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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08456	A confutation of atheism from the structure and origin of human bodies. Part I a sermon preached at Saint Martin's in the Fields, May 2. 1692. Being the third of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by Richard Bentley.	Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1693 (1693)	Wing B1921A; ESTC R175533	14,708	34

A Confutation of Atheism From the Structure and Origin of Human Bodies PART I. A SERMON Preached at Saint Martin 's in the Fields May 2. 1692. Being the Third of the Lecture Founded by the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esquire By RICHARD BENTLEY M. A. Chaplain to the Right Reverend Father in God EDWARD Lord Bishop of Worcester The Third Edition LONDON Printed by J. H. for H. Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard 1693. Imprimatur Geo. Royse R. Rmo in Christo Patri ac D no D no Johanni Archiep Cantuar à Sacris Domest May 7. 1692. ACTS XVII 27. That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us for in him we Live and Move and have our Being I Have said enough in my last to shew the fitness and pertinency of the Apostle's Discourse to the Persons he address'd to whereby it sufficiently appears that he was no Babler as some of the Athenian Rabble reproached him not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a busie prating Fellow as in another language they say Sermones serere Plautus Virgil. Livius and Rumores serere in a like mode of Expression that he did not talk at random but was throughly acquainted with the several humors and opinions of his Auditors And as Moses was learned in all the Wisdom of the Aegyptians so it is manifest from this Chapter alone if nothing else had been now extant that St. Paul was a great Master in all the Learning of the Greeks One thing further I shall observe from the words of the Text before I enter upon the Subject which I proposed That it requires some Industry and Consideration to find out the Being of God we must seek the Lord and feel after him before we can find him by the Light of Nature The search indeed is not very tedious nor difficult He not far from every one of us or in him we live and move and have our Being The Consideration of our Mind and Understanding which is an incorporeal Substance independent from Matter and the contemplation of our own Bodies which have all the stamps and characters of excellent Contrivance these alone though we look upon nothing abroad do very easily and proximately guide us to the wise Author of all things But however as we see from our Text some Thoughts and Meditation are necessary to it and a man may possibly be so stupid or wilfully ignorant or perverse as not to have God in all his thoughts or to say in his heart There is none And this being observed we have an effectual answer to that Cavil of the Atheists who make it an objection against the Being of God that they do not discover him without any Application in spite of their corrupt Wills and debauch'd Understandings If say they such a God as we are told of had created and formed us surely he would have left upon our Minds a native and indeleble Inscription of Himself whereby we must needs have felt him even without seeking and believed in him whether we would or no. So that these Atheists being conscious to themselves that they are void of such Belief which they say if God was would actually and necessarily be in them do bring their own wicked Doubting and Denying of God as Evidence against His Existence and make their very Infidelity an argument for it self To which we reply That God hath endu'd Mankind with Powers and Abilities which we call Natural Light and Reason and Common Sense by the due use of which we cannot miss of the Discovery of his Being and this is sufficient But as to any other original Notion and Proposition that God is actually imprinted on us antecedently to all use of our Faculties we may affirm against the Atheists that the absence of such a Notion doth not give the least presumption against the truth of Religion because though God be suppos'd to be yet that Notion distinct from our Faculties would not be requisite nor is it pretended to by Religion First it would not be requisite because without any such primitive Impression we can easily attain to the knowledge of the Deity by the sole use of our Natural Reason And again such an Impression would have render'd the Belief of a God irresistible and necessary and thereby have bereaved it of all that is good and acceptable in it For as by taking away the Freedom of Human Will and making us meer Machins under fatal Ties and Impulses it would destroy the very nature of Moral Vertue so likewise as to Faith there would be nothing worthy of praise and recompence in it if there were left no possibility of Doubting or Denying And secondly such a radical Truth that God is springing up together with the Essence of the Soul and previous to all other Thoughts is not pretended to by Religion No such thing that I know of is affirmed or suggested by the Scriptures There are several Topics there used against the Atheism and Idolatry of the Heathens such as the visible marks of Divine Wisdom and Goodness in the Works of the Creation the vital Union of Souls with Matter and the admirable Structure of animate Bodies and the like But