and rational Creature We should have as much feeling upon clipping a Hair of the Head as upon pricking a Nerve Or rather as Men that is as a complex Being compounded of many vital parts we should have no feeling nor perception at all For every single Atom of our Bodies would be a distinct Animal endued with self-consciousness and personal Sensation of its own And a great number of such living and thinking Particles could not possibly by their mutual contract and pressing and striking compose one greater individual Animal with one Mind and Understanding and a vital Consension of the whole Body any more than a swarm of Bees or a crowd of Men and Women can be conceived to make up one particular Living Creature compounded and constituted of the aggregate of them all 2. It remains therefore secondly that seeing Matter in general as Matter has not any Sensation or Thought if it have them at all they must be the result of some Modification of it it must acquire them by some Organical Disposition by such and such determinate Motions by the action and passion of one Particle upon another And this is the Opinion of every Atheist and counterfeit Deist of these times that believes there is no Substance but Matter and excludes all incorporeal Nature out of the number of Beings Now to give a clear and full confutation of this Atheistical Assertion I will proceed in this method 1. First I will give a true Notion and Idea of Matter whereby it will again appear that it has no inherent Faculty of Sense and Perception 2. I will prove that no particular sort of Matter as the Brain and Animal Spirits hath any power of Sense and Perception 3. I will shew that Motion in general superadded to Matter cannot produce any Sense and Perception 4. I will demonstrate that no particular sort of Motion as of the Animal Spirits through Muscles and Nerves can beget Sense and Perception 5. I will evince that no Action and Passion of the Animal Spirits one Particle upon another can create any Sense and Perception 6. I will answer the Atheist's Argument of matter of Fact and Experience in brute Beasts which say they are allowed to be meer Matter and yet have some degree of Sense and Perception And first I will give a true Notion and Idea of Matter whereby it will appear that it has no inherent Faculty of Sense and Perception And I will offer no other but what all competent Judges and even Atheists themselves do allow of and which being part of the Epicurean and Democritean Philosophy is providentially one of the best Antidotes against their other impious Opinions as the Oil of Scorpions is said to be against the poison of their Stings When we frame in our minds any notion of Matter we conceive nothing else but Extension and Bulk which is impenetrable and divisible and passive by which three properties is understood that any particular quantity of Matter doth hinder all other from intruding into its place till it self be removed out of it that it may be divided and broken into numerous parts of different sizes and figures which by various ranging and disposing may produce an immense diversity of Surfaces and Textures that if it once be bereaved of Motion it cannot of it self acquire it again but it either must be impell'd by some other Body from without or say we though not the Atheist be intrinsecally moved by an immaterial self-active Substance that can penetrate and pervade it Wherefore in the whole Nature and Idea of Matter we have nothing but Substance with Magnitude and Figure and Situation and a capacity of being moved and divided So that no parts of Matter consider'd by themselves are either hot or cold either white or black either bitter or sweet or betwixt those extremes All the various Mixtures and Conjugations of Atoms do beget nothing but new inward Texture and alteration of Surface No sensible Qualities as Light and Colour and Heat and Sound can be subsistent in the Bodies themselves absolutely consider'd without a relation to our Eyes and Ears and other Organs of Sense These Qualities are only the effects of our Sensation which arise from the different motions upon our Nerves from objects without according to their various modification and position For example when pellucid colourless Glass or Water by being beaten into powder or froth do acquire a very intense whiteness what can we imagine to be produced in the Glass or Water but a new disposition of parts Nay an object under the self-same disposition and modification when 't is viewed by us under differing proportions doth represent very differing colours without any change at all in it self For that same opake and white Powder of Glass when 't is seen thro' a good Microscope doth exhibit all its little fragments pellucid and colourless as the whole appear'd to the naked eye before it was pounded So that Whiteness and Redness and Coldness and the like are only Idea's and Vital Passions in Us that see and feel but can no more be conceived to be real and distinct Qualities in the Bodies themselves than Roses or Honey can be thought to smell or taste their own Sweetness or an Organ be conscious of its Musick or Gun-powder of its Flashing and Noise Thus far then we have proved and 't is agreed on all hands that in our conception of any quantity of Body there is nothing but Figure and Site and a Capacity of Motion Which Motion if it be actually excited in it doth only cause a new Order and Contexture of parts so that all the Idea's of sensible Qualities are not inherent in the inanimate Bodies but are the effects of their Motion upon our Nerves and sympathetical and vital Passions produced within our selves 2. Our second enquiry must be what it is in the constitution and composition of a Man that hath the Faculty of receiving such Idea's and Passions Let us carry in our minds this true notion of Body in general and apply it to our own Substance and observe what prerogatives this Rational Machin as the Atheists would make us to be can challenge above other parcels of Matter We observe then in this understanding piece of Clock-work that his Body as well as other senseless Matter has colour and warmth and softness and the like But we have proved it before and 't is acknowledged that these Qualities are not subsistent in those Bodies but are Idea's and Sensations begotten in something else So that 't is not Blood and Bones that can be conscious of their own hardness or redness and we are still to seek for something else in our Frame and Make that must receive these impressions Will they say that these Idea's are performed by the Brain But the difficulty returns upon them again for we perceive that the like qualities of softness whiteness and warmth do belong to the Brain it self and since the Brain is but Body those Qualities
as we have shewn cannot be inherent in It but are the Sensations of some other Substance without it It cannot be the Brain then which imagins those qualities to be in it self But they may say 't is not the Gross Substance of the Brain that causes Perception but the Animal Spirits that have their residence there which are void of sensible qualities because they never fall under our Senses by reason of their minuteness But we conceive by our Reason though we cannot see them with our Eyes that every one of these also hath a determinate figure they are Spheres or Cubes or Pyramids or Cones or of some shape or other that is irregular and nameless and all these are but Modes and Affections of Magnitude and the Idea's of such Modes can no more be subsistent in the Atoms so modified than the Idea of Redness was just now found to be inherent in the Blood or that of Whiteness in the Brain And what relation or affinity is there between a minute Body and Cogitation any more than the greatest Is a small drop of Rain any wiser than the Ocean or do we grind inanimate Corn into living and rational Meal my very Nails or my Hair or the Horns and Hoofs of a Beast may bid as fair for Understanding and Sense as the finest Animal Spirits of the Brain 3. But Thirdly they will say 't is not the Bulk and Substance of the Animal Spirits but their Motion and Agility that produces Cogitation and Sense If then Motion in general or any degree of its velocity can beget Cogitation surely a Ship under sail must be a most intelligent Creature though while she lies at Anchor those Faculties be asleep some cold Water or Ice may be phlegmatick and senseless but when it boils in a Kettle it has wonderfull Heats of Thinking and Ebullitions of Fancy Nay the whole corporeal Mass all the brute and stupid Matter of the Universe must upon these terms be allowed to have Life and Understanding since there is nothing that we know of in a state of absolute Rest. Those things that seem to be at rest upon the surface of the Earth are daily wheel'd about its Axis and yearly about the Sun with a prodigious swiftness 4. But Fourthly they will say 't is not Motion in general that can do these feats of Sensation and Perception but a particular sort of it in an Organized Body through the determinate Roads and Channels of Muscles and Nerves But I pray among all the kinds of Motion whether straight or circular or parabolical or in what curve they please what pretence can one make to Thinking and Liberty of Will more than another Why do not these persons make a Diagram of these cogitative Lines and Angles and demonstrate their Properties of Perception and Appetite as plainly as we know the other properties of Triangles and Circles But how little can any Motion either circular or other contribute to the production of Thought No such circular Motion of an Atom can be all of it existent at once it must needs be made gradually and successively both as to place and time for Body cannot at the same instant be in more places than one So that at any instant of time the moving Atom is but in one single point of the Line Therefore all its Motion but in that one point is either future or past and no other parts are coexistent or contemporary