foppery and believe it I would never doubt to make him confess against Euclide That a part is greater than the whole and bring him to justifie the highest Non-sense that absurdity it self can attain to A second Argument to conduct us toward God and to prove that he made the world shall be this The natural rectitude and innate harmony of the world and the due subornation of things one to another and to the whole of the world all things concentring in one common end This must needs come from an eternal rectitude and a supreme Director the wisest of all workmen and contrivers if you admit causes superiour to effect Can you perswade your reason that the Sun and the Moon and the Stars were by chance fixed in the Firmament and that they do by chance keep a constant uninterrupted course and make constant day and night and a certain fixed determination of all times and seasons Can the Atheist without impudent madness perswade himself that Seed-time and Harvest and all the regular subordination of things one to another in their proper uses and dependencies are owing to nothing but chance Either they were so eternally or so in time If eternally they could not be by chance for chance cannot be eternal for whatsoever was eternally so could have no possibility of chance whether it should be so or not so Chance is a fiction a phantasm a thing without a real Being there is no such thing as chance ever was or can be either in things temporal or eternal A thing that is by chance must be such a thing as comes to pass without the necessary enforcement of any certain cause A thing that might have been or might not have been or might any way have been otherwise than it is But there is no such thing now in the world and whatever was eternally so was ever so and without a possibility of ever being otherwise so or of ever being not so If they come to be so in time they must either make themselves so or be made so make themselves so I have proved already they could not nothing can be the original cause of it self and therefore they must needs be made so and if made so then they could not come by chance to be so Because the world consisting of causes and effects one thing still causing another and nothing without cause there must necessarily and naturally be a cause of these causes and whatsoever caused these causes must needs be a cause and the highest cause If the world were ever caused by any thing but it self it could never be by chance because whatsover causeth any thing destroyes the being of it by chance For if it had a cause there was a reason why it came to pass and if there were a reason why it came to pass then it did not come to pass by chance And if the world in the first matter of it brought forth it self by chance there could then never have been any thing but chance in it for chance can produce nothing but chance there could have been no such thing as a certain cause in it Now we evidently see the contrary that there is no such thing as chance is the world The whole world is a great bundle of causes and effects When we say a thing happens by chance we say and mean no more but that it happened unexpectedly and that we do not at present see the cause of it That we call Lottery is nothing else but taking the visible effects of causes we purposely conceal from our selves He that shuffles Cards does not know what game he shall have because he purposely hides the cause from himself and takes only the effect But no man can therefore think there is such a thing as chance in that for if he looked upon the Cards as he shuffled them he would find his own disposal of them in such places was the cause of his game There is a certain fixed regularity in the course of every thing and a genuine dependance of one thing upon another Nothing moves nothing operates any way but as 't is moved and caused which unanswerably shews that nothing in the world hath any motion or operation innately and primarily in it self but comes all from a first mover and infinite cause of every thing Whatsoever we see come to pass though at the present we cannot point out the cause yet we see enough visible in it to assure us it has some cause He that cannot give a punctual demonstrative reason for the ebbing and flowing of the Sea yet sees enough in it by the constancy of it the certain time it keeps and the due correspondency it holds to some of the heavenly bodies to satisfie him that there is a natural cause of it and a reason to be given for it and that 't is not possible to be a thing by chance but is a thing linked into the round of the world and bears its proportion to the general subordination and harmony of things If the Atheist be so ridiculously foolish as to say that all that we see and call order and method is nothing but chance and that every thing happens still by chance so to be as we see it to be he must either palpably confute himself or else deny all the necessary causes and effects we see in the world and tell us that what we see constantly to be and never was known nor seen otherwise to be and in the reason of the things themselves must needs be soe and cannot be otherwise is a thing of meer chance and so may happen to be otherwise That is he must say that Rain must not necessarily moisten the earth but may perhaps scorch it and burn it up and that the Sun must not necessarily heat me but may perhaps cool me and chill me and that Summer is not necessary to come as it does but may chance to come in the place of winter and winter in the place of summer For if these things have no foundation but chance they may by chance be otherwise thaâ— now they are The rational soul abhorâ—â— chance it makes a reason of no use ' Tâ—â— strange chance should frame the world and frame the highest principle in it with a perfect antipathy to it self and to bâ— of no use at all to it For 't is to no purâ—pose to think reason or debate about whâ—â— comes by chance It forbids all foresight and all rational deductions and that suâ—premest acting of a wise man to fit and suâ—â— means to ends Besides there is this further evidencâ— of God to us in this rectitude we finâ— in the frame of the world That direct coâ—traries and such as are in their naturâ— destructive one to another are over-ruled a perfect harmony and coalition in the propâ—gation of the world How could eveâ— contrary elements of fire and water hoâ—â— could all other natural opposites be â—â—conciled and made to consist together 〈◊〉 the composion of things
reasons must needs know by that act that he is he needs no other demonstration of his own Being to himself and with great ease may he inform himself of the actual existence of all other things But the souls enquiry will still reach further the proper food of craving reason is a reasonable knowledge of things such as the subject is capable of Reason travels to reduce things First To the truth of their existence Secondly To the reason of their existence And Thirdly To the right manner and method of their existence in their relation to and dependance upon each other The whole truth of no existence can be known so as reason may justly challenge a knowledge of it without knowing the cause of it or else knowing there was no cause of it because the great and supreme distinction of Beings lies in the absoluteness and dependency of them To know any visible existence to be without cause is to know it to be that which no man can rationally know any visible Being to be which is to know it to be eternal And if it have some first cause without some reasonable account of that to our selves we can never tell from what nor from whence to date it nor how to answer many other questions reason will ask about it Things are never in their proper station till they are made a right object for knowledge and reduced to a due correspondence to reason Then they bear their proportion to the great and universal harmony 'T is reason puts the world into regular motion sorts each thing places causes before effects finds out causes by effects and necessary conclusions from their own natural premises and still pursues things to the highest and supremest cause of all Search the world without this Candle and it will appear nothing but a heap of confusion God seems to have placed this sublime faculty in man for two ends First That a man might rule himself and the rest of the world in such a manner and method as might carry some proportion to the eternal reason above of which mans rational soul is an image And Secondly That by the use of it he might ascend to the knowledge of his Maker and have every thing he saw as well as himself made a step to help him upward The ground of all our homage to God lies in the knowledge we have of a Supreme Being before us and above us Without that 't is impossible ever to introduce Religion into the world Two things seem to be but a reasonable collection from the natural composition of mankind and the pure issues of a reasoning soul abstractly taken from all helps of revelation First That 't is not possible for that noble and impartial faculty of mans reason to be true to it self in its own actings and to arrive at its own necessary satisfaction about it self and all other Beings without a strict inquiry into the primary reason and first cause of the Being of it self and all other things And Secondly That the single exercise of natural reason in such an inquiry will safely conduct a man to the conclusion of some first cause and some one Supreme Being the cause of all Beings which we call God To prove there Positions undoubted truths shall be the first endeavour of the following discourse If we can happily bring mankind to God by this high-way of their reason and light a man to his Creator by this Lamp that continually burns in his own soul we shall then prove Atheism a very lye and the Atheist a most unnatural lyer towards his God and towards himself I shall proceed First affirmatively and positively and then negatively in giving a full answer to all the Atheist has to object Consider in the first place 't is not a thing within any compass of supposition that mankind in the use of their reason should fail to fix upon that as their first and great enquiry how things came to be in the posture they are now found and what original they owe themselves to That faculty that reasons about causes and effects must needs ascend by that method to the highest cause of all things No satisfying knowledge which the soul still labours after can be had of any thing unless we can trace it to its original without that it proves but a vexation to reason and reproaches it with ignorance in that grand