if our Apostle had asserted such an anticipating Principle engraven upon our Souls before all Exercise of Reason what did he talk of seeking the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him seeing that if the knowledge of him was in that manner innate and perpetual there would be no occasion of seeking nor any hap or hazard in the finding Such an Inscription would be self-evident without any Ratiocination or Study and could not fail constantly to exert its Energy in their Minds What did he talk of the Unknown God and ignorantly worshipping when if such an Original Signature were always inherent in their hearts God could not be unknown to or ignorantly worshipp'd by any That primary Proposition would have been clear and distinct and efficacious and universal in the minds of Men. S. Paul therefore it appears had no apprehension of such a First Notion nor made use of it for an argument which seeing that whosoever hath it must needs know that he hath it if it be not believed before by the Adversary is false and if it be believed is superfluous and is of so frail and brittle a texture that whereas other arguments are not answered by bare denying without contrary Proof the meer doubting and disbelieving of this must be granted to be ipso facto the breaking and confuting of it Thus much therefore we have proved against the Atheist that such an original irresistible Notion is neither requisite upon supposition of a Deity nor is pretended to by Religion so that neither the Absence of it is any Argument against the Being of God nor a supposed false Assertion of it an objection against the Scripture 'T is enough that all are furnish'd with such Natural

but others are rather of opinion that after infinite blundering and miscarrying our Bodies at last happen'd and jump'd into this Figure by meer Chance and Accident There 's no Atheist in the World that reasons about his Infidelity which God knows most of them never do but he takes one of these four Methods I will refute them every one in the same order that I have named them the two former in the present Discourse reserving the others for another occasion 1. And First the Opinion of those Atheists that will have Mankind and other Animals to have subsisted thus eternally in infinite Generations already past will be found to be flat Nonsence and Contradiction to it self and repugnant also to matter of Fact First it is contradiction to its self Infinite Generations of Men they say are already past and gone but whatsoever is now past was once actually present so that each of those Infinite Generations was once in its turn actually present therefore all except One Generation were once future and not in being which destroys the very supposition For either that One Generation must it self have been Infinite which is Nonsence or it was the Finite Beginning of Infinite Generations between it self and us which is Infinity terminated at both ends which is nonsence as before Again Infinite past Generations of Men have been once actually present therefore there may be some one Man of them given that was at infinite distance from us now therefore that man's Son likewise suppose forty years younger than his Father was either at infinite distance from us or at finite if that Son too was at infinite distance from us then one Infinite is longer by forty years than another which is absurd if at finite then forty years added to finite makes it infinite which is as absurd as the other And again The number of Men that are already dead and gone is infinite as they say but the number of the Eyes of those men must necessarily be twice as much as that of the men themselves and that of the Fingers ten times as much and that of the Hairs of their Heads thousands of times So that we have here one Infinite number twice ten times and thousands of times as great as another which is contradiction again Thus we see it is impossible in it self that any successive duration should be actually and positively infinite or have infinite successions already gone and past Neither can these Difficulties be applied to the Eternal Duration of God Almighty For thou we cannot comprehend Eternity and Infinity yet we understand what they are not And something we are sure must have Existed from all Eternity because all things could not emerge and start out of Nothing So that if this prae-existent Eternity is not compatible with a successive Duration as we clearly and distinctly perceive that it is not then it remains that some Being though infinitely above our finite comprehensions must have had an identical invariable Continuance from all Eternity which Being is no other than God For as his Nature is perfect and immutable without the least shadow of change so his Eternal Duration is permanent and indivisible not measurable by Time and Motion nor to be computed by number of successive Moments One day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day And Secondly this Opinion of infinite Generations is repugnant likewise to matter of Fact T is a Truth beyond opposition that the universal Species of Mankind hath had a gradual increase notwithstanding what War and Famine and Pestilence and Floods and Conflagrations and the Religious Profession of Celibracy and other Causes may at certain periods of time have interrupted and retarded it This is manifest from the History of the Jewish Nation Vide Observations