out God to perfection as to his Nature and Attributes that even the ways of his Providence are to us untraceable 7. These are some of the Considerations that inclined me to think that God may have Attributes that are not known to us And this Opinion perhaps will appear the more allowable because of what I am going to add in answer to a weighty Objection For I know it may be alledged that besides the two ways I have mentioned of attaining to the knowledge of God's Attributes there may be a third way preferable to both the others and that is by considering the Idea of a Being supremely or Infintiely perfect in which Idea it may be alledg'd that all possible Perfections are contained so that no new one can be added to it But though I readily grant that this Idea is the most genuine that I am able to frame of the Deity yet there may be divers Attributes which though they are indeed in a general way contained in this Idea are not in particular discovered to us by it 'T is true that when by any means whatsoever any Divine Perfection comes to our Knowledge we may well conclude that 't is in a sense comprized in the comprehensive Notion we have of a Being absolutely perfect but 't is possible that That Perfection would never have come to our knowledge by the bare contemplation of that general Idea but was suggested by Particularities so that such Discoveries are not so much deriv'd from as refer'd to the Notion we are speaking of The past Considerations have I presume persuaded you that God may have as divers Attributes so divers Excellencies and Perfections that are not known to us It will therefore now be seasonable to Indeavour to shew you that of divers of the Attributes we do know that he hath we men have but an imperfect knowledge especially in comparison of that He has of them Which is not to be wondred at since he possesses them in a manner or a degree peculiar to himself and far transcending that wherein we men possess them or rather some saint resemblances of them It would be very unsutable to my intended Brevity and more disproportionate to my small abilities to attempt the making this Good by insisting particularly on all the divine Excellencies that we are in some measure acquainted with I therefore hope it may suffise to instance in a couple of the most known ones God's Power and his Wisedom Which two I pitch upon as being those that men are wont to look on as the Principal and for which they have the greatest admiration and respect because we are not able to confer them on our selves as we think we can divers other Vertues and Perfections For every man easily believes that he may be as Chaste as Temperate as Just and in a word as Good as he pleases those Vertues depending on his own will but he is sensible that he cannot be as Knowing as Wise and as Powerfull as he would And thence he not Irrationally concludes that Power and Wisedom slow from and Argue an Excellency and Superiority of Nature or Condition The Power and Wisedom of God display themselves by what he does in reference both to his Corporeal and his Incorporeal Creatures Among the manifold effects of the Divine Power my intended Brevity will allow me to mention onely two or three which though to discerning eyes they be very manifest are not wont to be very attentively reflected on The Immense Quantity of Corporeal Substance that the Divine Power provided for the framing of the Universe and the great force of the Local Motion that was imparted to it and is regulated in it And first the vastness of that huge Mass of matter that the Corporeal World consists of cannot but appear stupendious to those that skilfully contemplate it That part of the Universe which has been already discovered by Humane eyes assisted with dioptrical Glasses is almost unconceiveably Vast as will be easily granted if we assent to what the best Astronomers as well Modern as Ancient scruple not to deliver The sixt Stars of the first Magnitude that to vulgar eyes look but like shining Spangles are by Artists affirmed to exceed each of them above a hundred times in bigness the whole Globe of the Earth and as little as these twinkling Stars appear to our naked eyes they do which probably you will think strange appear much lesser through our Telescopes which taking off those false lights that make them look to our maimed Sight as they are wont to be painted shew them little otherwise than as speeks or Physical points of light And the Sun which is granted to be some millions of miles nearer to us than the other sixt Stars are though it seem at this lesser distance not to be half a foot broad is by the generality of Mathematicians believ'd to be above a hundred and threescore times bigger than the Earth Nay according to the more recent calculations of some more accurate Modern Artists 't is estimated to be eight or ten thousand times as big as the Terraqueous Globe and by farther Observation may perhaps be found yet much vaster And it plainly appears by the Parallaxes and other proofs that this Globe of Earth and Water that we Inhabit and often call the World though it be divided into so many great Empires and Kingdoms and Seas and though according to the received Opinion it be 5400 German leagues in Circuit and consequently contain 10 882 080 000. Cubick miles in solid measure and according to the more modern observations