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
of God If there be not why then are arguments drawn from thence against the Epicureans to prove providence to them and to refute their opinions concerning the nature of God If there be why cannot a man make use of them to guide him at least in some measure to the knowledge of those secrets God forbid that we should so much forget our selves as to forget how clearly God ha's revealed himself in the World The manifestation which he hath made therein of his Perfections is one thing and the faculty which we naturally have to understand them an other Reason indeed but that which is right and in its integrity not such as we now possess might have thence collected the means of serving God in a due manner But as it is deprav'd blind and maim'd in its powers and apprehensions it is utterly incapable of discerning the truth therein or forming certain rules of piety from thence There is light enough in the Sun to make it be seen but it is by those who have eyes to these who never had any or have lost them it is as dark as the Earth on which they tread In like manner an infinite number of bright and excellent truths are held forth in the World and its Government to him that ha's the eye of his Understanding sufficiently clear and serene But the Eye of the Understanding which we call Reason in the conditition we injoy it at present is so distemper'd clouded and perturb'd that it beholds the truths which are there notwithstanding all their clearness but very obscurely and though they are most certain and stedfast in themselves yet when it contemplates them it perceives them onely as if they were inconstant and wavering Nor are men in this Age more free from these natural impediments then they were two thousand years ago and consequently can be no better assured of their knowledge For to say that 't is a Science which may aswell have been improved as others they which liv'd since having taken from the Opinions of the Ancients what was pure and rejected the unsound and bad is a thing of no moment to our discourse because it is untrue Perhaps Aristotle built his Philosophy up with the opinions of Elder Philosophers by refining them from that which he found faulty and serving himself with the truths before discover'd by them aswell to employ the same as materials to his structure as to find out others which were yet abstruse aad unknown And indeed it hath been observed that Hippocrates furnish'd him with the grounds of his Physiology so that he had no more to do but to build upon them and some have moreover believ'd that in divers places of his Writings and particularly in his Epistles he supplyed him with many singular advantages to the composing of his Ethicks And although he refutes Plato in several of his Opinions yet it is certain that he took many excellent instructions both from the discourses which he heard him make in his Academy and from the reading of his Works But I pray observe how this came to pass Aristotle was indued with an understanding capable to discern distinctly enough in matters of Philosophy the truths which his predecessors had brought to light and distinguish the same from falsities he was able to cull out and to place some apart from others and so to compose out of his own inventions and those of others a Body of Science better contriv'd then any had been before and whose parts were more correspondent amongst themselves But here the Question is concerning truths which the mind of man in its present estate is not capable to perceive clearly so that if he were put to make his choice of those different Opinions it would betide him that instead of hapning right he would rather choose the worst and thus it hath fallen out to all them which took imperfect humane reason for their guide therein If this reason be not satisfactory to my Adversaries let them pay themselves with experience Why did not Cicero garble all those different Opinions of Philosophers touching the Nature of the Gods to frame a good one if possible and leave posterity a rational doctrine in so important a matter But in stead of doing so the consciousness of his weakness makes him content himself with reciting them and after all his stories he knows as little of it as he did at first as if they had been nothing but clouds and darkness cast before his eyes Or why do not they show us the writings of some Philosopher either ancient or modern who being no otherwise assisted then by the meer light Reason ha's had more sound and sober opinions concerning it then his predecessors On the other side it will be found that some Philosophers who heretofore impugned Christian Religion and the Books of the Old and New Testament and who ought to have purifi'd that doctrine from the old absurdities it abounds with to the end their adversaries might have less advantage against it have been guilty of as many impertinences as they of preceding times and afforded as much cause to be insulted over in regard of the stupidity and ridiculousness of their conceits The unhappiness is that being naturally blind in these things we nevertheless conceive we see clearly and are so possess'd with a good opinion of our selves that we will not admit any one to teach us or if we have been taught by some bodyelse we are so ungrateful that we will not acknowledge it but reproach and execrate those persons from whom we have received all the purest of our knowledge For 't is the same case with these people and the Epicureans who having been enlightned by Christian Religion in many truths in the ignorance or incertitude of which they had otherwise eternally stagger'd or fluctuated they arrogate the glory of having of themselves drawn them out of the bottom of Democritus's Well or establish'd the belief of the same amongst men by the strength of their reason For why are they not say they as capable to invent them as they are to apprehend and receive them since they are revealed A wonderful Question truly and worthy of such subtle persons As if there were not a capacity in children of a dozen years old to apprehend the most difficult Geometrical Demonstrations when they are taught the same by some skillful Master who notwithstanding could never of themselves have invented the least Theorem in that Science Or as if we did not see them every day learn the Arabick Tongue readily by help of a knowing Instructor although they were as well able to pull the Stars out of Heaven as we say as to have disentangled the confusion of that Language and reduc'd it into Grammatical Rules It is indeed by the same faculty of Understanding that discover'd truths are comprehended and those found out which are unknown but there is required a far greater strength and vivacity of Intellect to make new discoveries then to comprehend
