanding and if that be performed by the pure Mechanism of their Bodies as many do allow who yet believe the Being of God and an immaterial Spirit in Man then 't is but raising our Conceptions and supposing Mankind to be Engines of a finer Make and Contexture and the business is done I must confess that the Cartesians and some others men that have given no occasion to be suspected of Irreligion have asserted that Brutes are meer Machins and Automata I cannot now engage in the Controversie neither is there any necessity to do so for Religion is not endanger'd by either opinion If Brutes be said to have Sense and Immaterial Souls what need we be concern'd whether those Souls shall be immortal or annihilated at the time of Death This objection supposes the Being of God and He will do all things for the wisest and best ends Or if Brutes be supposed to be bare Engins and Machins I admire and adore the divine Artifice and Skill in such a wonderfull contrivance But I shall deny then that they have any Reason or Sense if they be nothing but Matter Omnipotence it self cannot create cogitative Body And 't is not any imperfection in the power of God but an incapacity in the Subject The Idea's of Matter and Thought are absolutely incompatible And this the Cartesians themselves do allow Do but convince Them that Brutes have the least participation of Thought or Will or Appetite or Sensation or Fancy and they 'll readily retract their Opinion For none but besotted Atheists do joyn the two Notions together and believe Brutes to be rational or sensitive Machins They are either the one or the other either endued with Sense and some glimmering Rays of Reason from a higher Principle than Matter or as the Cartesians say they are purely Body void of all Sensation and Life and like the Idols of the Gentiles they have eyes and see not ears and hear not noses and smell not they eat without hunger and drink without thirst and howl without pain They perform the outward material actions but they have no inward Self-consciousness nor any more Perception of what they do or suffer than a Looking Glass has of the Objects it reflects or the Index of a Watch of the Hour it points to And as one of those Watches when it was first presented to the Emperour of China was taken there for an Animal so on the contrary our Cartesians take brute Animals for a sort of Watches For considering the infinite distance betwixt the poor mortal Artist and the Almighty Opificer the few Wheels and Motions of a Watch and the innumerable Springs and Organs in the Bodies of Brutes they may affirm as they think without either absurdity or impiety that they are nothing but moving Automata as the fabulous Statues of Daedalus bereaved of all true life and vital Sensation which never act spontaneously and freely but as Watches must be wound up to set them a going so their Motions also are excited and inhibited are moderated and managed by the Objects without them 2. And now that I have gone through the six parts that I proposed and sufficiently shewn that Sense and Perception can never be the product of any kind of Matter and Motion it remains therefore that it must necessarily proceed from some Incorporeal Substance within us And though we cannot conceive the manner of the Soul's Action and Passion nor what hold it can lay on the Body when it voluntarily moves it yet we are as certain that it doth so as of any Mathematical Truth whatsoever or at least of such as are proved from the Impossibility or Absurdity of the Contrary a way of Proof that is allowed for infallible Demonstration Why one motion of the Body begets an Idea of Pleasure in the Mind another an Idea of Pain why such a disposition of the Body induces Sleep another disturbs all the operations of the Soul and occasions a Lethargy or Frenzy this Knowledge exceeds our narrow Faculties and is out of the reach of our discovery I discern some excellent Final causes of such a vital Conjunction of Body and Soul but the instrumental I know not nor what invisible Bands and Fetters unite them together I resolve all that into the sole Pleasure and Fiat of our Omnipotent Creator whose Existence which is my last Point is so plainly and nearly deducible from the established proof of an Immaterial Soul that no wonder the resolved Atheists do so labour and bestir themselves to fetch Sense and Perception out of the Power of Matter I will dispatch it in three words For since we have shewn that there is an Incorporeal Substance within us whence did that proceed and how came it into Being It did not exist from all Eternity that 's too absurd to be supposed nor could it come out of nothing into Being without an Efficient Cause Something therefore must have created our
