either Perpendicular to a Plane going through the Center of the Sun or Coincident or Inclâ—ning I demand which of all these Reason and Knowledge would make choise of Not of a Perpendicular posture For both the pleasant variety and great conveniency of Summer and Winter Springâ— time and Harvest would be lost and for want of accession of the Sun these parts of the Earth that bring forth fruit now and are habitable would be iâ— an incapacity of ever bringing forth any and consequently could entertain no Inhabitants and those Parts that the full hâ—at of the Sun could reach he plying them allwayes alike without any annual recession or intermission would at last grow tired and exhausted And besides consulting with our own facultyes we observe that an orderly vicissitude of things is most pleasant unto us and does much more gratifie the contemplative property in Man And now in the second place nor would reason make choice of a Coincident position of the Axis of the Earth For if the Axis thus lay in a Plane that goes through the Center of the Sun the Ecliptick would like a Colure or one of the Meridians passe through the Poles of the Earth which would put the Inhabitants of the World into a pittifull Condition For they that scape best in the Temperate Zone would be accloy'd with very tedious long Nights no lesse then fourty dayes long and they that now have their Night never aboue fovr and twenty houres as Friseland Iseland the further parts of Russia and Norway would be deprived of the Sun above a hundred and thirty dayes together our selves in England and the rest of the same Clime would be closed up in darknesse no lesse then an hundred or eighty continuall dayes and so proportionably of the rest both in and out of the Temperate Zones And as for Summer and Winter though those vicissitudes would be yet it could not but cause very raging diseases to have the Sun stay so long describing his little Circles neer the Poles and lying so hot upon the Inhabitants that had been in so long extremity of Darknesse and Cold before It remaines therefore that the posture of the Axis of the Earth be Inclining not Coincident nor Perpendicular to the forenamed Plane And verily it is not onely inclining but in so fit proportion that there can be no fitter excogiâ—ated to make it to the utmost capacity as well pleasant as habitable For though the course of the Sun be curbed within the compasse of the Tropicks and so makes those parts very hot yet the constantgales of wind from the East to say nothing of the nature and fit length of their nights make the Torrid Zone not only habitable but pleasant Now this best posture which our Reason would make choise of we see really establish'd in Nature and therefore if we be not perverse and willful we are to inferre that it was established by a Principle that has in it Knowledge and Counsell not from a blind fortuitous jumbling of the parts of the Matter one against another especially having found before in ourselves a knowing Spiritual Substance that is also able to move and alter the Matter Wherefore I say we should more naturally conclude that there is some such universall knowing Principle that has power to move and direct the Matter then to fancy that a confused justling of the Parts of the Matter should contrive themselves into such a condition as if they had in them Reason and Counsell and could direct themselves But this directing Principle what could it be but God But to speake the same thing more briefly and yet more intelligibly to those that are only acquainted with the Ptolemaicall Hypothesis I say that being it might have happened that the annuall course of the Sun should have been through the Poles of the world and that the Axis of the Heavens might have been very troublesomely and disorderly moveable from whence all those inconveniencies would arise which I have above mentioned and yet they are not but are so ordered as our own Reason must approve of as best it is Naturall for a man to conceive that they are really ordered by a Principle of Reason and Counsell that is that they are made by an all wise and all-powerful God I will only adde one or two observables more concerning the Axis of the Earth and the course of the Moon and so I will passe to other things It cannot but be acknowledged that if the Axis of the Earth were perpendicular to the Plane of the Sun 's Ecliptick that her Motion would be more easy and naturall and yet for the conveniencies afore mentioned we see it is made to stand in an inclining posture So in all likelyhood it would be more easy and naturall for that hand-maid of the Earth the Moon to finish her Monethly courses in the Aequinoctiall Line but we see like the Sun she crosses it and expatiates some degrees further then the Sun him self that her exalted light might be more comfortable to those that live very much North in their long Nights Wherefore I conclude that though it were possible that the confused agitation of the parts of the Matter might make a round hard heap like the Earth and more thin and liquid bodies like the Aether and Sun and that the Earth may swimme in this liquid Aether like a rosted Apple in a great bowle of wine and be carried about like straws or grasse cast upon a whirle-poole yet that it's Motion and Posture should be so directed and attemper'd as we our selves that have Reason upon due consideration