fundamental in the knowledge of things which must give the truest inlet to all the subsequent comprehension we can have of them That reason in its operation must needs move this way will appear by these several considerations First There is no more obvious enquiry for whatever we see than to know whether it have a beginning or were without a begining If it had beginning when it did begin and how it came first to exist in the world and from whence it had the donation of it self No mans reason can acquiesce without some answer to this Secondly Finding out the original of things determines the property of them and so fills the mind with a satisfaction in that great concern reason has about every thing to know whose it is Whatever was the first cause of a thing and the original maker of it must needs have the property of it 'T is impossible there should be a claim made with so much justice to any thing as by the first maker of it 'T is not possible to disseize him of his right to a thing that gave it its existence and caused it first to be He that first produced a Being had that Being first entirely existing in himself and in his own power Whatever is made can have no property in it self The right must needs be in the maker Here reason sits down satisfied and fully acquiesces in that particular Thirdly The knowing the original of any thing gives us the true boundaries and limits of it Nothing can rise higher than its original No effect can out-reach the cause Nay there must be ever a necessary inferiority in whatever is caused to the first causer of it This is a necessary direction to all the searches of reason about the nature of any thing to know the first cause of such a Being and the true original it derives it self from Fourthly The knowledge of things in their prima causa quiets our reason because it gives us the utmost and ultimate knowledge that is to be had about them To know a thing in it self and to know it in its first cause and original is to know all that reason can expect to know about any visible Being This brings things to hold their due proportion to the rational soul and rectifies us in our knowledge in placing causeâ— and effects in their due Stations Secondly If the being of reason be such as that it must necessarily make out it selâ— into such enquiries and that the first cause of things is the most proper object for a rational soul that trades in causes and effects we will
thus proceed Every thing in this world must either be caused by it self or be without cause or else be caused by something that was before and is above it self The two first are not only improbable but utterly impossible and therefore the truth must needs lie in the last For the first The rudest Non-sense that can impose it self upon any mans reason is to say that any thing ever caused or madâ— it self 'T is to make every thing it s own God and to cut uâ— by the roots all subordination and dependency of one thing upon another For were all things equally caused by themselves they must needs be equal in their superiority because equal in their independency 'T is likewise to make a thing impossible to have an end for what once made it self can by the same influence eternally make it self If any thing were once the reason of it self it may be ever so nor would any thing ever cease to be that had a power to preserve its own Being But besides all this there is this further absurdity never to be avoided to say thing made it self is to say it did act before it was and did operate before it had an existence and that it did the highest thing to it self which was to cause and make it self before it was it self The lowest sort of reason wears in antipathy to such an absurdity Secondly The world could not be without cause For then it must be what 't is impossible it should be which is eternal For causes and effects of which the world consists own themselves to a first cause and necessarily suppose time and priority in time The cause naturally precedes the effect They must have time to operate in Causes and effects that are in such existence necessarily conjoyned must needs cease to that denomination in eternity and so cease to be what they really are and therefore are impossible to be eternal if one be eternal the other must needs be so too And 't is evident an eternal cause and an eternal effect is an absurdity Now that the world could not be eternal and so consequently without cause may thus appear If the world be eternal 't is plain and undeniable it must ever have been in the posture that now it is and that is utterly impossible for the posture the world is now in is a course of generation and corruption and so corruption must as well have been eternal as generation And thence 't will evidently follow that things that do generate and corrupt must have eternally been and eternally not have been If the world have been from everlasting then the present state of the world in the propagation of it self must needs have been so too The present way of generation and a succession in that generation must needs have been everlasting too For if the world be eternal though individual persons and Beings cease and new come in their places yet the general round and course of the world in maintaining it self must needs have been the same for ever But to conceive that is directly to oppose our own reason and experience because we find daily that the way by which the world is now propagated and upheld could not have eternally been but plainly points us to some original cause we see not For if the Hen be produced by the Egg and that Egg produced by a Hen and the propagation of both run in such a circle common reason tells us there must be some first Hen or some first Egg to set that way of generation on work or else it could never have been As 't is in motion there must be some first mover or else an innate and self-originated principle of motion if there be an innate self-originated principle of motion then whatsoever so moves can never cease to move if not there can never be motion without a first mover We see nothing but what is produced by somewhat else and therefore must rationally conclude there must be some first producer The whole world can shew us the beginning originally of nothing so as to satisfie our reason about it and yet in its whole constitution palpably fathers it self upon some first begining Our reason therefore compels us to look out to some supreme Beginning that gave the first rise to all things we see and set them first on work A man begets a man and that man was begotten by another man but where is the first man to beget that was not begotten nor brought forth in the common way of Generation For such our reason tells us by this visible course of propagating the world there must needs have been 'T is utterly impossible in the way we see men begotten there should ever have been any men in the world without some first man Our reason is lost in the circiel of one mans begetting another without some first man that was not begotten 'T is non-sense to say that one man begat another from eternity because that one mans begetting another directly relates to time beginning and priority which are all perfectly destructive to the notion of Eternity and cannot be originated there Sometimes Aristotle himself confesseth there must be a first cause and that infinity of causes is a monstrous absurdity Either the Atheist must confess that this course of generation does point us to some first rise and begining of it and cannot be supposed by out reason to be without it and then there must be some first man that must begin the natural way of propagating mankind and that first man could not be begotten by any other for then he could not be the first for that rule is true primo non est prius and if so that first man must either cause himself or be caused by something above and before himself to say the first I have shewed is an absolute contradiction to say the latter is to bring us regularly to God If the Atheist denies that there was any beginning of things or any first in generation but saies that the world is eternal and the way of its generation is eternal likewise I shall plainly refute him as rendring himself grosly absurd and that several waies First he begs a thing for granted to be and must take it so to be which he never saw nor can have any assurance of The eternity of the world and the succession eternal of generation and corruption is not only unreasonable for any man to believe but impossible for any man to know 'T is unreasonable to believe because our selves and all we converse with have a visible beginning and ending and manner of production which directly fathers it self upon some first beginning and could not have its rise from eternity For whatever begins and ends to say it was eternal in that course is to say plainly there was eternal beginning and eternal ending which is to affirm a most ridiculous contradiction And 't is as impossible for any man to know unless he knew himself eternal and
if you respect only actual matter he made all actual matter out of no matter but potentially by himself who does not consist of matter And when we say all things were made of nothing nothing by a supposition supplies the place of the term from whence and not of the matter whereof they were made If we look then no further than this world and only to â—hat nothing can be produced but by matter and motion because there is nothing in â—t but matter and motion and therefore â—o say any thing were caused any other way were to say something were caused by nothing which were impossible But if we prove a supreme Being above the world 't is no destruction to this maxim to say that matter and motion it self were caused out of no other matter and motion yet not from nothing but from the active potentiality of such a supreme and infinite Being that can from himself cause and produce whatsoever is possible to be caused and produced who being without all cause and above all cause may well be supposed to be the author of all causes So that this maxim determines the main question no way but may be an appurtenant to it and very well solved either way Having thus endeavoured to make those two first things proposed evident First That things could not make or cause themselves And that the world could never be its own original And Secondly That nothing in the world nor the whole of the world it self could be without cause and so be eternal I shall proceed to prove the third thing proposed which was that the world was caused by something before it and above it and that there is one supreme eternal