him as the Moon doth about the Earth and Iupiter hath four Satellites which by their Interposition between him and us make some hundreds of Eclipses every year Now the whole Tribe of Astrologers that never dream'd of these Planets have always declared that when Iupiter and Saturn come about again to any given Point they exert consider'd singly by themselves the same Influence as before But 't is now manifest that when either of them return to the same point the Planets about them that must make up an united Influence with them have a different situation in respect of us and each other from what they had the time before and consequently the joint Influence must be perpetually varied and never be reducible to any Rules and Observations Or if the Influences be conveyed hither distinct yet sometimes some of the Little Planets will eclipse the Great one at any given point and by that means intercept and obstruct the Influence I cannot now insist on many other Arguments deducible from the late Improvements of Astronomy and the truth of the Copernican System For if the Earth be not the Centre of the Planetary Motions what must become then of the present Astrology which is wholly adapted to that vulgar Hypothesis And yet nevertheless when they lay under such wretched mistakes for many Myriads of Years if we are willing to believe them they would all along as now appeal to Experience and Event for the confirmation of their Doctrines That 's the invincible Demonstration of the Verity of the Science And indeed as to their Predictions I think our Astrologers may assume to themselves that infallible Oracle of Tiresias O Laertiade quicquid dico aut erit aut non There 's but a true and a false in any telling of Fortune and a man that never hits on the right side cannot be called a bad Guesser but must miss out of design and be notably skilfull at lighting on the wrong And were there not formerly as great pretentions to it from the superstitious Observation of the Entrails of Cows of the flying of Vulturs and the pecking of Chickings Nay the old Augurs and Soothsayers had better reason to profess the Art of Divining than the modern Astrological Atheist for they supposed there were some Daemons that directed the Indications So likewise the Chaldean and Aegyptian Astrologers were much more excusable than He. It was the Religion of their Countries to worship the Stars as we know from unquestionable Authority They believed them Intelligent Beings and no other than very Gods and therefore had some Reason to suspect that they might govern Humane Affairs The Influence of the Stars was in their apprehensions no less than Divine Power But an Atheist that believes the Planets to be dark solid and senseless Bodies like the brute Earth he treads on and the Fixt Stars and the Sun to be inanimate Balls of Fire what Reasons can He advance for the Credit of such Influences He acknowledgeth nothing besides Matter and Motion so that all that he can conceive to be transmitted hither from the Stars must needs be perform'd either by Mechanism or Accident either of which is wholly unaccountable and the latter irreconcileable to any Art or System of Science But if both were allowed the Atheist yet as to any production of Mankind they will be again refuted in my following Discourse I can preserve a due esteem for some great Men of the last Age before the Mechanical Philosophy was revived though they were too much addicted to this nugatory Art When Occult Quality and Sympathy and Antipathy were admitted for satisfactory Explications of things even wise and vertuous Men might swallow down any Opinion that was countenanced by Antiquity But at this time of day when all the general powers and capacities of Matter are so clearly understood he must be very ridiculous himself that doth not deride and explode the antiquated Folly But we may see the miserable Shifts that some men are put to when that which was first founded upon and afterward supported by Idolatry is now become the tottering Sanctuary of Atheism If the Stars be no Deities Astrology is groundless and if the Stars be Deities why is the Astrologer an Atheist He may easily be no Christian and 't is difficult indeed to be both at once because as I have said before Idolatry is at the bottom and by submitting Humane Actions and Inclinations to the Influence of the Stars they destroy the very Essence of Moral Virtue and the Efficacy of Divine Grace and therefore Astrology was justly condemn'd by the Ancient Fathers and Christian Emperours An Astrologer I say may very easily be no Christian he may be an Idolater or a Pagan but I could hardly think Astrology to be compatible with rank Atheism if I could suppose any great gifts of Nature to be in that person who is either an Atheist or an Astrologer But let him be what he will he is not able to do much hurt by his Reasons and Example For Religion it self according to his Principles is derived from the Stars And he owns 't is not any just Exceptions he hath taken against Christianity but 't is his Destiny and Fate 't is Saturn in the Ninth House and not Judgment and Deliberation that made him an Atheist A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Structure and Origin of Humane Bodies PART II. The Fourth SERMON preached Iune 6. 