communion If in things which are plainly and confessedly possible in themselves we are not to engage the infinite power of God without a just cause nor to think God almighty obliged to make good our groundless and extravagant phansies much less are we to destroy the nature of things and swallow down and maintain real and manifest contradictions and make that which would be one of the greatest wonders of the world supposing that it were possible to be done ordinarily and every where and every day a thousand times without any other proof than our bare phansying so as they do who maintain the doctrine of Transsubstantiation in all the School-niceties of it against Scripture and reason against the principles of nature and philosophy against the attestation of sense and the judgment of antiquity and against the experience of all mankind and do all this rather than admit of a figurative expression in the words of the Institution In favour of this monstrous tenent the Romanists object to us the incomprehensibility of the mysteries of faith and hence think that they may elude all those unanswerable difficulties which this new doctrine is charged with and that there is argument enough to satisfie their doubts in that misapplyed saying the effect it may be of rapture and indiscreet devotion Ideo credo quia est impossibile But the great disparity which is between them is easily obvious to any one who will give himself leave to consider things calmly and fairly and not suffer himself to be imposed upon by a pretense of an authority absolutely to be obeyed and submitted to as well in doctrine as in matters and decrees of discipline without the least scruple and hesitation As 1. That there is the highest reason in the world to believe the mysteries of faith tho' they transcend our utmost capacity because they are expresly and clearly revealed in the writings of the new Testament It is the greatest security of our faith imaginable that God has said it and therefore let the thing revealed seem never so unlikely and harsh to my understanding I have as much reason to believe it as any thing which happens ordinarily every day and presents it self to my senses nay more for there is a possibility that a particular person may be deceived sometimes not to say all mankind even in a matter of sense but there is an utter impossibility that God should be deceived in any proposition he has thought fit to reveal But this they will not pretend to say for their Transsubstantiation that there is the same evidence of Scripture for it or indeed that they have any evidence at all as many of their own party have confessed and for want of which they have recourse to the authority of the Church Besides their greatest stress for the proof of it wholly lyes upon a gross and unnatural sense of words which are capable of a far easier and more agreeable interpretation especially when the other words used by our B. Saviour in the blessing and consecration of the wine are most certainly and undeniably figurative 2. These articles are essential to the Christian faith the doctrine of it cannot be entire without them and besides they were explicitely believed and assented to as to the matter of them from the first ages of Christanity tho' there were some disputes raised about the terms by which they were expressed and a latitude used in the explication of them and the disbelief or denial of them was justly branded with the odious name of heresie in general Councils and the dissenters anathematized and thrust out of the communion of the Church and the true doctrine of the Christian religion as delivered by Christ and his Apostles secured and established against the corruptions and innovations in after-times by publick Creeds universally received Whereas this is a meer novel doctrine first brought into the Church the better to establish the gross errors and superstitions relating both to the opinions and practises of Image-worship and advancing by degrees in times of horrible ignorance and corruption of manners till it came first to be decreed and established an article of faith by the Assessors of the Lateran Council besides it does no way serve or promote the interests of Christianity but does very much prejudice it and expose it I am sure to the contempt of the enemies of it both Turks and Jews who choose rather to continue in their infidelity than submit to it upon their first disbelieving their very senses 3. There is a vast difference between them in respect of their subject-manner Things relating to God are above the level of our understanding most of our little knowledge being derived from sense which cannot reach those objects that are altogether abstracted from it whereas this falls under the examination of our senses and reason they are things we every day converse with things we may safely pretend to judge of as being every way proportionable to our faculties 4. These articles of faith involve in them no true and real contradiction as the doctrine of Transsubstantiation does The Christian religion proposes nothing to our belief but what is possible and therefore credible as has been proved by several learned men of our Church against the heterodoxies and blasphemies of the Socinians nothing which contradicts or thwarts the common and established notions of nature I say the doctrine of it as it is contained in the Scripture and according to the ancient tradition of the Catholick Church and the explications of the first oecumenical Councils to both which tradition and authority next to the sacred Scripture which is the rule of faith we ought to have regard even in controversies of faith and not as it is perplext and entangled by the bold niceties of the School-men who have corrupted the truth and simplicity of the Christian religion by the mixtures of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle So that we do not limit the divine power or deny it to be infinite as the bigotted Romanists pretend because we reject this figment of Transsubstantiation as a false absurd and contradictory doctrine besides the other above-mentioned exceptions which no sophistry or cavil can honestly and truly put by or justly satisfie which they ought to prove to be in the number of things possible All which we believe from the nature of this attribute as we are obliged that God can do 2. The second proposition is this that nothing can hinder the effects of God's power if once he has willed and determined the same And of this truth both of nature and religion the very Heathen had a fixt belief and apprehension viz. that all opposition made against God was vain and ineffectual and that though some according to the fictions of their Poets were so foolish as well as impious to make a war upon the Gods and attempted to pluck Jupiter out of his throne yet they always came by the worst and were cast down from their hopes and