with it Now what is not present is nothing at all and can be the efficient of nothing If Motion then be the cause of Thought Thought must be produced by one single Point of Motion a Point with relation to time as well as to place And such a Point to our Conceptions is almost equivalent to Permanency and Rest or at least to any other Point of any Motion whatsoever What then is become of the privilege of that organical Motion of the Animal Spirits above any other Again we have shewn that this circular and other Motion is but the successive Flux of an Atom and is never existent together and indeed is a pure Ens Rationis an operation of the Soul which considering past motion and future and recollecting the whole by the Memory and Fancy calls this by one denomination and that by another How then can that Motion be the efficient of Thought which is evidently the Effect and the Product of it 5. But Fifthly they will say farther which is their last refuge that 't is not Motion alone or under this or that Denomination that produceth Cogitation but when it falls out that numerous Particles of Matter aptly disposed and directed do interfere in their Motions and strike and knock one another this is it which begets our Sensation All the active power and vigour of the Mind our Faculties of Reason Imagination and Will are the wonderfull result of this mutual Occurse this Pulsion and Repercussion of Atoms Just as we experience it in the Flint and the Steel you may move them apart as long as you please to very little purpose but 't is the Hitting and Collision of them that must make them strike Fire You may remember I have proved before that Light and Heat and the rest of those Qualities are not such Idea's in the Bodies as we perceive in our Selves So that this smiting of the Steel with the Flint doth only make a Comminution and a very rapid Whirling and Melting of some Particles but that Idea of Flame is wholly in Us. But what a strange and miraculous thing should we count it if the Flint and the Steel instead of a few Sparks should chance to strike out Definitions and Syllogisms And yet it 's altogether as reasonable as this sottish opinion of the Atheists That dead senseless Atoms can ever justle and knock one another into Life and Understanding All that can be effected by such encounters of Atoms is either the imparting or receiving of Motion or a new determination and direction of its Course Matter when it acts upon Matter can communicate nothing but Motion and that we have shew'd before to be utterly unable to produce those Sensations And again how can that Concussion of Atoms be capable of begetting those internal and vital Affections that Self-consciousness and other Powers and Energies that we feel in our Minds seeing they only strike upon the outward Surfaces they cannot inwardly pervade one another they cannot have any penetration of Dimensions and Conjunction of Substance But it may be these Atoms of theirs may have Sense and Perception in them but they are refractary and sullen and therefore like Men of the same Tempers must be bang'd and buffeted into Reason And indeed that way of Argumentation would be most proper and effectual upon these Atheistical Atomists themselves 'T is a vigorous Execution of good Laws and not rational Discourses only either neglected or not understood that must reclaim the profaneness of those perverse and unreasonable Men. For what can be said
prove that Humane Race was neither 1 from Everlasting without beginning nor 2 owes its beginning to the Influence of Heavenly Bodies nor 3 to what they call Nature that is the necessary and mechanical motions of dead senseless Matter I proceed now to examin the fourth and last Plea of the Enemies to Religion and their own Souls That Mankind came accidentally into the World and hath its Life and Motion and Being by mere Chance and Fortune We need not much wonder that this last Opinion should obtain almost universally among the Atheists of these times For whereas the Other require some small stock of Philosophy to understand or maintain them This Account is so easie and compendious that it needs none at all and consequently is the more proper and agreeable to the great Industry and Capacity of the most numerous Party of them For what more easie to say than that all the Bodies of the first Animals and Plants were shuffled into their several Forms and Structures fortuitously that is these Atheists know not how nor will trouble themselves to endeavour to know For that is the meaning of Chance and yet this is all that they say or can say to the great Matter in question And indeed this little is enough in all reason and could they impose on the rest of Mankind as easily as delude themselves with a notion That Chance can effect a thing it would be the most expedite and effectual means to make their Cause victorious over Vertue and Religion For if you once allow them such an acceptation of Chance you have precluded your self they think from any more reasoning and objecting against them The Mechanical Atheist though you grant him his Laws of Mechanism is nevertheless inextricably puzzled and baffled with the first Formation of Animals for he must undertake to determine all the various Motions and Figures and Positions and Combinations of his Atoms and to demonstrate that such a quantity of Motion impressed upon Particles so shaped and situated will necessarily range and dispose them into the Form and Frame of an Organical Body an attempt as difficult and unpromising of success as if he himself should make the Essay to produce some new Kinds of Animals out of such senseless Materials or to rebuild the moving and living Fabrick out of its dust in the grave But the Atheist that we are now to deal with if you do but concede to him that Fortune may be an Agent presumes himself safe and invulnerable secure above the reach of any further disputes For if you proceed to ask questions and bid him assign the proper Causes and determinate Manner of that fortuitous Formation you thereby deny him what you granted before and take away the very Hypothesis and the Nature of Chance which supposeth that no certain Cause or Manner of it can possibly be assigned And as the stupidity of some Libertines that demand a sight of a Spirit or Humane Soul to convince them of its existence hath been frequently and deservedly exposed because whatsoever may be the object of our Sight must not be a Soul or Spirit but an opake Body so this Atheist would tax us of the like Nonsense and Contradiction if after he hath named to us Fortune or Chance we should expect from him any particular and distinct account of the Origin of Mankind Because it is the very essence and notion of his Chance to be wholly unaccountable and if an account could be given of it it would then no longer be Chance but Mechanism or a necessary production of certain Effects from certain Causes according to the Universal Laws of Motion Thus we are to know that if once we admit of Fortune in the Formation of Mankind there is no further enquiry to be made no more Difficulties to be solved and no Account to be demanded And who then can admire if the inviting easiness and compendiousness of this Assertion should so dazle the Eyes of our Atheist that he overlooks those gross Absurdities that are so conspicuous in it 1 For first if this Atheist would have his Chance or Fortune to be a real and substantial Agent as the Vulgar seem to have commonly apprehended some making it a Divinity others they do not conceive what he is doubly more stupid and more supinely ignorant than those Vulgar in that he assumes such a notion of Fortune as besides its being erroneous is inconsistent with his Atheism For since according to the Atheists the whole Universe is Corpus mane Body and nothing else this Chance if it do really and physically effect any thing must it self be Body also And what a numerous train of Absurdities do attend such an assertion too visible and obvious to deserve to be here insisted on For indeed it is no less than flat contradiction to it self For if this Chance be supposed to be a Body it must then be a part of the common Mass of Matter and consequently be subject to the universal and necessary Laws of Motion and therefore it cannot be Chance but true Mechanism and Nature 2 But secondly if he forbear to call Chance a real Agent and is content to have it only a Result or Event since all Matter or some portion of it may be naturally exempt from these supposed Mechanical Laws and be endowed with a power of spontaneous or fortuitous Motion which power when it is exerted must produce an Effect properly Casual and therefore might constitute the first Animate Bodies accidentally against the supposed natural tendency of the Particles of those Bodies even this second Assertion is contrary to common Sense as well as common Observation For how can he conceive that any parcel of dead Matter can spontaneonsly divert and decline it self from the line of its motion without a new impulse from external Bodies If it can intrinsically stir it self and either commence its Motion or alter its course it must have a principle of self-activity which is Life and Sense But Sense I have proved formerly to be incompatible with mere Bodies even those of the most compound and elaborate textures much more with single Atoms or solid Particles of Matter that having no intestine motion of Parts are destitute of the first foundation and capacity of Life And moreover though these Particles should be supposed to have this internal principle of Sense it would still be repugnant to the notion of Chance because their Motions would not then be Casual but Voluntary not by Chance but Choice and Design And Again we appeal to Observation whether any Bodies have such a power of Fortuitous Motion we should surely have experiment of it in the effects of Nature and Art No Body would retain the same constant and uniform Weight according to its Bulk and Substance but would vary perpetually as that spontaneous power of Motion should determin its present tendency All the various Machins and Utensils would now and then play odd Pranks and Capricio's quite contrary to
