in his Reasons for his Opinion That he that reflecteth on himself cannot but be satisfied That a Free Agent is he that can do if he will and forbear if he will And such an Agent he allows Man to be and saith he hath proved it too But how he will reconcile this with his Assertion that no Man can be free from Necessitation and that all our Actions have necessary Causes and therefore are necessitated I cannot imagine As to Spinoza's Account of the Deity in Reference to this Point I have given a hint or two of it already He makes God to be the same with Nature or the Universe to be Corporeal and an absolutely necessary Agent one who cannot possibly help doing as he doth one who hath no Power of Creation nor doth act according to free Will But is Limited and Restrained to one constant Method of Acting by the Absolute Necessity of his Nature or by his Infinite Power And lest any one should misunderstand him so far as to imagine that he means by this that God is by the Excellency and Perfection of his Nature in all his Operations exactly conformable to the Rules of Justice Goodness and Right Reason He plainly excludes that Notion in these words Qui dicunt Deum omnia sub Ratione Boni agere Hi aliquid extra Deum videntur ponere quod à Deo non dependet ad quod Deus tanquam ad Exemplar in Operando attendit vel ad quod tanquam ad certum scopum collimat Quod profectò nihil aliud est quam Deum Fato subjicere Now I think nothing can more shew the wicked Perversness of this Writer's Mind than this Passage For he could not but know very well that when Divines assert the Deity to be Essentially and necessarily Good they do not mean that Goodness is any thing Extrinsical to the Divine Nature much less that it is something which hath no dependance upon it but only that the Excellency and Perfection of his Nature is such as that it is in every thing exactly conformable to Right Reason and therefore this was certainly a wilful Perversion of their Sense set up on purpose to overthrow the Notion of Moral Goodness in the Deity But how vain is it for him to tell us that for the Deity to Act sub Ratione Boni is for Him to be Subject to Fate when at the same time he Himself Asserts that God is in every respect a Necessary Agent without any free Will nay without any Knowledge or Vnderstanding in his Nature at all This is so plain a Demonstration that it was his chief and Primary Design to banish out of Mens Minds the Notion of Moral Goodness that nothing can be more and therefore tho' he was resolved to Introduce absolute Necessity into all Actions both Divine and Human yet it should be such an one as should leave no Umbrage for any distinction between Good and Evil or any Foundation for Rewards and Punishments And in this Notion of Necessity these Writers follow Democritus Heraclitus Leucippus and that Atheistical Sect who maintain'd that there was Nothing in all Nature but Matter and Motion And therefore when these Modern Writers assert that there is nothing in the Universe but Body as they do they run Fate farther than most of the Old Heathen Patrons of Necessity did For there was none but the Democritick Sect that supposed Fate to have a Power over the Will of Man and in this particular even they were deserted by Epicurus as I observe below The Pythagoreans Platonists and Stoicks agreed that the Mind of Man was free And 't is well known that the Stoicks did in this Free Power of the Will of Man found that arrogant Assertion of theirs That a Wise Man was in one respect more excellent than the Gods for they were Good by the Necessity of their Nature and could not help it whereas Man had a Power of being otherwise and therefore was the more commendable for being so There was indeed some of the Poets and some few of the Philosophers too who did subject the Gods themselves to Fate or Necessity Thus Seneca in one place saith Necessitas Deos alligat Irrevocabilis Divina pariter ac Humana Cursus vehit Ille ipse omnium Conditor ac Rector scripsit quidem Fata sed sequitur semper paret semel jussit Which Opinion is effectually refuted and exposed by Lucian in that Dialogue of his called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As also by Lactantius in his First Book De falsâ Religione Chap. 11. But this as I doubt not but Seneca and some others understood in a softer sense than at first sight it appears to have so was it the Doctrine of but a few for generally the Heathens did fully believe that Prayers and Sacrifices would alter a Man's Fortune and Circumstances for the better that they would appease the Anger and gain the Favour and Blessing of the Gods and that Their Nature was not so absolutely Fatal and Necessary but that they could freely deal with their Creatures according as they deserved at their hands For we find Balbus the Stoick mentioned by Cicero telling us That the Nature of God would not be most Powerful and Excellent if it were Subject to the same Necessity or Nature Quâ Coelum maria terraeque reguntur Nihil Enim est praestantius Deo Nulli igitur est Naturae Obediens Subjectus So that these Writers tread in the Steps of the worst and most Atheistical of the Heathen Philosophers and maintain a more rigid Fate and a more irresistible Necessity than most of them did But 2 I come next to shew the Groundlesness of those Reasons and Arguments on which these Men build their Hypothesis of Absolute Necessity And first as to the Reasons of Mr. Hobbs The Chief that he brings against the freedom of