more to such persons that are either so disingenuous or so stupid as to profess to believe That all the natural Powers and acquired Habits of the Mind that penetrating Understanding and accurate Judgment that strength of Memory and readiness of Wit that Liberality and Justice and Prudence and Magnanimity that Charity and Beneficence to Mankind that ingenuous fear and awfull Love of God that comprehensive Knowledge of the Histories and Languages of so many Nations that experienced Insight into the works and wonders of Nature that rich Vein of Poetry and inexhausted Fountain of Eloquence those lofty flights of Thought and almost intuitive Perception of abstruse Notions those exalted Discoveries of Mathematical Theorems and Divine Contemplations all these admirable Endowments and Capacities of humane Nature which we sometimes see actually existent in one and the same Person can proceed from the blind shuffling and casual clashing of Atoms I could as easily take up with that senseless assertion of the Stoicks That Vertues and Vices and Sciences and Arts and Fancies and Passions and Appetites are all of them real Bodies and distinct Animals as with this of the Atheist That they can all be derived from the Power of meer Bodies 'T is utterly incredible and impossible and we cannot without indignation go about to refute such an absurd imagination such a gross contradiction to unprejudiced Reason And yet if the Atheists had not been driven from all their posts and their subterfuges if we had not pursued their Atoms through all their turnings and windings their cells and recesses their interferings and justlings they would boast that they could not be answer'd and make a mighty flutter and triumph Nay though they are so miserably confounded and baffled and can offer no further explication of the Cause and the Manner yet they will Sixthly urge matter of Fact and Experience that meer Body may produce Cogitation and Sense For say they do but observe the actions of some Brutes how nearly they approach to humane Reason and visibly discover some glimpses of Understanding and if that be performed by the pure Mechanism of their Bodies as many do allow who yet believe the Being of God and an immaterial Spirit in Man then 't is but raising our Conceptions and supposing Mankind to be Engines of a finer Make and Contexture and the business is done I must confess that the Cartesians and some others men that have given no occasion to be suspected of Irreligion have asserted that Brutes are meer Machins and Automata I cannot now engage in the Controversie neither is there any necessity to do so for Religion is not endanger'd by either opinion If Brutes be said to have Sense and Immaterial Souls what need we be concern'd whether those Souls shall be immortal or annihilated at the time of Death This objection supposes the Being of God and He will do all things for the wisest and best ends Or if Brutes be supposed to be bare Engins and Machins I admire and adore the divine Artifice and Skill in such a wonderfull contrivance But I shall deny then that they have any Reason or Sense if they be nothing but Matter Omnipotence it self cannot create cogitative Body And 't is not any imperfection in the power of God but an incapacity in the Subject The Idea's of Matter and Thought are absolutely incompatible And this the Cartesians themselves do allow Do but convince Them that Brutes have the least participation of Thought or Will or Appetite or Sensation or Fancy and they 'll readily retract their Opinion For none but besotted Atheists do joyn the two Notions together and believe Brutes to be rational or sensitive Machins They are either the one or the other either endued with Sense and some glimmering Rays of Reason from a higher Principle than Matter or as the Cartesians say they are purely Body void of all Sensation and Life and like the Idols of the Gentiles they have eyes and see not ears and hear not noses and smell not they eat without hunger and drink without thirst and howl without pain They perform the outward material actions but they have no inward Self-consciousness nor any more Perception of what they do or suffer than a Looking Glass has of the Objects it reflects or the Index of a Watch of the Hour it points to And as one of those Watches when it was first presented to the Emperour of China was taken there for an Animal so on the contrary our Cartesians take brute Animals for a sort of Watches For considering the infinite distance betwixt the poor mortal Artist and the Almighty Opificer the few Wheels and Motions of a Watch and the innumerable Springs and Organs in the Bodies of Brutes they may affirm as they think without either absurdity or impiety that they are nothing but moving Automata as the fabulous Statues of Daedalus bereaved of all true life and vital Sensation which never act spontaneously and freely but as Watches must be wound up to set them a going so their Motions also are excited and inhibited are moderated and managed by the Objects without them 2. And now that I have gone through the six parts that I proposed and sufficiently shewn that Sense and Perception can never be the product of any kind of Matter and Motion it remains therefore that it must necessarily proceed from some Incorporeal Substance within us And though we cannot conceive the manner of the Soul's Action and Passion nor what hold it can lay on the Body when it voluntarily moves it yet we are as certain that it doth so as of any Mathematical Truth whatsoever or at least of such as are proved from the Impossibility or Absurdity of the Contrary a way of Proof that is allowed for infallible Demonstration Why one motion of the Body begets an Idea of Pleasure in the Mind another an Idea of Pain why such a disposition of the Body induces Sleep another disturbs all the operations of the Soul and occasions a Lethargy or Frenzy this Knowledge exceeds our narrow Faculties and is out of the reach of our discovery I discern some excellent Final causes of such a vital Conjunction of Body and Soul but the instrumental I know not nor what invisible Bands and Fetters unite them together I resolve all that into the sole Pleasure and Fiat of our Omnipotent Creator whose Existence which is my last Point is so plainly and nearly deducible from the established proof of an Immaterial Soul that no wonder the resolved Atheists do so labour and bestir themselves to fetch Sense and Perception out of the Power of Matter I will dispatch it in three words For since we have shewn that there is an Incorporeal Substance within us whence did that proceed and how came it into Being It did not exist from all Eternity that 's too absurd to be supposed nor could it come out of nothing into Being without an Efficient Cause Something therefore must have created our
him as the Moon doth about the Earth and Iupiter hath four Satellites which by their Interposition between him and us make some hundreds of Eclipses every year Now the whole Tribe of Astrologers that never dream'd of these Planets have always declared that when Iupiter and Saturn come about again to any given Point they exert consider'd singly by themselves the same Influence as before But 't is now manifest that when either of them return to the same point the Planets about them that must make up an united Influence with them have a different situation in respect of us and each other from what they had the time before and consequently the joint Influence must be perpetually varied and never be reducible to any Rules and Observations Or if the Influences be conveyed hither distinct yet sometimes some of the Little Planets will eclipse the Great one at any given point and by that means intercept and obstruct the Influence I cannot now insist on many other Arguments deducible from the late Improvements of Astronomy and the truth of the Copernican System For if the Earth be not the Centre of the Planetary Motions what must become then of the present Astrology which is wholly adapted to that vulgar Hypothesis And yet nevertheless when they lay under such wretched mistakes for many Myriads of Years if we are willing to believe them they would all along as now appeal to Experience and Event for the confirmation of their Doctrines That 's the invincible Demonstration of the Verity of the Science And indeed as to their Predictions I think our Astrologers may assume to themselves that infallible Oracle of Tiresias O Laertiade quicquid dico aut erit aut non There 's but a true and a false in any telling of Fortune and a man that never hits on the right side cannot be called a bad Guesser but must miss out of design and be notably skilfull at lighting on the wrong And were there not formerly as great pretentions to it from the superstitious Observation of the Entrails of Cows of the flying of Vulturs and the pecking of Chickings Nay the old Augurs and Soothsayers had better reason to profess the Art of Divining than the modern Astrological Atheist for they supposed there were some Daemons that directed the Indications So likewise the Chaldean and Aegyptian Astrologers were much more excusable than He. It was the Religion of their Countries to worship the Stars as we know from unquestionable Authority They believed them Intelligent Beings and no other than very Gods and therefore had some Reason to suspect that they might govern Humane Affairs The Influence of the Stars was in their apprehensions no less than Divine Power But an Atheist that believes the Planets to be dark solid and senseless Bodies like the brute Earth he treads on and the Fixt Stars and the Sun to be inanimate Balls of Fire what Reasons can He advance for the Credit of such Influences He acknowledgeth nothing besides Matter and Motion so that all that he can conceive to be transmitted hither from the Stars must needs be perform'd either by Mechanism or Accident either of which is wholly unaccountable and the latter irreconcileable to any Art or System of Science But if both were allowed the Atheist yet as to any production of Mankind they will be again refuted in my following Discourse I can preserve a due esteem for some great Men of the last Age before the Mechanical Philosophy was revived though they were too much addicted to this nugatory Art When Occult Quality and Sympathy and Antipathy were admitted for satisfactory Explications of things even wise and vertuous Men might swallow down any Opinion that was countenanced by Antiquity But at this time of day when all the general powers and capacities of Matter are so clearly understood he must be very ridiculous himself that doth not deride and explode the antiquated Folly But we may see the miserable Shifts that some men are put to when that which was first founded upon and afterward supported by Idolatry is now become the tottering Sanctuary of Atheism If the Stars be no Deities Astrology is groundless and if the Stars be Deities why is the Astrologer an Atheist He may easily be no Christian and 't is difficult indeed to be both at once because as I have said before Idolatry is at the bottom and by submitting Humane Actions and Inclinations to the Influence of the Stars they destroy the very Essence of Moral Virtue and the Efficacy of Divine Grace and therefore Astrology was justly condemn'd by the Ancient Fathers and Christian Emperours An Astrologer I say may very easily be no Christian he may be an Idolater or a Pagan but I could hardly think Astrology to be compatible with rank Atheism if I could suppose any great gifts of Nature to be in that person who is either an Atheist or an Astrologer But let him be what he will he is not able to do much hurt by his Reasons and Example For Religion it self according to his Principles is derived from the Stars And he owns 't is not any just Exceptions he hath taken against Christianity but 't is his Destiny and Fate 't is Saturn in the Ninth House and not Judgment and Deliberation that made him an Atheist A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Structure and Origin of Humane Bodies PART II. The Fourth SERMON preached Iune 6. 1692. Acts XVII 27. That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us for in him we Live and Move and have our Being IN the former part of this Enquiry I have examin'd and refuted two Atheistical Notions opposed to the great Doctrine of the Text That we owe our Living and Being to the power of God The one of the Aristotelian Atheists who to avoid the difficulties of the first production of Mankind without the intervention of Almighty Wisdom and Power will have the Race to have thus continued without beginning by an eternal succession of infinite past Generations which Assertion hath been detected to be mere nonsense and contradictory to it self The other of the Astrological undertakers that would raise Men like Vegetables out of some fat and slimy soil well digested by the kindly heat of the Sun and impregnated with the influence of the Stars upon some remarkable and periodical conjunctions Which opinion hath been vamp'd up of late by Cardan and Cesalpinus and other News-mongers from the Skies a Pretence as groundless and silly as the dreaming Oneirocriticks of Artemidorus and Astrampsychus or the modern Chiromancy and Divinations of Gypsies I proceed now to the two remaining Paradoxes of such Sects of Atheists as laying aside Astrology and the unintelligible Influence of Heavenly Bodies except that which proceeds from their Gravity and Heat and Light do either produce Mankind mechanically and necessarily from certain connexions of Natural Causes or more dully