upon the Bills of Mortality from the account of the Roman Census and Registers of our Own Country where the proportion of Births to Burials is found upon observation to be yearly as Fifty to Forty Now if Mankind do increase though never so slowly but one Couple suppose in an Age 't is enough to evince the falshood of Infinite Generations already expired For though an Atheist should contend that there were ten thousand million couple of Mankind now in being that we may allow him multitude enough 't is but going back so many Ages and we descend to a single Original Pair And 't is all one in respect of Eternal Duration yet behind whether we begin the world so many millions of Ages ago or date it from the late Aera of about Six Thousand years And moreover this recent beginning of the World is further established from the known Original of Empires and Kingdoms and the Invention of Arts and Sciences whereas if infinite Ages of Mankind had already preceded there could nothing have been left to be invented or improved by the successfull industry and curiosity of our own The Circulation of the Blood and the Weight and Spring of the Air which is as it were the Vital Pulse and the great Circulation of Nature and of more importance in all Physiology than any one Invention since the beginning of Science had never lain hidden so many myriads of Generations and been reserved for a late happy Discovery by two great Luminaries of this Island I know the Atheist may endeavour to evade this by supposing That though Mankind have been from everlasting and have perpetually encreas'd by generation yet at certain great periods there may be universal Deluges which may not wholly extinguish Mankind for they 'll say there is not Water enough in Nature for that but may cover the Earth to such a Height that none but a few Mountainers may escape enough to continue Humane Race and yet being illiterate Rusticks as Mountainers always are they can preserve no Memoirs of former times nor propagate any Sciences or Arts and so the world must needs be thought by Posterity to have begun at such periods But to this I answer First That upon this supposition there must have been infinite Deluges already past for if ever this Atheist admits of a first Deluge he is in the same noose that he was For then he must assert That there were infinite generations and an infinite increase of mankind before that first Deluge and then the Earth could not receive them but the infinite Bodies of Men must occupy an infinite Space and then all the Matter of the Universe must be humane Body and other absurdities that follow it which are infinite too But if he says That there have been infinite Deluges heretofore this is impossibility again for all that I said before against the Notion of infinite past Generations is alike applicable to this Secondly Such Universal Deluges seeing the Deity is now excluded must be produced in a natural way and therefore gradually and not in an instant and therefore because the tops of Mountains they say are never overflown the civilized people may

escape thither out of Villages and Cities and consequently against the Atheist Arts and Sciences and Histories may be preserved and derived to the succeeding World Thirdly Let us imagin the whole Terraqueous Globe with its Atmosphere about it What is there here that can naturally effect an Universal Deluge If you would drown one Country or Continent with Rains and Inundations you must borrow your Vapor and Water from some other part of the Globe You can never overflow all at a time If the Atmosphere it self was reduced into Water as some think it possible it would not make an O●b above 32 foot deep which would soon be swallowed up by the cavity of the Sea and the depressed parts of the Earth and be a very feeble attempt towards an Universal Deluge But then what immense Weight is there above that must overcome the expansive force of the Air and compress it into near the thousandth part of the room that it now takes up We that acknowledge a God Almighty can give an account of one Deluge by saying it was miraculous but it would be a little strange to see an Atheist have recourse to a Miracle and that not once only but upon infinite occasions But perhaps they may endeavour to prove the possibility of such a natural Deluge by borrowing an ingenious Notion and pretending That the face of Nature may be now quite changed from what it was and that formerly the whole Collection of Waters might be an orbicular Abyss arched over with an exterior Crust or Shell of Earth and that the breaking and fall of this Crust might naturally make a Deluge I 'll allow the Atheist all the fair play in the world Let us suppose the Fall of this imaginary Crust First It seems to be impossible but that all the Inhabitants of this Crust must be dash'd to pieces in its Ruins So that this very Notion brings us to the necessity of a new production of Men to evade which it is introduced by the Atheist Again If such a Crust naturally fell then it had in its own constitution a tendency towards a Fall that is it was more likely and inclinable to fall this thousand years suppose than the last But if the Crust was always gradually nearer and nearer to falling that plainly evinces that it had not endured eternally before its Fall For let them assign any imaginable period for its falling how could it have held out till then according to