the other side of the world be very much mistaken if they should likewise have this imagination on their part that God resides in that moiety of Heaven which covers them and which they behold Add hereunto that neither the one nor the other can have assurance that God sees them or that he understands their hearts and esteems their motions and thoughts acceptable unto himself Now is it possible that a man that doubts whether God hears and sees him should have any rational devotion towards him In what fashion can that person serve God in the secret of his Thought that is not assured whether God hath Eyes piercing enough to know the inclinations of his Heart If they conceive God to be of an infinite nature as in truth he is so that he is present to all things even to their most secret and profound meditation which without question they never learnt from the discipline of their Master there will suâ—ely remain no trouble to them to what part they should direct the thoughts of their minds besides that I understand not how it is more unworthy of the Majesty of God or more interruptive of his eternal quiet to govern all things in the Universe then to know them so nearly and penetrate into them with his essence As the infinite comprehension of his Wisdom gives him the understanding of all things exempt from solicitude and perplexity and as the inviolable purity of his essence renders him their presence and if I may so say their contact exempt from the contagion of their immundicity so the infiniteness of his power frees the government and administration of them from being troublesome and the invariable firmitude of his being secures him from receiving any alteration in his Eternal Felicity CHAP. IV. A more particular consideration of the Honor which the Epicureans pretend to render to God in respect of his Power Goodness Justice and Wisdom BUt after these General reasons let us proceed to Survey those which may be drawn from a more particular consideration of the Properties of the Divine Essence and in the first place inquire what Honor the Epicurean Doctrine ascribes to him in reference to his Power They who acknowledge God to have created All things of Nothing a position indeed which we owe to Revelation from Heaven yet such as the right renson of Man subscribes to have a very powerful inducement to become absolutely ravish'd and swallowed up in admiration of his Omnipotence For whereas there is a chasme of infinite extent between Entity and Non-Entity of necessity the Power that ha's produc'd some thing from Nothing to Being must be likewise infinite Wherefore in case they had no more before their Eyes but this one Proof that God hath given concerning what He is they ought to be so far convinced as to separate him from Parity with all other things and render him an honor of Adoration wholly different from that which they exhibite to Creatures For seeing the power wherewith they are capable to be indued bears no proportion to that of the Creator they cannot be intitl'd to the same sort of Honor with him not so much as in the lowest degree if it were possible to admit degrees in the honor due to an Infinite Being They which conceive the Matter of sensible things to be eternal but that God composed the World of the same as a Potter frames his vessel of his Clay which seems to have been the opinion of Plato do not consider the Divine Power in so eminent a degree albeit they do indeed attribute an effect to it which to serious perpension seems onely atchievable by an infinite cause For any power below infinite could never have been capable to bestow so excellent a Form upon a Chaos devoid of all nor to impart the like to all other things which the World contains by distributing formes to them so different as they are according to the divers rank that each holds in the Universe and the various functions to which they are designed So that likewise those of this judgement have ample argument and occasion to proclaim the wonders of it As for them who assert the world such at it presents it self to our eyes had never any Beginning but that it proceeded from God by emanation as Light do's from the Sun and by a necessary and natural production they do in truth very much detract from the glory of this Virtue notwithstanding they always imply an acknowledgement that the Universe owes its Original unto him although that great Effect were not produced by that Cause by the disposure of free Volition but by the necessity of an inevitable dependance Yet this Order also were there nothing else but the Circumgyration of the Celestial Orbes of which they repute God the first cause hath cause to admire the force that is requisite thereunto For whether God move the Heavens immediately and by himself without the intervening assistance of any other thing as one applies his hand to a wheel to turn it notwithstanding any aptitude they may have to circular motion by reason of their natural figure yet there needs a mighty strength to stir all that great Machine and to govern so many different revolutions to preserve them in harmony and to hinder them from clashing or interferring for ever Or whether he moves the same by the Mediation of Intelligences according to the conceit of Aristotle who was father to this Opinion of the Worlds Eternity nevertheless God will always be the first Efficient of their motion and if the Intelligences which are far inferior to him can do that He is without doubt able to do much more Moreover we know that Philosopher speaks very advantageously of the dignity of the First Mover attributes to him the glory of being the primary Principle of all things But in reference to the Epicureans they want our charity to make up so much as a probability that they believe the Supream Being is indued with any power at all For what evidence have they for such a perswasion from his effects if He hath not created the least Mushrom nor given impulsion to so much as one of those small Bodies by whose concurrence they hold the World had its contexture Certainly if they measure this power by the knowledge they have of it and their knowledge by the effects they behold of it and it is clear they cannot know it otherwise it must needs be extreamly inconsiderable or rather none at all in case they keep themselves to their Maximes But peradventure some among them will answer that being there is a God it is necessary he should possess all Perfection required to the constitution of so excellent a nature and that among those perfections there ought to be a power also proportionate to the excellence of that nature We will not scruple to concede this to them although we shall afterwards shew where they learnt to reason in this manner for the discipline of their
he had pronounced them with his own mouth may beget an immutable certainty that although the expressions be Allegorical yet the reality equals or surpasses them which unquestionably produces wonderful effects Whereas the opinion that other descriptions found in the Books of Poets are humane inventions disparages their authority and so renders them wholly ineffectual Let us proceed now to the other point of this Chapter Because as it hath been shewn all knowledge which we have of God comes either from a particular revelation or from contemplation of his Works and that all our piety is deriv'd from and regulated according to the measure of such knowledge it is of high importance especially to those who acknowledge no particular revelation to the end they may become truely pious towards God to have an exact knowledge of his Works namely of the World and the things contained therein I demand therefore whether they believe that God is the author of the World For if they do not but deny that he created the matter out of nothing of which it is compos'd or introduc'd the form into the matter which we behold in it they are as much at a loss as Epicurus to make out whence they learn't that God is powerful or what is the measure of his power so far are they from being able to assure themselves that it is infinite There is indeed a great Virtue requisite for the administring of Providence and which being duely considered by right reason is found to be infinite But if there hath ever been one person among the Philosophers that reason'd in this manner God governs the world Therefore his power is unlimited which I do not meet with any that ha's done there are found a thousand who conceived that God employ'd his utmost skill and ability in the government of the World and that his object was proportionable to his power so that being but sufficient to all the World he was not able to remove so much as one straw besides unless he should during that little space surcease his action by which he moves all this great mass of the Universe Whereas they which believe that God created the World and that he created it of nothing do necessarily imply in that belief this other that his power is immense since there is an infinite distance between Being and Not-being and those two terms as they speak cannot be conjoyn'd nor the one be pass'd from to the other but by a power of infinite extent Wherefore these people cannot adore God with assurance in reference to the infiniteness of his power For that right reason which is necessary to frame reasonings from the conduct of Providence which may infer the immensity of the power of God is not to be found in any of mankind since the corruption which befell it Moreover they deprive themselves of the fairest inducement to praise and thanksgiving which can be imagin'd For if God did not create the World he ha's not manifested any proof of his goodness in giving Being to the Creatures which is infinitely better then Not-being and consequently deserves an infinite gratitude if man were capable of performing it If particularly he did not create the World for man nor gave him that dominion which he challenges over all things by imagining himself the King of the Universe he does not ow him one word of thanks and ha's no reason to say as a great King once did Lord how illustrious is thy Name Whose power both Heaven and Earth proclame When I the Heavens thy Fabrick see The Moon and Stars dispos'd by Thee Oh what is Man or his frail Race That thou shouldst such a shadow grace Next to thy Angels most renown'd With Majesty and Glory crown'd The King of all thy Creatures made That all beneath his Feet hast laid All that on Dales or Mountaines feed That shady Woods or Desarts breed What in the Airy Region glide Or through the rowling Ocean slide Lord how illustrious is thy Name Whose power both Heaven and Earth proclame Which is reasonably a hymne more agreeable and well-pleasing to the Deity then the sume of all the Incense of Arabia But in the next place what duty will man think he owes to God even for his Being if he believes not that he receiv'd it from him And will he not rather be ready to place himself equal with him being