directly upon the Aequator unto what position soever well might it have described a day but never measured out a year for the progression of it from West to East by the compass of which motion the circle of the year is constituted had been wanting in regard that t is impossible that on one and the same circle observing the same Poles the Sun should have performed its two contrary motions one from East to West which defines the day the other from West to East which measures out the year both at once Now all these palpable inconveniences with many other first observed and enumerated to us by a Spanish and lately most elegantly explained by an English Physician both which selected this choice subject as an impregnable argument of the Wisdome of the Creator were artisicially praevented by the device of the Suns motion along the Ecliptick and the obliquity of its annual progress upon the Poles of the Zodiack full 23 degrees and an half from the Poles of the World Now this meditation naturally applies it self and so clearly demonstrates the forecast and artifice of an infinite Intelligence that I have nothing left to say but this that t is a wonder which nothing but the delusion of the Father of lies can make out to beleif how Epicurus being a Philosopher in many abstrusities of nature acute enough nay beyond most of his Tutors as Diogenes Laertius testifies of him and one that pretended to so much insight in the problems of Astronomy as to be able to salve all the Phaenomena or Apparitions above the Terraqueous orb in Epist ad Pythoelem could yet be so infatuated as to ascribe the composure and location of the Sun and the invention of its regular and to all parts convenient motion to the Temerity and Incogitancy of Fortune Nor could I have conceived it possible that so much of the Scholar and so much of the Fool could have at once met in one and the same brain had not I been perswaded thereto by the agreeing testimonies of many credible Authors high both in Antiquity and Fame If these Arguments reach not we may descend yet lower if there be any thing low in Nature and from the entrals of our Article 4. The impresses of an infinite Intelligence plainly legible in the fronts even of Subterraneous Inanlmates Grandmother fetch Stones and Mineral Concretions to give in evidence against the insolent arrogance of Fortune For who dares contract the suspicion of madnes so meritoriously as once to dream that the Magnet obtained its rich endowments of Verticity and Attraction the Adamant its radiant tralucency and conical angularity Alum its octohedrical or eight-faced Figure Salt its Sexangular Nitre its stiriate or ycicle-resembling Vitriol its multangular c. from a meer accidental and undetermined conflux and coalition of their minute and insensible particles and not from the provident and artificial disposition of them into such and such situations as are requisite to the causation of those particular qualities and Figures by the discreet and methodicall influence of an infinite wisdome If any such there be and I have reason for more then my fears that such there are in these accursed days when all the Errors of the elder world are revived desperate Haeresies belched out even by those who profess to be the Patriots of truth and horrid Blasphemies applauded as commendable strains of high devotion who tremble not to deny the Creation of all things by God these I shall pity and leave to ponder that exclamation of Gassendus de exortu mundi O quam hebetem esse oportet aut quam reclamantem habere conscientiam si dum adista attenditur sola interim Fortuna laudatur O how insensible must that man be either of the advisoes of reason or the convulsions of Conscience who can consider these things and yet ascribe the honour of their reation to Fortune And if the Characters of an Infinite Wisdome be so plainly Article 5. The impossibility of the worlds Creation by any Agent but God illustrated both by the Magnitude and Pulchrltude thereof and the Epicureans dream of a motive faculty eternally inherent in Atoms derided visible in the single and divided peices of the Vniverse how incomparably more legible must they be in the Whole wherein Amplitude holds an aemulous contention with Pulchritude True it is the Epicureans were not staggered at the consideration of so vast a mass instantly addressing themselves for refuge to an infinite stock of Atoms congested in an infinite space But this Sanctuary is rotten and cannot protect the credulity of any unless it be supported by this additional base that there was some first Active principle which by its infinite power first created out of nothing and then congested this mass of Atoms into a Chaos and after by its infinite wisdome digested the same into that exquisite order which doth now constitute the form of the world Is it possible for any thing that dares pretend to Humanity to imagine or by any specious argument to hope to perswade that so many minute bodies or Atoms by the rash and undeterminate conduct of their own innate propensity to motion indifferently hurried up and down hither and thither and by reason of the discord arising from their different quantities and Figures apt to maintain an everlasting civil war and confusion could notwithstanding by a spontaneous direction meet and unite in that just number which was sufficient to make up the Globe of the Earth requisite to compose the body of the Sun proportioned to the dimensions of the Moon equal to the several orbs of those radiant Centinels of night the Stars whose multitude exceeds the figures of Arithmetick and their magnitude never yet rightly explored in fine exactly accommodate to the great body of the World whose