would have it to be and yet not to be from that which is Knowing and in some sense Reasonable is to our faculties if they discerne any thing at all as absonous and absurd as any thing can be For when it had been easier to have been otherwise why should it be thus if some Superintendent Cause did not oversee and direct the Motions of the Matter allowing nothing therein but what our Reason will confesse to be to very good purpose But because so many Bullets joggled together in a Mans Hat will settle to such a determinate figure or because the Frost and the Wind will draw upon dores and Glasse-windows pretty uncouth streaks like feathers and other fooleries which are to no use or purpose to inferre thence that all the Contrivances that are in Nature even the frame of the bodyes both of Men and Beasts are from no other principle but the jumbling together of the Matter and so because that this does naturally effect something that it is the cause of all things seems to me to be a reasoning in the same Mood and Figure with that wise Market-mans who going down a Hill and carrying his Cheeses under his Armes one of them falling and trundling down the Hill very fast let the other go after it appointing them all to meet him at his house at Gotham not doubting but they beginning so hopefully would
off by those two wreaths of haire which we call the Eye-brows and the Eye-lids are fortify'd with little stiffe bristles as with Palisadoes against the assault of Flyes and Gnats and such like bold Animalcula Besides the upper-lid presently claps down and is as good a fence as a Portcullis against the importunity of the Enemy Which is done also every night whether there be any present assault or no as if Nature kept garrison in this Acropolis of Mans body the Head look'd that such lawes should be duly observ'd as were most for his safety And now for the Vse of the Eye which is Sight it is evident that this Organ is so exquisitely framed for that purpose that not the least curiosity can be added For first the Humour and Tunicles are purely Transparent to let in light and colours unfoul'd and unsophisticated by any inward tincture And then again the parts of the Eye are made Convex that there might be a direction of many raies coming from one point of the Object unto one point answerable in the bottome of the Eye to which purpose the Crystalline Humour is of great Moment and without which the sight would be very obscure and weake Thirdly the Tunica Vvea has a Musculous power and can dilate contract that round hole in it which is called the Pupill of the Eye for the better moderating the transmission of light Fourthly the inside of the Vvea is black'd like the wals of a Tennis-court that the rayes falling upon the Retina may not by being rebounded thence upon the Vvea be returned from the Vvea upon the Retina again for such a repercussion would make the sight more confused Fifthly the Tunica Arachnoides which invellops the Crystalline Humour by vertue of its Processus Ciliares can thrust forward or draw back that precious usefull part of the Eye as the neernesse or distance of the Object shall require Sixthly and lastly the Tunica Retina is white for the better and more true reception of the species of things as they ordinarily call them as a white paper is fittest to receive those Images into a dark roome If the wit of Man had been to contrive this Organ for himself what could he have possibly excogitated more accurate Therefore to think that meer Motion of the Matter or any other blind Cause could have hit so punctually for Creatures might have subsisted without this accurate provision is to be either mad or sottish And the Eye is already so perfect that I believe the Reason of Man would have easily rested here admir'd at it's own contrivance for he being able to move his whole head upward and downward and on every side might have unawares thought himself sufficiently well provided for But Nature has added Muscles also to the Eyes that no Perfection might be wanting For we have oft occasion to move our Eyes our Head being unmoved as in reading and viewing more particularly any Object set before us and that this may be done with more ease and accuracy she has furnish'd that Organ with no lesse then six severall Muscles And indeed this framing of Muscles not only in the Eye but in the whole Body is admirable For is it not a wonder that even all our flesh should be so handsomly contriv'd into distinct pieces whose Rise and Insertions should be with such advantage that they do serve to move some part of the Body or other and that the parts of our Body are not moved only so conveniently as wil serve us to walke and subsist by but that they are able to move every way imaginable that will advantage us For we can fling our Leggs and Armes upwards and downwards backwards forwards and round as they that spin or would spread a Molâ—hill with their feet To say nothing of Respiration the constriction of the Diaphragme for the keeping down the Guts and so enlarging the Thorax that the Lungs may have play and the assistance of the inward Intercostall Muscles in deep Suspirations when we take more large gulps of Aire to coole our heart overcharged with Love or Sorrow Nor of the curious fabrick of the Larynx so well fitted with muscles for the modulation of the Voice tunable Speech and delicious Singing You