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   Title: Eight Sermons Preach’d at the Honourable Robert Boyle’s Lecture, in
   the First Year, MDCXCII.
   Creator(s): Bentley, Richard (1662-1742)
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons
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EIGHT SERMONS

Preach’d at the Honourable

ROBERT BOYLE’s

LECTURE,

In the FIRST YEAR, MDCXCII.

By RICHARD BENTLEY

Master of Arts.

THE FIFTH EDITION.

   To which is now added a SERMON Preach’d at the Publick-Commencement at
   Cambridge July V. MDCXCVI. when He Proceded Doctor in Divinity.

   CAMBRIDGE:

   Printed for Cornelius Crownfield, Printer to the University; And are to be
   Sold by James Knapton and Robert Knaplock, Booksellers in LONDON, 1724.
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   To my most Honoured Patrons,

   TRUSTEES,

   Appointed by the Will of the Honourable

   Robert Boyle, Esq;

   The Right Reverend Father in God,

   THOMAS,

   Lord Bishop of Lincoln,

   Sir Henry Ashurst, K^t and Baronet,
   Sir John Rotheram, Serjeant at Law,
   John Evelyn senior, Esquire.

   Most Honoured,

   GOD having disposed the Heart of that incomparable Person, the Honourable
   Robert Boyle Esquire, lately deceased, the Glory of our Nation and Age,
   whose Charity and Goodness were as universal as his Learning and Fame; 'To
   settle an Annual Salary for some Divine or Preaching Minister, who shall be
   enjoyned to perform the Offices following: 1. To preach Eight Sermons in the
   Year, for proving the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels, viz.
   Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews and Mahometans; not descending to any
   Controversies that are among Christians themselves: The Lectures to be on
   the First Monday of the respective Months of January, February, March,
   April, May, September, October, November; in such Church as the Trustees
   shall from time to time appoint: 2. To be assisting to all Companies, and
   encouraging them in any Undertaking for propagating the Christian Religion:
   3. To be ready to satisfy such Real Scruples as any may have concerning
   those Matters; and to answer such New Objections or Difficulties as may be
   started, to which good Answers have not yet been made: You have been pleased
   to believe me able in some measure to perform these Offices, and to command
   this First Essay to be made public. I am every sensible of the great Honour,
   as well as the great Extent and Difficulty of the Task; and shall endeavour
   to the utmost of my poor ability to answer the religious and generous Design
   of that Excellent Person, and the good Opinion you have entertained of

   My most Honoured Patrons,

   Your very obliged and

   humble Servant

   March I7. 169½. R. BENTLEY.
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  THE

CONTENTS.

   SERMON I.

   THE Folly of Atheism, and (what is now called) Deism; even with Respect to
   the Present Life.

   Psalm XIV. v. 12.

   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 the 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. 45.

   SERMONS III, IV, V.

   A Confutation of Atheism from the Structure and Origin of Human 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. 85, 122, 163.

   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 lest not
   himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven,
   and fruitful Seasons, filling our hearts with Food and Gladness.

   p. 203, 246, 293.

   Commencement SERMON.

   I Peter III. 15.

   Be ready always to give an answer to every Man, that asketh you a reason of
   the Hope that is in you.

   p. 343
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   Serm. I.

  THE

   Folly of Atheism,

   And (what is now called)

   DEISM:

   Even with Respect to the

   PRESENT LIFE.

   The First SERMON Preached
   March 7. 179½.

   Psalm XIV. verse 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.

   I Shall not now make any enquiry about the time and occasion and other
   circumstances of composing this Psalm; nor how it comes to pass, that with
   very little variation we have it twice over, both here the 14th. and again
   number the 53d. Not that these and such like are not important
   considerations in themselves; but that I think them improper now, when we
   are to argue and expostulate with such persons, as allow no Divine Authority
   to our Text; and profess no greater, or, it may be they will say, less
   Veneration for these Sacred Hymns, than for the profane Songs of Anacreon or
   Horace. So that although I my self do really believe, that all such as say
   in their Hearts, There is no God, are foolish and corrupt, both in
   Understanding and Will; because I see infinite Wisdom it self has pronounced
   them to be so: nevertheless this Argument would at present have no force
   upon these men, till in due time and method we have evinced the sufficient
   Authority of Holy Scripture. But however there are other Books extant, which
   they must needs allow of as proper Evidence; even the mighty Volumes of
   visible Nature, and the everlasting Tables of Right Reason; wherein, if they
   do not wilfully shut their Eyes, they may read their own Folly written by
   the Finger of God, in a much plainer and more terrible Sentence, than [1] f
   defaced. Whence it will follow, that Speculative Atheism does only subsist
   in Our speculation; whereas really Humane Nature cannot be guilty of the
   crime: that indeed a few sensual and voluptuous Persons may for a season
   eclipse this native Light of the Soul; but can never so wholly smother and
   extinguish it, but that at come lucid intervals it will recover it self
   again, and shine forth to the conviction of their Conscience. And therefore
   they believed, that the words would not admit of a strict and rigorous
   Interpretation; but ought to be so temper’d and accommodated to the nature
   of things, as that they may describe those profane persons; who, though they
   do not, nor can really doubt in their Hearts of the Being of God, yet they
   openly deny his Providence in the course of their lives. Now if this be all
   that is meant by the Text, I do not see how we can defend, not only the
   fitness and propriety, but the very truth of the expression. As to that
   natural and indeleble signature of God, which Human Souls in their first
   Origin are supposed to be stamp’d with, I shall shew at a fitter
   opportunity, that it is a mistake, and that we have no need of it in our
   Disputes against Atheism. So that being free from that prejudice, I
   interpret the words of the Text in the literal acceptation, which will
   likewise take in the Expositions of others. For I believe that the Royal in
   this comprehensive brevity of speech, There is no God, hath concluded all
   the various Forms of Impiety; whether of such as excludes the Deity from
   governing the World by his Providence, or judging it by his Righteousness,
   or creating it by his Wisdom and Power. Because the consequence and result
   of all these Opinions is terminated in downright Atheism. For the Divine
   Inspection into the Affairs of the World doth necessarily follow from the
   Nature and Being of God. And he that denies this, doth implicitly deny his
   Existence: he may acknowledg what he will with his mouth, but in his heart
   he hath said, There is no God. A God, therefore a Providence; was a general
   argument of virtuous men, and not peculiar to the Stoics alone. And again,
   No Providence, therefore no God; was the most plausible reason, and the most
   frequent in the mouth of Atheistical Men. So that it seems to be agreed on
   all hands, that the Existence of God and his Government of the World do
   mutually suppose and imply one another.

   There are some Infidels among us, that not only disbelieve the Christian
   Religion; but oppose the assertions of Providence, of the Immortality of the
   Soul, of an Universal judgment to come, and of any Incorporeal Essence: and
   yet to avoid the odious name of Atheists, would shelter and skreen
   themselves under a new one of Deists, which is not quite so obnoxious. But I
   think the Text hath cut them short, and precluded this subterfuge; in as
   much as it hath declared, that all such wicked Principles are coincident and
   all one in the issue with the rankest Atheism: The Fool, that doth exempt
   the affairs of the World from the ordination and disposal of God, hath said
   in his Heart, There is no God at all. It was the Opinion of many of the
   Ancients, that [2] Epicurus introduced a Deity into his Philosophy, not
   because he was persuaded of his Existence, (for when he had brought him upon
   the Stage of Nature, he made him only Muta persona, and interdicted him from
   bearing any Part in it,) but purely that he might not incurr the offence of
   the Magistrate. He was, generally therefore suspected Verbis reliquisse
   Deum, re sustulisse; to have framed on purpose such a contemptible paultry
   Hypothesis about him, as indeed lest the Name and Title of God in the World;
   but nothing of his Nature and Power. Just as a [3] Philosopher of our own
   Age gave a ludicrous and fictitious notion about the Rest of the Earth, To
   evade the hard censure and usage which Galileo had lately met with. For my
   own part, as I do not exclude this reason from being a grand occasion of
   Epicurus’s owning a God; so I believe that he and Democritus too were
   compelled to it likewise by the necessity of their own Systems. For seeing
   they explain’d the Phæmomena of Vision, Imagination, and Thought it self, by
   certain thin fleeces of Atoms, that flow incessantly from the surfaces of
   Bodies, and by their subtilty and fineness penetrate any obstacle, and yet
   retain the exact figures and lineaments of the several bodies from which
   they proceed; and in this manner insinuating themselves through the pores of
   Humane Bodies into the Contexture of the Soul, do there excite Sensation and
   Perception of themselves: in consequence of this Hypothesis they were
   obliged to maintain, that we could have no Fancy, or Idea, or Conception of
   any thing, but what did really subsist either intire or in its several
   parts. Whence it followed, that mankind could have no imaginations of
   Juppiter or Mars, of Minerva or Isis; if there were not actually such Beings
   in nature to emit those Effluvia, which gliding into the Soul must beget
   such imaginations. And thence it was, that those Philosophers adapted their
   description of the Deity to the vulgar apprehensions of those times; Gods
   and Goddesses innumerable, and all of Humane figure: because otherwise the
   conceptions of mankind about them could not possibly be accounted for by
   their Physiology. So that if Epicurus and Democritus were in earnest about
   their Philosophy, they did necessarily and really believe the Existence of
   the Gods. But then as to the nature and authority of them; they bereaved
   that Juppiter of his Thunder and Majesty: forbidding him to look or peep
   abroad, so much as to enquire what News in the Infinite Space about him;
   but, to content himself and be happy with an eternal laziness and dozing,
   unless some rambling Troops of Atoms upon the dissolution of a neighbouring
   World might chance to awake him. Now because no Israelite in the days of the
   Psalmist is likely to have been so curious about natural Knowledge, as to
   believe the Being of God for such a quaint and airy reason as this, when he
   had once boldly denied his Dominion over the World; and since there is not
   now one Infidel living, so ridiculous as to pretend to solve the Phænomena
   of Sight, Fancy or Cogitation by those fleeting superficial films of Bodies:
   I must beg leave to think, both that the Fool in the Text was a thorough
   confirmed Atheist; and that the modern disguised Deists do only call
   themselves so for the former reason of Epicurus, to decline the publick
   odium, and resentment of the Magistrate and that they cover the most arrant
   Atheism under the mask and shadow of a Deity: by which they understand no
   more, than some eternal inanimate Matter, Come universal Nature, and Soul of
   the World, void of all sense and cogitation, so far from being endowed with
   Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. And therefore in this present Discourse they
   may deservedly come under that Character which the Text hath given of them,
   of Fools that have said in their Hearts, There is no God.

