_________________________________________________________________

   Title: A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God, the
   Obligations of Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the
   Christian Revelation.
   Creator(s): Clarke, Samuel (1675-1729)
   Print Basis: Glasgow: Printed for Richard Griffin and Co. (1823)
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All;
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    A

                                 DEMONSTRATION

    OF THE

BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD,

    MORE PARTICULARLY

  IN ANSWER TO MR HOBBES, SPINOZA,

    AND THEIR FOLLOWERS.

   WHEREIN THE NOTION OF LIBERTY IS STATED, AND THE POSSIBILITY AND CERTAINTY
   OF IT PROVED, IN OPPOSITION TO NECESSITY AND FATE.

   BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF EIGHT SERMONS, PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL-CHURCH OF ST
   PAUL, IN THE YEAR 1704, AT THE LECTURE FOUNDED BY THE HONOURABLE ROBERT
   BOYLE, ESQ.
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   Rom. i. 20.—For the invisible things of Him from the Creation of the World
   are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even his
   Eternal Power and Godhead: So that they are without excuse.

    A

                                   DISCOURSE

    CONCERNING THE

OBLIGATIONS OF NATURAL RELIGION,

    AND THE

TRUTH AND CERTAINTY

    OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION.

   IN ANSWER TO MR HOBBES, SPINOZA, THE AUTHOR OF THE
   ORACLES OF REASON, AND OTHER DENIERS OF
   NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION.

   BEING SIXTEEN SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL-CHURCH OF ST. PAUL,
   IN THE YEARS 1704-5, AT THE LECTURE FOUNDED BY
   THE HON. ROBERT BOYLE, ESQ.
     _________________________________________________________________

  WITH SUPPLEMENTARY MATTER.
     _________________________________________________________________

By SAMUEL CLARKE, D.D.

   Late Rector of St James#8217;s, Westminster.
     _________________________________________________________________

  A NEW EDITION.
     _________________________________________________________________

GLASGOW:

   PRINTED FOR RICHARD GRIFFIN AND CO.

   T. TEGG, G. OFFOR, J. & C. EVANS, J. JONES, R. BALDOCK. T. ROBINSON & CO. C.
   SHARPE & SON, AND E. BAYNES, LONDON; E. WEST & CO. AND A. ALLARDICE,
   EDINBURGH; AND M. JELLET, BELFAST.
     _________________________________________________________________

1823.
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

    TO THE

  MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,

THOMAS,

    LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, AND PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND;

  SIR HENRY ASHURST, BARONET;
  SIR JOHN ROTHERAM, KNIGHT, SERGEANT AT LAW;
  JOHN EVELIN, ESQ.

    TRUSTEES APPOINTED BY THE HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE, ESQ.

THIS DISCOURSE

  IS HUMBLY DEDICATED.
     _________________________________________________________________

THE PREFACE.

   THERE being already published many and good books to prove the Being and
   Attributes of God, I have chosen to contract what was requisite for me to
   say upon this subject, into as narrow a compass, and to express what I had
   to offer, in as few words as I could with perspicuity. For which reason I
   have also confined myself to one only method or continued thread of arguing,
   which I have endeavoured should be as near to mathematical as the nature of
   such a discourse would allow; omitting some other arguments which I could
   not discern to be so evidently conclusive; because it seems not to be at any
   time for the real advantage of truth to use arguments in its behalf founded
   only on such hypotheses as the adversaries apprehend they cannot be
   compelled to grant: Yet I have not made it my business to oppose any of
   those arguments, because I think it is not the best way for any one to
   recommend his own performance by endeavouring to discover the imperfections
   of others who are engaged in the same design with himself, of promoting the
   interest of true religion and virtue. But every man ought to use such
   arguments only as appear to him to be clear and strong, and the readers must
   judge whether they truly prove the conclusion.
     _________________________________________________________________

THE CONTENTS.
     _________________________________________________________________

   THE Introduction, concerning the causes of Atheism
   1

   PROP. I. That Something has existed from Eternity
   7

   Of the difficulty of conceiving Eternity
   8

   That Difficulties arising merely from the Nature of Eternity, are not to be
   regarded, because equal in all Suppositions
   ibid.

   PROP. II. That there has existed from Eternity some one Immutable and
   Independent Being
   10

   Of the Absolute Impossibility of an eternal Succession of dependent Beings,
   existing without any original independent cause at all
   11

   PROP. III. That that Immutable and Independent Being, which has existed from
   Eternity, without any external cause of its Existence, must be
   Self-existent, that is, Necessarily-existing
   13

   Of the true Idea of Self-existence; That it is the Idea of a Being, the
   Supposition of whose Non-Existence is an express Contradiction
   15

   That every Man may be more certain of the Being of a Supreme Independent
   Cause, than he can be of any thing else besides his own Existence
   18

   Of the Idea of God, including Self-Existence
   ibid.

   That the Material World cannot possibly be the first, original, and
   independent Being
   21

   The Form of the World not necessary
   22

   Nor its Motion
   ibid.

   Mr Toland’s pernicious opinion of Motion being essential to Matter, confuted
   ibid.

   The Matter of the World not necessarily existing
   23

   A Confutation of Spinoza’s opinion concerning one only Substance
   25

   Concerning the Eternity of the World, and that the opinion of the best
   Ancient Philosophers in that Matter did not at all favour the Sentiments of
   Modern Atheists
   28

   PROP. IV. What the Substance or Essence of that Being, which is
   Self-existent or Necessarily-existing, is, we have no idea, neither is it at
   all possible for us to comprehend it
   35

   Of Infinite Space
   36

   Of the Vanity of explaining things by such School-terms as have really no
   Signification at all
   37

   PROP. V. That though the Substance or Essence of the Self-existent Being is
   itself absolutely incomprehensible to us, yet many of the Essential
   Attributes of his Nature are strictly demonstrable, as well as his
   existence; as, in the first place, that he must of necessity be Eternal
   38

   Of the manner of our conceiving the Eternity of God with respect to
   succession
   ibid.

   PROP. VI. That the Self-existent Being must of necessity be Infinite and
   Omnipresent
   40

   Of the Simplicity, Unchangeableness, Incorruptibility, &c. of his Nature
   41

   Of the Manner of our conceiving the Immensity of God
   42

   PROP. VII. That the Self-existent Being must of necessity be but One
   43

   Of the Blessed Trinity
   44

   Of the Absolute Impossibility of two different Self-existent Independent
   Principles, such as God and Matter
   ibid.

   The Error of Spinoza concerning one Uniform Substance
   ibid.

   PROP. VIII. That the Self-existent and Original Cause of all Things, must be
   an Intelligent Being
   46

   This the main Question between us and the Atheists
   ibid.

   Not easily proved a priori
   ibid.

   But demonstrably proved, a posteriori, from the variety and degrees of
   perfection in things, and the order of Causes and Effects
   47

   From the Intelligence that created Beings are confessedly indued with
   48]

   That, if Intelligence be a real distinct Quality or Perfection, and not a
   mere Effect or Composition of Unintelligent Figure and Motion, then Beings
   indued with Intelligence can never possibly have arisen purely out of that
   which itself had no such Perfection
   49

   That Intelligence is such a real distinct Perfection, and not possible to be
   a mere Effect or Composition of Unintelligent figure and motion
   51

   Mr Hobbes forced to recur to that prodigiously absurd Opinion, that all
   Matter, as Matter, is indued with Thought
   52

   The Proposition demonstrated further from the Beauty, Order, and Final Cause
   of Things
   53

   From the Original of Motion
   55

   That the Material World cannot possibly have been Self-existent
   56

   PROP. IX. That the Self-existent and Original Cause of all Things is not a
   Necessary Agent, but a Being indued with Liberty and Choice
   ibid.

   This Proposition a necessary consequent of the foregoing
   57

   Proved further from the Arbitrary Disposition of Things in the World, with a
   full answer to Spinoza’s arguments for the necessity of all things
   58

   Also from Final Causes
   63

   And from the Finiteness of Created Beings
   ibid.

   And from the Impossibility of an Infinite Succession of Causes
   64

   That Liberty is not in itself an Impossible and contradictory Notion
   66

   PROP. X. That the Self-existing Being, the Supreme cause of all things, must
   of necessity have Infinite Power -
   67

   Of working Contradictions, and Natural or Moral Evil
   68

   Of the Power of creating Matter
   69

   Of the Power of creating immaterial Cogitative Substances, and those indued
   with Liberty of Will or Choice
   70

   Of the Immateriality of Human Souls
   73

   That the Power of Perception is not confined to Bodily Senses
   74

   Of the Possibility of Communicating to a Creature the Power of beginning
   Motion
   75

   Of the Possibility of induing a Creature with Freedom of Will
   78

   An Answer to Spinoza’s and Mr Hobbes’s arguments against the Possibility of
   Liberty
   80

   That there must be somewhere a Beginning of Operation
   ibid.

   That Thinking and Willing, neither are, nor can possibly be Qualities or
   Affections of Matter
   82

   That, supposing they were Affections of Matter, yet even that most absurd
   supposition would not at all affect the question about the possibility of
   Liberty
   88

   A shameful Fallacy in Mr Hobbes and his Followers arguing, who, when they
   would prove the Soul to be mere Matter, then they suppose Matter to be a
   substance capable, not only of Figure and Motion, but also of other unknown
   properties; and when they would prove the will and all other Operations of
   the Soul to be necessary, then they divest Matter of all its unknown
   properties, and make it mere Solidity indued only with Figure and Motion
   again
   ibid.

   Of the Necessity of the Will’s being determined by the last Judgment of the
   Understanding
   90

   Of the Certainty of Divine Fore-knowledge, not repugnant to the Liberty of
   Men’s Actions
   94

   Of the Original of Evil
   98

   PROP. XI. That the Supreme Cause and Author of all Things must of necessity
   be Infinitely Wise
   99

   Proved a priori
   100

   And a posteriori, from the Wisdom and Perfection of the Works of God,
   evidenced more illustriously in the late discoveries in Astronomy and
   Natural Philosophy
   101

   PROP. XII. That the Supreme Cause and Author of all things must of necessity
   be a Being of Infinite Goodness, Justice, and Truth, and all other Moral
   Perfections, such as become the Supreme Governor and Judge of the World
   104

   Of Providence
   107

   The Necessity of God’s Moral Attributes, consistent with perfect Liberty
   ibid.

   Of the Necessity of God’s doing always what is Best and Fittest in the whole
   109

   Of the Impossibility of his doing Evil
   110

   That Liberty is not in itself an Imperfection, but a Perfection
   111

   That the highest moral Perfection of Rational Creatures does not exclude
   Natural Liberty
   112

   That the Grounds of all Moral Obligations are Eternal and Necessary, and
   depend not on any Laws
   ibid.

   The Conclusion
   114
    THE EVIDENCES OF NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION.

   The INTRODUCTION
   131

   Of the Several sorts of Deists
   140

   The first sort of Deists, and of Providence
   141

   Human Affairs not beneath the Regard of Providence
   144

   The second sort of Deists
   146

   Profane and debauched Deists not capable of being argued with
   147

   The Third sort of Deists
   149

   The Fourth sort of Deists
   150

   That there is now no consistent scheme of Deism in the World
   153

   PROP. I. That, from the Eternal and Necessary Differences of Things, there
   naturally and necessarily arise certain Moral Obligations, which are of
   themselves incumbent on all Rational Creatures, antecedent to all positive
   Institution and to all expectation of Reward or Punishment
   156

   That there are Eternal and necessary Differences of Things
   157

   The absurdity of those who deny the eternal and Necessary Difference of
   Things
   159

   An Answer to the Objection drawn from the variety of Opinions of the learned
   Men, and the Laws of different Nations, concerning Right and Wrong
   163

   That the will of God always determines itself to act according to the
   Eternal Reason of Things
   165

   That all Rational Creatures are obliged to govern themselves in all their
   actions by the same Eternal Rule of Reason
   166

   Proved from the Original Nature of Things
   167

   And from the Sense that all, even wicked Men, unavoidably have of their
   being under such an Obligation
   169

   And from the Judgment of Men’s Consciences upon their own past actions
   171

   Of that Natural Knowledge which Plato thought to be Reminiscence
   ibid.

   The most profligate of Men not utterly insensible of the difference of Good
   and Evil
   172

   Men’s Natural sense of Eternal Moral Obligations proved further from the
   Judgment they all pass upon the actions of others
   173

   An Answer to the Objection drawn from the Total Ignorance of some Barbarous
   Nations in Matters of Morality
   176

   Of the Principal Moral Obligations in particular
   177

   Of Piety, or Men’s Duty towards God
   178

   Of Righteousness, or the duty of Men one towards another
   180

   Of Justice and Equity
   ibid.

   Of Universal Mutual Benevolence
   184

   Of Sobriety, or Men’s Duty towards themselves, and of the Unlawfulness of
   Self-Murder
   187

   The Law of Nature Eternal, Universal, and Absolutely Unchangeable
   191

   Eternal Moral Obligations antecedent, in some respect, even to this
   Consideration, of their being the Will or Command of God himself
   195

   The Law of Nature Obligatory, antecedent to all consideration of particular
   Rewards and Punishments
   198

   Yet it does not from hence at all follow, either that a Good Man ought to
   have no respect to Rewards and Punishments, or that Rewards and Punishments
   are not absolutely necessary to maintain the Practice of Virtue in this
   present World
   200

   The Manifold Absurdities of Mr Hobbes’s Doctrines concerning the Original of
   Right, shown in particular
   204

   PROP. II. That the same Eternal Moral Obligations, which arise necessarily
   from the Natural Differences of Things, are moreover the Express W 1,
   Command, and Law of God to all Rational Creatures
   218

   Proved from the Consideration of the Divine Attributes
   ibid.

   And from the Consideration of the Nature of God’s Creation
   222

   And from the Tendency of the Practice of Morality to the Good and Happiness
   of the whole World
   223

   PROP. III. That the same Eternal Moral Obligations, which are of themselves
   incumbent indeed on all Rational Creatures, antecedent to any respect of
   particular Reward or Punishment, must yet certainly and necessarily be
   attended with Rewards and Punishments
   226

   Proved from the Attributes of God
   ibid.

   And from the Necessity there is that there should be some Vindication of the
   Honour of God’s Laws and Government
   227

   PROP. IV. That because these Rewards and Punishments are not distributed in
   the present State, therefore there must of necessity be a Future State
   228

   That, according to the Original Constitution of Things, Virtue and Vice are
   attended with Natural Rewards and Punishments
   230

   But that now, in this present World, the Natural Order of Things is so
   Perverted, that Vice often flourishes in great Prosperity and Virtue falls
   under the greatest Calamities of Life
   231

   That therefore there must needs be a Future State of Rewards and Punishments
   233

   Of the Stoical Opinion concerning the Self-Sufficiency of Virtue to its own
   Happiness
   234

   From whence the Certainty of a Future State is again concluded
   236

   Why the Wisdom of God is not so Clearly and Plainly seen in his Government
   of the Moral, as in the Fabric of the Natural World
   238

   Of the Immortality of the Soul, and the Natural Proofs we have of it
   239

   The Natural Credibility of the Soul’s being Immortal, of great Use to the
   Wiser Heathens
   243

   The Argument for a Future State drawn from Men’s Natural Desire of
   Immortality
   245

   Another, drawn from Men’s Conscience or Judgment of their own Actions
   246

   Another, drawn from Man’s being by Nature an Accountable Creature
   ibid.

   PROP. V. That though the Necessity and Indispensableness of all the great
   and Moral Obligations of Natural Religion, and also the Certainty of a
   Future State of Rewards and Punishments, be in general deducible from Right
   Reason, yet such is the present Corrupt Estate and Condition of Mankind in
   the World, that very few are able, in reality and effect, to discover these
   things clearly and plainly for themselves, but Men have great need of
   Particular Teaching and much Instruction
   248

   Men Hindered from Discovering and Understanding Religious Truths, by
   Carelessness and Want of Attention
   249

   And by Early Prejudices and False Notions
   250

   And by Sensual Appetites, Passions, and Worldly Business
   251

   And, above all, by Vicious Habits and Practices
   252

   Wherefore Men have great need to be Taught and Instructed in Matters of
   Religion
   254

   The great Use and Necessity of an Order of Preachers
   256

   PROP. VI. That all the Teaching and Instruction of the best Heathen
   Philosophers, was for many Reasons Utterly Insufficient to Reform Mankind
   ibid.

   That there have been in the Heathen World some Excellent Teachers of
   Morality
   257

   Who seem to have been designed by Providence to bear witness against the
   Wickedness of the Nations wherein they lived
   258

   But yet none of these Men were ever able to Reform the World with any
   considerable success
   259

   Because they have been but very few that have in earnest set themselves
   about that Excellent Work
   261

   And those few were entirely ignorant of some Doctrines absolutely necessary
   to the bringing about that Great End
   263

   Particularly, they were Ignorant in what Manner God will be Acceptably
   Worshipped
   265

   And in what Method God would be Reconciled to Returning Sinners
   267

   And other Doctrines absolutely necessary to the same end, they were very
   doubtful and uncertain about
   268

   And those things which they were certain of, yet they were not able to prove
   and explain clearly and distinctly enough
   271

   And those things which they were able to prove and explain clearly and
   distinctly enough, yet they had not sufficient authority to enforce in
   practice
   275

   PROP. VII. That there was plainly wanting a Divine Revelation, to recover
   Mankind out of their Universal Degenerate Estate, and that both the
   Necessities of Men, and their Natural Notions of God, gave them reasonable
   ground to hope for such a Revelation
   278

   A Divine Revelation very necessary for the Recovery of Mankind
   ibid.

   That it was agreeable to the Dictates of Nature and Right Reason to expect
   or hope for such a Divine Revelation
   280

   The Unreasonableness of Modern Deists in Denying the Want and Use of a
   Revelation
   284

   The great Necessity and Use of Divine Revelation
   285

   Yet God was not absolutely obliged to afford men the help of such a
   Revelation
   288

   Want of Universality no sufficient Objection against the Truth of a
   Revelation
   289

   PROP. VIII. That there is no other Religion now in the World, but the
   Christian, that has any Just Pretence or Tolerable Appearance of Reason to
   be esteemed such a Divine Revelation
   291

   Of the Mahometan Religion
   291

   Of the Jewish Religion
   ibid.

   PROP. IX. That the Christian Religion has all the Marks and Proofs of its
   being Actually and Truly a Divine Revelation, that any Divine Revelation,
   supposing it was true, could reasonably be imagined or desired to have
   292

   The Marks of a Religion Coming from God
   ibid.

   PROP. X. That the Practical Duties, which the Christian Religion enjoins,
   are all such as are most agreeable to our Natural Notions of God, and most
   Perfective of the Nature and Conducive to the Happiness and Well-being of
   Men
   293

   Proved in the Several Instances of Duty
   ibid.

   This a Great Evidence of a Religion coming from God
   296

   PROP. XI. That the Motives by which the Christian Religion enforces the
   Practice of the Duties it enjoins, are such as are most suitable to the
   excellent wisdom of God, and most answerable to the natural expectations of
   Men
   299

   Of the Acceptableness of True Repentance as a Motive to Obedience
   ibid.

   Of the Divine Assistance as another Motive to Obedience
   300

   Of the Clear Discovery of Future Rewards and Punishments, as another Motive
   to Obedience
   301

   PROP. XII. That the Peculiar Manner and Circumstances, with which the
   Christian Religion enjoins the Duties, and urges the Motives
   before-mentioned, are exactly consonant to the Dictates of Sound Reason, or
   the Unprejudiced Light of Nature, and most wisely perfective of it
   303

   Proved by Particular Instances
   ibid.

   An Answer to the Objections drawn from the Divisions among Christians
   305

   PROP. XIII. That all the Credenda, or Doctrines, which the Christian
   Religion requires our particular assent to, are agreeable to Unprejudiced
   Reason, have every one of them a Natural Tendency and Direct Influence to
   Reform Men’s Manners, and do together make up the most consistent and
   rational Scheme of Belief in the World
   306

   Of the One Supreme God
   ibid.

   Of the Only-begotten Son of God
   307

   Of the Holy Spirit
   308

   Of the Creation of the Universe
   ibid.

   Of the Formation of the Earth
   309

   Of the Continual Government of Providence
   310

   Of Paradise, and the Loss of it by Sin
   311

   Of the Flood
   312

   Of God’s Revealing Himself to the Patriarchs, and giving the Law to the Jews
   313

   Of the other Particulars of Scripture-history in the Old Testament
   ibid.

   Of God’s sending his Son into the World, for the Redemption of Mankind
   315

   That it is not Unreasonable to Suppose God Making a Revelation of his Will
   to Men
   316

   That it is not unreasonable to believe that God would appoint a Sacrifice or
   Expiation for Sin
   ibid.

   That it is not unreasonable to believe that a Mediator should be appointed
   between God and Man
   317

   Of the Objection drawn from the Dignity of the Person whom we believe to be
   our Mediator and Redeemer
   ibid.

   Of the Objection drawn from the Christian Revelation not being in fact
   Universal -
   322

   Of the other Particulars of Scripture-history contained in the New Testament
   323

   Of the Day of Judgment and Christ the Judge
   324

   Of the Resurrection of the Body
   325

   Of the Resurrection of the same Body
   326

   Of the Eternal Happiness of the Blessed, and the Eternal Punishment of the
   Damned
   328

   All the Articles of our Belief agreeable to Right Reason
   331

   Every one of them has a Direct Tendency and Powerful Influence to Reform
   Men’s Manners
   ibid.

   And all of them together make up the most Consistent and Rational Scheme of
   Belief in the World
   335

   PROP. XIV. That the Christian Revelation is positively and directly proved
   to be sent to us from God by the Miracles which our Saviour worked, by the
   fulfilling of the Prophecies, and by the Testimony of the Apostles
   336

   Of the Life and Character of our Saviour, as an Evidence of the Truth of the
   Christian Revelation
   337

   Of the Miracles of Christ, as the Evidence of his Divine Commission
   338

   Of Miracles in General
   ibid.

   That, in Respect of the Power of God, all things are alike easy
   339

   That therefore Miracles ought not to be defined by any Absolute Difficulty
   in the Nature of the Things themselves to be done
   ibid.

   What degrees of Power God may have communicated to Created Beings, is not
   possible for us to determine
   340

   That therefore a Miracle is not rightly defined to be such an Effect as
   could not have been produced by any less Power than the Divine Omnipotence
   ibid.

   All things that are done in the World, are done either Immediately by God
   Himself, or by Created Intelligent Beings, Matter being capable of no laws
   or powers; and consequently there is, properly speaking, no such thing as
   the Course or Power of Nature
   343

   That therefore a Miracle is not rightly defined to be that which is against
   the Course of Nature, or above the Natural Powers of Created Agents
   342

   The Unreasonableness of those who deny the Possibility of Miracles in
   General
   ibid.

   Some Effects prove the Constant Providence of God, and others prove the
   Occasional Interposition either of God himself or of some Intelligent Being
   Superior to Men
   343

   Whether such Interposition be the Immediate work of God, or of some Good or
   Evil Angel, can hardly be discovered merely by the Work Itself
   344

   That there is no reason to suppose all the Wonders worked by Evil Spirits to
   be mere Delusions
   ibid.

   How we are to Distinguish Miracles wrought by God for the Proof of any
   Doctrine, from the Frauds of Evil Spirits
   345

   The Difference between those who teach that the Immediate Power of God is,
   or is not, necessarily requisite to the Working of a Miracle, is not very
   great at bottom
   347

   The True Definition of a Miracle
   ibid.

   The Strength of the Evidence of our Saviour’s Miracles
   348

   Concerning the Objection, that we prove in a circle the Miracles by the
   Doctrine, and the Doctrine by the Miracles
   ibid.

   Of the Pretended Miracles of Apollonius and others
   350

   Of the fulfilling the Prophecies as an Evidence of our Saviour’s Divine
   Commission
   351

   Of the Prophecies that went before Concerning the Messiah
   ibid.

   Of the Prophecies that Christ Himself delivered concerning things that were
   to happen after
   353

   An Answer to Objections against Applying the Prophecies in the Old Testament
   to Christ
   354

   Of the Testimony of our Saviour’s Disciples, as an Evidence of the Truth of
   the Christian Revelation
   399

   What Things are requisite to make the Testimony of our Saviour’s Disciples a
   Complete Evidence
   400

   That the Apostles could not be Imposed upon Themselves
   ibid.

   That they could have no design of imposing upon Others
   401

   That the Apostles’ Testimony has been truly conveyed down to us
   403

   Of the Authority of the Books of Holy Scripture
   404

   PROP. XV. That they who will not, by the Arguments and Proofs
   before-mentioned, be convinced of the Truth and Certainty of the Christian
   Religion, would not be convinced by any other Evidence whatsoever,—no, not
   though one should rise on purpose from the dead to endeavour to Convince
   them
   405

   That the Evidence which God has afforded us of the Truth of our Religion is
   abundantly sufficient
   ibid.

   That the Cause of Men’s Unbelief is not Want of Better Evidence to prove the
   great Truths of Religion
   406

   But that Wickedness and Ungoverned Lusts are the only Causes of Obstinate
   Infidelity
   408

   And so long as Men are under the Dominion of their Lusts, they would not be
   convinced, though the Evidence of Religion was even much Stronger than it is
   ibid.

   Nay, not even though one should Rise on Purpose from the Dead to Convince
   them
   410

   That therefore it is Absolutely Necessary in the first place, that Men
   become Impartially Willing to embrace all Truth, and to obey all Reasonable
   Obligations
   411

   That Men of such a Disposition would be Religious, though the Evidences of
   Religion were much less than they are
   412

   That God may require us to take notice of some things at our peril
   414

   Letters from a Gentleman in Gloucestershire relative to some points stated
   in the foregoing Discourses, with the Answers thereto
   418
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    A

  DEMONSTRATION

    OF THE

BEING AND ATTRIBUTES

    OF

GOD.

  MORE PARTICULARLY IN ANSWER TO MR HOBBES, SPINOZA, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS.
     _________________________________________________________________

  MORE PARTICULARLY IN ANSWER TO MR HOBBES, SPINOZA, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS.
     _________________________________________________________________

   ALL those who either are or pretend to be atheists; The introduction. who
   either disbelieve the being of God, or would be thought to do so; or, (which
   is all one,) who deny the principal attributes of the divine nature, and
   suppose God to be an unintelligent being, which acts merely by necessity;
   that is, which, in any tolerable propriety of speech, acts not at all, but
   is only acted upon: all men that are atheists, I say, in this sense, must be
   so upon one or other of these three accounts.

   Either, first, Because being extremely ignorant Atheism arises from stupid
   ignorance. and stupid, they have never duly considered any thing at all; nor
   made any just use of their natural reason, to discover even the plainest and
   most obvious truths; but have spent their time in a manner of life very
   little superior to that of beasts.