have a greater Circumference amounting to above 26000 miles yet this Globe I say is so far from being for its bulk a considerable part of the Universe that without much Hyperbole we may say that 't is in comparison thereof but a Physical point Nay those far greater Globes of the Sun and other fixt Stars and all the solid masses of the World to boot if they were reduced into one would perhaps bear a less proportion to the fluid part of the Universe than a Nut to the Ocean Which brings into my mind the sentence of an Excellent modern Astronomer that the Stars of the Skie if they were crouded into one Body and placed where the Earth is would if that Globe were placed at a fit distance appear to us no bigger than a Star of the first Magnitude now does And after all this I must remind you that I have been hitherto speaking but of that part of the Corporeal Universe that has been already seen by us And therefore I must add that as vast as this is yet all that the eye even when powerfully promoted by prospective Tubes hath discovered to us is far from representing the World of so great an Extent as I doubt not but more perfect Telescopes hereafter will do And even then the visible part of the World will be far enough from reaching to the bounds of the Vniverse to which the Cartesians
and some other modern Philosophers will not allow men to set any holding the Corporeal World to be as they love to speak Indefinite and beyond any bounds assignable by us men 8. From the vast extent of the Universe I now proceed to consider the stupendious quantity of local Motion that the Divine power has given the parts of it and continually maintains in it Of this we may make some estimate by considering with what velocity some of the greater bodies themselves are mov'd and how great a part of the remaining bodies of the Universe is also though in a somewhat differing way indow'd with motion As for the first of these the least velocity that I shall mention is that which is afforded by the Copernican Hypothesis since according to that 't is the Earth that moves from West to East about its own Axis for it s other motions concern not this discourse in four and twenty hours And yet this Terraqueous Globe which we think so great that we commonly call it the World and which as was lately noted by the recenter computations of Mathematicians is concluded to contain six or seven and twenty thousand miles in Circuit some part of this Globe I say moves at such a rate that the learned Gassendus confesses that a point or place situated in the Aequator of the Earth does in a second minute move about two hundred Toises or Fathoms that is twelve hundred feet so that a Bullet when shot out of a Cannon scarce slies with so great a Celerity 9. But as I was saying the motion of the Earth is the least swift that I had to mention being indeed scarce comparable to the velocity of the fixt Stars if with the generality of Astronomers we suppose them to move in four and twenty hours about the Earth For supposing the distance assign'd by the famous Tycho a more accurate Observer than his Predecessours between us and the Firmament to be fourteen thousand semediameters of the Earth a fixt Star in the Aequator does as Mullerius calculates it move 3153333 miles in an hour and consequently in a minute of an hour fifty two thousand five hundred fifty five miles and a second which is reckon'd to be near about a single pulsation or stroke of the artery of a healthy man 875 miles which is about if not above three thousand times faster than a Cannon bullet moves in the Air. 'T is true that according to the Ptolomean Hypothesis a fixt Star in the Aequinoctial doth in a second move at most but three semediamiters of the Earth but according to the learned and diligent Ricciolus this velocity of our fixt Stars is fifty times greater than in the Ptolomean Hypothesis and threescore and ten times greater than in the Tichonian Hypothesis For according to Ricciolus such a fixt Star as we speak of moves in a second minute or one beating of the pulse 157282 German leagues which amount to six hundred twenty nine thousand one hundred twenty eight English miles And now I shall add what possibly you have not observ'd that That portion of the Universe which commonly passes for quiescent and yet has motion put into it is so great that for ought I know the quantity of motion distributed among these seemingly quiescent bodies may equall if not exceed the quantity of motion the first Mover has communicated to the fixt Stars themselves though we suppose them whirl'd about the Earth with that stupendious swiftness that the Ptolemeans and Tychonians attribute to them For I reckon that the fixt Stars and Planets or if you please all the mundane Globes whether lucid or opacous of which last sort is the Earth do all of them together bear but a small proportion to the Interstellar part of the Vniverse And though I should allow all these Globes to be solid notwithstanding that it can scarce be prov'd of any of them and the Cartesians think the Sun which they take to be a fixt Star and therefore probably of the same Nature with the rest to be extremely fluid though I should I say grant this yet it must be confess'd that each of these solid Globes swims in an ambient fluid of very much greater extent than it self is So that the fluid