for want of rightly dispos'd Organs the Wisedom and Power of God in the Divine Government of such various and numerous communities of Intellectual Creatures will to a considering Man appear the more illustrious and wonderfull 31. The distance betwixt the Infinite Creatour and the Creatures which are but the limitted and arbitrary productions of His Power and Will is so vast that all the Divine Attributes or Perfections do by unmeasurable intervals transcend those faint resemblances of them that He has been pleas'd to impress either upon other Creatures or upon us Men. God's Nature is so Peculiar and Excellent that there are qualities which though high vertues in Men cannot belong to God or be ascrib'd to Him without derogation such as are Temperance Valour Humility and divers others which is the less to be wonder'd at because there are some vertues as Chastity Faith Patience Liberality that belong to Man himself onely in his mortal and infirm condition But whatever Excellencies there be that are simply and absolutely such and so may without disparagement to His Matchless Nature be ascrib'd to God such as are Eternity Independency Life Understanding Will c. we may be sure that He possesses them since He is the Original Authour of all the Degrees or Resemblances we men have of any of them And the Psalmist's Ratiocination is good He that planted the Ear shall He not hear He that formed the Eye shall not He see He that teacheth Man Knowledge shall not He know Since all the Perfections communicated to or to be found in the Creatures whether Men Angels or any other being Emanations of the Divine Excellencies do as much belong to God as in a bright day all the luminous Beams that are to be found in the Air belong to the Sun in whom they are united and from whom they all proceeded The vast difference then between the Perfections of the Great Creatour and those that are Analogous to them in the Creatures reaches to All the Perfections that are though in very differing manners to be found in both but yet the Humane Vnderstanding as it values it self upon nothing more than Wisedom and Knowledge so there is nothing that it esteems and reverences more in other Beings and is less willing to acknowledge it self surpass'd in For which Reason as I have in the soregoing part of this Paper inculcated by more than one way the Great Superiority of God's Intellect to Man's so I think it not improper to prosecute the same design by mentioning to you some few particulars whereby that Superiority may manifestly appear We may then consider that besides that God knows an Innumerable company of things that we are altogether unacquainted with since He cannot but know all the Creatures He has made whether visible or invisible corporeal or immaterial and what He has enabled them to doe according to that of St. James Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the World Nay since He cannot but know the extent of His own infinite Power He cannot but know numberless things as possible that he has not yet made nor perhaps ever will please to make But to confine my self to things actually existent besides His corporeal and immaterial Creatures and their faculties or powers whereof we have some kind of notice and besides perhaps multitudes of other things whereof we have no particular Idea or Conjecture He knows those things whereof we men have also some knowledge in a manner or degree peculiar to himself As what we know but in part He knows fully what we know but dimly He knows clearly and what we know but by fallible Mediums he knows most certainly 32. But the Great Prerogative of God's Knowledge is that He perfectly knows Himself That Knowledge being not onely too wonderfull for a man as even an inspir'd Person confesses touching himself but beyond the reach of an Angelical Intellect since fully to comprehend the Infinite Nature of God no less than an Infinite Understanding is requisite And for the Works of God even those that are purely Corporeal which are therefore the meanest our knowledge of these is incomparably inferiour to His. For though some modern Philosophers have made ingenious attempts to explain the Nature of things Corporeal yet their Explications generally suppose the present Fabrick of the World and the laws of motion that are settled in it But God knows particularly both why and how the Universal matter was first contriv'd into this admirable Universe rather than a World of any other of the numberless Constructions He could have given it and both why those laws of Motion rather than others were establish'd and how senseless Matter to whose Nature Motion does not at all belong comes to be both put into Motion and qualifyed to transfer it according to determinate rules which it self cannot understand But when we come to consider the particular and more elaborate Works of Nature such as the Seeds or Eggs of living Creatures or the Texture of Quicksilver Poysons Antidotes c. the Ingenious Confess their Ignorance about the manner of their Production and Operations and the Confident betray theirs But 't is like we Men know our selves better than what is without us but how ignorant we are at home if the endless disputes of Aristotle and his Commentatours and other Philosophers about the Humane Soul and of Physicians and Anatomists about the Mechanism and Theory of the Humane Body were not sufficient to manifest it 't were easie to be shewn as it is in another Paper by the very conditions of the Vnion of the Soul and Body which being setled at first by God's arbitrary institution and having nothing in all Nature parallel to them the manner and Terms of that strange Union is a Riddle to Philosophers but must needs be clearly known to Him that alone did Institute it and all the while it lasts does preserve it And there are several advantages of the Divine Knowledge above that of Man that are not here to be pretermitted For first we Men can perceive and sufficiently attend but to few things at once according to the known saying Pluribus intentus Minor est ad singula sensus And 't is Recorded as a Wonder of some great men among the Ancients that they could dictate to two or three Secretaries at once But God's Knowledge reaches at once to all that He can know His penetrating Eyes pierce quite thorough the whole Creation at one look and as an inspir'd Pen-man declares There is no Creature that is not manifest in his sight but all things are naked and if I may so render the Greek word extraverted to His Eyes He always sees Incomparably more Objects at one View than the Sun himself endued with sight could do For God beholds at once all that every one of His Creatures whether visible or invisible to us in the vast Universe either does or thinks Next the Knowledge of God is not a
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