bounds we know not and whose dimensions are immense The conviction of this impossibility they have endevoured though by running into as great a one thus to evade As he say they must have been deceived who having observed the generation of nothing greater then a Flea could not therefore beleive the generation of an Elephant as if there could not be found matter enough to arise to so gigantick a body so are we deceived while regarding the generation of onely smal things we beleive that the great body of the universe could not be made up by the same means and after the same manner as if so vast a proportion of matter could not concur and unite into one Form nay by so much the more are we deceived by how much the more proportion the matter of a Flea holds to that of an Elephant and the matter of an Elephant holds to that of the World then the matter of the World holds to that mass of Atoms which is infinite in the infinite space But I may with good reason demand how they can be assured that in the imaginary space without the circumferrence of the world there is such an
impossible Materia Prima of Aristotle then the Substantial Principle of Plato the Hyle of the Stoicks or indeed then any other imaginable Praeexistent in the immense space And after a mature confronting collation and comparative perpension of the most general conveniences and congruities of all we have found that from the ground-work of Atoms we are able to make out what is Material what Corporeal what Great what Little what Rare Dense c. but from the others we could never deduce the formal attributes of a body or substance while the original of all things is determined absolutely devoyd both of Quantity and Quality Actual and amounts to no higher a degree of reality then a meer Privation which a righteous enquiry will soon reduce to nothing Nor is that affrighting Dissiculty in the Theory of Atoms which the eye of every Pedantick Sophister first glances upon at the very mention thereof more then this shadow of a scruple viz. how so vast a mass as this Giant the Universe could be made up of such minute particles as Atoms which every man understands to be much below the perception of sense and never to be fathomed but by the subtile arms of the Intellect For I dare entrust the solution of it to any moderate judgement that shall take the pleasure to conceive this Analytick Scale or degradation of Magnitude Let us grant the globe of Earth which seems to contain most of corporeity to be but one part of the Universe composed of many such masses congested and the law of consequence will compell us to concede that the globe of the earth may be coagmentated of many smaller masses piled one upon another or of mountains as Atlas Caucasus c. cemented together that those Mountains may result from an aggregation of rocks those rocks from an accumulation of stones those stones from a conflux and ferrumination of grains of sand that sand from a lesser assembly of dust that dust from a minor collection of Atoms This granted let us have recourse to that famous Demonstration of the glorious Archimed in Aren whereby it is evicted that twenty five Cyphers or Arithmetical notes set in successive order 100000 c. do exhibite the full number of those Granules of sand which suffice to make up the vast bulk of the World according to the vulgarly received magnitude thereof though each of those granules be determined so exiguous that one grain of Popie seed may contain ten thousand of them I say according to the Magnitude vulgarly received for if with Aristarchus whose opinion Copernicus in the last age revived you shall goe higher and enlarge the extension of the world yet according to the Algebra of Archimed will no more then sixty four Cyphers be required to calculate the number of grains of sand of the same dimensions with the former which equal the almost incredible vastity of the Universe Now if you please to goe lower in the quantity of those minute grains and sink them down even to the tenuity of an Atom imagine that each of those small particles is composed of ten hundred thousand Atoms and advance this number by multiplying it into 64 and even then will the number of those particles be exprest by no more then 70. Lower yet if you think your last division went not so far as insectility dichotomize those minute particles each into ten hundred millions and then upon a just Multiplication made the number provenient shall not exceed the reach of 76 Cyphers Nay drive the matter so far that your thoughts may even lose themselves in the pursuit and you shall still deprehend how easily you may be supplyed with Cyphers enough to fulfill the number of all those Atoms which are necessary to the amassment of a bulk equal to this of the World There is yet a fourth incongruity in this doctrine of Epicurus worthy our explosion viz. That Atoms had from all eternity a faculty of Motion or impetuous tendency inherent in them and received not the same from any forreign principle or impression extradvenient But yet can I meet with no impediment that may hinder me from conceiving that Atoms are perpetually active and moveable by the agitation of that internal tendency or virtual impression which the Father of Nature conferred upon them in the first moment of their miraculous production ex nihilo And truly thus refined the Hypothesis of Atoms is less guilty of either inconvenience or incertitude then any other concerning the fâ—rst material principle nay it hath thus much more of congruity and satisfaction then all the rest that it fitly declares the radical Cause of all Motion activity or energie in second Causes or natures once removed from the Primus Motor God which can