their proper Structures and Designs of the Artificers Whereas on the contrary all Bodies are observed to have always a certain and determinate Motion according to the degrees of their External Impulse and their inward Principle of Gravitation and the Resistance of the Bodies they occurr with which therefore is without Error exactly foreseen and computed by sagacious Artists And if ever Dead Matter should deviate from this Motion it could not proceed from it self but a supernatural Agent and ought not to be called a Chance but a Miracle For Chance is but a mere name and really Nothing in it self a Conception of our own Minds and only a Compendious way of speaking whereby we would express That such Effects as are commonly attributed to Chance were verily produced by their true and proper Causes but without their designing to produce them And in any Event called Casual if you take away the real and physical Causes there remains nothing but a simple Negation of the Agents intending such an Event which Negation being no real Entity but a Conception only of Man's Intellect wholly extrinsecal to the Action can have no title to a share in the production As in that famous Example which Plutarch says is the only one where Fortune is related to have done a thing artificially when a Painter having finish'd the Picture of a Horse excepting the loose Froth about his Mouth and his Bridle and after many unsuccessfull essays despairing to do that to his satisfaction in a great rage threw his Spunge at it all besmear'd as it was with the Colours which fortunately hitting upon the right place by one bold stroke of Chance most exactly supplied the want of Skill in the Artist even here it is manifest that considering the Quantity and Determination of the Motion that was impressed by the Painter's hand upon the Spunge com pounded with the specifick Gravity of the Spunge and resistance of the Air the Spunge did mechanically and unavoidably move in that particular line of Motion and so necessarily hit upon that part of the Picture and all the paint that it left there was as certainly placed by true natural Causes as any one stroke of the Pencil in the whole Piece So that this strange effect of the Spunge was fortuitous only with respect to the Painter because he did not design nor forsee such an effect but in it self and as to its real Causes it was necessary and natural In a word the true notion of Fortune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoteth no more than the Ignorance of such an event in some Knowing Agent concerned about it So that it owes its very Being to Humane Understanding and without relation to that is really Nothing How absurd then and ridiculous is the Atheist that would make this Fortune the cause of the Formation of Mankind whereas manifestly there could be no such Thing or Notion in the World as Fortune till Humane Nature was actually formed It was Man that first made Fortune and not Fortune that produced Man For since Fortune in its proper acceptation supposeth the Ignorance of something in a subject capable of Knowledge if you take away Mankind such a Notion hath no Existence neither with relation to Inanimate Bodies that can be conscious of nothing nor to an Omniscient God that can be ignorant of nothing And so likewise the adequate Meaning of Chance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is distinguished from Fortune in that the latter is understood to befall only Rational Agents but Chance to be among Inanimate Bodies is a bare Negation that signifies no more than this That any Effect among such Bodies ascribed to Chance is really produced by Physical Agents according to the established Laws of Motion but without their Consciousness of concurring to the Production and without their Intention of such an Effect So that Chance in its true sense is all one with Nature and both words are used promiscuously by some ancient Writers to express the same thing And we must be wary lest we ascribe any real Subsistence or Personality to this Nature or Chance for it is merely a notional and imaginary thing an abstract Universal which is properly Nothing a Conception of our own making occasion'd by our reflecting upon the settled Course of things denoting only thus much That all those Bodies move and act according to their essential properties and qualities without any consciousness or intention of so doing So that in this genuine acceptation of Chance here is nothing supposed that can supersede the known Laws of Natural Motion and thus to attribute the Formation of Mankind to Chance is all one with the former Atheistical Assertion that ascribes it to Nature or Mechanism and consequently it hath received a prolix and sufficient Refutation in my preceding Discourse 3 But thirdly 't is likely that our Atheist may willingly renounce the Doctrine of Chance as a thing differing from Nature and may allow it to be the same thing and that too no real and substantial Agent but only an abstract intellectual Notion but still he hath another Expedient in reserve which is a middle and safe way between the former rigorous Mechanism and the extravagancies of Fortuitous Motion viz. That at the Beginning all things 't is true proceded necessarily and fatally according to the Mechanical powers and affections of Matter but nevertheless the several Kinds of Animals were not formed at the first trial and effort without one error or miscarriage as strict Mechanism would suppose but there was an immense Variety of Ferments and Tumors and Excrescences of the Soil pregnant and big with Foetus's of all imaginable shapes and structures of Body Millions of which were utterly uncapable of Life and Motion being the Molae as it were and the Abortions of Mother Earth and many of those that had Life and Powers to preserve their own Individuals yet wanted the due means of Propagation and therefore could not transmit their Species to the following Ages and that those few only that we now find in Being did happen for he cannot express it but by the Characters of a Chance to have all the parts necessary not only for their own Lives but for the Continuation of their Kinds This is the favourite Opinion among the Atheists and the most plausible of all by which they think they may elude that most formidable Argument for the Being of God from the admirable contrivance of Organical Bodies and the exquisite fitness of their several Parts for those Ends and Uses they are put to and seem to have been designed for For say they since those innumerable Instances of Blunder and Deformity were quickly removed out of Knowledge and Being it is plain that no Animals ought now to be found but such as have due Organs necessary for their own nourishment and increase of their Kinds so that this Boasted Usefulness of Parts which makes Men attribute their Origination to an intelligent and wise Agent is really
more to such persons that are either so disingenuous or so stupid as to profess to believe That all the natural Powers and acquired Habits of the Mind that penetrating Understanding and accurate Judgment that strength of Memory and readiness of Wit that Liberality and Justice and Prudence and Magnanimity that Charity and Beneficence to Mankind that ingenuous fear and awfull Love of God that comprehensive Knowledge of the Histories and Languages of so many Nations that experienced Insight into the works and wonders of Nature that rich Vein of Poetry and inexhausted Fountain of Eloquence those lofty flights of Thought and almost intuitive Perception of abstruse Notions those exalted Discoveries of Mathematical Theorems and Divine Contemplations all these admirable Endowments and Capacities of humane Nature which we sometimes see actually existent in one and the same Person can proceed from the blind shuffling and casual clashing of Atoms I could as easily take up with that senseless assertion of the Stoicks That Vertues and Vices and Sciences and Arts and Fancies and Passions and Appetites are all of them real Bodies and distinct Animals as with this of the Atheist That they can all be derived from the Power of meer Bodies 'T is utterly incredible and impossible and we cannot without indignation go about to refute such an absurd imagination such a gross contradiction to unprejudiced Reason And yet if the Atheists had not been driven from all their posts and their subterfuges if we had not pursued their Atoms through all their turnings and windings their cells and recesses their interferings and justlings they would boast that they could not be answer'd and make a mighty flutter and triumph Nay though they are so miserably confounded and baffled and can offer no further explication of the Cause and the Manner yet they will Sixthly urge matter of Fact and Experience that meer Body may produce Cogitation and Sense For say they do but observe the actions of some Brutes how nearly they approach to humane Reason and visibly discover some glimpses of Understanding and if that be performed by the pure Mechanism of their Bodies as many do allow who yet believe the Being of God and an immaterial Spirit in Man then 't is but raising our Conceptions and supposing Mankind to be Engines of a finer Make and Contexture and the business is done I must confess that the Cartesians and some others men that have given no occasion to be suspected of Irreligion have asserted that Brutes are meer Machins and Automata I cannot now engage in the Controversie neither is there any necessity to do so for Religion is not endanger'd by either opinion If Brutes be said to have Sense and Immaterial Souls what need we be concern'd whether those Souls shall be immortal or annihilated at the time of Death This objection supposes the Being of God and He will do all things for the wisest and