Human Actions are these saith Mr. Hobbs In all Deliberations and alternate Successions of Contrary Appetites 't is the last only which we call Will this is immediately before the doing of any Action or next before the doing of it become Impossible Also Nothing saith he can take beginning from it self but must do it from the Action of some other immediate Agent without it if therefore a Man hath a Will to something which he had not before the Cause of his Willing is not the Will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas 't is out of Controversie that of Voluntary Actions the Will is the Necessary Cause and by this which is now said the Will is also Caused by Other things whereof it disposeth not it follows that Voluntary Actions have all of them Necessary Causes and therefore are necessitated Agen also Every sufficient Cause saith he is a Necessary one for if it did not produce its Effect necessarily 't was because something was wanting to its Production and then it was not sufficient Now from hence it follows that
whatsoever is produced is produced Necessarily and consequently all Voluntary Actions are Necessitated And to define a Free Agent to be that which when all things are present which are necessary to produce the Effect can nevertheless not produce it is Contradiction and Nonsense for 't is all one as to say the Cause may be sufficient i. e. Necessary and yet the Effect shall not follow This is the Substance of all Mr. Hobbs his Proof against Free Will in which there are almost as many Mistakes as there are Sentences and from hence it plainly will appear that either he had no clear Idea's of what he wrote about or else did designedly endeavour to perplex darken and confound the Cause For in the first place He confounds the Power or Faculty of Willing in Man with the last act of Willing or Determination after Deliberating And consequently doth not distinguish between what the Schools would call Hypothetical and Absolute Necessity which yet ought to be carefully done in the Point between us for an Agent may be free and no doubt every Man is free to deliberate on and to compare the Objects offered to his Choice and yet not be so after he hath chosen Then indeed Necessity comes in 't is impossible for any one to choose and not to choose or to determine and not to determine and after the Election is made no one ever supposed that a Man is free not to make it And therefore if by the Will Mr. Hobbs means that last Act of Willing or Electing which immediately precedes Acting or which is next before the doing of a thing become impossible as he expresseth himself he fights with his own shadow and opposes that which no body ever denied for no Man ever supposed Freedom and Determination to be the same thing but only that Man before he determined was free whether he would determine so and so or not And accordingly he himself defines a voluntary Agent to be him that hath not made an end of Deliberating Agen 2. 'T is hard to know what he means here by Nothing taking its beginning from it self he is talking about Voluntary Actions and about the freedom of Human Nature and therefore should referr this to the Will of Man but the Instances he afterwards produces are of Contingent Things which are nothing at all to his purpose But if this be spoken of the Will what will it signifie I grant Nothing can take its beginning from itself the Will of Man took its beginning from God and Voluntary Actions we say take their beginning from the Faculty or Power of Willing placed in our Souls But what then doth it follow from thence that those Actions we call Voluntary are Necessitated because that they take their Original from that free Power of Election God hath placed in our Natures and not from themselves I dare say no one can see the consequence of this part of the Argument And it will not in the least follow from hence that the Cause of a Man's Willing is not the Will it self but something else not in his own disposing Which yet he boldly asserts It is the Power of Willing or that Faculty which we find in our selves of being free in many Cases to Act or not Act or to Act after such a particular manner which is generally called the Will and this is commonly said to be free Tho' I think as one hath observed it is not so proper a way of Speaking as to say the Man is free For besides that 't is not usual nor indeed proper to predicate one Faculty of another 't is hardly good sense to say the Will is free in the manner now explain'd for that would be the same thing as to say that a free Power is free whereas it is not the Power but the Man that hath the Power that is free But however the Other way of Expression hath prevailed and doth do so and I don't think any one is misled by it into Error for that which every body understands and means by saying the Will of Man is free is that Man hath in his Nature such a free Power as is called his Will Now from hence it will not follow that a Man is free whether he will Will or not for he must Will someway either to Act or not to Act or to Act after such a particular manner But it will follow that when a Man hath made any particular Volition or hath determined the Point whether he shall Act or forbear to Act he is then no longer at Liberty as to this particular Case and Instant for the Determination is then actually made and the Man no longer free not to make it But this proves nothing at all against the Liberty or Freedom of the Mind of Man Again what