not dependant of him for his Being since there is nothing more renders things equal one to another then Independance It is true it may perhaps be said that men are oblig'd to the Deity in as much as they depend of his Providence because if that did not preside over natural causes and cause them to produce things necessary to the support of Life we could not subsist and therefore he which gives the conservation of a being obliges as much or more then he which gives the being it self and he that feeds and defends then he that begets But this is a gross mistake of theirs and their pretended reason deludes them For if God be not the Author of the World how is he the Preserver of it Do's it not belong to him that made the Work to take the care of it Whence hath he authority to intermeddle in the Works of another or the World the necessity of being guided and preserved by the hand of God if it was not framed by the same And indeed God must either be the author of the World or Chance as Epicurus affirmed or as others Nature or it had never any beginning but hath existed from all eternity If it was Chance that made the world then consequently it is also preserved and governed by the same hazard And truely Epicurus was consistent with his own Principles when he denied Providence For if the World was thus framed by the fortuitous concourse of Atomes there is no need for Providence to put its hand to support it since it might be preserv'd in its Being by the same means by which it was produc'd the conservation of things being not more difficult then their first production If it was made by Nature I demand what that is For if by Nature they mean the order which is in the things of the World according to which causes produce effects sutable to themselves certainly and determinately namely both universal causes as the Heavens and particular as Animals and Plants they are not greatly mistaken We desire to know who is the Author of that order seeing order cannot be the author of it self For besides that nothing is able to produce it self into Being order is an effect of a Cause indowed with Understanding but hath no understanding it self in as much as Order is a disposition and relation according to which things are both conveniently marshall'd among themselves and rationally subordinated to some certain end Now who will say that this relation and disposition of things among themselves is it self indued with understanding And if the order of things did
notwithstanding after they came to be discovered the World it self hath consented to the mind of man acquiesces in them and the shadows which have remained of them in the Fables of the Pagans do serve for even indubitable evidence and testimony unto them On the other side it contains a doctrine of that excellency that no men of howsoever transcendent accomplishments could ever have invented the same which is so conformable to our Reason that although it be admirably sublime there is nothing in it which subverts or incounters the soberness of our judgements in a word all the parts of it have such excellent proportion amongst themselves that so many different spirits which have left it us in writing in several Ages could not have carried on so unitedly and with such uniformity a design of like grandeur without a guidance other then humane Above all there is remarkable in it a marveilous efficacy to comfort a man in his misery after it hath first given him to understand it and unvailed his mind from the ignorance of himself and his own calamity which without doubt are effects whereof our conscience instructs us we â—annot be the cause Lastly this Divinity whâ—â— men have sought after as it were gropingâ—y in all Ages is manifested to us therein with such clearness that after so long experience which we have made of our natural blindness it can be nothing but enormous stupidity not to see that God reveals himself therein and that no other could have spoken so suitably of his nature and of his perfections In the mean while the Epicureans do not receive this Revelation as proceeded from God nor attribute so much to it by far as to the Writings of Plato Cicero and Aristotle If they may be believed all the Prophets were men of alienated understandings and the Apostles vagabond circulators who went about abusing the greatest part of the World So that it is not from these men that they have learnt this truth That there is a God for if they gave credit to them in this particular and avouched to hold it from them why should they disbelieve them in the rest Or how is it credible that so great frontless Imposters as they imagine the Prophets and Apostles were should be the first discoverers of so excellent a truth Or if they did not first discover it so as to merit the title of its Inventors and that notwithstanding we hold it from them whence can it be conjectured they should have drawn it It remains of necessity that if they had it not from Divine Revelation they attained it by study and contemplation either of the World or of themselves As to the World it is easie that it could not be made by it self and consequently must have an Author The construction of so vast a fabrick speaks the power of its Architect and its â—dmirable motions which have remained so reâ—â—lar and constant after so many Ages offer to our wonder his incomprehensible Wisdom In the Harmony of such variety of things and contrary qualities linked one with another and in the convenient disposure of all the creatures to a subserviency in mutual offices without which the World could not subsist his Goodness is presented visible as it were to our eye and palpable by our hand In the shaping of every thing and the apt Symmetry of its parts appears an Art not only inimitable by us but even such as we are not capable perfectly to comprehend The conservation of the Universe and administration of all it containes clearly evidences a Providence conducting natural causes to their effects and animating them with powers to produce them which disposes of all evenements of things agreeably to his will wisely ordering the most casual and contingent And although there are not wanting some to complain of his regiment and to reproach to him oftentimes the prosperity of the Bad and calamitous estate of the Good yet it does visibly enough defend and recompence Virtue and on the contrary avenges Wickedness frequently sometimes even to the displaying of dreadful judgements upon eminent impieties Insomuch that there is not a Star in the Heavens nor a Flower upon the Earth whether considered in the gross or in parcel but declares aloud that there is a God Creaâ—â—â— Consâ—rvator and Governor of all things Nevertheless the Epicureans do not acknowledge that the World ever had a Beginning or if it had according to their opinion yet they will not confess that it was framed otherwise then by the fortuitous concourse of infinite peteâ—t Atomes And for what concerns the regiment and conservation of it they will not have the Deity imployed in the Government of Nature and things here below and do not behold as they profess in all the Universe any footstep of his Providence For t is their general Apophthegm that God hath no affairs of his own and takes no part in those of another least he should interrupt his repose and the serene tranquillity of his eternal beatitude So that if we believe them all things come to pass in the World by a fatal necessity or as it pleases Fortune who being blind and wonderfully temerarious hath neither counsel nor aim in her actions There remains the consideration of Man In our selves we may in the first place observe the structure of our Bodies which are composed after so fair a Symmetrie that the most excellent entendments are ravished and confounded in the speculation and even the illterate and they which regard it more superficially cannot but express their astonishment at the same In effect were there in them onely the Masterpiece of our Eyes and that Activity of our Hands which renders us so expedite to all sorts of services there would be enough to raise amazement in us and direct us to the knowledge of that infinite Wisdom whereunto we ow our Originals Moreover besides this Life which is the Energy of our Soul and that imperceptible dispensation of spirits which she manages with so much diligence for the motions of our Members and the functions of our Senses The light of our Intellect its agitations so vivid regular conduct and great capacity to comprehend all things The faculty which inables us to reason concerning the Deity and dispute of it one against another sufficiently evidences that there is some Principle of Understanding without us from which this ray we posses is derived into our Nature For it must needs be that we have drawn it from without us since by it we so far surpass our selves that our Fathers confes themselves unable to have communicated it to their chrâ—â—ten as also for their own particular that they did not receive it from their fathers or Ancesters More signally the Fear which men naturally have when they apprehend the Deity will revenge their misdoings and the Hope to find support from it with which they comfort themselves as often as straits and necessity afflicts them two Passions which are almost the sole motives that