best ends Or if Brutes be supposed to be bare Engins and Machins I admire and adore the divine Artifice and Skill in such a wonderfull contrivance But I shall deny then that they have any Reason or Sense if they be nothing but Matter Omnipotence it self cannot create cogitative Body And 't is not any imperfection in the power of God but an incapacity in the Subject The Idea's of Matter and Thought are absolutely incompatible And this the Cartesians themselves do allow Do but convince Them that Brutes have the least participation of Thought or Will or Appetite or Sensation or Fancy and they 'll readily retract their Opinion For none but besotted Atheists do joyn the two Notions together and believe Brutes to be rational or sensitive Machins They are either the one or the other either endued with Sense and some glimmering Rays of Reason from a higher Principle than Matter or as the Cartesians say they are purely Body void of all Sensation and Life and like the Idols of the Gentiles they have eyes and see not ears and hear not noses and smell not they eat without hunger and drink without thirst and howl without pain They perform the outward material actions but they have no inward Self-consciousness nor any more Perception of what they do or suffer than a Looking Glass has of the Objects it reflects or the Index of a Watch of the Hour it points to And as one of those Watches when it was first presented to the Emperour of China was taken there for an Animal so on the contrary our Cartesians take brute Animals for a sort of Watches For considering the infinite distance betwixt the poor mortal Artist and the Almighty Opificer the few Wheels and Motions of a Watch and the innumerable Springs and Organs in the Bodies of Brutes they may affirm as they think without either absurdity or impiety that they are nothing but moving Automata as the fabulous Statues of Daedalus bereaved of all true life and vital Sensation which never act spontaneously and freely but as Watches must be wound up to set them a going so their Motions also are excited and inhibited are moderated and managed by the Objects without them 2. And now that I have gone through the six parts that I proposed and sufficiently shewn that Sense and Perception can never be the product of any kind of Matter and Motion it remains therefore that it must necessarily proceed from some Incorporeal Substance within us And though we cannot conceive the manner of the Soul's Action and Passion nor what hold it can lay on the Body when it voluntarily moves it yet we are as certain that it doth so as of any Mathematical Truth whatsoever or at least of such as are proved from the Impossibility or Absurdity of the Contrary a way of Proof that is allowed for infallible Demonstration Why one motion of the Body begets an Idea of Pleasure in the Mind another an Idea of Pain why such a disposition of the Body induces Sleep another disturbs all the operations of the Soul and occasions a Lethargy or Frenzy this Knowledge exceeds our narrow Faculties and is out of the reach of our discovery I discern some excellent Final causes of such a vital Conjunction of Body and Soul but the instrumental I know not nor what invisible Bands and Fetters unite them together I resolve all that into the sole Pleasure and Fiat of our Omnipotent Creator whose Existence which is my last Point is so plainly and nearly deducible from the established proof of an Immaterial Soul that no wonder the resolved Atheists do so labour and bestir themselves to fetch Sense and Perception out of the Power of Matter I will dispatch it in three words For since we have shewn that there is an Incorporeal Substance within us whence did that proceed and how came it into Being It did not exist from all Eternity that 's too absurd to be supposed nor could it come out of nothing into Being without an Efficient Cause Something therefore must have created our
well adapted and accommodated to their particular Functions The Eye is very proper and meet for seeing the Tongue for tasting and speaking the Hand for holding and lifting and ten thousand Operations beside and so for the inward Parts the Lungs are suitable for Respiration the Stomach for Concoction the Lacteous Vessels for the Reception of the Chyle the Heart for the Distribution of the Blood to all the parts of the Body This is matter of Fact and beyond all dispute and in effect is no more than to say that Animals are Animals for if they were deprived of these Qualifications they could not be so This therefore is not the matter in Question between us and the Atheists But the Controversie is here We when we consider so many constituent parts in the Bodies of Men all admirably compacted into so noble an Engine in each of the very Fingers for example there are Bones and Gristles and Ligaments and Membranes and Muscles and Tendons and Nerves and Arteries and Veins and Skin and Cuticle and Nail together with Marrow and Fat and Blood and other Nutricious Juices and all those solid Parts of a determinate Size and Figure and Texture and Situation and each of them made up of Myriads of little Fibres and Filaments not discoverable by the naked Eye I say when we consider how innumerable parts must constitute so small a member as the Finger we cannot look upon It or the whole Body wherein appears so much Fitness and Use and Subserviency to infinite Functions any otherwise than as the effect of Contrivance and Skill and consequently the Workmanship of a most Intelligent and Beneficent Being And though now the Propagation of Mankind be in a settled method of Nature which is the instrument of God yet we affirm that the first Production of Mankind was by the immediate Power of the Almighty Author of Nature and that all succeeding Generations of Men are the Progeny of one primitive Couple This is a Religious Man's account of the Frame and Origination of himself Now the Atheists agree with us as to the Fitness of Man's Body and its several Parts to their various Operations and Functions for that is visible and past all contradiction but they vehemently oppose and horribly dread the Thought That this Usefulness of the Parts and the Whole should first arise from Wisdom and Design So that here will be the point in debate and the subject of our present Undertaking Whether this acknowledged Fitness of Humane Bodies must be attributed as we say to a wise and good God or as the Atheist averr to dead senseless Matter They have contrived several tricks and methods of Deceit one repugnant to another to evade if possible this most cogent Proof of a Deity All which I will propose and refute and I hope to make it appear that here as indeed every where but here certainly in the great Dramatick Poem of Nature is dignus Deo vindice Nodus a necessity of introducing a God And first I will answer what Exceptions they can have against Our account and secondly I will confute all the Reasons and Explications they can give of their Own 1. First I will answer what Exceptions they can have against Our account of the Production of Mankind And they may object That the Body it self though pretty good in its kind and upon their Hypothesis nevertheless doth not look like the Workmanship of so great a Master as is pretended by Us that infinite Wisdom and Goodness and Power would have bestowed upon us more Senses than five or at least these five in a much higher Perfection that we could never have come out of the Hands of the Almighty so subject to numerous Diseases so obnoxious to violent Deaths and at best of such a short and transitory Life They can no more ascribe so sorry an Effect to an Omniscient Cause than some ordinary piece of Clock-work with a very few motions and uses and those continually out of order and quickly at an end to the best Artist of the Age. But to this we reply First as to the five Senses it would be rash indeed to affirm That God if he had pleased could not have endued us with more But thus much we may averr That though the Power of God be infinite and perfect yet the Capacities of Matter are within limits and bounds Why then doth the Atheist suspect that there may possibly be any more ways of Sensation than what we have already Hath he an Idea or Notion or Discovery of any more So far from that that he cannot make any addition or progress in those very Senses he hath further than they themselves have informed him He cannot imagine one new Colour or Tast or Smell beside those that have actually fallen under his Senses Much less can he that is destitute of an entire Sense have any Idea or Representation of it as one that is born Deaf hath no Notion of Sounds or Blind of Colours and Light If then the Atheist can have no Imagination of more Senses than five why doth he suppose that a Body is capable of more If we had double or triple as many there might still be the same suspicion for a greater number without end and the Objection therefore in both cases is equally unreasonable and groundless Secondly we affirm that our Senses have that degree of Perfection which is most fit and suitable to our Estate and Condition For though the Eye were so piercing as to descry even opake and little Objects some hundreds of Leagues off even that improvement of our sight would do us little service it would be terminated by neighbouring Hills and Woods or in the largest and evenest plain by the very convexity of the Earth unless we could always inhabit the tops of Mountains and Cliffs or had Wings too to fly aloft when we had a mind to take a Prospect And if Mankind had had Wings as perhaps some extravagant Atheist may think us deficient in that all the World must have consented to clip them or else Humane Race had been extinct before this time nothing upon that supposition being safe from Murder and Rapine Or if the Eye were so acute as to rival the finest Microscopes and to discern the smallest Hair upon the leg of a Gnat it would be a curse and not a blessing to us it would make all things appear rugged and deformed the most finely polish'd Chrystal would be uneven and rough The sight of our own selves would affright us The smoothest Skin would be beset all over with ragged Scales and bristly Hairs And beside we could not see at one view above what is now the space of an Inch and it would take a considerable time to survey the then mountainous bulk of our own Bodies Such a Faculty of sight so disproportion'd to our other Senses and to the Objects about us would be very little better than Blindness it self And again God hath furnished us with