may adde to these the notable contrivance of the Heart it 's two Ventricles and it's many Valvulae so fram'd and situated as is most fit for the reception and transmission of the bloud which comes about through the Heart and is sent thence away warm to comfort cherish the rest of the Body For which purpose also the Valvulae in the Veines are made But I will rather insist upon such things as are easy and intelligible even to Idiots who if they can but tell the Joynts of their Hands or know the use of their Teeth they may easily discover it was Counsel not Chance that created them For why have we three Joynts in our Leggs and Armes as also in our Fingers but that it was much better then having but two or four And why are our fore-Teeth sharp like cheesells to cut but our inward-Teeth broad to grind but that this is more exquisite then having them all sharp or all broad or the fore-Teeth broad and the other sharp But we might have made a hard shift to have lived though in that worser coÌ„dition Again why are the Teeth so luckily placed or rather why are there not Teeth in other bones as well as in the jaw-bones for they might have been as capable as these But the reason is Nothing is done foolishly nor in vaine that is there is a divine Providence that orders all things Again to say nothing of the inward curiosity of the Eare why is that outward frame of it but that it is certainly known that it is for the bettering of our Hearing I might adde to these that Nature has made the hind-most parts of our body which wee sit upon most fleshy is providing for our Ease and making us a natural Cushion as well as for instruments of Motion for our Thighes and Legges She has made the hinder-part of the Head more strong as being otherwise unfenced against falls and other casualties She has made the Back-bone of severall Vertebrae as being more fit to bend more tough lesse in danger of breaking then if they were all one intire bone without those gristly Junctures She has strengthned our Fingers and Toes with Nailes wheras she might have sent out that substance at the end of the first or second joynt which had not been so handsome â—or usefull nay rather somewhat troublesome and hurtfull And lastly she has made all the Bones devoid of sense because they were to bear the weight of themselves and of the whole Body And therefore if they had had sense our life had been painfull continually and dolorous And what she has done for us she has done proportionably in the contrivance of all other Creatures so that it is manifest that a
themselves into such damps and deadnesse of Spirit that to be buried quick were lesse torture by farre then such darke privations of all the joyes of life then such sad and heart-sinking Mortifications I say whether we consider these inward pangs of the Soul or the externall outrages caused by Religion and Religious pretense will animate men to the committing such violences as bare Reason and the single passions of the Mind unback'd with the fury of Superstition will never venture upon it is manifest that if there were no God no Spirit no Life to come it were farre better that there were no such Religious propensions in Man-kind as we see universally there is For the feare of the Civill Magistrate the convenience of mutuall ayde and support and the naturall scourge and plague of diseases would contain men in such bounds of Justice Humanity and Temperance as would make them more clearly and undisturbedly happy then they are now capable of being from any advantage Religion does to either Publique State or private person supposing there were no God Wherefore this Religious affection which Nature has implanted and as strongly rooted in Man as the feare of death or the love of women would be the most enormous slip or bungle she could commit so that she would so shamefully faile in the last Act in this contrivance of the nature of Man that instead of a Plaudite she would deserve to be hissed off the Stage But she having done all things else so wisely let us rather suspect our own ignorance then reproach her and expect that which is allowed in well approved Comedies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for nothing can unlose this knot but a Deity And then we acknowledging Man to dwell as it were in the borders of the spirituall and materiall world for he is utriusque mundi nexus as Scaliger truly calls him we shall not wonder that there is such tugging and pulling this way and that way upward and downward and such broken disorder of things those that dwell in the confines of two kingdomes being most subject to disquiet and confusion And hitherto of the Passions of the mind of Man as well those that tye him down to the Body as those that lift him up towards God Now briefly of the whole Man as he is part of the Vniverse It is true if we had not been here in the world we could not then have missed our selves but now we find our selves in being and able to examine the reasonableness of things we cannot but conclude that our Creation was an Act of very exquisite Reason Counsel For there being so many notable Objects in the world to entertaine such faculties as Reason and inquisitive Admiration there ought to be such a member of this visible Creation as Man that those things might not be in vaine And if Man were out of the world who were then left to view the face of Heaven