   Or from gross corruption of manners: Or, secondly, Because being totally
   debauched and corrupted in their practice, they have, by a vicious and
   degenerate life, corrupted the principles of their nature, and defaced the
   reason of their own minds; and, instead of fairly and impartially inquiring
   into the rules and obligations of nature, and the reason and fitness of
   things, have accustomed themselves only to mock and scoff at religion; and,
   being under the power of evil habits, and the slavery of unreasonable and
   indulged lusts, are resolved not to hearken to any reasoning which would
   oblige them to forsake their beloved vices.

   Or from false philosophy. Or, thirdly, Because in the way of speculative
   reasoning, and upon the principles of philosophy, they pretend that the
   arguments used against the being or attributes of God, seem to them, after
   the strictest and fullest inquiry, to be more strong and conclusive than
   those by which we endeavour to prove these great truths.

   These seem the only causes that can be imagined, of any man’s disbelieving
   the being or attributes of God; and no man can be supposed to be an atheist
   but upon one or other of these three accounts. Now, to the two former of
   these three sorts of men; namely, to such as are wholly ignorant and stupid,
   or to such as through habitual debauchery have brought themselves to a
   custom of mocking and scoffing at all religion, and will not hearken to any
   fair reasoning; it is not my present business to apply myself. The one of
   these wants to be instructed in the first principles of reason as well as of
   religion. The other disbelieves only for a present false interest, and
   because he is desirous that the thing should not be true. The one has not
   yet arrived to the use of his natural faculties: the other has renounced
   them; and declares he will not be argued with, as a rational creature. It is
   therefore the third sort of atheists only (namely those who in the way of
   speculative reasoning, and upon the principles of philosophy, pretend that
   the arguments brought against the being or attributes of God, do, upon the
   strictest and fullest examination, appear to them to be more strong and
   conclusive, than those by which these great truths are attempted to be
   proved;) these, I say, are the only atheistical persons to whom my present
   discourse can be supposed to be directed, or indeed who are capable of being
   reasoned with at all.

   Now, before I enter upon the main argument, I shall premise several
   concessions, which these men, upon their own principles, are unavoidably
   obliged to make.

   And first, They must of necessity own, that, supposing The being of God very
   desirable. it cannot be proved to be true, yet at least it is a thing very
   desirable, and which any wise man would wish to be true, for the great
   benefit and happiness of men; that there was a God, an intelligent and wise,
   a just and good Being, to govern the world. Whatever hypothesis these men
   can possibly frame; whatever argument they can invent, by which they would
   exclude God and providence out of the world; that very argument or
   hypothesis will of necessity lead them to this concession. If they argue,
   that our notion of God arises not from nature and reason, but from the art
   and contrivance of politicians; that argument itself forces them to confess,
   that it is manifestly for the interest of human society that it should be
   believed there is a God. If they suppose that the world was made by chance,
   and is every moment subject to be destroyed by chance again; no man can be
   so absurd as to contend that it is as comfortable and desirable to live in
   such an uncertain state of things, and so continually liable to ruin, [1]
   without any hope of renovation; as in a world that were under the
   preservation and conduct of a powerful, wise, and good God. If they argue
   against the being of God, from the faults and defects which they imagine
   they can find in the frame and constitution of the visible and material
   world; this supposition obliges them to acknowledge, that it would have been
   better the world had been made by an intelligent and wise Being, who might
   have prevented all faults and imperfections. If they argue against
   providence, from the faultiness and inequality which they think they
   discover in the management of the moral world, this is a plain confession
   that it is a thing more fit and desirable in itself, that the world should
   be governed by a just and good Being, than by mere chance or unintelligent
   necessity. Lastly, if they suppose the world to be eternally and necessarily
   self-existent, and consequently that every thing in it is established by a
   blind and eternal fatality, no rational man can at the same time deny, but
   that liberty and choice, or a free power of acting, is a more eligible
   state, than to be determined thus in all our actions, as a stone is to move
   downward, by an absolute and inevitable fate. In a word, which way soever
   they turn themselves, and whatever hypothesis they make, concerning the
   origin and frame of things, nothing is so certain and undeniable, as that
   man, considered without the protection and conduct of a superior being, is
   in a far worse case, than upon supposition of the being and government of
   God, and of men’s being under his peculiar conduct, protection, and favour.
   Man, of himself, is infinitely insufficient for his own happiness: [2] he is
   liable to many evils and miseries, which he can neither prevent nor redress:
   he is full of wants which he cannot supply, and compassed about with
   infirmities which he cannot remove, and obnoxious to dangers which he can
   never sufficiently provide against: he is secure of nothing that he enjoys
   in this world, and uncertain of every thing he hopes for: he is apt to
   grieve for what he cannot help, and eagerly to desire what he is never able
   to obtain, &c. Under which evil circumstances it is evident there can be no
   sufficient support, but in the belief of a wise and good God, and in the
   hopes which true religion affords. Whether therefore the being and
   attributes of God can be demonstrated or not, it must at least be confessed,
   by all rational and wise men, to be a thing very desirable, and which they
   would heartily wish to be true, that there was a God, an intelligent and
   wise, a just and good Being, to govern the world.

   Now, the use I desire to make of this concession is only this: that since
   the men I am arguing with are unavoidably obliged to confess that it is a
   thing very desirable at least, that there should be a God, they must of
   necessity, upon their own principles, be very willing, nay, desirous, above
   all things, to be convinced that their present opinion is an error, and
   sincerely hope that the contrary may be demonstrated to them to be true; and
   consequently they are bound with all seriousness, attention, and
   impartiality, to consider the weight of the arguments by which the being and
   attributes of God may be proved to them.

   Secondly, All such persons as I am speaking of, Scoffing at religion,
   inexcusable. who profess themselves to be atheists, not upon any present
   interest or lust, but purely upon the principles of reason and philosophy,
   are bound by these principles to acknowledge, that all mocking and scoffing
   at religion, all jesting and turning arguments of reason into drollery and
   ridicule, is the most unmanly and unreasonable thing in the world. And
   consequently, they are obliged to exclude out of their number, as irrational
   and self-condemned persons, and unworthy to be argued with, all such
   scoffers at religion, who deride at all adventures without hearing reason;
   and who will not use the means of being convinced and satisfied. Hearing the
   reason of the case, with patience and unprejudicedness, is an equity which
   men owe to every truth that can in any manner concern them; and which is
   necessary to the discovery of every kind of error. How much more in things
   of the utmost importance!

   Virtue and good manners absolutely necessary. Thirdly, Since the persons I
   am discoursing to cannot but own, that the supposition of the being of God
   is in itself most desirable, and for the benefit of the world, that it
   should be true; they must of necessity grant further, that, supposing the
   being and attributes of God to be things not indeed demonstrable to be true,
   but only possible, and such as cannot be demonstrated to be false, as most
   certainly they cannot; and much more, supposing them once made to appear
   probable, and but more likely to be true than the contrary opinion: nothing
   is more evident, even upon these suppositions only, than that men ought in
   all reason to live piously and virtuously in the world; and that vice and
   immorality are, upon all accounts, and under all hypotheses, the most absurd
   and inexcusable things in nature.

   This much being premised, which no atheist, who pretends to be a rational
   and fair inquirer into things, can possibly avoid granting; (and other
   atheists, I have before said, are not to be disputed with at all; as being
   enemies to reason, no less than to religion, and therefore absolutely
   self-condemned;) I proceed now to the main thing I at first proposed;
   namely, to endeavour to show, to such considering persons as I have already
   described, that the being and attributes of God are not only possible, or
   barely probable in themselves, but also strictly demonstrable to any
   unprejudiced mind, from the most incontestable principles of right reason.

   And here, because the persons I am at present dealing with, must be supposed
   not to believe any revelation, nor acknowledge any authority which they will
   submit to, but only the bare force of reasoning; I shall not, at this time,
   draw any testimony from Scripture, nor make use of any sort of authority,
   nor lay any stress upon any popular arguments in the matter before us; but
   confine myself to the rules of strict and demonstrative argumentation.

   Now, many arguments there are, by which the being and attributes of God have
   been undertaken to be demonstrated. And perhaps most of those arguments, if
   thoroughly understood, rightly stated, fully pursued, and duly separated
   from the false or uncertain reasonings which have sometimes been intermixed
   with them; would at length appear to be substantial and conclusive. But
   because I would endeavour, as far as possible, to avoid all manner of
   perplexity and confusion; therefore I shall not at this time use any variety
   of arguments, but endeavour, by one clear and plain series of propositions
   necessarily connected and following one from another, to demonstrate the
   certainty of the being of God, and to deduce in order the necessary
   attributes of his nature, so far as by our finite reason we are enabled to
   discover and apprehend them. And because it is not to my present purpose to
   explain or illustrate things to them that believe, but only to convince
   unbelievers, and settle them that doubt, by strict and undeniable reasoning;
   therefore I shall not allege any thing, which, however really true and
   useful, may yet be liable to contradiction or dispute; but shall endeavour
   to urge such propositions only as cannot be denied, without departing from
   that reason, which all atheists pretend to be the foundation of their
   unbelief. Only it is absolutely necessary, before all things, that they
   consent to lay aside all manner of prejudices; and especially such as have
   been apt to arise from the too frequent use of terms of art, which have no
   ideas belonging to them; and from the common receiving certain maxims of
   philosophy as true, which at the bottom seem to be only propositions without
   any meaning or signification at all.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [1]

   Maria ac terras cœlumque—
   Una dies dabit exitio, multosque per annos
   Sustentata ruet moles, et machina mundi.
   —Dictis dabit ipsa fidem res
   Forsitan, et graviter terrarum motibus orbis
   Omnia conquassari in parvo tempore cernes.
   Lucret. lib. 5.

   [2] Archbishop Tillotson’s Sermon on Job, xxviii. 28.
     _________________________________________________________________

   I. Proposition I. First then, it is absolutely and undeniably certain, that
   Something must have existed from eternity. something has existed from all
   eternity.—This is so evident and undeniable a proposition, that no atheist
   in any age has ever presumed to assert the contrary; and therefore there is
   little need of being particular in the proof of it. For since something now
   is, it is evident that something always was; otherwise the things that now
   are must have been produced out of nothing, absolutely and without cause,
   which is a plain contradiction in terms. For to say a thing is produced, and
   yet that there is no cause at all of that production, is to say that
   something is effected, when it is effected by nothing; that is, at the same
   time when it is not effected at all.—Whatever exists, has a cause, a reason,
   a ground of its existence; (a foundation, on which its existence relies; a
   ground or reason why it doth exist rather than not exist;) either in the
   necessity of its own nature, and then it must have been of itself eternal;
   or in the will of some other being, and then that other being must, at least
   in the order of nature and causality, have existed before it.

   Of the difficulty of conceiving eternity. That something therefore has
   really existed from eternity, is one of the certainest and most evident
   truths in the world; acknowledged by all men, and disputed by none. Yet as
   to the manner how it can be; there is nothing in nature more difficult for
   the mind of man to conceive, than this very first plain and self-evident
   truth. For, how any thing can have existed eternally; that is, how an
   eternal duration can be now actually past, is a thing utterly as impossible
   for our narrow understandings to comprehend, as any thing that is not an
   express contradiction can be imagined to be: and yet to deny the truth of
   the proposition, that an eternal duration is now actually past, would be to
   assert something still far more unintelligible, even a real and express
   contradiction.

   Difficulties arising merely from the nature of eternity, not to be regarded,
   because equal in all suppositions. The use I would make of this observation,
   is this: That since in all questions concerning the nature and perfections
   of God, or concerning any thing to which the idea of eternity or infinity is
   joined; though we can indeed demonstrate certain propositions to be true,
   yet it is impossible for us to comprehend or frame any adequate or complete
   ideas of the manner how the things so demonstrated can be: therefore, when
   once any proposition is clearly demonstrated to be true, it ought not to
   disturb us that there be perhaps perplexing difficulties on the other side,
   which merely for want of adequate ideas of the manner of the existence of
   the things demonstrated, are not easy to be cleared. Indeed, were it
   possible there should be any proposition which could equally be demonstrated
   on both sides of the question, or which could on both sides be reduced to
   imply a contradiction; (as some have very inconsiderately asserted;) this,
   it must be confessed, would alter the case. Upon this absurd supposition,
   all difference of true and false, all thinking and reasoning, and the use of
   all our faculties, would be entirely at an end. But when to demonstration on
   the one side, there are opposed on the other, only difficulties raised from
   our want of having adequate ideas of the things themselves; this ought not
   to be esteemed an objection of any real weight. It is directly and clearly
   demonstrable, (and acknowledged to be so, even by all atheists that ever
   lived,) that something has been from eternity: All the objections therefore
   raised against the eternity of any thing, grounded merely on our want of
   having an adequate idea of eternity, ought to be looked upon as of no real
   solidity. Thus in other the like instances: It is demonstrable, for example,
   that something must be actually infinite: All the metaphysical difficulties,
   therefore, which arise usually from applying the measures and relations of
   things finite, to what is infinite; and from supposing finites to be
   [aliquot] parts of infinite, when indeed they are not properly so, but only
   as mathematical points to quantity, which have no proportion at all: (and
   from imagining all infinites to be equal, when in things disparate they
   manifestly are not so; an infinite line, being not only not equal to, but
   infinitely less than an infinite surface, and an infinite surface than space
   infinite in all dimensions:) All metaphysical difficulties, I say, arising
   from false suppositions of this kind, ought to be esteemed vain and of no
   force. Again: it is in like manner demonstrable, that quantity is infinitely
   divisible: All the objections therefore raised, by supposing the sums total
   of all infinities to be equal, when in disparate parts they manifestly are
   not so; and by comparing the imaginary equality or inequality of the number
   of the parts of unequal quantities, whose parts have really no number at
   all, they all having parts without number; ought to be looked upon as weak
   and altogether inconclusive: To ask whether the parts of unequal quantities
   be equal in number or not, when they have no number at all, being the same
   thing as to ask whether two lines drawn from differently distant points, and
   each of them continued infinitely, be equal in length or not, that is,
   whether they end together, when neither of them have any end at all.
     _________________________________________________________________

   II. Proposition II: There must have existed from eternity one independent
   being. There has existed from eternity, [3] some one unchangeable and
   independent being. For since something must needs have been from eternity,
   as has been already proved, and is granted on all hands, either there has
   always existed some one unchangeable and independent being, from which all
   other beings that are or ever were in the universe have received their
   original; or else there has been an infinite succession of changeable and
   dependent beings, produced one from another, in an endless progression,
   without any original cause at all. Now this latter supposition is so very
   absurd, that though all atheism must in its account of most things (as shall
   be shown hereafter,) terminate in it, yet I think very few atheists ever
   were so weak as openly and directly to defend it; for it is plainly
   impossible, and contradictory to itself. I shall not argue against it from
   the supposed impossibility of infinite succession, barely and absolutely
   considered in itself; for a reason which shall be mentioned hereafter. But,
   if we consider such an infinite progression, as one entire endless series of
   dependent beings, it is plain this whole series of beings can have no cause
   from without, of its existence; because in it are supposed to be included
   all things that are or ever were in the universe: And it is plain it can
   have no reason within itself, of its existence; because no one being in this
   infinite succession is supposed to be self-existent or necessary, (which is
   the only ground or reason of existence of any thing that can be imagined
   within the thing itself, as will presently more fully appear,) but every one
   dependent on the foregoing: and where no part is necessary, it is manifest
   the whole cannot be necessary: absolute necessity of existence, not being an
   extrinsic, relative, and accidental denomination, but an inward and
   essential property of the nature of the thing which so exists. An infinite
   succession, therefore, of merely dependent beings, without any original
   independent cause, is a series of beings that has neither necessity, nor
   cause, nor any reason or ground at all of its existence, either within
   itself or from without; that is, it is an express contradiction and
   impossibility; it is a supposing something to be caused, (because it is
   granted in every one of its stages of succession, not to be necessarily and
   of itself;) and yet that, in the whole, it is caused absolutely by nothing;
   which every man knows is a contradiction to imagine done in time; and,
   because duration in this case makes no difference, it is equally a
   contradiction to suppose it done from eternity; and, consequently, there
   must, on the contrary, of necessity, have existed from eternity some one
   immutable and independent being.

   To suppose an infinite succession of changeable and dependent beings
   produced one from another in an endless progression, without any original
   cause at all, is only [4] a driving back from one step to another, and (as
   it were) removing out of sight, the question concerning the ground or reason
   of the existence of things. It is in reality, and in point of argument, the
   very same supposition, as it would be to suppose one continued being, of
   beginningless and endless duration, neither self-existent and necessary in
   itself, nor having its existence founded in any self-existent cause; which
   is directly absurd and contradictory.

   Otherwise, thus: Either there has always existed some one unchangeable and
   independent being, from which all other beings have received their original;
   or else there has been an infinite succession of changeable and dependent
   beings, produced one from another, in an endless progression, without any
   original cause at all. According to this latter supposition, there is
   nothing in the universe self-existent or necessarily-existing: and, if so,
   then it was originally equally possible, that from eternity there should
   never have existed any thing at all, as that there should from eternity have
   existed a succession of changeable and dependent beings: which being
   supposed, then, what is it that has from eternity determined such a
   succession of beings to exist, rather than that from eternity there should
   never have existed any thing at all? Necessity it was not; because it was
   equally possible, in this supposition, that they should not have existed at
   all. Chance is nothing but a mere word, without any signification: And other
   being it is supposed there was none, to determine the existence of these.
   Their existence, therefore, was determined by nothing; neither by any
   necessity in the nature of the things themselves, because it is supposed
   that none of them are self-existent; nor by any other being, because no
   other is supposed to exist. That is to say; of two equally possible things,
   (viz. whether any thing or nothing should from eternity have existed,) the
   one is determined, rather than the other, absolutely by nothing; which is an
   express contradiction. And, consequently, as before, there must on the
   contrary, of necessity, have existed, from eternity, some one immutable and
   independent being, which, what it is, remains in the next place to be
   inquired.
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   [3] The meaning of this proposition, (and all that the argument here
   requires,) is, that there must needs have always been some independent
   being, some one at least. To show that there can be no more than one, is not
   the design of this proposition, but of the seventh.

   [4] This matter has been well illustrated by a late able writer.—“Suppose a
   chain hung down out of the heavens, from an unknown height; and, though
   every link of it gravitated toward the earth, and what it hung upon was not
   visible, yet it did not descend, but kept its situation: And, upon this, a
   question should arise, What supported or kept up this chain? Would it be a
   sufficient answer to say, that the first or lowest link hung upon the
   second, or that next above it; the second, or rather the first and second
   together, upon the third; and so on in infinitum? For, what holds up the
   whole? A chain of ten links, would fall down, unless something able to bear
   it hindered: One of twenty, if not stayed by something of a yet greater
   strength, in proportion to the increase of weight. And therefore one of
   infinite links, certainly; if not sustained by something infinitely strong,
   and capable to bear up an infinite weight: And thus it is in a chain of
   causes and effects, tending, or (as it were) gravitating, towards some end.
   The last, or lowest, depends, or, (as one may say) is suspended upon the
   cause above it. This, again, if it be not the first cause, is suspended, as
   an effect, upon something above it, &c. And if they should be infinite,
   unless (agreeably to what has been said) there is some cause, upon which all
   hang or depend, they would be but an infinite effect without an efficient:
   and to assert there is any such thing, would be as great an absurdity as to
   say, that a finite or little weight wants something to sustain it, but an
   infinite one (or the greatest) does not.”—Religion of Nature Delineated,
   page 67.
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   Proposition III: The one independent Being must be necessarily existing.
   III. That unchangeable and independent Being, which has existed from
   eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be
   self-existent, that is, necessarily existing. For whatever exists, must
   either have come into being out of nothing, absolutely without cause; or it
   must have been produced by some external cause; or it must be self-existent.
   Now, to arise out of nothing, absolutely without any cause, has been already
   shown to be a plain contradiction. To have been produced by some external
   cause, cannot possibly be true of every thing; but something must have
   existed eternally and independently, as has likewise been shown already. It
   remains, therefore, that that being which has existed independently from
   eternity must of necessity be self-existent. Now, to be self-existent is not
   to be produced by itself; for that is an express contradiction. But it is,
   (which is the only idea we can frame of self-existence; and without which,
   the word seems to have no signification at all;) it is, I say, to exist by
   an absolute necessity originally in the nature of the thing itself: And this
   necessity must be antecedent; not, indeed, in time, to the existence of the
   being itself, because that is eternal; but it must be antecedent in the
   natural order of our ideas, to our supposition of its being; that is, this
   necessity must not barely be consequent upon our supposition of the
   existence of such a being; (for then it would not be a necessity absolutely
   such in itself, nor be the ground or foundation of the existence of any
   thing, being on the contrary only a consequent of it;) but it must
   antecedently force itself upon us, whether we will or no, even when we are
   endeavouring to suppose that no such being exists. For example: when we are
   endeavouring to suppose, that there is no being in the universe that exists
   necessarily, we always find in our minds, Page 10, &c. (besides the
   foregoing demonstration of something being self-existent, from the
   impossibility of every thing’s being dependent;) we always find in our
   minds, I say, some ideas, as of infinity and eternity; which to remove, that
   is, to suppose that there is no being, no substance in the universe, to
   which these attributes or modes of existence are necessarily inherent, is a
   contradiction in the very terms. For modes and attributes exist only by the
   existence of the substance to which they belong. Now, he that can suppose
   eternity and immensity (and consequently the substance by whose existence
   these modes or attributes exist,) removed out of the universe, may, if he
   please, as easily remove the relation of equality between twice two and
   four.

   That to suppose immensity removed out of the universe, or not necessarily
   eternal, is an express contradiction; is intuitively evident to every one
   who attends to his own ideas, and considers the essential nature of things.
   To suppose [5] any part of space removed, is to suppose it removed from and
   out of itself: and to suppose the whole to be taken away, is supposing it to
   be taken away from itself, that is, to be taken away while it still remains;
   which is a contradiction in terms. There is no obscurity in this argument
   but what arises to those who think immense space to be absolutely nothing:
   which notion is itself likewise an express contradiction; for nothing is
   that which has no properties or modes whatsoever; that is to say, it is that
   of which nothing can truly be affirmed, and of which every thing can truly
   be denied; which is not the case of immensity or space.

   From this third proposition it follows,

   1st, That the only true idea of a self-existent or The true notion of self
   existence. Pages 10 and 14. necessarily-existing being, is the idea of a
   being, the supposition of whose not-existing is an express contradiction.
   For since it is absolutely impossible but there must be somewhat
   self-existent; that is, which exists by the necessity of its own nature; it
   is plain that that necessity cannot be a necessity consequent upon any
   foregoing supposition, (because nothing can be antecedent to that which is
   self-existent, no not its own will, so as to be the cause or ground of its
   own existence,) but it must be a necessity absolutely such in its own
   nature. Now, a necessity, not relatively or consequentially, but absolutely
   such in its own nature, is nothing else but its being a plain impossibility
   or implying a contradiction to suppose the contrary. For instance; the
   relation of equality between twice two and four is an absolute necessity
   only because it is an immediate contradiction in terms to suppose them
   unequal. This is the only idea we can frame of an absolute necessity; and to
   use the word in any other sense seems to be using it without any
   signification at all.

   If any one now asks, what sort of idea the idea of that being is, the
   supposition of whose not-existing is thus an express contradiction; I
   answer, it is the first and simplest idea we can possibly frame; an idea
   necessarily and essentially included or presupposed, as a sine qua non, in
   every other idea whatsoever; an idea, which (unless we forbear thinking at
   all) we cannot possibly extirpate or remove out of our minds; of a most
   simple being, absolutely eternal and infinite, original and independent.
   For, that he who supposes there is no original independent being in the
   universe, supposes a contradiction, has been shown already. And that he who
   supposes there may possibly be no eternal and infinite being in the universe
   supposes likewise a contradiction, is evident from hence; (besides that
   these two attributes do necessarily follow from self-originate independent
   existence, as shall be shown hereafter;) that when he has done his utmost,
   in endeavouring to imagine that no such being exists, he cannot avoid
   imagining an eternal and infinite [6] nothing; that is, he will imagine
   eternity and immensity removed out of the universe, and yet that at the same
   time they still continue there; as has been above [7] distinctly explained.

   This The error of the Cartesians. argument the Cartesians, who supposed the
   idea of immensity to be the idea of matter, have been greatly perplexed
   with. For, (however in words they have contradicted themselves, yet in
   reality) they have more easily been driven to that most intolerable
   absurdity of asserting matter [8] to be a necessary being; than being able
   to remove out of their minds the idea of immensity, as existing necessarily
   and inseparably from eternity. Which absurdity and inextricable perplexity
   of theirs, in respect of the idea of immensity, shows that they found that
   indeed to be necessary and impossible to be removed; but, in respect of
   matter, it was only a perverse applying an idea to an object, whereto it
   noways belongs; for, that it is indeed absolutely impossible and
   contradictory to suppose matter necessarily-existing, shall be demonstrated
   presently.

   2dly. Nothing so certain as the existence of a supreme independent cause.
   From hence it follows, that there is no man whatsoever, who makes any use of
   his reason, but may easily become more certain of the being of a supreme
   independent cause, than he can be of any thing else besides his own
   existence; for how much thought soever it may require to demonstrate the
   other attributes of such a being, as it may do to demonstrate the greatest
   mathematical certainties, (of which more hereafter,) yet, as to its
   existence, that there is somewhat eternal, infinite, and self-existing,
   which must be the cause and origin of all other things; this is one of the
   first and most natural conclusions that any man, who thinks at all, can
   frame in his mind: and no man can any more doubt of this, than he can doubt
   whether twice two be equal to four.—It is impossible, indeed, a man may in
   some sense be ignorant of this first and plain truth, by being utterly
   stupid, and not thinking at all; (for though it is absolutely impossible for
   him to imagine the contrary, yet he may possibly neglect to conceive this:
   though no man can possibly think that twice two is not four, yet he may
   possibly be stupid, and never have thought at all whether it be so or not.)
   But this I say: there is no man, who thinks or reasons at all, but may
   easily become more certain, that there is something eternal, infinite, and
   self-existing, than he can be certain of any thing else.