experiences of people who amidst aches and mutilations and losses of their limbs have preserved the whole strength of their Minds intire till death it must needs be that this Tabernacle lodgeth something else that is of a more durable temper Whence it is easie to conclude that since it is not a Body it must be an immaterial substance and consequently incorruptible For being of a spiritual nature it cannot be assailed by external things which offend us nor suffer from any accident that befalls it from without and holding nothing of the matter of the Elements or their contrary qualities which naturally encounter one another to their mutual destruction it involves not in it self any seed of corruption which seems to attend every thing that is composed of them I shall add moreover what ha's been above demonstrated that there is so great a difference between Vice and Virtue that he that do's not acknowledge the same is unworthy the name of a man Which how is it possible for us to acknowledge if the Faculties of our Minds be not different from those of Brutes since they have no understanding at all of it For it is certain that we argue from the disproportion of effects to the difference of causes and from the diversity of actions to that of the Faculties which produce them and lastly from the difference of Faculties to that of the essence it self of the things in which those faculties reside If therefore Brutes have no knowledge of Good and Evil as every one sees they have not and if we perceive an infinite distance between them as reason informs us and our conscience acquiesces therein and the consentment of Nations hath declared in all the World it follows that there is an infinite disproportion between our Faculties and theirs and consequently that the like distance is found between the essence of their Souls and that of ours And I appeal to reason whether being the perfection of a Man consists in the knowledge of the most excellent objects and in the exercise of Virtue and the perfection of a good Horse lyes in the strength of his Limbs and in the agility of his motions whether I say it be not abundantly evident that the excellence of the one lyes in his Body and the excellence of the other in some thing wherewith the body hath scarce any communication or commerce Whence it necessarily follows that their natures differ wholly and absolutely in regard of reason which alone is capable of conferring that perfection on man as weighty things differ from light by the massive solidity of their matter in which gravity is seated and as the circular Figure is discriminated from the rest by the roundness of its circumference equally distant from the centre Of which the luctation and combate of reason against the corporeal appetites which even Aristotle and other Philosophers have plainly acknowledged affords a testimony satisfactorily manifest For since there is no shadow of such reluctance in Brutes who follow their sensuality without any rule or check and that the same is sound in the most dissolute men in whom conscience cannot be absolutely extinguish'd it follows that it must have its original from something which is naturally destitute of that sensuality and consequently which is also not corporeal Because it is manifest that those appetites which are called sensitive and are common to us with Brutes have their seat and root in the Body and depend on that Soul by which we have resemblance with them in asmuch as we are Animals Wherefore whether there be in man two distinct Souls one Sensitive as it is called by which we are Animals and the other Reasonable by which we are men or whether there be but one onely which is indued with different faculties whereby we are provided to perform all the Functions appertaining to those two respects it is clear that that sensitive faculty is not displayed but in the Body being so linked to it as never to be separable from it and that on the contrary the other is not seated in the body since it is designed to check our appetites which it performs oftentimes with very great violence and power And this is so true and so universally received saving by the Epicureans who think they have won the Palme for noble inventions in Philosophy because they have degraded themselves to the rank of Brutes that the most excellent persons have been so far from believing the Soul to perish with the Body that on the contrary not being able to conjecture how after the dissipation of the Body they could ever be reunited and render the whole man immortal they have affirmed that the Soul in which the Understanding resides is really the man and that the Body is not but as the receptacle and prison But by the grace of God we shall see hereafter that man was created for immortality as well in reference to his body as to his Soul and that being fallen from this prerogative by sin he hath been restored thereunto by the Divine clemency and mercy Seeing it is so therefore that the Soul of man subsists after separation from the Body and consequently is of an incorruptible substance it follows of necessity that there is somthing to be hoped and feared from the Deity and that though his Providence were not so cleerly intelligible in the world here yet at least his justice is to be dreaded in that which is to come For what will become of the soul after Death Will she act or will she be buried in eternal sleep Certainly she is of a nature so active vigilant and averse from idleness that it is with regret that she allows the body its necessary intervals of refreshment Even as plung'd and immur'd as she is in it when that is at rest she is not surpris'd with sleep but is ever imploy'd on some kind of speculations how unprofitable and extravagant soever they be Like as a Musitian that is affected to the exercise of his Art chooses rather to play on his Lute though half untuned and at the inconvenience of making false Musick and committing dissonances then to suffer his fingers to become torpid by continued disuse And the more excellent she is that is the more exercis'd in generous contemplations the more she hates repose even to the abandoning all care of her habitation though she otherwise loves and is a good companion unto it So that she would be clean diverted from the end to which Nature ha's designed her if she were condemned to a perpetuall sleep in eternal night What then will her occupations be at that time Will she frequent in Towns or will she resort to unhabited placs Neither of which is worthy of her nor sutable to her inclinations Whilst she is here by reason of the body confined to sensible things yet she quits her self from them oftentimes to busie her vivacity in the contemplation of those which are intellectual For whatsoever beauty the World hath
colour that all is within the care of divine Providence Not the Christians onely but likewise the Philosophers themselves have constantly believ'd that the Providence of God and Prudence of man do very well consist together But the Epicureans manifest that they are not at all indebted to themselves in point of good opinion in that being no more then the dream of a shadow as Pindar expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they nevertheless esteem themselves sufficiently foresighted and intelligent to pourvey and take order for all their necessities without the assistance of a soveraign power Is it in them to prevent the Hail from frustrating the hopes of Harvest in the destruction of their Corn or to hinder the Inundations of Rivers from ravaging their fields Can they forecast against Pestilences and Mortalities or secure themselves from the Gout and Stone So far short is their ability in these particulars that they know not how to warrant themselves from being strangled by the seed of a grape or a â—ly if such a contingency should betide them But this is not the onely Vertue they vaunt of for another part of their glory is in the invincible firmeness of their courage What strength soever Vertue may have attain'd to amongst them by serving as a handmaid to the pleasure of the Body and pourveying all ways and means to foster the same which it seems is the main imployment they assign it yet it can be hardly imagined that an Epicurean should fall into the calamities of Priamus or feel the pains of poor Philoctetes without a sigh or exclamation And that magnificent boast that the Sage of Epicurus would cry out even in the Bull of Phalaris that he was at ease was never accounted in the censure of the truely judicious but for a vain and extravagant Rodomontade Religion on the contrary is purposed to shew men their vanity of which experience convinces them it teaches them to depend absolutely on Heaven and thereby frames them to humility the Virtue best becoming mortality affording them in the mean time a support in God incomparably more firm and a refuge of greater assurance then all they are ever able to fancy or invent of themselves Of grateful acknowledgement for the benefits which we injoy as Tenants from the divine Liberality there is no mention at all among those who esteem themselves not obliged to it for the least hair of their heads For whereas they affirm that the Universe was modell'd in the excellent order we behold it by the accidentary coagmentation of infinite little bodies it must needs be consequent to their opinion that the first men were framed by the tumultuous and turbulent concourse of those small particles and that the Architecture of all our members and the admirable vivacity of our Understandings do also ow their Original unto the same Verily these men are much to be wondred at whose gross belief determines the world and man in the fabrick of whom appears so great Art and Wisdom to have been made by chance notwithstanding they are convinced that of a million of letters huddled together and scattered upon the ground they can never with a thousand experiments by the same chance compose the two first verses of the Aeneis What reason therefore can they pretend to justifie their perversity in choosing rather to ow the wonderful Machine of their Eyes and the Understanding which is the Eye of the Soul to Fortune which ha's none at all then to God whom themselves make profession to acknowledge for a wise and intelligent Nature It remains then to inquire whether from the exercise of Virtue which is practiced amongst men there may according to the opinion of this Sect any honor accrue to the Divine nature We dispute not at present whether they can be virtuous or not although it be difficult to conceive they should hold Virtue in any esteem who have none at all of Piety and what charity they can have towards men who are void of gratitude for the benefits they receive from God and lastly what discrimination they can make between Vice and Virtue who believe not God ever distinguisht them one from another by Laws or that Justice and equity have any thing more to recommend them besides the authority of Legislators and advantages of State Our search onely is whether from the Virtue of the Epicureans admitting them not destitute of all there redounds any glory to the Divine Nature If there do it consists either in this that they devote themselves to render obedience to him for it is glorious to great persons to have their inferiors obey them or in regard it is he that produces whatsoever is good in them as the commendation of the effect reflects upward to the cause or because in imitating him they represent the image of his Virtue in their own being we cannot praise a pourtraict for the excellency of its air and Beauty without intimating as great applause of the fair countenance it represents Now in the first place whereas God hath not manifested his will to men in this point how can they obey it For where there is neither law nor commandement it is an easie truth there is no place either for transgression or obedience And here it is fruitless to fly to the umbrage of those Proleptical Opinions which are naturally imprinted in our spirits For if Nature hath ingraved in the soul at their first conception that God commands them to be Virtuous how is this consistent with their denying that the Supream Being is interessed in that which concerns us seeing he hath taken order in the most important particular of our life which is to give us rules for the conduct of the same agreeably to reason And how could Nature of her self destitute of all knowledge of Vice and Virtue endue us with these Idea's and common Notices without the instinct of the Deity Moreover how is it come to pass that Nature hath principled them to discriminate between Honest and Nesarious actions without instructing them at the same time that to these latter belongeth Vengeance and to the other Recompense and Praise and that there can be no other then God from whose hands both the one and the other is to be expected For true it is the Difference between Vice and Virtue is not more naturally known then it is naturally known that Virtue challengeth some Commendation and that Vice ought to be attended with Blame for its retribution Commendation and Blame I say which are but sleight matters and of small consideration if they be hoped or feared onely from the mouths of Men. Are the Censure or Estimate we make one of another of equivalency to what Nero and Sardanapalus have merited by their Villanies and Abominable turpitudes How are they hurt now in that their Memories are infamous and execrable And the Applause which we give in these days to the Virtue of Regulus is it a recompense proportionate to the miseries which he