   And now having thus far cleared our way; in the next place we shall offer
   some notorious Proofs of the gross Folly and stupidity of Atheists.

   If a Person that had a fair Estate in reversion, which in all probability he
   would speedily be possess’d of, and of which he might reasonably promise to
   himself a long and happy Enjoyment, should be allured by come skilful
   Physician; That in a very short time he would inevitably fall into a
   Disease, which would so totally deprive him of his Understanding and Memory,
   that he should lose the knowledge of all things without him, nay all
   consciousness and sense of his own Person and Being: If, I say, upon a
   certain belief of this indication, the man should appear overjoyed at the
   News, and be mightily transported with the discovery and expectation; would
   not all that saw him be astonished at such behaviour? Would they not be
   forward to conclude, that the Distemper had seized him already, and even
   then the miserable Creature was become a meer Fool and an Idiot? Now the
   Carriage of our Atheists or Deists is infinitely more amazing than this; no
   dotage so infatuate, no phrensie so extravagant as theirs. They have been
   educated in a Religion, that instructed them in the knowledge of a Supreme
   Being; a Spirit most excellently Glorious, superlatively Powerful and Wise
   and Good, Creator of all things out of nothing; That hath endued the Sons of
   Men, his peculiar Favorites, with a Rational Spirit, and hath placed them as
   Spectators in this noble Theatre of the World, to view and applaud these
   glorious Scenes of Earth and Heaven, the Workmanship of his Hands; That hath
   furnished them in general with a sufficient store of all things, either
   necessary or convenient for life; and particularly to such as fear and obey
   him, hath promised a supply of all wants, a deliverance and protection from
   all dangers: [4] That they that seek him, shall want no manner of thing that
   is good. Who besides his munificence to them in this life; [5] hath so loved
   the World, That he sent his Onely-begotten Son,. the express Image of his
   Substance, and Partaker of his eternal Nature and Glory, to [6] bring Life
   and Immortality to light, and to tender them to Mankind upon fair and
   gracious Terms; That if they submit to his [7] easy yoke, and light burthen,
   and observe his Commandments which are not grievous, he then gives them [8]
   the promise of eternal Salvation; he hath [9] reserved for them in Heaven an
   Inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away; he hath
   prepared for them an. unspeakable, unconceivable Perfection of Joy and
   Bliss, [10] things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
   entred into the heart of man. What a delightful and ravishing Hypothesis of
   Religion in this? And in this Religion they have had their Education. Now
   let us suppose some great Professor in Atheism to suggest to some of these
   men, That all this is meer dream and imposture; that there is no such
   excellent Being, as they suppose, that created and preserves them; that all
   about them is dark senseless Matter, driven on by the blind impulses of
   Fatality and Fortune; that Men first sprung up, like Mushroms, out of the
   mud and slime of the Earth; and that all their Thoughts, and the whole of
   what they call Soul, are only various Action and Repercussion of small
   particles of Matter, kept a-while a moving by some Mechanism and Clock-work,
   which finally must cease and perish by death. If it be true then (as we
   daily find it is) that Men listen with complacency to these horrid
   Suggestions; if they let go their hope of Everlasting Life with willingness
   and joy; if they entertain the thoughts of final Perdition with exultation
   and triumph; ought they not to be esteem’d most notorious [11] Fools, even
   destitute of common sense, and abandon'd to a callousness and numness of
   Soul?

   What then, is Heaven it self, with its pleasures for evermore, to be parted
   with so unconcernedly? [12] Is a Crown of Righteousness, a Crown of Life, to
   be surrendred with laughter? [13] is an exceeding and eternal weight of
   Glory too light in the balance against the hopeless death of the Atheist,
   and utter extinction? ’Twas a noble saying of the Emperor Marcus, That he
   would not endure to live one day in the World, if he did not believe it to
   be under the government of Providence. Let us but imagin that excellent
   Person confuted and satisfied by some Epicurean of his time; that All was
   but Atoms, and Vacuum, and Necessity, and Chance. Would He have been so
   pleased and delighted with the conviction? would he have so triumph'd in
   being overcome? or rather, as he hath told us, would he not have gone down
   with sorrow and despair to the Grave? Did I but once see an Atheist lament
   and bewail himself; That upon a strict and impartial examination he had
   found to his cost, that all was a mistake; that the Prerogative of Human
   Nature was vanished and gone; those glorious hopes of Immortality and Bliss,
   nothing but cheating Joys and pleasant Delusions; that he had undone himself
   by losing the comfortable Error, and would give all the World to have better
   arguments for Religion: there would be great hopes of prevailing upon such
   an Atheist as this. But, alas! there are none of them of this temper of
   mind; there are none that [14] understand and seek after God; they have no
   knowledge; nor any desire of it; they [15] thrust the Word of God from them,
   and judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life; they willingly prefer
   Darkness before Light; and obstinately choose to perish for ever in the
   Grave, rather than be Heirs of Salvation in the Resurrection of the Just.
   These certainly are the Fools in the Text, indocil intractable Fools, whole
   stolidity can baffle all Arguments, and be proof against Demonstration it
   self; [16] whose end (as the words of St. Paul do truly describe them) whose
   end and very Hope is Destruction, an eternal Deprivation of Being; whose God
   is their Belly, the gratification of sensual Lusts; whose Glory is in their
   Shame, in the debasing of Mankind to the condition of Beasts; who mind
   earthly things, who if (like that great Apostle) they were [17] caught up to
   the third Heaven, would (as the Spies did of Canaan) [18] bring down an evil
   report of those Regions of Bliss. And I fear, unless it please God by
   extraordinary methods [19] to help their unbelief and enlighten the eyes of
   their understanding; they will carry their Atheism with them to the Pit; and
   the flames of Hell only must convince them of their Error.

   This supine and inconsiderate behaviour of the Atheists is so extremely
   absurd, that it would be deem’d incredible, if it did not occur to our daily
   Observation; it proclaims aloud, that they are not led astray by their
   Reasoning, but led captive by their Lusts to the denial of God. When the
   very pleasures of Paradise are contemn’d and trampled on, like Pearls cast
   before Swine; there’s small hope of reclaiming them by arguments of Reason.
   But however, as Solomon adviseth, we will answer these [20] Fools not
   according to their lest we also be like unto them. It is expedient that we
   put to silence the ignorance of these foolish men, that Believers may be the
   more confirmed and more resolute in the Faith.

   Did Religion bestow Heaven without any terms or conditions indifferently
   upon all; if the Crown of Life was hereditary, and free to Good and Bad; and
   not settled by Covenant upon the Elect of God only, such as [21] live
   soberly and righteously and godly in this present world; I believe there
   would be no such thing as an Infidel among us. And without controversy ’tis
   the Way and Means of attaining to Heaven, that makes profane Scorners so
   willingly let go the Expectation of it. ’Tis not the Articles of the Creed,
   but the Duty to God and their Neighbour, that is such an inconsistent
   incredible Legend. They will not practise the Rules of Religion, and
   therefore they cannot believe the Promises and Rewards of it.

   But however, let us suppose them to have acted like rational and serious
   Men: and perhaps upon a diligent inquisition they have found, that the Hope
   of Immortality deserves to be joyfully quitted, and that either out of
   Interest, or Necessity.