   3dly. Of the idea of God, including self-existence. Hence we may observe,
   that our first certainty of the existence of God does not arise from this,
   that in the idea our minds frame of him, (or rather in the definition that
   we make of the word God, as signifying a being of all possible perfections,)
   we include self-existence; but from hence, that it is demonstrable both
   negatively, that neither can all things possibly have arisen out of nothing,
   nor can they have depended one on another in an endless succession; and also
   positively, that there is something in the universe, actually existing
   without us, the supposition of whose not-existing plainly implies a
   contradiction. The argument which has by some been drawn from our including
   self-existence in the idea of God, or our comprehending it in the definition
   or notion we frame of him, has this obscurity and defect in it: that it
   seems to extend only to the nominal idea or mere definition of a
   self-existent being, and does not with a sufficiently evident connexion
   refer and apply that general nominal idea, definition, or notion which we
   frame in our own mind, to any real particular being actually existing
   without us. For it is not satisfactory, that I have in my mind an idea of
   the proposition; there exists a being indued with all possible perfections;
   or, there is a self-existent being. But I must also have some idea of the
   thing. I must have an idea of something actually existing without me. And I
   must see wherein consists the absolute impossibility of removing that idea,
   and consequently of supposing the non-existence of the thing, before I can
   be satisfied, from that idea, that the thing actually exists. The bare
   having an idea of the proposition there is a self-existent being, proves
   indeed the thing not to be impossible; (for of an impossible proposition
   there can be no idea;) but that it actually is, cannot be proved from the
   idea; unless the certainty of the actual existence of a necessarily-existing
   being follows from the possibility of the existence of such a being; which
   that it does in this particular case, many learned men have indeed thought;
   and their subtile arguings upon this head are sufficient to raise a cloud
   not very easy to be seen through. But it is a much clearer and more
   convincing way of arguing, to demonstrate that there does actually exist
   without us a being, whose existence is necessary and of itself; by shewing
   the evident contradiction contained in the contrary supposition, (as I have
   before done,) and at the same time the absolute impossibility of destroying
   or removing some ideas, as of eternity and immensity, which therefore must
   needs be modes or attributes of a necessary being actually existing. For if
   I have in my mind an idea of a thing, and cannot possibly in my imagination
   take away the idea of that thing as actually existing, any more than I can
   change or take away the idea of the equality of twice two to four; the
   certainty of the existence of that thing is the same, and stands on the same
   foundation as the certainty of the other relation. For the relation of
   equality between twice two and four has no other certainty but this; that I
   cannot, without a contradiction, change or take away the idea of that
   relation. We are certain, therefore, of the being of a supreme independent
   cause; because it is strictly demonstrable, that there is something in the
   universe actually existing without us, the supposition of whose not-existing
   plainly implies a contradiction.

   Some writers have contended, [9] that it is preposterous to inquire in this
   manner at all into the ground or reason of the existence of the first cause:
   because evidently the first cause can have nothing prior to it, and
   consequently must needs (they think) exist absolutely without any cause at
   all. That the first cause can have no other being prior to it, to be the
   cause of its existence, is indeed self-evident. But if originally,
   absolutely, and antecedently to all supposition of existence, there be no
   necessary ground or reason why the first cause does exist, rather than not
   exist; if the first cause can rightly and truly be affirmed to exist,
   absolutely without any ground or reason of existence at all, it will
   unavoidably follow, by the same argument, that it may as well cease likewise
   to exist, without any ground or reason of ceasing to exist: which is absurd.
   The truth therefore plainly is: Whatever is the true reason, why the first
   cause can never possibly cease to exist, the same is, and originally and
   always was, the true reason why it always did and cannot but exist: that is,
   it is the true ground and reason of its existence.

   4thly. From hence it follows, that the material That the material world
   cannot possibly be the self-existent being. world cannot possibly be the
   first and original being, uncreated, independent, and of itself eternal. For
   since it hath been already demonstrated, that whatever being hath existed
   from eternity, independent, and without any external cause of its existence,
   must be self-existent; and that whatever is self-existent, must exist
   necessarily by an absolute necessity in the nature of the thing itself. It
   follows evidently, that unless the material world exists necessarily by an
   absolute necessity in its own nature, so as that it must be an express
   contradiction to suppose it not to exist, it cannot be independent, and of
   itself eternal. Now that the material world does not exist thus necessarily,
   is very evident. For absolute necessity of existing, and a possibility of
   not existing, being contradictory ideas, it is manifest the material world
   cannot exist necessarily, if without a contradiction we can conceive it
   either not to be, or to be in any respect otherwise than it now is; than
   which, nothing is more easy. For whether we consider the form of the world,
   with the disposition and motion of its parts, or whether we consider the
   matter of it, as such, without respect to its present form, every thing in
   it,—both the whole and every one of its parts, their situation and motion,
   the form and also the matter, are the most arbitrary and dependent things,
   and the farthest removed from necessity, that can possibly be imagined. A
   necessity indeed of fitness, that is, a necessity that things should be as
   they are, in order to the well-being of the whole, there may be in all these
   things: but an absolute necessity of nature in any of them, (which is what
   the atheist must maintain,) there is not the least appearance of. If any man
   will say in this sense, (as every atheist must do,) either that the form of
   the world, or at least the matter and motion of it, is necessary, nothing
   can possibly be invented more absurd.

   If he says, that the particular form is necessary; that is, The form of the
   world not necessary. that the world, and all things that are therein, exist
   by necessity of nature, he must affirm it to be a contradiction to suppose
   that any part of the world can be in any respect otherwise than it now is.
   It must be a contradiction in terms, to suppose more or fewer stars, more or
   fewer planets, or to suppose their size, figure, or motion different from
   what it now is; or to suppose more or fewer plants and animals upon earth,
   or the present ones of different shape and bigness from what they now are.
   In all which things there is the greatest arbitrariness, in respect of power
   and possibility, that can be imagined; however necessary any of them may be,
   in respect of wisdom, and preservation of the beauty and order of the whole.

   If Nor its motion. the atheist will say, that the motion in general of all
   matter is necessary, it follows that it must be a contradiction in terms to
   suppose any matter to be at rest; which is so absurd and ridiculous, that I
   think hardly any atheists, either ancient or modern, have presumed directly
   to suppose it.

   One late author [10] indeed has ventured to assert, and pretended to prove,
   that motion (that is, the conatusto motion, the tendency to move, the power
   or force that produces actual motion,) is essential to all matter. But how
   philosophically, may appear from this one consideration: The essential
   tendency to motion, of every one, or of any one particle of matter in this
   author’s imaginary infinite plenum, must be either a tendency to move some
   one determinate way at once, or to move every way at once. A tendency to
   move some one determinate way cannot be essential to any particle of matter,
   but must arise from some external cause; because there is nothing in the
   pretended necessary nature of any particle to determine its motion
   necessarily and essentially one way rather than another. And a tendency or
   conatus equally to move every way at once, is either an absolute
   contradiction, or at least could produce nothing in matter but an eternal
   rest of all and every one of its parts.

   If the atheist will suppose motion necessary and essential to some matter,
   but not to all, the same absurdity, as to the determination of motion, still
   follows; and now he moreover supposes an absolute necessity not universal;
   that is, that it shall be a contradiction to suppose some certain matter at
   rest though at the same time some other matter actually be at rest.

   If Nor the bare matter. he only affirms bare matter to be necessary then,
   besides the extreme folly of attributing motion and the form of the world to
   chance, (which senseless opinion I think all atheists have now given up; and
   therefore I shall not think myself obliged to take any notice of it in the
   sequel of this discourse;) it may be demonstrated, by many arguments drawn
   from the nature and affections of the thing itself, that matter is not a
   necessary being. For instance, thus: Tangibility, or resistance, (which is
   what mathematicians very properly call vis inertiæ, is essential to matter;
   otherwise the word matter will have no determinate signification.
   Tangibility, therefore, or resistance, belonging to all matter, it follows
   evidently, that, if all space were filled with matter, the resistance of all
   fluids (for the resistance of the parts of hard bodies arises from another
   cause,) would necessarily be equal. For greater or less degrees of fineness
   or subtilty can in this case make no difference; because the smaller or
   finer the parts of the fluid are, wherewith any particular space is filled,
   the greater in proportion is the number of the parts; and consequently the
   resistance still always equal. But experience shows, on the contrary, that
   the resistance of all fluids is not equal; there being large spaces in which
   no sensible resistance at all is made to the swiftest and most lasting
   motion of the solidest bodies. Therefore all space is not filled with
   matter; but, of necessary consequence, there must be a vacuum.

   Or thus. It appears from experiments of falling bodies, and from experiments
   of pendulums, which (being of equal lengths and unequal gravities,) vibrate
   in equal times; that all bodies whatsoever, in spaces void of sensible
   resistance, fall from the same height with equal velocities. Now, it is
   evident, that whatever force causes unequal bodies to move with equal
   velocities, must be proportional to the quantities of the bodies moved. The
   power of gravity therefore in all bodies, is, (at equal distances, suppose
   from the centre of the earth,) proportional to the quantity of matter
   contained in each body. For if, in a pendulum, there were any matter that
   did not gravitate proportionally to its quantity, the vis inertiæ of that
   matter would retard the motion of the rest, so as soon to be discovered in
   pendulums of equal lengths and unequal gravities in spaces void of sensible
   resistance. Gravity, therefore, is in all bodies [11] proportional to the
   quantity of their matter. And consequently, all bodies not being equally
   heavy, it follows again necessarily, that there must be a vacuum. [12]

   Now, if there be a vacuum, it follows plainly, that matter is not a
   necessary being. For if a vacuum actually be, then it is evidently more than
   possible for matter not to be. If an atheist will yet assert, that matter
   may be necessary, though not necessary to be everywhere, I answer, this is
   an express contradiction: for absolute necessity is absolute necessity
   everywhere alike. And if it be no impossibility for matter to be absent from
   one place, it is no impossibility (absolutely in the nature of the thing;
   for no relative or consequential necessity can have any room in this
   argument,) it is no absolute impossibility, I say, in the nature of the
   thing, that matter should be absent from any other place, or from every
   place.

   Spinoza, Spinoza’s opinion confuted. the most celebrated patron of atheism
   in our time, who taught that there is no difference of substances, [13] but
   that the whole and every part of the material world is a
   necessarily-existing being, and that there is no other God but the universe;
   [14] that he might seemingly avoid the manifold absurdities of that opinion,
   endeavours by an ambiguity of expression, in the progress of his discourse,
   to elude the arguments by which he foresaw his assertion would be confuted.
   For, having first plainly asserted, that all substance is
   necessarily-existing, [15] he would afterward seem to explain it away, by
   asserting, that the reason why every thing exists necessarily, [16] and
   could not possibly have been in any respect different from what it now is,
   is because every thing flows from the necessity of the divine nature. By
   which, if the unwary reader understands, that he means things are therefore
   necessarily such as they are, because infinite wisdom and goodness could not
   possibly make things but in that order which is fittest and wisest in the
   whole, he is very much mistaken: for such a necessity is not a natural, but
   only a moral and consequential necessity, and directly contrary to the
   author’s true intention. Further, if the reader hereby understands, that God
   was determined, not by a necessity of wisdom and goodness, but by a mere
   natural necessity, exclusive of will and choice, to make all things just as
   they now are; neither is this the whole of Spinoza’s meaning: for this, as
   absurd as it is, is still supposing God as a substance distinct from the
   material world; which he expressly denies. [17] Nay, further, if any one
   thinks his meaning to be, that all substances in the world are only
   modifications of the divine essence, neither is this all; for thus God may
   still be supposed as an agent, acting upon himself at least, and manifesting
   himself in different manners, according to his own will; which Spinoza
   expressly denies. [18] But his true meaning, therefore, however darkly and
   ambiguously he sometimes speaks, must be this; and if he means any thing at
   all consistent with himself, can be no other than this: that, since it is
   absolutely [19] impossible for any thing to be created or produced by
   another; and [20] also absolutely impossible for God to have caused any
   thing to be in any respect different from what it now is; every thing that
   exists, must needs be so a part [21] of the divine substance, not as a
   modification caused in it by any [22] will or good-pleasure, or wisdom in
   the whole, but as of absolute necessity in itself, with respect to the
   manner [23] of the existence of each part, no less than with respect to the
   self-existence of the whole. Thus the opinion of Spinoza, when expressed
   plainly and consistently, comes evidently to this; that the material world,
   and every part of it, with the order and manner of being of each part, is
   the only self-existent, or necessarily-existing being. And now,
   consequently, he must of necessity affirm all the conclusions which I have
   before shown to follow demonstrably from that opinion. He cannot possibly
   avoid affirming, that it is a contradiction, (not to the perfections of God,
   for that is mere senseless cant and amusement in him who maintains that
   there is but one substance in the universe; but he must affirm that it is in
   itself and in terms a contradiction,) for any thing to be, or to be
   imagined, in any respect otherwise than it now is. He must say it is a
   contradiction, to suppose the number, or figure, or order of the several
   parts of the world, could possibly have been different from what they now
   are. He must say, motion is necessarily of itself, and consequently that it
   is a contradiction in terms to suppose any matter to be at rest; or else he
   must affirm, (which is rather the more absurd of the two, as may appear from
   what has been already said in proof of the second general head of this
   discourse; [24] and yet he has chosen to affirm it;) that motion, as a
   dependent being, has been eternally communicated from one piece of matter to
   another, without having at all any original cause of its being, either
   within itself or from without, which, with other the like consequences
   touching the necessity of the existence of things, (the very mention of
   which is a sufficient confutation of any opinion they follow from,) do, as I
   have said, unavoidably follow from the fore-mentioned opinion of Spinoza.
   And consequently, that opinion, viz. that the universe, or whole world, is
   the self-existent or necessarily-existing being, is demonstrated to be
   false.

   I have, in this attempt to show that the material world cannot possibly be
   the first and original being, uncreated, independent, and self-existent,
   designedly omitted the argument usually drawn from the supposed absolute
   impossibility, in the nature of the thing itself, of the world’s being
   eternal, or having existed through an infinite succession of time; and this
   I have done for the two following reasons.

   1st. Of the opinion concerning the eternity of the world. Because the
   question between us and the atheists is not whether the world can possibly
   have been eternal, but whether it can possibly be the original, independent
   self-existing being?—which is a very different question. For many, who have
   affirmed the one, have still utterly denied the other. And almost all the
   ancient philosophers, that held the eternity of the world, in whose
   authority and reasons our modern atheists do so greatly boast and triumph,
   defended that their opinion by such arguments as show plainly that they did
   by no means thereby intend to assert that the material world was the
   original, independent, self-existing being, in opposition to the belief of
   the existence of a supreme all-governing mind, which is the notion of God.
   So that the deniers of the being of God have no manner of advantage from
   that opinion of the eternity of the world, even supposing it could not be
   disproved. Almost all the old philosophers, I say, who held the eternity of
   the world, did not thereby mean (at least their arguments do not tend to
   prove) that it was independent and self-existent; but their arguments are
   wholly levelled, either to prove barely that something must needs be
   eternal, and that the universe could not possibly arise out of nothing
   absolutely and without cause; which is all that Ocellus Lucanus’s arguments
   amount to: or else that the world is an eternal and necessary effect,
   flowing from the essential and immutable energy of the divine nature; which
   seems to have been Aristotle’s opinion: or else that the world is an eternal
   voluntary emanation from the all-wise and supreme cause; which was the
   opinion of many of Plato’s followers. None of which opinions or arguments
   will in the least help out our modern atheists; who would exclude supreme
   mind and intelligence out of the universe. For, however the opinion of the
   eternity of the world is really inconsistent with the belief of its being
   created in time, yet so long as the defenders of that opinion either did not
   think it inconsistent with the belief of the world’s being the effect and
   work of an eternal, all-wise, and all-powerful mind; or at least could
   defend that opinion by such arguments only as did not in the least prove the
   self-existence or independency of the world, but most of them rather quite
   the contrary; it is with the greatest injustice and unreasonableness in the
   world, that modern atheists (to whose purpose the eternity or non-eternity
   of the world would signify nothing, unless at the same time the existence
   and sovereignty of eternal intelligence or mind were likewise disproved,)
   pretend either the authority or the reasons of these men to be on their
   side.

   Ocellus Lucanus, one of the ancientest asserters of the eternity of the
   world, (whose antiquity and authority [25] Mr Blunt opposes to that of
   Moses,) in delivering his opinion, speaks, indeed, like one that believed
   the material world to be self-existent; asserting, [26] that it is utterly
   incapable either of generation or corruption, of beginning or end; that it
   is of itself eternal and perfect, and permanent for ever, and that the frame
   and parts of the world must needs be eternal as well as the substance and
   matter of the whole. But when he comes to produce his arguments or reasons
   for his opinion, they are either so very absurd and ridiculous, that even
   any atheist in this age ought to be ashamed to repeat them; as when he
   attempts to prove [27] that the world must needs be eternal, without
   beginning or end, because both its figure and motion are a circle, which has
   neither beginning nor end: or else they are such arguments as prove only,
   what no man ever really denied, viz. that something must needs be eternal,
   because it is impossible for every thing to arise out of nothing, or to fall
   into nothing; as when he says [28] that the world must have been eternal,
   because it is a contradiction for the universe to have had a beginning,
   since, if it had a beginning, it must have been caused by some other thing,
   and then it is not the universe. To which one argument all that he says in
   his whole book is plainly reducible. So that it is evident all that he
   really proves, is only this: that there must needs be an eternal being in
   the universe; and not, that matter is self-existent, in opposition to
   intelligence and mind. For, all that he asserts about the absolute necessity
   of the order and parts of the world, is confessedly most ridiculous; not at
   all proved by the arguments he alleges; and in some passages of this very
   book, as well as in other fragments, he himself supposes, and is forced
   expressly to confess, that, however eternal and necessary every thing in the
   world be imagined to be, yet even that necessity must flow from an eternal
   and intelligent mind, [29] the necessary perfections of whose nature are the
   cause [30] ) of the harmony and beauty of the world, and particularly of
   men’s having [31] faculties, organs of sense, appetites, &c. fitted even to
   final causes.

   Aristotle, likewise, was a great asserter indeed of the eternity of the
   world; but not in opposition to the belief of the being, or of the power,
   wisdom, or goodness of God. On the contrary, he for no other reason asserted
   the world to be eternal, but because he fancied that such an effect must
   needs eternally proceed from such an eternal cause. And so far was he from
   teaching that matter is the first and original cause of all things, that, on
   the contrary, he everywhere expressly describes God to be an intelligent
   being; [32] incorporeal; [33] the first mover of all things, [34] himself
   immoveable; and affirms, that [35] if there were nothing but matter in the
   world, there would be no original cause, but an infinite progression of
   causes, which is absurd.

   As to those philosophers who taught plainly and expressly that matter was
   not only eternal, but also self-existent and entirely independent,
   co-existing from eternity with God, independently, as a second principle, I
   have already shown the impossibility of this opinion, at the entrance upon
   the present head of discourse, where I proved that matter could not possibly
   be self-existent: and I shall further demonstrate it to be false, when I
   come to prove the unity of the self-existent being.

   Plato, whatever his opinion was about the original matter, very largely and
   fully declares his sentiments about the formation of the world, viz. that it
   was composed and framed by an intelligent and wise God. And there is no one
   of all the ancient philosophers, who does in all his writings speak so
   excellently and worthily [36] as he, concerning the nature and attributes of
   God. Yet as to the time of the world’s beginning to be formed, he seems to
   make it indefinite, when he says [37] the world must needs be an eternal
   resemblance of the eternal idea. At least his followers afterward so
   understood and explained it, as if, by the creation of the world, was not to
   be understood a creation in time; [38] but only an order of nature,
   causality and dependence, that is, that the will of God, and his power of
   acting, being necessarily as eternal as his essence, [39] the effects of
   that will and power might be supposed coeval to the will and power
   themselves; in the same manner as light would eternally proceed from the
   sun, or a shadow from the interposed body, or an impression from an imposed
   seal, if the respective causes of these effects were supposed eternal.

   From all which, it plainly appears how little reason modern atheists have to
   boast either of the authority or reasons of those ancient philosophers who
   held the eternity of the world. For since these men neither proved, nor
   attempted to prove, that the material world was original to itself,
   independent or self-existing, but only that it was an eternal effect of an
   eternal cause, which is God, it is evident that this their opinion, even
   supposing it could by no means be refuted, could afford no manner of
   advantage to the cause of atheists in our days, who, excluding supreme mind
   and intelligence out of the universe, would make mere matter and necessity
   the original and eternal cause of all things.

   2dly. The other reason why (in this attempt to prove that the material world
   cannot possibly be the first and original being, uncreated, independent and
   self-existent,) I have omitted the argument usually drawn from the supposed
   absolute impossibility of the world’s being eternal, or having existed
   through an infinite succession of time,—is, because that argument can never
   be so stated as to be of any use in convincing or affecting the mind of an
   atheist, who must not be supposed to come prepared beforehand with any
   transcendent idea of the eternity of God. For since an atheist cannot be
   supposed to believe the nice and subtile (and indeed unintelligible)
   distinctions of the schools, it is impossible by this argument so to
   disprove the possibility of the eternity of the world, but that an atheist
   will understand it to prove equally against the possibility of any thing’s
   being eternal; and, consequently, that it proves nothing at all, but is only
   a difficulty arising from our not being able to comprehend adequately the
   notion of eternity. That the material world is not self-existent or
   necessarily-existing, but the product of some distinct superior agent, may
   (as I have already shown) be strictly demonstrated by bare reason against
   the most obstinate atheist in the world. But the time when the world was
   created, or whether its creation was, properly speaking, in time, is not so
   easy to demonstrate strictly by bare reason, (as appears from the opinions
   of many of the ancient philosophers concerning that matter;) but the proof
   of it can be taken only from revelation. To endeavour to prove, that there
   cannot possibly be any such thing as infinite time or space, from the
   impossibility of an addition [40] of finite parts ever composing or
   exhausting an infinite; or from the imaginary inequality of the number of
   years, days, and hours, that would be contained in the one; or of the miles,
   yards, and feet, that would be contained in the other; is supposing
   infinites to be made up of numbers of finites; that is, it is supposing
   finite quantities to be aliquot or constituent parts of infinite; when
   indeed they are not so, but do all equally, whether great or small, whether
   many or few, bear the very same proportion to an infinite, as mathematical
   points do to a line, or lines to a superficies, or as moments do to time;
   that is, none at all. So that, to argue absolutely against the possibility
   of infinite space or time, merely from the imaginary inequality of the
   numbers of their finite parts, which are not properly constituent parts, but
   mere nothings in proportion,—is the very same thing as it would be to argue
   against the possibility of the existence of any determinate finite quantity,
   from the imaginary equality or inequality of the number of the mathematical
   lines and points contained therein; when indeed neither the one nor the
   other have (in propriety of speech) any number at all, but they are
   absolutely without number: neither can any given number or quantity be any
   aliquot or constituent part of infinite, or be compared at all with it, or
   bear any kind of proportion to it; or be the foundation of any argument in
   any question concerning it.
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   [5] Moveantur partes spatii de locis suis, et movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de
   seipsis.—Newton. Princip. lib. I. Schol. ad Definit. 8.

   [6] See the Answer to a Seventh Letter, at the end of this Book.

   [7] Page 15.

   [8] Puto implicare contradictionem, ut mundus sit finitus: i. e. I think it
   implies a contradiction for the world to be finite.—Cartes. Epist. 69.
   primæ partis. And his follower Mr. Regis, Mais peutê tre (saith he) que je
   raisonne mal, &c. i. e. But perhaps I argue ill, when I conclude that the
   property my idea hath to represent extension, [that is, in the sense of the
   Cartesians, matter,] comes from extension itself as its cause. For, what
   hinders me from believing that if this property comes not from myself, yet
   at least it may come from some spirit [or being] superior to me, which
   produces in me the idea of extension, though extension does not actually
   exist? Yet when I consider the thing attentively, I find that my conclusion
   is good; and that no spirit [or being] how excellent soever, can cause the
   idea which I have of extension to represent to me extension rather than any
   thing else, if extension does not actually exist; because if he should do
   so, the idea which I should then have of extension would not be a
   representation of extension, but a representation of nothing; which is
   impossible. But it may be I still deceive myself, when I say that the idea I
   have of extension supposes an object actually existing. For it seems that I
   have ideas, which do not suppose any object: I have, for example, the idea
   of an enchanted castle; though no such thing really exists. Yet when I
   consider the difficulty still more attentively, I find there is this
   difference between the idea of extension, and that of an enchanted castle,
   that the first, being natural, that is, independent on my will, supposes an
   object which is necessarily such as it represents, whereas the other, being
   artificial, supposes indeed an object, but it is not necessary that that
   object be absolutely such as the idea represents, because my will can add to
   that object, or diminish from it, as it pleases, as I have before said, and
   as shall be proved hereafter, when I come to treat of the origin of
   ideas.—Regis Metaphys. lib. I. par. 1. cap. 3.

   [9] See the Answer to a Seventh Letter at the end of this book.

   [10] Mr Toland, Letter III.

   [11] Neutoni Princip. Philosoph. edit. 1ma. p. 304. edit. 2da. p. 272. edit.
   3tia. p. 294.

   [12] Neutoni Princip. Philosoph. edit. 1ma. p. 411. edit. 2da, p. 368.

   [13] Una substantia non potest produci ab alia substantia. Et hi par. 1.
   prop. 6. Omnis substantia est necessaria infinita. Ibid. prop. 8. Ad naturam
   substantiæ pertinet existere. Ibid. prop. 7.

   [14] Præter Deum nulla dari neque concipi potest substantia. Ibid. prop. 14.

   [15] Ad naturam substantiæ pertinet existere. Prop. 7.

   [16] Res, nullo alio modo, neque alio ordine, a Deo produci potuerunt quam
   productæ sunt. Prop. 33. Ex necessitate Divinæ Naturæ, infinita infinitis
   modis (hoc est, omnia quæ sub intellectum infinitum cadere possunt,) sequi
   debent. Prop 16.

   [17] Locis supra citatis.

   [18] Deum non operari ex libertate voluntatis. Prop. 32. corol. 1. et
   scholium ad prop. 17.

   [19] Una substantia non potest produci ab alia substantia. Prop. 6.

   [20] Res, nullo alio modo, neque alio ordine, a Deo produci potuerunt quam
   productæ sunt. Prop. 33.

   [21] Præter Deum nulla dari, neque concipi potest substantia. Prop. 14.

   [22] Deum non operari ex libertate voluntatis. Prop. 32. corol. 1.

   [23] Nullo alio modo, neque ordine, &c.

   [24] Corpus motum, vel quiescens, ad motum vel quietem determinari debuit ab
   alio corpore, quod etiam ad motum vel quietum determinatum fuit ab alio, et
   illud iterum ab alio, et sic in infinitum. Par. II. prop. 13. lemma 3.

   [25] Oracles of Reason; Letter to Mr Gildon, p. 216.

   [26] Agennēton to pan kai anōlethron. Anarchon kai ateleutēion. Kosmos autos
   ex heautou aidios esti kai autotelēs, kai diamenōn ton panta aiōna. Aei
   ontos tou kesmou, anankaion kai ta merē autou sunuparchein. Legō de merē
   ouranon, gēn, &c. Ocell. Lucan. Peri tēs ou pantos phuseōs.

   [27] To anarchon kai ateleutēton ou schēmatos kai tēs kiēseōs pistoutai,
   dioti agennētos ho kesmos kai aphthartos hēte gar tou schēmatos idea, kuklos
   houtos de pantothen hisos kai homoios, dioper anarchos kai ateleutēēos, hē
   te tēs kinēseōs, &c. Ibid. Thus translated: Nay, that the figure, motion,
   &c. thereof, are without beginning and end; thereby it plainly appears, that
   the world admitteth neither production nor dissolution. For the figure is
   spherical, and consequently on every side equal, and therefore without
   beginning or ending. Also the motion is circular, &c. Oracles of Reason, p.
   215.