Being which we call GOD that did cause and make the world And this I make good several waies First The universal agreement and consent that has been amongst mankind in all places times and ages in this matter all concurring in the existence of a Deity strongly affirms this Where was there by record of experience any people in any Nation under the Sun found that did not pay some homage to the notion of a Deity Where did ever avowed Atheism possess any part of the world or fix its habitation The whole world have ever subscribed their subjection to a superiour Being All the Idolatry and Polythism that has been in the world has been founded in this for though their worship hath not been rightly directed and their homage not regularly paid where it became due yet this general principle still lay uppermost in the spirits of mankind That a worship was to be performed and a homage to be paid to somewhat that was before them and is above them You may as soon find a Nation without their souls as without their Gods Nay they would set up a Leek an Onion a Calf or an Oxe or any creature to subject themselves to a supreme Deity by and make it a medium to vent that pressing sense of a subjection to somewhat above them rather than not do it Men would have an Altar to an unknown God rather than none which when they had nothing visible declares a pure innate principle to somewhat above them They were so filled with such an apprehension that they would have a Deity for every thing for their corn and their wine and every thing they dealt with The Romans by that method had multiplied their Gods to above thirty thousand and other Nations not much behind them Which can speak no other thing unto us than that men saw somewhat of a Deity in themselves and every thing else under whose rule and dispose all things lay subjected and in whom they lived and moved and had their being Nor would they undertake any thing in peace or war private or publick without a previous application to a Deity whose right to dispose them and all their actions they did thereby fully own and assent to If we enquire into the true and primary grounds of this we shall find them to lie in three things First The universal exercise of the Reason of mankind about themselves and all they saw in the world necessarily fixed in them this conclusion That there must be a first Cause and a supreme beginner of things The general reason of the world has concenter'd in this and proceeded upon it as an universal maxim agreeing to the truth of our natural faculties Secondly All mankind live and exist with an instinct of a Deity in their very nature and being A God runs in the veins and blood of men So saith Cicero In omnium animis Deorum notionem impressit ipsa Natura De N. Deor. l. 1. We have discovered parts of the world where men have lived without clothes and without most humane circumstances that attend mankind but never any without some God God has stamped a character of himself upon us in our very make He has made us in his own image We can never run away from that no more than we can take leave of our selves and shake hands with our own Beings Whatever God the wise Maker has made they carry the marks of him about them But to man especially he has secured his claim in his very Composition and Constitution Nor is this a supposition begged and taken for granted like an Atheists Hipothesis but a thing evidently so The fears and hopes of all men are naturally guided to somewhat above them When men are in danger they naturally run to their God Man in all his fears and sorrows naturally shelters himself under a supreme Being above him He soon finds himself at the utmost confines of his own protection but sits not down there still looks further and higher The workings of his soul as well as the form of his body are still upward they have a divine tendency Extremities are this truth's opportunities Though the Atheists dispute yet he cannot sometimes forbear to tremble The notion of a Deity has made mankind in all ages fall before it Would the Atheist be but so true to himself as to confess it his own fears sometimes confute his unbelief and his own unavoidable practice forbids his principles When the messengers of death come to treat with him they will bring him tidings of another world and awaken him with apprehensions of that Deity he has so mock'd at If there were nothing beyond this world and on the other side the grave mens thoughts of futurity were very vain and the trouble of most men were easily cured they might not only possibly but easily make themselves what they seem to be and what they have really a mind to be Thirdly Another ground of this may be reasonably supposed to be an universal tradition amongst men not only of Gods making the world but of Gods sometimes appearing to and conversing with the world Which he hath often done and given a witness to himself that way We may not only reasonably imagine it a thing to have been but we cannot with any good
force Religion should be encouraged as that universal homage mankind stand obliged to pay to a Soveraign Being Keeping men firm in their Religious Allegiance has a necessary influence upon all humane Societies He that is the fastest to God will be the most dutiful subject the most useful Citizen and the safest friend Whatever tends to eradicate Religion will be found also most pernicious and destructive to the State Sixthly The general revival of and the great applause that hath of late been given to such Philosophical notions as broadly and directly lead this way Here the Atheist is most busily at work and drives on his greatest trade Though other things help men first to like Atheism and look after it yet here is the great armoury for their defence here they learn to justifie what before they resolved to like Democritus is better believed than Moses and Epicurus in better credit with them than St. Paul Whatever can be fetched from Aristotle and others to make good the worlds eternity is greedily embraced and all the notions of Epicurus to make good the Hypothesis of Atoms are not only revived and justified but improved to the total denial of a God in the height of all Atheistical principles and maintained with so much seeming triumph over the rest of the world that he is thought a novice in knowledge and an absolute freshman in the highest sort of learning that has not imbibed some of this kind of Philosophy The reasons or rather absurdities upon which these things are grounded I shall have occasion enough to consider hereafter This account ought every where to be given of them that as these two are the only projects that have been yet found out by all the Atheistical wits that have been in the world to oppose the Being of God so they are such things as were by some very few men only first started and found very little acceptance in those times wherein they first became publick Nay were contradicted and confuted by the generality of the soberest and wisest men then extant 'T is truly observed by a learned Author that the first Atheism we hear of in the world was in the most blind and superstitious age of Greece when the obscene Poets had so debauched the minds of the people to believe such monstrous things of their Gods that all who were any way virtuous must needs abhor such Deities and they became a derision to all intelligent men Then it was and not till then that men began to set their wits on work to solve the Phaenomena of nature without any Deity at all and derive the world in is original from a fortuitous concourse of an infinite company of little particles which we call Atoms Yet the very school of Epicurus himself never quite banished the notion of a Deity which made Cicero say of him that he did nomine ponere but re tollere Deos. His Disciples in these daies have too far enlarged those attainments It falls out now amongst us in an age declining from God wherein such things are by many most set by that lead us farthest from him and seem most to secure us against him that the scent of these things is freshly and hotly pursued and the Rabble of these notions which have been so often routed and have fled before the world are now faced about and afresh recruited to assault this present Generation These unhappy conjunctions with many others have conspired to make this age a sufferer from the worst of enemies and to hazard us upon the most dangerous Rock Men have according to their several interests and inclinations come several waies to disgust Religion and out of many lesser tracks fallen at last into the broad road of Atheism By this My Lord I have endeavoured to shew you some fore-runners of this evil and some of those Harbingers that usually prepare for it I shall detain you no longer in these Preliminaries but apply my self to that where the greatest concern of this undertaking lies That the noblest search of humane thoughts is after the first and highest Being will not be denied and 't is equally truc that mans reasoning faculty in its due exercise naturally steers him that way He that finds himself in possession of that great Luminary we call Vnderstanding and that supreme endowment of reason by which he hath the ascendant of all other visible Beings and maintains a supremacy over the rest of the world must needs be led by that to lay close siege to his own Being and bethink himself round how himself as well as all other things came first to be 'T is that lower principle of sense that lies beneath that rests in the visible existence of things and knows no more of them than that they are Reasons motion lies in a higher Orb and will not be denied to know why things are as well as that they are and how they came to be as well as that they be Such a sally a reasonable Being must needs make beyond the world and so create to himself a subject for his enquiry beyond what is visibly seen and made the common object of his converse To see a man ruling himself and the rest of the world by the fresh springing up of thoughts and the actings of his reason and yet to suppose him to go no further in the extention of that faculty than barely to improve things just as he finds them and to take all things for granted therefore originally to be only because they now actually are to search so narrowly into every corner of nature and yet to take the highest relation to things which is the Being of them for granted were to put the highest absurdity upon the universal reason and to narrow that large comprehensive faculty into a very mean exercise The genuine tendency of a rational soul is still to the utmost bounds of all enquiry to know what is capable of being known and to be ascertained what cannot be known As the satisfaction of reason is in its own exercise and can have no satisfaction but what it gives it self and takes pleasure in all other things only as they are matter for that faculty to work upon so the chiefest attainment reason must needs press after is to know its self in its own original and to know the first Cause of that which gives being to the knowledge of all other causes Reason in its actings aims at a full comprehension and a compleat knowledge of every thing it can conceive of which is to make every thing appear reasonable to it and so reduce it to a satisfaction to it self All reasonings of a man about himself and all other things must needs come short of the satisfaction reason aims at in making things answer the test of its exercise and at last lie even to its own innate rectitude unless it arrive at some acquiescency how it self and all other things came to be as well as that they be He that thinks or