and there behold the several orbs moving on in an uninterrupted order the swiftness of their motion and withall the greatness of their bodies that the earth about which poor mortals contend so much and to get a little part and share of which they cannot possess long venture their quiet and their lives and oftentimes their very souls is but a point in respect of them the vast distance between us and the heavens the glorious and inexhaustible brightness of the sun and the stars and the kind influences of them upon all things here below and the like and we cannot but be filled with the admiration of God who made them The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work Let us reflect upon the situation of the earth how it is hung upon nothing in the middle of the heavens having no foundation to rest upon but a magnetical vigour imprinted by the hand of God whereby the parts of it are so firmly united all of them tending toward the center by an innate principle of gravity that if it were possible for it according to the phansy of Archimedes to be moved out of its place by any engine it would return speedily to it again the virtue and fruitfulness of it in producing those various sorts of plants flowers and trees with those several minerals and metals and other fossils which lye hid in the bowels of it the great variety of living creatures which serve for the ornament and beauty of the creation and above all let us contemplate man the curious make and frame of his body and the uses of each part but chiefly the faculties of his mind whereby he is able to govern himself and the other creatures subject to him and even make use of those things which he cannot alter and change and derive a benefit from them to himself Now the conclusions naturally arising hence are 1. That the builder and maker of all is God because this frame and constitution of the world is above all created strength and power and things could not make themselves but owe their being and original to his divine will and to his infinite power and wisdom and 2. That he who made the heavens and the earth and all things therein who has hung up those lights in the sky which flame so brightly who has imprinted such a swift and unwearied motion in the stars who has filled that vast distance of space between us and them with so subtil and perspicuous a body who has cast the earth into such a figure that every part of it might enjoy the influences of the heavens with the greater advantage and as it were interchangeably and by turns who has caused those deep channels for the waters upon which Ships may pass from one extreme part of the world to the other and keep up and maintain a commerce with all mankind and the like He can do much more his power is not confined to any one effect if he does but once will the same presently a new world shall start up out of nothing For what shall hinder it being equally easie to an infinite and inexhaustible power to make more as one Who questions an Artists power who has brought some curious piece to perfection whether a statue or a picture or a watch or a medal but that supposing the same conveniences he can make more according to the first model and vary and alter it according to the several workings and movings of his phansie and if this be so easily conceivable and withal so agreeable to reason who can doubt of those lesser things which have been brought to pass in the several ages of the world such as are the alterations of the course of nature for a time as the standing still of the sun and moon that disorder in the heavens which this interruption might cause being soon after removed and the former regular motion restored the dividing of the red sea into two parts the waters of it rising up and standing on an heap the wonders of Aegypt and all those stupendious miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles for if we consider things thoroughly as great things are done every day but the commonness of them takes away the wonder and makes us slight and neglect them Let us embrace either of the two Hypotheses it matters not One would judge it more incredible that so great a body as the sun or earth should move at all than that the motion of the one or other should be interrupted and stopt for some hours but that our senses and the interchanges and vicissitudes of day and night and the several seasons of the year assure us of it and it is as great if not a greater wonder that the tides should be so regular and periodical according to the course of the moon and that this flux and reflux should be made twice almost in five and twenty hours than that the waters in a small gulph as is the Arabian should rise and swell as it were into a mountain and leave part of the channel dry and bare and to be passed over on foot They will say that these admirable effects are according to nature a word used by these men who are afraid to own a Deity to very ill purposes But what do they mean by nature Do they mean a principle of things void of life and understanding but can the stately and curious and regular frame of things flow from such a principle Can that which has no sense or understanding or life or skill be the author of such beings which are endowed with all How comes it to confer that upon others which it has not in it self If they say that they mean by nature that order of things which was fixt and established by God the supreme cause in the beginning by which the world is ordinarily governed why then will they deny the God of nature to be able to alter it when it shall make for his glory A serious reflexion upon the ordinary works of nature will quickly silence all those doubts and scruples which have been raised by a company of ignorant illiterate and debauched Atheists and Deists against the belief of the miracles recorded in the Scriptures and confirmed by unquestionable evidence of thousands who have seen them done and were actually present at the doing of them upon this foolish pretence because they seem to contradict the present state of things as if that could not be altered changed and exceeded which is nothing less than to limit and tye up as it were the hands of an almighty Agent Thus nature and reason fully and unconstrainedly give in their suffrages to the truth of this article and certainly tho' some shallow wits may acquiesce in second causes and think that they have attained their end if they can find out some of the nighest and most immediate and relying very vainly and presumptuously upon the supposed strength of the
