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
THE Atheistical Objections AGAINST THE BEING of a GOD And His ATTRIBUTES Fairly Considered and Fully Refuted IN Eight Sermons Preach'd in the CATHEDRAL-CHURCH of St. Paul London 1698. Being the Seventh Year of the LECTURE 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. Academiae Cantabrigiensis Liber Immorality and Pride The Great Causes of ATHEISM A SERMON Preach'd at the CATHEDRAL-CHURCH of St. Paul January the 3 d. 1697 8. BEING The First 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. TO THE Most Reverend Father in God THOMAS Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Sir HENRY ASHURST Baronet Sir JOHN ROTHERAM Serjeant at Law JOHN EVELYN Senior Esquire Trustees appointed by the Will of the Honorable ROBERT BOYLE Esquire Most Reverend and Honoured AS I had the Honour to Preach this Sermon by your Kind and Generous Appointment so I now Publish it in Obedience to your Commands and humbly offer it as also my ensuing Discourses to your Candid Patronage and Acceptance I have in pursuance of Your Grace's direction studied to be as Plain and Intelligible as possibly I could and shall by the Divine Assistance prosecute my whole Design after the same manner which Method of Treating this Subject appears very Suitable to the Pious and Excellent Design of Our Noble and Honourable Founder I humbly desire your Prayers to Almighty God that He will vouchsafe to render my weak Endeavours effectual to shew the Groundlessness and Inconclusiveness of those Objections which Atheistical Men usually bring against the great and Important Truths of Religion which is the End they are sincerely directed to by Most Reverend and Honoured Your most obliged humble Servant J. HARRIS PSALM X. 4 The Wicked through the Pride of his Countenance will not seek after God Neither is God in all his Thoughts IN this Psalm is Contained a very lively Description of the Insolence of Atheistical and Wicked Men when once they grow Powerful and Numerous for then as we read at the Third Verse they will proceed so far as openly to boast of and glory in their Impiety They will boldly defie and contemn the great God of Heaven and Earth v. 13. They will deny his Providence v. 11 and despise his Vengeance And as we are told in these words of my Text They will grow so Proud and high as to scorn to pay him any Honour or Worship to Pray to him or Call upon him but will endeavour to banish the very Thoughts of his Being out of their Minds The Wicked through the Pride of his c. In which words we have an Account more particularly by what Methods and Steps Men advance to such an Exorbitant height of Wickedness as to set up for Atheism and to deny the Existence of a God for there are in them these Three Particulars which I shall consider in their Order I. Here is the general Character or Qualifications of the Person the Psalmist speaks of which is That he is a Wicked Man The Wicked through the Pride c. II. The particular kind of Wickedness or the Origin from whence the Spirit of Atheism and Irreligion doth chiefly proceed And That is Pride The Wicked through the Pride of his Countenance c. And III. Here is the great Charge that is brought against this Wicked and Proud Man viz. Wilful Atheism and Infidelity He will not seek after God Neither is God in all his Thoughts Or as it is in the Margin of our Bibles with good Warrant from the Hebr. All his Thoughts are there is no God In discoursing on the two First of these Heads I shall endeavour to shew that Immorality and Pride are the great Causes of the Growth of Atheism amongst us And on the Third I shall consider the Objections that Atheistical Men usually bring against the being of a Deity and shew how very weak and invalid they are And first I think it very Necessary to say something of the Causes of Infidelity and Atheism and to shew how it comes to pass that Men can possibly arrive to so great a height of Impiety This my Text naturally leads me to before I can come to the great Subject I design to Discourse upon and I hope it may be of very good use to discover the Grounds of this heinous Sin and the Methods and Steps by which Men advance to it that so those who are not yet hardened in it nor quite given up to a Reprobate Mind may by the Blessing of God take heed and avoid being engaged in such Courses as do naturally lead into it I. Therefore let us consider the general Character or Qualifications of the Person here spoken of in my Text And that is that he is a Wicked Man The wicked through the Pride c. And this is every where the Language of the Sacred Scripture when it speaks of Atheistical Men. David tells us Psal. 14.1 and 51.1 that 't is the Fool i. e. the Wicked Man for so the word Nabal often signifies and is so here to be understood 'T is he that hath said in his heart there is no God 'T is such an one as is a Fool by his