doth Mr. Hobbs mean by the Will 's being the Necessary Cause of Voluntary Actions Doth he mean that the Will of Man must of Necessity act freely and produce Actions voluntarily if he doth we are agreed but if he means that the Will is previously necessitated in every Act of Volition to Will just as it doth and could not possibly have willed otherwise this is to beg the Question and to take for granted the great thing in Dispute 't is to call that out of Controversie which is the only thing in Controversie which indeed when a Man contradicts the Common Sense and Reason of Mankind without Proof is the best way of Proceeding But that which looks most like an Argument for the Necessity of all Humane Actions is this which he brings in the last place That Cause saith he is a sufficient Cause which wanteth nothing requisite to produce its Effect but such a Cause must also be a Necessary one for had it not necessarily produced its Effect it must have been because something was wanting in it for that Purpose and then it could not have been sufficient So that whatever is produced is produced necessarily for it could not have been at all without a sufficient or necessary Cause and therefore also all Voluntary Actions are necessitated Now all this proves to his Purpose I think just nothing at all He proceeds on in his former Error of confounding the Act of Willing with the Power of Willing and of making Hypothetical the same with absolute Necessity for not now to dispute what he saith of every sufficient Cause's being a Necessary one allowing that when ever any Volition or Determination is made or when ever any Voluntary Action is done that the Will of Man was a sufficient Cause to produce that Effect nay that it did at last necessarily produce it he can inferr nothing from hence more than this That when the Will hath determined or willed 't is no longer free to Will or Nill that particular thing at that particular Instant which I don't believe any Body will ever or ever did deny But this will not prove at all that the Will was necessitated to make that
God neither from Fear nor Policy The Atheist's Objections against the Immaterial Nature of God and Incorporeal Substances Refuted A Refutation of the Objections against the Attributes of God in General In Six Sermons Preach'd at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul 1698. being the first Six of the Lecture for that Year Founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq By John Harris M. A. and Fellow of the Royal Society Dr. Payne's Discourses on several Practical Subjects In Octavo Dr. Abbadie's Vindication of the Christian Religion in Two Parts In Octavo A Serious Proposal to the Ladies in Two Parts In Twelves Letters concerning the Love of God between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. Norris A Treatise of the Asthma divided into Four Parts In the First is given a History of the Fits and the Symptoms preceeding them In the Second The Cacochymia that disposes to the Fit and the Rarefaction of the Spirits which produces it are Described In the Third The Accidental Causes of the Fit and the Symptomatic Asthmas are Observ'd In the Fourth The Cure of the Asthma Fit and the Method of Preventing it is Proposed To which is annex'd a Digression about the several Species of Acids distinguish'd by their Tastes And 't is observ'd how far they were thought Convenient or Injurious in general Practice by the Old Writers and most particularly in relation to the Cure of the Asthma By Sir John Floyer In Octavo A Refutation of the Atheistical Notion OF Fate or Absolute Necessity IN A SERMON Preach'd at the CATHEDRAL-CHURCH of St. Paul November the Seventh 1698. BEING The Eighth of the LECTURE for that Year Founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq By JOHN HARRIS M. A. and Fellow of the ROYAL-SOCIETY LONDON Printed by J. L. for Richard Wilkin at the King's-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1698. JEREM. ix 24 Let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord who exercise loving kindness judgment and righteousness in the earth for in these things do I delight saith the Lord. I Did in my last Discourse begin to Speak to the Second Particular considerable in these Words viz. An Account of some of those Attributes which God is here said to Exercise in the Earth and in which he Delights On which I did not think it necessary to Discourse particularly but from thence took an Occasion to Remove two Great Bars to the true Knowledge of God and of his Attributes which Sceptical and Unbelieving Men had raised in the Way Which were These I. That there is in reality no such Things as Moral Good or Evil But that all Actions are in their own Nature indifferent II. That all things are determined by absolute Fatality And that God himself and all Creatures whatsoever are Necessary Agents without having any Power of Choice or any real Liberty in their Natures at all The former of These I did then dispatch plainly proving the Existence of Moral Good and Evil and answering the Objections against it I proceed now to speak to the latter which is an Objection that our Adversaries are very fond of and do all of them upon Occasion have recourse to And it is indeed a great Point gain'd if they could make it out and will effectually destroy all manner of Religious Obligation and all dread of Punishment for doing amiss For as one observes on these Three things all Religion is founded 1. That there