the supposition the unmeasurable duration of infinite Ages before And again such a Crust could fall but once for what Architect can an Atheist suppose to rebuild a new Arch out of the ruins of the other But I have shewn before that this Atheist hath need of infinite Deluges to effect his design and therefore I 'll leave him to contrive how to make infinite Crusts one upon the back of another and now proceed to examine in the second place The Astrological Explication of the Origin of Men. 2. If you ask one of this Party what Evidence he is able to produce for the truth of his Art he may perhaps offer some Physical Reasons for a general influence of the Stars upon terrestrial bodies but as Astrology is consider'd as a System of Rules and Propositions he will not pretend to give any reason of it à priori but resolves all that into Tradition from the Chaldeans and Aegyptians who first learnt it by long observation and transmitted it down to Posterity and that now it is daily confirmed by Events which are experienced to answer the Predictions This is all that can be said for Astrology as an Art So that the whole Credibility of this Planetary production of Mankind must depend upon Observation But are they able to shew among all the Remains of the Chaldaick Observations for Four hundred and seventy thousand years as they pretended any Tradition of such a Production So far from that that the Chaldeans believed the world and mankind to have been from everlasting which opinion I have refuted before Neither can the Aegyptian Wizards with their long Catalogue of Dynasties and Observations for innumerable Years supply the Atheists with one instance of such a Creation Where are the fragments of Petosiris and Necepso that may countenance this Assertion I believe if they had had any example of men born out of the Soil they would rather have ascribed it to the fruitfull Mud of the Nile as they did the breeding of Frogs So Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and Mice and Monsters than to the efficacy of Stars But with the leave of these Fortune-tellers did the Stars do this feat once only which gave beginning to Human Race or have they frequently done so and may do it again If frequently why is not this Rule deliver'd in Ptolemy and Albumasar If once only at the beginning then how came it to be discover'd Who were there then in the world to observe the Births of those First Men and calculate their Nativities as they sprawl'd out of Ditches Those Sons of Earth were very wise Children if they themselves knew that the Stars were their Fathers Unless we are to imagine that they understood the Planets and the Zodiack by instinct and fell to drawing Schemes of their own Horoscopes in the same Dust they sprung out of For my part I can have no great veneration for Chaldaick Antiquity Vitruvius lib. 9. c. 4. Lucret. lib. 5. Vt Babylonica Chaldaeum doctrina c. Apuleius de Deo Socratis Seu illa Luna proprio perpeti fulgore ut Chaldaei arbitrantur parte luminis compos parte altera cassa fulgoris when I see they could not discover in so many thousand years that the Moon was an opake Body and received her Light from the Sun But suppose their Observations had been never so accurate it could add no Authority to modern Astrology which is borrowed from the Greeks 'T is well known that Berosus or his Scholars new modelled and adapted the Babylonian Doctrines to the Grecian Mythology The supposed Influences of Aries and Taurus for example have a manifest relation to the Grecian Stories of the Ram that carried Phrixus and the Bull that carried Europa Now which of these is the Copy and which the Original Were the Fables taken from the Influences or the Influences from the Fables the Poetical Fables more ancient than all Records of History or the Astrological Influences that were not known to the Greeks till after Alexander the Great But without question those Fabulous Tales had been many a time told and sung to lull children asleep before ever Berosus set up his Intelligence-Office at Coos And the same may be said of all the other Constellations First Poetry had filled the Skies with Asterisms and Histories belong to them and then Astrology devises the feigned Virtues and Influences of each from some property of the Image or allusion to the Story And the same trifling

futility appears in their XII Signs of the Zodiack and their mutual Relations and Aspects Why no more Aspects than diametrically opposite and such as make aequlateral figures Why are the Masculine and Feminine the Fiery and Airy and Watry and Earthly Signs all placed at such regular distances Were the Virtues of the Stars disposed in that order and rank on purpose only to make a pretty Diagram upon Paper But the Atheistical Astrologer is doubly pressed with this absurdity For if there was no Counsel at the making of the world how came the Asterisms of the same nature and energies to be so harmoniously placed at regular intervals And how could all the Stars of one Asterism agree and conspire together to constitute an Universal Why does not every single Star shed a separate influence and have Aspects with other Stars of their own Constellation But what need there many words As if the late Discoveries of the Celestial Bodies had not plainly detected the imposture of Astrology The Planet Saturn is found to have a great Ring that encircles him and three lesser Planets that