   I. And first, One may conceive indeed, how there might possibly be a
   necessity of quitting it. It might be tied to such Terms, as would render it
   impossible ever to be obtain’d. For example, if it should be required of all
   the Candidates of Glory and Immortality, to give a full and knowing Assent
   to such things as are repugnant to Common Sense, as contradict the koinai
   ennoi , the universal Notions and indubitable Maxims of Reason; if they were
   to believe, that One and the same Thing may be and not be at the same time
   and in the same respect; If allowing the received Idea’s and denominations
   of Numbers and Figures and Body, they must seriously affirm, that Two and
   two do make a Dozen, or that the Diameter of a Circle is as long as the
   Circumference, or that the same Body may be all of it in distant places at
   once. I must confess that the offers of Happiness upon such Articles of
   Belief as these, would be meer tantalizing of Rational Creatures; and the
   Kingdom of Heaven would become the Inheritance of only Idiots and Fools. For
   whilst a man of Common Capacity doth think and reflect upon such
   Propositions; he cannot possibly bribe his Understanding to give a Verdict
   for their Truth. So that he would be quite frustrated of the Hope of Reward,
   upon such unpracticable Conditions as these: neither could he have any
   evidence of the Reality of the Promise, superior to what he is conscious to
   of the Falsity of the Means. Now if any Atheist can shew me, in the System
   of Christian Religion, any such absurdities and repugnancies to our natural
   Faculties; I will either evince them to be Interpolations and Corruptions of
   the Faith, or yield my self a Captive and a Proselyte to his Infidelity.

   II. Or, 2dly, they may think ’tis the Interest of Mankind, that there should
   be no Heaven at all; because the Labour to acquire it is more worth than the
   Purchase: God Almighty (if there be one) having much overvalued the
   Blessings of his Presence. So that upon a fair estimation, ’tis a greater
   advantage to take one’s swing in Sensuality, and have a glut of
   Voluptuousness in this Life, freely resigning all pretenses to future
   Happiness; which, when a man is once extinguish’d by Death, he cannot be
   supposed either to want or desire: than to be tied up by Commandments and
   Rules so contrary to Flesh and Blood; to [22] take up one’s Cross, to deny
   himself; and refuse the Satisfaction of Natural Desires. This indeed is the
   true Language of Atheism, and the Cause of it too. Were not this at the
   Bottom, no man in his Wits could contemn and ridicule the expectation of
   Immortality. Now what power or influence can Religion have upon the minds of
   there men; while not only their Affections and Lusts, but their supposed
   Interest shall plead against it? But if we can once silence this powerful
   Advocate, we shall without much difficulty carry the Cause at the Bar of
   impartial Reason.

   Now here is a notorious instance of the Folly of Atheists, that while they
   repudiate all Title to the Kingdom of Heaven, meerly for the present
   Pleasure of Body, and their boasted Tranquillity of Mind; besides the
   extreme madness in running such a desperate Hazard after Death, (which I
   will not now treat of) they deprive themselves here of that very Pleasure
   and Tranquillity they seek for. For I shall now endeavour to shew, That
   Religion it self gives us the greatest Delights and Advantages even in this
   life also, though there should prove in the event to be no Resurrection to
   another. [23] Her ways are ways of pleasure, and all her paths are peace.

   But before I begin that, I must occurr to one specious Objection both
   against this Proposition and the past part of my Discourse; Namely, that
   Religion doth perpetually haunt and disquiet us with dismal apprehensions of
   everlasting Burnings in Hell; and that there is no shelter or refuge from
   those Fears, but behind the Principles of Atheism.

   (1.) First therefore I will freely acknowledge to the Atheists; that some
   part of what hath been said is not directly conclusive against them; if they
   say, that before they revolted from the Faith, they had sinned away all
   expectation of ever arriving at Heaven: and consequently had good reason so
   joyfully to receive the news of Annihilation by Death, as an advantageous
   change for the everlasting torments of the Damn’d. But because I cannot
   expect, that they will make such a shameless and senseless Confession, and
   supply us with that invincible argument against themselves: I must say
   again, that to prefer final Extinction before a happy Immortality does
   declare the most deplorable stupidity of mind. Nay although they should
   confess, that they believed themselves to be Reprobates, before they
   disbelieved Religion; and took Atheism as a sanctuary and Refuge from the
   Terrors of Hell: yet still the imputation of Folly will stick upon them: in
   as much as they chose Atheism as an Opiate to still those frightning
   Apprehensions, by inducing a dulness and lethargy of mind; rather than they
   would make use of that active and salutary Medicine, a hearty Repentance;
   that they did not know the [24] Riches of the goodness and forbearance and
   long-suffering of God, and that a sincere Amendment of Life was never too
   late nor in vain; [25] Jesus Christ being the Saviour of all men, and a
   propitiation for the sins of the whole world; who came into the world to
   save sinners, even the chief of them all; and died for the ungodly, and his
   bitterest enemies.

   (2.) And secondly, As to the Fears of Damnation; those terrors are not to be
   charged upon Religion it self, which proceed either from the Want of
   Religion, or Superstitious mistakes about it. For as an honest and innocent
   Man doth know the punishments, which the Laws of his Country denounce
   against Felons and Murderers and Traytors, without being terrified or
   concern’d at them: So a Christian, in truth as well as in name, though he
   believe the consuming Vengeance prepared for the disobedient and
   unbelievers, is not at all dismayed at the apprehensions of it. Indeed it
   adds spurs, and gives wings to his diligence, it excites him to [26] work
   out his Salvation with fear and trembling, a religious and ingenuous fear,
   that is temper’d with hope and with love and unspeakable joy. But he knows,
   that if he fears him who is [27] able to destroy both soul and body in Hell,
   he needs not fear that his own soul or body shall ever go thither.

   I allow that some debauched and profligate Wretches, or some designing
   perfidious Hypocrites, that are religious in outward profession, but corrupt
   and abominable in their works, are most justly as well as usually liable to
   these horrors of mind. ’Tis not my business to defend or excuse such as
   these; 1 must leave them, as long as they keep their hardness and impenitent
   hearts, to those gnawing and excruciating Fears, those whips of the divine
   Nemesis, that frequently scourge even Atheists themselves. For the Atheists
   also can never wholly extinguish those horrible forebodings of Conscience.
   They endeavour indeed to compose and charm their Fears, but a thousand
   occasions daily awaken the sleeping Tormenters. Any slight Consideration
   either of themselves, or of any thing without; whatsoever they think on, or
   whatsoever they look on; all administer some reasons for suspicion and
   diffidence, lest possibly they may be in the wrong; and then ’tis a [28]
   fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. There are they great
   fear, as ’tis in the 5th verse of this Psalm, under terrible presages of
   [29] judgment and fiery indignation. Neither can they say, That these
   Terrors, like Tales about Spectres, may disturb some small Pretenders and
   puny Novices, but dare not approach the vere Adepti, the Masters and Rabbies
   of Atheism. [30] For ’tis well known both from ancient and modern
   Experience, that the very boldest of them, out of their Debauches and
   Company, when they chance to be surprized with Solitude or Sickness, are the
   most suspicious and timorous and despondent Wretches in the World: and that
   the boasted Happy Atheist in the Indolence of body, and an undisturbed Calm
   and Serenity of mind, is altogether as rare a Creature, as the Vir Sapiens
   was among the Stoics; whom they often met with in Idea and Description, in
   Harangues and in Books, but freely own’d that he never had or was like to
   exist actually in Nature.

   And now as to the present advantages which we owe to Religion, they are very
   conspicuous; whether we consider Mankind, (1.) Separately, or (2.) under
   Society and Government.

   1. And first, in a Single Capacity. How is a good Christian animated and
   cheer’d by a stedfast belief of the Promises of the Gospel; of an
   everlasting enjoyment of perfect Felicity, such as, after millions of
   millions of Ages is still youthfull and flourishing and inviting as at the
   first? no wrinkles in the face, no gray hairs on the head of Eternity; no
   end, no diminution, no satiety of those delights. What a warm and vigorous
   influence does a Religious Heart feel from a firm expectation of these
   Glories? Certainly this Hope alone is of inestimable value; ’tis a kind of
   anticipation and pledge of those Joys; and at least gives him one Heaven
   upon Earth, though the other should prove a Delusion. Now what are the
   mighty Promises of Atheism in competition with these? let us know the
   glorious Recompences it proposes: utter Extinction and Cessation of Being;
   to be reduced to the same condition, as if we never had been born. O dismal
   reward of Infidelity! at which Nature does shrink and shiver with horror.
   What some of the [31] Learned Doctors among the Jews have esteem’d the most
   dreadfull of all Punishment, and. have assigned for the portion of the
   blackest Criminals of the Damn’d; so interpreting Tophet, Ahaddon, the Vale
   of Slaughter and the like, for final Excision and Deprivation of Being: this
   Atheism exhibits to us, as an Equivalent to Heaven. ’Tis well known, what
   hath been disputed among School-men to this effect. And ’tis an observation
   of [32] Plutarch, that the Generality of Mankind, pantes kai pasai, as well
   Women as Men, chose rather to endure all the Punishments of Hell, as
   described by the Poets; than part with the Hope of Immortality, though
   immortal only in misery. I easily grant, that this would be a very hard
   Bargain; and that Not to be at all is more eligible, than to be miserable
   always; our Saviour himself haveing determin'd the question; [33] Wo to that
   man, by whom the Son of Man is betrayed; good were it for that man, if he
   had never been born. But however thus much it evidently shews, That this
   desire of Immortality is a natural Affection of the Soul; ’tis
   Self-preservation in the highest and truest meaning; ’tis interwoven in the
   very Frame and Constitution of Man. How then can the Atheist reflect on his
   own Hypothesis without extreme sorrow and dejection of Spirit? Will he say,
   that when once he is dead, this Desire will be nothing; and that He that is
   not, cannot lament his Annihilation? So indeed it would be hereafter
   according to his Principles. But nevertheless, for the present, while he
   continues in Life (which we now speak of) that dusky Scene of Horror, that
   melancholy Prospect of final Perdition will frequently occur to his Fancy:
   the sweetest Enjoyments of Life will often become flat and insipid, will be
   damp’d and extinguish’d, be bitter’d and poison’d by the malignant and
   venomous quality of this Opinion.