must allow therefore that Bodies were endowed with the same affections and tendencies then as ever since and that if an Ax-head be supposed to float upon water which is specifically much lighter than it it had been supernatural at that time as well as in the days of Elisha And this is all that I desire him to acknowledge at present So that he may admit of those Arguments as valid and conclusive against his Hypothesis that are fairly drawn from the present powers of Matter and the visible constitution of the World Now that we may come to the point All Matter is either Fluid or Solid in a large acceptation of the words that they may comprehend even all the middle degrees between extreme Fixedness and Coherency and the most rapid intestine motion of the Particles of Bodies Now the most cavilling Atheist must allow that a solid inanimate Body while it remains in that state where there is none or a very small and inconsiderable change of Texture is wholly incapable of a vital production So that the first Humane Body without Parents and without Creator if such an one ever was must have naturally been produced in and constituted by a Fluid And because this Atheist goes mechanically to work the universal Laws of Fluids must have been rigidly observed during the whole process of the Formation Now this is a Catholick Rule of Staticks That if any Body be bulk for bulk heavier than a Fluid it will sink to the bottom of that Fluid and if lighter it will float upon it having part of it self extant and part immersed to such a determinate depth as that so much of the Fluid as is equal in Bulk to the immersed part be equal in Gravity to the whole And consequently if several portions of one and the same Fluid have a different specifick gravity the heavier will always in a free vessel be gradually the lower unless violently shaken and blended together by external concussion But that cannot be in our present case For I am unwilling to affront this Atheist so much as to suppose him to believe that the first organical Body might possibly be effected in some Fluid portion of Matter while its Heterogeneous parts were jumbled and confounded together by a Storm or Hurricane or Earthquake To be sure he will rather have the primitive Man to be produced by a long process in a kind of digesting Balneum where all the heavier Lees may have time to subside and a due Aequilibrium be maintain'd not disturb'd by any such rude and violent shocks that would ruffle and break all the little Stamina of the Embryon if it were a making before Now because all the parts of an undisturb'd Fluid are either of equal Gravity or gradually placed and storied according to the differences of it any concretion that can be supposed to be naturally and mechanically made in such a Fluid must have a like structure of its several parts that is either be all over of a similar Gravity or have the more ponderous parts nearer to its Basis. But there need no more concessions than this to extinguish these supposed First-born of Nature in their very formation For suppose a Humane Body to be a forming in such a Fluid in any imaginable posture it will never be reconcileable to this Hydrostatical Law There will be always something lighter beneath and something heavier above because Bone or what is then the Stuff and Rudiments of Bone the heaviest in specie will be ever in the midst Now what can make the heavier particles of Bone ascend above the lighter ones of Flesh or depress these below those against the tendency of their own Nature This would be wholly as miraculous as the swimming of Iron in Water at the command of Elisha and as impossible to be as that the Lead of an Edifice should naturally and spontaneously mount up to the Roof while lighter materials employ themselves beneath it or that a Statue like that in Nebuchadnezzar's Vision whose Head was of fine and most ponderous Gold and his Feet of lighter materials Iron and Clay should mechanically erect it self upon them for its Basis. Secondly Because this Atheist goes mechanically to work he will not offer to affirm That all the parts of the Embryon could according to his explication be formed at a time This would be a supernatural thing and an effectual refutation of his own Principles For the Corpuscles of Matter having no consciousness of one anothers acting at least before or during the Formation as will be allowed by that very Atheist that attributes Reason and Perception to them when the Formation is finished they could not consent and make a compact together to carry on the work in several places at once and one party of them be forming the Brain while another is modelling the Heart and a third delineating the Veins No there must be according to Mechanism a successive and gradual operation Some few Particles must first be united together and so by apposition and mutual connexion still more and more by degrees till the whole System be completed and a Fermentation must be excited in some assignable place which may expand it self by its Elastical power and break through where it meets with the weakest resistance and so by that so simple and mechanical action may excavate all the various Ducts and Ventricles of the Body This is the only general account as mean as it appears to be that this Machin of an Atheist can give of that fearfull and wonderfull Production Now to confute these Pretences First There is that visible Harmony and Symmetry in a Humane Body such a mutual communication of every vessel and member of it as gives an internal evidence that it was not formed successively and patch'd up by piece-meal So uniform and orderly a system with innumerable Motions and Functions all so placed and constituted as never to interfere and clash one with another and disturb the Oeconomy of the whole must needs be ascribed to an Intelligent Artist and to such an Artist as did not begin the matter unprepared and at a venture and when he was put to a stand paused and hesitated which way he should proceed but he had first in his comprehensive Intellect a complete Idea and Model of the whole Organical Body before he enter'd upon the Work But Secondly if they affirm That mere Matter by its mechanical Affections without any design or direction could form the Body by steps and degrees what member then do they pitch upon for the foundation and cause of all the rest Let them shew us the beginning of this Circle and the first Wheel of this Perpetual Motion Did the Blood first exist antecedent to the formation of the Heart But that is to set the Effect before the Cause because all the Blood that we know of is made in and by the Heart having the quite different form and qualities of Chyle before it comes thither Must
their proper Structures and Designs of the Artificers Whereas on the contrary all Bodies are observed to have always a certain and determinate Motion according to the degrees of their External Impulse and their inward Principle of Gravitation and the Resistance of the Bodies they occurr with which therefore is without Error exactly foreseen and computed by sagacious Artists And if ever Dead Matter should deviate from this Motion it could not proceed from it self but a supernatural Agent and ought not to be called a Chance but a Miracle For Chance is but a mere name and really Nothing in it self a Conception of our own Minds and only a Compendious way of speaking whereby we would express That such Effects as are commonly attributed to Chance were verily produced by their true and proper Causes but without their designing to produce them And in any Event called Casual if you take away the real and physical Causes there remains nothing but a simple Negation of the Agents intending such an Event which Negation being no real Entity but a Conception only of Man's Intellect wholly extrinsecal to the Action can have no title to a share in the production As in that famous Example which Plutarch says is the only one where Fortune is related to have done a thing artificially when a Painter having finish'd the Picture of a Horse excepting the loose Froth about his Mouth and his Bridle and after many unsuccessfull essays despairing to do that to his satisfaction in a great rage threw his Spunge at it all besmear'd as it was with the Colours which fortunately hitting upon the right place by one bold stroke of Chance most exactly supplied the want of Skill in the Artist even here it is manifest that considering the Quantity and Determination of the Motion that was impressed by the Painter's hand upon the Spunge com pounded with the specifick Gravity of the Spunge and resistance of the Air the Spunge did mechanically and unavoidably move in that particular line of Motion and so necessarily hit upon that part of the Picture and all the paint that it left there was as certainly placed by true natural Causes as any one stroke of the Pencil in the whole Piece So that this strange effect of the Spunge was fortuitous only with respect to the Painter because he did not design nor forsee such an effect but in it self and as to its real Causes it was necessary and natural In a word the true notion of Fortune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoteth no more than the Ignorance of such an event in some Knowing Agent concerned about it So that it owes its very Being to Humane Understanding and without relation to that is really Nothing How absurd then and ridiculous is the Atheist that would make this Fortune the cause of the Formation of Mankind whereas manifestly there could be no such Thing or Notion in the World as Fortune till Humane Nature was actually formed It was Man that first made Fortune and not Fortune that produced Man For since Fortune in its proper acceptation supposeth the Ignorance of something in a subject capable of Knowledge if you take away Mankind such a Notion hath no Existence neither with relation to Inanimate Bodies that can be conscious of nothing nor to an Omniscient God that can be ignorant of nothing And so likewise the adequate Meaning of Chance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is distinguished