1692. Acts XVII 27. That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us for in him we Live and Move and have our Being IN the former part of this Enquiry I have examin'd and refuted two Atheistical Notions opposed to the great Doctrine of the Text That we owe our Living and Being to the power of God The one of the Aristotelian Atheists who to avoid the difficulties of the first production of Mankind without the intervention of Almighty Wisdom and Power will have the Race to have thus continued without beginning by an eternal succession of infinite past Generations which Assertion hath been detected to be mere nonsense and contradictory to it self The other of the Astrological undertakers that would raise Men like Vegetables out of some fat and slimy soil well digested by the kindly heat of the Sun and impregnated with the influence of the Stars upon some remarkable and periodical conjunctions Which opinion hath been vamp'd up of late by Cardan and Cesalpinus and other News-mongers from the Skies a Pretence as groundless and silly as the dreaming Oneirocriticks of Artemidorus and Astrampsychus or the modern Chiromancy and Divinations of Gypsies I proceed now to the two remaining Paradoxes of such Sects of Atheists as laying aside Astrology and the unintelligible Influence of Heavenly Bodies except that which proceeds from their Gravity and Heat and Light do either produce Mankind mechanically and necessarily from certain connexions of Natural Causes or more dully
must allow therefore that Bodies were endowed with the same affections and tendencies then as ever since and that if an Ax-head be supposed to float upon water which is specifically much lighter than it it had been supernatural at that time as well as in the days of Elisha And this is all that I desire him to acknowledge at present So that he may admit of those Arguments as valid and conclusive against his Hypothesis that are fairly drawn from the present powers of Matter and the visible constitution of the World Now that we may come to the point All Matter is either Fluid or Solid in a large acceptation of the words that they may comprehend even all the middle degrees between extreme Fixedness and Coherency and the most rapid intestine motion of the Particles of Bodies Now the most cavilling Atheist must allow that a solid inanimate Body while it remains in that state where there is none or a very small and inconsiderable change of Texture is wholly incapable of a vital production So that the first Humane Body without Parents and without Creator if such an one ever was must have naturally been produced in and constituted by a Fluid And because this Atheist goes mechanically to work the universal Laws of Fluids must have been rigidly observed during the whole process of the Formation Now this is a Catholick Rule of Staticks That if any Body be bulk for bulk heavier than a Fluid it will sink to the bottom of that Fluid and if lighter it will float upon it having part of it self extant and part immersed to such a determinate depth as that so much of the Fluid as is equal in Bulk to the immersed part be equal in Gravity to the whole And consequently if several portions of one and the same Fluid have a different specifick gravity the heavier will always in a free vessel be gradually the lower unless violently shaken and blended together by external concussion But that cannot be in our present case For I am unwilling to affront this Atheist so much as to suppose him to believe that the first organical Body might possibly be effected in some Fluid portion of Matter while its Heterogeneous parts were jumbled and confounded together by a Storm or Hurricane or Earthquake To be sure he will rather have the primitive Man to be produced by a long process in a kind of digesting Balneum where all the heavier Lees may have time to subside and a due Aequilibrium be maintain'd not disturb'd by any such rude and violent shocks that would ruffle and break all the little Stamina of the Embryon if it were a making before Now because all the parts of an undisturb'd Fluid are either of equal Gravity or gradually placed and storied according to the differences of it any concretion that can be supposed to be naturally and mechanically made in such a Fluid must have a like structure of its several parts that is either be all over of a similar Gravity or have the more ponderous parts nearer to its Basis. But there need no more concessions than this to extinguish these supposed First-born of Nature in their very formation For suppose a Humane Body to be a forming in such a Fluid in any imaginable posture it will never be reconcileable to this Hydrostatical Law There will be always something lighter beneath and something heavier above because Bone or what is then the Stuff and Rudiments of Bone the heaviest in specie will be ever in the midst Now what can make the heavier particles of Bone ascend above the lighter ones of Flesh