most frequently miserable He might have ascribed to him at least as much care of Mankind in this particular as every Magistrate hath of his Commonwealth and every inferior Judge of his Precinct or Village But under pretext that there happen divers things whose causes and ends they are not able to comprehend and that many crimes are committed whose punishment is not inflicted before their eyes and that sundry upright men are in miseries whose deliverance they behold not when they esteem it timely to appear they infer that therefore God sees nothing of all this or that he regards it not As if a King had abandon'd the government of his State because such a one is not taken out of prison so soon as in their opinion he ought or that another escapes the Whip in the place where he deserved it who perhaps two days after is broken on the Wheel for another crime in the neighboring Province So likewise it may be reasonably said that in these cases they imitate the rash and precipitous judgement of an ignorant and impatient spectator that do's not expect till the last act of the Tragedy It may be further inquired whether the Epicureans do not yet in a greater measure blemish and obscure the Wisdom of God then they do his other Perfections For when they deny that there is a Providence in God seeing Providence is nothing but a foresighted and rational conduct of things to their end and of every particular thing to the purpose consentaneous to it it seems they consequently deny that there is a Wisdom in God For it is the part of Wisdom to propose to it self such a convenient end in the administration of things as it is of Providence to conduct them to that which they are designed whence as Providence cannot be without wisdom so is it likewise scarcely imaginable that Wisdom can consist without Providence Unless perhaps they here turn about to their abstracted speculations and attribute to God that Intellectual Virtue of which Aristotle speaks and composes of Knowledge and Understanding joyned together and makes to consist in the perfect cognition of all things and their principles But yet I know not how according to the doctrine of Epicurus this sort of Wisdom can find place in God For considering that there is an infinite number of things which depend on the Will of Man and that the inclinations of his will depend on the reasons and objects which perswade and move him how shall God see those things if himself hath nought to do to look into the Understanding of man to aâ—fect him with those reasons if he ha's no regard to the objects presented to us to move us if he do's not manage them to such effect as to perswade and attract if he neither incite nor restrain neither bend nor correct the motions of the Will If they say that he beholds events and by the events may divine of the causes from which they proceeded we reply that that is no more then the atchievment of conjecture and humane divination not of the Wisdom of a God who ought to behold effects in the womb of their causes and not the causes in the aspect of the effects In brief according to them God may perhaps know the things which exist but he cannot know the things which are to come any more then We and the next morning is to him in as much darkness as it is to us who are naturally very ignorant Creatures Lastly to speak openly he is a very wretched God if he be not as wise as the Sage of the Philosophers whose wisdom consists in governing himself reasonably and the things which are in his disposure according to the same rule I am not ignorant that Epicurius prohibits his Sage to intermeddle in the government of the World and the administration of the Commonwealth An Opinion so strange and pernicious to Humane Society that verily in this appears a signal effect of the Providence of God that he hath not permitted all other men to become as absolute fools as his pretended Sage For what would the World be in case wise men should forbear to meddle in it but a most horrid and tumultuous confusion without Laws order and Society and no better then a crue of cut-throats and robbers Plato without question had more Reason when he wished that either those who seriously imploy themselves in the study of Philosophy were Governors of States or they which govern States would seriously imploy themselves in the Study of Philosophy and affirmed that in such times Empires would be happy But to proceed I will admit the Sage to leave the Commonwealth to go at random yet certainly he will take care of his Wife and Children unless Epicurus represents us a Sage worse and more unnatural then Beasts Shall not God therefore take care but onely to provide himself new pleasures perpetually and imploy all his wisdom to effect that they never fail and be spent unmindful of those in the mean time that ought in some sort to be to him in the quality of children if not for being made by him at least for the affection they have to imitate his Virtues and become conformable unto him To conclude what kinde of admiration can any one have of such Divine Wisdom What other characters can be given of God then that he is a person wonderfully dextrous and industrious to invent means to produce his own contentment and render his felicity abundant and permanent that imploys all the powers of his understanding and directs all the sufficiencies of his Wisdom to that end but for any thing else he knows none of the transactions here below or if he do onely slights and derides them Are not these very fitting reasons to inducement to venerate the Deity in regard of his Wisdom Is it not very sutable to Epicurus to have been the inventor of such noble Philosophy to insult arrogantly over them that ascribe glory to God for having framed the World in the fair order wherein we behold it and poised the Earth in the middle extended the Sea about it and given air for respiration to animals for having modell'd all the Sphears of Heaven and infused into the Stars the Virtues of their influences for presiding every day over the mixture of the Elements in the composition of bodies and uniting Nations one to another by commerce for maintaining States amidst the contrariety of so many different humors and conducting the Universe like an Artificial Machine according to the genius of each of the parts that compose the same Certainly it is very easie to judge which of these two Opinions best deserves that exclamation of Lucretius Lib. 1. Deus ille fuit Deus inclute Memmi Qui princeps vitae rationem invenit eam quae Nunc appellatur Sapientia quique per artem Fluctibus e tantis vitam tantisque tenebtis In tam tranquillo tam clara luce locavit CHAP. V. The Continuation of the
true Why did he refer all to the glory of God and nothing to his own Or if his project were to credit himself onely by misprising and debasing his own worth why did he not at least leave that authority to his children rather then to his domestick servant But he was so far from that that contrarily to what naturall affections dictate to men he made one of his attendants heir of his grandeur and left his own issue to fall into a low and contemptible condition in comparison of his own Certainly it must either be said that Moses was an impostor in forging both the history of the creation and others which he relates or if any credit be given to him in the narration of that History so remote from his own times then much rather ought he to be believed in his recital of things which befell himself of which there were so many witnesses either to confirm or convince them of falsity And surely they are abundantly confirmed in that they were never so much as accused or suspected Besides that their Posterity ha's received them from hand to hand as divine irrefragable truths and religiously maintained them for the space of many Ages Which they would never have done if the tradition of those ancient miracles had not from time to time been rendred authentique and worthy of perfect belief by extraordinary actions predictions judgements and deliverances in which appeared the singer of God I shall say something more since the matter leads me to it Namely that if the Philosophers against whom I dispute at present have vivacity and quicknes enough of understanding to be certainly perperswaded of the Creation of the World by reasons which their Wit is able to suggest to them and the Ancients did not observe I dare aver that would they take pains in reading the Books ot Moses with as much attention as they use in their own ratiocinations they would there more certainly remark that they are proceeded from divine inspiration then they could know of themselves that God ha's created and governs the World For there are not more lively and evident arguments in the World that God is the Author of it then there are in the Books of Moses alone to induce a belief that they are not of humane invention As I conceive if a man should have from the hand of Archimedes himself the description of those admirable Engines which he made and that he had replenish'd the same with as many tokens of his incomparable skill in the Mathematicks as there are traces of the Deity in the five books of Moses he would find therein as much or more cause to admire the extraordinary grandeur of that Personages Wit as in attentively considering his Machines and his Engines CHAP. IV. How much true Godliness is concern'd in the certain knowledge That the whole World is governed by a special Providence and That the same is no otherwise attainable but by Revelation HItherto we have discours'd largely of the Providence which governs the World and treated with the Philosophers of our Times as with persons that acknowledge it and yet we are not fully assured what their judgement is really concerning it although it be a thing highly important to our dispute For the Opinions of the Ancients have been very different about it and the Moderns hide themselves and do not willingly