from Fortune in that the latter is understood to befall only Rational Agents but Chance to be among Inanimate Bodies is a bare Negation that signifies no more than this That any Effect among such Bodies ascribed to Chance is really produced by Physical Agents according to the established Laws of Motion but without their Consciousness of concurring to the Production and without their Intention of such an Effect So that Chance in its true sense is all one with Nature and both words are used promiscuously by some ancient Writers to express the same thing And we must be wary lest we ascribe any real Subsistence or Personality to this Nature or Chance for it is merely a notional and imaginary thing an abstract Universal which is properly Nothing a Conception of our own making occasion'd by our reflecting upon the settled Course of things denoting only thus much That all those Bodies move and act according to their essential properties and qualities without any consciousness or intention of so doing So that in this genuine acceptation of Chance here is nothing supposed that can supersede the known Laws of Natural Motion and thus to attribute the Formation of Mankind to Chance is all one with the former Atheistical Assertion that ascribes it to Nature or Mechanism and consequently it hath received a prolix and sufficient Refutation in my preceding Discourse 3 But thirdly 't is likely that our Atheist may willingly renounce the Doctrine of Chance as a thing differing from Nature and may allow it to be the same thing and that too no real and substantial Agent but only an abstract intellectual Notion but still he hath another Expedient in reserve which is a middle and safe way between the former rigorous Mechanism and the extravagancies of Fortuitous Motion viz. That at the Beginning all things 't is true proceded necessarily and fatally according to the Mechanical powers and affections of Matter but nevertheless the several Kinds of Animals were not formed at the first trial and effort without one error or miscarriage as strict Mechanism would suppose but there was an immense Variety of Ferments and Tumors and Excrescences of the Soil pregnant and big with Foetus's of all imaginable shapes and structures of Body Millions of which were utterly uncapable of Life and Motion being the Molae as it were and the Abortions of Mother Earth and many of those that had Life and Powers to preserve their own Individuals yet wanted the due means of Propagation and therefore could not transmit their Species to the following Ages and that those few only that we now find in Being did happen for he cannot express it but by the Characters of a Chance to have all the parts necessary not only for their own Lives but for the Continuation of their Kinds This is the favourite Opinion among the Atheists and the most plausible of all by which they think they may elude that most formidable Argument for the Being of God from the admirable contrivance of Organical Bodies and the exquisite fitness of their several Parts for those Ends and Uses they are put to and seem to have been designed for For say they since those innumerable Instances of Blunder and Deformity were quickly removed out of Knowledge and Being it is plain that no Animals ought now to be found but such as have due Organs necessary for their own nourishment and increase of their Kinds so that this Boasted Usefulness of Parts which makes Men attribute their Origination to an intelligent and wise Agent is really
the Frame of the World as they have done to evade the former from the Origin of Mankind Some have maintain'd That this World hath thus existed from all Eternity in its present form and condition but Others say That the Forms of particular Worlds are generable and corruptible so that our present System cannot have sustain'd an infinite Duration already gone and expired but however say they Body in general the common Basis and Matter of all Worlds and Beings is self-existent and eternal which being naturally divided into innumerable little particles or atoms eternally endued with an ingenit and inseparable power of Motion by their omnifarious concursions and combinations and coalitions produce successively or at once if Matter be infinite an infinite number of Worlds and amongst the rest there arose this visible complex System of Heaven and Earth And thus far they do agree but then they differ about the cause and mode of the production of Worlds some ascribing it to Fortune and others to Mechanism or Nature 'T is true the Astrological Atheists will give us no trouble in the present dispute because they cannot form a peculiar Hypothesis here as they have done before about the Origination of Animals For though some of them are so vain and senseless as to pretend to a Thema Mundi a calculated Scheme of the Nativity of our World yet it exceeds even Their absurdity to suppose the Zodiack and Planets to be efficient of and antecedent to themselves or to exert any influences before they were in Being So that to refute all possible Explications that the Atheists have or can propose I shall proceed in this following method I. First I will prove it impossible that the primary Parts of our World the Sun and the Planets with their regular Motions and Revolutions should have subsisted eternally in the present or a like Frame and Condition II. Secondly I will shew That Matter abstractly and absolutely consider'd cannot have subsisted eternally or if it has yet Motion cannot have coexisted eternally with it as an inherent Property and essential Attribute of the Atheist's God Matter III. Thirdly Though Universal Matter should have endured from everlasting divided into infinite Particles in the Epicurean way and though Motion should have been coaeval and coeternal with it yet those Particles or Atoms could never of themselves by omnifarious kinds of Motion whether Fortuitous or Mechanical have fallen or been disposed into this or a like visible System IV. And Fourthly à posteriori That the Order and Beauty of the Inanimate Parts of the World the discernible Ends and Final Causes of them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Meliority above what was necessary to be do evince by a reflex Argument That it is the Product and Workmanship not of blind Mechanism or blinder Chance but of an intelligent and benign Agent who by his excellent Wisdom made the Heavens and Earth and gives Rains and fruitfull Seasons for the service of Man I shall speak to the two first Propositions in my present Discourse reserving the latter for other Opportunities I. First therefore That the present or a like Frame of the World hath not subsisted from Everlasting We will readily concede that a thing may be truly Eternal though its duration be terminated at one End For so we affirm Humane Souls to be Immortal and Eternal though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there was a time when they were Nothing and therefore their Infinite Duration will always be bounded at one Extreme by that first beginning of Existence So that for ought appears as yet the Revolutions of the Earth and other Planets about the Sun though they be limited at one end by the present Revolution may nevertheless have been Infinite and Eternal without any beginning But then we must consider that this Duration of Humane Souls is only potentially Infinite For their Eternity consists only in an endless capacity of Continuance without ever ceasing to be in a boundless Futurity that can never be exhausted or all of it be past and present But their Duration can never be positively and actually Eternal because it is most manifest that no Moment can ever be assigned wherein it shall be true that such a Soul hath then actually sustain'd an Infinite Duration For that supposed Infinite Duration will by the very Supposition be limited at two extremes though never so remote asunder and consequently must needs be Finite Wherefore the true Nature and Notion of a Soul's Eternity is this That the future moments of its Duration can never be all past and present but still there will be a Futurity and Potentiality of more for ever and ever So that we evidently perceive from this instance That what-ever successive Duration shall be bounded at one end and be all past and present for that reason must be Finite Which necessarily evinceth That the present or a like World can never have been Eternal or that there cannot have been Infinite past Revolutions of a Planet about a Sun For this supposed Infinity is terminated at one extreme by the present Revolution and all the other Revolutions are confessedly past so that the whole Duration is bounded at one end and all past and present and therefore cannot have been Infinite by what was proved before And this will shew us the vast difference between the false successive Eternity backwards and the real one to come For consider the present Revolution of the Earth as the Bound and Confine of them both God Almighty if he so pleaseth may continue this Motion to perpetuity in Infinite Revolutions to come because Futurity is inexhaustible and can never be all spent and run out by past and present moments But then if we look backwards from this present Revolution we may apprehend the impossibility of infinite Revolutions on that side because all are already past and so were once actually present and consequently are finite by the argument before For surely we cannot conceive a Praeteriteness if I may say so still backwards in infinitum that never was present as we can an endless futurity that never will be present So that though one is potentially infinite yet nevertheless the other is actually finite And this Reasoning doth necessarily conclude against the past infinite duration of all successive Motion and mutable Beings but it doth not at all affect the eternal Existence of God in whose invariable nature there is no Past nor Future who is omnipresent not only as to Space but as to Duration and with respect to such Omnipresence it is certain and manifest that Succession and Motion are mere impossibilities and repugnant in the very terms And Secondly though what hath been now said hath given us so clear a view of the nature of successive Duration as to make more Arguments needless yet I shall here briefly shew how our Adversaries Hypothesis without any outward opposition destroys and confutes it self For let us suppose infinite Revolutions of the Earth about