by no means be commonstrated from any other supposition with the like constancy correspondence and perspicuity especially if we look upon that Form which the Schools commonly conclude on as the main spring in all motion or efficient of all activity For whatever of real Entity they allow to be therein they desume from no other origine but the simple and naked Matter and yet by unpardonable incircumspection or forgetfulness they make that Matter absolutely idle and devoid of all Motive or active virtue Nor did Plato himself miss this consideration but seems to have held the lamp to posterity in this particular for though he restrains not his notion to the word Atoms yet from his description of an Exiguity Quam intellectus non sensus capiat and from the immediate subjunction of De multitudine illarum déque motionibus alii sque facultatibus congruum prorsus erat Deum providere quatenus natura necessitati obediens ultrò obsecundaret c. in Timaeo t is a lawful conjecture that he pointed directly upon the sense These short Animadversions premised that we may as well supply the Defects as correct the depravities of this opinion of Epicurus suppose we in short that God in the first act of his Wisdome and Power out of the Tohu or nothing created such a proportionate congeries or just mass of Atoms as was necessary to the constitution of the Universe suppose we also that all those Atoms in the instant of their creation received immediately from God a faculty of self-motion and consequently of concurring crowding justling repelling resilition exsilition and reciprocal complectence concatenation revinction c. according to the respective preordination in the Divine Intellect and then will all the subsequent operations of nature remain so clear and easie that a meer Ethnick by the guidance of those two lamps Sense and Ratiocination may progress to a physical theory of them and thereby salve all the Phaenomena's with less apostasie from first Principles proposed then by any other hypothesis yet excogitated A meer Ethnick I say for we who have devolved unto us the inestimable blessing of Moses history of the Creation have far other thoughts of that method or order wherein the World was founded and finished
thus That the Celestiall orbs and all their radiant Furniture the stars are wheeld about by a constant and even circumgyration that they veer perpetually towards that point of the World unto which they first inclin'd and never change either the way or tenor of their Circumvolutions that they observe the same distance each from other which they obtained at the instant of their Formation nor sink down upon and so crowd or enterfeire each the other that the Eclipses of the two great Luminaries necessarily succeed upon the conjunction of the same Causes in our days as in the infancy of Nature and may therefore with so much facility as certainty be prognosticated and predicted by the rules of Astronomy in brief that such and such determinate effects arise from the Concurrence and coefficiencies of such and such particular Causes c. all these we are not to referre to any other Principle or Efficient but that Fortune whereby they were so and so disposed in the first Casual Emergency of the World nor are those constant and setled operations produced by any other necessity then what fell to their Efficients at the primitive segregation concourse disposition coadunation of those Atoms whereof their bodies are compacted That before the constitution of the Universe there was an infinite Chaos of Atoms of various figures and magnitudes in an infinite space floating hither and thither hurried up and down on all sides crowding impelling and justling each other by reason of the Tendency resulting from their own innate Gravity That after a long long afflux reflux conflux elevation depression coagmentation and other various and successive agitations and molitions of these Atoms when each order had chanced to confront and meet with others most consimilar and convenient then at last they all conspired acquiesced and fixed in this regular position and situation which constitutes the Forme of the Universe as Lucretius who was deplorably infected with this accurst contagion of Epicurus hath briesly exprest it Quae quia multa modis multis vexata per omne Ex infinito vexantur percita plagis Omne genus motus coetus experiundo Tandem deveniunt iu tales disposituras Qualibus haec rebus consist it summa creata c. The Worlds Materials having first been tost An infinite Time within an infinite Roome From this to that uncircumscribed coast And made by their own Tendency to roame In various Motions did at last quiesce In these Positions which they now possess That upon the Diacrisis or segregation of heterogeneal Atoms succeeding upon a circumvolution gyration or vertiginous eddy of them in the confusion of their eternal Chaos the more gross and ponderous tended towards the Center or downwards and in their descent expressed the more gracile and lighter and impelled them upwards which convening all together in the circumference of the immense vortex wedged in each other into the form of an integument or cortex called Coelum or heaven but the more gross and weighty crowding to the centrals were there compacted and coagmentated into a solid mass the Earth and the remaining matter of a midle nature upon the concurse of its insensible particles assumed to it self the form of a Humid substance and part thereof being afterward circumagitated uncessantly and so both tornated and calefacted was graduated into many orbs of Light the Sun Moon and Stars the residue being reserved for the compaction of other bodies c. And this if my memory hath proved a