same time If it should do so and that course were eternal it will unavoidably follow that the world as to all generated Beings was infinitely something and infinitely nothing Fourthly Things that everlastingly were could never come under any confinement or regulation of time Plato in his Timaeus discourses largely of this things that were eternally so could never come under the mutations and changes of time which we see all things now do 'T is time brings into corruption and time brings into generation Whatever was eternal à parte ante must need be so à parte post and run an even and uninterrupted course An eternal thing can never be stopt by time If to evade this the Atheist will say that every thing still is as it ever and eternally was which he must say then plainly he affirms that time and all the accidents vicissitudes and effects of it are eternal too for if all things now subject to the regulament of time were everlastingly so then time must needs be everlasting too which is to come to the dregs of all contradiction Fifthly Whatever is eternal can never alter its self nor its own form nor be subject to alteration Because whatever did eternally exist did necessarily exist as it eternally was all eternal things must needs be unchangeable If matter abstracted from generation were eternal it could then never alter it self and come into the round of generation and corruption For then 't were not eternal If matter be said to be eternal in generation and corruption the answer has been given 't is impossible they should be both eternal for then they must be both existing together which is a contradiction as much as to say a thing is and is not at the same time Generation of one Being by corruption of another supposeth another Being precedent to it Corruption of one Being produceth the generation of another But 't is utterly impossible that any Being that ever was eternally a Being should ever turn into corruption and so cease to be such a Being in time as it eternally had been And if matter abstracted from Beings and Forms in such a way were eternally matter it must needs eternally so continue Sixthly If the world be eternal it cannot possibly have in it self any inherent intrinsique defect about its being so That is a thing cannot be imagined to have so that is eternal especially a direct relation to an original which is destructive to the notion of eternity Whatsoever is eternal must need carry an evidence past question of its entire existing by it self because what is eternal must needs have perfection in its existence and be totally independent from all other things in reference to its own Being But the world it self confutes all imaginable Atheism about this point because while we look no further than the world for it self we are at a perfect loss for a first cause and a first mover in every thing The world in this visible defect is its own negative to its own eternity for whatsoever I can with any good reason imagine eternal I must see to be withouâ— cause without dependence without beginning and a thing that entirely exists by it self but 't is evident there is no one part noâ— piece of the world that is so And if yoâ— say the whole frame of the world in thâ— way you see it was eternal you must makâ— all things relating to time beginning anâ— ending to corrupting and generating to bâ— eternal too For if the whole of the worlâ— be in the course it now keeps eternal theâ— all the parts and methods of that generâ—â— course must necessarily be so too and theâ— we arrive at the highest absurdity and thâ— utmost of all contradictions If we consideâ— the several stages the world takes in ageâ— and generations if the world have beeâ— eternal such ages and generations must havâ— been eternal too And then this will plainly follow which is not possible to be that there is inequality in infiniteness and that one infinite may be of one sizâ— and another infinite of another for sâ— we palpably see ages and generations tâ— be Nor can the Atheist ever avâ—â—d this unless he will say that the end oâ— a generation is as soon as the beginning of itâ— for else they cannot be both eternal Take any one generation if you admit it to begin and end it cannot be infinite unless I believe that to be infinite which I see past and which I see begin A generation a thousand years hence cannot be upon the â—ame terms of infiniteness with the present generation And yet it cannot be denied â—hat all infinitenesses are the same in infiâ—ity or else they could not be infinite The truth is that where there are periods â—hanges alterations beginnings and endâ—ngs 't is ridiculous to talk of infinity and â—et the world is filled with nothing else And had the world it self been infinite and â—ternal with the knowledge that is in it â—nd in the posture we see it however individuals had failed there must needs have â—een an eternal knowledge in the world of â—ts own eternal existence which would easily â—ave ended nay have prevented all discourses of this nature The Atheist usually objects in this matâ—er and pleads for the worlds eternity â—y urging that maxim of Aristotle so much â—enowned by him that he saies all Philosophers did agree to it which is that ex â—ihilo nihil fit out of nothing nothing can be produced And therefore they infer from thence either an eternity in the world or in some pre-existing matter I will not say of this principle as was saiâ— of one of Euclides first demonstrations that it was so plain an Ass could not miâ—â— it But I may very well say He must 〈◊〉 a great one that denies it But yet it givâ— the Atheist no help at all For when Oceâ—lus and Aristotle argued from this theâ— looked no further than the world thaâ— bare matter and the natural course of prâ—duction the world is now in and if wâ— respect only matter this maxim is undenâ—ably true that no matter can be produceâ— but by some other matter If the Atheiâ—â— will beg the question and say There 〈◊〉 nothing above or beside this world I coâ—fess the maxim is undeniably true as it râ—lates to matter We are not speaking hoâ—â— the world exists within it self only buâ— how the world it self came to exist anâ— when we prove a supreme Being above thâ— world this maxim is out of doors as to thâ— Atheists purpose and is no way destroyeâ— or denied by saying God first made thâ— matter of the world out of no other matter and so out of nothing if you respect onlâ— matter for he made it by himself in whoâ—â— all things are existing and have their firsâ— Being tanquam in origine and in primâ— causa 'T is absurd to say in infinite Being that has all things existing virtually iâ— himself made any thing out of nothing and yet
Atoms had been rational Atoms and truly he might as well have begged and supposed them into reason as motion for bare matter can no more be proved to have an intrinsique motion in it which would make it absolutely necessary for all matter to move at all times than it can be proved to think will and reason and he that beggs and takes things for granted without the trouble of proof should take all that would serve his turn I say had Epicurus his Atoms been reasonable Atoms they would never have done any thing by chance because they had a superiour principle to do it by they would never have put that to the venture which might have been made certain Their own principle would have instructed them not to have put that to the venture of chance whether it should be or should not be which by reason might have been made certain to be A man that hath eyes would never shut them and go to discover colours by feeling Every superiour principle must needs act above an inferiour Whatever did happen by meer chance to be had a power to be and by reason might have been made certain to be How monstrously unreasonable is it to believe that these Atoms that had nothing in themselves but bare matter and motion upon the best supposition should produce in man and in nothing else a rational soul and that that in man which we call the rational soul should be nothing else but the more active and generous part of these Atoms which became so by being more smooth and round than the rest which you must believe fell by chance all to the share of men and no other Being had the hap to have any of them in their compositions We must also believe these eternal Atoms to be some of one size and some of another some of one quality and some of another and yet all eternal which is a flat contradiction to all notion of eternity Fourthly Suppose in these Atoms matter and motion the world could never come to be made fortuitously thereby For First all motion in every thing must either be from a superiour mover or from an innate and self-originated principle of motion in it self If from a superiour mover then we come to God If from an innate motion that any thing hath in and from it self that motion must needs be eternal For nothing can move that is not set on work or that doth not infinitely set it self on work If motion have beginning it must own it self to some beginner if it have no beginning it must be infinite and eternal and there needs no better or other argument to prove that any motion had a beginning than when we see it has an ending for as all mechanick motion by its coming to an end shews plainly it had a primum movens and was set on work so does all other motion by its perioding and ending declare plainly it had its beginning ab extra and is not self-originated and eternal So that if the motion of these Atoms came from a first mover then they came from a cause and their motion must needs be regular and corresponding to that first cause If they had