the Sun to be already gone and expired I take it to be self-evident that if None of those past Revolutions has been infinite ages ago all the Revolutions put together cannot make up the duration of infinite ages It follows therefore from this supposition that there may be some one assignable Revolution among them that was at an infinite distance from the present But it is self-evident likewise that no one past Revolution could be infinitely distant from the present for then an infinite or unbounded Duration may be bounded at two extremes by two Annual Revolutions which is absurd and a contradiction And again upon the same supposition of an eternal past Duration of the World and of infinite Annual Revolutions of the Earth about the Sun I would ask concerning the Monthly Revolutions of the Moon about the Earth or the diurnal ones of the Earth upon its one Axis both which by the very Hypothesis are coaeval with the former whether these also have been finite or infinite Not finite to be sure because then a finite number would be greater than an infinite as 12 or 365 are more than an Unit. Nor infinite neither for then two or three Infinites would exceed one another as a Year exceeds a Month or both exceed a Day So that both ways the Supposition is repugnant and impossible And Thirdly the Arguments already used from the gradual Increase of Mankind from the known Plantations of most Countries from the recent Invention of Letters and Arts c. do conclude as forcibly against the Eternity of the World as against infinite Generations of Humane Race For if the present Frame of the Earth be supposed eternal by the same notion they make Mankind to have been coeternal with it For otherwise this eternal Earth after she had been eternally barren and desolate must at last have spontaneously produced Mankind without new cause from without or any alteration in her own texture which is so gross an absurdity that even no Atheist hath yet affirmed it So that it evidently follows since Mankind had a beginning that the present Form of the Earth and therefore the whole System of the World had a beginning also Which being proved and established we are now enabled to give answers to some bold Queries and Objections of Atheists That since God is described as a Being infinitely powerfull and perfectly good and that these Attributes were essential to him from all Eternity why did he not by his Power for the more ample communication of his Goodness create the World from eternity if he created it at all or at least many Millions of Ages ago before this short span of duration of five or six thousand Years To the first we reply That since we have discover'd an internal and natural impossibility that a successive Duration should be actually eternal 't is to Us a flat contradiction that the World should have been created from everlasting And therefore it is no affront to the Divine Omnipotence if by reason of the formal incapacity and repugnancy of the thing we conceive that the World could not possibly have been made from all Eternity even by God himself Which gives an answer to the second Question Why created so lately For if it could not be created from Eternity there can no instant be assigned for its Creation in Time though never so many Myriads and Millions of years since but the same Query may be put Why but now and Why so late For even before that remoter period God was eternally existent and might have made the World as many Myriads of Ages still backwards before That and consequently this Objection is absurd and unreasonable For else if it was good and allowable it would eternally hinder God from exerting his Creative Power because he could never make a World so early at any given Moment but it may truly be said he could have created it sooner Or if they think there may be a Soonest Instant of possible Creation yet since all Instants have an equal pretence to it in humane apprehension why may not this recent production of the World according to Sacred Authority be supposed to be that Soonest At least it may make that Claim to it that cannot be baffled by their Arguments which equally conclude against all Claims against any conceivable Beginning of the World And so when they profanely ask Why did not this supposed Deity if he really made the Heavens make them boundless and immense a fit and honourable Mansion for an infinite and incomprehensible Being or at least vastly more ample and magnificent than this narrow Cottage of a World we may make them this answer First it seems impossible and a contradiction that a created World should be infinite because it is the nature of Quantity and Motion that they can never be actually and positively infinite They have a Power indeed and a capacity of being increased without end so as no Quantity can be assigned so vast but still a larger may be imagin'd no Motion so swift or languid but a greater Velocity or Slowness may still be conceived no positive Duration of it so long than which a longer may not be supposed but even that very Power hinders them from being actually infinite From whence secondly it follows that though the World was a million of times more spacious and ample than even Astronomy supposes it or yet another million bigger than that and so on in infinite progression yet still they might make the same Exception world without end For since God Almighty can do all that is possible and Quantity hath always a possibility of being enlarged more and more he could never create so ample a World but still it would be true that he could have made a bigger the foecundity of his Creative Power never growing barren nor ever to be exhausted Now what may always be an exception against all possible Worlds can never be a just one against any whatsoever And when they scoffingly demand Why would this imaginary Omnipotence make such mean pieces of Workmanship what an indigent and impotent thing is his principal Creature Man would not boundless Beneficence have communicated his divine Perfections in the most eminent degrees They may receive this reply That we are far from such arrogance as to pretend to the highest dignity and be the chief of the whole Creation we believe an invisible World and a Scale of Spiritual Beings all nobler than our selves nor yet are we so low and base as their Atheism would depress us not walking Statues of Clay not the Sons of brute Earth whose final Inheritance is Death and Corruption we carry the image of God in us a rational and immortal Soul and though we be now indigent and feeble yet we aspire after eternal happiness and firmly expect a great exaltation of all our natural powers But whatsoever was or can be made whether Angels or Archangels Cherubims or Seraphims whether Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or
Powers all the glorious Host of Heaven must needs be finite and imperfect and dependent Creatures and God out of the exceeding greatness of his power is still able without end to create higher Classes of Beings For where can we put a stop to the Efficacy of the Almighty or what can we assign for the Highest of all possible finite Perfections There can be no such thing as an almost Infinite there can be nothing Next or Second to an omnipotent God Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum as the Heathen Poet said excellently well of the supposed Father of Gods and Men. The infinite Distance between the Creator and the noblest of all Creatures can never be measured nor exhausted by endless addition of finite degrees So that no actual Creature can ever be the most perfect of all possible Creation Which shews the folly of this Query that might always be demanded let things be as they will that would impiously and absurdly attempt to tie the Arm of Omnipotence from doing any thing at all because it can never do its Utmost II. I proceed now to the Second Proposition That neither Matter universally and abstractly consider'd nor Motion as its Attribute and Property can have existed from all Eternity And to this I shall speak the more briefly not only because it is an abstruse and metaphysical Speculation but because it is of far less moment and consequence than the rest since without this we can evince the Existence of God from the Origin and Frame of the Universe For if the present or a like System of the World cannot possibly have been eternal and if without God it could neither naturally nor fortuitously emerge out of a Chaos we must necessarily have recourse to a Deity as the Contriver and Maker of Heaven and Earth whether we suppose he created them out of Nothing or had the Materials ready eternally to his hand But nevertheless because we are verily persuaded of the truth of this Article we shall briefly assign some reasons of our Belief in these following Particulars First It is a thing possible that Matter may have been produced out of Nothing It is urged as an Universal Maxim that Nothing can proceed from Nothing Now this we readily allow and yet it will prove nothing against the Possibility of Creation For when they say Nothing from Nothing they must so understand it as excluding all Causes both material and efficient In which sense it is most evidently and infallibly true being equivalent to this proposition that Nothing can make it self or Nothing cannot bring it s no self out of non-entity into Something Which only expresses thus much That Matter did not produce it self or that all Substances did not emerge out of an Universal Nothing Now who-ever talked at that rate We do not say the World was created from Nothing and by Nothing we assert an eternal God to have been the Efficient Cause of it So that a Creation of the World out of Nothing by Something and by that Something that includes in its Nature a necessary Existence and perfection of Power is certainly no Contradiction nor opposes that common Maxim Whence it manifestly follows That since God may do any thing that implies not a Contradiction if there be such an Essence as God he may have created Matter out of nothing that is have given an existence to Matter which had no Being before And Secondly It is very probable that Matter has been actually created out of Nothing In a former Discourse we have proved sufficiently that Humane Souls are not mere modification of Matter but real and spiritual Substances that have as true an Existence as our very Bodies themselves Now no man as I conceive can seriously think that his own Soul hath existed from all Eternity He cannot believe the Stuff or Materials of his Soul to have been eternal and the Soul to have been made up of them at the time of his conception For a Humane Soul is no compound Being 't is not made of Particles as our Bodies are but 't is one simple homogeneous Essence Neither can he think that the Personality of his Soul with its Faculties inherent in it has existed eternally this is against common Sense and it needs no Refutation Nay though a Man could be so extravagant as to hold this Assertion That his Soul his personal self has been from everlasting yet even this in the issue would be destructive to Atheism since it supposes an eternal Being endued with Understanding and Wisdom We will take it then as a thing confessed That the Immaterial Souls of Men have been produced out of Nothing But if God hath actually created those intelligent Substances that have such Nobility and Excellency of Being above brute senseless Matter 't is pervicaciousness to deny that he created Matter also unless they 'll say necessary Existence is included in the very Essence and Idea of Matter But Matter doth not include in its Nature a necessity of Existence For Humane Souls as is proved before have been actually created and consequently have not necessary Existence included in their Essence Now can any man believe that his spiritual Soul that understands and judges and invents endowed with those Divine Faculties of Sense Memory and Reason hath a dependent and precarious Being created and preserved by another while the Particles of this dead Ink and Paper have been necessarily eternal and uncreated 'T is against natural reason and no one while he contemplates an individual Body can discern that necessity of its Existence But men have been taught to believe that Extension or Space and Body are both the self-same thing So that because they cannot imagine how Space can either begin or cease to exist they presently conclude that extended infinite Matter must needs be eternal But I shall fully prove hereafter that Body and Space or Distance are quite different things and that a Vacuity is interspersed among the Particles of Matter and such a one as hath a vastly larger Extension than all the Matter of the Universe Which now being supposed they ought to abstract their Imagination from that false infinite Extension and conceive one Particle of Matter surrounded on all sides with vacuity and contiguous to no other Body And whereas formerly they fansied an immense boundless Space as an homogeneous One which great Individual they believed might deserve the Attribute of necessary Existence Let them now please to imagine one solitary Atom that hath no dependence on the rest of the World and is no more sustained in Being by other Matter than it could be created by it and then I would ask the question whether this poor Atom sluggish and unactive as it is doth involve Necessity of Existence the first and highest of all perfections in its particular nature and notion I dare presume for the Negative in the judgments of all serious men And I observe the Epicureans take much pains