quantity of Motion in the World every Body that moves another loosing just as much of its own as it produces in the other the proof he offers being drawn from the Immutability of God seems very Metaphysical and not very cogent to me who fear that the Properties and Extent of the Divine Immutability are not so well known to us Mortals as to allow Cartesius to make it in our present case an argument à priori And à posteriori I see not how the Rule will be demonstrated since besides that it may be questioned whether 't is agreeable to experience in divers instances that might be given of communicated Motions here below I know not what experience we have of the Rules by which Motion is propagated in the Heavenly Regions of the World among all the Bodies that make up the Aetherial which is incomparably the greatest part of the Universe So that the truth of the Cartesian Rules being evinc'd neither à priori nor à posteriori it appears not why it should be thought unreasonable to imagine that other Systemes may have some peculiar Laws of Motion onely because they differ from those Cartesian Rules whereof the greatest part are at least undemonstrated 21. But though if we allow of Suppositions and Conjectures such as those lately mention'd that are at least not absurd they may conduce to amplify some of our Idea's of Divine things yet we need not fly to Imaginary ultra mundane Spaces to be convinc'd that the Effects of the Power and Wisedom of God are worthy of their Causes and not near adequately understood by us if with sufficient attention we consider that innumerable multitude and unspeakable variety of bodies that make up this vast Universe For there being among these a stupendious number that may justly be look'd upon as so many distinct Engins and many of them very complicated ones too as containing sundry subordinate ones to know that all these as well as the rest of the Mundane matter are every moment sustain'd guided and govern'd according to their respective Natures and with an exact regard to the Catholick Laws of the Universe to know I say that there is a Being that doeth this every where and every moment and that manages all things without either aberration or intermission is a thing that if we attentively reflect on ought to produce in us for that Supreme Being that can doe this the highest Wonder and the lowliest Adoration The Epicureans of old did with some colour of reason as well as with much confidence urge against the Belief of a Divine Providence that 't is unconceivable and therefore incredible That the Gods should be sufficient for such differing and distracting employments as according to the exigencies of Natures works to make the Sun shine in one place the Rain shower down in another the Winds to blow in a third the Lightening to flash in a fourth the Thunderbolts to fall in a fifth and in short other bodies to act and suffer according to their respective Natures Wherefore we that upon good grounds believe that God really does what these Philosophers thought impossible to be done by any Agents whatsoever are much wanting in our duty if we do not admire an Al-pervading Wisedom that reaches to the utmost extent of the Universe and actually performing what Philosophers profess'd they could not so much as conceive highly merits that those difficulties which they thought insuperable and so a sufficient excuse for their unbelief should be a powerfull motive to our veneration of that transcendent Wisedom that without any trouble surmounts them 22. We have seen some displays of God's Wisedom as well as Power by what we have observ'd in his Corporeal Works But 't will be easily granted that some of the Divine Perfections could not be so well express'd or Copied upon Corporeal creatures as upon the Rational and immaterial soul of Man and other Intellectual Beings as the picture of an Apple or a Cherry or the character of a Number is not capable of receiving or containing so much of an excellent Painter's skill as he may exhibite in a Piece wherein the passions of the mind and the Laws of Opticks and of decency may be fully express'd And it may well be presum'd that if we were as familiarly acquainted with God's Incorporeal creatures as we are with his visible ones we should perceive that as Spirits are incomparably more Noble than bodies so the Divine Wisedom employ'd in the Government and Conduct of them is more glorious than that which we justly admire in the frame and management of his Corporeal Works And indeed let a Portion of Matter be never so fine and never so well contriv'd it will not be any more than an Engine devoid of Intellect and Will truely so call'd and whose excellency as well as its distinction from other bodies even the grossest and imperfectest can consist but in Mechanical affections such as the size shape motion and connexion of its parts which can neither excite themselves into motion nor regulate and stop the motion they once are in Whereas true Spirits by which I here mean immaterial Substances have by God's Appointment belonging to their Nature Understanding Will and an Internal Principle both of acting so and so and of Arbitrarily ceasing from action And though God as the Sole Creator of all Substances has and if He please may exercise an absolute Dominion over all his Creatures as well Immaterial as Corporeal yet since He has thought fit to govern Spirits according to the Nature He has given them which Comprehends both Understanding and Will to create such Intelligent Free and Powerfull Beings as good and bad Angels to say nothing now of men and to govern them on those Terms so as effectually to make them however they behave themselves Instruments of His Glory which multitudes of them do as subtily as obstinately oppose to doe these things I say requires a Wisedom and Providence transcending any that can be display'd in the formation and management of merely Corporeal Beings For inanimate Engins may be so contriv'd as to Act but as we please whereas Angels and Humane Souls are endow'd with a freedom of acting in most cases as themselves please And 't is far easier for a skilfull Watch-maker to regulate the Motions of his Watch than the affections and actions of his Son 23. And here give me leave to consider that Angels whether good or bad are very Intelligent and active Beings and that each of them is endowed with an Intellect capable of almost Innumerable Notions and degrees or variations of knowledge and also with a Will capable of no less numerous Exertions or Acts and of having various Influences upon the Understanding as on the other side it is variously affected by the Dictates of it So that to apply this consideration to my present purpose each particular Angel being successively capable of so many differing Moral States may be look'd upon as in a manner a distinct
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