is a God who made presides over and governeth all things 2. That there are some things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their own Natures good and just 3. That there is also something 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something in our own Power to do whereby we are Accountable for our Actions and become guilty when we do amiss But there can certainly be neither Good nor Evil in any Man's Actions and no Rewards or Punishments can be the Consequents of them if nothing at all be in our own Power if whatever we act or commit it is absolutely impossible for us to avoid acting or committing Which yet must be the case if as they assert Things are determined by absolute Fatality and that God himself and all Creatures whatsoever are necessary Agents without having any Power of Choice or any real Liberty in their Natures at all I shall therefore at this Time 1. Shew you that this is plainly their Assertion from their own words 2. I shall endeavour to shew the Groundlesness of of those Reasons on which they build their Hypothesis And 3. from some Arguments Establish the contrary Position of the Freedom and Liberty of Human Nature 1. And that this is the Assertion of the Two great Atheistical Writers is very plain Mr. Hobbs declares himself to be of the Opinion That no Man can be free from Necessitation That Nothing taketh beginning from it self but from the Action of some other Immediate Agent without it self And that therefore when first a Man hath an Appetite or Will to something to which immediately before he had no Appetite nor Will the Cause of his Will is not the Will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas it is out of Controversie that of Voluntary Actions the Will is the Necessary Cause and by this which is said the Will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that Voluntary Actions have all of them Necessary Causes and therefore are necessitated This saith he also is a certain Truth that there are Certain and Necessary Causes which make every Man to will what he willeth Ib. p. 306. And then as to the Deity I have already more than once taken notice That Hobbs denies Him any Understanding Sense or Knowledge and asserts him to be without any Ends or Designs in his Actions and Operations Which plainly makes Him an Agent absolutely and physically Necessary as indeed follows also from the Notion of his Being Corporeal which the same Writer every where maintains Spinoza also is very Express in this Matter as I have already shewn in some Measure In mente saith he nulla est absoluta sive libera voluntas sed Mens ad Hoc vel illud Volendum determinatur à Causâ quae etiam ab aliâ haec iterùm ab aliâ sic in Infinitum And in another place Voluntas non potest vocari Causa libera sed Tantum necessaria And yet on another Occasion and in another Book he hath these words Clarè distinctè Intelligimus si ad Nostram naturam attendamus nos in nostris actionibus esse liberos de multis deliberare propter id solum quod volumus Which is as plain and palpable a Contradiction to what he with the same air of Assurance delivers in other places as can possibly be Mr. Hobbs also cannot be acquitted from expresly contradicting himself as to this Point of Liberty and Necessity for he tells us
Divine and Almighty Being Universally impressed upon the Minds of Men as no doubt but there is this I say is a very convincing Argument that such a Belief hath a good Foundation in the Nature of the thing and consequently hath Truth at the bottom And therefore 't is plain that these Men did not Invent but find this Notion and Belief actually Existing by a kind of Anticipation in the Hearts of all Mankind And that they could not possibly invent it had there been no Ground nor Reason for such a Belief I shall plainly prove by and by But again That the Notion of a God did not arise only from Fear is plain from hence That Mankind hath gotten an Idea of Him that could never proceed only from that Passion If Fear only were to make a God it would compose him of nothing but black and terrible Idea's it would represent Him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all envious and spiteful a grim angry and vindicative Being one that delights in nothing but to exercise his Tyrannical Power and Cruelty upon Mankind we should then believe him to be such a Power as the Indians do their Evil God and we do the Devil a mischievous and bloody Deity that is the Author of nothing but Evil and Misery in the World for these must be the dreadful Attributes of a Being which Fear only would create and set up in our Hearts But now instead of this we find a quite different Notion of God in the World We justly believe Him to be a most Kind Loving and Gracious Being and whose mercies are over all his works We are taught by the Scriptures those Sacred Volumes of his Will to believe that He at first Created the World and all things that are therein to display his Goodness and Kindness to his Creatures That he wills not nor delights in the death of a sinner nor in the evil and misery of any thing but that He hath by most admirable methods of Divine Love provided for our Happiness both here and hereafter Now such an Account as this of the Deity could never take its Rise from Fear only And therefore since it cannot be denied but that we have such a Notion of God it must have some more Noble and Generous an Original We find indeed in our selves a just Fear and Dread of Offending so Good