no first mover then their motion must be eternal as Epicurus sayes it is and nothing that moves eternally can move by chance because it must needs have the highest perfection of motion And where that is 't is impossible to suppose any such thing as chance For whatever did eternally move can never cease so to move and so can have no such thing as chance conversant about it Secondly Matter it self cannot be moved fortuitously by motion supposed inherent in it that is utterly impossible because all matter determines its own motion Heavy things move downward and cannot fortuitously move upward Had there been nothing but chance to sement the world the heavy part would have been sure to have gone downward and the light part upward and they would never have met nor pieced together The motion of things is determined in the nature of their being And therefore we cannot reasonably say that bare matter and motion ever caused any thing by chance unless you will say it caused every thing to be by chance just as it must needs be and necessarily be which is a contradiction Who can believe chance the cause and certainty the effect We see all things moving in perfect order and not only our experience assures us of this but our reason shews us it must necessarily so come to pass For such causes do produce such effects suitable to the nature and being of things and an intrinsique causality and innate dependence upon each other which must needs be the effect of the supreme and great cause of all Let any man consider that noble principle in man the rational soul with the suitableness of it to govern himself and the rest of the world and how all things in their being and dependency lie proportioned to such a superiority Let him view the make of a man and a woman and see how suitable and how necessary they are one to another in their very composition and how the male and the female in all other creatures are adapted to propagate their own kind and to be useful each to other and the instinct they carry about them so to be Let him look upon the faces of men and women and consider them there never having been yet seen any two without some variety Let him look above him and below him and round about him and see what harmony there is between the Heavens and the Earth how the well-being of the one depends upon the influence of the other and how certain and regular those are by which all times and seasons are exactly determined Let him look upon the Sea and consider how useful that is to the world to introduce a trade and commerce among all Nations and to make each one capable of enjoying the good of all the rest Let him view the constant course of its ebbings and flowings and the standing Law of its Boundaries whereby such a mass of waters are still kept in one channel and continued in their proper station And when he has viewed these and a thousand things more that lye obvious to his reasonable contemplation if he then think the composition of the whole universe and all the parts of it and the grand oeconomy that is in it came from nothing but meer chance he renders himself a person fitter for Bedlam than disputation Yet such wretched shifts are men forced to fly to when they are labouring to exclude the notion of God and banish a Deity out of the world The Epicurean Atomist falls plainly under the heavy stroaks of several gross absurdities First He makes his Atoms which are the matter of which he will have the world to consist to move about in his ultra-mundan-space without a tendency to a center Which is perfectly impossible that any matter should move by a motion
Emperours who triumphed most in pretending Atheism threatned the wind if it blew upon them and the clouds if they rained upon them betrayed upon every small occasion the dreadfullest fears imaginable Julian the Apostate at last cryed out The Galilaean had overcome him The great Hector of the Gods Epicurus himself was the most eminent coward that ever lived in those things he most defied nothing ever frighted any man more than those two things did him Death and the Gods so you shall find it reported in Cicero His Atoms had not solved his conscience nor cured him it seems of his fears he was certain of them though he bottom'd all the world upon chance How many are to be seen daily that when they think they have safely interred their conscience when they come to any extremity soon find a revival of it again There is nothing so universally certain amongst mankind but what is subject to variation in individuals which strongly proves that the world has not immutability nor eternity affixed to it Sometimes we see such members of the body and such faculties of the soul cease to exert themselves in particulars but yet such monsters for they are no better ought not to destroy the general character and definition we give of natural Beings In this matter of conscience which does plainly admit the Being of a God to which it hath immediate relation two things strongly plead for the generality of it in all men above the generality of any one thing that belongs to them First That 't is the great Trustee for God in the world And unless it be in some very extraordinary case where God concurrs with a man to extinguish it as a special and signal judgement upon him it seems plain that no man can totally obliterate it in himself Secondly 'T is the great medium he will judge the world by He will deal with men according to their light and the consciences of men shall perform that great office of accusing or excusing in the great day He that either actually has a principle of conscience or ever had such a thing or comes hereafter to find that such a principle is within him gives a witness sufficient to the Being of such a principle and I believe the Atheist will undertake a hard task to find one individual man well in his wits that is not included in that compass He that tells me he hath no conscience and expects I should believe him may as well expect that I should take his word if he should tell me he is not of the same composition with other men and does not see nor hear though he has eyes and ears visibly as other men have A fourth Argument to prove the truth of a supreme Being above the world is the miracles that have been wrought in the world This stabs the Atheist and mortally wounds him If ever in fact there were such a thing as a miracle the Atheist is irrecoverably gone All his Hypotheses fall to the ground all the fig-leaves he can get will never hide him from apparent nakedness and folly To give this argument its due force I shall endeavour two things First To prove that a miracle leads us directly to God and is in its being destructive to all an Atheist sayes And secondly That the fact of such miracles is true and that we have good reason to believe it is so and that there have been often such in the world A miracle is properly that which could not come to pass by any natural cause If a man actually dead should be raised again it were a thing could not be brought to pass in any natural way nor could any natural account be given of it If a man born blind and that had no eyes should by a word speaking be made to see 't were a thing out of all humane reach to do You must step out of the world and take a view of something above it to know how such a thing could come to pass The working of a miracle is the doing of that which apparently to our senses and our reason nothing visible in the world could do And if so it must needs be done by somewhat that is superiour to the world Nay 't is sometimes the doing of that which is quite contrary to the natural motion and constant tendency of the whole universe If a man be once dead and that principle of life and motion that was in him be gone 't is natural for his body to corrupt and vary the form of its matter Now to make such a man live again who by the standing Law of Nature died and must by the same Law corrupt is not only a thing above all natural power but a thing directly contrary to nature and perfectly inverts the whole course of it For 't is as much the reason and course of nature for a man to die as 't is at the first for him to live If therefore any such thing were ever done in the world it must necessarily be brought to pass by a Power above all natural causes and the utmost ability of all natural Beings We must needs erect a Throne for a power superiour to nature and such a power as must directly lead us to God 'T is as much a miracle and as far above all natural power to revive a man actually dead as to make a man out of a stone or form him from a lump of earth Consider the world in which of the Atheists notions of it you will if there be nothing above it nor besides it then 't is plainly impossible that any thing should happen or come to pass but what has its rise and foundation from somewhat within it For if there be nothing existing but this world there can be nothing produced but what this world can produce But that we call a miracle is such a thing as is quite beyond the worlds production neither the reasonable part nor the sensible part nor the whole together can produce a miracle Not the reasonable part for the great and genuine business of reason is to place things in their due dependencies each upon other and to know causes producing effects and means suited to ends Reason can never elevate any thing in its operation beyond it self nor force an act from it beyond the compass of its own Being That reason has an innate antipathy to 't were to set reason against it self and say reason shall produce things without reason and against reason Reason cannot the imagined to deal in that for which no reason can be given And therefore when we see a miracle a thing that can have no natural cause or reason directs us to look to somewhat above the world that must needs be the cause of it Not the sensible part of the world for that can never alter its course Nature is a perfect Law to it self which it can never repeal This we are assured of not only by our experience of the constant course that