to wonder at the transcursion of Comets to calculate Tables for the Motions of the Planets and Fix'd Starres and to take their Heights and Distances with Mathematicall Instruments to invent convenient Cycles for the computation of time and consider the severall formes of Yeares to take notice of the Directions Stations and Repedations of those Erratick lights and from thence most convincingly to informe himself of that pleasant and true Paradox of the Annuall Motion of the Earth to view the asperityes of the Moon through a Diâ—ptrick-glasse and venture at the Proportion of her Hills by their shadowes to behold the beauty of the Rain-bow the Halo Parelii and other Meteors to search out the causes of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea and the hidden vertue of the Magnet to inquire into the usefullnesse of Plants and to observe the variety of the wisdome of the first Cause in framing their bodies and giving sundry observable instincts to Fishes Birds and Beasts And lastly as there are particular Priests amongst Men so the whole Species of Man-kind being indued with Reason and a power of finding out God there is yet one singular end more discoverable of his Creation viz. that he may be a Priest in this magnificent Temple of the Vniverse and send up prayers and praises to the great Creatour of all things in behalf of the rest of the Creatures Thus we see all filled up and fitted without any defect or uselesse superfluity Wherefore the whole Creation in generall and every part thereof being so ordered as if the most exquisite Reason and Knowledge had contrived them it is as naturall to conclude that all this is the work of a wise God as at the first sight to acknowledge that those inscribed Vrnes and Coynes digg'd out of the Earth were not the Products of unknowing Nature but the Artifice of Man CHAP. I. That good men not alwayes faring best in this world the great examples of Divine Vengeance upon wicked and blasphemous Persons are not so convincing to the obstinate Atheist The irreligious Jeares and Sacrileges of Dionysius of Syracuse That there have been true Miracles in the world as well as false and what are the best and safest wayes to distinguish them that we may not be impos'd upon by History HItherto I have insisted upon such Arguments for the proving of the Existence of God as were taken from the ordinary and known Phaenomena of Nature For such is the History of Plants Animalls and Man I shall come now to such effects discovered in the World as are not deemed naturall but extraordinary and miraculous I do not mean unexpected discoveries of Murders a conspicuous Vengeance upon proud and blasphemous Persons such as Nicanor Antiochus Herod and the like of which all Histories as well Sacred as Profane are very full and all which tend to the impressing of this divine Precept in the Poet upon the minds of Men Discite Justitiam moniti non temnere Divos For though these Examples cannot but move indifferent men to an acknowledgment of divine Providence and a superiour Power above and different from the Matter yet I having now to do with the obstinate and refractory Atheist who because himself a known contemner of the Deity he finds to be safe and well at ease will shuffle all these things off by asking such a Question as he did to whom the Priest of Neptune shewed the many Dâ—naria hung up in his Temple by his Votaries saved from ship-wrack therefore vaunted much of the Power of that God of the Sea But what is become of all those saith he that notwithstanding their vowes have been lost So I say the Atheist to evade the force of this Argument will whisper within himself But how many proud blasphemous Atheisticall men like my self have escaped and those that have been accounted good have dyed untimely deaths Such as Aesop and Socrates the Prophets Apostles and Martyrs with sundry other wise and good men in all Ages and Places who yet being not so well aware of the ill
and the like Wherefore it is plaine that these Apparitions on high in the Aire are no Reflections of any Objects upon Earth or if it were imaginable that they were that some supernaturall cause must assist to conglaciate polish the Surfaces of the clouds to such an extraordinary accuracy of figure smoothnesse as will suffice for such prodigious Reflections And that these Spirits that rule in the Aire may not act upon the Materials there as well as Men here upon the Earth work upon the parts thereof as also upon the neighbouring Elements so farre as they can reach shaping perfecting and directing things according to their own purpose and pleasure I know no reason at all in Nature or Philosophy for any man to deny For that the help of some oâ—ficious Genâ— is implyed in such like Prodigies as these the seasonablenesse of their appearance seems no contemptible argument they being according to the observation of Historians the Forerunners of Commotions and Troubles in all Kingdomes and Common-wealths Yet neverthelesse as good Artificers as I here suppose they working upon nature must be bounded by the Laws of Nature And Reflection will have its limits as well as RefractioÌ„ whither for conveiance of Species or kindling of heaâ— the Lawes and bounds whereof that discerning Wit Cartesius being well aware of doth generously and judiciously pronounce That a burning-Glasse the distance of whose focus from the