own fault one stupified and dull'd by Vice and Lust as he sufficiently explains it afterwards one that is corrupt and become filthy and that hath done abominable works So the Apostle St. Paul supposes that those Men will have in them an evil heart of unbelief who do depart from the living God and live without him in the world And indeed it is very Natural to conclude That those which are once debauched in their Practices may easily grow so in their Principles For when once 't is a Man's Interest that there should be no God he will readily enough disbelieve his Existence We always give our assent very precipitantly to what we wish for and would have to be true A Man oppressed with a Load of Guilt and conscious to himself that he is daily obnoxious to the Divine Vengeance will be often very uneasie restless and dissatisfied with himself and his Mind must be filled with Dismal and Ill-boding Thoughts He is unwilling to leave his Sins and to forego the present Advantage of Sensual Pleasure and yet he cannot but be fearful too of the Punishments of a Future State and vehemently disturbed now and then about the account that he must one day give of his Actions Now 't is very Natural for a Man under such Circumstances to catch at any thing that doth but seem to offer him a little Ease and Quiet and that can help him to shake off his melancholy Apprehension of impending Punishment and Misery Some therefore bear down all Thought and Consideration of their
Condition in an uninterrupted enjoyment of Sensual Delights and quite stupifie and drown their Conscience and Reason in continual Excesses and Debauchery and thus very many commence Atheists out of downright Sottishness and Stupidity and come at last to believe nothing of the Truths of Religion because they never think any thing about it nor understand any thing of it Others who have been a little enured to thinking and have gotten some small smattering in the superficial Parts of Learning will endeavour to defend their wicked Practices by some pretence to Reason and Argument These will one while justifie their Actions by forced and wrested Citations and Explications of some particular Texts of Scripture at another time they will shroud themselves under the Examples of the Prevarications of some great Men in Sacred Scripture as a Licence to them to be guilty of the same or the like wicked Acts without considering at all of their great Penitence afterwards Sometimes they will dispute the Eternity of Hell Torments deny that their Soul shall survive the Body and please themselves with the glorious hopes of being utterly annihilated Now they will argue against the Freedom of their own Wills and by and by against that of the Divine Nature and from both conclude that there can be no harm nor evil in what they do because they are absolutely necessitated to every thing they commit But against all this precarious stuff the Sacred Scriptures do yet appear and afford a sufficient Refutation The next Step therefore must be to quarrel at and expose them to pretend that there are Absurdities Contradictions and Inconsistencies in them To assert that the Religion they contain is nothing but a meer Human and Political Institution and the Invention of a Crafty and designing Order of Men to promote their own Interest and Advantage but that they are of no manner of Divine Authority nor Universal Obligation And when once they get thus far they begin to be at Liberty now they can pursue their vicious Inclinations without controul of their Consciences or the Conviction of God's holy Word and are got above the Childish Fears of Eternal Misery By this time the true and through Calenture of Mind begins they grow now deliriously enamoured with the feign'd Products of their own Fancies and these Notions appear to them now adorned with such bright and radiant Colours and so beautiful and glorious that they will rush headlong into this Fools Paradise though Eternal Destruction be at the bottom for now they stick at nothing They Retrench the Deity of all his Attributes absolutely deny his Presidence over the Affairs of the World and make him nothing but a kind of necessary and blind Cause of things Nature the Soul of the World or some such word which they have happened to meet with in the Ancient Heathen Writers But they Profess that 't is impossible to have any Idaea of him at all and what they cannot conceive or have an Idaea of they say is nothing and by Consequence there can be no such thing as a God This or such like I 'm perswaded is the usual Method by which these kind of Men advance to absolute Infidelity and Atheism And in this they are every step confirmed and established by the seeming Wit and real Boldness with which Atheistical Men dress up their Arguments and Discourses and of which if they were stripped and divested their weakness and inconclusiveness must needs appear to