is kept by all natural Beings but because they keep such a course as carries an intrinsick reason for it in their very nature and being and such a course as they must keep and can keep no other If you dig up a Tree and cut off the root 't will certainly die This we are assured of not only from the fact of it that we continually find it so but our reason necessarily tells us it must be so and can be no otherwise And therefore whatever is done above all natural power and contrary to all natural operation must needs silence our sense and our reason and all parts of the world and forceth us to recurre to somewhat above the world that must be Lord over it and the great disposer of it Two things seem to make it plain that the whole world and all the ability that nature has can never produce a miracle First Nature can never go beyond it self nor do any thing by a power above it self The bounds of every thing is its own being 'T is an absurdity to say a thing should out-do it self or that the effect should be greater than the cause If any thing be done that is beyond all the power of nature that could never be caused by nature To cure a man that is sick of a disease or to raise a man that is a natural creeple to a perfect soundness by speaking a word to him is beyond all the confines of natural power and therefore cannot be an effect arising from any natural cause there being no such thing potentially in nature it self nor any relative operation natural in such a way Secondly Nature cannot contradict it self because its productions are suitable to and inherent in its own being Nature is as a free agent so a necessary agent The fire cannot be cold nor the water hot Throw men into the fire and if they be not burnt they must be beholding to somewhat above nature for nature will destroy them If a man should walk in the air and not fall and walk upon the waters and not sink it must be by a help supernatural For nature should otherwise oppose it self which it cannot do And to say its effects should cease is all one as to say nature it self in its own being should cease and so the world should cease Whatsoever can go beyond the power of nature and contradict the power of nature must needs be above the power of nature and what is so must needs be above the power of the world And this doth two waies evidently overthrow the vain supposition of the worlds eternity For First If there be any power above it it cannot be eternal unless you will make two eternals one above another which is absurd and perfectly impossible And Secondly If ever the course of nature and this world were stopped and crossed then I am sure the world in the course of it cannot have been eternal neither Two things are usually objected against miracles First The matter of fact is denied And Secondly The Atheist will tell you that those things we call miracles were not really and truly so but were extraordinary and unusual things brought about by some secret natural cause though not known nor perceived For the first of these Objections I will handle it distinctly by it self To the second I answer Every thing in the world was at the first a miracle nor could any reason be given of it Which is a plain proof that God made the world and that it did not make it self There was no other cause of all originals in nature and of the first things that were in the world but that God pleased to make them No doubt at the first a man might have called the Sun or a Rainbow a great miracle Nor could they ever find out any natural cause of them nor of the first being of any thing The whole world was a stupendious miracle and without any reason to be given for it but what lay in the makers breast To me therefore that saying of Aristotle seems wise and excellent That it is absurd for any man to go about to define first principles because they cannot be defined But since the world is extant and our constant beholding of it and converse with it makes it no more a miracle to us than we are to our selves and since we find that certainty and fixation in the worlds first make that there is no more since made but a continuance of the world in a natural orderly course and succession and that these first originals do by a certain necessary law of their own being and existence propagate the world in a way not only obvious to our senses but demonstratively to our reason and that such beings cannot cease to operate as they do nor cannot operate otherwise than they do we come rightly to call that a miracle which is neither one of the worlds original pieces or first principles nor any thing that can naturally be deduced from any or all of them in the regular way of the worlds existing In answering therefore this objection I will first admit all that can be admitted to the Atheist's advantage which is that whensoever we see any thing come to pass that we are not able to give an account how in a natural and in the ordinary course of the world it should come to pass and though we have not seen it come to pass before yet in that case if there be a possibility of a remote and occult cause that we do not at the present see nor comprehend there is no absolute necessity to impose that as a miracle upon any man because he will say 't is more reasonable to believe it to come from somewhat he doth see if there be a possibility of it than to come from what he doth not see But when the case falls out to be that a thing is brought to pass to which we are not only unable to assign a natural cause but such a thing as is not possible to have a natural cause which is necessarily to be concluded when it either overthrows the course of nature and goes directly counter to it or is evidently above it and superiour to it in such a case mankind must submit to it as a miracle and go to somewhat superiour to nature to find the cause of it There can never be a natural cause assigned for raising a dead man to life 't is both above nature and against nature For any man to be able in one moment to speak all languages is a thing above nature and naturally impossible for we see and know that men must arrive at the knowledge of any language by industry and use and cannot attain it otherwise In such cases as we see no visible natural cause for such things so 't is utterly impossible there should be any If a man should vanish out of our sight and in two or three minutes convey himself a hundred miles off as we could give
no reason for it so our reason assures us it were impossible any natural reason ever should be given for it There is no room for any possibility of an occult cause 't is we know out of all natural compass and such a thing as all the power of the world can never perform and must of necessity be brought to pass by a power superiour to it For the other Objection the Atheist may make which is To deny that ever there were any such miracles wrought in the world and that the matter of fact about them is not true First I must tell the Atheist if he will believe nothing but what he sees nor give credit to any thing that is reported by former ages and delivered down to us he must confine himself to a very narrow part of the world and indeed fall below that due station a rational creature ought to keep When ever my reason can assure me of a thing by arriving at a satisfaction about it such as reason requires I ought to be ascertained of it because doubting in its foundation is imperfection and in its operation vexation The tendency of the rational soul is against both these Reason requires no more in any thing to satisfie it self withall than the matter 't is conversant with is capable of affording 'T were to deny reason to be reason to say it required a knowledge of any thing beyond the nature and extent of it and should not acquiesce in the utmost evidence the subject can afford And therefore in this present case of miracles which are things done and past in other ages a man by his reason considers First 'T is possible such things may have been done I cannot positively upon any good ground determine they have not been done because 't is possible and must be so granted that there may be a supreme power above and beyond the world that may over-rule the world as it pleases and that because there is nothing visible either in sense or reason that makes it impossible Secondly A man must consider by what waies and means he may reasonably be assured and satisfied that such things actually were done To wish to see a thing that is past were childish to call for any Mathematical demonstration of it were ridiculous and both impossible And therefore a man must come to know the fact of things transacted before he was born and of such as he never saw by the credible testimony of others assisted in some cases with the present visible remaining effects of the things themselves and 't is not possible to know them any other way The question therefore in this case will be whether upon the credit of others by a general testimony given to it we may reasonably believe a thing to have been which we never saw and be satisfied of the truth of that which we our selves were not eye-witnesses of For the making of this good in the affirmative let these things be considered First Those that were eye-witnesses at the first of any matter of fact had as much certain assurance of it as we have of any thing we now see And therefore their report of it then cannot be false unless they designed it should be so For whatever mistakes they were capable of then we are still liable to the same now and whatsoever upon that account will invalidate their testimony will destroy the grounds of our own belief for ever 'T is no where necessary here to determine where the ultimate and supreme certainty of mankind lyes and whence it arises To attribute so much to the senses as Epicurus does it doubtless too much to debase that noble part of man which is his reason and to make way for all imaginable deceit 'T is obvious to us how commonly our senses are mistaken Should a man take no other impression of the Sun or the Moon into his understanding but what he receives from his senses he would never know either of them to be above half a yard diameter if he did not consider that the distance of the object deceives his sight Experience tells us how easie it is were it not for the help of our understanding to represent false Images that shall perfectly cheat the senses For when by a false light or any other deceivable way to the senses a thing is represented to me to be otherwise than indeed it is the understanding looks beyond the bare representation to the circumstances wherein the deceit lyes and so rectifies the senses The understanding often does so and is the supreme guide of them Nor does it ever depart from their informations of sense where 't is satisfied there is no accidental deceit put upon the senses In such cases the informations of sense and the results of right reason are ever the same because both perfect in their kind 'T were a great demonstration of imbecillity in the understanding to deny what we feel and see to be and are sure there is no deceit put upon us in so doing In this case Aristotle sayes rightly relinquere sensum sequi rationem debilitas est intellectus