Invention and Industry so that by optical Glasses we can more than supply that imaginary defect of our own Eyes and discover more remote and minute Bodies with that assistance than perhaps the most whimsical Atheist would desire to do without it So likewise if our Sense of Hearing were exalted proportionably to the former what a miserable condition would Mankind be in What whisper could be low enough but many would over-hear it What Affairs that most require it could be transacted with secrecy and whither could we retire from perpetual humming and buzzing every breath of Wind would incommode and disturb us we should have no quiet or sleep in the silentest nights and most solitary places and we must inevitably be struck Deaf or Dead with the noise of a clap of Thunder And the like inconveniences would follow if the Sense of Feeling was advanced to such a degree as the Atheist requires How could we sustain the pressure of our very Cloaths in such a condition much less carry burthens and provide for conveniences of Life We could not bear the assault of an Insect or a Feather or a puff of Air without pain There are examples now of wounded persons that have roared for anguish and torment at the discharge of Ordnance though at a very great distance what insupportable torture then should we be under upon a like concussion in the Air when all the whole Body would have the tenderness of a Wound In a word all the Changes and Emendations that the Atheists would make in our Senses are so far from being Improvements that they would prove the utter Ruin and Extirpation of Mankind But perhaps they may have better success in their complaints about the Distempers of the Body and the Shortness of Life We do not wonder indeed that the Atheist should lay a mighty stress upon this Objection For to a man that places all his Happiness in the Indolency and Pleasure of Body what can be more terrible than Pain or a Fit of Sickness nothing but Death alone the most dreadfull thing in the world When an Atheist reflects upon Death his very Hope is Despair and 't is the crown and top of his Wishes that it may prove his utter Dissolution and Destruction No question if an Atheist had had the making of himself he would have framed a Constitution that could have kept pace with his insatiable Lust been invincible by Gluttony and Intemperance and have held out vigorous a thousand years in a perpetual Debauch But we answer First in the words of St. Paul Nay but O Man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus We adore and magnifie his most holy Name for his undeserved Mercy towards us that he made us the Chief of the visible Creation and freely acquit his Goodness from any imputation of Unkindness that he has placed us no higher Secondly Religion gives us a very good account of the present Infirmity of our Bodies Man at his first Origin was a Vessel of Honour when he came first out of the Hands of the Potter endued with all imaginable Perfections of the Animal Nature till by Disobedience and Sin Diseases and Death came first into the World Thirdly The Distempers of the Body are not so formidable to a Religious Man as they are to an Atheist He hath a quite different judgment and apprehension about them he is willing to believe that our present condition is better for us in the Issue than that uninterrupted Health and Security that the Atheist desires which would strongly tempt us to forget God and the concerns of a better Life Whereas now he receives a Fit of Sickness as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the kind Chastisement and Discipline of his Heavenly Father to wean his Affections from the World where he is but as on a Journey and to fix his thoughts and desires on things above where his Country and his Dwelling is that where he hath placed his Treasure and Concerns there his heart may be also Fourthly Most of the Distempers that are incident to us are of our own making the effects of abused Plenty and Luxury and must not be charged upon our Maker who notwithstanding out of the Riches of his Compassion hath provided for us store of excellent Medicines to alleviate in a great measure those very Evils which we bring upon our selves And now we are come to the last Objection of the Atheist That Life is too short Alas for him what pity 't is that he cannot wallow immortally in his sensual Pleasures But if his Life were many whole Ages longer than it is he would still make the same Complaint Brevis est hic fructus homullis For Eternity and that 's the thing he trembles at is every whit as long after a thousand years as after fifty But Religion gives Us a better prospect and makes us look beyond the gloomy Regions of Death with Comfort and Delight When this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality We are so far from repining at God that he hath not extended the period of our Lives to the Longaevity of the Antediluvians that we give him thanks for contracting the Days of our Trial and receiving us more maturely into those Everlasting Habitations above that he hath prepared for us And now that I have answer'd all the Atheist's Exceptions against Our account of the Production of Mankind I come in the next place to examine all the Reasons and Explications they can give of their own The Atheists upon this occasion are divided into Sects and which is the mark and character of Error are at variance and repugnancy with each other and with themselves Some of them will have Mankind to have been thus from all Eternity But the rest do not approve of infinite Successions but are positive for a Beginning and they also are subdivided into three Parties the first ascribe the Origin of Men to the Influence of the Stars upon some extraordinary Conjunction or Aspect Others again reject all Astrology and some of these mechanically produce Mankind at the very first Experiment by the action of the Sun upon duly prepared Matter but others are of opinion that after infinite blundering and miscarrying our Bodies at last came 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 I. And First the Opinion of those Atheists that will have Mankind and other Animals to have subsisted eternally in infinite Generations already past will be found to be flat Non-sence and Contradiction to it self and repugnant also to matter of Fact First it is
to have been impaired since the beginning of the World 2 Secondly we may observe that this Evasion of the Atheist is fitted only to elude such Arguments of Divine Wisdom as are taken from things Necessary to the conservation of the Animal as the Faculties of Sight and Motion and Nutrition and the like because such Usefulness is indeed included in a general Supposition of the Existence of that Animal but it miserably fails him against other Reasons from such Members and Powers of the Body as are not necessary absolutely to Living and Propagating but only much conduce to our better Subsistence and happier Condition So the most obvious Contemplation of the frame of our Bodies as that we all have double Sensories two Eyes two Ears two Nostrils is an effectual Confutation of this Atheistical Sophism For a double Organ of these Senses is not at all comprehended in the Notion of bare Existence one of them being sufficient to have preserved Life and kept up the Species as common Experience is a witness Nay even the very Nails of our Fingers are an infallible Token of Design and Contrivance for they are useful and convenient to give strength and firmness to those Parts in the various Functions they are put to and to defend the numerous Nerves and Tendons that are under them which have a most exquisite sense of Pain and without that native Armour would continually be exposed to it and yet who will say that Nails are absolutely necessary to Humane Life and are concluded in the Supposition of Simple Existence It is manifest therefore that there was a Contrivance and Foresight of the Usefulness of Nails antecedent to their Formation For the old stale pretence of the Atheists That things were first made fortuitously and afterwards their Usefulness was observ'd or discover'd can have no place here unless Nails were either absolutely requisite to the Existence of Mankind or were found only in some Individuals or some Nations of men and so might be ascribed to necessity upon one account or to Fortune upon the other But from the Atheist's supposition That among the infinite Diversity of the first terrestrial Productions there were Animals of all imaginable shapes and structures of Body all of which survived and multiplied that by reason of their Make and Fabrick could possibly do so it necessarily follows that we should now have some Nations without Nails upon their Fingers others with one Eye only as the Poets describe the Cyclopes in Sicily and the Arimaspâ— in Scythia others with one Ear or one Nostril or indeed without any Organ of Smelling because that Sense is not necessary to Man's subsistence others destitute of the use of Language since Mutes also may live one People would have the Feet of Goats as the feigned Satyrs and Panisci another would resemble the Head of Iupiter Ammon or the horned Statues of Bacchus the Sciapodes and Enotocoetae and other monstrous Nations would no longer be Fables but real instances in Nature and in a word all the ridiculous and extravagant shapes that can be imagin'd all the fancies and whimsies of Poets and Painters and Aegyptian Idolaters if so