   Is it not more comfortable to a man, to think well of himself, to have a
   high Value and Conceit of the Dignity of his Nature, to believe a noble
   Origination of his Race, the Off-spring and Image of the great King of
   Glory: rather than that men first proceded, as Vermin are thought to do, by
   the sole influence of the Sun out of Dirt and Putrefaction?

   Is it not a firmer foundation for Contentment and Tranquillity, to believe
   that All things were at first created, and are since continually order’d and
   dispos’d for the best, and that principally for the Benefit and Pleasure of
   Man: than that the whole Universe is meer bungling and blundring; no Art or
   Contrivance to be seen in’t: nothing effected for any purpose and design;
   but all ill-favouredly cobled and jumbled together by the unguided agitation
   and rude shuffles of Matter?

   Can any man wish a better Support under affliction, than the Friendship and
   Favour of Omnipotence, of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness; that is both able,
   and willing and knows how to relieve him? [34] Such a man can do all things
   through Christ that strengtheneth him, he can patiently suffer all things
   with cheerful submission and resignation to the Divine Will. He has a secret
   Spring of spiritual Joy, and the continual Feast of a good Conscience
   within, that forbid him to be miserable. Bur what a forlorn destitute
   Creature is the Atheist in distress? He hath no friend in Extremity, but
   Poison or a Dagger or a Halter or a Precipice. A violent Death is the last
   refuge of the Epicureans, as well as the Stoics. This, says [35] Lucretius,
   is the distinguishing Character of a genuine Son of our Sect, that he will
   not endure to live in Exile and Want and Disgrace out of a vain fear of
   Death; but dispatch himself resolutely into the State of eternal Sleep and
   Insensibility. And yet for all this swaggering, not one of a hundred of them
   hath boldness enough to follow the Direction. The base and degenerous Saying
   of one of them is very well known; [36] That Life is always sweet, and he
   should still desire to prolong it though, after he had been maim’d and
   distorted by the Rack, he should be condemn’d to hang on a Gibbet.

   And then, as to the Practical Rules and Duties of Religion. As the Miracles
   of our Lord are peculiarly eminent above the Lying Wonders of Dæmons, in
   that they were not made out of vain ostentation of Power, and to raise
   unprofitable Amazement; but for the real Benefit and Advantage of men, by
   feeding the Hungry, healing all sorts of Diseases, ejecting of Devils, and
   reviving the Dead: so likewise the Commands which he hath imposed on his
   Followers are not like the absurd Ceremonies of Pagan Idolatry, the
   frivolous Rites of their Initiations and Worship, that might look like
   Incantation and Magic, but had no tendency in their Nature to make Mankind
   the happier. Our Saviour hath enjoyn’d us a [37] Reasonable service;
   accommodated to the rational part of our nature. All his Laws are in
   themselves, abstracted from any Consideration of Recompense, conducing to
   the Temporal Interest of them that observe them. For what can be more
   availing to a man’s Health, or his Credit, or Estate, or Security in this
   World, than Charity and Meekness, than Sobriety and Temperance, than Homily
   and Diligence in his Calling? Do not Pride and Arrogance infallibly meet
   with Contempt? Do not Contentiousness and Cruelty and Study of Revenge
   seldom fail of Retaliation? Are not envious and covetous, discontented and
   anxious minds tormenters to themselves? Do not we see, that slothfull and
   intemperate and incontinent persons destroy their Bodies with diseases,
   their Reputations with disgrace, and their Families with want? Are Adultery
   and Fornication forbidden only by Moses and Christ? or do not Heathen
   Law-givers punish such Enormities with Fines or Imprisonment, with Exile or
   Death? ’Twas an Objection of [38] Julian the Apostate; that there were no
   new Precepts of Morality in our Religion: Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt
   not steal, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife. Why all the World, says
   he, is agreed about these Commandments: and in every Country under Heaven,
   there are Laws and Penalties made to enforce all the Ten, excepting only the
   Sabbath and the Worship of strange Gods. We can answer Him another way; but
   he may make our Infidels ashamed to complain of those Ordinances as hard
   Impositions, which the sense of all Nations has thought to be reasonable:
   which not only the Philosophers of Greece and Italy and the learned World;
   but the Banians of Mogul, the Talapoins of Siam, the Mandarins of China, the
   Moralists of Peru and Mexico, all the Wisdom of Mankind have declared to be
   necessary Duties. Nay if the Atheists would but live up to the Ethics of
   Epicurus himself, they would make few or no Proselytes from the Christian
   Religion. For none revolt from the Faith for such things as are thought
   peculiar to Christianity; Not because they must [39] love and pray for their
   enemies, but because they must not poison or stab them: not because they
   must not [40] look upon a Woman to lust after her, but because they are much
   more restrain’d from committing the Act. If wanton glances and lascivious
   thoughts had been permitted by the Gospel, and only the gross Act forbidden;
   they would have apostatized nevertheless. This we may conjecture from what
   [41] Plato and others have told us, that it was commonly akrateia hēdonōn
   kai epithumiōn, immoderate Affections and Lusts, that in the very times of
   Paganism induced men to be Atheists. It seems their impure and brutal
   Sensuality was too much confined by the Religion of those Countries, where
   even Venus and Bacchus had their Temples. Let not therefore voluptuos
   Atheists lay all the fault of their Sins upon the Infirmity of Humane
   Nature; nor plead that Flesh and Blood cannot resist those Temptations,
   which have all their force and prevalence from long Custom and inveterated
   Habit. What inticement, what pleasure is there in common profane Swearing?
   yet neither the fear of God nor of the Law will persuade men to leave it.
   ’Tis prevailing Example that hath now made it fashionable, but it hath not
   always been so, nor will be hereafter. So other Epidemical Vices; they are
   rise and predominant only for a season, and must not be ascribed to Humane
   Nature in the Lump. In some Countries Intemperance is a necessary part of
   Conversation; in others Sobriety is a Vertue universal, without any respect
   to the Duties of Religion. Nor can they say, that this is only the
   difference of Climate, that inclines one Nation to Concupiscence and Sensual
   Pleasures; another to Blood-thirstiness and Desire of Revenge. It would
   discover great ignorance in History, not to know that in all Climates a
   whole People has been over-run with some recently invented or newly imported
   kind of Vice, which their Grandfathers never knew. In the latest Accounts of
   the Country of Guiana, we are told that the eating of Humane Flesh is the
   beloved pleasure of those Savages: two Nations of them by mutual devouring
   are reduced to two handfulls of men. When the Gospel of our Saviour was
   preached to them, they received it with gladness of heart; they could be
   brought to forgoe Plurality of Wives; though that be the main impediment to
   the conversion of the East Indies. But the great Stumblingblock with these
   Americans, and the only Rock of Offense was the forbidding them to eat their
   Enemies; That irresistible Temptation made them quickly to revolt and
   relapse into their Infidelity. What must we impute this to? to the
   temperature of the Air, to the nature of the Soil, to the influence of the
   Stars? Are these Barbarians of man-eating Constitutions, that they so hanker
   after this inhumane Diet, which We cannot imagin without horror? Is not the
   same thing practised in other parts of that Continent? Was it not so in
   Europe of old, and is it not now so in Africa? If an Eleventh Commandment
   had been given, Thou shalt not eat Humane Flesh; would not these Canibals
   have esteem’d it more difficult than all the Ten? And would, not they have
   really had as much reason as our Atheists; to plead the power of the
   Temptation, and the propensity of Flesh and Blood? How impudent then are the
   Atheists, that traduce the easie and gracious Conditions of the Gospel, as
   Unreasonable and Tyrannical Impositions? Are not God’s ways equal, O ye
   Children of Destruction, and are not your ways unequal?

   II. Secondly and lastly, For the good Influence of Religion upon Communities
   and Governments, habemus confitentes reos; ’tis so apparent and
   unquestionable, that ’tis one of the Objections of the Atheists, That it was
   first contrived and introduced by Politicians, to bring the wild and
   draggling Herds of Mankind under Subjection and Laws. [42] Out of thy own
   mouth shalt thou be judged, thou wicked servant. Thou say’st that the Wide
   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 Procedings? 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 [43] Atheist to compose a System of Politics is as absurd and
   ridiculous, as Epicurus’s Sermons were about [44] 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
   notions 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 [45] 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 ’tis 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 Jovis: about which they
   have had no notion or conception at all. ’Tis 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. ’Tis 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 public 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.
   [46] 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 [47] Greece that had made experiment
   of them in Public 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 Cowardise 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. [48] Josephus, that knew
   them, hath inform’d us, that the Sadducees, 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 Grateful; [49] 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. ’Tis 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, farewel 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 Wisdom 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [1] Dan. 5. 5.