and Gracious a God and we believe it suitable to his Justice to punish those that will pertinaciously continue in a state of Rebellion against Him after having refused and slighted the repeated Overtures of his Mercy But then we know very well That the Notion we have of a Deity is not occasioned by and derived from this Fear but on the contrary this Fear from it 'T is the Natural Consequence and Effect of the Belief and Knowledge of a God but it cannot be the Cause and Original of it For Fear alone can never dispose the Mind of Man to imagine a Being that is infinitely Kind Merciful and Gracious The Atheist therefore must here taken in Hope too as well as Fear as a joint Cause of his pretended Origin of the Belief of a God and say That Mankind came to imagine that there was some Powerful and Invisible Being which they hoped would do them as much good as they were afraid it would do them hurt But these two contrary Idea's like Equal Quantities in an Equation with contrary Signs will destroy one another and consequently the Remainder will be nothing And therefore the Mind of Man must lay aside such an Idea of God as soon as he hath well considered it for it will signifie just nothing at all Another very good Argument That the Notion of a God did not take its first Original from Fear only may be drawn from hence That those that do believe and know most of God are the least Subject to that servile Passion If Fear only occasioned Mens Notion and Belief of a God the consequence must be that where the Notion of a Deity is most strong and vivid there Men must be most timorous and apprehensive of Danger there the greatest distrust suspicion and anxious sollicitousness about the Events of Futurity would be always found But this is so far from being true in Fact that no one is so free from those Melancholy and Dreadful Thoughts and Apprehensions as he that truly believes in and Fears God For he can find always in Him Almighty Defence and Protection he can cast all his care on God who he knows careth for him When all the treacherous Comforts of this World leave him and when nothing but a gloomy Scene of Affliction Distress and Misery presents its self here yea even when Heart it self and Strength begin to fail God will be he knows the Strength of his Heart and his Portion for ever and even in the vast Multitude of his Afflictions God's Comforts will refresh his Soul But 't is far otherwise with the miserable Wretch that hath no Belief of nor any Knowledge of God if he fall into Affliction Trouble or Misery he hath nothing to support him He is the most abject and dispirited of all Mankind his whole head is sick and his heart is faint and his Spirit cannot sustain his Infirmity for he hath not only no Power and Ability to bear the present load of Misery but he expects yet much worse to come and notwithstanding all his former Incredulity and Bravery he now as the Devil himself doth believes and trembles And therefore though as Plutarch observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it be the chief Design of Atheism to give Men an Exemption from Fear yet 't is a very foolish one and falls very far short of answering its End for it deserts and fails its Votaries in their greatest Extremities and Necessities and by depriving them of all just Grounds for hope must needs expose them to the most dismal Invasions of Fear And thus I think it is very plain That the Notion of a God could not take its first Original from Fear As to the Ignorance of Second Causes which is sometimes alledged as another Occasion of the Notion of a Deity the Modern Atheists do not much insist upon it and therefore I need not do so in its Refutation I have shewed already whence they had it and I think it sufficient to observe here that there are no Men so Ignorant of Second Causes nor any that give so poor and trifling Accounts of the Phaenomena of Nature as these Atheistical Philosophers do And therefore Ignorance ought rather to be reckoned among the Causes of Atheism and Infidelity than of the Idea of God and Religion for I am very well assured that a through insight into the Works of Nature and a serious Contemplation of that admirable Wisdom excellent Order and that useful Aptitude and Relation that the several Parts of the World have to each other must needs convince any one that they are the Products of a Divine and Almighty
For a Deity without the Attributes of Understanding and Wisdom without Ends or Design none of which Mr. Hobbs asserts expresly can be in God is a Ridiculous stupid Being an Idol that every rational Agent must needs despise and which can never be the Object of any one's Adoration Love or Obedience To assert therefore that the Attributes of God are not discoverable by Reason nor agreeable to Philosophical Truth but may be declared to be any thing which the Soveraign Power pleases to make them this is designedly to expose the Belief and Notion of a Deity and to render it so Precarious that it can be the Object of no Rational Man's Faith And this last named Writer Treats the Deity after the same manner in most other Places of his Works He saith we must not say of Him that he is Finite that he hath figure Parts or Totality that he is here or there that he moveth or resteth or that we can conceive or know any thing of him for all this is to dishonour him And yet to say that he is an Immaterial Substance that he is an Infinite and Eternal Spirit is he saith Nonsense and what destroys and