or depress these below those against the tendency of their own Nature This would be wholly as miraculous as the swimming of Iron in Water at the command of Elisha and as impossible to be as that the Lead of an Edifice should naturally and spontaneously mount up to the Roof while lighter materials employ themselves beneath it or that a Statue like that in Nebuchadnezzar's Vision whose Head was of fine and most ponderous Gold and his Feet of lighter materials Iron and Clay should mechanically erect it self upon them for its Basis. Secondly Because this Atheist goes mechanically to work he will not offer to affirm That all the parts of the Embryon could according to his explication be formed at a time This would be a supernatural thing and an effectual refutation of his own Principles For the Corpuscles of Matter having no consciousness of one anothers acting at least before or during the Formation as will be allowed by that very Atheist that attributes Reason and Perception to them when the Formation is finished they could not consent and make a compact together to carry on the work in several places at once and one party of them be forming the Brain while another is modelling the Heart and a third delineating the Veins No there must be according to Mechanism a successive and gradual operation Some few Particles must first be united together and so by apposition and mutual connexion still more and more by degrees till the whole System be completed and a Fermentation must be excited in some assignable place which may expand it self by its Elastical power and break through where it meets with the weakest resistance and so by that so simple and mechanical action may excavate all the various Ducts and Ventricles of the Body This is the only general account as mean as it appears to be that this Machin of an Atheist can give of that fearfull and wonderfull Production Now to confute these Pretences First There is that visible Harmony and Symmetry in a Humane Body such a mutual communication of every vessel and member of it as gives an internal evidence that it was not formed successively and patch'd up by piece-meal So uniform and orderly a system with innumerable Motions and Functions all so placed and constituted as never to interfere and clash one with another and disturb the Oeconomy of the whole must needs be ascribed to an Intelligent Artist and to such an Artist as did not begin the matter unprepared and at a venture and when he was put to a stand paused and hesitated which way he should proceed but he had first in his comprehensive Intellect a complete Idea and Model of the whole Organical Body before he enter'd upon the Work But Secondly if they affirm That mere Matter by its mechanical Affections without any design or direction could form the Body by steps and degrees what member then do they pitch upon for the foundation and cause of all the rest Let them shew us the beginning of this Circle and the first Wheel of this Perpetual Motion Did the Blood first exist antecedent to the formation of the Heart But that is to set the Effect before the Cause because all the Blood that we know of is made in and by the Heart having the quite different form and qualities of Chyle before it comes thither Must
of the four Seasons of the Year and the Variation in length of Days If we take away the Inclination it would absolutely undo these Northern Nations the Sun would never come nearer us than he doth now on the tenth of March or the twelfth of September But would we rather part with the Parallelism Let us suppose then that the Axis of the Earth keeps always the same Inclination toward the body of the Sun this indeed would cause a variety of Days and Nights and Seasons on the Earth but then every particular Country would have always the same diversity of Day and Night and the same constitution of Season without any alteration some would always have long Nights and short Days others again perpetually long Days and short Nights one Climate would be scorched and swelter'd with everlasting Dog-days while an eternal December blasted another This surely is not quite so good as the present Order of Seasons But shall the Axis rather observe no constant inclination to any thing but vary and waver at uncertain times and places This would be a happy Constitution indeed There could be no health no life nor subsistence in such an irregular System by those surprizing Nods of the Pole we might be tossed backward or forward in a moment from Ianuary to Iune nay possibly from the Ianuary of Greenland to the Iune of Abessinia It is better therefore upon all accounts that the Axis should be continued in its present posture and direction so that this also is a signal Character of Divine Wisdom and Goodness But because several have imagin'd that this skue posture of the Axis is a most unfortunate and pernicious thing that if the Poles had been erect to the Plane of the Ecliptic all mankind would have enjoyed a very Paradise upon Earth a