   [2] Posidon. apud Ciceron. Plutarch. &c.

   [3] Mr. Des Cartes.

   [4] Psal. 34. 9.

   [5] Joh. 3. 16.

   [6] 2 Tim. 1. 10.

   [7] Mat. 11. 30.

   [8] 1 Joh. 5. 3.

   [9] Heb. 5. 9. 1 Pet. 1. 4.

   [10] 1 Cor. 2. 9.

   [11] Atheon hon alogon kai anaiothēton genos, Max. Tyr. Diss. 1.

   [12] 2 Tim. 4. 8. Jam. 1. 12.

   [13] Cor. 4.

   [14] V. 2. of this Psalm. v. 4.

   [15] Act. 13. 46.

   [16] Phil. 3. 19.

   [17] 2 Cor. 12. 2.

   [18] Num. 13. 32.

   [19] Mar. 9. 24. Eph. 1. 19.

   [20] Prov. 16. 4.

   [21] Tit. 2. 12.

   [22] Mark 8. 34.

   [23] Prov. 3. 17.

   [24] Rom. 2. r.

   [25] 1 Tim. 4. 10, 1 Joh. 5. 14. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Rom. 5. 6, 10.

   [26] Phil. 2. 12.

   [27] Matt. 10. 28.

   [28] Heb. 10. 31.

   [29] Heb. 10. 27.

   [30] Cic. Plutarch, &c.

   [31] Vide Pocokii Notas ad Portam Mosis. p. 158. &c.

   [32] Plutarch. Hoti oud... ..ēn, &c. p. 1104, 1105. Ed. Ruald.

   [33] Matt. 14. 2.

   [34] Phil. 4. 13,

   [35] Lib. 3.

   [36] Mecænas apud Senec. Ep. 101. Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede, coxa.
   &c.

   [37] Rom. 12. 1.

   [38] Julianus apud Cyrillum, p. 134.

   [39] Matt. 5. 44.

   [40] ver. 28.

   [41] Plato de Legib. lib. 10. p. 886. Ed. Steph.

   [42] Luke 19. 22.

   [43] Hobbes de Cive, Leviathan.

   [44] peri Osiotētos. Laert. De sanctitate, de pietate adversus Deos. Cic.

   [45] De Laert. p. 34, 47, 50. Voyage du Sieur de Champlain. p. 28. & 93.

   [46] Plutach. Lathebiasas. Lucret. &c.

   [47] Plutarch. Hoti oude hēdeōs zēn. Cicero, Athenæus, Ælian. &c.

   [48] Josephus de Bello Judaico, l. 2. c. 12.

   [49] Si sibi ipse consentiat, et non interdum natura bonitate vincatur. Cic.
   de Offic. 1. 2.
     _________________________________________________________________

   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.

   THESE words are a part of that Discourse which St. Paul had at Athens. He
   had not been long in that inquisitive and pragmatical City, but we find him
   [50] encountered by the Epicureans and Stoics, two sorts of people that were
   very ill qualified for the Christian Faith: the one by reason of their
   Carnal Affections, either believing no God at all, or that he was like unto
   themselves, dissolv’d in [51] Laziness and Ease; the other out of Spiritual
   Pride presuming to assert, that [52] a Wise Mau of their Sect was equal, and
   in some cases superior to the Majesty of God himself. These men [53]
   corrupted through Philosophy and vain deceit, took our Apostle, and carried
   him unto Areopagus, (a place in the City, whither was the greatest resort of
   Travellers and Strangers, of the gravest Citizens and Magistrates, of their
   Orators and Philosophers;) to give an account of himself and the new
   Doctrine that he spoke of [54] For, say they, thou bringest strange things
   to our ears; we would know therefore what these things mean. The Apostle,
   who was to speak to such a promiscuous Assembly, has with most admirable
   Prudence and Art, so accommodated his Discourse, that every branch and
   member of it is directly opposed to a known Error and Prejudice of some
   Party of his Hearers. I will beg leave to be the more prolix in explaining
   the whole; because it will be a ground and introduction not only to this
   present, but some other subsequent Discourses.

   From the Inscription of an Altar to the Unknown God, which is mentioned by
   Heathen Authors, [55] Lucian, Philostratus, and others, he takes occasion
   (v. 24.) to declare unto them, that God that made the World and all things
   therein. This first Doctrine, though admitted by many of his Auditors, is
   directly both against Epicureans, that ascribed the Origin and Frame of the
   World not to the Power of God, but the fortuitous concourse of Atoms; and
   Peripatetics, that supposed all things to have been eternally, as they now
   are, and never to have been made at all, either by the Deity or without him.
   Which God, says he, [56] seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth,
   dwelleth not in the Temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with
   men’s hands as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all Life and
   Breath and all things. This is opposed to the Civil and Vulgar Religion of
   Athens, which furnish’d and serv’d the Deity with Temples and Sacrifices, as
   if he had really needed Habitation and Sustenance. And that the common
   Heathens had such mean apprehensions about the Indigency of their Gods,
   appears plainly, to name no more, from Aristophanes’s Plutus, and the
   Dialogues of Lucian. But the Philosophers were not concern’d in this point:
   all Parties and Sects, even the [57] Epicureans themselves, did maintain (to
   autarkes) the self-sufficiency of the God-head: and seldom or never
   sacrificed at all, unless in compliance and condescension to the custom of
   their Country. There’s a very remarkable passage in Tertullian’s Apology,
   [58] Who forces a Philosopher to sacrifice, &c.? It appears from thence,
   that the Philosophers, no less than the Christians, neglected the Pagan
   Worship and Sacrifices; though what was conniv’d at in the one, was made
   highly penal and capital in the other. [59] And hath made of one blood all
   nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the Earth; and hath
   determin’d the times before appointed, and the bound of their habitation.
   This Doctrine about the beginning of Humane Race, though agreeable enough to
   the Platonists and Stoics, is apparently levell’d against the Epicureans and
   Aristotelians; one of whom produced their Primitive Men from meer Accident
   or Mechanism; the other denied that Man had any beginning at all, but had
   eternally continued thus by Succession and Propagation. Neither were the
   Commonalty of Athens unconcern’d in this point. For although, as we learn
   from [60] Isocrates, Demosthenes and others of their Countrymen, they
   professed themselves to be autochthoies, Aborigines, not transplanted by
   Colonies or otherwise from any Foreign Nation, but born out of their own
   Soil in Attica, and had the same Earth for their Parent, their Nurse, and
   their Country; and though some perhaps might believe, [61] that all the rest
   of Mankind were derived from Them, and so might apply and interpret the
   Words of the Apostle to this foolish Tradition: yet that conceit of deriving
   the whole Race of Men from the Aborigines of Attica was entertain’d but by a
   few; for they generally allowed that the [62] Egyptians and Sicilians, and
   some others were Aborigines also, as well as themselves. Then follow the
   words of the Text, [63] 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. And this he confirms by the
   Authority of a Writer that lived above 300 years before; As certain also of
   your own Poets have said, For we are also his Off-spring. This indeed was no
   Argument to the [64] Epicurean Auditors; who undervalued all Argument from
   Authority, and especially from the Poets. Their Master Epicurus had boasted,
   [65] that in all his Writings he had not cited one single Authority out of
   any Book whatsoever. And the Poets they particularly hated; because on all
   occasions they introduced the Ministry of the Gods, and taught the separate
   Existence of humane Souls. But it was of great weight and moment to the
   Common People, who held the Poets in mighty esteem and veneration, and used
   them as their Masters of Morality and Religion. And the other Sects too of
   Philosophers did frequently adorn and confirm their Discourses by Citations
   out of Poets. [66] For as much then as we are the off-spring of God, we
   ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver, or Stone
   graven by art or man’s device. This is directly levell’d against the gross
   Idolatry of the Vulgar, (for the Philosophers are not concern’d in it) that
   believed the very Statues of Gold and Silver and other Materials, to be God,
   and terminated their Prayers in those Images; as I might shew from many
   passages of Scripture, from the Apologies of the Primitive Christians, and
   the Heathen Writers themselves. [67] And the times of this ignorance God
   winked at, (the meaning of which is, as upon a like occasion the fame
   Apostle hath expressed it, that [68] in times past he suffer'd all Nations
   to walk in their own ways) but now commandeth every one to repent; Because
   he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in
   righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given
   assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Hitherto
   the Aponte had never contradicted all his Audience at once: though at every
   part of his Discourse 16me of them might be mealy, yet others were of his
   side, and all along a moderate silence and attention was 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 clamor became
   universal: so that here the Apostle was obliged to break off, and [69]
   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 Anastasis (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, (xenōn daimoniōn, strange Deities, which comprehends both
   Sexes) because he preached unto them, Iēsoun kai tēn Anastasin, Jesus and
   the Resurrection.. Now, say they, it could not be said Deities in the plural
   number, unless it be supposed that Anastasis is a Goddess, as well as Jesus
   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, [70] As certain
   also of your own poets have said, For we are also his Off-spring. And yet
   the Apostle meant only one, [71] 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. ’Tis my opinion, that the
   general distaste and clamour proceeded from a mistake about the nature of
   the Christian Resurrection. The word Resurrection (anastēsasthai and
   anastasis) was well enough known amongst the Athenians, as appears at this
   time from [72] Homer, Æschylus and Sophocles; they could hardly then
   possibly imagin it to signify 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 [73] of one Jesus 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 [74] 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, [75] 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. [76] The Jews therefore strove among themselves,
   saying, How can this man give us his Flesh to eat; this is a hard saying,
   who can hear it? [77] 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 flock 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
   Human 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 Human 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 powerful 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 Human 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 ’tis 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 Preception 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 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
   contact 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.