   [28] Agennēton to pan.—ex ou gar gegonen, ekeino prōton tou pantos esti.—To
   ge de pan genomenon sun pasi ginetai, kai touto ge de adunaton—Ektos gar tou
   Pantos, ouden. Ocell. Ibid.

   [29] To aeikinēton theion men, kai logon echon kai emphron. Ocell. Luc. de
   Leg. Fragm.

   [30] Sunechei ton kosmon harmonia. Tautēs d' aitios ho TheosIbid.

   [31] Tas dunameis kai ta Organa kai tas horexeis upo Theou dedomenas,
   anthrōpōs, ouch hēdonēs heneka dedosthai sumbebēken, alla, &c. Idem, Peri
   tēs tou pantos phuseōs.

   [32] Nous.

   [33] Theon asōmaton apephēns. Diog. in Vita Aristol.

   [34] To prōton kinoun, akinēton. Aristot. Metaph.

   [35] Ei mē estai para ta aisthēta alla, ouk estai archē kai taxis, all' aei
   t8ēs archēs archē. Ibid

   [36] Ho pōētēs kai patērtoude tou pantos Ho gēn, ouranon, kai Theous, kai
   p8anta ta en ouranō kai ta en adou kai upo gēs hehapanta ergasamenos. De
   Republ. lib. 10.

   [37] Pasa anankē tonde kosmon, eikona tinos einai. Plato in Timæo. Which
   words being very imperfect in our copies of the original, are thus rendered
   by Cicero: Si ergo generatus [est mundus;] ad id effectus est, quod ratione
   sapientiaque comprehenditur, atque immutabili æternitate continetur. Ex quo
   efficitur, ut sit necesse hunc quem cernimus mundum, simulacrum æternum esse
   alicujus æterni. Cic. de Univers.

   [38] Noun pro kosoou einai, ouch hōs chronō proteron autou onta, all' hoti
   ho kosmos para nou esti, phusei proteros ekeinos kai aition toutou.
   Plotinus.Qui autem a Deo quidem factum fatentur, non tamen eum volunt
   temporis habere, sed suæ creationis initium; ut, modo quodam vix
   intelligibili, semper sit factus. Augustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. 11. cap. 4.
   De mundo, et de his quos in mundo deos a Deo factos scribit Plato,
   apertissime dicit eos esse cæpisse, et habere initium.—Verum id quomodo
   intelligant, invenerunt [Platonici;] non esse hoc videlicet temporis, sed
   substitutionis initium. Ibid. lib. 10. cap. 31. Sed mundum quidem fuisse
   semper, philosophia auctor est; conditore quidem Deo, sed non ex tempore.
   Macrob. in Somn. Scip. lib. 2. cap. 10.

   [39] Kai ei boulei, paradeigmati si ti9nē tōn gnōrimōn xenagēss pros to
   zēteuenon; phasi gar hoti kath8aper aition to sōma tēs hekastou skias
   ginetai; homochronos detō sōmati hē skia, kai ouch homotimos; houtō dē kai
   hode ho kosmos parakolouthēma esti tō Theou aitio9u ontos autō tou einai,
   k9ai sunaidios esti tō Theō, ouketi de kai homotimos. Zachariæ Scholast.
   Disputat. Sicut enim, inquiunt [Platonici,] si pes ex æternitate semper
   fuisset in pulvere, semper ei subesset vestigium; quod tamen vestigium a
   calcante factum nemo dubitaret; nec alterum altero prius esset quamvis
   alterum ab altero factum esset: Sic, inquiunt, et mundus atque; in illo dii
   creati, et semper fuerunt, semper existente qui fecit; et tamen facti
   sunt.—Augustin de Civitate Dei. lib. 10. cap. 31.

   [40] Cudworth’s System, p. 643.
     _________________________________________________________________

   IV. Proposition IV. The essence of the self-existent Being incomprehensible.
   What the substance or essence of that being, which is self-existent, or
   necessarily-existing, is, we have no idea; neither is it at all possible for
   us to comprehend it. That there is such a being actually existing without
   us, we are sure (as I have already shown) by strict and undeniable
   demonstration. Also what it is not, that is, that the material world is not
   it, as modern atheists would have it, has been already demonstrated. But
   what it is, I mean as to its substance and essence, this we are infinitely
   unable to comprehend. Yet this does not in the least diminish the certainty
   of the demonstration of its existence. For it is one thing to know certainly
   that a being exists; and another, to know what the essence of that being is.
   And the one may be capable of the strictest demonstration, when the other is
   absolutely beyond the reach of all our faculties to understand. A blind or
   deaf man has infinitely more reason to deny the being, or the possibility of
   the being, of light or sounds, than any atheist can have to deny, or doubt
   of the existence of God: For the one can, at the utmost, have no other proof
   but credible testimony, of the existence of certain things, whereof it is
   absolutely impossible that he himself should frame any manner of idea, not
   only of their essence, but even of their effects or properties; but the
   other may, with the least use of his reason, be assured of the existence of
   a Supreme Being, by undeniable demonstration; and may also certainly know
   abundance of its attributes, (as shall be made appear in the following
   propositions,) though its substance or essence be entirely incomprehensible.
   Wherefore nothing can be more unreasonable and weak, than for an atheist
   upon this account to deny the being of God, merely because his weak and
   finite understanding cannot frame to itself any adequate notion of the
   substance or essence of that first and supreme cause. We are utterly
   ignorant of the substance or essence of all other things; even of those
   things which we converse most familiarly with, and think we understand best.
   There is not so mean and contemptible a plant or animal, that does not
   confound the most enlarged understanding upon earth; nay, even the simplest
   and plainest of all inanimate beings have their essence or substance hidden
   from us in the deepest and most impenetrable obscurity. How weak then and
   foolish is it, to raise objections against the being of God from the
   incomprehensibleness of his essence! And to represent it as a strange and
   incredible thing, that there should exist any incorporeal substance, the
   essence of which we are not able to comprehend! As if it were not far more
   strange, that there should exist numberless objects of our senses, things
   subject to our daily inquiry, search, and examination, and yet we not be
   able, no not in any measure, to find out the real essence of any one even of
   the least of these things.

   Nevertheless, it is very necessary to observe here, by the way, that it does
   not at all from hence follow, that there can possibly be, in the unknown
   substance or essence of God, any thing contradictory to our clear ideas.
   For, as a blind man, though he has no idea of light and colours, yet knows
   certainly and infallibly that there cannot possibly be any kind of light
   which is not light, or any sort of colour which is not a colour; so, though
   we have no idea of the substance of God, nor indeed of the substance of any
   other being; yet we are as infallibly certain that there cannot possibly be,
   either in the one or the other, any contradictory modes or properties as if
   we had the clearest and most distinct idea of them.

   From what has been said upon this head, we may observe,

   1st. Of infinite space. The weakness of such as have presumed to imagine
   infinite space to be a just representation or adequate idea of the essence
   of the supreme cause. This is a weak imagination, arising from hence, that
   men, using themselves to judge of all things by their senses only, fancy
   spiritual or immaterial substances, because they are not objects of their
   corporeal senses, to be, as it were, mere nothings; just as children imagine
   air, because they cannot see it, to be mere emptiness and nothing. But the
   fallacy is too gross to deserve being insisted upon. There are perhaps
   numberless substances in the world, whose essences are as entirely unknown
   and impossible to be represented to our imaginations, as colours are to a
   man that was born blind, or sounds to one that has been always deaf. Nay,
   there is no substance in the world, of which we know any thing further than
   only a certain number of its properties or attributes; of which we know
   fewer in some things, and in others more. Infinite space is nothing else but
   abstract immensity or infinity, even as infinite duration is abstract
   eternity. And it would be just as proper, to say that eternity is the
   essence of the supreme cause, as to say, that immensity is so. Indeed, they
   seem both to be but modes of an essence or substance incomprehensible to us;
   and when we endeavour to represent the real substance of any being
   whatsoever in our weak imaginations, we shall find ourselves in like manner
   deceived.

   2dly. From hence appears the vanity of the schoolmen, The vanity of the
   schoolmen. who, as in other matters, so in their disputes about the
   self-existent being, when they come at what they are by no means able to
   comprehend or explain, lest they should seem ignorant of any thing, they
   give us terms of art, and words of amusement, mere empty sounds, which,
   under pretence of explaining the matter before them, have really no manner
   of idea or signification at all. Thus, when they tell us concerning the
   essence of God, that he is purus actus, mera forma, and the like, either the
   words have no meaning, and signify nothing; or else they express only the
   perfection of his power and other attributes; which is not what these men
   intend to express by them.
     _________________________________________________________________

   V. Proposition V. That the self-existent being must be eternal. Though the
   substance or essence of the self-existent being is in itself absolutely
   incomprehensible to us; yet many of the essential attributes of his nature
   are strictly demonstrable, as well as his existence. Thus, in the first
   place, the self-existent being must of necessity be eternal. The ideas of
   eternity and self-existence are so closely connected, that, because
   something must of necessity be eternal independently and without any outward
   cause of its being, therefore it must necessarily be self-existent; and,
   because it is impossible but something must be self-existent, therefore it
   is necessary that it must likewise be eternal. To be self-existent, is (as
   has been already shown,) to exist by an absolute necessity in the nature of
   the thing itself. Now this necessity being absolute, and not depending upon
   any thing external, must be always unalterably the same; nothing being
   alterable but what is capable of being affected by somewhat without itself.
   That being, therefore, which has no other cause of its existence but the
   absolute necessity of its own nature, must of necessity have existed from
   everlasting, without beginning; and must of necessity exist to everlasting
   without end.

   As Of the manner of our conceiving the eternity of God. to the manner of
   this eternal existence: it is manifest, it herein infinitely transcends the
   manner of the existence of all created beings, even of such as shall exist
   for ever; that whereas it is not possible for their finite minds to
   comprehend all that is past, or to understand perfectly all things that are
   at present, much less to know all that is future, or to have entirely in
   their power any thing that is to come; but their thoughts, and knowledge,
   and power must of necessity have degrees and periods, and be successive and
   transient as the things themselves. The eternal supreme cause, on the
   contrary, (supposing him to be an intelligent being, which will hereafter be
   proved in the sequel of this discourse,) must of necessity have such a
   perfect, independent, and unchangeable comprehension of all things, that
   there can be no one point or instant of his eternal duration, wherein all
   things that are past, present, or to come, will not be as entirely known and
   represented to him in one single thought or view; and all things present and
   future be equally entirely in his power and direction as if there was really
   no succession at all, but all things were actually present at once. Thus far
   we can speak intelligibly concerning the eternal duration of the
   self-existent being; and no atheist can say this is an impossible, absurd,
   or insufficient account. It is, in the most proper and intelligible sense of
   the words, to all the purposes of excellency and perfection, interminabilis
   vitæ tota simul et perfecta possessio; the entire and perfect possession of
   an endless life.

   Others With respect to succession. have supposed that the difference between
   the manner of the eternal existence of the supreme cause, and that of the
   existence of created beings, is this: that, whereas the latter is a
   continual transient succession of duration, the former is one point or
   instant comprehending eternity, and wherein all things are really
   co-existent. But this distinction I shall not now insist upon, as being of
   no use in the present dispute, because it is impossible to prove and explain
   it in such a manner as ever to convince an atheist that there is any thing
   in it; and besides, as, on the one hand, the schoolmen have indeed generally
   chosen to defend it, so, on the other hand, [41] there are many learned men,
   of far better understanding and judgment, who have rejected and opposed it.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [41] Crucem ingenio figere, ut rem capiat fugientem captum.—Tam fieri non
   potest, ut instans [temporis] coexistant rei successivæ, quam impossibile
   est punctum coexistere [coexistendi] lineæ.—Lusus merus non intellectorum
   verberum.—Gassend. Physic. lib. 1. I shall not trouble you with the
   inconsistent and unintelligible notions of the schoolmen; that it [the
   eternity of God] is duratio tota simul, in which we are not to conceive any
   succession, but to imagine it an instant. We may as well conceive the
   immensity of God to be a point, as his eternity to be an instant.—And how
   that can be together, which must necessarily be imagined to be co-existent
   to successions, let them that can, conceive.—Archbishop Tillotson, vol. 7.
   serm. 13. Others say, God sees and knows future things, by the presentiality
   and co-existence of all things in eternity; for they say, that future things
   are actually present and existing to God, though not in mensura propria, yet
   in mensura aliena. The schoolmen have much more of this jargon and canting
   language. I envy no man the understanding these phrases; but to me they seem
   to signify nothing, but to have been words invented by idle and conceited
   men, which a great many ever since, lest they should seem to be ignorant,
   would seem to understand. But I wonder most, that men, when they have amused
   and puzzled themselves and others with hard words, should call this
   explaining things.—Archbishop Tillotson, vol. 6. serm. 6.
     _________________________________________________________________

   VI. Proposition VI. That the self-existent being must be infinite and
   omnipresent. The self-existent Being must of necessity be infinite and
   omnipresent. The idea of infinity or immensity, as well as of eternity, is
   so closely connected with that of self-existence, that, because it is
   impossible but something must be infinite independently and of itself, (for
   else it would be impossible there should be any infinite at all, unless an
   effect could be perfecter than its cause,) therefore it must of necessity be
   self-existent: and because something must of necessity be self-existent,
   therefore it is necessary that it must likewise be infinite. To be
   self-existent (as has been already shown,) is to exist by an absolute
   necessity in the nature of the thing itself. Now, this necessity being
   absolute in itself, and not depending on any outward cause, it is evident it
   must be everywhere as well as always, unalterbly the same. For a necessity,
   which is not everywhere the same, is plainly a consequential necessity only,
   depending upon some external cause, and not an absolute one in its own
   nature; for a necessity absolutely such in itself, has no relation to time
   or place, or any thing else. Whatever therefore exists by an absolute
   necessity in its own nature, must needs be infinite as well as eternal. To
   suppose a finite being to be self-existent, is to say that it is a
   contradiction for that being not to exist, the absence of which may yet be
   conceived without a contradiction; which is the greatest absurdity in the
   world. For if a being can, without a contradiction, be absent from one
   place, it may, without a contradiction, be absent likewise from another
   place, and from all places: and whatever necessity it may have of existing,
   must arise from some external cause, and not absolutely from itself; and,
   consequently, the being cannot be self-existent.

   From hence it follows,

   1st. That the infinity of the self-existent being must be an infinity of
   fulness as well as of immensity; that is, it must not only be without
   limits, but also without diversity, defect, or interruption: For instance;
   could matter be supposed boundless, it would not therefore follow that it
   was in this complete sense infinite; because, though it had no limits, yet
   it might have within itself many assignable vacuities. But whatever is
   self-existent, must of necessity exist absolutely in every place alike, and
   be equally present everywhere; and consequently must have a true and
   absolute infinity, both of immensity and fulness.

   2dly. From hence it follows, that the self-existent being must be a most
   simple, unchangeable, incorruptible being; without parts, figure, motion,
   divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter. For all
   these things do plainly and necessarily imply finiteness in their very
   notion, and are utterly inconsistent with complete infinity. Divisibility is
   a separation of parts, real or mental: meaning, by mental separation, not
   barely a partial apprehending, (for space, for instance, which is absolutely
   indivisible and inseparable, either really or mentally, may yet be partially
   apprehended; [42] but a removing, disjoining or separating of parts one from
   another, even so much as in the imagination. And any such separation or
   removing of parts, one from another, is really or mentally a setting of
   bounds; either of which destroys infinity. Motion, for the same reason,
   implies finiteness; and to have parts, properly speaking, signifies either
   difference and diversity of existence, which is inconsistent with necessity;
   or else it signifies divisibility, real or mental as before, which is
   inconsistent with complete infinity. Corruption, change, or any alteration
   whatsoever, implies motion, separation of parts, and finiteness. And any
   manner of composition, in opposition to the most perfect simplicity,
   signifies difference and diversity in the manner of existence, which is
   inconsistent with necessity.

   It is evident, Of the manner of our conceiving the immensity of God.
   therefore, that the self-existent being must be infinite in the strictest
   and most complete sense. But as to the particular manner of his being
   infinite or everywhere present, in opposition to the manner of created
   things being present in such or such finite places; this is as impossible
   for our finite understandings to comprehend or explain, as it is for us to
   form an adequate idea of infinity. Yet that the thing is true, that he is
   actually omnipresent, we are as certain as we are that there must something
   be infinite, which no man who has thought upon these things at all ever
   denied. The schoolmen, indeed, have presumed to assert that the immensity of
   God is a point, as his eternity (they think) is an instant. But this being
   altogether unintelligible, that which we can more safely affirm, and which
   no atheist can say is absurd, and which nevertheless is sufficient to all
   wise and good purposes, is this: that whereas all finite and created beings
   can be present but in one definite place at once, and corporeal beings even
   in that one place very imperfectly and unequally, to any purpose of power or
   activity, only by the successive motion of different members and organs; the
   Supreme Cause, on the contrary, being an infinite and most simple essence,
   and comprehending all things perfectly in himself, is at all times equally
   present, both in his simple essence, and by the immediate and perfect
   exercise of all his attributes, to every point of the boundless immensity,
   as if it were really all but one single point.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [42] Ordo partium spatii est immutabilis; moveantur hæ de locis suis, et
   movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de seipsis. Newton. Princip. Schol. ad definit. 8.
     _________________________________________________________________

   VII. Proposition VII. That the self-existent being can be but one. The
   self-existent being must of necessity be but one. This evidently follows
   from his being necessarily-existent: for necessity absolute, in itself, is
   simple and uniform and universal, without any possible difference,
   difformity, or variety whatsoever: and all variety or difference of
   existence must needs arise from some external cause, and be dependent upon
   it, and proportionable to the efficiency of that cause, whatsoever it be.
   Absolute necessity, in which there can be no variation in any kind or
   degree, cannot be the ground of existence of a number of beings, however
   similar and agreeing: because, without any other difference, even number is
   itself a manifest difformity or inequality (if I may so speak) of efficiency
   or causality.

   Again: To suppose two (or more) distinct beings existing of themselves,
   necessarily, and independent from each other, implies this plain
   contradiction; that each of them being independent from the other, they may
   either of them be supposed to exist alone, so that it will be no
   contradiction to imagine the other not to exist; and consequently neither of
   them [43] will be necessarily-existing. Whatsoever therefore exists
   necessarily, is the one simple essence of the self-existent being; and
   whatsoever differs from that, is not necessarily-existing; because in
   absolute necessity there can be no difference or diversity of existence.
   Other beings there may be innumerable, besides the one infinite
   self-existent: but no other being can be self-existent, because so it would
   be individually the same, at the same time that it is supposed to be
   different.

   From hence it follows,

   1st. Of the Trinity. That the unity of God is a true and real, not
   figurative unity. With which prime foundation of natural religion, how the
   scripture-doctrine of the Trinity perfectly agrees I have elsewhere
   endeavoured to show particularly, in its proper place.

   2dly. The impossibility of two independent principles. From hence it
   follows, that it is impossible there should be two different self-existent
   independent principles, as some philosophers have imagined; such as God and
   matter. For, since self-existence is necessary-existence, and since it is an
   express contradiction, (as has already been shown,) that two different
   beings should each be necessarily-existing; it evidently follows, that it is
   absolutely impossible there should be two independent self-existent
   principles, such as God and matter.

   3dly. The error of Spinoza. From hence we may observe the vanity, folly, and
   weakness of Spinoza; who, because the self-existent being must necessarily
   be but one, concludes from thence, [44] that the whole world, and every
   thing contained therein, is one uniform substance, eternal, uncreated, and
   necessary: whereas, just on the contrary, he ought to have concluded, that,
   because all things in the world are very different one from another, and
   have all manner of variety, and all the marks of will and arbitrariness and
   changeableness, (and none of necessity) in them, being plainly fitted with
   very different powers to very different ends, and distinguished one from
   another by a diversity, not only of modes, but also of essential attributes,
   and consequently (so far as it is possible for us, by the use of our present
   faculties, to attain any knowledge at all of them) of their substances
   themselves also; therefore none of these things are necessary or
   self-existent, but must needs depend all upon some external cause, that is,
   on the one supreme, unchangeable, self-existent being. That which led
   Spinoza into his foolish and destructive opinion, and on which alone all his
   argumentation is entirely built, is that absurd definition of substance,
   [45] that it is something, the idea of which does not depend on, or
   presuppose the idea of any other thing, from which it might proceed; but
   includes in itself necessary-existence. Which definition is either false,
   and signifies nothing; and then his whole doctrine built upon it falls at
   once to the ground: Or, if it be true, then neither matter nor spirit, nor
   any finite being whatsoever, (as has been before shown,) is in that sense
   properly a substance, but (the ho ōn) the self-existent being alone: and so
   it will prove nothing (notwithstanding all his show and form of
   demonstration,) to his main purpose, which was to make us believe that there
   is no such thing as power or liberty in the universe, but that every
   particular thing [46] in the world is by an absolute necessity just what it
   is, and could not possibly have been in any respect otherwise. Supposing, I
   say, his definition of substance to be true, yet even that would really
   conclude nothing to his main purpose concerning the necessity of all things.
   For since, according to that definition, neither matter nor spirit, nor any
   finite beings whatsoever, are substances, but only modes; how will it
   follow, that, because substance is self-existent, therefore all these modes
   are so too? Why, because, [47] from an infinite cause infinite effects must
   needs follow. Very true, supposing that infinite self-existent cause not to
   be a voluntary, but a mere necessary agent, that is, no agent at all: and
   supposing also, that in mere necessity there could and must be all or any
   variety. Both which suppositions (in the present argument) are the question
   begged: and what he afterwards attempts to allege in proof of them, shall
   afterwards be considered in its proper place.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [43] See this farther explained, in the Answer to the First Letter at the
   end of this book.

   [44] Una substantia non potest produci ab alia. Ethic. par. 1. prop. 6. Ad
   naturam substantiæ pertinet existere. Prop. 7. Præter Deum nulla dari, neque
   concipi potest substantia. Prop. 14.

   [45] Per substantiam intelligo id quod in se est et per se concipitur; hoc
   est, id cujus conceptus non indiget conceptu alterius rei a quo formari
   debeat.—Definitio 3. which, presently after, he thus explains:—Ad naturam
   substantiæ pertinet existere; hoc est, ipsius essentia involvit necessario
   existentiam. Ethic. Par. 1. prop. 7.

   [46] Res nullo alio modo, neque alio ordine, a Deo produci potuerunt quam
   productæ sunt.—Prop. 33.

   [47] Ex necessitate divinæ naturæ, infinita infinitis modis (hoc est, omnia
   quæ sub intellectum infinitum cadere possunt,) seque debent.—Prop. 16.
     _________________________________________________________________

   VIII. Proposition VIII. That the self-existent being must be intelligent.
   The self-existent and original cause of all things must be an intelligent
   being. In this proposition lies the main question between us and the
   atheists. For, that something must be self-existent, and that that which is
   self-existent must necessarily be eternal and infinite, and the original
   cause of all things, will not bear much dispute.—But all atheists, whether
   they hold the world to be of itself eternal both as to the matter and form,
   or whether they hold the matter only to be necessary and the form
   contingent, or whatever hypothesis they frame, have always asserted, and
   must maintain, either directly or indirectly, that the self-existent being
   is not an intelligent being, but either pure unactive matter, or (which in
   other words is the very same thing) a mere necessary agent. For a mere
   necessary agent must of necessity either be plainly and directly in the
   grossest sense unintelligent; which was the ancient atheist’s notion of the
   self-existent being: or else its intelligence (which is the assertion of
   Spinoza and some moderns,) must be wholly separate from any power of will
   and choice; which, in respect of any excellency and perfection, or indeed to
   any common sense, is the very same thing as no intelligence at all.

   Now, that the self-existent being is not such a blind and unintelligent
   necessity, but in the most proper sense an understanding and really active
   being, does not indeed so obviously and directly appear to us by
   considerations a priori; because (through the imperfection of our faculties)
   we know not wherein intelligence consists, nor can see the immediate and
   necessary connexion of it with self-existence, as we can that of eternity,
   infinity, unity, &c. But, a posteriori, almost every thing in the world
   demonstrates to us this great truth, and affords undeniable arguments to
   prove that the world, and all things therein, are the effects of an
   intelligent and knowing cause.

   And 1st. Proved from the degrees of perfection in things, and the order of
   causes and effects. Since in general there are manifestly in things various
   kinds of powers, and very different excellencies and degrees of perfection,
   it must needs be, that, in the order of causes and effects, the cause must
   always be more excellent than the effect: and consequently the self-existent
   being, whatever that be supposed to be, must of necessity (being the
   original of all things) contain in itself the sum and highest degree of all
   the perfections of all things: not because that which is self-existent must
   therefore have all possible perfections; (for this, though most certainly
   true in itself, yet cannot be so easily demonstrated a priori;) but because
   it is impossible that any effect should have any perfection, which was not
   in the cause. For, if it had, then that perfection would be caused by
   nothing; which is a plain contradiction. Now an unintelligent being, it is
   evident, cannot be indued with all the perfections of all things in the
   world; because intelligence is one of those perfections. All things,
   therefore, cannot arise from an unintelligent original; and consequently the
   self-existent being, must, of necessity, be intelligent.

   There is no possibility for an atheist to avoid the force of this argument
   any other way than by asserting one of these two things: either that there
   is no intelligent being at all in the universe; or that intelligence is no
   distinct perfection, but merely a composition of figure and motion, as
   colour and sounds are vulgarly supposed to be. Of the former of these
   assertions, every man’s own consciousness is an abundant confutation. For
   they who contend that beasts are mere machines, have yet never presumed to
   conjecture that men are so too. And that the latter assertion (in which the
   main strength of atheism lies,) is most absurd and impossible, shall be
   shown presently; though if that assertion could be supposed to be true, yet
   even still it would unavoidably follow, that the self-existent being must
   needs be intelligent; as shall be proved in my fourth argument upon this
   present head. In the meantime, that the assertion itself, viz. that
   intelligence is not any distinct perfection, properly speaking, but merely a
   composition of unintelligent figure and motion; that this assertion, I say,
   is most absurd and impossible, will appear from what shall be said in the
   ensuing argument.

   2dly. From the intelligence that is in created beings. Since in men in
   particular there is undeniably that power, which we call thought,
   intelligence, consciousness, perception or knowledge; there must of
   necessity either have been from eternity, without any original cause at all,
   an infinite succession of men, whereof no one has had a necessary, but every
   one a dependent and communicated being; or else these beings, indued with
   perception and consciousness, must at some time or other have arisen purely
   out of that which had no such quality as sense, perception, or
   consciousness; or else they must have been produced by some intelligent
   superior being. There never was nor can be any atheist whatsoever, that can
   deny but one of these three suppositions must be the truth. If, therefore,
   the two former can be proved to be false and impossible, the latter must be
   owned to be demonstrably true. Now, that the first is impossible, is evident
   from what has been already said in proof of the second general head of this
   discourse; and that the second is likewise impossible, may be thus
   demonstrated: If perception, or intelligence, be a distinct quality or
   perfection, and not a mere effect or composition of unintelligent figure and
   motion, then beings indued with perception or consciousness can never have
   arisen purely out of that which had no such quality as perception or
   consciousness; because nothing can ever give to another any perfection,
   which it hath not either actually in itself, or at least in a higher degree.
   But perception or intelligence is a distinct quality or perfection, and not
   a mere effect or composition of unintelligent figure and motion.