to convince us that in natural corruptions and dissolutions Atoms are not reduc'd to Nothing which surely would be needless if the very Idea of Atoms imported Self existence And yet if one Atom do not include so much in its Notion and Essence all Atoms put together that is all the Matter of the Universe can not include it So that upon the whole matter since Creation is no contradiction since God hath certainly created nobler Substances than Matter and since Matter is not necessarily eternal it is most reasonable to believe that the eternal and Self-existent God created the material World and produced it out of Nothing And then as to the last Proposition that Motion as an Attribute or Property of Matter cannot have been from Eternity That we may wave some Metaphysical Arguments which demonstrate that Local Motion cannot be positively eternal we shall only observe in two Words That if Matter be not essentially eternal as we have shewed before much less can Motion be that is but the adjunct and accident of it Nay though we should concede an Eternity to Matter yet why must Motion be coaeval with it which is not only not inherent and essential to Matter but may be produced and destroyed at the pleasure of free Agents both which are flatly repugnant to an eternal and necessary Duration I am aware how some have asserted that the same quantity of Motion is always kept up in the World which may seem to favour the Opinion of its infinite Duration but that Assertion doth solely depend upon an absolute Plenum which being refuted in my next Discourse it will then appear how absurd and false that conceit is about the same quantity of Motion how easily disproved from that Power in Humane Souls to excite Motion when they please and from the gradual increase of Men and other Animals and many Arguments besides Therefore let this also be concluded That Motion has not been eternal in an infinite past Duration Which was the last thing to be proved A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Origin and Frame of the World PART II. The Seventh SERMON preached Novemb. 7. 1692. Acts XIV 15 c. That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein Who in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling our hearts with Food and Gladness WHen we first enter'd upon this Topic the demonstration of God's Existence from the Origin and Frame of the World we offer'd to prove four Propositions 1. That this present System of Heaven and Earth cannot possibly have subsisted from all Eternity 2. That Matter consider'd generally and abstractly from any particular Form and Concretion cannot possibly have been eternal Or if Matter could be so yet Motion cannot have coexisted with it eternally as an inherent property and essential attribute of Matter These two we have already established in the preceding Discourse we shall now shew in the third place 3. That though we should allow the Atheists that Matter and Motion may have been from everlasting yet if as they now suppose there were once no Sun nor Stars nor Earth nor Planets but the Particles that now constitute them were diffused in the mundane Space in manner of a Chaos without any concretion or coalition those dispersed Particles could never of themselves by any kind of Natural motion whether call'd Fortuitous or Mechanical have conven'd into this present or any other like Frame of Heaven and Earth I. And first as to that ordinary Cant of illiterate and puny Atheists the fortuitous or casual Concurse of Atoms that compendious and easie Dispatch of the most important and difficult affair the Formation of a World besides that in our next undertaking it will be refuted all along I shall now briefly dispatch it from what hath been formerly said concerning the true notions of Fortune and Chance Whereby it is evident that in the Atheistical Hypothesis of the World's production Fortuitous and Mechanical must be the self-same thing Because Fortune is no real entity nor physical essence but a mere relative signification denoting only this That such a thing said to fall out by Fortune was really effected by material and necessary Causes but the Person with regard to whom it is called Fortuitous was ignorant of those Causes or their tendencies and did not design or foresee such an effect This is the only allowable and genuine notion of the word Fortune But thus to affirm that the World was made fortuitously is as much as to say That before the World was made there was some Intelligent Agent or Spectator who designing to do something else or expecting that something else would be done with the Materials of the World there were some occult and unknown motions and tendencies in Matter which mechanically formed the World beside his design or expectation Now the Atheists we may presume will be loth to assert a fortuitous Formation in this proper sense and meaning whereby they will make Understanding to be older than Heaven and Earth Or if they should so assert it yet unless they will affirm that the Intelligent Agent did dispose and direct the inanimate Matter which is what we would bring them to they must still leave their Atoms to their mechanical Affections not able to make one step toward the production of a World beyond the necessary Laws of Motion It is plain then that Fortune as to the matter before us is but a synonymous word with Nature and Necessity It remains that we examine the adequate meaning of Chance which properly signifies That all events called Casual among inanimate Bodies are mechanically and naturally produced according to the determinate figures and textures and motions of those Bodies with this negation only That those inanimate Bodies are not conscious of their own operations nor contrive and cast about how to bring such events to pass So that thus to say that the World was made casually by the concourse of Atoms is no more than to affirm that the Atoms composed the World mechanically and fatally only they were not sensible of it nor studied and consider'd about so noble an undertaking For if Atoms formed the World according to the essential properties of Bulk Figure and Motion they formed it mechanically and if they formed it mechanically without perception and design they formed it casually So that this negation of Consciousness being all that the notion of Chance can add to that of Mechanism We that do not dispute this matter with the Atheists nor believe that Atoms ever acted by Counsel and Thought may have leave to consider the several names of Fortune and Chance and Nature and Mechanism as one and the same Hypothesis Wherefore once for all to overthrow all possible Explications which Atheists have
their Positions and Distances the whole Aggregate of Matter as long as it retain'd the name and nature of Chaos would retain well-nigh an uniform tenuity of Texture and may be consider'd as an homogeneous Fluid As several Portions of the same sort of Water are reckoned to be of the same specifick gravity tho' it be naturally impossible that every Particle and Pore of it consider'd Geometrically should have equal sizes and dimensions We have now represented the true scheme and condition of the Chaos how all the Particles would be disunited and what vast intervals of empty Space would lie between each To form a System therefore 't is necessary that these squander'd Atoms should convene and unite into great and compact Masses like the Bodies of the Earth and Planets Without such a coalition the diffused Chaos must have continued and reign'd to all eternity But how could Particles so widely dispersed combine into that closeness of Texture Our Adversaries can have only these two ways of accounting for it First By the Common Motion of Matter proceeding from external Impulse and Conflict without attraction by which every Body moves uniformly in a direct line according to the determination of the impelling force For they may say the Atoms of the Chaos being variously moved according to this Catholick Law must needs knock and interfere by which means some that have convenient figures for mutual coherence might chance to stick together and others might join to those and so by degrees such huge Masses might be formed as afterwards became Suns and Planets or there might arise some vertiginous Motions or Whirlpools in the Matter of the Chaos whereby the Atoms might be thrust and crowded to the middle of those Whirlpools and there constipate one another into great solid Globes such as now appear in the World Or secondly by mutual Gravitation or Attraction For they may assert that Matter hath inherently and essentially such an internal energy whereby it incessantly tends to unite it self to all other Matter so that several Particles placed in a Void space at any distance whatsoever would without any external impulse spontaneously convene and unite together And thus the Atoms of the Chaos though never so widely diffused might by this innate property of Attraction soon assemble themselves into great sphaerical Masses and constitute Systems like the present Heaven and Earth This is all that can be proposed by Atheists as an efficient cause of the World For as to the Epicurean Theory of Atoms descending down an infinite space by an inherent principle of Gravitation which tends not toward other Matter but toward a Vacuum or Nothing and verging from the Perpendicular no body knows why nor when nor where 't is such miserable absurd stuff sorepugnant to it self and so contrary to the known Phaenomena of Nature though it contented supine unthinking Atheists for a thousand years together that we will not now honour it with a special refutation But what it hath common with the other Explications we will fully confute together with Them in these three Propositions 1. That by Common Motion without attraction the dissever'd Particles of the Chaos could never make the World could never convene into such great compact Masses as the Planets now are nor either acquire or continue such Motions as the Planets now have 2. That such a mutual Gravitation or spontaneous Attraction can neither be inherent and essential to Matter nor ever supervene to it unless impress'd and infused into it by a Divine Power 3. That though we should allow such Attraction to be natural and essential to all Matter yet the Atoms of a Chaos could never so convene by it as to form the present System or if they could form it it could neither acquire such Motions nor continue permanent in this state without the Power and Providence of a Divine Being I. And first that by Common Motion the Matter of Chaos could never convene into such Masses as the Planets now are Any man that considers the spacious void intervals of the Chaos how immense they are in proportion to the bulk of the Atoms will hardly induce himself to believe that Particles so widely disseminated could ever throng and crowd one another into a close and compact texture He will rather conclude that those few that should happen to clash might rebound after the collision or if they cohered yet by the next conflict with other Atoms might be separated again and so on in an eternal vicissitude of Fast and Loose without ever consociating into the huge condense Bodies of Planets some of whose Particles upon this supposition must have travell'd many millions of Leagues through the gloomy regions of Chaos to place themselves where they now areBut then how rarely would there be any clashing at all how very rarely in comparison to the number of Atoms The whole multitude of them generally speaking