   3.1 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 Hear, 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 ’tis viewed by
   us under differing proportions, doth represent very differing colours,
   without any change at all in it self. For that very same opake and white
   Powder of Glass, when ’tis 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 them-selves; than Roses or Honey can be thought to smell or taste
   their own Sweetness, or an Organ be conscious of its Music, or Gun-powder of
   its Flashing and Noise.

   Thus far then we have proved, and ’tis 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
   Machine (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 this Body, as well as other senseless Matter, has colour,
   and warmth, and softness, and the like. But we have proved it before, and
   ’tis acknowleged; that there Qualities are not subsistent in those Bodies,
   but are Idea’s and Sensations begotten in something else. So that ’tis 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 there impressions. Will they say that there 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., ’tis 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 come 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, ’tis 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 very intelligent Creature;
   though while she lies at Anchor, those Faculties be asleep: some cold Water
   or Ice may be phlegmatic 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 limpid 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, ’tis not Motion in general, that can do
   there 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 pretense 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 shown, 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
   ’tis 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 ’tis 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
   selfconsciousness and those 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. 'Tis 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 Perceptions of abstruse Notions, those exalted
   Discoveries of Mathematical Theorems and Divine Contemplations; all the
   admirable Endowments and Capacities of humane Nature, which we sometimes see
   actually existent in one and the same Person, can procede from the blind
   shuffling and casual clashing of Atoms. I could as easily take up with that
   senseless assertion of the [78] Stoics, 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 mere Bodies. ’Tis 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 mere Body may produce Cogitation
   and Sense. For, say they, do but observe the actions of some Brutes, how
   nearly they approach to human 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 ’tis 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 Machines and Automata. I cannot now engage in the
   Controversy, 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 Machines; I admire and adore the divine
   Artifice and Skill in such a wonderful 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 ’tis 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’l readily retract their Opinion. For none but besotted
   Atheists, do join the two Notions together, and believe Brutes to be
   rational or sensitive Machines. 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 Emperor 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 [79]
   Statues of Dædalus, 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
   procede 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 Souls out of Nothing; and
   that Something (since nothing can give more than it has) must it self have
   all the Perfections, that it hath given to Them. There is therefore an
   immaterial and intelligent Being, that created our Souls: which Being was
   either eternal it self, or created immediately or ultimately by some other
   Eternal, that has all those Perfections. There is therefore Originally an
   Eternal, immaterial, Intelligent Creator; all which together are the
   Attributes of God alone.

   And now that I have finished all the parts, which I proposed to discourse
   of; I will conclude all with a short application to the Atheists. And I
   would advise them as a Friend, to leave off this dabbling and smattering in
   Philosophy, this shuffling and cutting with Atoms. It never succeded well
   with them, and they always come off with the loss. Their old Master Epicurus
   seems to have had his Brains so muddled and confounded with them, that he
   scarce ever kept in the right way; though the main Maxim of his Philosophy
   was to trust to his Senses, and follow his Nose. [80] I will not take notice
   of his doting conceit, that the Sun and Moon are no bigger, than they appear
   to the Eye, a foot or half a yard over; and that the Stars are no larger
   than so many Glowworms. But let us see how he manages his Atoms, those
   Almighty Tools that do every thing of themselves without the help of a
   Workman. [81] When the Atoms (says he) descend in infinite space (very
   ingeniously spoken, to make High and Low in Infinity) they do not fall plumb
   down, but decline a little from the Perpendicular, either obliquely or in a
   Curve: and this Declination (says he) from the direct Line is the cause of
   our Liberty of Will. But, I say, this Declination of Atoms in their Descent,
   was it self either necessary or voluntary. If it was necessary, how then
   could that Necessity ever beget Liberty? if it was voluntary, then Atoms had
   that power of Volition before: and what becomes then of the Epicurean
   Doctrine of the fortuitous Production of Worlds? The whole business is
   Contradiction and ridiculous Nonsense. ’Tis as if one should say, that a
   Bowl equally poized, and thrown upon a plain and smooth Bowling Green, will
   run necessarily and fatally in a direct Motion: but if it be made with a
   Byas, that may decline it a little from a straight Line, it may acquire by
   that Motion a Liberty of Will, and so run spontaneously to the Jack. It
   would behoove the Atheists to give over such trifling as this, and resume
   the old solid way of confuting Religion. They should deny the Being of the
   Soul, because they cannot see it. This would be an invincible Argument
   against us: for we can never exhibit it to their Touch, nor expose it to
   their View; nor shew them the Colour and Complexion of a Soul. They should
   dispute, as a bold Brother of theirs did; That he was sure there was no God,
   because (says he) if there was one, he would have struck me to Hell with
   Thunder and Lightning, that have so reviled and blasphemed him. This would
   be an Objection indeed. Alas, all that we could answer, is in the next words
   to the Text, That God hath appointed a day in which he will judge all the
   world in Righteousness, and that the Goodness and Forbearance, and
   Long-suffering of God, which are some of his Attributes, and Essential
   Perfections of his Being, ought not to be abused and perverted into
   arguments against his Being. But if this will not do, we must yield our
   selves overcome: for we neither can, nor desire to command fire to come down
   from Heaven and consume them; and give them such experimental Conviction of
   the Existence of God. So that they ought to take these Methods, if they
   would successfully attack Religion. But if they will still be medling with
   Atoms, be hammering and squeezing Understanding out of them; I would advise
   them to make use of their own Understandings for the Instance. Nothing, in
   my opinion could run us down, more effectually than that. For we readily
   allow, that if any Understanding can possibly be produced by such clashing
   of senseless Atoms; ’tis that of an Atheist, that hath the fairest
   Pretensions and the best Title to it. We know, it is the Fool, that hath
   said in his heart, there is no God. And ’tis no less a Truth than a Paradox,
   That there are no greater Fools than Atheistical Wits; and none so credulous
   as Infidels. No Article of Religion, though as demonstrable as the Nature of
   the thing can admit, hath credibility enough for them. And yet these same
   cautious and quick sighted Gentlemen can wink and swallow down this sottish
   Opinion about Percipient Atoms, which excedes in Incredibility all the
   Fictions of Æsop’s Fables. For is it not every whit as likely or more, that
   Cocks and Bulls might discourse, and Hinds and Panthers hold Conferences
   about Religion, as that Atoms can do so? that Atoms can invent Arts and
   Sciences, can institute Society and Government, can make Leagues and
   Confederacies, can devise Methods of Peace and Stratagems of War? And
   moreover, the Modestly of Mythology deserves to be commended, the Scenes
   there are laid at a distance; ’Tis once upon a time, in the Days of Yore,
   and in the Land of Utopia, there was a Dialogue between an Oak and a Cedar:
   whereas the Atheist is so impudently silly, as to bring the Farce of his
   Atoms upon the Theatre of the present Age; to make dull senseless Matter
   transact all public and private Affairs, by Sea and by Land, in Houses of
   Parliament, and Closets of Princes. Can any Credulity be comparable to this?
   If a Man should affirm, that an Ape casually meeting with Pen, Ink, and
   Paper, and falling to scribble, did happen to write exactly the Leviathan of
   Thomas Hobbs; Would an Atheist believe such a story? and yet he can easily
   digest as incredible as that; that the innumerable Members of a Human Body,
   which in the style of the Scripture [82] are all written in the Book of God,
   and may admit of almost infinite Variations and Transpositions above the
   xxiv Letters of the Alphabet, were at first fortuitously scribled, and by
   mere accident compacted into this beautiful, and noble, and most wonderfully
   useful Frame, which we now see it carry. But this will be the Argument of my
   next Discourse, which is the second Proposition drawn from the Text, That
   the Admirable Structure of Human 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 powerful and beneficent Maker: To which Almighty Creator,
   together with the Son and the Holy Ghost, be all Honour and Glory and
   Majesty and Power both now and from henceforth evermore. Amen.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [50] Acts 17. 18.

   [51] Aergon kai ameles.

   [52] Arriani Epictet. l. 1. c. 12. Hōs katage ton logon, oude cheirōn to
   Theōn, ouude mikroteros. Seneca Ep. 53. Est aliquid quo sapiens antecedat
   Deum: ille natura beneficio, non suo sapiens est.