contradicts it self However he is willing to allow the word Immaterial or Spirit to be used towards God as a Mark of Honour and Respect That is we may attribute to God what we know to be Nonsense and Contradiction and this is the Way to Honour him and to speak of him any other way is to Dishonour Him Who doth not perceive that it was plainly the Design of this Writer to treat of the Deity after such a manner as should deprive Him of all Knowledge and Care of Humane Affairs and consequently effectually Banish out of Mens Minds a just Veneration for Him and Adoration of Him Such Men are the most Dangerous and Mischievous of all others Profess'd Atheists can do no great Harm for all Persons are aware of them and will justly abhor the Writings and Conversation of Men that say boldly there is no God But there are but few such they have found a way to pass undiscovered under a fairer Dress and a softer Name They pretend to be true Deists and sincere Cultivators of Natural Religion and to have a most Profound Respect for the Supream and Almighty Being But when this Profound Respect comes to be throughly examined and duly understood it will appear to be the most abominable Abuse that can be and a most wicked and Blasphemous Idea of the Deity For they make him either nothing but the Soul of the World Universal Matter or Natura Naturata a God that is an absolutely necessary Agent without any Rectitude in his Will without any Knowledge Wisdom Goodness Justice Mercy or Providence over his Works But let such Persons take what Names they please upon themselves a little consideration will soon discover what they are in reality and I hope give Men a just abhorrence of such Notions tho' never so speciously put forth But let us now proceed to examine what Ground there is from the Nature of the Thing for Men to advance such wicked Opinions and to shew the weakness and precariousness of them And here it must be premised and taken for granted that there is a God This is what the Persons I am now concerned with pretend to own and to acknowledge Which being supposed It appears very plain that we may have if we will and some Persons as I have shew'd have always had a very clear Notion or Idea of the Attributes and Perfections of such a Being as also that they are fixed and immutable Properties in the Divine Nature For by professing to believe a God they must mean if they mean any thing The first Cause and Author of all Things and the Governour and Disposer of them A Divine Being containing in himself all possible Perfections without being subject to any manner of Defect This I have already hinted at in another place and shall now more largely prove So far is it from being true that we cannot reason of the Nature of God from his Attributes nor Discourse of those Attributes from our Reason That this seems to be the only proper Way of enquiring into the wonderful Depth of the Divine Perfections I mean the only Way we have without Revelation for I am not now considering what God hath farther discovered of Himself to us by his Word For tho' the Deity doth abound with Infinite Excellencies and Perfections yet by the Light of Nature we can discover those only of which he hath given us some Impression on our own Natures and these are the Scales and Proportions by which our Reason must measure the Divine Attributes and Perfections For in order to gain good and true Notions of these we ought to take our Rise from those Perfections and Excellencies which we find in the Creatures and especially in our selves There can be but two Ways of coming to the Knowledge of any thing by its Cause and by its Effects 'T is impossible for us to make use of the former of these in Reference to the Deity For He being himself without Cause and the First Cause and Original of all Things cannot be known to us this Way But by the second Way he very properly may be the Object of our Knowledge and we ought to apply our selves to this Method in order to understand the Attributes of God For whatever Excellency or Perfection we can any way discover in the Effects of God in the World i. e. in the Works of the whole Creation the same we cannot but suppose must be in Him in the highest and most noble Proportion and Degree since they are all owing to and derived from Him And if we take a serious and considerate View of the Excellencies and Perfections that are to be found in the Creatures or the Works of God in the World we shall find that they may be reducible to these Four general Heads Being or Substance Life Sensibility and Reason All which we find to be in our selves and therefore they are at hand and ready to assist our Meditations and these will if duly considered lead us into a good Way of discovering the Attributes and Perfections of the Divine Nature And I doubt not but a great Reason why Men have had and advanced wrong Notions of God hath been because they have had such of themselves and of those Perfections that are in our own Natures Men that do not understand that the true Perfection of Humane Nature consists in Moral Goodness or in an Universal agreeableness of our Will to the Eternal Laws of Right Reason cannot conceive aright of the Attributes and Perfections of God For they will be for making him like themselves guided by vehement Self-love and inordinate Will or whatever predominant Passions possess them 'T were easie to Trace this in the Epicurean Notion of a God dissolved in Ease and Sloth and who neglects the Government of the