portion of the Universe will in bulk almost incomparably exceed the solid And if we consider what is the Nature of a fluid body as such we shall find that it consists in having it's minute parts perpetually and variously mov'd some this way and some that way so that though the whole body of a liquor seems to be at rest yet the minute parts that compose that liquor are in a restless motion continually shifting places amongst themselves as has been amply shewn in a late Tract intituled the History of Fluidity and Firmness 10. And because the quantity of motion shar'd by the Corpuscles that compose fluid bodies is not usually reflected on even by Philosophers 't will not be here amiss to add that how great and vehement a motion the parts of fluid bodies perhaps when the Aggregates of those particles appear quiescent may be endowed with we may be assisted to guess by observing them when their ordinary Motions happen to be disturb'd or to be extraordinarily excited by fit conjunctures of circumstances This may be observed in the strange force and effects of boisterous Winds and Whirlewinds which yet are but Streams and Whirlepools of the invisible Air whose singly insensible parts are by accidental causes determined to have their Motion made either in a streight or almost streight-line or as it were about a common Centre But an instance much more conspicuous may be afforded by a Mine charged with Gunpowder where the flame or some subtile Aethereal substance that is always at hand in the Air though both one and the other of them be a fluid body and the powder perhaps be kindled but by one spark of fire exerts a Motion so rapid and furious as in a trice is able to toss up into the Air whole houses and thick Walls together with the firm soil or perchance solid Rocks they were built upon 11. But since the velocity of these discharged flames may be guess'd at by that which the flame of Gunpowder impresses on a Bullet shot out of a well charg'd Gun which the diligent Mersennus who made several trials to measure it defines to be about 75 toises or fathoms that is 450 foot in a Second being the 60th part of a Minute if we admit the probable Opinion of the Cartesians that the Earth and divers other Mundane Globes as the Planets are turn'd about their own Axes by the Motion of the respective Aethereal Vortices or Whirlepools in which they swim we shall easily grant that the Motion of the Celestial Matter that moves for instance upon the remote Confines of the Earths Vortex is by a vast excess more rapid than that of the surface of the Earth And yet we formerly observ'd that a place situated
have bounds and so be truely boundless or which is the same thing in other terms infinite And if the World be bounded then those that believe a Deity to whose Nature it belongs to be of infinite Power must not deny that God is and still was able to make other Worlds than this of ours And the Epicureans who admitted no Omnipotent Maker of the World but substituted Chance and Atomes in his Stead taught that by reason the causes sufficient to make a World that is Atomes and Space were not wanting Chance has actually made many Worlds of which ours is but one and the Cartesians must according to their Doctrine of the Indefiniteness of Corporeal Substance admit that our visible World or if they please Vortex by which I mean the greatest extent our eyes can reach to is but a part and comparatively but a very small one too of the whole Vniverse which may extend beyond the utmost Stars we can see incomparably farther than those remotest visible bounds are distant from our Earth Now if we grant with some modern Philosophers that God has made other Worlds besides this of ours it will be highly probable that he has there display'd His manifold Wisedom in productions very differing from those wherein we here admire it And even without supposing any more than one Universe as all that portion of it that is visible to us makes but a part of that vastly extended aggregate of bodies So if we but suppose that some of the Celestial Globes whether visible to us or plac'd beyond the reach of our sight are peculiar Systemes the consideration will not be very different For since the fix'd Stars are many of them incomparably more remote than the Planets 't is not absurd to suppose that as the Sun who is the fix'd Star nearest to us has a whole Systeme of Planets that move about him so some of the other fix'd Stars may be each of them the Centre as it were of another Systeme of Celestial Globes since we see that some Planets themselves that are determined by Astronomers to be much inferiour in bigness to those fix'd Stars I was speaking of have other Globes that do as it were depend on them and move about them as not to mention the Earth that has the Moon for its Attendant nor Saturn that is not altogether unaccompanied 't is plain that Jupiter has no less than four Satellites that run their Courses about Him And 't is not to be pretermitted that none of these lesser and secondary Planets if I may so call them that moves about Saturn and Jupiter is visible to the naked eye and therefore they were all unknown to the Ancient Astronomers who liv'd before the invention of Telescopes Now in case there be other Mundane Systemes if I may so speak besides this visible one of ours I think it may be probably