   [53] V. 19.

   [54] V. 20.

   [55] Lucianus in Philopat. Philostrat. de vita Apol. l. 6. c. 2. Pausan. in
   Eliacis.

   [56] V. 25.

   [57] Lucret. 2. Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri. 

   [58] Tertul. Apolog. cap. 46. Quis enim Philosophum sacrificare compellit?
   Quinimmo et deos vestros palam destruunt, et superstitiones vestras
   commentariis quoque accusant.

   [59] V. 26.

   [60] Isocrates in Pangeg. Demosth. in Epitaph. Cic. Or. pro Placco.
   Euripides, &c.

   [61] Diog. Laert. in Præf.

   [62] Thucyd. lib. 6. Herodot. &c.

   [63] V. 27, 28.

   [64] Plutarch. de Aud. Poet. & contra Colot.

   [65] Laert. in vita Epicuri.

   [66] V. 29.

   [67] V. 30, 31.

   [68] Act. 14. 16.

   [69] V. 33.

   [70] V. 28.

   [71] Arati Phœn. v. 5. Pantē de Dios kechrēmeta pantes, Tou gar hon genos
   esmen.

   [72] Hom. Il. w. 551. O̡de min anstēseis &c. Æsch. Eumen. 655. A̓ndròs d'
   e̓peidàn haim' a̓naspásēͅ kónis, Hapax thanóntos ou̓́tis e̓́st'
   a̓nástasis. Soph. Electra, 136. All' outoi ton g' e̓x a̓ida pankoínou
   límnas patér' a̓nstáseis, ou̓́te góoisin, ou̓ lit...is.

   [73] Acts 25.19.

   [74] Luke 24. 11.

   [75] John 6. 53.

   [76] V. 60.

   [77] V. 66.

   [78] Seneca Ep. 113. Plutarch. de Contrad. Stoic.

   [79] Vide Zenobium &c Suidam in Daidalou poiēmata & Scholiastem Eurip.
   Hecubæ V. 838.

   [80] Epicurus apud Laert. Lucret. l. 5. Cicero de Fin. l. 1, Acad. l. 2.

   [81] Lucret. l. 2. Cic. de Fato & de Nat. Deorum Plutarch, &c.

   [82] Psal. 139. 16.
     _________________________________________________________________

   A

   CONFUTATION
   OF
   ATHEISM
   FROM THE
   Structure and Origin of Human Bodies..

   PART I.

   The Third S E R M O N Preached
   May 2. 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.

   I Have said enough in my last, to shew the fitness and pertinency of the
   Apostle’s Discourse to the persons he address’d to: whereby it sufficiently
   appears that he was no Babler, as some of the Athenian Rabble reproached
   him; not a spermologos a busy prating Fellow; as in another language they
   say [83] Sermones serere, and Rumores serere in a like mode of Expression;
   that he did not talk at random, but was throughly acquainted with the
   several humours and opinions of his Auditors. And as Moses was learned in
   all the Wisdom of the Egyptians, so it is manifest from this Chapter alone,
   if nothing else had been now extant, that St. Paul was a great Master in all
   the Learning of the Greeks. One thing further I shall observe from the words
   of the Text, before I enter upon the Subject which I proposed; that it
   requires Some industry and consideration to find out the Being of God; we
   must seek the Lord, and feel after him, before we can find him by the Light
   of Nature. The search indeed is not very tedious nor difficult; He is not
   far from every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our Being.
   The Consideration of our Mind and Understanding, which is an incorporeal
   Substance independent from Matter; and the contemplation of our own Bodies,
   which have all the stamps and characters of excellent Contrivance; these
   alone, though we look upon nothing abroad, do very easily and proximately
   guide us to the wise Author of all things. But however, as we see in our
   Text, Some Thoughts and Meditation are necessary to it; and a man may
   possibly be so stupid, or wilfully ignorant or perverse, as not to have God
   in all his thoughts, or to say in his heart, There is none. And this being
   observed, we have an effectual answer to that Cavil of the Atheists; who
   make it an objection against the Being of God, that they do not discover him
   without any Application, in spite of their corrupt Wills and debauch’d
   Understandings. If, say they, such a God as we are told of, had created and
   formed us, surely he would have left upon our Minds, a native and indeleble
   Inscription of Himself, whereby we must needs have felt him, even without
   seeking, and believed in him whether we would or no. So that these Atheists
   being conscious to themselves, that they are void of such Belief, which
   (they say) if God was, would actually and necessarily be in them, do bring
   their own wicked Doubting and Denying of God, as Evidence against his
   Existence; and make their very Infidelity an argument for it self. To which
   we reply, That God hath endow’d Mankind with Powers and Abilities, which we
   call natural Light, and Reason, and common Sense; by the due use of which we
   cannot miss of the Discovery of his Being; and this is sufficient. But as to
   that original Notion and Proposition, GOD IS, which the Atheist pretends
   should have been actually imprinted on us, antecedently to all use of our
   Faculties; we may affirm, that the absence of such a Notion doth not give
   the least presumption against the truth of Religion: because though God be
   supposed to be, yet that Notion distinct from our Faculties would not be
   requisite; nor is it asserted by Religion. First, it would not be requisite;
   because, without any such primitive Impression, we can easily attain to the
   knowledge of the Deity by the sole use of our Natural Reason. And again,
   such an Impression would have render’d the Belief of a God irresistible and
   necessary, and thereby have bereaved it of all that is good and acceptable
   in it. For as the taking away the Freedom of Human Will, and making us mere
   Machines under fatal Ties and Impulses, would destroy the very nature of
   Moral Vertue; so likewise as to Faith, there would be nothing worthy of
   praise and recompense in it, if there were lest no possibility of Doubting
   and Denying. And secondly, such a radical Truth, GOD IS, springing up
   together with the Essence of the Soul, and previous to all other Thoughts,
   is not asserted by Religion. No such thing, that I know of, is affirmed or
   suggested by the Scriptures. There are several Topics there used against the
   Atheism and Idolatry of the Heathens; such as the visible marks of Divine
   Wisdom and Goodness in the Works of the Creation, the vital Union of Souls
   with Matter, and the admirable Structure of animate Bodies, and the like.
   But if our Apostle had asserted such an anticipating Principle engraven upon
   our Souls before all Exercise of Reason; what did he talk of seeking the
   Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him? since if the
   knowledge of him was in that manner innate and perpetual, there would be no
   occasion of seeking, nor any hap or hazard in the finding. Such an
   Inscription would be self evident without Reasoning or Study, and could not
   fail constantly to exert its Energy in their Minds. What did he talk of the
   Unknown God, and ignorantly worshiping? when if such an Original Signature
   were always inherent in their hearts; God could not be unknown to, or
   ignorantly worship’d by any. That primary Proposition would have been clear,
   and distinct, and efficacious, and universal in the minds of Men. S. Paul
   therefore, it appears, had no apprehension of such a First Notion; nor made
   use of it for an argument; which (since whosoever hath it, must needs know
   that he hath it) if it be not believed before by the Adversary, is false;
   and if it be believed, is superfluous; and is of so frail and brittle a
   texture, that whereas other arguments are not answered by bare denying
   without contrary Proof, the mere doubting and disbelieving of this must be
   granted to be ipso facto the breaking and confuting of it. Thus much
   therefore we have proved against the Atheists; that such an original
   irresistible Notion is neither requisite upon supposition of a Deity, nor is
   pretended to by Religion; so that neither the Absence of it is any argument
   against the Being of God, nor a supposed false Assertion of it an objection
   against the Scripture. ’Tis enough that all are furnish’d with such Natural
   Powers and Capacities; that if they seriously reflect, if they seek the Lord
   with meditation and study, they cannot fail of finding and discovering him:
   whereby God is not left without witness, but the Atheist without excuse. And
   now I haste to the second Proposition deduced from the Text, and to the
   Argument of my present Discourse, 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.