might freely move and rove for ever with very little occurring or interfering Let us conceive two of the nearest Particles according to our former Calculation or rather let us try the same proportions in another Example that will come easier to the Imagination Let us suppose two Ships fitted with durable Timber and Rigging but without Pilot or Mariners to be placed in the vast Atlantick or the Pacifique Ocean as far asunder as may be How many thousand years might expire before those solitary Vessels should happen to strike one against the other But let us imagine the Space yet more ample even the whole face of the Earth to be cover'd with Sea and the two Ships to be placed in the opposite Poles might not they now move long enough without any danger of clashing And yet I find that the two nearest Atoms in our evâ—â—ly diffused Chaos have ten thousand times less pâ—â—portion to the two Void circular Planes around them than our two Ships would have to the whole Surface of the Deluge Let us assume then another Deluge ten thousand times larger than Noah's Is it not now utterly incredible that our two Vessels placed there Antipodes to each other should ever happen to concur And yet let me add that the Ships would move in one and the same Surface and consequently must needs encounter when they either advance towards one another in direct lines or meet in the intersection of cross ones but the Atoms may not only fly side-ways but over likewise and under each other which makes it many million times more improbable that they should interfere than the Ships even in the last and unlikeliest instance But they may say Though the Odds indeed be unspeakable that the Atoms do not convene in any set number of Trials yet in an infinite Succession of them may not such a Combination possibly happen But let them consider that the improbability of Casual Hits is never diminished by repetition of Trials they are as unlikely to fall out at the Thousandth as at the First So that in a matter of mere
Chance when there is so many Millions odds against any assignable Experiment 't is in vain to expect it should ever succeed even in endless Duration But though we should concede it to be simply possible that the Matter of Chaos might convene into great Masses like Planets yet it 's absolutely impossible that those Masses should acquire such revolutions about the Sun Let us suppose any one of those Masses to be the Present Earth Now the annual Revolution of the Earth must proceed in this Hypothesis either from the Summ and Result of the several motions of all the Particles that formed the Earth or from a new Impulse from some external Matter after it was formed The former is apparently absurd because the Particles that form'd the round Earth must needs convene from all points and quarters toward the middle and would generally tend toward its Center which would make the whole Compound to rest in a Poise or at least that overplus of Motion which the Particles of one Hemisphere could have above the other would be very small and inconsiderable too feeble and languid to propell so vast and ponderous a Body with that prodigious velocity And secondly 't is impossible that any external Matter should impell that compound Mass after it was formed 'T is manifest that nothing else could impell it unless the Aethereal Matter be supposed to be carried about the Sun like a Vortex or Whirlpool as a Vehicle to convey it and the rest of the Planets But this is refuted from what we have shewn above that those Spaces of the Aether may be reckon'd a mere Void the whole Quantity of their Matter scarce amounting to the weight of a Grain 'T is refuted also from Matter of Fact in the Motion of Comets which as often as they are visible to Us are in the Region of our Planets and there are observed to move some in quite contrary courses to Theirs and some in cross and oblique ones in Planes inclined to the Plane of the Ecliptick in all kinds of Angles which firmly evinces that the Regions of the Aether are empty and free and neither resist nor assist the Revolutions of Planets But moreover there could not possibly arise in the Chaos any Vortices or Whirlpools at all either to form the Globes of the Planets or to revolve them when formed 'T is acknowledged by all that inanimate unactive Matter moves always in a streight Line nor ever reflects in an Angle nor bends in a Circle which is a continual reflexion unless either by some external Impulse that may divert it from the direct motion or by an intrinseck Principle of Gravity or Attraction that may make it describe a curve line about the attracting Body But this latter Cause is not now supposed and the former could never beget Whirlpools in a Chaos of so great a Laxity and Thinness For 't is matter of certain experience and universally allowed that all Bodies moved circularly have a perpetual endeavour to recede from the Center and every moment would fly out in right Lines if they were not violently restrain'd and kept in by contiguous Matter But there is no such restraint in the supposed Chaos no want of empty room there no possibility of effecting one single Revolution in way of a Vortex which necessarily requires if Attraction be not supposed either an absolute Fulness of Matter or a pretty close Constipation and mutual Contact of its Particles And for the same reason 't is evident that the Planets could not continue their Revolutions about the Sun though they could possibly acquire them For to drive and carry the Planets in such Orbs as they now describe that Aethereal Matter must be compact and dense as dense as the very Planets themselves otherwise they would certainly fly out in Spiral Lines to the very circumference of the Vortex But we have often inculcated that the wide Tracts of the Aether may be reputed as a mere extended Void So that there is nothing in this Hypothesis that can retain and bind the Planets in their Orbs for one single moment but they would immediately desert them and the neighbourhood of the Sun and vanish away in Tangents to their several Circles into the Abyss of Mundane Space II. Secondly we affirn that mutual Gravitation or spontaneous Attraction cannot possibly be innate and essential to Matter By Attraction we do not here understand what is improperly though vulgarly called so in the operations of drawing sucking pumping c. which is really Pulsion and Trusion and belongs to that Common Motion which we have already shewn to be insufficient for the formation of a World But we now mean as we have explain'd it before such a power and quality whereby all parcels of Matter would mutually attract or mutually tend and press to all others so that for instance two distant Atoms in vacuo would spontaneously convene together without the impulse of external Bodies Now fiirst we say if our Atheists suppose this power to be inherent and essential to Matter they overthrow their own Hypothesis there could never be a Chaos at all upon these terms but the present form of our System must have continued from all Eternity against their own Supposition and what we have proved in our Last For if they affirm that there might be a Chaos notwithstanding innate Gravity then let them assign any Period though never so remote when the diffused Matter might convene They must confess that before that assigned Period Matter had existed eternally inseparably endued with this principle of Attraction and yet had never attracted nor convened before in that infinite duration which is so monstrous an absurdity as even They will blush to be charged with But some perhaps may imagin that a former System might be dissolved and reduced to a Chaos from which the present System might have its Original as that Former had from another and so on new Systems having grown out of old ones in infinite Vicissitudes from all past eternity But we say that in the Supposition of innate Gravity no System at all could be dissolved For how is it possible that the Matter of solid Masses like Earth and Planets and Stars should fly up from their Centers against its inherent principle of mutual Attraction and diffuse it self in a Chaos This is absurder than the other That only supposed innate Gravity not to be exerted This makes it to be defeated and to act contrary to its own Nature So that upon all accounts this essential power of Gravitation or Attraction is irreconcilable wirh the Atheist's own Doctrine of a Chaos And secondly 't is repugnant to Common Sense and Reason 'T is utterly unconceivable that inanimate brute Matter without the mediation of some Immaterial Being should operate upon and affect other Matter without mutual Contact that distant Bodies should act upon each other through a Vacuum without the intervention of something else by and through which the action may
Principle of Gravitation or by impulse of ambient Bodies It is plain here is no difference as to this whether the World be Infinite or Finite so that the same Arguments that we have used before may be equally urged in this Supposition And though we should concede that these Revolutions might be acquired and that all were settled and constituted in the present State and Posture of Things yet we say the continuance of this Frame and Order for so long a duration as the known Ages of the World must necessarily infer the Existence of God For though the Universe was infinite the now Fixt Stars could not be fixed but would naturally convene together and confound System with System because all mutually attracting every one would move whither it was most powerfully drawn This they may say is indubitable in the case of a Finite World where some Systems must needs be Outmost and therefore be drawn toward the Middle but when Infinite Systems succeed one another through an Infinite Space and none is either inward or outward may not all the Systems be situated in an accurate Poise and because equally attracted on all sides remain fixed and unmoved But to this we reply That unless the very mathematical Center of Gravity of every System be placed and fixed in the very mathematical Center of the Attractive Power of all the rest they cannot be evenly attracted on all sides but must preponderate some way or other Now he that considers what a mathematical Center is and that Quantity is infinitely divisible will never be persuaded that such an Universal Equilibrium arising from the coincidence of Infinite Centers can naturally be acquired or maintained If they say that upon the Supposition of Infinite Matter every System would be infinitely and therefore equally attracted on all sides and consequently would rest in an exact Equilibrium be the Center of its Gravity in what Position soever this will overthrow their very Hypothesis For at this rate in an infinite Chaos nothing at all could be formed no Particles could convene by mutual Attraction because every one there must have Infinite Matter around it and therefore must rest for ever being evenly balanced between Infinite Attractions Even the Planets upon this principle must gravitate no more toward the Sun than any other way so that they would not revolve in curve Lines but fly away in direct Tangents till they struck against other Planets or Stars in some remote regions of the Infinite Space An equal Attraction on all sides of all Matter is just equal to no Attraction at all and by this means all the Motion in the Universe must proceed from external Impulse alone which we have proved before to be an incompetent Cause for the Formation of a World And now O thou almighty and eternal Creator having considered the Heavens the work of thy fingers the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained with all the company of Heaven we laud and magnify thy glorious Name evermore praising thee and saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy Glory Glory be to thee O Lord most High A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Origin and Frame of the World The Third and Last PART The Eighth SERMON preached December 5. 