suppos'd that God may have given peculiar and admirable instances of His inexhausted Wisedom in the Contrivance and Government of Systemes that for ought we know may be fram'd and manag'd in a manner quite differing from what is observ'd in that part of the Universe that is known to us For besides that here on Earth the Loadstone is a Mineral so differing in divers affections not onely from all other Stones but from all other bodies that are not Magnetical that this Heteroclite Mineral scarce seems to be Originary of this World of ours but to have come into it by a remove from some other World or Systeme I remember that some of the Navigators that discovered America took notice that at their first coming into some parts of it though they found great store of Animals and Plants yet they met with few of the latter and scarce any of the former of the same Species with the living Creatures of Europe 19. Now in these other Worlds besides that we may suppose that the Original Fabrick or that Frame into which the Omniscient Architect at first contriv'd the parts of their matter was very differing from the structure of our Systeme besides this I say we may conceive that there may be a vast difference betwixt the subsequent Phoenomena and productions observable in one of those Systemes from what regularly happens in ours though we should suppose no more than that two or three Laws of Local Motion may be differing in those unknown Worlds from the Laws that obtain in ours For if we suppose for instance that every entire Body whether simple or compounded great or small retains always a motive Power as Philosophers commonly think that the Soul does when it has mov'd the Humane Body and as the Epicureans and many other Philosophers think all Atomes do after they have impell'd one aonther this power of exciting Motion in another Body without the Movents loosing its own will appear of such moment to those that duely consider that Local Motion is the first and chiefest of the second causes that produce the Phoenomena of Nature that they will easily grant that these Phoenomena must be strangely diversifyed by springing from principal causes so very differingly qualifyed Nor to add another way of varying Motion is it absurd to conceive that God may have created some parts of matter to be of themselves quiescent as the Cartesians and divers other Philosophers suppose all matter to be in its own Nature and determin'd to continue at rest till some outward Agent force it into Motion and yet that He may have endow'd other parts of the matter with a Power like that which the Atomists ascribe to their Principles of restlesly moving themselves without loosing that power by the motion they excite in quiescent bodies And the Laws of this propagation of Motion among bodies may be not the same with those that are established in our World so that but one half or some lesser part as a third of the Motion that is here communicated from a body of such a bulk and velocity to another it finds at rest or slowlier mov'd than it self shall there pass from a Movent to the body it impells though all circumstances except the Laws of Motion be suppos'd to be the same Nor is it so extravagant a thing as at first it may seem to entertain such suspicions as these For in the common Philosophy besides that the Notion and Theory of Local Motion are but very imperfectly propos'd there are Laws or Rules of it well not to say at all establish'd 20. And as for the Cartesian Laws of Motion though I know they are received by many learned Men yet I suspect that it is rather upon the Authority of so famous a Mathematician as Des-Cartes than any convictive evidence that accompanies the Rules themselves since to me for Reasons that belong not to this Discourse some of them appear not to be befriended either by clear experience or any Cogent Reason And for the Rule that is the most usefull namely that which asserts That there is always the same
Species of the Intellectual kind And the government of one Daemon may be as difficult a work and consequently may as much declare the Wisedom and Power of God as the government of a whole Species of inanimate bodies such as Stones or Metals whose Nature determines them to a strict conformity to those primordial Laws of Motion which were once settled by the great Creatour and from which they have no Wills of their own to make them swerve The Scripture tells us that in the Oeconomy of Man's Salvation there is so much of the manifold Wisedom of God express'd that the Angels themselves desire to pry into those mysteries When our Saviour having told his Apostles that the day and hour of his future coming to Judgment whether of the Jewish Nation or the World I now enquire not was not then known to any subjoyns no not to the Angels of Heaven but to his Father onely he sufficiently intimates them to be endowed with excellent Knowledge Superiour to that of Men and that perhaps may be one of the Reasons why the Scripture styles them Angels of Light It also teaches us that the good Angels are vastly numerous and that as they are of differing Orders some of them being Arch-Angels and some Princes of particular Empires or Nations so that God assigns them very differing and important Employments both in Heaven and in Earth and sometimes such as oblige them in discharge of their respective