observed because every Point was agreeable to the notions of the greater Party But when they heard of the Resurrection of the Dead the interruption and clamour became universal so that here the Apostle was obliged to break off and depart from among them What could be the reason of this general dissent from the notion of the Resurrection since almost all of them believed the Immortality of the Soul St. Chrysostom hath a conceit that the Athenians took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the original word for Resurrection to be preached to them as a Goddess and in this fancy he is follow'd by some of the Moderns The ground of the conjecture is the 18th verse of this Chapter where some said What will this Babler say other some He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strange Deities which comprehends both Sexes because he preached unto them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iesus and the Resurrection Now say they it could not be said Deities in the plural number unless it be supposed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Goddess as well as Iesus a God But we know such a permutation of Number is frequent in all Languages We have another example of it in the very Text As certain also of your own Poets have said For we are also his Off-spring And yet the Apostle meant only one Aratus the Cilician his Countryman in whose Astronomical Poem this passage is now extant So that although he preached to the Athenians Jesus alone yet by a common mode of speech he might be called a setter forth of strange Gods 'T is my opinion that the general distaste and clamour proceeded from a mistake about the nature of the Christian Resurrection The word Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was well enough known amongst the Athenians as appears at this time from Homer Aeschylus and Sophocles they could hardly then possibly imagin it to signifie a Goddess But then it always denoted a returning from the State of the Dead to this present World to eat and drink and converse upon Earth and so after another period of Life to die again as before And Festus a Roman seems to have had the same apprehensions about it For when he declares the case of St. Paul his Prisoner to King Agrippa he tells him That the Accusation was only about certain questions of the Jewish Superstition and of one Iesus which was dead whom Paul affirmed to be alive So that when the Athenians heard him mention the Resurrection of the Dead which according to their acceptation of the word was a contradiction to common Sense and to the Experience of all Places and Ages they had no patience to give any longer attention His words seemed to them as idle tales as the first news of our Saviour's Resurrection did to the Apostles themselves All interrupted and mocked him except a few that seem to have understood him aright which said they would hear him again of this matter Just as when our Saviour said in an Allegorical and Mystical sense Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you the Hearers understood him literally and grosly The Iews therefore strove among themselves saying How can this man give us his Flesh to eat this is a hard saying who can hear it And from that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him I have now gone through this excellent Discourse of the Apostle in which many most important Truths are clearly and succinctly deliver'd such as the Existence the Spirituality and All sufficiency of God the Creation of the World the Origination of Mankind from one common stock according to the History of Moses the Divine Providence in over-ruling all Nations and People the new Doctrine of Repentance by the preaching of the Gospel the Resurrection of the Dead and the appointed Day of an universal Judgment To all which particulars by God's Permission and Assistance I shall say something in due time But at present I have confined my self to that near and internal and convincing Argument of the Being of God which we have from Humane Nature it self and which appears to be principally here recommended by St. Paul in the words of the Text 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 that is by his power we live and move and have our being The Proposition which I shall speak to from this Text is this That the very Life and Vital Motion and the Formal Essence and Nature of Man is wholly owing to the power of God and that the consideration of our Selves of our own Souls and Bodies doth directly and nearly conduct us to the acknowledgment of his Existence And 1. I shall prove That there is an immaterial Substance in us which we call Soul and Spirit essentially distinct from our Bodies and that this Spirit doth necessarily evince the Existence of a Supreme and Spiritual Being And 2. That the Organical Structure of Humane Bodies whereby they are fitted to live and move and be vitally informed by the Soul is unquestionably the workmanship of a most wise and powerfull and beneficent Maker But I will reserve this latter part for the next opportunity and my present undertaking shall be this To evince the Being of God from the consideration of Humane Souls 1. And first I say there is an immaterial Substance in us which we call Soul essentially distinct from our Bodies I shall lay it down as self-evident That there is something in our Composition that thinks and apprehends and reflects and deliberates that determines and doubts consents and denies that wills and demurrs and resolves and chooses and rejects that receives various sensations and impressions from external objects and produces voluntary motions of several parts of our Bodies This every man is conscious of neither can any one be so Sceptical as to doubt of or deny it that very doubting or denying being part of what I would suppose and including several of the rest in their Idea's and Notions And in the next place 't is as self-evident that these Faculties and Operations of Thinking and Willing and Perceiving must proceed from something or other as their efficient Cause meer Nothing being never able to produce any thing at all So that if these powers of Cogitation and Volition and Sensation are neither inherent in Matter as such nor producible in Matter by any motion and modification of it it necessarily follows that they proceed from some cogitative Substance some incorporeal Inhabitant within us which we call Spirit and Soul 1. But first these Faculties of Sensation and Perception are not inherent in Matter as such For if it were so what monstrous absurdities would follow Every Stock and Stone would be a percipient