perpetual Spring an eternal Calm and Serenity and the Longaevity of Methuselah without pains or diseases we are obliged to consider it a little further And first as to the Universal and Perpetual Spring 't is a mere Poetical Fancy and bating the equality of Days and Nights which is a thing of small value as to the other properties of a Spring it is naturally impossible being repugnant to the very form of the Globe For to those People that dwell under or near the Aequator this Spring would be a most pestilent and insupportable Summer and as for those Countries that are nearer the Poles in which number are our own and the most considerable Nations of the World a Perpetual Spring will not do their business they must have longer Days a nearer approach of the Sun and a less Obliquity of his Rayes they must have a Summer and a Harvest-time too to ripen their Grain and Fruits and Vines or else they must bid an eternal adieu to the very best of their sustenance It is plain that the Center of the Earth must move all along in the Orbis Magnus whether we suppose a Perpetual Aequinox or an oblique Position of the Axis So that the whole Globe would continue in the same Distance from the Sun and receive the same quantity of Heat from him in a Year or any assignable time in either Hypothesis Though the Axis then had been perpendicular yet take the whole Year about and the Earth would have had the same measure of Heat that it has now So that here lies the question Whether is more beneficial that the Inhabitants of the Earth should have the Yearly quantity of Heat distributed equally every day or so disposed as it is a greater share of it in Summer and in Winter a less It must needs be allowed that the Temperate Zones have no Heat to spare in Summer 't is very well if it be sufficient for the maturation of Fruits Now this being granted 't is as certain and manifest that an even distribution of the Yearly Heat would never have brought those Fruits to maturity as this is a known and familiar experiment That such a quantity of Fewel all kindled at once will cause Water to boil which being lighted gradually and successively will never be able to do it It is clear therefore that in the constitution of a Perpetual Aequinox the best part of the Globe would be desolate and useless and as to that little that could be inhabited there is no reason to expect that it would constantly enjoy that admired Calm and Serenity If the assertion were true yet some perhaps may think that such a Felicity as would make Navigation impossible is not much to be envied But it 's altogether precarious and has no necessary foundation neither upon Reason nor Experience For the Winds and Rains and other affections of the Atmosphere do not solely depend as that assertion supposeth upon the course of the Sun but partly and perhaps most frequently upon Steams and Exhalations from subterraneous Heat upon the Positions of the Moon the Situations of Seas or Mountains or Lakes or Woods and many other unknown or uncertain Causes So that though the Course of the Sun should be invariable and never swerve from the Equator yet the temperament of the Air would be mutable nevertheless according to the absence or presence or various mixture of the other Causes The ancient Philosophers for many ages together unanimously taught that the Torrid Zone was not habitable The reasons that they went upon were very specious and probable till the experience of these latter ages evinced them to be erroneous They argued from coelestial Causes only the constant Vicinity of the Sun and the directness of his Rayes never suspecting that the Body of the Earth had so great an efficiency in the changes of the Air and that then could be the coldest and rainiest season the Winter of the Year when the Sun was the nearest of all and steer'd directly over mens heads Which is warning sufficient to deterr any man from expecting such eternal Serenity and Halcyon-days from so incompetent and partial a Cause as the constant Course of the Sun in the Aequinoctial Circle What general condition and temperament of Air would follow upon that Supposition we cannot possibly define for 't is not caused by certain and regular Motions nor subject to Mathematical Calculations But if we may make a conjecture from the present Constitution we shall hardly wish for a Perpetual Aequinox to save the charges of Weather glasses for 't is very well known that the Months of March and September the two Aequinoxes of Our year are the most windy and tempestuous the most unsettled and unequable of Seasons in most Countries of the World Now if this notion of an uniform Calm and Serenity be false or precarious then even the last supposed advantage the constant Health and Longaevity of Men must be given up also as a groundless conceit for this according to the Assertors themselves doth solely as an effect of Nature depend upon the other Nay further though we should allow them their Perpetual Calm and Aequability of Heat they