every one But the Mirth and Humour and that Surprising and Extravagant Vein of talking which always abounds in the Company of such Men so suits and agrees with his own vicious Inclinations that he becomes easily prejudiced against the Truth of Religion and any Obligation to its Precepts and Injunctions And so he will soon resolve to seek no more after God but will employ all his Thoughts to prove that there is no such Being in the World But on the other hand it appears wholly impossible for a Man to arrive at such a pitch as absolute Infidelity and Atheism if he hath been virtuously Educated and be enclined to live a Sober and a Moral Life For there is certainly nothing that Religion enjoins but what is exactly agreeable to the Rules of Morality and Virtue nothing but what is conformable to right Reason and Truth nothing but what is substantially good and pleasant and nothing but what will approve it self to a thinking Mind as certainly conducing to the good of Human Society and to every one's Quiet Ease and Happiness here in this Life And over and above this it gives us an assurance of a glorious Immortality in the World to come Now Can it be imagined that any sober and virtuous Man and one that is not prejudiced by the Inducements of Sensual Pleasure if he seriously considers things will not be induced to take upon him the Profession of our holy Religion and with all due Gratitude to our Gracious God accept of so vast a Reward as this of Eternal Happiness Especially too when it is for doing that only out of a true Principle of Religion which it is supposed he was inclined to perform without it by the Principles of Reason and Honour A Man that is enclined to live virtuously justly temperately and peaceably in this present World will soon be satisfied if he read the Holy Scriptures that it is this which lies at the Bottom of all Revealed Religion and for whose Advancement and Propagation among Mankind all that gracious Dispensation was contrived and delivered to us What reason can therefore be possibly assigned why such a Person should disbelieve the Truths of Religion Is not a desire of Happiness so Natural to us that 't is the great Inducement of all our Actions and will not every Man aim to get as much of this as he can according to the Notion he hath of it what is there then that can prejudice such a Man's Mind against the Belief and Expectation of a future Reward at the hand of God Is it not Natural to embrace any offer that proposes to us a great Advantage and are not we very ready to believe the Truth of any thing that is advanced of that Nature The Great Truths therefore of Religion containing nothing impossible absurd or improbable in them and exhibiting to him Infinite Advantages on such easie Conditions must needs be the delightful Objects of a Good and Virtuous Man's Faith He indeed that hath just Grounds to fear that his Irregular Life will incapacitate him for the Favour of God and the Joys of another World may be willing and at last infatuated so far as really to disbelieve what he knows he cannot obtain But one that is of a Moral Sober and Virtuous Disposition can never be supposed to be so unaccountably absurd as to commence Atheist contrary to his Interest his Inclination and his Reason And as 't is hardly possible to conceive a Person can be an Atheist without being first Wicked
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
Wise Powerful Just and Good God though Corporeal why should not these Gentlemen look upon themselves obliged to obey such a God as well as a Spiritual one Why do they quarrel with and cast off his Holy Word and reject and despise his Revealed Will Is not a Corporeal Deity according to their Notion truly a Being endowed with all possible Perfections Is not He the First Cause Maker and Preserver of all Things and consequently is not He as fit and worthy to be worshipped as well as a Spiritual One and cannot such a Deity acquaint his Creatures how he will be worshipped and served cannot He Reward them for so doing and Punish them for offending against Him equally as if He were Incorporeal If he cannot indeed then there is something more than bare Speculation in the case and there must be some substantial Reason why Deists and Antiscripturists are always Corporealists And this is the truth of the Matter the God of the Corporealists is not the True Deity whatever they may pretend but a blind stupid senseless Idol that hath nothing but the Name of God wickedly applied to it 'T is only Nature or a Plastick Power in Nature the whole mass of or some sine subtile and active Parts of Matter in rapid Motion without any Understanding Wisdom or Design without liberty of Will or freedom of Action but Physically and Mechanically Necessary in all its Operations Their God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Herodotus speaks he is the Servant of Necessity