faithfull Steward of my readings is the marrow of Leucippus Empedocles Epicurus and Democritus their doctrine concerning the spontaneous configuration of the Universe T is proverbial amongst Scholars and long since applyed by an Author of good repute Aneponymus in lib. de substant physic Article 4. A Digression winnowing the Chasse from the Wheat concealed in the former theory of Epicurus by the corollary of some castigations restrictions and additions declaring the great advantages that this Hypothesis of Atoms hath beyond any other concerning the Material Principle of all Bodies as yet excogitated to this particular Case Nullam esse tam falsam opinionem quae non habeat aliquid veri admistum sed tamen illud admistione cujusdam falsi â—bscurari that no opinion hath so much of falshood as not to contain some sprinkling of truth though that spark of truth be so obscured by the cloud of prejudice arising from the discovery of the falsity admixt that it may require the subtile and decisive judgement of an Oedipus for its discernment and sequestration And in this heap of dross lies raked up so much pure and rich metall as if by the chymistry of an industrious hand extracted may more then fully compensate the patient Lecture of a short Digression In this old Romance of the spontaneous result of the World from a Casual segregation and disposition of that Abysse of Atoms which rowled up and down to and fro by an impetuous and continual inquietude estuation or civil war caused by their ingenite propensity to motion in the range of the infinite space some things sound so harsh and discordant to meer Reason as they are justly to be abominated others carry the smooth face of so much Verisimility as they deserve to be admitted at least diligently and impartially examined The Positions we are to reject are these 1. that the Chaos of Atoms was non-principiate or as antient as Eternity 2. that they were not created ex nihilo ab aliqua beata simul ac immortali Causa by God 3. that they were not becalmd separated ranged and disposed into their proper stations in that serene order and figure which they are now of inevitable necessity bound to observe in every single concretion or individual Entity by the artifice of any other Cause but the blind Ordination or improvident disposure of Fortune All which smells so strong of the Fable and strikes the nosethrills as wel of the meer Natural man as the Pious with such infectious stench that nothing but the opportunity of confutation can excuse my coming so neer it And yet notwithstanding I have never yet found out any justifiable ground why Atoms may not be reputed Mundi materies the Material Principle of the Universe provided that we allow that God created that first Matter out of Nothing that his Wisdome modelled and cast them into that excellent composure or figure which the visible World now holds and that ever since by reason of the impulsion of their native Tendency or primitive impression they strictly conform to the laws of his beneplacuits and punctually execute those several functions which his almighty Will then charged upon their determinate and specifical Concretions For with the advantage of these restrictions the Atoms of Epicurus have more of probability and hold rational through most of those operations which occurr to the curiosity of the Philosopher with more familiarity to our conceptions and less variation or apostasie from the first Hypothesis then the
species can we I say imagine that all this could arise from a spontaneous range of Atoms or that Necessity which ensued upon the casual disposition of the First matter and not rather with devout hymns proclaim the Efficiency of a Glorious and Eternall Cause whose Essence being incomprehensible and Attributes infinite Intelligence Goodnesse Power Beatitude Glory c. must therefore be the Ordainer Creater and Consecrator of all things Let us sink our meditations yet one degree lower on the scale of Article 3. The Sun convincively demonstrates the infinite wisdom of its Creator by 3 Arguments viz. Creatures and consider how convincively even Inanimates argue for the wisedom of their Maker Doth not the Sun to omit the speculation of its glorious Light and comfortable Influence the former whereof is so excellent the other so necessary that they challenge as due the Admiration of all and have drawn the Adoration of many ingenious nations by three prevalent arguments viz. the Commodiousness of its situation the Designment of its motion and the Line or tract of its revolution sufficiently illustrate the forecast and artifice of its Creator First by the universal Convenience of its situation For had it been placed in any other orb either inferior or superior to its 1. The universal convenience of its situation in its proper orb own such horrid incommodities as are inconsistent with its use and intention and destructive to the two principal designes of Nature Conservation and Generation must unavoidably have followed nor had the whole fabrick of the Universe been more then one degree removed from the confusion of its originary Chaos To particular had the Sun been setled in the lowest sphear and obtained that place which the Moon now possesseth the year had been no longer then a moneth for in that account of time it must have fulfilled its course through every part of the Ecliptick and so the intervalls of seasons had suffered such a contraction that must have been repugnant to their institution i. e. must have prevented the production of all things For the Antipraxis or Counter-activity of contrary seasons immaturely succeeding one upon the neck of another destroys the principles of Vegetation and checks the promotion