be they are consistent with Life and Propagation would be now actually in Being if our Atheist's Notion were true which therefore may deservedly pass for a mere Dream and an Error till they please to make new Discoveries in Terra Incognita and bring along with them some Savages of all these fabulous and monstrous Configurations 3 But thirdly that we may proceed yet further with the Atheist and convince him that not only his Principle is absurd but his Consequences also as absurdly deduced from it we will allow him an uncertain extravagant Chance against the natural Laws of Motion though not forgetting that that notion hath been refuted before and therefore this Concession is wholly ex abundanti I say then that though there were really such a thing as this Chance or Fortune yet nevertheless it would be extremely absurd to ascribe the Formation of Humane Bodies to a Cast of this Chance For let us consider the very Bodies themselves Here are confessedly all the marks and characters of Design in their structure that can be required though one suppose a Divine Author had made them here is nothing in the Work it self unworthy of so great a Master here are no internal arguments from the Subject against the truth of that Supposition Have we then any capacity to judge and distinguish what is the effect of Chance and what is made by Art and Wisdom When a Medal is dug out of the ground with some Roman Emperor's Image upon it and an Inscription that agrees to his Titles and History and an Impress upon the Reverse relating to some memorable occurrence in his Life can we be sure that this Medal was really coined by an Artificer or is but a Product of the Soil from whence it was taken that might casually or naturally receive that texture and figure as many kinds of Fossils are very odly and elegantly shaped according to the modification of their constituent Salts or the cavities they were formed in Is it a matter of doubt and controversie whether the Pillar of Trajan or Antoninus the Ruins of Persepolis or the late Temple of Minerva were the Designs and Works of Architecture or perhaps might originally exist so or be raised up in an Earthquake by subterraneous Vapour Do not we all think our selves infallibly certain that this or that very commodious House must needs have been built by Humane Art though perhaps a natural Cave in a Rock may have something not much unlike to Parlors or Chambers And yet he must be a mere Idiot that cannot discern more Strokes and Characters of Workmanship in the Structure of an Animal in an Humane Body especially than in the most elegant Medal or Aedifice in the World They will believe the first Parents of Mankind to have been fortuitously formed without Wisdom or Art and that for this sorry reason Because it is not simply impossible but that they may have been formed so And who can demonstrate if Chance be once admitted of but that possibly all the Inscriptions and other remains of Antiquity may be mere Lusus Naturae and not Works of Humane Artifice If this be good reasoning let us no longer make any pretences to Judgment or a faculty of discerning between things Probable and Improbable for except flat contradictions we may upon equal reasons believe all things or nothing at all And do the Atheists thus argue in common matters of Life Would they have Mankind lie idle and lay aside all care of Provisions by Agriculture or Commerce because possibly the Dissolution of the World may happen the next moment Had Dinocrates really carved Mount Athos into a Statute of Alexander the Great and had the memory of the fact been obliterated by some accident who could afterwards have proved it impossible but that it might casually have been
formed so For every Mountain must have some determinate figure and why then not a Humane one as possibly as another And yet I suppose none could have seriously believ'd so upon this bare account of Possibility 'T is an opinion that generally obtains among Philosophers That there is but one Common Matter which is diversified by Accidents and the same numerical quantity of it by variations of Texture may constitute successively all kinds of Bodies in the World So that 't is not absolutely impossible but that if you take any other Matter of equal weight and substance with the Body of a Man you may blend it so long till it be shuffled into Humane shape and an Organical structure But who is he so abandon'd to sottish credulity as to think upon that Principle That a clod of Earth in a Sack may ever by eternal shaking receive the Fabrick of Man's Body And yet this is very near a kin nay it is exactly parallel to the reasoning of Atheists about fortuitous Production If mere Possibility be a good foundation for Belief even Lucian's True History may be true upon that account and Palaephatus's Tales may be credible in spite of the Title It hath been excellently well urged in this case both by Ancients and Moderns that to attribute such admirable Structures to blind Fortune or Chance is no less absurd than to suppose That if innumerable figures of the XXIV Letters be cast abroad at random they might constitute in due order the whole Aeneis of Virgil or the Annales of Ennius Now the Atheists may pretend to elude this Comparison as if the Case was not fairly stated For herein we first make an Idea of a particular Poem and then demand if Chance can possibly describe That and so we conceive Man's Body thus actually formed and then affirm that it exceeds the power of Chance to constitute a Being like That which they may say is to expect Imitation from Chance and not simple Production But at the first Beginning of things there was no Copy to be followed nor any prae-existent Form of Humane Bodies to be imitated So that to put the case fairly we should strip our minds and fancies from any particular Notion and Idea of a Living Body or a Poem and then we shall understand that what Shape and Structure soever should be at first casually formed so that it could live and propagate might be Man and whatsoever should result from the strowing of those loose Letters that made any Sense and Measures might be the Poem we seek for To which we reply That if we should allow them that there was no prae-existent Idea of Humane Nature till it was actually formed for the Idea of Man in the Divine Intellect must not now be consider'd yet because they declare that great Multitudes of each Species of Animals did fortuitously emerge out of the Soil in distant Countries and Climates what could that be less than Imitation in blind Chance to make many Individuals of one Species so exactly alike Nay though they should now to cross us and evade the force of the Argument desert their ancient Doctrine and derive all sorts of Animals from single Originals of each kind which should be the common Parents of all the Race yet surely even in this account they must necessarily allow Two at least Male and Female in every Species which Chance could neither make so very nearly alike without Copying and Imitation nor so usefully differing without Contrivance and Wisdom So that let them take whether they will If they deduce all Animals from single pairs of a sort even to make the Second of a Pair is to write after a Copy it is in the former comparison by the casting of loose Letters to compose the prae-existent particular Poem of Ennius But if they make numerous Sons and Daughters of Earth among every Species of Creatures as all their Authors have supposed this is not only as was said before to believe a Monky may once scribble the Leviathan of Hobbes but may do the same frequently by an Habitual kind of Chance Let us consider how next to Impossible it is that Chance if there were such a thing should in such an immense Variety of Parts in an Animal twice hit upon the same Structure so as to make a Male and Female Let us resume the former instance of the XXIV Letters thrown at random upon the ground 'T is a Mathematical Demonstration That these XXIV do admit of so many Changes in their order may make such a long roll of differently ranged Alphabets not two of which are alike that they could not all be exhausted though a Million millions of writers should each write above a thousand Alphabets a day for the space of a Million millions of years What strength of Imagination can extend it self to embrace and comprehend such a prodigious Diversity And it is as infallibly certain that suppose any particular order of the Alphabet be assigned and the XXIV Letters be cast at a venture so as to fall in a Line it is so many Million of millions odds to one against any single throw that the assigned Order will not be cast Let us now suppose there be only a thousand constituent Members in the Body of a Man that we may take few enough it is plain that the different Position and Situation of these thousand Parts would make so many differing Compounds and distinct Species of Animals And if only XXIV parts as before may be so multifariously placed and ordered as to make many Millions of Millions of differing Rows in the supposition of a thousand parts how immense must that capacity of variation be even beyond all thought and denomination to be expressed only in mute figures whose multiplied Powers are beyond the narrowness of Language and drown the Imagination in astonishment and confusion Especially if we observe that the Variety of the Alphabet consider'd above was in mere Longitude only but the Thousand parts of our Bodies may be Diversified by Situation in all the Dimensions of Solid Bodies which multiplies all over and over again and overwhelms the fancy in a new Abyss of unfathomable Number Now it is demonstratively certain that it is all this odds to one against any particular trial That no one man could by casual production be framed like another as the Atheists suppose thousands to be in several regions of the Earth and I think 't is rather more odds than less that no one Female could be added to a Male in as much as that most necessary Difference of Sex is a higher token of Divine Wisdom and Skill above all the power of Fortuitous Hits than the very Similitude of both Sexes in the other parts of the Body And again we must consider that the vast imparity of this Odds against the accidental likeness of two Casual Formations is never lessen'd and diminish'd by Trying and Casting 'T is above a Hundred to one