1692. Acts XIV 15 c. That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein Who in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling our hearts with Food and Gladness HAving abundantly proved in our Last Exercise That the Frame of the present World could neither be made nor preserved without the Power of God we shall now consider the structure and motions of our own System if any characters of Divine Wisdom and Goodness may be discoverable by us And even at the first and general View it very evidently appears to us which is our FOURTH and Last Proposition That the Order and Beauty of the Systematical Parts of the World the Discernible Ends and Final Causes of them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Meliority above what was necessary to be do evince by a reflex Argument that it could not be produced by Mechanism or Chance but by an Intelligent and Benign Agent that by his excellent Wisdom made the Heavens But before we engage in this Disquisition we must offer one necessary Caution that we need not nor do not confine and determin the purposes of God in creating all Mundane Bodies merely to Humane Ends and Uses Not that we believe it laborious and painfull to Omnipotence to create a World out of Nothing or more laborious to create a great World than a small one so as we might think it disagreeable to the Majesty and Tranquillity of the Divine Nature to take so much pains for our sakes Nor do we count it any absurdity that such a vast and immense Universe should be made for the sole use of such mean and unworthy Creatures as the Children of Men. For if we consider the Dignity of an Intelligent Being and put that in the scales against brute inanimate Matter we may affirm without over-valuing Humane Nature that the Soul of one vertuous and religious Man is of greater worth and excellency than the Sun and his Planets and all the Stars in the World If therefore it could appear that all the Mundane Bodies are some way conducible to the service of Man if all were as beneficial to us as the Polar Stars were formerly for Navigation as the Moon is for the flowing and ebbing of Tides by which an inestimable advantage accrues to the World for her officious Courtesie in long Winter Nights especiaally to the more Northern Nations who in a continual Night it may be of a whole month are so pretty well accommodated by the Light of the Moon reflected from frozen Snow that they do not much envy their Antipodes a month's presence of the Sun if all the Heavenly Bodies were thus serviceable to us we should not be backward to assign their usefulness to Mankind as the sole end of their Creation But we dare not undertake to shew what advantage is brought to Us by those innumerable Stars in the Galaxy and other parts of the Firmament not discernible by naked eyes and yet each many thousand times bigger than the whole body of the Earth If you say they beget in us a great Idea and Veneration of the mighty Author and Governour of such stupendous Bodies and excite and elevate our minds to his adoration and praise you say very truly and well But would it not raise in us a higher apprehension of the infinite Majesty and boundless Beneficence of God to suppose that those remote and vast Bodies were formed not merely upon Our account to be peept at through an Optick
Glass but for different ends and nobler purposes And yet who will deny but that there are great multitudes of lucid Stars even beyond the reach of the best Telescopes and that every visible Star may have opake Planets revolve about them which we cannot discover Now if they were not created for Our sakes it is certain and evident that they were not made for their own For Matter hath no life nor perception is not conscious of its own existence nor capable of happiness nor gives the Sacrifice of Praise and Worship to the Author of its Being It remains therefore that all Bodies were formed for the sake of Intelligent Minds and as the Earth was principally designed for the Being and Service and Contemplation of Men why may not all other Planets be created for the like Uses each for their own Inhabitants which have Life and Understanding If any man will indulge himself in this Speculation he need not quarrel with revealed Religion upon such an account The Holy Scriptures do not forbid him to suppose as great a Multitude of Systems and as much inhabited as he pleases 'T is true there is no mention in Moses's Narrative of the Creation of any People in other Planets But it plainly appears that the Sacred Historian doth only treat of the Origins of Terrestrial Animals he hath given us no account of God's creating the Angels and yet the same Author in the ensuing parts of the Pentateuch makes not unfrequent mention of the Angels of God Neither need we be sollicitous about the condition of those Planetary People nor raise frivolous Disputes how far they may participate in the Miseries of Adam's Fall or in the benefits of Christ's Incarnation As if because they are supposed to be Rational they must needs be concluded to be Men For what is Man not a Reasonable Animal merely for that is not an adequate and distinguishing Definition but a Rational Mind of such particular Faculties united to an Organical Body of such a certain Structure and Form in such peculiar Laws of Connexion between the Operations and Affections of the Mind and the Motions of the Body Now God Almighty by the inexhausted fecundity of his creative Power may have made innumerable Orders and Classes of Rational Minds some in their natural perfections higher than Humane Souls others inferior But a Mind of superior or meaner capacities than Humane would constitute a different Species though united to a Humane Body in the same Laws of Connexion and a Mind of Humane Capacities would make another Species if united to a different Body in different Laws of Connexion For this Sympathetical Union of a Rational Soul with Matter so as to produce a Vital communication between them is an arbitrary institution of the Divine Wisdom there is no reason nor foundation in the separate natures of either substance why any Motion in the Body should produce any Sensation at all in the Soul or why This motion should produce That particular Sensation rather than any other God therefore may have join'd Immaterial Souls even of the same Class and Capacities in their separate State to other kinds of Bodies and in other Laws of Union and from those different Laws of Union there will arise quite different affections and natures and species of the compound Beings So that we ought not upon any account to conclude that if there be Rational Inhabitants in the Moon or Mars or any unknown Planets of other Systems they must therefore have Humane Nature or be involved in the Circumstances of Our World And thus much was necessary to be here inculcated which will obviate and preclude the most considerable objections of our Adversaries that we do not determine the Final Causes and Usefulness of the Systematical parts of the World merely as they have respect to the Exigencies or Conveniencies of Humane Life Let us now turn our thoughts and imaginations to the Frame of our System if there we may trace any visible footsteps of Divine Wisdom and Beneficence But we are all liable to many mistakes by the prejudices of Childhood and Youth which few of us ever correct by a serious scrutiny in our riper years and a Contemplation of the Phaenomena of Nature in their Causes and Beginnings What we have always seen to be done in one constant and uniform manner we are apt to imagin there was but that one way of doing it and it could not be otherwise This is a great error and impediment in a disquisition of this nature to remedy which we ought to consider every thing as not yet in Being and then diligently examin if it must needs have been at all or what other ways it might have been as possibly as the present and if we find a greater Good and Utility in the present constitution than would have accrued either from the total Privation of it or from other frames and structures that might as possibly have been as It we may then reasonably conclude that the present constitution proceeded neither from the necessity of material Causes nor the blind shuffles of an imaginary Chance but from an intelligent and Good Being that formed it that particular way out of choice and design And especially if this Usefulness be conspicuous not in one or a few instances only but in a long train and series of Things this will give us a firm and infallible assurance that we have not pass'd a wrong Judgment I. Let us proceed therefore by this excellent Rule in the contemplation of Our System 'T is evident that all the Planets receive Heat and Light from the body of the Sun Our own Earth in particular would be barren and desolate a dead dark lump of Clay without the benign influence of the Solar Rayes which without question is true of all the other Planets It is good therefore that there should be a Sun to warm and cherish the Seeds of Plants and excite them to Vegetation to impart an uninterrupted Light to all parts of his System for the Subsistence of Animals But how came the Sun to be Luminous not from the necessity of natural Causes or the constitution of the Heavens All the Planets might have moved about him in the same Orbs and the same degrees of Velocity as now and yet the Sun might have been an opake and cold Body like Them For as the six Primary Planets revolve about Him so the Secondary ones are moved about Them the Moon about the Earth the Satellites about Iupiter and others about Saturn the one as regularly as the other in the same Sesquialteral proportion of the times of their Periodical Revolutions to the Semidiameters of their Orbs. So that though we suppose the present Existence and Conservation of the System yet the Sun might have been a Body without Light or Heat of the same kind with the Earth and Iupiter and Saturn But then what horrid darkness and desolation must have reign'd in the World It had been unfit for the Divine