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
it then he that is not yet come forth of his Mothers Womb can be certain of the truth oâ— this Enunciation There is light in the Sun were he capable of understanding the words in which it is conceived I know not but some of these Worthies may oppose that we hold this verity from tradition of the Ancients seeing they have left us very many others of which we are not at all in doubt For prudent persons have always ascrib'd much to the opinions of their Ancestors especially if they were such as atchieved any thing towards the establishment and conservation of Common-wealths or made provision for containing men in the respect due to Religion The reason of which is a perswasion that they were more illuminated then their Posterity either because the world was not so invaded with corrupt maners in their time or for that they were not yet much removed from the Beginning of things But in case this should be urged by them yet it will be perpetually necessary that those Ancients received this truth from without themselves since they could not have it from themselves any more then we Shall it therefore be likewise from tradition of their predecessors If so we shall run back to infinity and whereas all other traditions have necessarily had some beginning this will be found to be eternal Now this is a thing which ha's not so much as the appearance of reason especially in the mouths of them who are oblig'd to confess that the World it self had a beginning being fabricated by the casual coalition of Atoms For if the World began to be there is no ascending by divers generations of men to eternity but we must at length subsist in the first of all who cannot have had this important truth from himself any more then we but from the revelation of God who must have discovered the same to him to the end he might ascertain his Descendants thereof and leave it to them in deposito to the end of the world Now in what place was it that God made this revelation if as these people contend there is not nor ever was either in man the world or any Oracle whatsoever any trace or token of the existence of his Being and of his Divine Virtues And if God had so much care at the beginning to reveal this Truth to the first of men to the end they might not lead a life altogether semblable to that of Brutes why do they deny his Providence of which this is an effect supremely important Again If God was pleased his Providence should appear in this occasion why should he instantly after arrest the actions of it as if after having let scape either constrainedly or by inadvertency a beam of his Divinity he retir'd himself incontinently from before our eyes and became envelopp'd in darkness eternally impenetrable Lastly what will be the certainty or incertainty of this tradition I will use no other proof to shew then such as I shall draw from the confession of the Epicureans themselves It is a tradition as ancient and as constant amongst men in general That God takes care of the concernments of mankind as is in the School of Epicurius the tradition That there is a God Moreover the world and the occurrences that arrive in it every day present the humane understanding with proofs incomparably more evident that there is a Providence which governs us then this proposition There is a God furnishes us alone with assurances of its proper verity For on what side soever it be regarded wholly naked as I have laid it open it affords not any means to the mind to close with it for true and settle it self upon it whereas on all hands we meet with the materials of our reasonings upon which we ground the belief of a Providence Nevertheless Epicurus and his Disciples have dar'd to reject flatly the conduct of Providence without weighing either the tradition of their predecessors or the evidences which support the same with such apparent firmness What will hinder all the remainder of men from being as inclinable to deny the existence of God if we have no other assurance of it then so wild and vagous a tradition Let us allow Epicurus a little more and suppose the case that Nature alone hath imbued us with this truth from our birth without any need of receiving the impression of it by the contemplation of objects we have before our eyes Yet it is incomprehensible how certain Idea's of truths purely intellectual could be ingraved preserve their lineaments in the materialls of which we are framed besides that experience teaches all our fathers that when they gave being to their children it was at such time as they least of all thought of these Common Conceptions But grant it possible yet what is it which they understand by Nature For if by that word they pretend to denote the concourse of those indivisible Particles of which their fancy will have the the world compos'd or rather that Order which is between causes purely natural and their effects however other Philosophers describe it seeing this kind of nature hath not it self any apprehension of these verities how hath it communicated that to man which it hath not and whereof it is incapable to receive the least lineaments or seeds It must needs be therefore that it was God who writ them in the Understanding of man either in him that had them first to transmit the same to his Descendants which is absolutely unimaginable or in every individual person from the instant of their conception which would be highly necessary Now if God hath had so great care of mankind as not to suffer one single person to come into the world in whose breast he hath not first imprinted this divine Conception how irrational is it to esteem him negligent both of us and of that which concerns us And seeing he hath taken this care of us at a time wherein we could not render him any honor why should we not hope to obtain new benefits from his hand by our gratitude and by our prayers I conclude therefore that notwithstanding the pertinacious gainsaying of these people and with whatever artifice they endeavor either to maintain or disguise their sentiments they believe not at all the existence of a God or if they do believe it they have such perswasion from arguments which induce to the acknowledgment of his Especial Providence CHAP. II. Wherein the Service of God consists And what that is the Epicureans can render him according to their Principles ALthough the precedent Discourse should not yield us this result That the Epicureans being constant to their own Principles cannot be assured of the existence of a Deity and albeit we should have received this Common Notion from the faint impress of that which is called Nature in our Soul without owing it to God Yet this knowledge being so loose and incertain it is impossible it should lead us in a due
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