appear in publick in regard that the Christian Religion being universally receiv'd in Europe such as do not believe the same are look'd upon as Monsters so that it is very difficult to know distinctly what opinion they have of it If therefore they be of that perswasion which is attributed to Aristotle though some undertake to excuse him from it their piety towards the Deity must consequently be wholly cold and languid For Aristotle is accounted to have believ'd that the world being from eternity by emanation from God as the light proceeds from the Sun things are so necessarily disposed that God being the first Mover of the Heavens whether immediately or by the intervention of what he calls Intelligences he is also by consequence the Author of all things Because the other less universal motions depend on the Heavens and from those other less universal motions proceed all things which are produced in the World every cause acting sutable to its own Nature as the Water moves the wheel of a Mill and the wheel the Axeltree and that another less wheel and this also another till at length the motion arrives at the stone which bruises the corn and reduces the same into flower So that God is indeed authour of all things but as a universal cause which hath under it an infinite number of other subalternate and subordinate which are the proximate causes of effects which come into Being and which receive their power of acting from the influence of the first and most universal of all by the means of motion And forasmuch as things which are termed fortuitous and contingent do not depend on certain determined causes which are ligned by a sort of train to that superior universal one and consequently if they be administred by God they are administred by an Especial Providence they which discourse at that rate take no notice at all of them no more then of a thing which does not agree with their Principles Nor can it be denyed but that grand Philosopher seems very frequently to lay down the grounds of this Divinity although sometimes excellent sentences escape from him to the honor of a Particular Providence which is extended even to casual things or such as depend not on the concatenation of natural causes But it is to be fear'd that they are words spoken out of design to avoid the reproach which would have lain upon him of being too little religious or at most the eruptions and flashes of Nature which oftentimes surmounts the most deeply imprinted perverse opinions and causes a man to forget his own Maximes when they are contrary unto it how constant and resolved soever he be to maintain the same The Author of the Book De Mundo dedicated to Alexander seems to go a little higher and speaks of God and his Providence in more magnificent terms But in the first place the stile evidently shews that Aristotle never writ it and I should readily incline to their opinion who father it on Philo Judaeus whom the Books of Moses had imbued with many better and sounder opinions in relation to piety then all that ever was met with in Greece but he disguised himself on purpose and accommodated that elegant Treatise after the Greek mode Secondly in case it had proceeded from the hand of Aristotle yet it always terminates in this that God keeps himself in the Heavens onely and that it is not sutable to his glorious nature to be amongst frail and visible things and that he governs the World by means of subordinate causes in nature as the great King of Persia do's his Providences
who to revenge the death of his father kill'd one of them as they were upon the point to give him the fatal blow though he knew nothing of the business But in stead of acknowledging the Providence of God therein he contents himself with saying that the spectators wondred greatly at the artifice and contrivance which fortune uses how she carries on one design by help of another and unites things so remote by liguing and chaining the same together how different soever they be for producing the effect she resolves on And without inserting any judgement of his own concerning God or his Providence he onely says that the Corinthians understanding the deed conceived good hopes thereby of success in the war of Sicily because the General that manag'd it was a sacred person and favour'd of the Gods Leaving his Reader to divine what his own sentiment was of the matter So in like manner when he speaks of the different apprehensions which the Fall of Dionysius caus'd in the minds of them that liv'd in those dayes he declares that some were glad of his misfortunes as if they would have trampled him under their feet whom Fortune had cast down others beheld him with some compassion considering the great power secret and divine causes have over the weakness of Men which appeared so remarkably in this Masterpiece of Fortune What other words do's he use to represent the wise Providence of God then that by which blind and temerarious chance is signified And lastly that no man may think that by the term of Fortune he understood the provident Wisdom of God I shal here rehearse his own words in his first book of the Opinions of Philosophers which I believe will cause astonishment in them who have any knowledge of that person After having said that Anaxagoras held that before God put his hand to the fabrick of the World the bodies which we behold in motion were at rest but the Mind of God contriv'd and order'd the same and that Plato on the other side maintained that the particles of matter had a confus'd motion till God ranked and marshall'd them knowing that order is much better then confusion he adds That Herein they are both guilty of the same mistake in esteeming that God concerns himself with humane affairs and that he made the World on purpose to govern it For a nature so happy and incorruptible and replenish'd with all sorts of goods without any participation of evil wholly addicted to preserve its own beatitude and immortality cannot be engaged in the care of things belonging to men otherwise it would be unhappy by being employ'd like a Labourer to carry great burdens and to take pains in fabricating and governing the world You would think he had forsaken the Academy and pass'd into the School of Epicurus How could a man that is susceptible of these rare opinions have any thing certain in the knowledge of Providence however some excellent passages sometimes fall from him in its commendation Moreover let us call to minde what Cato himself said and we touched above This person whom Nature had endued with incredible gravity as Cicero reports which was augmented and confirmed by the doctrine of the Stoicks the most severe of all others and who extoll'd Providence to the highest when he perceiv'd the affairs of the Commonwealth to decline under the conduct of Pompey and those of Caesar who aspir'd to Tyranny to thrive and gather strength he complains that he beheld as he said a fallacious instability in the government of the Gods in that Pompey was always prosperous while he did no good and all things were unsuccesseful when he took up arms for the conservation of his Country and defence of the publike liberty If therefore that great personage could be so scandalised at the Providence of God what must we judge of them to whom nature had not given so great a capacity nor so high a courage or deep knowledge in Philosophy even of that sect which would be accounted the most religious Could it otherwise be but that the least accident of Fortune as they spoke falling out contrary to what humane Understanding judg'd fit and reasonable should unsettle and transport their minds with amazement And indeed what were the opinions of the Philosophers in those dayes Some maintain'd a fatal Necessity such as it were impossible to avoid inferior causes being so connected by Destiny with the superior that not onely men could not resist it but the Gods themselves were ty'd up by it in like manner as Sarpedon dy'd in the War at Troy by the decree of Destiny though his Father Jupiter had a vehement and ardent desire of the contrary And this because they had sometimes indevoured to prevent certain accidents by their industry and prudence which Divine Providence that penetrates all obstacles did not suffer them to bring to their desired end Whence it came to pass that the weakness and ignorance of man and the invincible power of the Deity in executing its purposes brought a contempt upon Providence For nothing can be imagin'd that renders the Deity more subject to be contemn'd or that more deadens the hopes of men upon all occasions then this fatal destiny nor yet that renders them more impudent in excusing their enormities witness that Varlet in the Comedian who after a sly trick which he had done said It was the will of the Gods and had they not decreed it I could never have done it Others observing that there fell out an infinite number of things in the world of which no account could be given nor the causes assigned of such effects esteemed that all went at random and that God took no care of any thing Yea sometimes they expostulated the cause of their calamities with the Deity and complain'd that he took pleasure in beating them down and bandying them to and fro And the Writings of the Ancients are frequently strewed with such complaints as so many blasphemies and tokens of impiety which their ignorance of Providence caus'd them to utter Besides what I have recited above out of Claudian Ovid and others Jason in Seneca the Tragedian beholding Medea fly away in the Air after she had murder'd his children saies to her Testare nullos esse qua veheris Deos. In Virgil a mother that had lost her Son by an immature death reviles the Deity Atque Deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater And of this enough of other examples may be found which have been collected by learned men But if there have been some among the Pagans who in these scandals have contained from blaspheming which were very rare in comparison of others at least it cannot be denyed but that in that ignorance of the cause that governs the Universe they were depriv'd of a great consolation being dubious and wavering in a perpetual perplexity whether God took care or not of their Life and affairs Now as much as the opinion of God's good will and