And the Philosopher was doubtless upon the right way of probation that when one disputed with him against motion rose up himself and walkt about before him It seems therefore most reasonable to believe that the utmost of all humane certainty lies in the final results of the understanding which takes in all the assistance of sense in such things as are objects for both and never differs from sense when 't is no way deceived or abused of which the understanding is still the Judge And in other things speculative and beyond the compass of sense it judges purely and singly by it self The faculty of our senses and that of the understandings are both perfect in their kind But the understanding is superiour and rectifies that deceit and mistake the senses are liable to and when 't is satisfied the senses are in their true and right exercise and under no deceit never differs from them but the senses and the understanding alwaies concurr 'T were to imagine else that God had made us divided against our selves But so far as our present matter in hand is concerned let us take things which way we will those that were at the first eye-witnesses of any thing and had their understandings about them were capable of making a judgement as certain as mankind is capable of And when very many together agree to witness to the fact of a thing they saw it must needs give all the cumulative advantage to the certainty of it that possibly we can expect The deceit therefore that we can only fear in the testimony of others is an intention and design they may possibly have to deceive and abuse us and to mis-represent matter of fact to us Now that which ought to satisfie our minds in this case because we have as much to our purpose as the subject matter is capable of and as our satisfaction
less to be denyed than another And as the affirmative of any thing appears more reasonable the negative of it must needs be the more unreasonable And all things that we see not as well as those we see are capable of more or less probability and more or less certainty to our reason and so have necessarily the same degrees in their affirmations and negations that all other things have The way obviously to clear this is to consider whether a man may be certain of any thing he does not see or whether all things unseen are alike uncertain if the first be made good the second I am sure is thereby rendered false That a man may be certain of things he never saw I affirm and that several waies morally certain naturally certain and mathematically certain First Morally certain A man by the concurrence of all circumstances and credible testimonies about it may be morally certain there is such a City as Rome though he were never there And if he should deny the certainty of it to himself must either violently assault his own faculties or render himself visibly impotent and insufficient in the exercise of them The ground of this moral certainty and the reason why by credible testimonies I may arrive at a certainty in such a way is because that taking a measure of others by what I find in my self or by what I see experimentally in the daily practice of men and in the course of the world and in the reason of the thing it self such a testimony must needs be true Now suppose some upon their own single credit shall tell a man of a Town built upon the waves and standing in the midst of the Sea and that by chance the waves roll so continually under it as to keep it from sinking and so it continually swims will any man well in his wits say that a negative to this and a negative to the being of such a place as Rome are upon even terms And that a man that has seen neither may not upon better terms deny the one than the other Secondly I may be naturally certain of somewhat I do not see by the fixedness and intrinsique certainty of nature in its cause and productions I am naturally certain I have thoughts and reason and yet they are no way the object of sense I am naturally certain I was begotten by a man and brought forth by a woman If any man will tell me I was begotten by a Flie or that a Whirlwind casually blew some dust together and that by that matter and motion I came by chance to be made because I never saw the one more than the other have I no more reason to deny the one than the other If I can prove by reason that the world could not be brought forth by the casual motion of Atoms nor be eternal in the posture it now is which it must have been if it be eternal have not I more reason to deny those things than an Atheist has to deny the Being of God that has a full conjunction of reason to prove it because they are all things unseen Thirdly I may be mathematically certain of a thousand Propositions which I only revolve in my thoughts and were never visibly represented to my senses and am as well able to judge of an absurdity in my thoughts and my mind and to affirm and deny things of that nature as if I saw the lines visibly drawn before me So 't is in all speculative matters and in all other matters things unseen must be judged of by things seen and according to things known and so are more or less probable according to the proportion they bear to our reason exercised about such things Reason has been ever the same and the great Standard to determine all things by What is an absurdity now was ever so since the world began and will continue so Reason will as well determine about matters we never saw as about things visible to our senses He that will tell me of a Castle built upon a bulrush and a steeple upon the foundation of a straw my reason will soon give him an answer and look no further Nor ought bare probabilities where there is no apparent absurdity to steer us at all But in the Atheists case his assertions are not possibilities for if our faculties be not fallible and deceive us they are positive absurdities I say bare possibilities ought not to steer us at all because a bare possibility is not any thing that appears to us to have any actual existence but only a result from this negative that 't is not a contradiction and so not impossible From whence we may deduce endless Chimeraes and all the foolish fancies imaginable A man in that case is bounded with nothing but a flat contradiction and so may intangle himself with all the possible fooleries that can be in the world 'T is possible that Trees do hear when we speak and that Stones do see us and look upon us 't is not impossible because 't is not a contradiction But to make such things to have any power to influence or guide the rational soul were highly to reproach our faculties and to make them so weak and unstedfast as that the use of them would be thereby rendred far beneath what it truly and really is Bare possibility ought not to entangle us in our assent or dissent to any thing because 't is positively nothing does not ponere aliquid but has only a bare negative supposition of existence in not being impossible 'T is possible a Plant or Vegetable may have a rational soul because 't is not a contradiction and so not impossible though we see no effects or concomitants of a rational soul in it But whoever should let this bare possibility steer him would much affront the certainty of his reason which ought not by such a possibility to be hindred from the certain knowledge of the nature of a Plant because that were to imagine reason to be ruled by a may be a naked possibility which is a non-entity against what really and actually is He that comes only with a bare possibility to confute me in any thing for which I bring proof and give good reason comes with just nothing because all things possible to be are no way necessary to be That were to make a contradiction necessary because things may be and may not be and therefore where there is no actual demonstration that they be the possibility lies equal on both sides and is determined by the proofs on either side Possibility is only previous to proof and admits it but is no proof at all it self Impossibility forbids all proof possibility makes way for it and does not more This will appear evidently true that bare naked possibility is no argument at all nor is of any force singly either to prove or deny a thing if we do but consider that if possibility were any proof then in all
things where there is possibility on both sides there were good proof on both sides which to say were to make our faculties false and a most notorious absurdity that a thing might be proved to be and proved not to be For 't is nor whether there be possibility on both sides for that there is and that is no more than to say if a thing be or if it be not there is no contradiction either way and so no impossibility either way But if possibility be made of any force to affirm or deny a thing then possibility is supposed to make a proof and then it must needs make it both waies and prove a thing may be and prove a thing may not be because 't is both waies possible 'T is plain therefore that bare possibility is no proof at all any way and whenever the Atheist recurres to bare possibility to help him he recurres to a meer nullity He says a thing is because it may be and 't is not because it may not be which as to the proof of it either way either to its being or not being amounts to just nothing In some cases impossibility proved of the one side carries necessity on the other side But whatsoever leaves things in such and equilibrium as possibility does which sayes they may be or they may not be can never certainly prove the being of them either way The disingenuity of the Atheist will also further appear to us if we consider that he himself admits invisibility and infinity in his own supposed notions about the world and yet object against them when they are ascribed to God He admits them in subjects we know are no way capable of them and yet denies them when they are most properly attributed to our supreme Being infinitely perfect He that will suppose matter with an inherent motion in it infinite must needs suppose it to have all possible perfection For whatsoever has infiniteness and self-origination must needs swallow up all perfection into it self or else no Being were capable of perfection Now let us once exclude the notion of God out of the world and where will you with any tolerable sense and without apparent absurdities place infinity with absolute perfection The notion we have in our minds of such a thing plainly tells us there is such a thing And our reason assures us it can be fixed no where but in a supreme Being which we call God The world is in its constitution such a thing and so related to God that the greatest shifters