of seminalities Again by this unsafe vicinity or too neer approach to the globe of the earth its intenser beams had verified the Conflagration of Phaeton at least proved so intolerable as that all things must have had the ycie and glutinous temper of the Salamander or else been torrified into cynders and to have had no Sun at all had been the easier misery For if there be and some are positive there must be an intention and remission of heat respective to the different points or access and recess of the Sun in its proper orb and that in its Apogaeum or mountee to the highest point in Cancer the heat is not so scorching under that Tropick on this side the Aequator as on the other side in its Perigaeum or stoop to the lowest point of its excentricity in Capricorne we cannot with any pretext of reason doubt that had the Sun been lodged in the bed of the Moon it had long since anticipated the general combustion of the last day and calcined all things to the exiguity of their primitive Atoms And on the other extreme had the Sun been appointed to the eight or highest sphear then must it have been by reason of the exceeding slow motion assigned to that sphear so manythousand years in the absolution of its course as that it must have extended one year to the compute of Platos Jubile nor could the world if learned men guess aright concerning its duration have attained to the period of one revolution Besides that Hemisphear which first faced the Sun in the beginning of its tedious gyre must have enjoyd the curse of a long long day and consequently have mist the fertile blessing of a vicissitude or reciprocal succession of distinct seasons but the opposite Hemisphear must have for many myriads of ages continued as cold dark and barren as the grave and so half of the earth had been made to no purpose And the like discommodities though more moderate would have succeeded to the earth had the Sun obtained a situation in any one of the other six orbs between the two former extreams Secondly by the appointment of its Circumrotation For had 2. The appointment of its continual Circumgyration it remained fixt and not moved at all then must the world have wanted that necessary division of times and seasons of Spring and Autumne Summer and Winter day and night and by consequence the generation and conservation of things dependent on those vicissitudes of Heat and Cold it being necessary that the fixation of this Luminary must have caused a perpetual summer in one hemisphear and as lasting and disconsolate a Winter in the other or driven nature upon the exigent of making another Sun to irradiate and cherish the opposite half of the earth it being experimentally true and therefore advanced to the dignity of an Axiome by Galilaeo Philolaus Niceron Kircherus and other junior Masters in the Opticks that no spherical luminous body of what diameter soever can project its light upon the whole sphear of another at once or in a fixt position though it illuminate more then the half of a lesser placed at convenient distance Lastly by the contrivement of its oblique motion along the line 3. The contrivement of its oblique motion along the line Eclipitick Ecliptick For had its revolution been assigned to any other circle discommodities no less fatal then the former had unavoidably ensued First had it sayled along on either side the Aequator some parts of the earth could have known no Sun at all but should have groand under the oppression of perpetual frigidity and opacity while others had suffered the contrary extream of an everlasting noon and been parched by the violence of its too constant and perpendicular beams and so the whole had been inhabitable an Alternation of Heat and Gold being indispensably requisite aswell to the Conservation and growth of all things in their Individuals as to their Propagation in Specie Secondly had it been confined to the conduct of the Aequator first unto a parallel sphear or such who have the Pole for their Zenith its revolution could have made neither perfect day nor perfect night for being in the Aequator it would intersect their horizon and be half above and half below it and to those who inhabite under the Aequator though it made a distinction of day and night yet would it not make any considerable distinction of seasons for the Sun being always vertical to them in that situation would have introduced a constant Summer and the perpendicularity of its unremitted heat have exhausted the fructifying humidity of the earth and so left the womb of our common mother squalid and barren as the desert Sarra in Africa Lastly had it moved
end for the most part best and many times only known to himself Nor is it an illegal process of our reason but the best logick as to supernaturals to conclude not only the excellencies but even the necessary being of some things meerly from hence that we cannot fully comprehend them since their very being above our capacity is argument both clear and strong enough that they are not only so as but more perfect and far greater then we understand them to be as he that sees but a small part of the sea with a Telescope at distance may safely conclude that t is exceeding large because the circumferrence thereof is by infinite degrees of magnitude wider then to be drawn into the aperture of his slender tube Sure I am at least that the Antisyllogisme or Counter-argument the understanding of man cannot discover its abstruse and mysterious plots resolve its multiplex aenigma's nor analyze its method or series of Causes subordinate and so by a retrograde chase hunt out its first and chief intention Ergo there can be no Providence is intolerable and deserves a greater dose of Ellebor