and cannot possibly himself avoid the destined fate And to be sure if God be not a free Agent Nothing else can for all things flowing from him by an inevitable Necessity or being Parts of Him as Spinoza asserts they must be under the same Necessity with the Deity and he saith plainly That every thing that is determined to Operate is so determined necessarily by God and could not act at all if God did not thus necessarily determine it That the Will of Man cannot be called free but is only a necessary Cause And in another place he tells us plainly that there are no such things as final Causes in Nature they being only the Ignorant Figments of Mankind but that all things are Governed by Absolute Necessity A while after this he asserts Man to be a meer Machine and saith that 't is only those who are Ignorant of Causes that say he was thus finely formed by any Art or Design or who attribute his Composition to any Supernatural Wisdom And then at last he comes to the great Point on which all this Philosophy turns which is That Good and Evil are not by Nature but that the Notions of them came only from Mens mistaken Opinion that all things were made for them and who therefore call that Good which is agreeable to their Fancy and that Evil which is contrary to it By which short Connexion of their Opinions 't is clear enough why Spinoza was a Corporealist as also why Mr. Hobbs advanced the same Notions And I doubt those that Espouse the same Opinions now adays know too well the Consequences of them But of the Precariousness of these Notions I must say no more now designing particularly to confute them hereafter as they are made Objections against the Truth and Obligation of Religion in general FINIS ADVERTISEMENT REmarks on some late Papers relating to the Universal Deluge and to the Natural History of the Earth By John Harris M. A. and Fellow of the Royal-Society In Octavo Discourses on several Practical Subjects By the late Reverend William Payne D. D. with a Preface giving some Account of his Life Writings and Death Both Printed for Richard Wilkin A REFUTATION of the Objections Against the ATTRIBUTES of GOD in general IN A SERMON Preach'd at the CATHEDRAL-CHURCH of St. Paul September the Fifth 1698. BEING The Sixth 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 I delight saith the Lord. PRide and Vain-Glory are Things which Human Nature is strangely subject to there being scarce any one so mean but who judges that he hath something or other that he may justly be Proud of and value himself for But as Pride is Folly in the general so it apparently discovers itself in this respect That those Men are usually most Vain who have the least Reason to be so and that too in Things that are the least valuable in themselves Thus as the Prophet intimates in the Verse before the Text Men frequently glory in Bodily Strength in Beauty and Agility and in the Affluence of external Possessions Things which are the meanest Appurtenances to our Natures and which are neither in our Power to get nor keep Wisdom indeed and Judgment Learning and Parts Wit and Penetration and all the Nobler Endowments of our Minds are things of the greatest intrinsick Worth and Value and we have much more reason to esteem our selves for them than for all the Goods of Fortune or any Bodily Excellencies But yet Let not the wise man Glory in his Wisdom and Knowledge neither tho' as the Targum on the place hints it were as great as that of Solomon himself for we have in reality no just ground to value our selves for even this when we consider that the best of us have it but in a very slender Proportion and that our highest Knowledge is very imperfect and defective Hence it comes to pass or at least ought to do so that the Modesty and Humility of truly knowing Men encreases with their Learning and Experience Their being raised something above the common level instead of lessening and shortening in their Eyes the Statures of other Men encreases their Prospect of a Boundless Field of Knowledge all around them the more of which they discover the more they find yet undiscover'd But he that knows but little vainly thinks he knows every thing and judges all is empty and void that is without the Bounds of his scanty Horizon Another great Vanity there is also in Pride which is That Men are frequently conceited and Proud of those things which they have the least share of and are fond of such Actions as do plainly discover their Defects For usually those Men are most forward to talk of Learning who are least acquainted with Books and those make the greatest Noise about and Pretensions to Philosophy who have the least insight into Nature Those who talk most of Certainty and Demonstration have usually the most confused Idea's and the most Superficial Notions of things and are the farthest of all Men from true
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