purposes in creating vegetable and sensitive and rational Creatures It was therefore the contrivance and choice of a Wise and Good Being that the Central Sun should be a Lucid Body to communicate warmth and light and life to the Planets around him II. We have shewed in our Last that the concentric Revolutions of the Planets about the Sun proceed from a compound Motion a Gravitation toward the Sun which is a constant Energy infused into Matter by the Author of all things and a projected transverse Impulfe in Tangents to their several Orbs that was impress'd at first by the Divine Arm and will carry them around till the end of the World But now admitting that Gravity may be essential to Matter and that a transverse Impulse might be acquired too by Natural Causes yet to make all the Planets move about the Sun in circular Orbs there must be given to each a determinate Impulse these present particular degrees of Velocity which they now have in proportion to their Distances from the Sun and to the quantity of the Solar Matter For had the Velocities of the several Planets been greater or less than they are now at the same distances from the Sun or had their Distances from the Sun or the quantity of the Sun's Matter and consequently his Attractive Power been greater or less than they are now with the same Velocities they would not have revolved in concentric Circles as they do but have moved in Hyperbola's or Parabola's or in Ellipses very Eccentric The same may be said of the Velocities of the Secondary Planets with respect to their Distances from the Centers of Their Orbs and to the Quantities of the Matter of those Central Bodies Now that all these Distances and Motions and Quantities of Matter should be so accurately and harmoniously adjusted in this great Variety of our System is above the fortuitous Hits of blind material Causes and must certainly flow from that eternal Fountain of Wisdom the Creator of Heaven and Earth who always acts Geometrically by just and adequate numbers and weights and measures And let us examin it further by our Critical Rule Are the present Revolutions in circular Orbs more beneficial than the other would be If the Planets had moved in those Lines above named sometimes they would have approached to the Sun as near as the Orb of Mercury and sometimes have exorbitated beyond the distance of Saturn and some have quite left the Sun without ever returning Now the very constitution of a Planet would be corrupted and destroyed by such a change of the Interval between it and the Sun no living thing could have endured such unspeakable excesses of Heat and Cold all the Animals of our Earth must inevitably have perished or rather never have been So that as sure as it is good very good that Humane Nature should exist so certain it is that the circular Revolutions of the Earth and Planets rather than those other Motions which might as possibly have been do declare not only the Power of God but his Wisdom and Goodness III. It is manifest by our last Discourse that the Aethereal Spaces are perfectly fluid they neither assist nor retard neither guide nor divert the Revolutions of the Planets which rowl through those Regions as free and unresisted as if they moved in a vacuum So that any of them might as possibly have moved in opposite Courses to the present and in Planes crossing the Plane of the Ecliptick in any kind of Angles Now if the System had been fortuitously formed by the convening Matter of a Chaos how is it conceivable that all the Planets both Primary and Secondary should revolve the same Way from the West to the East and that in the same Plane too without any considerable variation No natural and necessary Cause could so determin their motions and 't is millions of millions odds to an unit in such a Cast of a Chance Such an apt and regular Harmony such an admirable Order and Beauty must deservedly be ascribed to Divine Art and Conduct Especially if we consider that the smallest Planets are situated nearest the Sun and each other whereas Iupiter and Saturn that are vastly greater than the rest and have many Satellites about them are wisely removed to the extreme Regions of the System and placed at an immense Distance one from the other For even now at this wide interval they are observed in their Conjunctions to disturb one anothers motions a little by their gravitating Powers but if such vast Masses of Matter had been situated much nearer to the Sun or to each other as they might as easily have been for any mechanical or fortuitous Agent they must necessarily have caused a considerable disturbance and disorder in the whole System IV. But let us consider the particular Situation of our Earth and its distance from the Sun It is now placed so conveniently that Plants thrive and flourish in it and Animals live this is matter of fact and beyond all dispute But how came it to pass at the beginning that the Earth moved in its present Orb We have shown before that if Gravity and a Projected Motion be fitly proportion'd any Planet would freely revolve at any assignable distance within the Space of the whole System Was it mere Chance then or Divine Counsel and Choice that constituted the Earth in its present Situation To know this we will enquire if this particular Distance from the Sun be better for our Earth and its Creatures than a greater or less would have been We may be mathematically certain That the Heat of the Sun is according to the density of the Sun beams and is reciprocally proportional to the square of the distance from the Body of the Sun Now by this Calculation suppose the Earth should be removed and placed nearer to the Sun and revolve for instance in the Orbit of Mercury there the whole Ocean would even boil with extremity of Heat and be all exhaled into Vapors all Plants and Animals would be scorched and consumed in that fiery Furnace But suppose the Earth should be carried to the great Distance of Saturn there the whole Globe would be one Frigid Zone the deepest Seas under the very Equator would be frozen to the bottom there would be no Life no Germination nor any thing that comes now under our knowledge or senses It was much better therefore that the Earth should move where it does than in a much greater or less Interval from the Body of the Sun And if you place it at any other Distance either less or more than Saturn or Mercury you will still alter it for the worse proportionally to the Change It was situated therefore where it is by the Wisdom of some voluntary Agent and not by the blind motions of Fortune or Fate If any one shall think with himself How then can any Animal at all live in Mercury and Saturn in such intense degrees of Heat and
and Blood should be upon this Earth under a settled constitution of Nature these supposed Inconveniences as they were foreseen and permitted by the Author of that Nature as necessary consequences of such a constitution so they cannot inferr the least imperfection in his Wisdom and Goodness And to murmure at them is as unreasonable as to complain that he hath made us Men and not Angels that he hath placed us upon this Planet and not upon some other in this or another System which may be thought better than Ours Let them also consider that this objected Deformity is in our Imaginations only and not really in Things themselves There is no Universal Reason I mean such as is not confined to Humane Fancy but will reach through the whole Intellectual Universe that a Figure by us called Regular which hath equal Sides and Angles is absolutely more beautifull than any irregular one All Pulchritude is relative and all Bodies are truly and physically beautifull under all possible Shapes and Proportions that are good in their Kind that are fit for their proper uses and ends of their Natures We ought not then to believe that the Banks of the Ocean are really deformed because they have not the form of a regular Bulwark nor that the Mountains are out of shape because they are not exact Pyramids or Cones nor that the Stars are unskilfully placed because they are not all situated at uniform distances These are not Natural Irregularities but with respect to our Fancies only nor are they incommodious to the true Uses of Life and the Designs of Man's Being on the Earth And let them further consider that these Ranges of barren Mountains by condensing the Vapors and producing Rains and Fountains and Rivers give the very Plains and Valleys themselves that Fertility they boast of that those Hills and Mountains supply Us and the Stock of Nature with a great variety of excellent Plants If there were no inequalities in the Surface of the Earth nor in the Seasons of the Year we should lose a considerable share of the Vegetable Kingdom for all Plants will not grow in an uniform Level and the same temper of Soil nor with the same degree of Heat Nay let them lastly consider that to those Hills and Mountains we are obliged for all our Metals and with them for all the conveniencies and comforts of Life To deprive us of Metals is to make us mere Savages to change our Corn or Rice for the old Arcadian Diet our Houses and Cities for Dens and Caves and our Cloathing for Skins of Beasts 't is to bereave us of all Arts and Sciences of History and Letters nay of Revealed Religion too that inestimable favour of Heaven for without the benefit of Letters the whole Gospel would be a mere Tradition and old Cabbala without certainty without authority Who would part with these Solid and Substantial Blessings for the little fantastical pleasantness of a smooth uniform Convexity and Rotundity of a Globe And yet the misfortune of it is that the pleasant View of their imaginary Globe as well as the deformed Spectacle of our true one is founded upon impossible Suppositions For that equal Convexity could never be seen and enjoyed by any man living The Inhabitants of such an Earth could have only the short prospect of a little Circular Plane about three Miles around them tho' neither Woods nor Hedges nor artificial Banks should intercept it which little too would appear to have an Acclivity on all sides from the Spectators so that every man would have the displeasure of fancying himself the lowest and that he always dwelt and moved in a Bottom Nay considering that in such a constitution of the Earth they could have no means nor instruments of Mathematical Knowledge there is great reason to believe that the period of the final Dissolution might overtake them ere they would have known or had any Suspicion that they walked upon a round Ball. Must we therefore to make this Convexity of the Earth discernible to the Eye suppose a man to be lifted up a great height in the Air that he may have a very spacious Horizon under one View But then again because of the distance the convexity and gibbousness would vanish away he would only see below him a great circular Flat as level to his thinking as the face of the Moon Are there then such ravishing Charms in a dull unvaried Flat to make a sufficient compensation for the chief things of the ancient Mountains and for the precious things of the lasting Hills Nay we appeal to the sentence of Mankind If a Land of Hills and Valleys has not more Pleasure too and Beauty than an uniform Flat which Flat if ever it may be said to be very delightfull is then only when 't is viewed from the top of a Hill What were the Tempe of Thessaly so celebrated in ancient story for their unparallelled pleasantness but a Vale divided with a River and terminated with Hills Are not all the descriptions of Poets embellish'd with such Ideas when they would represent any places of Superlative Delight any blissfull Seats of the Muses or the Nymphs any sacred habitations of Gods or Goddesses They will never admit that a wide Flat can be pleasant no not in the very Elysian Fields but those too must be diversified with depressed Valleys and swelling Ascents They cannot imagin even Paradise to be a place of Pleasure nor Heaven it self to be Heaven without them Let this therefore be another Argument of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness that the Surface of the Earth is not uniformly Convex as many think it would naturally have been if mechanically formed by a Chaos but distinguished with Mountains and Valleys and furrowed from Pole to Pole with the Deep Channel of the Sea and that because of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is better that it should be so Give me leave to make one short Inference from what has been said which shall finish this present Discourse and with it our Task for the Year We have clearly discovered many Final Causes and Characters of Wisdom and Contrivance in the Frame of the inanimate World as well as in the Organical Fabrick of the Bodies of Animals Now from hence ariseth a new and invincible Argument that the present Frame of the World hath not existed from all Eternity For such an usefulness of things or a fitness of means to Ends as neither proceeds from the necessity of their Beings nor can happen to them by Chance doth necessarily inferr that there was an Intelligent Being which was the Author and Contriver of that Usefulness We have formerly demonstrated that the Body of a Man which consists of an incomprehensible variety of Parts all admirably fitted for their peculiar Functions and the Conservation of the Whole could no more be formed fortuitously than the Aeneis of Virgil or any other long Poem with good Sense and just Measures could