   First: If perception or intelligence be any real distinct quality, or
   perfection, and not a mere effect or composition of unintelligent figure and
   motion, then beings indued with perception or consciousness can never
   possibly have arisen purely out of that which itself had no such quality as
   perception or consciousness; because nothing can ever give to another any
   perfection which it hath not either actually in itself, or at least in a
   higher degree. This is very evident; because, if any thing could give to
   another any perfection which it has not itself, that perfection would be
   caused absolutely by nothing; which is a plain contradiction. If any one
   here replies, (as Mr Gildon has done [48] in a letter to Mr Blount,) that
   colours, sounds, tastes, and the like, arise from figure and motion, which
   have no such qualities in themselves; or that figure, divisibility,
   mobility, and other qualities of matter, are confessed to be given from God,
   who yet cannot, without extreme blasphemy, be said to have any such
   qualities himself; and that therefore, in like manner, perception [49] or
   intelligence may arise out of that which has no intelligence itself; the
   answer is very easy,—first, that colours, sounds, tastes, and the like, are
   by no means effects arising from mere figure and motion; there being nothing
   in the bodies themselves, the objects of the senses, that has any manner of
   similitude to any of these qualities; but they are plainly thoughts or
   modifications of the mind itself, which is an intelligent being; and are not
   properly caused, but only occasioned, by the impressions of figure and
   motion. Nor will it at all help an atheist, (as to the present question)
   though we should here make for him, (that we may allow him the greatest
   possible advantage,) even that most absurd supposition, that the mind itself
   is nothing but mere matter and not at all an immaterial substance. For, even
   supposing it to be mere matter, yet he must needs confess it to be such
   matter as is indued not only with figure and motion, but also with the
   quality of intelligence and perception; and consequently, as to the present
   question, it will still come to the same thing, that colours, sounds, and
   the like, which are not qualities of unintelligent bodies, but perceptions
   of mind, can no more be caused by, or arise from mere unintelligent figure
   and motion, than colour can be a triangle, or sound a square, or something
   be caused by nothing. Secondly, as to the other part of the objection; that
   figure, divisibility, mobility, and other qualities of matter, are (as we
   ourselves acknowledge) given it from God, who yet cannot, without extreme
   blasphemy, be said to have any such qualities himself; and that therefore,
   in like manner, perception or intelligence may arise out of that which has
   no intelligence itself; the answer is still easier: That figure,
   divisibility, mobility, and other such like qualities of matter, are not
   real, proper, distinct, and positive powers, but only negative qualities,
   deficiencies, or imperfections. And though no cause can communicate to its
   effect any real perfection which it has not itself, yet the effect may
   easily have many imperfections, deficiencies, or negative qualities, which
   are not in the cause. Though, therefore, figure, divisibility, mobility, and
   the like, (which are mere negations, as all limitations and all defects of
   powers are,) may be in the effect, and not in the cause; yet intelligence,
   (which I now suppose, and shall prove immediately, to be a distinct quality,
   and which no man can say is a mere negation,) cannot possibly be so.

   Having therefore thus demonstrated, that if perception or intelligence be
   supposed to be a distinct quality or perfection, (though even but of matter
   only, if the atheist pleases,) and not a mere effect or composition of
   unintelligent figure and motion; then beings indued with perception or
   consciousness can never have arisen purely out of that which had no such
   quality as perception or consciousness; because nothing can ever give to
   another any perfection which it has not itself. It will easily appear,
   secondly, that perception or intelligence is really such a distinct quality
   or perfection, and not possibly a mere effect or composition of
   unintelligent figure and motion; and that for this plain reason, because
   intelligence is not figure, and consciousness is not motion: For whatever
   can arise from, or be compounded of any things, is still only those very
   things of which it was compounded. And if infinite compositions or divisions
   be made eternally, the things will still be but eternally the same; and all
   their possible effects can never be any thing but repetitions of the same.
   For instance, all possible changes, compositions, or divisions of figure,
   are still nothing but figure; and all possible compositions or effects of
   motion can eternally be nothing but mere motion. If, therefore, there ever
   was a time when there was nothing in the universe but matter and motion,
   there never could have been any thing else therein but matter and motion.
   And it would have been as impossible there should ever have existed any such
   thing as intelligence or consciousness, or even any such thing as light, or
   heat, or sound, or colour, or any of those we call secondary qualities of
   matter, as it is now impossible for motion to be blue or red, or for a
   triangle to be transformed into a sound. That which has been apt to deceive
   men in this matter is this; that they imagine compounds to be somewhat
   really different from that of which they are compounded: which is a very
   great mistake. For all the things of which men so judge, either, if they be
   really different, are not compounds nor effects of what men judge them to
   be, but are something totally distinct; as, when the vulgar think colours
   and sounds to be properties inherent in bodies, when indeed they are purely
   thoughts of the mind: or else, if they be really compounds and effects, then
   they are not different, but exactly the same that ever they were; as, when
   two triangles put together make a square, that square is still nothing but
   two triangles; or when a square cut in halves makes two triangles, those two
   triangles are still only the two halves of a square; or when the mixture of
   a blue and yellow powder makes a green, that green is still nothing but blue
   and yellow intermixed, as is plainly visible by the help of microscopes. See
   my letter to Mr. Dodwell, with the four defences of it. And in short, every
   thing, by composition, division, or motion, is nothing else but the very
   same it was before, taken either in whole or in parts, or in different place
   or order. He therefore that will affirm intelligence to be the effect of a
   system of unintelligent matter in motion, must either affirm intelligence to
   be a mere name or external denomination of certain figures and motions, and
   that it differs from unintelligent figures and motions, no otherwise than as
   a circle or triangle differs from a square; which is evidently absurd: or
   else he must suppose it to be a real distinct quality, arising from certain
   motions of a system of matter not in itself intelligent; and then this no
   less evidently absurd consequence would follow, that one quality inherred in
   another; for, in that case, not the substance itself, the particles of which
   the system consists, but the mere mode, the particular mode of motion and
   figure, would be intelligent. Mr. Hobbes seems to have been aware of this:
   and therefore, though he is very sparing, and as it were ashamed to speak
   out, yet finding himself pressed, in his own mind, with the difficulty
   arising from the impossibility of sense or consciousness being merely the
   effect of figure and motion, and it not serving his purpose at all, (were
   the thing never so possible,) to suppose that God, by an immediate and
   voluntary act of his almighty power indues certain systems of matter with
   consciousness and thought, (of which opinion I shall have occasion to speak
   something more hereafter,) he is forced [50] to have recourse to that
   prodigiously absurd supposition that all matter, as matter, is indued not
   only with figure and a capacity of motion, but also with an actual sense of
   perception; and wants only the organs and memory of animals to express its
   sensation.

   3dly. From the beauty, order, and final causes of things. See Mr. Boyle, of
   Final Causes; & Mr Ray, of the Wisdom of God in the Creation; and Mr.
   Derham’s Physico-Theology. That the self-existent and original cause of all
   things is an intelligent being, appears abundantly from the excellent
   variety, order, beauty, and wonderful contrivance and fitness of all things
   in the world to their proper and respective ends. This argument has been so
   learnedly and fully handled both by ancient and modern writers, that I do
   but just mention it, without enlarging at all upon it. I shall only at this
   time make this one observation; That, whereas Des Cartes and others have
   endeavoured to give a possible account, (possible, did I say? nay, indeed, a
   most impossible and ridiculous account,) how the world might be formed by
   the necessary laws of motion alone; [51] they have, by so seemingly vast an
   undertaking, really meant no more than to explain philosophically how the
   inanimate part, that is, infinitely the least considerable part of the
   world, might possibly have been framed. For as to plants and animals, in
   which the wisdom of the Creator principally appears, they have never, in any
   tolerable manner, or with any the least appearance of success, pretended to
   give an account how they were originally formed. In these things, matter and
   the laws of motion are able to do nothing at all. And how ridiculous the
   Epicurean hypothesis is, of the earth producing them all at first by chance,
   (besides that, I think, it is now given up even by all atheists;) appears
   from the late discovery made in philosophy, that there is no such thing as
   equivocal generation of any the meanest animal or plant; the sun, and earth
   and water, and all the powers of nature in conjunction, being able to do
   nothing at all towards the producing any thing indued with so much as even a
   vegetable life. (From which most excellent discovery we may, by the way,
   observe the usefulness of natural and experimental philosophy, sometimes
   even in matters of religion.) Since therefore things are thus, it must
   unavoidably be granted (even by the most obstinate atheist,) either that all
   plants and animals are originally the work of an intelligent being, and
   created by him in time; or that, having been from eternity in the same order
   and method they are now in, they are an eternal effect of an eternal
   intelligent cause, continually exerting his infinite power and wisdom; or
   else, that, without any self-existent original at all, they have been
   derived one from another in an eternal succession, by an infinite progress
   of dependent causes. The first of these three ways is the conclusion we
   assert: the second, (so far as the cause of atheism is concerned,) comes to
   the very same thing: and the third I have already shown, (in my proof of the
   second general head of this discourse,) to be absolutely impossible, and a
   contradiction.

   4thly. From the original of motion. Supposing it was possible that the form
   of the world, and all the visible things contained therein, with the order,
   beauty, and exquisite fitness of their parts; nay, supposing that even
   intelligence itself, with consciousness and thought, in all the beings we
   know, could possibly be the result or effect of mere unintelligent matter,
   figure, and motion; (which is the most unreasonable and impossible
   supposition in the world;) yet even still there would remain an undeniable
   demonstration, that the self-existent being, (whatever it be supposed to
   be,) must be intelligent. For even these principles themselves
   [unintelligent figure and motion] could never have possibly existed without
   there had been before them an intelligent cause. I instance in motion:—It is
   evident there is now such a thing as motion in the world; which either began
   at some time or other, or was eternal. If it began at any time, then the
   question is granted, that the first cause is an intelligent being; for mere
   unintelligent matter, and that at rest, it is manifest could never of itself
   begin to move. On the contrary, if motion was eternal, it was either
   eternally caused by some eternal intelligent being, or it must of itself be
   necessary and self-existent; or else, without any necessity in its own
   nature, and without any external necessary cause, it must have existed from
   eternity by an endless successive communication. If motion was eternally
   caused by some eternal intelligent being, this also is granting the
   question, as to the present dispute. If it was of itself necessary and
   self-existent, then it follows, that it must be a contradiction in terms to
   suppose any matter to be at rest: and yet at the same time, because the
   determination of this self-existent motion must be every way at once, the
   effect of it could be nothing else but a perpetual rest. Besides, (as there
   is no end of absurdities, when they once begin,) it must also imply a
   contradiction, to suppose that there might possibly have been originally
   more or less motion in the universe than there actually was: which is so
   very absurd a consequence, that Spinoza himself, though he expressly asserts
   all things to be necessary, yet seems ashamed here [52] to speak out his
   opinion, or rather plainly contradicts himself in the question about the
   original of motion. But if it be said, lastly, that motion, without any
   necessity in its own nature, and without any external necessary cause, has
   existed from eternity, merely by an endless successive communication, as
   [53] Spinoza, inconsistently enough, seems to assert: This I have before
   shown, (in my proof of the second general proposition of this discourse,) to
   be a plain contradiction. It remains, therefore, that motion must of
   necessity be originally caused by something that is intelligent, or else
   there never could have been any such thing as motion in the world; and
   consequently the self-existent being, the original cause of all things,
   (whatever it be supposed to be,) must of necessity be an intelligent being.

   From hence it follows again, that the material world cannot possibly be the
   original self-existent being: For, since the self-existent being is
   demonstrated to be intelligent, and the material world plainly is not so, it
   follows that the material world cannot possibly be self-existent. What some
   have fondly imagined concerning a soul of the world, if thereby they mean a
   created, dependent being, signifies nothing in the present argument: But if
   they understand thereby something necessary and self-existent, then it is
   nothing else but a false, corrupt, and imperfect notion of God.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [48] Oracles of Reason, p. 186. See also my Letter to Mr Dodwell, with
   several answers and replies concerning the natural immortality of the soul.

   [49] If, with one of Cicero’s dialogists, they would infer that the whole
   [of the world] must have understanding, because some portions of it are
   intelligent—we may retort with the other speaker in Cicero, that, by the
   same argument, the whole must be a courtier, a musician, a dancing-master,
   or a philosopher, because many of the parts are such. Mr Toland’s Letter;
   motion essential to matter.

   [50] Scio fuisse philosophos quosdam, eosdemque viros doctos, qui corpora
   omnia sensu prædita esse sustinuerunt; nec video, si natura sensionis in
   reactione sola collocaretur, quomodo refutari possint. Sed etsi ex reactione
   etiam corporum aliorum, phantasma aliquod nasceretur, illud tamen, remoto
   objecto, statim cessaret. Nam, nisi ad retinendum motum impressum, etiam
   remoto objecto, apta habeant organa, ut habent animalia; ita tantum
   sentient, ut nunquam sensisse se recordentur.—Sensioni ergo, quæ vulgo ita
   appellatur necessario adhæret memoria aliqua, &c.—Hobbes Physic. cap. 25.
   sect. 5. See also Nos. 2 and 11 of the Appendix to a Collection of papers
   which passed between Mr. Leibnitz and Dr. Clarke.

   [51] See Mr Boyle, of Final causes; and Mr Ray, of the Wisdom of God in the
   creation; and Mr Derham’s Physico-Theology.

   [52] Spinozæ Ethic. Par. I, prop. 33, compared with part II, prop. 13, lemma
   3.

   [53] Corpus motum, vel quiescens, ad motum vel quietem determinari debuit ab
   alio corpore, quod etiam ad motum vel quietem determinatum fuit ab alio, et
   illud iterum ab alio, et sic in infinitum.—Ethic. par. II, prop. 13, lemma
   3.
     _________________________________________________________________

   IX. Proposition IX. That the self-existent being must be a free agent. The
   self-existent and original cause of all things, is not a necessary agent but
   a being indued with liberty and choice. The contrary to this proposition is
   the foundation and the sum of what Spinoza and his followers have asserted
   concerning the nature of God. What reasons or arguments they have offered
   for their opinion I shall have occasion to consider briefly in my proof of
   the proposition itself. The truth of which appears—

   1st. This a necessary consequent of the foregoing proposition. In that it is
   a necessary consequence of the foregoing proposition. For intelligence
   without liberty (as I there hinted) is really (in respect of any power,
   excellence, or perfection,) no intelligence at all: It is indeed a
   consciousness, but it is merely a passive one; a consciousness, not of
   acting, but purely of being acted upon. Without liberty, nothing can, in any
   tolerable propriety of speech, be said to be an agent, or cause of any
   thing. For to act necessarily, is really and properly not to act at all, but
   only to be acted upon. What therefore Spinoza and his followers assert,
   concerning the production of all things [54] from the necessity of the
   divine nature, is mere jargon and words, without any meaning at all. For if,
   by the necessity of the divine nature, they understand not the perfection
   and rectitude of his will, whereby God is unalterably determined to do
   always what is best in the whole, (as confessedly they do not, because this
   is consistent with the most perfect liberty and choice,) but, on the
   contrary, mean an absolute and strictly natural necessity; it follows
   evidently, that when they say God, by the necessity of his nature, is the
   cause and author of all things, they understand him to be a cause or agent
   in no other sense than as if a man should say, that a stone, by the
   necessity of its nature, is the cause of its own falling and striking the
   ground, which is really not to be an agent or cause at all; but their
   opinion amounts to this, that all things are equally self-existent, and
   consequently that the material world is God; which I have before proved to
   be a contradiction. In like manner, when they speak of the intelligence and
   knowledge of God, they mean to attribute these powers to him in no other
   sense than the ancient Hylozoicks attributed them to all matter; See a very
   remarkable passage of Mr Hobbes, cited above page 53. that is, that a stone,
   when it falls, has a sensation and consciousness, but that that
   consciousness is no cause at all, or power of acting; which kind of
   intelligence, in any tolerable propriety of speech, is no intelligence at
   all: And, consequently, the arguments that proved the supreme cause to be
   properly an intelligent and active being do also undeniably prove that he is
   likewise indued with liberty and choice, which alone is the power of acting.

   2dly. Proved farther from the arbitrary disposition of things in the world;
   with an answer to Spinoza's arguments for the necessity of all things. If
   the supreme cause is not a being indued with liberty and choice, but a mere
   necessary agent, whose actions are all as absolutely and naturally necessary
   as his existence, then, it will follow, that nothing which is not, could
   possibly have been; and that nothing which is, could possibly not have been;
   and that no mode or circumstance of the existence of any thing could
   possibly have been in any respect otherwise than it now actually is: All
   which being evidently most false and absurd, it follows, on the contrary,
   that the supreme cause is not a mere necessary agent, but a being indued
   with liberty and choice.

   The consequence, [55] viz. that if the supreme cause be a necessary agent,
   then nothing which is not, could possibly have been; and nothing which is,
   could possibly either not have been, or have been different from what it is:
   This, I say, is expressly owned by Spinoza to be the unavoidable consequence
   of his own opinion. And, accordingly, he endeavours to maintain, that no
   thing, or mode of existence of any thing, could possibly have been in any
   respect different from what it now actually is. His reasons are; (1) because
   [56] from an infinitely perfect nature, infinite things in infinite manners,
   must needs proceed; and (2.) [57] because, if any thing could possibly be
   otherwise than it is, the will and nature of God must be supposed capable of
   change; and (3.) [58] because if all possible things in all possible manners
   do not always and necessarily exist, they never can all exist; but some
   things, that do not exist, will still always be possible only, and never can
   actually exist; and so the actual omnipotence of God is taken away. The
   first of these arguments is a plain begging of the question; For, that an
   infinitely perfect nature is able indeed to produce infinite things in
   infinite manners, is certainly true; but that it must always actually do so,
   by an absolute necessity of nature, without any power of choice, either as
   to time or manner or circumstances, does by no means follow from the
   perfection of its nature, unless it be first supposed to be a necessary
   agent; and also, that in mere necessity there must be all (or can be any)
   variety. Both which suppositions are the very question begged that was to be
   proved. The second argument, is (if possible) still weaker: for how does it
   follow, if God, according to his eternal unerring purpose and infinite
   wisdom, produces different things at different times, and in different
   manners, that, therefore, the will and nature of God is changeable? It might
   exactly as well be argued, that if God (according to Spinoza’s supposition,
   does always necessarily produce all possible differences and varieties of
   things, therefore his will and nature is always necessarily infinitely
   various, unequal, and dissimilar to itself. And as to the third argument,
   (which is mere metaphysical trifling,) it is just such reasoning as if a man
   should argue, that if all possible [eternal] duration be not always actually
   exhausted, it never can be all exhausted; and that therefore so the eternity
   of God is taken away; which sort of arguing every one at first sight
   discerns the weakness of.

   But whatever the arguments were, and if they were never so much more
   plausible than they really are, yet the assertion itself, viz. that no
   thing, or mode of existence of any thing, could possibly have been made in
   any respect different from what it actually is; is so palpably absurd and
   false, so contradictory to experience and the nature of things, and to the
   most obvious and common reason of mankind; that of itself it immediately,
   and upon the first hearing, sufficiently confutes any principle of which it
   is a consequence. For all things in the world appear plainly to be the most
   arbitrary that can be imagined; and to be wholly the effects not of
   necessity, but of wisdom and choice. A necessity indeed of fitness; that is,
   that things could not have been otherwise than they are, without diminishing
   the beauty, order, and well-being of the whole; there may be, and (as far as
   we can apprehend) there certainly is. But this is so far from serving our
   adversaries’ purpose, that, on the contrary, it is a direct demonstration
   that all things were made and ordered by a free and wise agent. That,
   therefore, which I affirm, contradictory to Spinoza’s assertion, is, that
   there is not the least appearance of an absolute necessity of nature, (so as
   that any variation would imply a contradiction,) in any of these things.
   Motion itself, and all its quantities and directions, with the laws of
   gravitation, are entirely arbitrary; and might possibly have been altogether
   different from what they now are. The number and motion of the heavenly
   bodies have no manner of necessity in the nature of the things themselves.
   The number of the planets might have been greater or less. Their motion upon
   their own axes might have been in any proportion swifter or slower then it
   now is. And the direction of all their progressive motions, both of the
   primary and secondary planets, uniformly from west to east, (when by the
   motion of comets [59] it appears there was no necessity but that they might
   as easily have moved in all imaginable transverse directions,) is an evident
   proof that these things are solely the effect of wisdom and choice. There is
   not the least appearance of necessity, but that all these things might
   possibly have been infinitely varied from their present constitution: and
   (as the late improvements in astronomy discover) they are actually liable to
   very great changes. Every thing upon earth is still more evidently
   arbitrary; and plainly the product, not of necessity, but will. What
   absolute necessity for just such a number of species of animals or plants?
   or who, without blushing, dare affirm, [60] that neither the form, nor
   order, nor any the minutest circumstance or mode of existence of any of
   these things could possibly have been in the least diversified by the
   supreme cause?

   To give but one instance. In all the greater species of animals, where was
   the necessity for that conformity [61] we observe in the number and likeness
   of all their principal members? and how would it have been a contradiction
   to suppose any or all of them varied from what they now are? To suppose
   indeed the continuance of such monsters, as Lucretius imagines to have
   perished for want of their principal organs of life, is really a
   contradiction. But how would it have been a contradiction for a whole
   species of horses or oxen to have subsisted with six legs or four eyes? But
   it is a shame to insist longer upon so plain an argument.

   It might have been objected with much more plausibleness, that the supreme
   cause cannot be free, because he must needs do always what is best in the
   whole. But this would not at all serve Spinoza’s purpose. For this is a
   necessity, not of nature and fate, but of fitness and wisdom; a necessity,
   consistent with the greatest freedom and most perfect choice. For the only
   foundation of this necessity is such an unalterable rectitude of will, and
   perfection of wisdom, as makes it impossible for a wise being to resolve to
   act foolishly; or for a nature infinitely good, to choose to do what is
   evil: Of which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter, when I come to
   deduce the moral attributes of God.

   3dly. The same proved also from final causes. If there be any final cause,
   of any thing in the universe, then the supreme cause is not a necessary but
   a free agent. This consequence also, Spinoza acknowledges to be unvoidable:
   And therefore he has no other way left, but, with a strange confidence, to
   expose all final causes, [62] as the fictions of ignorant and superstitious
   men: and to laugh [63] at those who are so foolish and childish as to fancy
   that eyes were designed and fitted to see with, teeth to chew with, food to
   be eaten for nourishment, the sun to give light, &c. I suppose it will not
   be thought, that when once a man comes to this, he is to be disputed with
   any longer. Whoever pleases, may, for satisfaction on this head, consult
   Galen de Usu Partium, Tully de Natura Deorum, Mr Boyle of Final Causes, and
   Mr Ray of the Wisdom of God in the Creation. I shall only observe this one
   thing; that the larger the improvements and discoveries are, which are daily
   made in astronomy and natural philosophy, the more clearly is this question
   continually determined, to the shame and confusion of atheists.

   4thly. From the finiteness of created beings. If the supreme cause be a mere
   necessary agent, it is impossible any effect or product of that cause should
   be finite. For since that which acts necessarily, cannot govern or direct
   its own actions, but must necessarily produce whatever can be the effect or
   product of its nature, it is plain, every effect of such an infinite uniform
   nature acting everywhere necessarily alike, must of necessity be immense, or
   infinite in extension: and so no creature in the universe could possibly be
   finite; which is infinitely absurd and contrary to experience. Spinoza, to
   shuffle off this absurdity, expresses the consequence of his doctrine thus:
   [64] that, from the necessity of the divine nature, infinite things (meaning
   infinite in number,) in infinite manners must needs follow. But whoever
   reads his demonstration of this proposition, can hardly fail to observe, (if
   he be at all used to such speculations,) that if it proved any thing at all,
   it would equally prove, that from the necessity of the divine nature, only
   infinite things (meaning infinite in extension) can possibly arise; which
   demonstration alone is a sufficient confutation of the opinion it was
   designed to establish.

   5thly. And from the impossibility of an infinite succession of causes. If
   the supreme cause be not a free and voluntary agent, then in every effect,
   (for instance, in motion,) there must have been a progression of causes in
   infinitum, without any original cause at all. For if there be no liberty
   anywhere, then there is no agent; no cause, mover, principle, or beginning
   of motion anywhere. Every thing in the universe must be passive, and nothing
   active; every thing moved, and no mover: every thing effect, and nothing
   cause. Spinoza indeed, (as has been already observed,) refers all things to
   the necessity of the divine nature, as their real cause and original; but
   this is mere jargon, and words without any signification; and will not at
   all help him over the present difficulty. For, if by things existing through
   the necessity of the divine nature, he means absolutely a necessity of
   existence, so as to make the world and every thing in it self-existent, then
   it follows (as I have before shown) that it must be a contradiction in
   terms, to suppose motion, &c. not to exist, which Spinoza himself is ashamed
   to assert. But if, therefore, by the necessity of the divine nature, he
   means only the necessary following of an effect from its cause, or the cause
   necessarily producing its effect; this necessity must still always be
   determined by something antecedent, and so on infinitely. And this, Spinoza
   (though sometimes he seems to mean the other and equally absurd sense)
   expressly owns in some places to be his meaning. [65] There can be no
   volition, saith he, but from some cause, which cause must likewise be caused
   by some other cause, and so on infinitely. Again; will, [66] saith he,
   belongs to the nature of God no otherwise than motion and rest do; so that
   God can no more properly be said to act by the liberty of his will than by
   the liberty of motion and rest. And what the original of motion and rest is,
   he tells us in these words: [67] every body in motion, or at rest, must have
   been determined to that motion or rest by some other body, which must itself
   likewise have been determined by a third; and so on in infinitum. And thus,
   since motion is not, in any one of its stages of communication, a necessary
   self-existent being, (because the body moved may always, without a
   contradiction, have been imagined to be at rest, and is supposed not to have
   motion from itself, but from another;) the opinion of Spinoza plainly recurs
   to an infinite succession of dependent beings produced one from another, in
   an endless progression, without any original cause at all; which notion I
   have already (in the proof of the second general head of this discourse)
   demonstrated to imply a contradiction. And since, therefore, there is no
   other possible way to avoid this absurdity, but by granting that there must
   be somewhere a principle of motion and action, which is liberty, I suppose
   it by this time sufficiently proved that the supreme cause must be a being
   indued with liberty and choice.