of the Atheist That it was first contrived and introduced by Politicians to bring the wild and straggling Herds of Mankind under Subjection and Laws Out of thy own mouth shalt thou be judged thou wicked servant Thou say'st that the wise Institutors of Government Souls elevated above the ordinary pitch of men thought Religion necessary to Civil Obedience Why then dost thou endeavour to undermine this Foundation to undo this Cement of Society and to reduce all once again to thy imaginary State of Nature and Original Confusion No Community ever was or can be begun or maintain'd but upon the Basis of Religion What Government can be imagin'd without Judicial Proceedings and what methods of Judicature without a Religious Oath which implies and supposes an Omniscient Being as conscious to its falshood or truth and a revenger of Perjury So that the very nature of an Oath and therefore of Society also is subverted by the Atheist who professeth to acknowledge nothing superiour to himself no omnipresent observer of the actions of men For an Atheist to compose a System of Politicks is as absurd and ridiculous as Epicurus's Sermons were about Sanctity and Religious Worship But there was hope that the Doctrine of absolute uncontroulable Power and the formidable name of Leviathan might flatter and bribe the Government into a toleration of Infidelity We need have no recourse to notion and supposition we have sad experience and convincing example before us what a rare Constitution of Government may be had in a whole Nation of Atheists The Natives of Newfoundland and New France in America as they are said to live without any sense of Religion so they are known to be destitute of its advantages and blessings without any Law or form of Community without any Literature or Sciences or Arts no Towns no fixed Habitations no Agriculture no Navigation And 't is entirely owing to the power of Religion that the whole World is not at this time as barbarous as they And yet I ought not to have called these miserable Wretches a Nation of Atheists They cannot be said to be of the Atheist's opinion because they have no opinion at all in the matter They do not say in their hearts There is no God for they never once deliberated if there was one or no. They no more deny the Existence of a Deity than they deny the Antipodes the Copernican System or the Satellites Iovis about which they have had no notion or conception at all 'T is the Ignorance of those poor Creatures and not their Impiety their Ignorance as much to be pitied as the Impiety of the Atheists to be detested and punish'd 'T is of mighty importance to the Government to put some timely stop to the spreading Contagion of this Pestilence that walketh by day that dares to disperse its cursed seeds and principles in the face of the Sun The Fool in the Text had only said in his heart There is no God he had not spoken it aloud nor openly blasphem'd in places of publick resort There 's too much reason to fear that some of all orders of men even Magistracy it self have taken the Infection a thing of dreadfull consequence and most imminent danger Epicurus was somewhat wiser than ordinary when he so earnestly advised his Disciples against medling in publick affairs He knew the nature and tendency of his own Philosophy that it would soon become suspected and odious to a Government if ever Atheists were employ'd in places of Trust. But because he had made one great Rule superior to all That every man's only Good was pleasure of Body and contentment of Mind hence it was that men of ambitious and turbulent Spirits that were dissatisfied and uneasie with Privacy and Retirement were allowed by his own Principle to engage in matters of State And there they generally met with that fortune which their Master foresaw Several Cities of Greece that had made experiment of them in Publick Concerns drove them out as Incendiaries and Pests of Commonweals by severe Edicts and Proclamations Atheism is by no means tolerable in the most private condition but if it aspire to authority and power if it acquire the Command of an Army or a Navy if it get upon the Bench or into the Senate or on a Throne What then can be expected but the basest Cowardice and Treachery but the foulest prevarication in Justice but betraying and selling the Rights and Liberties of a People but arbitrary Government and tyrannical Oppression Nay if Atheism were once as I may say the National Religion it would make its own Followers the most miserable of men it would be the Kingdom of Satan divided against it self and the Land would be soon brought to desolation Iosephus that knew them hath inform'd us that the Sadduces those Epicureans among the Jews were not only rough and cruel to men of a different Sect from their own but perfidious and inhumane one towards another This is the genuine spirit and the natural product of Atheism No man that adheres to that narrow and selfish Principle can ever be Just or Generous or Gratefull unless he be sometime overcome by Good-nature and a happy Constitution No Atheist as such can be a true Friend an affectionate Relation or a loyal Subject The appearance and shew of mutual Amity among them is wholly owing to the smallness of their number and to the obligations of a Faction 'T is like the Friendship of Pickpockets and Highwaymen that are said to observe strict Justice among themselves and never to defraud a Comrade of his share of the Booty But if we could imagine a whole Nation to be Cut-purses and Robbers would there then be kept that square-dealing and equity in such a monstrous den of Thieves And if Atheism should be supposed to become universal in this Nation which seems to be design'd and endeavour'd though we know the gates of Hell shall not be able to prevail farewell all Ties of Friendship and Principles of Honour all Love for our Country and Loyalty to our Prince nay farewell all Government and Society it self all Professions and Arts and Conveniencies of Life all that is laudable or valuable in the World May the Father of Mercies and God of Infinite Wisedom reduce the Foolish from their Errors and make them wise unto Salvation Confirm the Sceptical and wavering Minds and so prevent Us that stand fast in all our doings and further us with his continual help that we may not be of them that draw back unto Perdition but of them that believe to the saving of the Soul Amen Matter and Motion cannot think OR A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM From the Faculties of the Soul The Second SERMON preached April 4. 1692. Acts XVII 27. That they should seek the Lord if happily 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
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
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
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