move about him as the Moon doth about the Earth and Jupiter hath four Satellites which by their Interposition between him and us make some hundreds of Eclipses every year Now the whole Tribe of Astrologers that never dream'd of these Planets have always declared that when Jupiter and Saturn come about again to any given Point they exert consider'd singly by themselves the same Influence as before But 't is now manifest that when either of them return to the same point the Planets about them that must make up an united Influence with them have a different situation in respect of us and each other from what they had the time before and consequently the joint Influence must be perpetually varied and never be reducible to any Rules and Observations Or if the Influences be conveyed hither distinct yet sometimes some of the Little Planets will eclipse the Great one at any given point and therefore intercept and obstruct the Influence I cannot now insist on many other Arguments deducible from the late Improvements of Astronomy For if the Earth be not the Centre of the Planetary Motions what must become then of the present Astrology which is wholly adapted to that vulgar Hypothesis And yet nevertheless when they lay under such wretched mistakes for many Myriads of Years if we are willing to believe them they would all along as now appeal to Experience and Event for the confirmation of their Doctrins That 's the invincible Demonstration so the Verity of the Science And indeed as to their Predictions I think our Astrologers may assume to themselves that infallible Oracle of Tiresias O Laertiade quicquid dico aut erit aut non There 's but a true and a false in any telling of Fortune and a man that never hits on the right side cannot be called a bad Guesser but must miss out of design and be notably skilfull at lighting on the wrong And were there not formerly as great pretensions to it from the superstitious observation of the Entrails of Cows of the flying of Vulturs and the pecking of Chickens Nay the old Augurs and Southsayers had better reason to profess the Art of Divining than the modern Astrological Atheist for They supposed there were some Daemons that directed the Indications So likewise the Chaldean and Aegyptian Astrologers were much more excusable than He. It was the Religion of their Countries to worship the Stars as we know from unquestionable Authority They believed them Ingelligent Beings and no other than very Gods Maimonides More Nevochim De Zabiis Chaldaeis Plato in Cratylo Diodorus lib. 1. c. 2. Eusebius Demonst Evangel lib. 1. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore had some Reason to suspect that they might govern Human Affairs The Influence of the Stars was in their apprehensions no less than Divine Power But an Atheist that believes the Planets to be dark solid and sensless Bodies like the brute Earth he treads on and the Fixt Stars and the Sun to be inanimate Balls of Fire what Reasons can He advance for the credit of such Influences He acknowledgeth nothing besides Matter and Motion so that all that he can conceive to be transmitted hither from the Stars must needs be perform'd either by Mechanism or Accident either of which is wholly unaccountable and the latter irreconcilable to any Art or System of Science But if both were allowed the Atheist yet as to any production of Mankind they will be again refuted in my following Discourse I can preserve a due esteem for some great Men of the last Age before the Mechanical Philosophy was revived though they were too much addicted to this nugatory Art When Occult Quality and Sympathy and Antipathy were admitted for satisfactory Explications of things even wise and vertuous Men might swallow down any Opinion that was countenanced by Antiquity But at this time of day when all the general powers and capacities of Matter are so clearly understood he must be very ridiculous himself that doth not deride and explode the antiquated Folly But we may see the miserable Shifts that some men are put to when that which was first founded upon and afterward supported by Idolatry is now become the tottering Sanctuary of Atheism If the Stars be no Deities Astrology is groundless and if the Stars be Deities why is the Astrologer an Atheist He may easily be no Christian and 't is difficult indeed to be both at once because as I have said before Idolatry is at the bottom and by submitting Human Actions and Inclinations to the Influence of the Stars they destroy the very Essence of Moral Vertue and the Efficacy of Divine Grace Concil Laod Can. 36. Conc. 6. in Trullo Can. 61. Cod. Just lib. 9. tit 18. Cod. Theodos l 9. tit 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 60. tit 39. and therefore Astrology was justly condemn'd by the Ancient Fathers and Christian Emperours An Astrologer I say may very easily be no Christian he may be an Idolater or a Pagan but I could hardly think Astrology to be compatible with rank Atheism if I could suppose any great gifts of Nature to be where either do reside But let him be what he will he is not able to do much hurt by his Reasons and Example For Religion it self according to his Principles is derived from the Stars And he owns 't is not any just Exceptions he hath taken against Christianity but 't is his Destiny and Fate 't is Saturn in the Ninth House and not Judgment and Deliberation that made him an Atheist FINIS