Powers all the glorious Host of Heaven must needs be finite and imperfect and dependent Creatures and God out of the exceeding greatness of his power is still able without end to create higher Classes of Beings For where can we put a stop to the Efficacy of the Almighty or what can we assign for the Highest of all possible finite Perfections There can be no such thing as an almost Infinite there can be nothing Next or Second to an omnipotent God Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum as the Heathen Poet said excellently well of the supposed Father of Gods and Men. The infinite Distance between the Creator and the noblest of all Creatures can never be measured nor exhausted by endless addition of finite degrees So that no actual Creature can ever be the most perfect of all possible Creation Which shews the folly of this Query that might always be demanded let things be as they will that would impiously and absurdly attempt to tie the Arm of Omnipotence from doing any thing at all because it can never do its Utmost II. I proceed now to the Second Proposition That neither Matter universally and abstractly consider'd nor Motion as its Attribute and Property can have existed from all Eternity And to this I shall speak the more briefly not only because it is an abstruse and metaphysical Speculation but because it is of far less moment and consequence than the rest since without this we can evince the Existence of God from the Origin and Frame of the Universe For if the present or a like System of the World cannot possibly have been eternal and if without God it could neither naturally nor fortuitously emerge out of a Chaos we must necessarily have recourse to a Deity as the Contriver and Maker of Heaven and Earth whether we suppose he created them out of Nothing or had the Materials ready eternally to his hand But nevertheless because we are verily persuaded of the truth of this Article we shall briefly assign some reasons of our Belief in these following Particulars First It is a thing possible that Matter may have been produced out of Nothing It is urged as an Universal Maxim that Nothing can proceed from Nothing Now this we readily allow and yet it will prove nothing against the Possibility of Creation For when they say Nothing from Nothing they must so understand it as excluding all Causes both material and efficient In which sense it is most evidently and infallibly true being equivalent to this proposition that Nothing can make it self or Nothing cannot bring it s no self out of non-entity into Something Which only expresses thus much That Matter did not produce it self or that all Substances did not emerge out of an Universal Nothing Now who-ever talked at that rate We do not say the World was created from Nothing and by Nothing we assert an eternal God to have been the Efficient Cause of it So that a Creation of the World out of Nothing by Something and by that Something that includes in its Nature a necessary Existence and perfection of Power is certainly no Contradiction nor opposes that common Maxim Whence it manifestly follows That since God may do any thing that implies not a Contradiction if there be such an Essence as God he may have created Matter out of nothing that is have given an existence to Matter which had no Being before And Secondly It is very probable that Matter has been actually created out of Nothing In a former Discourse we have proved sufficiently that Humane Souls are not mere modification of Matter but real and spiritual Substances that have as true an Existence as our very Bodies themselves Now no man as I conceive can seriously think that his own Soul hath existed from all Eternity He cannot believe the Stuff or Materials of his Soul to have been eternal and the Soul to have been made up of them at the time of his conception For a Humane Soul is no compound Being 't is not made of Particles as our Bodies are but 't is one simple homogeneous Essence Neither can he think that the Personality of his Soul with its Faculties inherent in it has existed eternally this is against common Sense and it needs no Refutation Nay though a Man could be so extravagant as to hold this Assertion That his Soul his personal self has been from everlasting yet even this in the issue would be destructive to Atheism since it supposes an eternal Being endued with Understanding and Wisdom We will take it then as a thing confessed That the Immaterial Souls of Men have been produced out of Nothing But if God hath actually created those intelligent Substances that have such Nobility and Excellency of Being above brute senseless Matter 't is pervicaciousness to deny that he created Matter also unless they 'll say necessary Existence is included in the very Essence and Idea of Matter But Matter doth not include in its Nature a necessity of Existence For Humane Souls as is proved before have been actually created and consequently have not necessary Existence included in their Essence Now can any man believe that his spiritual Soul that understands and judges and invents endowed with those Divine Faculties of Sense Memory and Reason hath a dependent and precarious Being created and preserved by another while the Particles of this dead Ink and Paper have been necessarily eternal and uncreated 'T is against natural reason and no one while he contemplates an individual Body can discern that necessity of its Existence But men have been taught to believe that Extension or Space and Body are both the self-same thing So that because they cannot imagine how Space can either begin or cease to exist they presently conclude that extended infinite Matter must needs be eternal But I shall fully prove hereafter that Body and Space or Distance are quite different things and that a Vacuity is interspersed among the Particles of Matter and such a one as hath a vastly larger Extension than all the Matter of the Universe Which now being supposed they ought to abstract their Imagination from that false infinite Extension and conceive one Particle of Matter surrounded on all sides with vacuity and contiguous to no other Body And whereas formerly they fansied an immense boundless Space as an homogeneous One which great Individual they believed might deserve the Attribute of necessary Existence Let them now please to imagine one solitary Atom that hath no dependence on the rest of the World and is no more sustained in Being by other Matter than it could be created by it and then I would ask the question whether this poor Atom sluggish and unactive as it is doth involve Necessity of Existence the first and highest of all perfections in its particular nature and notion I dare presume for the Negative in the judgments of all serious men And I observe the Epicureans take much pains
and Blood should be upon this Earth under a settled constitution of Nature these supposed Inconveniences as they were foreseen and permitted by the Author of that Nature as necessary consequences of such a constitution so they cannot inferr the least imperfection in his Wisdom and Goodness And to murmure at them is as unreasonable as to complain that he hath made us Men and not Angels that he hath placed us upon this Planet and not upon some other in this or another System which may be thought better than Ours Let them also consider that this objected Deformity is in our Imaginations only and not really in Things themselves There is no Universal Reason I mean such as is not confined to Humane Fancy but will reach through the whole Intellectual Universe that a Figure by us called Regular which hath equal Sides and Angles is absolutely more beautifull than any irregular one All Pulchritude is relative and all Bodies are truly and physically beautifull under all possible Shapes and Proportions that are good in their Kind that are fit for their proper uses and ends of their Natures We ought not then to believe that the Banks of the Ocean are really deformed because they have not the form of a regular Bulwark nor that the Mountains are out of shape because they are not exact Pyramids or Cones nor that the Stars are unskilfully placed because they are not all situated at uniform distances These are not Natural Irregularities but with respect to our Fancies only nor are they incommodious to the true Uses of Life and the Designs of Man's Being on the Earth And let them further consider that these Ranges of barren Mountains by condensing the Vapors and producing Rains and Fountains and Rivers give the very Plains and Valleys themselves that Fertility they boast of that those Hills and Mountains supply Us and the Stock of Nature with a great variety of excellent Plants If there were no inequalities in the Surface of the Earth nor in the Seasons of the Year we should lose a considerable share of the Vegetable Kingdom for all Plants will not grow in an uniform Level and the same temper of Soil nor with the same degree of Heat Nay let them lastly consider that to those Hills and Mountains we are obliged for all our Metals and with them for all the conveniencies and comforts of Life To deprive us of Metals is to make us mere Savages to change our Corn or Rice for the old Arcadian Diet our Houses and Cities for Dens and Caves and our Cloathing for Skins of Beasts 't is to bereave us of all Arts and Sciences of History and Letters nay of Revealed Religion too that inestimable favour of Heaven for without the benefit of Letters the whole Gospel would be a mere Tradition and old Cabbala without certainty without authority Who would part with these Solid and Substantial Blessings for the little fantastical