he with his posterity lost the knowledge by Sin it would be requisite sutable to that opinion to presuppose that Adam in his first creation was not indued with all moral perfection required in humane nature Which indeed would be an affront to him that formed him But I beseech you do not the praises wherewith David extolls the Law of God constrain us to have a more advantageous esteem of it The Law of the Lord is perfect saith he in the 19. Psalm converting the soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightning the eyes And in the 119. Psalm he prayes for nothing else but that God â—ould illuminate him in the knowledge of the Law that he might walk in his Commandments as being the rule of all perfection desireable which is also extreme frequent throughout the whole book of his sacreâ— Hymnes But if the Law contains the measure of the most exquisite and accomplisht perfection that can be in humane nature then since the denunciation is express that Cursed is he who abideth not stedfast in all the things of this Law to do them he is undoubtedly subject to the malediction that deviates from this Law and omits or commits the least thing forbidden or commanded by it But a curse denounced by the mouth of God himself cannot but be unconceivably dreadful and hideous In the next place the Gospel teaches that the Law is so inflexible in its rights that 't is impossible after having transgress'd it whether in a small or great matter to be acquitted from punishment so as not to suffer the same either in proper person or in that of some other Which to an intelligent considerer even the Law it self sufficiently testifies For it denounces on the one side an inevitable curse to them that transgress it God himself pronouncing the same from the mountain of Sinai with lightnings and thunders smoke and flashes of Fire and earthquakes On the other side gratuitous remission of offenses is promised to them that have violated it Now what expedient is there to fill up the abysse which is between these extremes Shall that pardon be granted without preceding punishment If so what need was there of such terror at the promulgation of this Law and after to suffâ—â— all those horrible menaces of malediction vanish away thus in smoke Perhaps God powers all the Curse upon the victimes instituted upon himself to be sacrifices of propitiation and 't is true they are termed expiatory a hundred and a hundred times But what a kind of Comedy would it be if God after himself had publish'd his Law with such dreadful majesty should be contented for satisfaction of the transgressing of it with the death of a poor beast Might not that Adage be here applyed Parturiunt montes c. It remaines therefore that those terrible threatnings must either fall upon them that violate the Law or upon some other capable to bear the same substitute in their room that so they may be secur'd from them And the glory of the Law remains hereby more full and intire For Reward being a sequel not more natural to Virtue then Punishment is to Vice the Law which denounces a Curse for transgression and yet does not really inflict the same is as imperfect as that which should promise a reward to its observers and afterwards when it came to the effect frustrate all their expectations As he that should have fulfilled the Law in every point would have cause to complain of it if in case he reaped not the recompense of his piety and virtue so would the Law have cause of complaint if he that violated it did not undergo the penalty of his offence the natural order of things alike requiring both the one and the other And from hence results a thing which turns marvellously to the advantage of the Christian Religion above the Jewish Namely that it represents to us the principal Attributes of God in which his usual wayes consist as his Justice Mercy and Wisdome in a much more eminent degree of excellence For as for his Justice it is nothing but a natural repugnanee that is between him and sin by reason his Nature is good and holy and the essence of sin as they speak consists in iniquity and pollution a repugnance I say which necessarily inclines him to the hatred and abhorrence of sin For he were not God unless he hated Evill Now all Hatred is a vehement desire of revenge and hence it is that in their books this Justice is termed Wrath and Fury and even an ardent Fury Whence we infer that accordingly as God is perfect in himself so he abhors Evil and as he perfectly abhors it so he is equally inclin'd to execute vengeance upon it Wherfore the Christian Religion which teaches that God ha's not saved the World without being revenged I say not without taking satisfaction convenient to his Justice exhibits the same to be consider'd in a more eminent degree then that which holds forth remission without inflicting deserved vengeance For since the hatred of sin is a virtue in God the more implacable this hatred is the greater is the virtue There are indeed three sorts of satisfactions First such as is made to repaire a dammage received as if one should give a Statuary money for having broken an Image in his shop Secondly such as is in order to contenting an incensed Passion as when we strike one by whom we have been offended For though no good accrue to us by his harm yet the passion is contented by being revenged Thirdly a satisfaction of Justice when without regard either to dammage or indignation a crime is expiated by punishment for the sole love of righteousness and the natural order which ought to be in things Now the first hath no place in God for what dammage can arise to him from our offenses Nor the second For he is not subject to our Passions choler and animosity do not discompose his serenity nor agitate him in any manner And if these Passions are oftimes attributed to him in the books of the Prophets 't is by way of similitude with the humane mind as well as repentance or rather according to the similitude which seems to be between the actions us which men do out of choler and those which God does out of justice inasmuch as both the one and thâ—â—ther cause grief or pain to those on whom they are exercised 'T is therefore the third sort of satisfaction or revenge which is competent to God after so peculiar a manner that the more perfect his nature is it must of necessity be equally inexorable And no man can imagine a justice in God capable of leaving the sins of men unpunish'd but he must with all fancy him little abhorring sin and too negligent of the natural order of things Which would be a very unbefitting reflexion
between these two figures and yet after so many thousand years to the present time it is not found out nor determin'd what it may be Where is the person amongst us that is able to make our handsomely what is meant by the Agent and Patient Intellect as they speak and wherein their difference consists And 1. evertheless they bicker in the Scholes to maintain that they are really distinct Certainly nothing ought to be so well known to us as our selves nothing so evident to our minds as their own motions Now we understand and will different things a thousand times in one day and yet 't is disputed whether the Will necessarily follows the dictates of the Understanding or have some liberty of resistance for all dominion it ha's over it 'T is scarce known whether they be two distinct Faculties and there are some which confound them Books are compil'd of the Miracles of Nature so term'd because the effects indeed are visible but the causes undiscern'd The Occult Sympathies and Antipathies of things fill complete Volumes and after the most exact and curious Enquiries Obscurity and Incomprehension is pleaded in Favor of Ignorance Physitians examine our Pulses every day and the most learned amongst them if ingenuous confess they understand not what that wonderful facultie is which sets the Heart in motion whether it began to move first by contracting or dilating it self and whether the Arteries are contracted at the same instant of the Hearts extension What ground of scandal therefore is in this assertion that there is something in the Nature of God which we are not able to comprehend But which is more should it be granted that there is but one single person in the Divine Essence yet none can boast of being able to solve the difficulties which may arrive from thence For what humane mind is capable of distinctly understanding how all the Perfections of God are his very Essence and not Accidents or Qualities like those faculties of ours really distinct from the subject in which they reside Since there are some of them not onely extremely different as Wisdom and Power but directly opposite as Justice and Mercy And yet reason induces yea compells to believe it otherwise Accidents must be imagin'd in God and consequently a composition unworthy the simplicity of his being Who is he of us that is able to imagine an infinite essence as the Divine is diffus'd infinitely in the mane space beyond the world expanded throughout the whole Universe so as to be totally present in all things not divided or separated by the occurse and interposition of bodies not mingled and confounded with the spiritual and immaterial substance of our Souls Where is the man that is able to conceive after what manner our souls are extended through all the members of our bodies For if it be all in every part of the Body as is commonly taught what difference is there between it's manner of being in the whole body and in each of its members and if it be not totally present in each part why is it not compos'd of parts after the manner of bodies and by consequence divisible and corruptible I am not ignorant that many subtle distinctions are us'd in this matter more proper to cast a mist before the eyes then to afford a clear and certain knowledge of it but I am confident they are most times not understood even by those which alledge them Now let us bestow our inquiries in such things as yield solid satisfaction to the mind and not in such in which those that propose them have only design'd to shew the vivacity of their Understandings and their abilities Otherwise if we betake our selves to subtleties forsaking manifest deductions and conclude that for true which we are not able to make out the Speculations of our Scholasticks in this kind will over-cloud our Religion and supply matter enough for contradiction But there are certain verities resembling too radiant lights which dazle if beheld in themselves and in their fountain by reason of the weakness of our eyes but content and delight if look'd upon in the correspondence they have with others more preceptible by our minds And this in question is of this Nature Now there are two ways of being assured of the verity of this Doctrine The first is that which we have touch'd upon formerly That every man have so high an estimation of the justice of God as to believe it absolutely implacable towards us without a preceeding satisfaction for our offences and know so well to weigh the horror of Sin that he never dare think of approaching God without confessing ingenuously that he ha's deserv'd both the temporal death of the body and the eternal of the Soul and that it is impossible for him ever to obtain pardon unless some other satisfie for him and that with a price equivalent to the greatness of his crimes and the Dignity of Divine Justice For he that is thus dispos'd in his soul and we have shewn above that the right consideration of the nature of God requires man to be so assoon as the means of so idoneous a satisfaction is propounded