   From That liberty is not in itself an impossible and contradictory notion.
   what has been said upon this head, it sufficiently appears, that liberty is
   not in itself, and in the very notion of the thing, an absolute
   contradiction and impossibility, as the pleaders for necessity and fate
   contend that it is, and place the chief strength of their argument in that
   supposition. For, that which actually is, is certainly not impossible. And
   it has already been proved, that liberty actually is, nay that it is
   impossible for it not to be, in the first and supreme cause. The principal
   argument used by the maintainers of fate against the possibility of liberty,
   is this: That since every thing must have a cause, [68] every volition or
   determination of the will of an intelligent being must, as all other things,
   arise from some cause, and that cause from some other cause, and so on
   infinitely. But now, (besides that in this sort of reasoning, these men
   always ignorantly confound moral motives with physical efficients, between
   which two things there is no manner of relation; besides this, I say) this
   very argument really proves the direct contrary to what they intend. For
   since every thing must indeed have a cause of its being, either from
   without, or in the necessity of its own nature; and it is a plain
   contradiction (as has already been demonstrated) to suppose an infinite
   series of dependent effects, none of which are necessary in themselves or
   self-existent; therefore it is impossible but there must be in the universe
   some being whose existence is founded in the necessity of its own nature;
   and which, being acted upon by nothing beyond itself, must of necessity have
   in itself a principle of acting, or power of beginning motion, which is the
   idea of liberty. It is true, this argument proves only the liberty of the
   first and supreme cause, and extends not indeed to any created being; but it
   evinces in general (which is sufficient to my present purpose) that liberty
   is so far from being impossible and contradictory in itself, that on the
   contrary it is impossible but that it must really be somewhere; and this
   being once established, it will be easy to show hereafter, that it is a
   power capable of being communicated to created beings. Of which, in its
   proper place.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [54] Ex necessitate divinæ naturæ, infinita infinitis modis sequi
   debent—Ethic. par. I. prop. 16.

   [55] Alii putant Deum esse causam liberam, propterea quod potest, ut putant,
   efficere ut ea quæ ex ejus natura sequi diximus; hoc est, quæ in ejus
   potestate sunt, non fiant: Sed hoc idem est ac si dicerent quod Deus potest
   efficere, ut, ex natura trianguli, non sequatur ejus tres angulos æquales
   esse duobus rectis.—Ego me satis clare ostendisse puto, a summa Dei
   potentia, omnia necessario effluxisse, vel semper eadem necessitate sequi;
   eodem modo ac, ex natura trianguli, ab æterno et in æternum sequitur ejus
   tres angulos æquari duobus rectis.—Ethic, par. 1, schol. ad prop. 17. Omnia
   ex necessitate naturæ divinæ determinata sunt, non tantum ad existendum, sed
   etiam ad certo modo existendum et operandum; nullumque datur
   contingens.—Demonstrat. prop. 29. Si res alterius naturæ potuissent esse,
   vel alio modo ad operandum determinari, ut naturæ ordo alius esset: ergo Dei
   etiam natura alia posset esse quam jam est.—Prop. 33. demostrat. Quicquid
   concipimus in Dei potestate esse, id necessario est.—Prop.35. Deum non
   operari ex libertate voluntatis.—Corol. ad prop. 32. Res nullo alio modo,
   neque alio ordine, a Deo produci potuerant quam productæ sunt.—Prop. 33.

   [56] Ex necessitate divinæ naturæ, infinita infinitis modis sequi
   debent.—Prop. 16.

   [57] Si res alterius naturæ potuissent esse, vel alio modo ad operandum
   determinari; ut naturæ ordo alius esset: Ergo Dei etiam natura alia posset
   esse quam jam est.—Prop. 33. demonstrat.

   [58] Immo adversarii, [qui negant, ex necessitate divinæ naturæ, omnia
   necessario fluere,] Dei omnipotentiam negare videntur. Coguntur enim fateri,
   Deum infinita creabilia intelligere quæ tamen nunquam creare poterit: Nam
   alias; si scilicet omnia, quæ intelligit crearet, suam, juxta ipsos,
   exhauriret omnipotentiam, et se imperfectum redderet. Ut igitur Deum
   perfectum statuant, eo rediguntur, ut simul statuere debeant ipsum non posse
   omnia efficere, ad quæ ejus potentia se extendit.—Coroll. ad prop. 17.

   [59] Nam dum cometæ moventur in orbibus valde eccentricis, undique; et
   quoquoversum in omnes cœli partes; utique nullo modo fieri potuit ut cæco
   fato tribuendum sit; quod planetæ in orbibus concentricis motu consimili
   ferantur eodem omnes.—Tam miram uniformitatem in planetarum systemate,
   necessario fatendum est intelligentia et consilio fuisse effectam.—Newton.
   Optic. page 345.

   [60] Res nullo alio modo, neque alio ordine, a Deo produci potuerunt, quam
   productæ sunt.—Spinoza, ut supra.

   [61] Idemque dici possit de uniformitate illa, quæ est in corporibus
   animalium, viz. necessario fatendum est intelligentia et consilio fuisse
   effectam.—Newton. Optic. page 346.

   [62] Naturam finem nullum sibi præfixum habere; et omnes causas finales,
   nihil nisi humana esse figmenta.—Appendix ad prop. 36.

   [63] Oculos ad videndum, dentes ad masticandum, herbas et animantia ad
   alimentum, solem ad illuminandum, mare ad alendum pisces, &c.—Ibid. Nullas
   unquam rationes circa res naturales a fine, quem Deus aut natura in iis
   faciendis sibi proposuit, desumemus.—Cartes. Princip. par. 1. § 28.

   [64] Ex necessitate divinæ naturæ infinita infinitis modis seque
   debent.—Ethic. par. 1. prop. 16.

   [65] Unaquæque volitio non potest existere, neque ad operandum determinari;
   nisi ab alia causa determinetur, et hæc rursus ab alia; et sic porro in
   infinitum.—Prop. 33. demonst.

   [66] Voluntas ad Dei naturam non magis pertinet quam reliqua naturalia; sed
   ad ipsam eodem modum sese habet, ut motus et quies. Deus non magis dici
   potest ex libertate voluntatis agere, quam dici potest ex libertate motus et
   quietis agere.—Coroll. ad prop.32.

   [67] Corpus motum vel quiescens, ad motum vel quietem determinari debuit ab
   alio corpore, quod etiam ad motum vel quietem determinatum fuit ab alio; et
   illud iterum ab alio; et sic in infinitum.—Ethic. Par. 11. prop. 13. lemma
   3.

   [68] Mens ad hoc vel illud volendum determinatur a causa, quæ etiam ab alia
   determinata est, et hæc iterum ab alia, et sic in infinitum.—Spinoza Ethic.
   par. II, prop. 48.
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   X. Proposition X. That the self-existent being must be all-powerful. The
   self-existent being, the supreme cause of all things, must of necessity have
   infinite power.—This proposition is evident, and undeniable. For since
   nothing (as has been already proved,) can possibly be self-existent, besides
   himself; and consequently all things in the universe were made by him, and
   are entirely dependent upon him; and all the powers of all things are
   derived from him, and must therefore be perfectly subject and subordinate to
   him; it is manifest that nothing can make any difficulty or resistance to
   the execution of his will, but he must of necessity have absolute power to
   do every thing he pleases, with the perfectest ease, and in the perfectest
   manner, at once, and in a moment, whenever he wills it. The descriptions the
   scripture gives of this power, are so lively and emphatical, that I cannot
   forbear mentioning one or two passages. Thus, Job ix. 4:—“He is wise in
   heart, and mighty in strength;—which removeth the mountains, and they know
   it not; which overturneth them in his anger. Which shaketh the earth out of
   her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. Which commandeth the sun, and it
   riseth not; and sealeth up the stars. Which alone spreadeth out the heavens,
   and treadeth upon the waters of the sea. Which doth great things past
   finding out, yea and wonders without number.” Again: “Hell is naked before
   him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over the
   empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in
   his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them. The pillars of
   Heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof. He divideth the sea with
   his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. Lo, these
   are part of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him? But the
   thunder of his power, who can understand?” Job xxvi. 6. So likewise, Isaiah
   xl. 12:—“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted
   out Heaven with the span; and comprehended the dust of the earth in a
   measure; and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance.
   Behold, the nations are as a drop of the bucket, and are counted as the
   small dust of the balance; behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little
   thing. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him
   less than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God, or what
   likeness will ye compare unto him?” But I do not urge authority to the
   persons I am at present speaking to. It is sufficiently evident, from
   reason, that the supreme cause must of necessity be infinitely powerful. The
   only question is, what the true meaning of what we call infinite power is;
   and to what things it must be understood to extend, or not to extend.

   Now, in determining this question, there are some propositions about which
   there is no dispute; which therefore, I shall but just mention. As,

   1st, Of working contradictions. That infinite power reaches to all possible
   things, but cannot be said to extend to the working any thing which implies
   a contradiction: As, that a thing should be and not be at the same time;
   that the same thing should be made and not be made, or have been and not
   have been; that twice two should not make four, or that that which is
   necessarily false should be true: The reason whereof is plain; because the
   power of making a thing to be, at the same time that it is not, is only a
   power of doing that which is nothing, that is, no power at all.

   2dly. Or natural and moral evils. Infinite power cannot be said to extend to
   those things which imply natural imperfection in the being to whom such
   power is ascribed; as, that it should destroy its own being, weaken itself,
   or the like. These things imply natural imperfection, and are by all men
   confessed to be such as cannot possibly belong to the necessary
   self-existent being. There are also other things which imply imperfection in
   another kind, viz. moral imperfection; concerning which, atheism takes away
   the subject of the question, by denying wholly the difference of moral good
   and evil; and therefore I shall omit the consideration of them until I come
   to deduce the moral attributes of God.

   But some other instances there are, in the question about the extent of
   infinite power, wherein the principal difference between us and the
   atheists, (next to the question, whether the supreme cause be an intelligent
   being, or not,) does in great measure consist. As,

   1st. Of the power of creating matter. That infinite power includes a power
   of creating matter. This has been constantly denied by all atheists, both
   ancient and modern, and as constantly affirmed by all who believe the being,
   and have just notions of the attributes of God. The only reason which the
   atheists have, or can pretend to allege, for their opinion, is, that the
   thing is in its own nature absolutely impossible. But how does it appear to
   be impossible? Why, only because they are not able to comprehend how it can
   be: For, to reduce it to a contradiction, (which is the alone real
   impossibility,) this they are by no means able to do. For, to say that
   something which once was not, may since have begun to exist, is neither
   directly, nor by any consequence whatsoever, to assert that that which is
   not, can be, while it is not; or that that which is, can not be, while it
   is. It is true, we who have been used to converse only with generations and
   corruptions, and never saw any thing made or created, but only formed or
   framed, are apt to endeavour to conform our idea of creation to that of
   formation, and to imagine, that as in all formations there is some
   pre-existing matter, out of which a thing is formed, so in creation there
   must be considered a pre-existing nothing, out of which, as out of a real
   material cause, a thing is created; which looks, indeed, very like a
   contradiction. But this is only a confusion of ideas, just like children’s
   imagining that darkness is some real thing, which in the morning is driven
   away by the light, or transformed into it; whereas the true notion of
   creation is not a forming something out of nothing, as out of a material
   cause, but only a bringing something into being that before had no being at
   all, or a causing something to exist now that did not exist before, or
   which, without this cause, would not have existed; which no man can ever
   reduce to a contradiction, any more than the formation of any thing into a
   shape which it had not before, can be reduced to a contradiction.

   But further: The creation of matter is a thing not only not impossible in
   itself, but what, moreover, even by bare reason, is demonstrated to be true.
   For it is a contradiction (as I have shown above) to suppose matter
   necessarily existing.

   2dly. Of the power of creating immaterial cogitative substances. It is
   possible to infinite power to create any immaterial cogitative substance,
   indued with a power of beginning motion, and with a liberty of will or
   choice. This also has been always denied by all atheists; and, because it is
   a proposition of the greatest consequence to religion and morality,
   therefore I shall be particular in endeavouring the proof of the several
   parts of it.

   First, It is possible to infinite power to create any immaterial cogitative
   substance. That there can be such a thing as a cogitative substance, that
   is, a substance indued with consciousness and thought, is granted by all,
   because every man’s own experience convinces him that he himself is such a
   substance. Further: That if there be, or can be, any such thing as
   immaterial substances, then it is most reasonable to believe that such
   substances as are indued with consciousness and thought [properties the
   farthest distant from the known properties of matter, and the most unlike
   them that can possibly be imagined,] are those immaterial substances; this
   also will, I think, be granted by all men. The only point, therefore, that
   remains to be proved, is, that immaterial substances are not impossible, or,
   that a substance immaterial is not a contradictory notion. Now, whoever
   asserts that it is contradictory, must affirm, that whatever is not matter
   is nothing, and that to say any thing exists which is not matter, is saying
   that there exists something which is nothing; which, in other words, is
   plainly this: That whatever we have not an idea of, is nothing, and
   impossible to be; for there is no other way to reduce immaterial substance
   to a contradiction, but by supposing immaterial to signify the same as
   having no existence; and there is no possible way to prove that, but by
   saying we have no idea of it; and, therefore, it neither has nor can have
   any existence. By which same argument, material substance will in like
   manner be a contradiction; for of that also, (viz. of the substance to which
   solidity belongs,) we have no idea. But supposing it were true (as it is
   indeed most false,) that we had a clearer idea of the substance of matter,
   than we have of immaterial substance, still by the same argument, wherewith
   an atheist will prove immaterial substance to be impossible, a man born
   blind may demonstrate irrefragably that light or colour is an impossible and
   contradictory notion, because it is not a sound or a smell; for the power of
   seeing light or colour is, to a man born blind, altogether as
   incomprehensible and absolutely beyond the reach of all his ideas, as either
   the operations and perceptions, or even the simple essence of a pure
   immaterial substance of spirit, can be to any of us. If, therefore, the
   blind man’s want of ideas be not a sufficient proof of the impossibility of
   light or colour, how comes our bare want of ideas to be a demonstration of
   the impossibility of the being of immaterial substances? A blind man, they
   will say, has testimony of the existence of light: Very true; so also have
   we of the existence of immaterial substances. But there is this further
   advantage on our side in the comparison, that a blind man, excepting the
   testimony of others, finds not, by any reasoning within himself, the least
   likelihood or probability, no not in the lowest possible degree, that there
   can be any such thing as light or colour; but we, besides testimony, have
   great and strong arguments, both from experience and reason, that there are
   such things as immaterial substances, though we have no knowledge of their
   simple essence; as indeed of the substance even of matter itself (its simple
   substance, considered as abstract from, and as the foundation of that
   essential property of solidity,) we have no idea, (for to say that extension
   is the substance of matter, is the same way of thinking, as to say that
   existence, or that duration, is the substance of matter.) We have, I say,
   great and strong arguments both from experience and reason, that there are
   such things as immaterial substances, though we have no idea of their simple
   essence; even the very first and most universal principle of gravitation
   itself, in all matter, since it is ever proportional, not at all to the
   surfaces of bodies, or of their particles in any possible supposition, but
   exactly to the solid content of bodies, it is evident it cannot be caused by
   matter acting upon the surfaces of matter, which is all it can do, but must
   (either immediately or mediately) be caused by something which continually
   penetrates its solid substance. But in animals, which have a power of
   self-motion, and in the perfecter sorts of them, which have still higher
   faculties, the thing is yet more evident; for we see and feel, and observe
   daily in ourselves and others, such powers and operations and perceptions,
   as undeniably evince themselves either to be the properties of immaterial
   substances; or else it will follow, that matter is something, of whose
   essential powers (as well as of its substance itself,) we have altogether as
   little idea as we have of immaterial beings; and then how are immaterial
   substances more impossible than material? But of this, more hereafter.

   From Of the immateriality of human souls. what has been said on this head,
   it will be easy to answer all the objections, that have been brought by any
   atheists against the notion of human souls being immaterial substances, and
   distinct from body. See my letter to Mr Dodwell, with the four defences of
   it. For since it is possible there may be such things as immaterial
   substances; and since, if any such substance can be, there is all the reason
   in the world to believe that conscious and thinking substance is such, these
   properties being the most remote from the known properties of matter, that
   are possible to be conceived; the foundation of all the objections against
   the immateriality of the soul is entirely taken away. I shall not here tarry
   to consider the objections in particular, which have been often and fully
   answered by learned pens, but shall only mention one, on which all the rest
   depend, and to which they may all be reduced; and it is this: [69] That
   seeing the only means we have of perception, are the five senses; and these
   all plainly depend upon the organs of the body, therefore the soul, without
   the body, can have no perception, and consequently is nothing. Now (besides
   that these very senses or perceptions, however they may be obstructed by
   bodily indisposision, and so do indeed depend upon the organs of the body as
   to their present excercise, yet in their nature are really entirely distinct
   powers, and cannot possibly, as has been* before shown, be absolutely
   founded in, or arise from, any of the known properties or qualities of
   matter; besides this, I say;) of him that thus argues, I would only ask this
   one question: are our five senses, by an absolute necessity in the nature of
   the thing, all and the only possible ways of perception? and is it
   impossible and contradictory that there should be any being in the universe,
   indued with ways of perception different from these that are the result of
   our present composition? or are these things, on the contrary, purely
   arbitrary; and the same power that gave us these, may have given others to
   other beings, and might (if he had pleased) have given to us others in this
   present state, and may yet have made us capable of different ones in another
   state? If they be purely arbitrary, then the want of these does by no means
   infer a total want of perception: but the same soul, which in the present
   state has the powers of reflection, reason and judgment; which are faculties
   entirely different from sense; may as easily in another state have different
   ways even of perception also. But if any one will contend, that these senses
   of ours are necessarily the only ways of perception; still the soul may be
   capable of having these very same ways of perception at any time restored to
   it. For as that which sees, does not cease to exist, when, in the dark, all
   objects are removed; so, that which perceives, does not necessarily cease to
   exist, when, by death, all organs of perception are removed. But what reason
   can any man allege, why he should imagine these present senses of ours to be
   necessarily the only ways of perception? Is it not infinitely more
   reasonable to suppose, that this is a mere prejudice arising from custom,
   [70] and an attending to bare sense in opposition to reason? For, supposing
   men had been created only with four senses, and had never known the use of
   sight, would they not then have had the very same reason to conclude there
   were but four possible ways of perception, as they have now to fancy that
   there are but five? and would they not then have thought sight to have been
   an impossible, chimerical, and merely imaginary power; with absolutely the
   same reason as they now presume the faculties of immaterial beings to be so?
   that is, with no reason at all. One would think, men should be ashamed
   therefore to be so vain, as, from their own mere negative ignorance, without
   any appearance or pretence of any positive argument, to dispute against the
   possibility of the being of things, which (excepting only that they cannot
   frame to themselves an image or notion of them,) there is a concurrence of
   all the reasons in the world to persuade them that such things really are.
   And then, as to the difficulty of conceiving the nature and manner of the
   union between soul and body, we know altogether as much of that as we do of
   the nature of the union or cohesion of the infinitely divisible parts of
   body, which yet no man doubts of. And therefore our ignorance can be no more
   an argument against the truth of the one, than it is a bar to our belief of
   the other.

   Secondly. Of induing creatures with the power of beginning motion. It is
   possible to infinite power to indue a creature with the power of beginning
   motion. This is constantly denied by all atheists; because the consequence
   of it is a liberty of will, of which I shall have occasion to speak
   presently. But that the proposition is true, I thus prove. If the power of
   beginning motion be in itself a possible thing, and also possible to be
   communicated; then a creature may be indued with that power. Now, that the
   power of beginning motion is in itself a possible thing, I have already
   proved, by showing there must necessarily be somewhere a power of beginning
   motion; because otherwise motion must have been from eternity, without any
   external cause of its being; and yet it is a thing that has no necessity of
   existence in its own nature. So that, if there be not somewhere a principle
   or power of beginning motion, motion must exist, without any cause or reason
   at all of its existence either within itself, or from without, which, as I
   have before shown, is an express contradiction. Wherefore, a principle or
   power of beginning motion there must of necessity be somewhere or other; and
   consequently it is not in itself an impossible thing. I add; as a power of
   beginning motion is not in itself an impossible thing, because it must of
   necessity be in the supreme cause; so neither is it impossible to be
   communicated to created beings. The reason is plain; because no powers are
   impossible to be communicated, but only those which imply self-existence and
   absolute independency.—That a subordinate being should be self-existent or
   absolutely independent, is indeed a contradiction; but it is no
   contradiction; to suppose it indued with any other power whatsoever,
   separate from these. I know, the maintainers of fate are very confident that
   a power of beginning motion is nothing less than being really independent,
   or being able to act independently, from any superior cause. But this is
   only a childish trifling with words. For a power of acting independently in
   this sense, communicated at the pleasure of the supreme cause, and continued
   only during the same good pleasure, is no more a real and absolute
   independency, than the power of existing, (which I suppose the defenders of
   fate are not so fond to make a continual creation, as they are to make the
   power of self-motion a continual external impulse;) or than the power of
   being conscious, or any other power whatsoever, can be said to imply
   independency. In reality, it is altogether as hard to conceive how
   consciousness, or the power of perception, should be communicated to a
   created being, as how the power of self-motion should be so, unless
   perception be nothing else but a mere passive reception of impulse, which I
   suppose is as clear that it is not, as that a triangle is not a sound, or
   that a globe is not a colour. Yet no man doubts, but that he himself, and
   all others, have truly a power of perception. And therefore in like manner,
   (however hard it may be to conceive, as to the manner of it, yet since, as
   has been now proved, it can never be shown to be impossible and expressly
   contradictory, that a power of self-motion should be communicated,) I
   suppose no considering man can doubt but that he actually has also a power
   of self-motion. For the arguments drawn from continual experience and
   observation, to prove that we have such a power, are so strong that nothing
   less than a strict demonstration that the thing is absolutely impossible,
   and that it implies an express contradiction, can make us in the least doubt
   that we have it not. We have all the same experience, the same marks and
   evidence exactly, of our having really a power of self-motion, as the most
   rigid fatalist could possibly contrive to require, if he was to make the
   supposition of a man’s being indued with that power. There is no one thing
   that such a man can imagine ought to follow from the supposition of
   self-motion, which every man does not now as much feel and actually
   experience in himself, as it can possibly be imagined any man would do,
   supposing the thing were true. Wherefore to affirm, not withstanding all
   this, that the spirits, by which a man moves the members of his body, and
   ranges the thoughts of his mind, are themselves moved wholly by air, or
   subtler matter inspired into the body, and that again by other external
   matter, and so on, as the wheels of a clock are moved by the weights, and
   those weights by gravitation, and so on, without a man’s having the least
   power, by any principle within himself, to think any one thought, or impel
   his own spirits, in order to move any member of his body. All this is so
   contrary to experience and the reason of things, that, unless the idea of
   self-motion were in itself as evidently and clearly a contradiction, as that
   two and two should make five, a man ought to be ashamed to talk at that
   rate. Nay, a man of any considerable degree of modesty would even in that
   case be almost tempted rather to doubt the truth of his faculties, than take
   upon him to assert one such intolerable absurdity, merely for the avoiding
   of another. There are some, indeed, who, denying men the power of beginning
   motion, would yet seem in some manner to account for their actions, by
   allowing them a power of determining motion. But this also is a mere
   ludicrous trifling with words; for if that power of determining motion be no
   other in a man than that which is in a stone to reflect a ball one certain
   way, this is just nothing at all. But if he has a power of determining the
   motion of his spirits any way, as he himself pleases, this is in all
   respects the very same as the power of beginning motion.

   Thirdly, Of the possibility of induing a creature with freedom or liberty of
   will. It is possible to infinite power to indue a creature with freedom or
   liberty of will. It might suffice that this is at once proved by the same
   arguments, and in the same method, as I just now proved self-motion, or a
   power of beginning motion, to be possible, viz. because liberty must of
   necessity be in the supreme cause; (as is at large proved in the ninth
   general head of this discourse;) and therefore cannot be impossible and
   contradictory in the nature of the thing itself, and because it implies no
   contradiction to suppose it communicated, as being no harder to conceive
   than the fore-mentioned power of beginning motion; and because the arguments
   drawn from experience and observation are stronger on the one side of the
   question than those arising merely from the difficulty of our apprehending
   the thing, can be on the other. But forasmuch as this is the question of the
   greatest concern of all in matters both of religion and human life, and both
   Spinoza and Mr Hobbes, and their followers, have with great noise and
   confidence denied it; I shall therefore (not contenting myself with this,)
   endeavour to show, moreover, in particular, the weakness of the principal
   arguments by which these men have pretended to demonstrate, that there
   cannot possibly be any such power in man as a liberty of will. As to the
   propriety of the terms, whether the will be properly the seat of liberty or
   not?—is not now to the purpose to inquire; the question being, not where the
   seat of liberty is, but whether there be at all in man any such power, as a
   liberty of choice and of determining his own actions, or on the contrary,
   his actions be all as necessary as the motions of a clock? The arguments by
   which Spinoza and Mr Hobbes have attempted to maintain this latter side of
   the question, are all plainly reducible to these two.

   1st. That, since every effect must needs be produced by some cause,
   therefore, as every motion in a body must have been caused by the impulse of
   some other body, and the motion of that by the impulse of a third; so every
   volition, or determination of the will of man, must needs be produced by
   some external cause, and that in like manner be the effect of some third;
   and consequently, that there cannot possibly be any such thing in nature as
   liberty or freedom of will.

   2dly. That thinking, and all its modes, as willing and the like, are
   qualities or affections of matter; and, consequently, since it is manifest
   that matter has not in itself a power of beginning motion, or giving itself
   any manner of determination whatsoever, therefore it is evident likewise,
   that it is impossible there should be any such thing as freedom of will.

   Now, An answer to Mr. Hobbes's and Spinoza's arguments against the
   possibility of liberty. to these arguments I oppose, and shall endeavour
   briefly to demonstrate, the three following propositions.

   1st. That every effect cannot possibly be the product of external causes;
   but there must of necessity be somewhere a beginning of operation, or a
   power of acting, without being antecedently acted upon; and that this power
   may be, and is, in man.

   2dly. That thinking and willing neither are, nor can be, qualities and
   affections of matter, and consequently are not included under the laws
   thereof.

   3dly. That even supposing the soul not to be a distinct substance from body,
   but that thinking and willing could be, and were indeed, only qualities or
   affections of matter, yet even this would not at all affect the present
   question, nor prove freedom of will to be impossible.