Atomical or Mechanical philosophy go about with great impiety to exclude God from having any thing to do either in the making or governing the world yet whosoever like a wise and true Philosopher and sober rational man will search further into the originals of those immediate and fundamental causes of things and carefully observe how they are linked and tyed together in what excellent order and to what wise ends and purposes he will find himself under a necessity of having speedy recourse to the infinite wisdom and power of God and therefore as that excellent person the Lord Verulam observes in his Essays God never wrought a miracle to convince Atheism because his ordinary works sufficiently convince it Now as it is altogether absurd to proceed upon slight and narrow principles taken up from the observation of the present and usual state of nature to the prejudice of the truth of miracles which suppose it alterable and actually at that time altered so it argues the same presumption and folly to doubt of the possibility of a thing and deny the great truths and principles of religion whether natural or revealed meerly because they are above our faculties and are not proportionable to those ideas and conceptions which we derive from sense and the impressions of outward objects Which is The third general head of this discourse which I undertook to make good namely that III. It is altogether unreasonable to deny the verity of the divine attributes and limit the power of God in things possible or refuse to submit to the belief and acknowledgment of the mysteries of faith because they transcend either our power or our understanding and comprehension Which proposition I shall consider in its particular branches 1. It is most unreasonable to lay a restraint upon God almighty and limit his power and deny any thing to be possible which is no way repugnant to the essential perfections of the Godhead and does not involve in it self a real and manifest contradiction upon this pretense because it transcends our power or the whole power of created nature In this indeed as I have intimated above we have the advantage of all other creatures here below that they act either necessarily or else spontaneously onely that is according to natural instincts and are hurried on to their several objects by the force and sway of their appetites and consequently do nothing by deliberation and choice Thus the birds build their nests spherically and the bees are very artificial and curious in making the hony-comb and the silk-worm and the spider spin a very fine and subtil thread they perform the task which the wisdom of the great Creator has set them and are directed to those ends by his omniscience and to those onely for they cannot vary these actions peculiar to each according to their different powers It is man onely in this visible world tho' sent into it weak and helpless and unarmed who when grown up to maturity of years and judgment by the help of his wit and reason can conquer the other creatures and make them serviceable to his uses and easily master them notwithstanding their wildness and fierceness and hereby exercise an entire dominion over them as being constituted Lord of the creation who can first design and contrive and then perform and execute what lyes within his reach and within his view It is by this that he has invented that great number of instruments and engines whereby he reaches heaven and takes an accompt of the order and motion of the stars and of their several periods and revolutions tho' at that vast distance from them and makes them serviceable to the measuring of his time and directing him in his travels and voyages It is by this that he dares commit himself to that inconstant element and by the directive virtue of a contemptible stone as it appears to be tho' more valuable for this admirable use than all the diamonds of India can find his way in the great ocean where there is no track and encompass the world from one pole to the other and keep pace as it were with the sun in its eastern and western course It is by this that he raises stately mansions and fortifications for his pleasure and defense cuts through rocks and joyns distant rivers and seas by artificial channels and invents those curious manufactures together with that great variety of other artificial productions which serve both for ornament and convenience And all this is done by a dextrous and skilful application of actives to passives by framing and shaping the materials which are made to his hands by putting different things together by enquiring into their nature and use by study and experience and observation by often repeated and adventurous tryals by casting about in his thoughts how to secure himself of success by proceeding slowly and by degrees according to method and order and the success has been glorious and admirable and a new world of things has been added and every where except in sandy deserts and uncultivated plaines and forrests and in such countries where the wild people are not reduced to gentleness and civility of manners are erected monuments of mans wit and power But how great soever this may seem yet it is very little and pitiful and inconsiderable in comparison of what he does not know and what he cannot do thousands of things there are above his power which neither his wit nor his arm can reach it is not in his power to create one atome of matter he does but disguise things all this while and put them into new shapes All that he can pretend to is but to know nature and that very imperfectly and to imitate it as well as he can and draw rough copies of that perfect original For how rude and homely and inartificial are the best pieces of the ablest Artists if compared with the curiousness with the neatness with the beauty of natural compositions These are so curious and admirable wrought with such excellent and extraordinary skill that the most sagacious and inquisitive cannot fully comprehend them All things are so exactly and geometrically fitted to their proper uses even the least fibre and the minutest particle tho' imperceptible to the naked eye there being nothing idle and useless in nature There is so much accuracy and perfection in the meanest and most contemptible pieces of the creation that the more a wise man a Philosopher considers the more he is at a loss and the result of his serious thoughts after they have been long busied and tired out in the search is this that they are all the works of a divine hand guided by an infinite wisdome Thus every considering man even by a slight much more serious and deliberate contemplation of nature cannot but be fully satisfied and convinced that there is an all-powerful being which has wrought all these glorious effects or else such a one if yet such a silly creature which