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
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
which consisted all external service performed to God For it would be more difficult for all Nations to obey that then the Political What likelihood is there I beseech you that God would tye all Nations so remote and dispers'd upon the face of the Earth to repair and sacrifice at Jerusalem and assemble there at solemn Feasts That from the North South East and West they should all be there at a time appointed to perform that service notwithstanding the interval so many Seas mountains And if when Jerusalem was besieged by Titus the multitude of men grievously pestred the place although there was onely the Nation of the Jews assembled there at that time what Jerusalem would be capable of containing all other Nations besides which ought to come to the knowledge of the true God Could the Tribe of Levi have furnished Sacrificers enough or Judea beasts for victimes Could the Temple had it been twenty times as big as that which Herod built have received the twentieth part of those that were to perform their devotions in it And what a horrible slaughter would there be or how could they escape the deluge of blood which would fill the streets if every one were to offer his beast But indeed he that shall duely consider the whole structure of the Religious Policy which was sometimes amongst them shall find that it ha's not the appearance of a thing that was to indure to perpetuity but was onely the platform and delineation of some other to come in its place For to what end serv'd the massacre of so many beasts Was it because God took pleasure in the flesh of bulls or in the blood of Goats Himself denies it in their Prophets In the 50. Psalm vers 8. I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or for the burnt-offerings which should be continually before me I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goats out of thy folds c. Vers 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats Offer unto God thanksgiving c. Also Thou takest no pleasure in sacrifices else would I give them the burnt-offering is not acceptable to thee The sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit c. And Isaiah in a severer strain chap. 66. He that killeth an Ox is as if he slew a man he that sacrificeth a sheep as if he cut off a dogs neck he that offereth an oblation as if he offered the blood of a swine he that burneth incense as if he blessed an Idol And certainly he should have too low an opinion of God that should imagine he delighted in beholding the spilling of the blood or the smoking of the fat of sacrifices He takes pleasure in the piety of the heart and in virtue and not in the odor of incense or the death of beasts Was it to make propitiation for their sins and secure them from the curse denounced by their Law Much less For 't is possible some man might fancy God so good towards his creatures as to be pleas'd with such offerings proceeding from a good heart as testimonies of its devotion But he is too just for any to imagine that when he is incensed he maybe satisfied with trifles Lastly was it to exercise the people of Israel and keep them in discipline as curbes and pasternes are us'd to unruly horses and divers rules of discipline are prescribed to youth inclinable to deboshery This indeed was one of the uses of the Law but the Jews will not acknowledge it and which they cannot have learnt but from the Doctors and Founders of the Christian Church Moreover these exercises are not to be continued for ever We take away the shackels from horses when they are become tractable and leave children to their own conduct when they come to age Can it be thought then that the Church of God should be alwaies in infancy and never come to perfect age to have no more need of so exact and so rigorous a discipline Let them consult their Books well and they will find that in process of time God gave them to understand that all those things were but shadows which were to vanish when the truth should be manifested and that proportionably as that time approacht the contempt that he had of those things in themselves was discover'd For in the books of Moses they are most severely enjoyned as if the service of God really consisted therein In the Psalms of David God begins to decry the use of them And Isaiah in the first and the sixty sixt Chapter of his Prophecies speaks so disadvantageously of them that he almost as good as saies that they were even already abolisht I know well that he speaks of them after a comparative manner with internal vertues which the Jews wholly forgot confining themselves strictly and trusting in the observation of these externals But I conceive that Moses in reproving the contempt of internal piety would never have spoken with such disdain of those corporeal sacrifices and there is nothing in all his books but gives assurance of the contrary Whence then should this difference between them arise since they were all guided by the same spirit but that Moses was yet too remote from the body in which those shadows were to terminate To what end were their Arks Propitiatories or Mercy-seats Tables of Shew-bread candlesticks dishes basins courtains covertures veiles altars sives gridirons censers and lamps in a word all the accoutrements and deckings of the Tabernacle which if they represented nothing but what they barely seem would be frivolous and tedious Especially why should God so particularly give the whole scheme of it and injoyn Moses so strictly not to transgress in any thing from the pattern shewn to him in the mountain Certainly if all this had no further reference then to the Tabernacle no body can give a pertinent reason why God should make so scrupulous a description of it or why he should impart extraordinary graces of his spirit to the chief managers of the whole work unless we will say that God takes pleasure like us in imbrodery and painting But when he saies expresly that it was onely a representation of what he had shewn to Moses he apparently intimates that he aimed further and that the Tabernacle was but the image of that which God reserved to himself till another time and the Israelites were to expect For seeing our minds are never contented with the images of things when-they consider that they are meerly images be cause they cannot perfectly represent the life and the more exquisitely the images seem to be made the more desirous are we to see the reality God admonishing them that the Ark and the Tabernacle were but representations of that which he kept hid with him would by degrees excite them in the desire to behold the thing it self But he would never have excited the appetites of men for nothing if he inflame our hearts with any desires he alwayes supplies