off of Divinity cannot give any tolerable account of the being of it to any reasonable creature without appropriating those things they most find fault with and cavil at in the notion of God to some part of the world Either they make the world infinite just as it is or else some small particles of matter with an inherent motion in them they must be eternal This shews a necessity of Eternity somewhere and that all things that are must needs come from somewhat that ever was by the judgement of every rational creature and that all mankind have naturally a notion and Idea of eternity within them So that whoever denies the being of God when he goes to give a reason of his denial is forced to confess and admit those things which he sayes are the grounds of his denyal and so makes it a thing not only of the very same but of ten times greater difficulty to believe there is no God than to confess there is one For when he goes about to give a reasonable account how the world could come to be without some first cause he is forced to admit all those things he himself objects against a first cause and besides lyes under all those absurdities the being of the world will cast upon our reasons when we go about to give an account of it excluding the notion of a God and a first cause from it And as the Atheist is exceeding disingenious in his principles and objections so he is monstrously unreasonable First In this that he ascribes the world to causes that have the highest improbability and in some cases impossibility to our reason plainly attending them First 'T is plainly impossible that the world in the course we now see it should have been eternal according to that Idea our souls are able to make of eternity For though we are not able to give a full description of what is eternal yet we are able to say negatively what we are sure cannot be eternal Suppose eternity to be never so much beyond me and above me yet 't were absurd for me to admit any thing to be eternal that does not reach the notion I have of eternity But grant to the Atheist the most he pretends to which is that there is a bare possibility that the world may have been eternal and that there is no contradiction to say so I think I have fully proved that bare possibility is no proof at all nor ought to have the least sway with any reasonable man in the affirmation or negation of any thing And therefore when the Atheist recurs as generally he doth to bare possibility to support his notions he is driven beyond the confines of all rational proof and endeavours to make something of an absolute nothing He takes that for proof which only gives an admission that there may be proof Take him in the other way in the notion of his Atoms from whence he will needs derive the world what an aspect doth it carry to our reason to imagine that Atoms in a fancied vacuity had an eternal gravity in them which caused an eternal motion of them up and down without any tendency at all to a center and that they could never cease their motion till they hit by chance one against another and were diverted that way That this dull matter and this sensless motion in it caused by the internal gravity of it did by chance produce this glorious fabrick of a rational soul and so did transfer that to another which it had not first in it self And that by the chance and casuality of the motion of these Atoms the world and all the order and harmony of it was first produced The Atheist in this will never arrive at bare possibility For the whole of it so far as it is urged against Gods making the world and made use of to self-originate the world is a perfect Systeme of non-sense He that sayes the world was made by chance does in effect say He cannot tell how it was made and that when we deny God to be the Author of it we can give no reasonable account of it The Atheist is also further unreasonable because he denies the being of that which the world is a plain effect of and the contemplation of the whole world doth rationally lead us unto He denies also that to be which we have an innate notion of in our own souls which is a supreme Being absolutely
perfect which the whole world will not afford us nor can we fix our notion of it upon any thing visible The capacity a man has some way to conceive of such a thing as a supreme and perfect Being doth evidently declare there is such a Being that gave that capacity He that goes about either to doubt it or deny it must in some measure admit it or else he doubts and denies he knows not what For when any man disputes against a thing 't is granted he has a capacity to conceive of such a thing or else he could not oppose it Had there not been a supreme Being which we call God there could never have been any innate notions of it in the minds of men in fears hopes and concerns about him as such No man ever had an original innate impression of a lye a pure nothing upon his intellect That were to say our faculties were originally false and so we are nothing but a great deceit to our selves Nay to this day no man ever thought of a meer nothing Thoughts and existence are relatives Non entis nulla cogitatio The wildest fantasms that ever possessed the minds of men were yet still conversant about somewhat that was real and had existence and were but disordered and misplaced by the fancy Let a man imagine Oxen feeding in the bottom of the Sea and Whales grazing upon dry ground or Mountains dancing in the Air or any thing of that kind the ground of all these imaginations is real things and such as do exist They are only dislocated by the fancy and disposed by the mind contrary to the course of nature and so in that disposition and conjunction are meer fantasms and entia rationis But this we call an Idea of God is quite another thing 'T is not a fictitious representation the mind makes to it self from a collection of visible objects and corporeal fantasms but 't is a notion of a Being abstractedly considered from whatever came in by the senses which can be no other but an Idea placed originally in the soul by an infinite and perfect Being that first made it A man finds in his own soul he can conceive there is such a Being but yet cannot describe him by any thing he ever saw By which 't is plain the notion of such a Being came not in by the senses Whatever is the object of sense hath infirmity annexed to it because 't is still divisible and therefore a notion of absolute and infinite perfection could not arise from thence Nor is it possible to believe that ever mankind should bow down themselves in that subjection they are in to the notion of a Deity if the notion of it were nothing but a vain fancied collection of things disorderly together in the mind that had come in by the senses For they must needs know by the use of their reason that such things had no existence in such conjunction but were a perfect vanity Nor is there in the notion of God any unnatural disorderly conjunction of things together but all those attributes we ascribe to God do naturally and necessarily make up the notion of him and cannot be separated from it Several steps our pure naturals take towards a supreme Being to satisfie and confirm us in the unreasonableness of an Atheist First Our reason considers the whole world is without a first cause of any thing and yet the constitution of it is such that without some first cause we can give no reasonable account of any thing We can never reasonably be satisfied how men should come to beget one another in the way we see without some first man that was not begotten in that way Which first man must necessarily conduct us to some first and supreme cause Secondly Reason considers it self the supremest parf of the world and knows by its own exercise it could not be begotten by it self For that were to contradict its self and deny its own evidence And so comes to adore somewhat above it self and more excellent than it self of which it has a natural inbred Idea Thirdly Reason layes down this as a fundamental maxim to it self that whatever we are able to think or imagine of absolute goodness perfection infiniteness or excellency of any kind it must necessarily exist in this first cause who gave us this ability to think and conceive of such things and made us with such an Idea So that to the utmost of what a man can do to think well of God and highly to adore him his reason leads him to and he can go no further Fourthly 'T is highly reasonable to conclude that he that was the first Donor of our beings must needs have an absolute property in us and so we lye under an obligation to all the homage we are able to perform Because the donation of a being to us is the supremest obligation that could be put upon us And whatsoever this supreme Being that gave us our own being shall at any time reveal to us to be his pleasure about us we stand for ever obliged to obey and submit to Fifthly Our reason tells us that whatsoever we can conceive of the wisest Builder must be much more in Gods framing the world He would not make the world without some proposed end which could be no other but what best pleased himself That faculty that informs us of a supreme Power that made the world will also ascertain us that he can uphold it will govern it and at last have an account of it according to that end he first proposed to himself in making it Sixthly We find in our own souls a distinguishing taste of good and evil and a judgement we necessarily and naturally pass upon our selves in reference to the one and the other being much satisfied in the one and filled with terrours and fears by the other And our reason tell us all this must needs be in order to a supreme judgement above us and was placed in us by a supreme Being that first made us Were there nothing above our selves we could have no higher end than to please our selves When men find in their own souls troubles arising from those actions that please them most and which are no way cognizable nor punishable perhaps in this world that plainly relates it self to somewhat above and beyond themselves The truth is our own souls determine within our selves the great end of all our actions to be pleasing or displeasing to God Seventhly and lastly In full answer to the Atheists objection my reason will tell me that Gods being not seen by me should no way hinder but further my belief of his Being and Existence First Because I find enough in mine own make and constitution to inform me of him naturally an inbred fear of him an admiration of him a tendency still toward him of which I am as sure as that I am sure I think which is the surest evidence I can have that I am and an