Glasse doth not beare a lesse proportion to the Diameter thereof then the distance of the Earth from the Sun to the Diameter of the Sun will burn no more vehemently then the direct raies of the Sun will do without it though in other respects this Glasse were as exactly shaped curiously polished as could be exspected from the hand of an Angel I have now compleated this present Treatise against Atheisme in all the three parts therof upon which while I cast mine eye and view that clear and irrefutable evidence of the cause I have undertaken the external Appearances of things in the world so faithfully seconding the undeniable dictates of the innate Principles of our own mindes I cannot but w th coÌ„fidence aver That there is not any one Notion in all Philosophy more certain demonstrable then that there is a God And verily I think I have ransacked all the corners of every kind of Philosophy that can pretend to bear any stroke in this Controversie with that diligence that I may safely pronounce that it is mere brutish Ignorance or Impudence no Skill in Nature or the Knowledge of things that can encourage any man to proâ—esse Atheisme or to embrace it at the proposall of those that make profession of it But so I conceive it is that at first some famously learned men being not so indiscreetly zealous and superstitious as others have been mistaken by Idiots and traduced for Atheists and then ever after some one vain-glorious Fool or other hath affected with what safety he could to seem Atheisticall that he might thereby forsooth be reputed the more learned or the profounder Naturallist But I dare assure any man that if he doe but search into the bottome of this enormous Disease of the Soul as Trismegist truely calles it he will find nothing to be the cause thereof but either Vanity of mind or brutish Sensualiâ—y an untamed desire of satisfying a mans own will in every thing an obnoxious Conscience and a base Fear of divine vengeance Ignorance of the scantness insufficiency of second causes a jumbled Feculencie and Incomposednesse of the spirits by reason of perpetuall Intemperance Luxurie or else a dark bedeading Melancholy that so starves and kils the apprehension of the Soul in divine matters especially that it makes a man as inept for such Contemplations as if his head was filled with cold Earth or dry Grave-moulds And to such slow Constitutions as these I shall not wonder 〈◊〉 as the first Part of my discourse must seem marvelous subtile so the last appear ridiculously incredible But they are to remember that I do not here appeal to the Complexional humours or peculiar Relishes of men that arise out of the temper of the body but to the known unalterable Idea's of the mind to the Phaenomena of Naâ—ure and Records of History Upon the last whereof if I have something more fully insisted it is not to be imputed to any vain Credulity of mine or that I take a pleasure in telling strange stories bâ—t that I thought sit to fortify and strengthen the Faith of others as much as I could being well assured that a contemptuous misbelief of such like Narrations concerning Spirits and an endeavour of making them all ridiculous and incredible is a dangerous Prelude to Atheisme it self or else a more close and craâ—ty Profession or Insinuation of it For assuredly that Saying was nothing so true in Politicks No Bishop no King as this is in Mâ—taphysicks No Spirit no God A Table of the Chapters of each BOOK BOOK I. I. THe seasonable usefulness of the present Discourse or the Motives that put the Authour upon these indeavours of demonstrating that there is a God 〈…〉 pag. 1 II. VVhat is meant by demonstrating there is a God and that the mind of men unless he do viâ—lence to his faculties will fully assent or dissent from that which notwithstanding may have a bare possibility of being otherwise 2 III. An attempt towards the finding out the true Notion or Definition of God and a clear Conviction that there is an indelible Idea of a Being absolutely perfect in the mind of Man 6 IV. VVhat Notions are more particularly comprised in the Idea of a Being absolutely perfect That the difficulty of framing the conception of a thing ought to be no argument against the existence thereof the nature of corporeall Matter being so perplex'd and intricate which yet all men acknowledge to exist That the Idea of a Spirit is as easy a Notion as of any other substance what ever What powers and properties are contain'd in the Notion of a Spirit That Eternity and Infinity if God were not would be cast upon something else so that Atheisme cannot free the mind from such Intricacies Goodness Knowledge and Power Notions of highest perfection and therefore necessarily included in the Idea of a Being absolutely perfect 8 V. That the Soul of Man is not Abrasa Tabula and in what sense she might be said ever to have had the actuall knowledge of eternall truths in her 13 VI. That the Soul of Man has of herself actual Knowledge in her made good by sundry Instances and Arguments 14 VII The mind of man being not unfurnish'd of Innate Truth that we are with confidence to attend to her naturall and unprejudic'd Dictates and Suggestions That some Notions and Truths are at least naturally and unavoidably assented unto by the soul whether she have of her self Actuall Knowledge in her or not And that the definition of a Being absolutely perfect is