to him he will eagerly embrace it unless he ascribe too much to Reason and presume too much on his own capacity to comprehend things which are above his reach But the good opinion we have of our selves in being able to dive into abstruse matters causes us oftentimes to commit most pernicious errors The Second is for a man to consider attentively what the Book is and the Doctrine in general and in the body of which this makes but a part For there will appear in the First so many evidences of its Divinity and in the Second such an indissoluble connection of this point with many other verities of an indubitable certitude and evidence that it will be impossible for the mind of man if it be not totally obstinate and hardned not to acquiesce therein And in truth let him begin with the books of Moses Their Antiquity in the first place renders them venerable above all other writings of the world For there are lest no monuments in all Antiquiquity that come near them by many Ages The War of Thebes and the Sacking of Troy to which Lucretius limits the knowledge men have of ancient matters in these verses Praeterea si nulla fuit genitalis origo Terrai coeli semperque aeterna fuere Cur supra bellum Thebanum funera Trojae Non alias alii quoque res cecinere Poetae And the times of Theseus and Hercules beyond which Plutarch is able to discover no certainty in Histories followed a long while after the birth of this great Prophet The language in which it was written is the mother of all others of which the several words which they have retain'd from it and which are as slips of that ancient stock and the names of their very letters bear sufficient testimony The style of it is plain indeed
Faith of Christ against all the superstitions of the world And though some knot may be met with here or there by the way yet what man is there who addicting himself to the study of a science is deterr'd from it by one or two difficulties he finds in it How often ha's such a one vex'd his brains for the understanding of Aristotle and how many days and nights ha's he spent in the reading of his writings dispairing of being ever able perfectly to understand them who having scarce once in his life cast his Eyes upon the Epistles of Saint Paul complains of the contexture of his ratiocination and the obscurity of his doctrines And yet the affair with the Philosopher was perhaps no more then to know whether Demonstration from the Effect deserves the title of Demonstration as well as that which is made from the Cause or whether according to the Peripatetick doctrine Universals have a subsistence out of our Intellect or what reasons justifie the opinion of ranking Privation among Principles of things empty questions and of no importance in reference to Life whereas in the writings of the Apostle the argument is concerning the glory of God and the salvation of our souls But the truth is where the business is to render to God the service which we owe him the most even ways seem rugged to us but where 't is to follow our fancies all precipices become easily superable and we level mountains Had these people once understood Religion and well conceived the idea of it they would exalt the mercy of God without comparison more then they do and withal have a greater dread of his justice and where he ha's reveal'd his celestial truths they would not dare to bring a Lye into competition where he ha's manifested his will they would not presume to prefer their own before it where he ha's described the form of Religion he would have us to follow with his own hand they would not offer to equal with it either humane imaginations or inventions of Devils where he hath sworn that As he lives he will not give his glory to another and that he will bring vengeance upon his enemies by drenching his arrows in their blood they would not abuse his mercy to impiety nor sleep in so profound a supinity but would learn from those who have most of all extoll'd his compassions that 't is a terrible thing to fall into his hands The great judgements wherewith he hath chastis'd all Nations by reason of their Idolatries the dreadful calamities which he brought on his beloved People for having imitated the same the unparallel'd desolation of the City of Jerusalem and the visible Curse which pursues that miserable Nation every where for having rejected the Gospel the breaking to pieces of the Roman Empire for having persecuted it and the judgements which lie pours down from time to time upon all those who provoke him would be sufficient documents to them that though his patience be marvellous yet he is terrible in revenging contempt towards himself and the truth revealed by him As for what is alledged concerning the peace and union of minds inflam'd with so great passion through the occasion of Religion some against others and of the tranquillity of States put in combustion by differences in sacred matters did we see no other means to obtain the same but those of impiety it were more eligible to be at perpetual jars and enmities Did Christ who knew well that he came to bring fire and sword into the world by the preaching the Gospel desist therefore from preaching it or command his Apostles to conform themselves to all professions according to occasion for fear of exciting seditions and tumults No surely Should the world perish by combustions his truth must be maintained But by the grace of God we are not reduc'd to those terms To turbulent and inconsiderate minds Religion is often a pretext of commotions to violent and bloody souls the same Religion is sometimes an incitement to murders and massacres But wise and politick Princes who give not themselves up to their own passion or to the furious zeal of others have well understood how notwithstanding the diversity of professions to contain their people within the compass of duty towards them and concord together and experience hath attested that when they will employ their prudence and authority therein as they ought they are equally well served by opposite Parties So that the zeal of Religion being moderated by the laws of reason and humanity does not so transport mens minds but that they may live peaceable together under one Government although in contrary profession of Religion Besides the two Societies Civil and Religious have their rights and their laws distinct and the knowledge of the true God do's not lead to the troubling or subverting of humane Commonwealths no more then ardency we ought to have for his glory ought to render men murderers and barbarians But what tends all this discourse to For certainly these people who speak so much of the publick peace have no great care for it t is their own peace they are solicitous of And because their God is the grandeur pleasure and contentment of the world they hate the profession which crosses thâ—ir designs and lays obstacles before them which hinders them from mounting whether they aspire And being 't is an infamous thing to be accounted a despiser of the Deity and they which declare freely that Religion is not worthy to be prefer'd before the things of the world are ordinarily lookt upon as monsters by others they shelter themselvs under the fair appearence of the desire of peace and seek masks to disguise so uncomely an aspect But he that should behold the bottom of their hearts and they cannot so well hide themselves but they may be discerned cross their veil would find there the contempt of God and of his service which shame hinders them from laying open to the world In Christendom whoever is neither a Catholick nor Reformed he must of necessity be an Atheist since he cannot be either Pagan or Jew or Mahometan unless he have lost common sense together with all gust of piety And indeed for the most part either their lives or discourses convince them to be such For if there be any such person that lives in a measure honestly in the sight of the world yet he speaks disdainfully of Religion and looks upon all those as besotted who are lovers of the same Others swim in all sorts of pleasure and are so abandon'd to dissoluteness that they cause shame to mankind and horror to any that considers them These Truth accounts it a glory to have her enemies The former she cares for so much the less as they are much more rare I pray God restore them to a better mind And to him who hath afforded us the grace to bring this small work to its conclusion be honor and glory to all eternity Amen FINIS
would seem to carry something of inhumanity of which it is incongruous that he should propose himself an example God who is so good hath so many other means in his hand to lead men to Virtue would never willingly employ any thereunto for which he might be accus'd of barbarousness and cruelty especially seeing it is an accident so frequent that in a Town of a thousand families there do's not pass one day in the year in which it do's not happen 'T is true for certain great and important considerations Kings are excused if they sometimes commit some act of injustice or violence But this must be very rarely done and onely when the safety of the State is concern'd Yet Lucretia could not contain from crying out upon the death of Iphigenia who was sacrific'd for the safety of all Greece Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum But that there should dye five or six times as many Children in the Cradle as attain to mans estate seems an irregularity which not onely an Epicurean but the most devout and pious amongst the Philosophers cannot but judge unsupportable Above all other considerations the Fear which the thought of death begets naturally in all men deserves our animadversion For how couragious so ever any may endevour to appear 't is as Aristotle calls it the most terrible of all terrors And as one hath observed if Julius Câ—sar who was magnanimity it self said that the most unexpected death was the sweetest and most desirable which testifies that he resented some dread when he thought of it what may we think of the horrors which other men have of it And this Fear does not arise onely from the apprehension that a man shall exist no more but it hath something of I know not what other violence and bitterness For otherwise nature and reason being two things which accord very well together if death were purely natural reason would finde something in that consideration wherewith to be comforted and gently drink off that Cup. But experience shews that the consolations taken from the necessity of Nature and the example of so many other deaths are too weak and of too little efficacy when the business is to strengthen a soul that trembles at the presence of death Which if there have been some that were generously resolv'd to undergo they have been very few in number and almost none in comparison of so many men yea Nations to whom the alarms of death have been terrible and hideous For I do not put in the rank of such as resolve generously