pleasantness of a smooth uniform Convexity and Rotundity of a Globe And yet the misfortune of it is that the pleasant View of their imaginary Globe as well as the deformed Spectacle of our true one is founded upon impossible Suppositions For that equal Convexity could never be seen and enjoyed by any man living The Inhabitants of such an Earth could have only the short prospect of a little Circular Plane about three Miles around them tho' neither Woods nor Hedges nor artificial Banks should intercept it which little too would appear to have an Acclivity on all sides from the Spectators so that every man would have the displeasure of fancying himself the lowest and that he always dwelt and moved in a Bottom Nay considering that in such a constitution of the Earth they could have no means nor instruments of Mathematical Knowledge there is great reason to believe that the period of the final Dissolution might overtake them ere they would have known or had any Suspicion that they walked upon a round Ball. Must we therefore to make this Convexity of the Earth discernible to the Eye suppose a man to be lifted up a great height in the Air that he may have a very spacious Horizon under one View But then again because of the distance the convexity and gibbousness would vanish away he would only see below him a great circular Flat as level to his thinking as the face of the Moon Are there then such ravishing Charms in a dull unvaried Flat to make a sufficient compensation for the chief things of the ancient Mountains and for the precious things of the lasting Hills Nay we appeal to the sentence of Mankind If a Land of Hills and Valleys has not more Pleasure too and Beauty than an uniform Flat which Flat if ever it may be said to be very delightfull is then only when 't is viewed from the top of a Hill What were the Tempe of Thessaly so celebrated in ancient story for their unparallelled pleasantness but a Vale divided with a River and terminated with Hills Are not all the descriptions of Poets embellish'd with such Ideas when they would represent any places of Superlative Delight any blissfull Seats of the Muses or the Nymphs any sacred habitations of Gods or Goddesses They will never admit that a wide Flat can be pleasant no not in the very Elysian Fields but those too must be diversified with depressed Valleys and swelling Ascents They cannot imagin even Paradise to be a place of Pleasure nor Heaven it self to be Heaven without them Let this therefore be another Argument of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness that the Surface of the Earth is not uniformly Convex as many think it would naturally have been if mechanically formed by a Chaos but distinguished with Mountains and Valleys and furrowed from Pole to Pole with the Deep Channel of the Sea and that because of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is better that it should be so Give me leave to make one short Inference from what has been said which shall finish this present Discourse and with it our Task for the Year We have clearly discovered many Final Causes and Characters of Wisdom and Contrivance in the Frame of the inanimate World as well as in the Organical Fabrick of the Bodies of Animals Now from hence ariseth a new and invincible Argument that the present Frame of the World hath not existed from all Eternity For such an usefulness of things or a fitness of means to Ends as neither proceeds from the necessity of their Beings nor can happen to them by Chance doth necessarily inferr that there was an Intelligent Being which was the Author and Contriver of that Usefulness We have formerly demonstrated that the Body of a Man which consists of an incomprehensible variety of Parts all admirably fitted for their peculiar Functions and the Conservation of the Whole could no more be formed fortuitously than the Aeneis of Virgil or any other long Poem with good Sense and just Measures could
be composed by the Casual Combinations of Letters Now to pursue this Comparison as it is utterly impossible to be believed that such a Poem may have been eternal transcribed from Copy to Copy without any first Author and Original so it is equally incredible and impossible that the Fabrick of Humane Bodies which hath such excellent and Divine Artifice and if I may so say such good Sense and true Syntax and harmonious Measures in its Constitution should be propagated and transcribed from Father to Son without a first Parent and Creator of it An eternal usefulness of Things an eternal Good Sense cannot possibly be conceived without an eternal Wisdom and Understanding But that can be no other than that eternal and omnipotent God that by Wisdom hath founded the Earth and by Understanding hath established the Heavens To whom be all Honour and Glory and Praise and Adoration from henceforth and for evermore AMEN FINIS THE CONTENTS SERMON I. THE Folly of Atheism and what is now called Deism even with Respect to the Present Life Psalm XIV v. 1. The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good Pag. 1 SERMON II. Matter and Motion cannot think Or a Confutation of Atheism from the Faculties of he Soul 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 p. 36 SERMONS III IV V. A Confutation of Atheism from the Structure and Origin of Humane Bodies 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 p. 68 99 132 SERMONS VI VII VIII A Confutation of Atheism from the Origin and Frame of the World Acts XIV 15 c. That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein Who in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling our hearts with Food and Gladness p. 165 199 238 ADVERTISEMENT THere are now in the Press Five Dissertations about Phalaris's Epistles Aesop's Fables c. With an Answer to the Objections of the Honourable Charles Boyle Esquire Dan. 5. 5. Posidon apud Ciceron Plutarch c. Mr. De Cartes Psal. 34. 9. Joh. 3. 16. 2 Tim 1. 10. Matt. 11. 30. 1 Joh. 5. 3. Heb. 5. 9. 1 Pet. 1. 4. 1 Cor. 2. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Max. Tyr. Diss. 1. 2 Tim. 4. 8. Jam. 1. 12. 2 Cor. 4. 17. v 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psalm 〈◊〉 13. 46. Phil. 3. 19. 2 Cor. 12. 2. Num. 13. 32. Mar. 9. 24. Eph. 1. 19. Prov. 26. 4. Tit. 2. 12. Mark 8. 34. Prov. 3. 17. Rom. 2. 4. 1 Tim. 4. 10. 1 Joh. 5. 14. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Rom. 5. 6 10. Phil. 2. 12. Matt. 10. 28. Heb. 10. 31. Heb. 10 27. Cic. Plutarch c. * Vide Pocockii Notas ad Portam Mosis p. 158 c. Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. p. 1104 1105. Ed. Ruald Mar. 14. 2 Phil. 4. 13. Lib. 3. * Mecaenas apud Senec Ep. 101. Debilem facito Manu debilem pede coxa c Rom. 12. 1. Julianus apud Cyrillum p. 134. Matt. 5. 44. ver 28. Plato de Legib. lib. 10. p. 886. Ed. Steph. Luke 19. 22. * Hobbes de Cive Leviathan †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laert. De sanctitate de pietate adversus Deos. Cic. De Laert. p. 34 47 50. Voyage du Sieur de Champlain p. 28. 93. Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lucret c. Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cicero Athenaeus Aeâ—ian c. Josephus de Bello Iudaico l. 2. â— 12. * Si sibi ipse consentiat non interdum naturae bonitate vincatur Cic. de Offic. 1. 2. Acts 17. 18. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 †Arriani Epictet l. 1. C. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seneca Ep. 53. Est aliquid quâ— sapiens antecedat Deum ille naturae beneficio non suo sapiens est v. 19. v. 20. Lucianus in Philopat Philostrat de vita Apol. l. 6. c. 2. Pausan in Eliacis V. 25. * Lucret. 2. Ipsa suis pollens opibus nihil iâ—â—â—ga noâ—â—â—â— Tertul. Apolog. cap. 46. Quis enim Philosophum sacrificare compellit Quinimmo deos vestros palam destruunt superstitiones vestras commentariis quoque accusant V. 26. * Isocrates in Paneg. Demosth. in Epitaph Cic Or. pro Flacco Euripides c. Diog. Laert in Praef. Thucyd. lib. 6. Herodot c. v. 27 28. Plutarch de Aud. Poet contra Colot Laert. in vita Epicuri v. 29. v. 30 31. Act. 14. 16. v. 33. v. 28. Arati Phoen. v. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Hom. Il. w. 551. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Aesch. Eumen. 655. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soph. Electra 136. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 25. 19. Luke 24. 11. John 6. 53. v. 60. v. 66. Seneca Ep. 113. Plutarch de Contrad Stoic * Vide Zenobium Suidam in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scholiastem Eurip Hecubae V. 838. Epicurus apud Laert. Lucret. l. 5. Cicero de Fin. l. 1. Acad l. 2. Lucret l. 2. Cic de Fato l. 1. de Nat. Deorum Plutarch c. Psal. 139. 16. Plautus Virgil. Livius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 4. 14. Rom. 9. 20. Lucret. l 3. Vide Observations upon the Bills of Mortality So Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. c 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Vitruvius lib. 9. c. 4. Lucret lib. 5. Ut Babylonica Chaldaeam doctrina c. Apuleius de Deo Socratis Seu illa Luua proprio perpeti fulgore ut Chaldaei arbitrantur parte luminis compos parte altera casâ—a fulgeris Maimonides More Nevochim De Zabiis Chaldais Plato in Cratylo Diodorus lib. 1 c. 2. Eusebius Demonst. Evangel lib. 1. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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. Job 26. 7. Plutarch de Plac. Phi. lib. 5. c. 19. Sympos l. 8. c 8. Censorinus de die Natali cap. 4. Plutarch de Plac. Phil. 5. 19. Censorin ibidem Censorinus ibid. Lucret. lib. 5. Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. c. 2. 2 K. 5. 6. Archimedes de Insidenâ—ibus humido lib. 1. Stevin des Elements Hydrostatiques Cartesius de Formatione Faetûs Swammerdam Histor. Insect p. 3. See the Former Sermon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nicander Redi De generatione insectorum Malpighius de Gallis Swammerdam de gen Insect Lewenhoeck Epistol Act 12 23. Continuat Epistol