   1st. That there must be somewhere a beginning of operation. Every effect
   cannot possibly be the product of external causes, but there must of
   necessity be somewhere a beginning of operation, or a power of acting
   without being antecedently acted upon; and this power may be, and is, in
   man. The several parts of this proposition have been already proved in the
   second and ninth general head of this discourse, and in that part of this
   tenth head which is concerning the possibility of the power of self-motion
   being communicated to created beings. I shall not therefore here repeat the
   proofs; but only apply them to Spinoza’s and Mr. Hobbes’s arguments, so far
   as is necessary to show the weakness of what they have said upon this head,
   in opposition to the possibility of liberty or freedom of will. Now, the
   manner of their arguing upon this head, is this. That every effect must
   needs be owing to some cause; and that cause must produce the effect [71]
   necessarily, because, if it be a sufficient cause, the effect cannot but
   follow; and if it be not a sufficient cause it will not be at all a cause of
   that thing. Thus, for instance, [72] whatever body is moved, must be moved
   by some other body, which itself likewise must be moved by some third, and
   so on without end. That the will, [73] in like manner, of any voluntary
   agent, must of necessity be determined to some external cause, and not by
   any power of determining itself, inherent in itself; and that external cause
   must be determined necessarily by some other cause, external to it; and so
   on without end. From all which it evidently appears, that all that these men
   urge against the possibility of freedom extends equally to all other beings
   (not excepting the Supreme) as well as to men; and Spinoza in express words
   confesses it. [74] ) Wherefore, consequently, whatever noise they make of
   the strength and demonstrative force of their arguments, all that they say
   amounts at last to no more but this one most absurd conclusion; that there
   neither is anywhere, nor can possibly be, any principle of motion, or
   beginning of operation at all; but every thing is caused necessarily, by an
   eternal chain of dependent causes and effects, without any independent
   original. All their arguments, therefore, on this head are already answered
   in the second and ninth general heads of this discourse; (where I proved
   that there must of necessity be an original, independent, and free principle
   of motion or action; and that, to suppose an endless succession of dependent
   causes and effects, without any original or first and self-actuating
   principle, is supposing a series of dependent things to be from eternity
   produced by nothing, which is the very same absurdity and contradiction as
   to suppose things produced by nothing at any definite time; the ability of
   nothing to produce any thing being plainly the same in time or in eternity.)
   And I have moreover proved, ex abundanti, in the foregoing part of this
   tenth head, that the power of beginning motion is not only possible and
   certain in itself, but also possible to be communicated to finite beings,
   and that it actually is in man.

   2dly. That thinking and willing neither are nor can be affections of matter.
   Thinking and willing neither are, nor can be, qualities or affections of
   matter; and consequently are not concluded under the laws thereof. That it
   is possible there* may be immaterial substances, the notion not implying a
   contradiction in itself, hath already been shown under the present general
   proposition. Further, that thinking and willing are powers entirely
   different from solidity, figure, and motion, and if they be different, that
   then they cannot possibly arise from them, or be compounded of them, hath
   likewise been already proved under the eighth general head of this
   discourse. It follows, therefore, that thinking and willing may possibly be,
   nay, that they certainly and necessarily are, faculties or powers of
   immaterial substances; seeing they cannot possibly be qualities or
   affections of matter, unless we will confound (as some have done,) the ideas
   of things; and mean by matter, not what that word in all other cases
   signifies, a solid substance capable of division, figure, and motion, and of
   whatever properties can arise from the modifications of these, but substance
   in general, capable of unknown powers or properties entirely different from
   these, and from whatever can possibly result from these. In which confused
   sense of the word, could matter be supposed never so capable of thinking and
   willing, yet, in that sense, (as I shall show presently,) it would signify
   nothing at all to the purpose or advantage of our adversaries. In the
   meantime, how great an absurdity it is to suppose thinking and willing to be
   qualities or affections of matter, in the proper and usual sense of the
   word, may sufficiently appear, without any foreign argument, from the
   senselessness of Mr. Hobbes’s own explication of the nature and original of
   sensation and consciousness. The immediate cause of sensation, [75] saith
   he, is this; the object, or something flowing from it, presseth the
   outermost part of the organ, and that pressure is communicated to the
   innermost parts of the organ, where, by the resistance or reaction of the
   organ, causing a pressure outwards contrary to the pressure of the object
   inwards, there is made up a phantasm, or image; which phantasm, [76] saith
   he, is the sensation itself, Again; the cause of sensation, [77] saith he,
   is an object pressing the organ, which pressure is by means of the nerves
   conveyed to the brain, and so to the heart, where, by the resistance or
   counterpressure of the heart, outwards, is made an image or phantasm which
   is sensation. Now, what is there in all this, that does in any the least
   measure tend to explain or make intelligible the real and inward nature of
   sense or consciousness? The object, by communicating a pressure through the
   organ to the sensory, does indeed raise a phantasm or image, that is, make a
   certain impression on the brain; but wherein consists the power of
   perceiving this impression, and of being sensible of it? or what similitude
   hath this impression to the sense itself, that is, to the thought excited in
   the mind? why, exactly the very same that a square has to blueness, or a
   triangle to sound, or a needle to the sense of pain; or the reflecting of a
   tennis ball to the reason and understanding of a man. So that Mr. Hobbes's
   definition of sensation,—that it is itself, the inmost and formal nature of
   it, nothing but the phantasm or image made in the brain by the pressure
   communicated from the object,—is, in other words, defining blueness to be
   the image of a square, or sound the picture of a triangle, or pain the
   similitude of a sharp-pointed needle. I do not here misrepresent him in the
   least. For he himself expressly confesses, [78] that all sensible qualities,
   such as colour, sound, and the like, are in the objects themselves nothing
   but motion; and, [79] because motion can produce nothing but motion, (as
   likewise it is evident that figure and all its possible compositions can
   produce nothing but figure,) therefore in us also the perceptions of these
   sensible qualities are nothing but different motions. If, then, the
   phantasm, that is, the image of the object made in the brain by figure and
   motion, be (as he says,) the sensation itself, is not sensation bare figure
   and motion? and are not all the forementioned absurdities unavoidable
   consequences of his opinion?

   Mr Hobbes (as I have elsewhere observed,) seems, indeed, not to have been
   altogether unaware of this insuperable difficulty, but he industriously
   endeavours to conceal it from his readers, and to impose upon them by the
   ambiguity of the word phantasm. Yet for a reserve, in case he should be too
   hard pressed, [80] he gives us a hint, that possibly sensation may be
   something more, viz. a power of perception or consciousness naturally and
   essentially inherent in all matter, only that it wants the organs and memory
   of animals to express its sensation; [81] and that, as a man, if he were
   supposed to have no other sense but seeing, and that so ordered as that his
   eyes were always immoveably fixed upon one and the same object, and that
   also unchangeable and without any the least variety, such a man could not
   properly be said to see, but only to be under an unintelligible kind of
   amazement: So all unorganized bodies may possibly have sensation or
   perception; but, because for want of organs there is no variety in it,
   neither any memory or means of expressing that sensation, therefore to us it
   seems as if they had no such thing at all. This opinion, I say, Mr Hobbes
   mentions as possible, but he does it with such hesitancy, diffidence, and
   sparingness, as shows plainly that he meant it only as a last subterfuge to
   recur to, when he should be pressed with the fore-mentioned absurdities,
   unavoidably consequent upon the supposition of sensation being only figure
   and motion. And, indeed, well might he be sparing, and, as it were, ashamed
   of this subterfuge. For it is a thing altogether as absurd as even the other
   opinion itself, of thought being mere motion; for what can be more
   ridiculous than to imagine that matter is as essentially conscious as it is
   extended? Will it not follow from that supposition, that every piece of
   matter being made up of endlessly separable parts, (that is, of parts which
   are as really distinct beings, notwithstanding their contiguity, as if they
   had been at never so great a distance one from another,) is made up also of
   innumerable consciousnesses and infinite confusion? But it is a shame to
   trouble the reader with so much as the mention of any of the numberless
   absurdities following from that monstrous supposition. Others, therefore,
   who would make thinking to be an affection of matter, and yet are ashamed to
   use either of the fore-mentioned ways, contend that God, by his almighty and
   supreme power, indues certain systems of matter with a faculty of thinking,
   according to his own good pleasure. But this also amounts to nothing; for
   (besides the absurdity of supposing God to make an innumerable company of
   distinct beings, such as the particles of every system of matter necessarily
   are, to be at the same time one individual conscious being; besides this, I
   say,) either our idea of matter is a true and distinct idea, or it is not:
   If it be a true and distinct idea, that is, if our idea (not of the
   substance of matter, for of simple substance we have no idea, but if our
   idea of the properties which essentially distinguish and denominate the
   substance,) be a right idea, viz. that matter is nothing but a solid
   substance, capable only of division, figure, and motion, with all the
   possible effects of their several compositions, as to us it appears to be,
   upon the best examination we are able to make of it, and the greatest part
   of our adversaries themselves readily allow; then it is absolutely
   impossible for thinking to belong to matter, because thinking, as has been
   before shown, cannot possibly arise from any modification or composition of
   any or all of these qualities. But if any man will say that our idea of
   matter is wrong, and that by matter he will not here mean, as in all other
   cases, a solid substance, capable only of division, figure, and motion, with
   all the possible effects of their several compositions, but that he means
   substance in general, capable of thinking and of numberless unknown
   properties besides; then he trifles only in putting an ambiguous
   signification upon the word matter, where he ought to use the word
   substance. And, in that sense, to suppose thinking, or any other active
   property, possible to be in matter, as signifying only substance in general,
   of whose powers and capacities we have no certain idea, would make nothing
   at all to the present purpose, in our adversaries’ advantage, and is at
   least not a clearer and more intelligible way of talking than to attribute
   the same properties to an immaterial substance, and keep the idea of matter
   and its properties clear and distinct. For I affirm,

   3dly. That if thinking and willing were qualities of matter, yet
   nevertheless liberty might be possible. That even supposing (in these men’s
   confused way,) that the soul was really not a distinct substance from body,
   but that thinking and willing could be, and were indeed only qualities or
   affections of matter; yet even this would not at all affect the present
   question about liberty, nor prove freedom of will to be an impossible thing.
   For, since it has been already demonstrated, that thinking and willing
   cannot possibly be effects or compositions of figure and motion, whosoever
   will make thinking and willing to be qualities or affections of matter must
   suppose matter capable of certain properties entirely different from figure
   and motion. And if it be capable of properties entirely different from
   figure and motion, then it can never be proved, from the effects of figure
   and motion being all necessary, that the effects of other and totally
   distinct properties must likewise be necessary.

   Mr Hobbes, A shameful fallacy of Mr. Hobbes and his followers. therefore,
   and his followers, are guilty of a most shameful fallacy in that very
   argument, wherein they place their main and chief strength: for, supposing
   matter to be capable of thinking and willing, they contend that the soul is
   mere matter; and, knowing that the effects of figure and motion must needs
   be all necessary, they conclude that the operations of the mind must all
   therefore be necessary; that is, when they would prove the soul to be mere
   matter, then they suppose matter capable not only of figure and motion, but
   also of other unknown properties: and, when they would prove the will, and
   all other operations of the soul to be necessary, then they divest matter
   again of all its unknown properties, and make it mere solidity, indued only
   with figure and motion again. Wherefore, distinguishing their ambiguous and
   confused use of the word matter, they are unavoidably reduced to one of
   these two concessions: If, by matter, they mean a solid substance indued
   only with figure and motion, and all the possible effects of the variations
   and compositions of these qualities, then the soul cannot be mere matter,
   because, (as Mr. Hobbes himself confesses) figure and motion can never
   produce any thing but figure and motion; [82] and consequently (as hath been
   before demonstrated,) they can never produce so much as any secondary
   quality,—sound, colour, and the like,—much less thinking and reasoning; from
   whence it follows, that the soul being unavoidably a substance immaterial,
   they have no argument left to prove that it cannot have a power of beginning
   motion, which is a plain instance of liberty: But if, on the other hand,
   they will by matter mean substance in general, capable of unknown
   properties, totally different from figure and motion, then they must no
   longer argue against the possibility of liberty, from the effects of figure
   and motion being all unavoidably necessary, because liberty will not consist
   in the effects of figure and motion, but in those other unknown properties
   of matter, which these men can no more explain or argue about than about
   immaterial substances. The truth therefore is, they must needs suppose
   thinking to be merely an effect or composition of figure and motion, if they
   will give any strength to their arguments against liberty; and then the
   question will be, not whether God can make matter think or no, (for in that
   question they only trifle with a word, abusing the word matter, to signify
   substance in general,) but the question will be, Whether figure and motion,
   in any composition or division, can possibly be perception and thought;
   which (as has been before said) is just such a question as if a man should
   ask, Whether it be possible that a triangle should be a sound, or a globe a
   colour. The sum is this, if the soul be an immaterial substance, (as it must
   needs be, if we have any true idea of the nature and properties of matter;)
   then Mr Hobbes’ arguments against the possibility of liberty, drawn all from
   the properties of matter, are vain, and nothing to the purpose; but if our
   adversaries will be so absurd as to contend that the soul is nothing but
   mere matter, then, either by matter they must understand substance in
   general,—substance indued with unknown powers, with active as well as
   passive properties, which is confounding and taking away our idea of matter,
   and at the same time destroying all their own arguments against liberty,
   which they have founded wholly on the known properties of matter, or else
   they must speak out, (as they really mean,) that thinking and willing are
   nothing but effects and compositions of figure and motion, which I have
   already shown to be a contradiction in terms.

   There are some other arguments against the possibility of liberty, which
   men, by attempting to answer, have made to appear considerable; when in
   reality they are altogether beside the question. As for instance, those
   drawn from the necessity of the will’s being determined by the last judgment
   of the understanding; and from the certainty of the divine prescience.

   As to the Of the will being necessarily determined by the last judgment of
   the understanding. former, viz. the necessity of the will’s being determined
   by the last judgment of the understanding: This is only a necessity upon
   supposition; that is to say, a necessity that a man should will a thing,
   when it is supposed that he does will it; just as if one should affirm, that
   every thing which is, is therefore necessary to be, because, when it is, it
   cannot but be. It is exactly the same kind of argument, as that by which the
   true church is proved to be infallible, because truth cannot err; and they
   who are in the right cannot possibly, while they are so, be in the wrong.
   Thus, whatever a man at any time freely wills or does, it is evident (even
   upon supposition of the most perfect liberty,) that he cannot (at that time)
   but will or do it, because it is impossible any thing should be willed and
   not willed, (whether it be freely or necessarily,) or that it should be done
   and not done, at the same time. The necessity therefore of the will’s being
   determined by the last judgment of the understanding, is (I say) only a
   necessity upon supposition,—a necessity that a man should will a thing, when
   it is supposed that he does will it. For the last judgment of the
   understanding is nothing else but a man’s final determining, (after more or
   less consideration,) either to choose or not to choose a thing; that is, it
   is the very same with the act of volition. Or else, if the act of volition
   be distinguished from the last judgment of the understanding, then the act
   of volition, or rather the beginning of action, consequent upon the last
   judgment of the understanding, is not determined or caused by that last
   judgment, as by the physical efficient, but only as the moral motive. For
   the true, proper, immediate, physical efficient cause of action is the power
   of self-motion in men, which exerts itself freely in consequence of the last
   judgment of the understanding. But the last judgment of the understanding is
   not itself a physical efficient, but merely a moral motive, upon which the
   physical efficient or motive power begins to act. The necessity, therefore,
   by which the power of acting follows the judgment of the understanding, is
   only a moral necessity, that is, no necessity at all, in the sense wherein
   the opposers of liberty understand necessity, for moral necessity is
   evidently consistent with the most perfect natural liberty. For instance, a
   man entirely free from all pain of body and disorder of mind, judges it
   unreasonable for him to hurt or destroy himself; and, being under no
   temptation or external violence, he cannot possibly act contrary to this
   judgment, not because he wants a natural or physical power so to do, but
   because it is absurd and mischievous, and morally impossible for him to
   choose to do it; which also is the very reason why the most perfect rational
   creatures, superior to men, cannot do evil, not because they want a natural
   power to perform the material action, but because it is morally impossible,
   that, with a perfect knowledge of what is best, and without any temptation
   to evil, their will should determine itself to choose to act foolishly and
   unreasonably. Here, therefore, seems at last really to lie the fundamental
   error both of those who argue against the liberty of the will, and of those
   who but too confusedly defend it; they do not make a clear distinction
   between moral motives and causes physically efficient, which two things have
   no similitude at all. Lastly, if the maintainers of fate shall allege, that,
   after all, they think a man, free from all pain of body and disorder of
   mind, is under not only a moral but also a natural impossibility of hurting
   or destroying himself, because neither his judgment nor his will, without
   some impulse external to both, can any more possibly be determined to any
   action, than one body can begin to move, without being impelled by another:
   I answer, this is forsaking the argument drawn from the necessity of the
   will’s following the understanding, and recurs to the former argument of the
   absolute impossibility of there being anywhere a first principle of motion
   at all, which has been abundantly answered already.

   Some ingenious and able writers have spoken with much confusedness upon this
   head, by mistaking (as it seems to me) the subject of the question, and
   wherein the nature of liberty consists.

   For it being evident, that a free agent cannot choose whether he shall have
   a will or no will,—that is, whether he shall be what he is, or no; but (the
   two contradictories of acting or not acting, being always necessarily before
   him,) he must of necessity, and essentially to his being a free agent,
   perpetually will one of these two things, either to act or to forbear
   acting: this has raised in the minds, even of some considerate persons,
   great doubts concerning the possibility of liberty.

   But this difficulty (if it be any difficulty,) arises merely from not
   apprehending rightly what liberty is. For the essence of liberty
   consists—not in the agent’s choosing whether he shall have a will or no
   will; that is, whether he shall be at all an agent, or no; whether he shall
   be what he is, or no; but it consists in his being an agent, that is, in his
   having a continual power of choosing, whether he shall act, or whether he
   shall forbear acting: Which power of agency or free choice, (for these are
   precisely identical terms and a necessary agent is an express
   contradiction,) is not at all prevented by chains or prisons; for a man who
   chooses to endeavour to move out of his place is therein as much a free
   agent as he that actually moves out of his place. Nor is this free agency at
   all diminished by the impossibility of his choosing two contradictories at
   once; or by the necessity that one of two contradictories must always be
   done. A man that sits, whether he be or be not a free agent, cannot possibly
   both sit and rise up at the same time; nor can he possibly choose both to
   act and not to act at the same time. Not, for want of freedom, but because
   the exercise of that very freedom, his freely choosing the one, does itself
   necessarily make the contrary to be at that time impossible. Nor does
   freedom of will in any manner suppose a power, in the agent, of choosing
   whether he shall will at all, or no. For a free agent may be, and indeed
   essentially every free agent must be, necessarily free; that is, has it not
   in his power not to be free.

   God is, by necessity of nature, a free agent; and he can no more possibly
   cease to be so, than he can cease to exist. He must of necessity, every
   moment, either choose to act or choose to forbear acting; because two
   contradictories cannot possibly be true at once: But which of these two he
   shall choose, in this he is at perfect liberty; and to suppose him not to be
   so, is contradictorily supposing him not to be the first cause, but to be
   acted by some superior power, so as to be himself no agent at all.

   Man also is, by necessity, (not in the nature of things, but through God’s
   appointment) a free agent: And it is no otherwise in his power to cease to
   be such than by depriving himself of life.

   The necessity therefore of continually choosing one of the two, either to
   act or to forbear acting; (which necessity, nothing but a free agent can
   possibly be capable of; for necessary agents, as they are called, can
   neither chose to act, nor to forbear acting; they being indeed no agents at
   all:) the necessity, I say, of continually choosing one of the two, either
   to act or to forbear acting, is not inconsistent with, or an argument
   against, liberty; but is itself the very essence of liberty.

   The other argument The certainty of divine fore-knowledge not inconsistent
   with the liberty of men's actions. which I said has also frequently been
   urged against the possibility of liberty, is the certainty of the divine
   prescience. But this also is entirely besides the question. For if there be
   no other arguments, by which it can be proved antecedently, that all actions
   are necessary, it is certain it can never be made to appear to follow, from
   prescience alone, that they must be so. That is, if upon other accounts
   there be no impossibility, but that the actions of men may be free; the bare
   certainty of the divine fore-knowledge can never be proved to destroy that
   freedom, or make any alteration in the nature of men’s actions: and
   consequently the certainty of prescience, separated from other arguments, is
   altogether besides the question concerning liberty. As to the other
   arguments usually intermingled with this question, they have all, I think,
   been answered already. And now, that the bare certainty of the divine
   fore-knowledge (if upon other accounts there be no impossibility for the
   actions of men to be free,) can never be proved to destroy that freedom, is
   very evident. For bare fore-knowledge has no influence at all in any
   respect; nor affects, in any measure, the manner of the existence of any
   thing. All that the greatest opposers of liberty have ever urged, or can
   urge, upon this head, amounts only to this; that fore-knowledge implies
   certainty, and certainty implies necessity. But neither is it true, that
   certainty implies necessity; neither does fore-knowledge imply any other
   certainty, than such a certainty only as would be equally in things, though
   there was no fore-knowledge.

   For (1st.) The certainty of fore-knowledge does not cause the certainty of
   things, but is itself founded on the reality of their existence. Whatever
   now is, it is certain that it is; and it was yesterday and from eternity as
   certainly true, that the thing would be to-day as it is now certain that it
   is. And this certainty of event is equally the same, whether it be supposed
   that the thing could be fore-known or not. For whatever at any time is, it
   was certainly true from eternity, as to the event, that that thing would be:
   and this certain truth of every future event would not at all have been the
   less, though there had been no such thing as fore-knowledge. Bare
   prescience, therefore, has no influence at all upon any thing; nor
   contributes, in the least, towards the making it necessary. We may
   illustrate this in some measure by the comparison of our own knowledge. We
   know certainly that some things are; and when we know that they are, they
   cannot but be: yet it is evident our knowledge does not at all affect the
   things, to make them more necessary or more certain. Now fore-knowledge in
   God is the very same as knowledge. All things are to him-as if they were
   equally present, to all the purposes of knowledge and power. He knows
   perfectly every thing that is: and he knows whatever shall be, in the same
   manner as he knows what is. As, therefore, knowledge has no influence on
   things that are; so neither has fore-knowledge on things that shall be. It
   is true, the manner how God can foresee future things, without a chain of
   necessary causes, is impossible for us to explain distinctly: though some
   sort of general notion we may conceive of it. For, as a man who has no
   influence over another person’s actions, can yet often perceive before-hand
   what that other will do; and a wiser and more experienced man, still with
   greater probability foresee what another, whose disposition he is perfectly
   acquainted with, will in certain circumstances do; and an angel, with still
   much less degrees of error, may have a further prospect into men’s future
   actions; so it is very reasonable to apprehend that God, without influencing
   men’s wills by his power, yet by his foresight cannot but have as much
   certainer a knowledge of future free events, than either men or angels can
   possibly have, as the perfection of his nature is greater than that of
   theirs. The distinct manner how he foresees these things is indeed
   impossible for us to explain: But so also are numberless other things, which
   yet no man doubts the truth of. And if there were any strength in this
   argument, it would prove, not against liberty, but against prescience
   itself. For if these two things were really inconsistent, and one of them
   must be destroyed, the introducing an absolute and universal fatality, which
   evidently destroys all religion and morality, would tend more of the two to
   the dishonour of God, than the denying him a fore knowledge, which upon this
   supposition would be impossible, and imply a contradiction to conceive him
   to have; and the denying of which would in such case be no more a diminution
   of his omniscience, than the denying him the power of working
   contradictions, is taking away his omnipotence. But the case is not thus.
   For though we cannot indeed clearly and distinctly explain the manner of
   God’s foreseeing the actions of free agents, yet thus much we know, that the
   bare fore-knowledge of any action that would upon all other accounts be
   free, cannot alter or diminish that freedom, it being evident that
   fore-knowledge adds no other certainty to any thing, than what it would
   equally have though there was no fore-knowledge. Unless therefore we be
   antecedently certain that nothing can possibly be free; and that liberty is
   in itself absolutely an inconsistent and contradictory notion, (as I have
   above shown that it is not,) bare fore-knowledge, which makes no alteration
   at all in any thing, will not be any way inconsistent with liberty; how
   great difficulty soever there may be in comprehending the manner of such
   fore-knowledge. For if liberty be in itself possible, the bare foresight of
   a free action before it be done, is nothing different (to any purpose in the
   present question,) from a simple knowledge of it, when it is done: both
   these kinds of knowledge, implying plainly a certainty only of the event,
   (which would be the same though there was no such knowledge;) and not at all
   any necessity of the thing.

   For (2dly,) as fore-knowledge implies not any other certainty than such as
   would be equally in things, though there was no fore-knowledge; so neither
   does this certainty of event in any sort imply necessity. For let a fatalist
   suppose, (what he does not yet grant,) that there was in man, (as we
   assert,) a power of beginning motion, that is, of acting freely; and let him
   suppose further, if he please, that those actions could not possibly be
   fore-known; will there not yet, notwithstanding this supposition, be in the
   nature of things the same certainty of event in every one of the man’s
   actions, as if they were never so fatal and necessary? For instance; suppose
   the man, by an internal principle of motion, and an absolute freedom of
   will, without any external cause or impulse at all, does some particular
   action to-day; and suppose it was not possible that this action should have
   been foreseen yesterday; was there not nevertheless the same certainty of
   event as if it had been foreseen? That is; would it not, notwithstanding the
   supposed freedom, have been as certain a truth yesterday and from eternity,
   that this action was an event to be performed to-day, (though supposed never
   so impossible to have been fore-known,) as it is now a certain and
   infallible truth that it is performed? Mere certainty of event, therefore,
   does not in any measure imply necessity: and consequently fore-knowledge,
   however difficult to be explained as to the manner of it, yet, (since it is
   manifest it implies no other certainty but only that certainty of event
   which the thing would equally have without being fore-known,) it is evident
   that it also implies no necessity.

   And now having, as I hope, sufficiently proved both the possibility and the
   real existence of liberty, I shall, from what has been said on this head,
   draw only this one inference, that hereby we are enabled to answer that
   ancient and great question, [Pothen to kakon:] What is the cause and
   original of evil? For liberty implying a natural power of doing evil, as
   well as good; and the imperfect nature of finite beings making it possible
   for them to abuse this their liberty to an actual commission of evil; and it
   being necessary to the order and beauty of the whole, and for displaying the
   infinite wisdom of the Creator, that there should be different and various
   degrees of creatures, whereof consequently some must be less perfect than
   others; hence there necessarily arises a possibility of evil,
   notwithstanding that the Creator is infinitely good. In short, thus: All
   that we call evil is either an evil of imperfection, as the want of certain
   faculties and excellencies which other creatures have; or natural evil, as
   pain, death, and the like; or moral evil, as all kinds of vice. The first of
   these is not properly an evil; for every power, faculty, or perfection,
   which any creature enjoys, being the free gift of God, which he was no more
   obliged to bestow than he was to confer being or existence itself, it is
   plain the want of any certain faculty or perfection in any kind of
   creatures, which never belonged to their nature, is no more an evil to them
   than their never having been created or brought into being at all, could
   properly have been called an evil. The second kind of evil, which we call
   natural evil, is either a necessary consequence of the former, as death to a
   creature on whose nature immortality was never conferred, and then it is no
   more properly an evil than the former; or else it is counterpoised in the
   whole, with as great or greater good as the afflictions and sufferings of
   good men, and then also it is not properly an evil; or else, lastly,—it is a
   punishment, and then it is a necessary consequent of the third and last sort
   of evil, viz. moral evil. And this arises wholly from the abuse of liberty,
   which God gave to his creatures for other purposes, and which it was
   reasonable and fit to give them for the perfection and order of the whole
   creation; only they, contrary to God’s intention and command, have abused
   what was necessary for the perfection of the whole, to the corruption and
   depravation of themselves. And thus all sorts of evils have entered into the
   world, without any diminution to the infinite goodness of the creator and
   governor thereof.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [69]


   —Si immortalis natura animæ est,

   Et sentire potest secreta a corpore nostro;

   Quinque (ut opinor) eam faciendum est sensibus auctam:

   Nec ratione alia nosmet proponere nobis,

   Possumus infernas animas Acheronte vagare.