against it those Caitifs that tye the rope to their own necks and drink to their companions upon the Ladder For this is so far from true generosity conjoyn'd with the discourse of reason that it is meer stupidness and more then bestial brutality And it is diligently to be observed that they who believe not that their Soul is immortal comfort themselves more easily then others do with the consideration of the necessity of death and say that as the Generations which preceeded their Birth belonged nothing at all to them because they were not yet in being so they ought not to care for those which follow after their death in regard they shall be no longer and that Agamemnon is dead and Romulus and Patroclus and the Scipio's Qui multis quam tu meliores improbe rebus And I believe the greatest part of those that have shewn so high a courage in contemning death among the Pagans had not much consideration of their future condition As it is clear by Socrates who says in Plato that he knew not which was best to live or to dye and that it were a folly to redoubt a thing of which there is no certain knowledge whether it be desirable or to be feared Whereas they that think seriously of immortality find nothing in nature that encourages or comforts them A sure evidance that death hath something of terror in it which does not proceed from nature but from something else for they would at least have more ground of consolation then the others in the subsistence of the better part of their essence Now whence can that horror be but onely that death is the forerunner of divine vengeance and makes up a part of it already If hereupon they agree that it is a punishment for sin certainly since all other Philosophers have held it to be simply natural they cannot know it to be so by any other way then that divine revelation that hath inform'd us by what gate it entred into the World For none of the Ancients ever found out or could so much as divine in a dream what was the cause of it And so far were they from having it come into their minds that on the contrary some have believed that Death was rather a gift and gratification to us from the Deity then a punishment inflicted by his Justice Which opinion the innumerable miseries of humane life greatly concurr'd to render authentick the undergoing whereof being look'd upon as so dolorous that sometime the deliverance from them ha's been accounted the greatest good that could arrive Or if some few have not dared to affirm absolutely that death was a Good yet they maintain'd at least that it was no Evil since it rescues men from all calamities which they suffer To fear death said Socrates to his Judges is nothing else but to seem to be wise and not to be so For it is to pretend to know that which we do not know because none knows what death is nor whether it be not the greatest good that can befall a man To which Plutark refers that exhortation of an ancient Greek Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metuenda non est mors arumnarum exitus So also the greatest part of the reflections of Cicero upon this matter in the first of the Tusculane Questions fall into the Dilemma of Socrates To wit that if the soul be extinguish'd with the body and so the sense of all things be absolutely abolish'd death cannot really be an Evil because a man being thereby wholly depriv'd of existence and exempted from among the nature of things that which is not is equally incapable both of Evil and Good But if the soul survive the Body death is so far from being an evil that it ought rather to be accounted in the number of the greatest goods seeing it delivers from the evils of this present life and puts a man in possession of the contentments of a better upon which he does not omit to mention the converse with the Heroes wherein Socrates placed the greatest part of the hopes of his joy But the business is of higher importancy For though the Light of Nature should have taught men that death is an effect of the justice of God yet is it impossible as we shall see in due place for the same to discover to them the remedy thereof And I conceive that though the reason of man should have been able
certainly to conjecture what the cause of death is God himself would have purposely hid it from them least not being able to discover the remedy of it despair should sink and ruine all the World All other ignorances have been prejudicial and very often pernicious to men to this alone we owe the conservation of humane Society So that we may pertinently apply to this in particular that which Horace speaks generally of the ignorance in which it hath pleased God we should live touching events to come Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte premit Deus The sole Word of God which is the special revelation we are in quest of is that which accords all these differences and clears up all the difficulties and confusions We shall not dispute at present whether in his first creation the body of man was naturally so well constituted that through prudence whereby he was able to avoid all hurtful things and the use of aliments which the blessing of God rendred as efficacious for the conservation of life by the good and pure qualities which he at first indued them with as now they are often full of noxious juices since the curse of God blasted them for our offence he might without other assistance from the Deity avoid all alteration and corruption either by disease or Age. God hath in the composure of Gold and Diamonds and other like things given sufficient proof of his power and hath so exactly temper'd the contrary qualities of the Elements in the constitution of certain bodies that they seem not subject to any corruption whatsoever And the long life which the first Men liv'd even after sin and the examples of the like we meet with in several profane Histories and some also though few which may be found in the Histories of these latter times give us enough to judge how firm and durable the life of man would be were he as exactly and perfectly fram'd and the aliments that support him as good as the estate of Nature in its integrity could have promised We onely affirm that though as the Philosophers thought the body of man being composed of the Elements and consequently including contrary and repugnant qualities would have carried in its self the seeds of death yet this revelation teaches us that the Wisdom of God would have so provided therein that if no disorder had hapened in the World through sin the propensity which our bodies have to their own dissipation would have been restrain'd and hindred by his Providence For he would have repell'd all sorts of eternal accidents he would have hindred the intemperature of the humors both by preserving them in right harmony and supplying man with aliments indued with excellent faculties and void of all noxiousness and by infusing new vigor of life in time of necessity to hinder the approach of Old-age would have maintained man in a vigorous and flourishing consistence and so given him the immortality of which we have now nothing left but the desire Whence likewise the union of the Soul and Body would have continued to eternity not subject to any important change or evil accident So that admitting death to be an accident that sutes with the natural principles of the composition of their bodies yet the cause that they do dye is because it having been covenanted that the consequences of a mortal condition should be hindred upon condition that man continued in obedience sin supervening hath changed the dispensation of all that and effected that death is become in quality of a punishment and vengeance And this ought nor to be deemed strange For there are things which considered in themselves have nothing so shameful in them but that they may well endure either the presence of another or the publike day-light which yet through the disorder befallen in nature are become ignominious Nakedness which of it self is not dishonest is become unseemly through sin which hath caused rebellion in the corporeal appetites against reason So that they who affirm it indifferent to go naked or clothed shew that extreme profaness hath worn out of their foreheads that shame which causes others to express their consciousness of sin and the unseemliness of the irregularity of our sensual faculties so as to be asham'd of their impudence who are not so themselves Wherefore though death were a natural accident which yet it is not the horror of it is too great to acknowledge no more in it but pure nature and its motions For why then do Infants dye We learn from the same revelation that that so sudden separation of the soul from the Body is not for ever but that the being which is given them though at first it seem's to have been allotted for a moment onely and by consequence little better then not-being shall endure eternally when the considerations shall cease for which it suffer'd the Eclipse of the time that it was to appear in this Life For the being of man when it hath once had a beginning is of perpetual duration and the time of Death is but as an Eclipse of his course But this is not the place for this discourse and therefore we shall add but a word more and pass forward Whether we consider the justice or the goodness of God this revelation amply furnishes us what to answer in defence of both He takes away little children at their birth and notwithstanding does not incur thereby any blame of cruelty because before they were born they deserved that punishment by reason of the natural infection of sin which they drew from those that begat them And indeed as we crush the Eggs of Scorpions before they are hatcht not because they have as yet deserved to be destroy'd for any wound which we have received by them but because in growing up the seeds of venome which that brood hath by nature will infallibly be exerted to our mischief so is it sometimes expedient for God to stifle from the wombe such children as have so many seeds of vice in them that coming to years would do much more mischief then any Scorpion in the World This the Philosophers never understood and therefore could not return in answer But if there opinion were admitted it would be requisite to defer judging of the merit of Infants till they come to the age that ennables them to manifest and display their Vice Moreover God resumes some of them back to himself whom he pleases to render happy by his goodness Nor is it necessary that he should permit them a longer abode in this life that so they might be capable of happiness for their practises of Virtue because he do's not give it as a Salary deserved from his justice by our Virtues but as a beneficence purely out of his liberality which likewise the Philosophers never thought of for according to them if there remains any beatitude to be hoped after this Life it cannot be aspir'd unto but by Virtue How then can Infants obtain