   First. ’Tis allowed and acknowledged by all parties, that the Bodies of Men
   and other Animals are excellently well fitted for Life, and Motion, and
   Sensation; and the several parts of them 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
   Controversy 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 [84] 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 Dramatic 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 Atheists 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 fur 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 imagin 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 Atheists 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 discry even opake
   and little Objects some hundreds of Leagues off, even that improvement of
   our fight 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, of 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 proportionally 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 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 alike 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 ’tis 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: [85] 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 do 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 paideia tou patros, 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 out of the abundant 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 ’tis 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, [86] 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 Longevity 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 mere 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 Nonsense and Contradiction to it self, and
   repugnant also to matter of Fact. First, it is contradiction to it self.
   Infinite Generations of Men (they say) are already past and gone: but
   whatsoever is now past, was once actually present; so that each of those
   Infinite Generations was once in its turn actually present: therefore all
   except One Generation were once future and not in being, which destroys the
   very supposition: for either that One Generation must it self have been
   Infinite, which is Nonsense; or it was the Finite Beginning of Infinite
   Generations between it self and us, that is Infinity terminated at both
   ends, which is Nonsense as before. Again, Infinite past Generations of Men
   have been once actually present: there may be some one Man suppose then,
   that was at infinite distance from Us now: therefore that man’s Son
   likewise, forty years younger suppose than his Father, was either at
   infinite distance from Us or at finite: if that Son too was at infinite
   distance from Us, then one Infinite is longer by forty years than another;
   which is absurd: if at finite, then forty years added to finite makes it
   infinite, which is as absurd as the other. And again, The number of Men that
   are already dead and gone is infinite, as they say: but the number of the
   Eyes of those Men must necessarily be twice as much as that of the Men
   themselves, and that of the Fingers ten times as much, and that of the Hairs
   of their Heads thousands of times. So that we have here one Infinite number
   twice, ten times, and thousands of times as great as another, which is
   contradiction again. Thus we see it is impossible in it self, that any
   successive duration should be actually and positively infinite, or have
   infinite successions already gone and past. Neither can these Difficulties
   be applied to the Eternal Duration of God Almighty. For though we cannot
   comprehend Eternity and infinity: yet we underhand what they are Not. And
   something, we are sure, must have Existed from all Eternity; because all
   things could not emerge and start out of Nothing. So that if this
   præ-existent Eternity is not compatible with a successive Duration, as we
   clearly and distinctly perceive that it is not; then it remains, that some
   Being, though infinitely above our finite comprehensions, must have an
   identical, invariable Continuance from all Eternity; which Being is no other
   than God. For as his Nature is perfect and immutable without the least
   shadow of change; so his Eternal Duration is permanent and indivisible, not
   measurable by Time and Motion, nor to be computed by number of successive
   Moments. One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years
   as one day.

   And Secondly, this Opinion of infinite Generation is repugnant likewise to
   matter of Fact. ’Tis a Truth beyond opposition, that the universal Species
   of Mankind hath had a gradual increase, notwithstanding what War, and
   Famine, and Pestilence, and Floods, and Conflagrations, and the Religious
   Profession of Celibacy, and other Causes, may at certain periods of time
   have interrupted and retarded it. This is manifest from the History of the
   Jewish Nation, from the account of the Roman Census, [87] and Registers of
   our own Country, where the proportion of Births to Burials is found upon
   observation to be yearly as Fifty to Forty. Now if Mankind do increase
   though never so slowly, but one Couple suppose in an Age; ’tis enough to
   evince the falshood of Infinite Generations already expired. For though an
   Atheist should contend, that there were ten thousand million couple of
   Mankind now in being, (that we may allow him multitude enough) ’tis but
   going back so many Ages, and we descend to a single Original Pair. And ’tis
   all one in respect of Eternal Duration yet behind, whether we begin the
   world so many millions of Ages ago, or date it from the late Æra of about
   Six Thousand years. And moreover this recent beginning of the World is
   further established from the known Original of Empires and Kingdoms, and the
   Invention of Arts and Sciences: whereas if infinite Ages of Mankind had
   already preceded, there could nothing have been left to be invented or
   improved by the successful industry and curiosity of our own. The
   Circulation of the Blood, and the Weight and Spring of the Air (which is as
   it were the Vital Pulse and the great Circulation of Nature, and of more
   importance in all Physiology, than any one Invention since the beginning of
   Science) had never lain hid so many myriads of Generations, and been
   reserved for a late happy Discovery by two great Luminaries of this Island.
   I know the Atheist may endeavour to evade this by supposing, That though
   Mankind have been from everlasting, and have perpetually encreas’d by
   generation; yet at certain great periods there may be univerial Deluges,
   which may not wholly extinguish Mankind (for, they’l say, there is not Water
   enough in Nature for that) but may cover the Earth to such a Height, that
   none but a few Mountainers may escape, enough to continue Human Race; and
   yet being illiterate Rustics (as Mountainers always are) they can preserve
   no Memoirs of former times, nor propagate any Sciences or Arts; and so the
   World must needs be thought by Posterity to have begun at such periods. But
   to this I answer, First, That upon this supposition there must have been
   infinite Deluges already past: for if ever this Atheist admits of a first
   Deluge, he is in the same noose that he was. For then he must assert, That
   there were infinite Generations and an infinite increase of Mankind before
   that first Deluge; and then the Earth could not receive them, but the
   infinite Bodies of Men must occupy an infinite Space, and then all the
   Matter of the Universe must be human Body; and many other absurdities will
   follow, absurdities as infinite, as the Generations he talks of. But if he
   says, That there have been infinite Deluges heretofore, this is
   impossibility again; for all that I said before against the Notion of
   infinite past Generations, is alike applicable to this. Secondly, Such
   Universal Deluges (since the Deity is now excluded) must be produced in a
   natural way: and therefore gradually, and not in an instant: and therefore
   (because the Tops of Mountains, they lay, are never overflown) the civilized
   People may escape thither out of Villages and Cities; and consequently,
   against the Atheist, Arts, and Sciences, and Histories, may be preserved,
   and derived to the succeding World. Thirdly, Let us imagine the whole
   Terraqueous Globe with its Atmosphere about it; What is there here, that can
   naturally died an Universal Deluge? If you would drown one Country or
   Continent with Rains and Inundations, you must borrow your Vapour and Water
   from some other part of the Globe. You can never overflow all at a time. If
   the Atmosphere it self was reduced into Water, (as some think it possible)
   it would not make an Orb above 32 foot deep, which would soon be swallowed
   up by the cavity of the Sea, and the depressed parts of the Earth, and be a
   very feeble attempt towards an Universal Deluge. But then what immense
   Weight is there above, that must overcome the expansive force of the Air,
   and compress it into near the thousandth part of the room that it now takes
   up? We, that acknowledge a God Almighty, can give an account of one Deluge,
   by saying it was miraculous; but it would be strange to see an Atheist have
   recourse to a Miracle; and that not once only, but upon infinite occasions.
   But perhaps they may endeavour to prove the possibility of such a natural
   Deluge, by borrowing an ingenious Notion, and pretending, That the face of
   Nature may be now quite changed from what it was; and that formerly the
   whole Collection of Waters might be an orbicular Abyss, arched over with an
   exterior Crust or Shell of Earth, and that the breaking and fall of this
   Crust might naturally make a Deluge. I'll allow the Atheist all the fair
   play in the world. Let us suppose the Fall of this imaginary Crust. First,
   It seems to be impossible, but that all the Inhabitants of this Crust must
   be dash'd to pieces in its Ruins. So that this very Notion brings us to the
   necessity of a new production of Men; to evade which it is introduced by the
   Atheist. Again, If such a Crust naturally fell, then it had in its own
   constitution a tendency towards a Fall; that is, it was more likely and
   inclinable to fall this thousand years, than the last. But if the Crust was
   always gradually nearer and nearer to falling; that plainly evinces, that it
   had not endured eternally before it’s Fall. For let them assign any
   imaginable period for it’s falling, how could it have held out till then
   (according to the supposition) the unmeasurable duration of infinite Ages
   before? And again, such a Crust could fall but once; for what Architect can
   an Atheist suppose, to rebuild a new Arch out of the ruins of the other? But
   I have shewn before that this Atheist hath need of infinite Deluges to
   effect his design; and therefore leave him to contrive how to make infinite
   Crusts one upon the back of another; and now procede to examine in the
   second place, The Astrological Explication of the Origin of Men.

   II. If you ask one of this Party, what Evidence he is able to produce for
   the truth of his Art, he may perhaps offer some Physical Reasons for a
   general influence of the Stars upon terrestrial Bodies: but as Astrology is
   consider’d to be a System of Rules and Propositions, he will not pretend to
   give any reason of it à priori; but resolves all that into Tradition from
   the Chaldeans and Egyptians, who first learnt it by long observation, and
   transmitted it down to Posterity; and that now it is daily confirmed by
   Events; which are experienced to answer the Predictions. This is all that
   can be said for Astrology as Art. So that the whole Credibility of this
   Planetary production of Mankind must depend upon Observation. But are they
   able to shew among all the Remains of the Chaldaic Observations for Four
   hundred and seventy thousand years (as they pretended) any Tradition of such
   a Production? So far from that, that the Chaldeans believed the world and
   mankind to have been from everlasting, which opinion I have refuted before.
   Neither can the Egyptian Wizards with their long Catalogue of Dynasties, and
   Observations for innumerable Years, supply the Atheists with one instance of
   such a Creation. Where are the fragments of Petosiris and Necepso, that may
   countenance this Assertion? I believe if they had had any example of men
   born out of the Soil, they would rather have ascribed it to the fruitful Mud
   of the [88] Nile (as they did the breeding of Frogs, and Mice, and Monsters)
   than to the efficacy of Stars. But with the leave of these Fortune-tellers,
   did the Stars do this feat once only, which gave beginning to Human Race? or
   have they frequently done so, and may do it again? If frequently, why is not
   this Rule deliver’d in Ptolemee and Albumazar? If once only at the
   beginning, then how came it to be discover’d? Who were there then in the
   world, to observe the Births of those First Men, and calculate their
   Nativities, as they sprawl’d out of Ditches? Those Sons of Earth were very
   wise Children, if they themselves knew, that