then that absurdity of the blinde man who concluded there was not nor could be any such thing as light or Colours only because he could not see them When therefore we shall have run our eager contemplations to a stand in the wilderness of Providence and lost our busie thoughts in the maze of Gods secret decrees all the satisfaction our bold curiosity can return home with will be only this that all occurrences in the World are predetermined have their Causes Times and Ends punctually set down in the Ephemerides of Fate and though in the incompetent judgment of man some of them may seem the Peradventures or temerarious Hits of Chance yet are they the mature Designations of the supreme Wisdome though in the ears of man they may sound discords to the musick of particular Natures yet will they at last be found well composed Aers necessary both to sweeten and fill up the common Harmony of the Universe To instance are there not many Monsters Heteroclites Equivocal and irregular births on the earth many prodigious and new-faced Meteors in the upper and uncertain Anomalies or unseasonable Tempests in the lower division of the Aer many new Phaenomena among the fixed various encounters diviâ—ions and conspiracies among the erratick stars c. and yet doe not all these as Chrotchets and Quavers in a grave and solemn lesson on a Lute conduce to the advancement of the General Melody Doth not irregularity render order the more conspicuous and amiable and Deformity like the Negro drawn at Cleopatra's elbow serve as a foile to set off Beauty Are not the Moles on the cheeks of Nature as those on Venus skin placed there to illustrate or whiten the snow and sweeten the feature of her face Is it not exceeding gracefull in a Comoedian to temper and endear the sage and weighty scenes of Princes and Melancholy States-men with the light interludes of Pantalons Clowns and Anticks Doth not the Painter then shew the most of skill when he refracts the glaring luster of his lighter Colours with a veil of Sables and makes the beauty of his peice more visible by clouding it with a becoming shadom And without doubt every man will readily conjoyne his vote to ours that he is best able to adorn and imbellish a piece of Art who first contrived and wrought it and therefore the Perfection and Condecoration of a work doth properly and solely bolong to his hand that brought it to that height as to want only ornament nor is it his part to prescribe what 's necessary to the conciliation of gracefulness and decorament to an engine who is ignorant of the modell and holds not a perfect Idea of the Artifice thereof Now the importance of all these similes being put together who can be so ignorant in the Alphabet or rudiments of ratiocination as not at first sight to spell them into this short lesson consisting only of two orthodox Positions First that those subitaneous Accidents which the ignorance or carelesness of the vulgar doth usually refer to the blind sortilegies of Chance are truely the meer hand of God and the prudent designes of that Catholick Providence which hath numbred the sands on the Sea shoar and weighed the dust of the earth in a balance which feeds the young Ravens when they cry and while the old ones wander for meat which thundereth marvellously with his voyce and doth great things that we cannot comprehend for he saith to the snow Be thou on the earth likewise to the smal rain and to the great rain of his strength by whose breath frost is given and the breadth of the waters is straightned which turneth the bright clouds round about by his Counsels that they may doe what ever he commandeth them upon the earth who made the ordinances of heaven and hath set the dominions thereof in the earth who can binde the sweet insluences of the Pleiades and lose the bands of Orion can bring forth Mazaroth in his season and guide Arcturus with his sons c. Secondly that those Monstrosities or extraordinary and prodigious effects which the nescience of the multitude cals Irregularities Perversions and Deformities of Nature to wiser considerations prove themselves to be no wanton excursions or randome shots of her hand made without aim at any final cause but praeordained and collineated by that sure one of Divine Providence point blanck at some certain end private or publick The former being known only to himself à priori and frequently mistaken by man a posteriori the later indeed we have a liberty to conjecture to be either that he leaves the straight and chalks out this serpentine and crooked line to satisfie the World of his Prerogative that himself is the Agent and Nature but his Instrument and therefore to be turned wrenched altered and perverted at his pleasure or else that his wisdome thinks those spots requisite to enhance the beauty of the whole those private fewds and petty discords betwixt Individuals necessary not only to endear but conserve the peace of the whole Both which durable Truths are with so much piety as judgement contracted by that Emperor of the Stoicks as well as of the Romans Marcus Aurelius Antoninus of whom the smooth Herodian initio historiae gives this glorious Character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solus imperatorum sapientiae studium non verbis aut decretorum scientia sed gravitate morum vitaeque continentia usurpavit into one short meditation in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quae ad Deos ut auctores referuntur ea Providentiae plena esse nemo dubitat Quae Fortunae vulgò adscribuntur ne illa quidem extra Naturae leges fatalemque illum contextum complexúmque rerum quae à providentia administrantur Inde omnia sluunt adde quod necessarium est quicquid est toti universo