Trusts to endeavour the carrying on of Interfering designs The same Scripture by speaking of the Devil and his Angels and of the Great Dragon that drew down with his Tail the third part of the Stars from Heaven to Earth and by mentioning a whole Legion of Devils that possessed a single Man and by divers other passages that I shall not now insist on giving us ground to conclude that there is a Political government in the kingdom of darkness that the Monarch of it is exceeding powerfull whence he is styl'd the Prince of this World and some of his officers have the titles of principalities powers rulers of the darkness of this World c. that the subjects of it are exceeding numerous that they are desperate enemies to God and Men whence the Devil is styl'd the Adversary the Tempter and a Murtherer from the beginning that they are very false and crafty whence the Devil is call'd the Father of Lies the Old Serpent and his strategems are styl'd the Wiles and Depths of Satan that their malice is as active and restless as 't is great whence we are told that our Adversary the Devil walks about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour These things being taught us in the Scripture it self though I shall not now add any of the Inferences that may be drawn from them to my present purpose we may rationally suppose that if we were quick-sighted enough to discern the Methods of the Divine Wisedom in the Government of the Angelical and of the Diabolical Worlds or great Communities if I may so call them we should be ravish'd into admiration how such Intelligent Free Powerfull and Immortal Agents should be without violence offer'd to their Nature made in various manners to conspire to fulfill the Laws or at least accomplish the Ends of that great Theocracy that does not alone reach to all kinds of bodies to Men and to this or that rank of Spirits but comprises the whole Creation or the great Aggregate of all the Creatures of God And indeed to make the voluntary and perhaps the most crafty actions of evil Men and of evil Spirits themselves subservient to his Wise and Just Ends does no less recommend the Wisedom of God than it would the skill of a Shipwright and Pilot if he was able to contrive and steer his Ship so as to sail to his designed Port not onely with a side-wind or very near a wind as many doe but with a quite contrary wind and that a tempestuous one too 24. Perhaps you will think it allowable that on this Occasion I antedate what in due time will infallibly come to pass and now briefly take some notice as if it were present of the diffused and illustrious manifestation of the Divine Wisedom as well as Justice and Mercy that will gloriously appear at the day of the general Judgment when every good Christians eyes shall be vouchsafed a much larger prospect than that which his Saviour himself had when he survey'd in a trice and as it were at one view all the Kingdoms of the World and shall behold a much more numerous not to say numberless Assembly than that which is said to have consisted of all People Nations and Languages that flock'd in to the Dedication of Nebuchadnezar's Golden Image At that great decretory Day when the whole Off-spring of Adam shall by the loud voice and trumpet of the Arch-Angel be call'd together from the remotest Ages and the distantest Climates in the World when I say besides the faln Angels all the Humane Actours that ever liv'd shall appear upon the Stage at once when the dead shall be rais'd and the Books shall be open'd that is the Records of Heaven and of Conscience Then the Wisedom of God will shine forth in its Meridian lustre and its full splendour Not onely the Occurrences that relate to the lives and actions of particular Persons or of private Families and other lesser Societies of Men will be there found not to have been overlook'd by the Divine Providence but the Fates of Kingdoms and Commonwealths and the Revolutions of Nations and of Empires will appear to have been order'd and over-rul'd by an incomparable Wisedom And those great Politicians that thought to out-wit Providence by their refin'd subtilties shall find themselves taken in their own craftiness shall have their deepest Counsels turn'd into foolishness and shall not be able to keep the amaz'd World from discovering that whilst they thought they most craftily pursu'd their own Ends they really accomplish'd God's And those subtile Hypocrites that thought to make pretended Religion the Instrument of their Secular Designs shall find those Designs both defeated and made truly subservient to that advancement of Religion which they really never aim'd at 25. To employ and keep in Order a very complicated Engine such as the famous Strasburg's Clock or a Man of War though all the parts of it be inanimate and devoid of purposes and ends of their own is justly counted a piece of skill And this Task is more difficult and consequently does recommend the conduct of the Performer in proportion to the intricate structure and the number of pieces whereof the Engine consists At which rate how astonishing and ravishing will appear that Wisedom and Providence that is able to Guide and Over-rule many thousand Milions of Engins endow'd with Wills so as to make them all be found in the final Issues of things subservient to purposes worthy of Divine Providence Holiness