be conveyed from one to the other We will not obscure and perplex with multitude of words what is so clear and evident by its own light and must needs be allowed by all that have competent use of Thinking and are initiated into I do not say the Mysteries but the plainest Principles of Philosophy Now mutual Gravitation or Attraction in our present acception of the Words is the same thing with This 't is an operation or virtue or influence of distant Bodies upon each other through an empty Interval without any Effluvia or Exhalations or other corporeal Medium to convey and transmit it This Power therefore cannot be innate and essential to Matter And if it be not essential it is consequently most manifest since it doth not depend upon Motion or Rest or Figure or Position of Parts which are all the ways that Matter can diversify it self that it could never supervene to it unless impress'd and infus'd into it by an immaterial and divine Power We have proved that a Power of mutual Gravitation without contact or impulse can in no-wise be attributed to mere Matter or if it could we shall presently shew that it would be wholly unable to form the World out of Chaos What then if it be made appear that there is really such a Power of Gravity which cannot be ascribed to mere Matter perpetually acting in the constitution of the present System This would be a new and invincible Argument for the Being of God being a direct and positive proof that an immaterial living Mind doth inform and actuate the dead Matter and support the Frame of the World I will lay before you some certain Phaenomena of Nature and leave it to your consideration from what Principle they can proceed 'T is demonstrated That the Sun Moon and all the Planets do reciprocally gravitate one toward another that the Gravitating power of each of them is exactly proportional to their Matter and arises from the several Gravitations or Attractions of all the individual Particles that compose the whole Mass that all Matter near the Surface of the Earth and so in all the Planets doth not only gravitate downwards but upwards also and side-ways and toward all imaginable Points though the Tendency downward be praedominant and alone discernible because of the Greatness and Nearness of the attracting Body the Earth that every Particle of the whole System doth attract and is attracted by all the rest All operating upon All that this Universal Attraction or Gravitation is an incessant regular and uniform Action by certain and establish'd Laws according to Quantity of Matter and Longitude of Distance that it cannot be destroyd nor impaired nor augmented by any thing neither by Motion or Rest nor Situation nor Posture nor alteration of Form nor diversity of Medium that it is not a Magnetical Power nor the effect of a Vortical Motion those common attempts toward the Explication of Gravity These things I say are fully demonstrated as matters of Fact by that very ingenious Author whom we cited before Now how is it possible that these things should be effected by any Material and Mechanical Agent We have evinced that mere Matter cannot operate upon Matter without mutual Contact It remains then that these Phaenomena are produced either by the intervention of Air or Aether or other such medium that communicates the Impulse from one Body to another or by Effluvia and Spirits that are emitted from the one and pervene to the other We can conceive no other way of performing them Mechanically But what impulse or agitation can be propagated through the Aether from one Particle entombed and wedged in the very Center of the Earth to another in the Center of Saturn Yet even those two Particles do reciprocally affect each other with the same force and vigour as they would do at the same distance in any other Situation imaginable And because the Impulse from this Particle is not directed to That only but to all the rest in the Universe to all quarters and regions at once invariably and incessantly to do this mechanically the same physical Point of Matter must move all manner of ways equally and constantly in the same instant and moment which is flatly impossible But if this Particle cannot propagate such Motion much less can it send out Effluvia to all points without intermission or variation such multitudes of Effluvia as to lay hold on every Atom in the Universe without missing of one Nay every single Particle of the very Effluvia since they also attract and gravitate must in this Supposition emit other secondary Effluvia all the World over and those others still emit more and so in infinitum Now if these things be repugnant to Humane Reason we have great reason to affirm That Universal Gravitation a thing certainly existent in Nature is above all Mechanism and material Causes and proceeds from a higher principle a Divine energy and impression III. Thirdly we affirm That though we shouldallow that reciprocal Attraction is essential to Matter yet the Atoms of a Chaos could never so convene by it as to form the present System or if they could form it yet it could neither acquire these Revolutions nor subsist in the present condition without the Conservation and Providence of a Divine Being 1. For first if the Matter of the Universe and consequently the Space through which it 's diffused be supposed to be Finite and I think it might be demonstrated to be so but that we have already exceeded the just measures of a Sermon then since every single Particle hath an innate Gravitation toward all others proportionated by Matter and Distance it evidently appears that the outward Atoms of the Chaos would necessarily tend inwards and descend from all quarters toward the Middle of the whole Space for in respect to every Atom there would lie through the Middle the greatest quantity of Matter and the most vigorous Attraction and those Atoms would there form and constitute one huge sphaerical Mass which would be the only Body in the Universe It is plain therefore that upon this Supposition the Matter of the Chaos could never compose such divided and different Masses as the Stars and Planets of the present World But allowing our Adversaries that the Planets might be composed yet however they could not possibly acquire such Revolutions in Circular Orbs or which is all one to our present purpose in Ellipses very little Eccentric For let them assign any place where the Planets were formed Was it nearer to the Sun than the present distances are But that is notoriously absurd for then they must have ascended from the place of their Formation against the essential property of mutual Attraction Or were each formed in the same Orbs in which they now move But then they must have moved from the Point of Rest in an horizontal Line without any inclination or descent Now there is no natural Cause neither Innate Gravity nor