   Pictores itaque; et scriptorum secla priora.

   Sic animas introduxerunt sensibus auctas.

   At neque seorsum oculi, &c.—

   Nec sensus ipsi seorsum consistere possunt

   Naribus atque manu, atque oculis, atque auribus, atque

   Lingua; nec per se possunt sentire, nec esse.
   Lucret. lib. 3. Osōn gar estin archōn energeia hē sōmatikē dēlon hoti tautas
   aneu sōmatos adunaton husarchein hoion badizein aneu podōn.—Aristot.

   [70] Has tamen imagines [mortuorum,] loqui volebant; quod fieri nec sine
   lingua, nec sine palato, nec sine faucium, laterum, pulmonum vi et figura
   potest. Nihil enim animo, (speaking of such as attributed to spirits the
   same power, and senses only, as they saw men indued with in this present
   state,) videre poterant: ad oculos omnia referebant. Magni autem ingenii
   est, revocare mentem a sensibus, et cogitationem a consuetudine
   abducere.—Cicero Tuscul. Qu. 1.

   [71] Quicunque unquam effectus productus sit, productus est a causa
   necessaria. Nam quod productum est, causam habuit integram, hoc est, omnia
   ea quibus suppositis effectum non sequi intelligi non possit: ea vera causa
   necessaria est.—Hobbes Philosophia prima, cap. 9.

   [72] Corpus motum vel quiescens, ad motum vel quietem determinari debuit ab
   alio corpore, quod etiam ad motum vel quietem determinatum fuit ab alio, et
   illud iterum ab alio, et sic in infinitum.—Spinoza Ethic. par. II. prop. 13.
   lemma 3.

   [73] Unaquæque volitio non potest existere, neque ad operandum determinari,
   nisi ab alia causa determinetur, et hæc rursus ab alia, et sic porro in
   infinitum.—Id Ethic. par. I. prop. 32. demonstr. I conceive nothing taketh
   beginning from itself, but from the action of some immediate agent without
   itself; and that therefore, when first a man had an appetite or will to
   something, to which, immediately before, he had no appetite or will, the
   cause of his will is not the will itself, but something else not in his own
   disposing.—Hobbes’s Debate with Bishop Bramhall, p. 289. In mente nulla est
   absoluta sive libera voluntas; sed mens ad hoc vel illud volendum
   determinatur a causa, quæ etiam ab alia determinata est, et hæc iterum ab
   alio, et sic in infinitum.—Spinoza, Ethic. par. II. prop. 48.

   [74] Hinc sequitur, Deum non operari ex libertate voluntatis.—Ethic. par. I.
   coroll. ad prop. 32.

   [75] Ex quo intelligitur, sensionis immediatam causam esse in eo, quod
   sensionis organum primum et tangit et premit. Si enim organi pars extima
   prematur; illa cedente, premetur quoque pars quæ versus interiora illi
   proxima est; et ita propagabitur pressio, sive motus ille, per partes organi
   omnes, usque ad intimam.—Quoniam autem motui ab objecto per media ad organi
   partem intimam propagato, fit aliqua totius organi resistentia sive reactio,
   per motum ipsius organi internum naturalem; fit propterea conatui ab
   objecto, conatus ab organo contrarius. Ut, cù m conatus ille ad intima,
   ultimus actus sit eorum qui fiunt in actu sensionis; tum demum ex ea
   reactione aliquandiu durante, ipsum existant phantasma; quod, propter
   conatum versus externa, semper videtur tanquam aliquid situm extra
   organum.—Hobbes de Sensione et Motu Animali.

   [76] Phantasma est sentiendi actus.—Id. Ibid.

   [77] Causa sensionis est externum corpus sive objectum quod premit organum
   proprium; et premendo, (mediantibus nervis et membranis,) continuum efficit
   motum introrsum ad cerebrum et inde ad cor; unde nascitur cordis resistentia
   et contra-pressio seu antitupia, sive conatus cordis liberantis se a
   pressione per motum tendentem extrorsum; qui motus propterea apparet tanquam
   aliquid externum: atque apparitio hæc, sive phantasma, est id quod vocamus
   sensionem.—Leviathan. cap. 1.

   [78] Quæ qualitates omnes nominari solent sensibiles, et sunt in ipso
   objecto nihil aliud præter materiæ motum, quo objectum in organa sensuum
   diversimode operatur. Neque in nobis aliud sunt, quam diversi motus. Motus
   enim nihil generat præter motum.—Leviathan, cap. 1.

   [79] See Four Defences of a letter to Mr. Dodwell.

   [80] Scio fuisse philosophos quosdam, eosdemque viros doctos, qui corpora
   omnia sensu prædita esse sustinuerunt. Nec video, si natura sensionis in
   reactione sola collocaretur, quomodo refutari possint. Sed etsi, ex
   reactione etiam corporum aliorum, phantasma aliquod nasceretur, illud tamen,
   remoto objecto, statim cessaret. Nam nisi ad retinendum motum impressum,
   etiam remoto objecto, apta habeant organa, ut habent animalia; ita tantum
   sentient, ut nunquam sensisse se recordentur.—Sensioni ergo, quæ vulgo ita
   appellatur, necessario adhæret memoria aliqua, &c.—Hobbes’ Physic. cap. 24,
   sec. 5. See also No. 2 and 11 of the Appendix to a collection of papers
   which passed between Mr Leibnitz and Dr Clarke.

   [81] Itaque et sensioni adhæret proprie dictæ, ut ei aliqua insita sit
   perpetua phantasmatum varietas; ita ut aliud ab alio discerni possit. Si
   supponemus enim esse hominem, oculis quidem claris, cæterisque videndi
   organis recte se habentibus compositum, nullo autem alio sensu præditum,
   eumque ad eandem rem eodem semper colore et specie sine ulla vel minima
   varietate apparentem obversum esse; mihi certe, quicquid dicant alii, non
   videre videretur.—Attonitum esse, et fortasse aspectare eum, sed stupentem
   dicerem, videre non dicerem. Adeo sentire semper idem, et non sentire, ad
   idem recidunt.—Id. Ibid.

   [82] Motus nihil generat præter motum.—Leviath. cap. 1.
     _________________________________________________________________

   XI. Proposition XI. That the supreme cause and author of all things must of
   necessity be infinitely wise. The supreme cause and author of all things
   must of necessity be infinitely wise. This proposition is evidently
   consequent upon those that have already been proved; and those being
   established, this, as admitting no further dispute, needs not to be largely
   insisted upon. For nothing is more evident than that an infinite,
   omnipresent, intelligent being, must know perfectly all things that are; and
   that he who alone is self-existent and eternal, the sole cause and author of
   all things, from whom alone all the powers of all things are derived, and on
   whom they continually depend, must also know perfectly all the consequences
   of those powers, that is, all possibilities of things to come, and what in
   every respect is best and wisest to be done: And that, having infinite
   power, he can never be controlled or prevented from doing what he so knows
   to be fittest. From all which, it manifestly follows, that every effect of
   the supreme cause must be the product of infinite wisdom: More particularly;
   the supreme being, because he is infinite, must be everywhere present; and
   because he is an infinite mind or intelligence, therefore wherever he is,
   his knowledge is, which is inseparable from his being, and must therefore be
   infinite likewise; and wherever his infinite knowledge is, it must
   necessarily have a full and perfect prospect of all things, and nothing can
   be concealed from its inspection: he includes and surrounds every thing with
   his boundless presence, and penetrates every part of their substance with
   his all-seeing eye: so that the inmost nature and essence of all things are
   perfectly naked and open to his view, and even the deepest thoughts of
   intelligent beings themselves manifest in his sight. Further, all things
   being not only present to him, but also entirely depending upon him, and
   having received both their being itself and all their powers and faculties
   from him; it is manifest that, as he knows all things that are, so he must
   likewise know all possibilities of things, that is, all effects that can be.
   For, being himself alone self-existent, and having alone given to all things
   all the powers and faculties they are indued with; it is evident he must of
   necessity know perfectly what all and each of those powers and faculties,
   which are derived wholly from himself, can possibly produce: and seeing, at
   one boundless view, all the possible compositions and divisions, variations
   and changes, circumstances and dependences of things; all their possible
   relations one to another, and their dispositions or fitnesses to certain and
   respective ends,—he must, without possibility of error, know exactly what is
   best and properest in every one of the infinite possible cases or methods of
   disposing things; and understand perfectly how to order and direct the
   respective means, to bring about what he so knows to be, in its kind, or in
   the whole, the best and fittest in the end. This is what we mean by infinite
   wisdom. And having before shown, (which indeed is also evident of itself,)
   that the supreme cause is moreover all-powerful; so that he can no more be
   prevented by force or opposition, than he can be hindered by error or
   mistake, from effecting always what is absolutely fittest and wisest to be
   done: it follows undeniably, that he is actually and effectually, in the
   highest and most complete sense, infinitely wise; and that the world, and
   all things therein, must be and are effects of infinite wisdom. This is
   demonstration à priori. The proof à posteriori, of the infinite wisdom of
   God, from the consideration of the exquisite perfection and consummate
   excellency of his works, is no less strong and undeniable. But I shall not
   enlarge upon this argument; because it has often already been accurately and
   strongly urged, to the everlasting shame and confusion of the atheists, by
   the ablest and learnedest writers both of ancient and modern times. See
   Galen de Usu Partium; Tully de Natura Deorum; Boyle, of Final Causes; MrRay,
   of the Wisdom of God in the Creation; Mr Derham’s Physico-Theology. &c. I
   shall here observe only this one thing; that the older the world grows, and
   the deeper men inquire into things, and the more accurate observations they
   make, and the more and greater discoveries they find out, the stronger this
   argument continually grows; which is a certain evidence of its being founded
   in truth. [83] If Galen, so many ages since, could find, in the construction
   and constitution of the parts of a human body, such undeniable marks of
   contrivance and design as forced him then to acknowledge and admire the
   wisdom of its author; what would he have said, if he had known the late
   discoveries in anatomy and physic, the circulation of the blood, the exact
   structure of the heart and brain, the uses of numberless glands and valves
   for the secretion and motion of the juices in the body, besides several
   veins and other vessels and receptacles not at all known, or so much as
   imagined to have any existence in his days; but which now are discovered to
   serve the wisest and most exquisite ends imaginable! If the arguments
   against the belief of the being of an all-wise creator and governor of the
   world, which Epicurus, and his follower Lucretius, drew from the faults
   which they imagined they could find in the frame and constitution of the
   earth, were so poor and inconsiderable, that, even in that in fancy of
   natural philosophy, the generality of men contemned and despised them as of
   no force; how would they have been ashamed if they had lived in these days,
   when those very things which they thought to be faults and blunders in the
   constitution of nature, are discovered to be very useful, and of exceeding
   benefit to the preservation and well-being of the whole? And to mention no
   more: If Tully, from the partial and very imperfect knowledge in astronomy,
   which his times afforded, could be so confident of the heavenly bodies being
   disposed and moved by a wise and understanding mind, as to declare that, in
   his opinion, whoever asserted the contrary, was himself [84] void of all
   understanding; what would he have said if he had known the modern
   discoveries in astronomy?—the immense greatness of the world, (I mean that
   part of it which falls under our observation,) which is now known to be as
   much greater than what in his time they imagined it to be, as the world
   itself, according to their system, was greater than Archimedes’s sphere?—the
   exquisite regularity of all the planets’ motions, without epicycles,
   stations, retrogradations, or any other deviation or confusion
   whatsoever?—the inexpressible nicety of the adjustment of the primary
   velocity and original direction of the annual motion of the planets, with
   their distance from the central body and their force of gravitation towards
   it?—the wonderful proportion of the diurnal motion of the earth and other
   planets about their own centres, for the distinction of light and darkness,
   without that monstrously disproportionate whirling of the whole heavens
   which the ancient astronomers were forced to suppose?—the exact
   accommodating of the densities of the planets [85] to their distances from
   the sun, and consequently to the proportion of heat which each of them is to
   bear respectively; so that neither those which are nearest the sun are
   destroyed by the heat, nor those which are farthest off, by the cold; but
   each one enjoys a temperature suited to its proper uses, as the earth to
   ours?—the admirable order, number, and usefulness of the several moons, (as
   I may very properly call them,) never dreamt of by antiquity, but now by the
   help of telescopes clearly and distinctly seen to move about their
   respective planets, and whose motions are so exactly known, that their very
   eclipses are as certainly calculated and foretold as those of our own
   moon?—the strange adjustment of our moon’s motion about its own centre once
   in a month, with its motion about the earth in the same period of time, to
   such a degree of exactness, that by that means the same face is always
   obverted to the earth without any sensible variation?—the wonderful motions
   of the comets, which are now known to be as exact, regular, and periodical,
   as the motions of other planets?—lastly,—the preservation of the several
   systems, and of the several planets and comets in the same system, from
   falling upon each other, which, in infinite past time, (had there been no
   intelligent governor of the whole,) could not but have been the effect of
   the smallest possible resistance made by the finest æther, and even by the
   rays of light themselves, to the motions (supposing it possible there ever
   could have been any motions) of those bodies?—what (I say,) would Tully,
   that great master of reason, have thought and said, if these and other newly
   discovered instances of the inexpressible accuracy and wisdom of the works
   of God, had been found out and known in his time? Certainly atheism, which
   then was altogether unable to withstand the arguments drawn from this topic,
   must now, upon the additional strength of these later observations, (which
   are every one an unanswerable proof of the incomprehensible wisdom of the
   Creator,) be utterly ashamed to show its head. We now see, with how great
   reason the author of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, after he had described the
   beauty of the sun and stars, and all the then visible works of God in heaven
   and earth, concluded, chap. xliii, v. 32, (as we, after all the discoveries
   of later ages, may, no doubt, still truly say,) “There are yet hid greater
   things than these, and we have seen but a few of his works.”
     _________________________________________________________________

   [83] Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturæ judicia confirmat.—Cic.

   [84] Cœlestem ergo admirabilem ordinem incredibilemque constantiam, ex qua
   conservatio et salus omnium omnis oritur, qui vacare mente putat; is ipse
   mentis expers habendus est.—De Natura Deorum, lib. 2.

   [85] Planetarum densitates fere sunt, ut radices diametrorum apparentium
   applicatæ ad diametros veros, hoc est, reciproce ut distantiæ planetarum a
   sole, ductæ in radices diametrorum apparentium. Collocavit igitur Deus
   planetas in diversis distantiis a sole, ut quilibet, pro gradu densitatis,
   calore solis majore vel minore fruatur.—Newton. Princip. lib. 3, prop. 8.
     _________________________________________________________________

   XII. Proposition XII. The supreme author of all things must be infinitely
   good, just, and true. Lastly; the supreme cause and author of all things
   must of necessity be a being of infinite goodness, justice, and truth, and
   all other moral perfections, such as become the supreme governor and judge
   of the world. That there are different relations of things one towards
   another, is as certain as that there are different things in the world. That
   from these different relations of different things there necessarily arises
   an agreement or disagreement of some things to others, or a fitness or
   unfitness of the application of different things or different relations, one
   to another, is likewise as certain as that there is any difference in the
   nature of things, or that different things do exist. Further, that there is
   a fitness or suitableness of certain circumstances to certain persons, and
   an unsuitableness of others, founded in the nature of things and in the
   qualifications of persons, antecedent to will and to all arbitrary or
   positive appointment whatsoever, must unavoidably be acknowledged by every
   one who will not affirm that it is equally fit and suitable, in the nature
   and reason of things, that an innocent being should be extremely and
   eternally miserable as that it should be free from such misery. There is,
   therefore, such a thing as fitness and unfitness, eternally, necessarily,
   and unchangeably in the nature and reason of things. Now, what these
   relations of things, absolutely and necessarily are in themselves; that also
   they appear to be, to the understanding of all intelligent beings except
   those only who understand things to be what they are not, that is, whose
   understandings are either very imperfect or very much depraved; and by this
   understanding or knowledge of the natural and necessary relations of things,
   the actions likewise of all intelligent beings are constantly directed,
   (which, by the way, is the true ground and foundation of all morality,)
   unless their will be corrupted by particular interest or affection, or
   swayed by some unreasonable and prevailing lust. The supreme cause,
   therefore, and author of all things, since (as has already been proved,) he
   must of necessity have infinite knowledge, and the perfection of wisdom, so
   that it is absolutely impossible he should err, or be in any respect
   ignorant of the true relations and fitness or unfitness of things, or be by
   any means deceived or imposed upon herein; and since he is likewise
   self-existent, absolutely independent and all-powerful; so that, having no
   want of any thing, it is impossible his will should be influenced by any
   wrong affection, and having no dependence, it is impossible his power should
   be limited by any superior strength,—it is evident he must of necessity,
   (meaning, not a necessity of fate, but such a moral necessity as I before
   said was consistent with the most perfect liberty,) do always what he knows
   to be fittest to be done; that is, he must act always according to the
   strictest rules of infinite goodness, justice, and truth, and all other
   moral perfections. In particular, the supreme cause must, in the first
   place, be infinitely good; that is, he must have an unalterable disposition
   to do and to communicate good or happiness; because, being himself
   necessarily happy in the eternal enjoyment of his own infinite perfections,
   he cannot possibly have any other motives to make any creatures at all, but
   only that he may communicate to them his own perfections, according to their
   different capacities, arising from that variety of natures which it was fit
   for infinite wisdom to produce; and according to their different
   improvements, arising from that liberty which is essentially necessary to
   the constitution of intelligent and active beings. That he must be
   infinitely good, appears likewise further from hence; that, being
   necessarily all-sufficient, he must consequently be infinitely removed from
   all malice and envy, and from all other possible causes or temptations of
   doing evil, which, it is evident, can only be effects of want and weakness,
   of imperfection or depravation. Again, the supreme cause and author of all
   things, must in like manner be infinitely just; because, the rule of equity
   being nothing else but the very nature of things, and their necessary
   relations one to another; and the execution of justice being nothing else
   but a suiting the circumstances of things to the qualifications of persons,
   according to the original fitness and agreeableness which I have before
   shown to be necessarily in nature, antecedent to will and to all positive
   appointment, it is manifest that he who knows perfectly this rule of equity,
   and necessarily judges of things as they are; who has complete power to
   execute justice according to that knowledge, and no possible temptation to
   deviate in the least therefrom; who can neither be imposed upon by any
   deceit, nor swayed by any bias, nor awed by any power,—must, of necessity,
   do always that which is right, without iniquity, and without partiality;
   without prejudice, and without respect of persons. Lastly, that the supreme
   cause and author of all things must be true and faithful, in all his
   declarations and all his promises, is most evident. For the only possible
   reason of falsifying, is either rashness or forgetfulness, inconstancy or
   impotency, fear of evil, or hope of gain; from all which [86] an infinitely
   wise, all-sufficient, and good being must of necessity be infinitely
   removed; and consequently, as it is impossible for him to be deceived
   himself, so neither is it possible for him in anywise to deceive others. In
   a word, all evil and all imperfections whatsoever arise plainly either from
   shortness of understanding, defect of power, or faultiness of will; and this
   last, evidently from some impotency, corruption, or depravation; being
   nothing else but a direct choosing to act contrary to the known reason and
   nature of things. From all which, it being manifest that the supreme cause
   and author of all things cannot but be infinitely removed, it follows
   undeniably that he must of necessity be a being of infinite goodness,
   justice, and truth, and all other moral perfections.

   To this argumentation a priori, there can be opposed but one objection that
   I know of drawn on the contrary, a posteriori, from experience and
   observation of the unequal distributions of providence in the world. But
   (besides the just vindication of the wisdom and goodness of providence in
   its dispensations, even with respect to this present world only, which
   Plutarch and other heathen writers have judiciously made,) the objection
   itself is entirely wide of the question. For, concerning the justice and
   goodness of God, (as of any governor whatsoever,) no judgment is to be made
   from a partial view of a few small portions of his dispensations, but from
   an entire consideration of the whole; and, consequently, not only the short
   duration of this present state, but moreover all that is past and that is
   still to come, must be taken into the account; and then every thing will
   clearly appear just and right.

   From this account of the moral attributes of God, it follows:

   1st. The necessity of God’s moral attributes consistent with perfect
   liberty. That though all the actions of God are entirely free, and
   consequently the exercise of his moral attributes cannot be said to be
   necessary, in the same sense of necessity as his existence and eternity are
   necessary; yet these moral attributes are really and truly necessary, by
   such a necessity, as, though it be not at all inconsistent with liberty, yet
   is equally certain, infallible, and to be depended upon, as even the
   existence itself, or the eternity of God. For though nothing is more certain
   (as has been already proved in the ninth proposition of this discourse,)
   than that God acts, not necessarily, but voluntarily, with particular
   intention and design, knowing that he does good, and intending to do so,
   freely and out of choice, and when he has no other constraint upon him but
   this, that his goodness inclines his will to communicate himself and to do
   good; so that the divine nature is under no necessity but such as is
   consistent with the most perfect liberty and freest choice; (which is the
   ground of all our prayers and thanksgivings,—the reason, why we pray to him
   to be good to us and gracious, and thank him for being just and merciful;
   whereas no man prays to him to be omnipresent, or thanks him for being
   omnipotent, or for knowing all things:) though nothing, I say, is more
   certain than that God acts, not necessarily, but voluntarily; yet it is
   nevertheless as truly and absolutely impossible for God not to do (or to do
   any thing contrary to) what his moral attributes require him to do; as if he
   was really not a free but a necessary agent. And the reason hereof is plain:
   because infinite knowledge, power, and goodness in conjunction, may,
   notwithstanding the most perfect freedom and choice, act with altogether as
   much certainty and unalterable steadiness, as even the necessity of fate can
   be supposed to do. Nay, these perfections cannot possibly but so act;
   because free choice, in a being of infinite knowledge, power, and goodness,
   can no more choose to act contrary to these perfections, than knowledge can
   be ignorance, power be weakness, or goodness malice; so that free choice, in
   such a being, may be as certain and steady a principle of action as the
   necessity of fate. We may, therefore, as certainly and infallibly rely upon
   the moral as upon the natural attributes of God; it being as absolutely
   impossible for him to act contrary to the one as to divest himself of the
   other; and as much a contradiction to suppose him choosing to do any thing
   inconsistent with his justice, goodness, and truth, as to suppose him
   divested of infinity, power, or existence. The one is contrary to the
   immediate and absolute necessity of his nature, the other to the unalterable
   rectitude of his will: The one is in itself an immediate contradiction in
   the terms, the other is an express contradiction to the necessary
   perfections of the divine nature. To suppose the one, is saying absolutely
   that something is, at the same time that it is not; to suppose the other, is
   to say that infinite knowledge can act ignorantly, infinite power weakly, or
   that infinite wisdom and goodness can do things not good or wise to be done:
   All which are equally great and equally manifest absurdities. This, I
   conceive, is a very intelligible account of the moral attributes of God,
   satisfactory to the mind, and without perplexity and confusion of ideas: I
   might have said it at once, (as the truth most certainly is,) that justice,
   goodness, and all the other moral attributes of God, are as essential to the
   divine nature as the natural attributes of eternity, infinity, and the like.
   But because all atheistical persons, after they are fully convinced that
   there must needs be in the universe some one eternal, necessary, infinite,
   and all-powerful being, will still, with unreasonable obstinacy, contend
   that they can by no means see any necessary connexion of goodness, justice,
   or any other moral attribute, with these natural perfections; therefore, I
   chose to endeavour to demonstrate the moral attributes by a particular
   deduction, in the manner I have now done.

   2dly. Of the necessity of God’s doing always what is best and fittest in the
   whole. From hence it follows, that though God is a most perfectly free
   agent, yet he cannot but do always what is best and wisest in the whole. The
   reason is evident; because perfect wisdom and goodness are as steady and
   certain principles of action as necessity itself. And an infinitely wise and
   good being, indued with the most perfect liberty, can no more choose to act
   in contradiction to wisdom and goodness than a necessary agent can act
   contrary to the necessity by which it is acted: it being as great an
   absurdity and impossibility in choice, for infinite wisdom to choose to act
   unwisely, or infinite goodness to choose what is not good; as it would be in
   nature for absolute necessity to fail of producing its necessary effect.
   There was indeed no necessity in nature, that God should at first create
   such beings as he has created, or indeed any beings at all; because he is in
   himself infinitely happy and all-sufficient. There was also no necessity in
   nature that he should preserve and continue things in being after they were
   created; because he would be as self-sufficient without their continuance,
   as he was before their creation. But it was fit, and wise, and good, that
   infinite wisdom should manifest, and infinite goodness communicate itself.
   And therefore it was necessary (in the sense of necessity I am now speaking
   of,) that things should be made at such time, and continued so long, and
   indued with various perfections in such degrees, as infinite wisdom and
   goodness saw it wisest and best that they should. And when and whilst things
   are in being, the same moral perfections make it necessary that they should
   be disposed and governed according to the exactest and most unchangeable
   laws of eternal justice, goodness, and truth; because, while things and
   their several relations are, they cannot but be what they are; and an
   infinitely wise being cannot but know them to be what they are, and judge
   always rightly concerning the several fitnesses or unfitnesses of them; and
   an infinitely good being cannot but choose to act always according to this
   knowledge of the respective fitness of things; it being as truly impossible
   for such a free agent, who is absolutely incapable of being deceived or
   depraved, to choose by acting contrary to these laws, to destroy its own
   perfections, as for necessary existence to be able to destroy its own being.

   3dly. Of the impossibility of his doing evil. From hence it follows, that,
   though God is both perfectly free, and also infinitely powerful, yet he
   cannot possibly do any thing that is evil. The reason of this also is
   evident. Because, as it is manifest infinite power cannot extend to natural
   contradictions, which imply a destruction of that very power by which they
   must be supposed to be effected; so neither can it extend to moral
   contradictions, which imply a destruction of some other attributes as
   necessarily belonging to the divine nature as power. I have already shown
   that justice, goodness, and truth, are necessarily in God; even as
   necessarily as power, and understanding, and knowledge of the nature of
   things. It is therefore as impossible and contradictory to suppose his will
   should choose to do any thing contrary to justice, goodness, or truth, as
   that his power should be able to do any thing inconsistent with power. It is
   no diminution of power not to be able to do things which are no object of
   power: and it is in like manner no diminution either of power or liberty to
   have such a perfect and unalterable rectitude of will as never possibly to
   choose to do any thing inconsistent with that rectitude.

   4thly. That liberty is not in itself an imperfection, but a perfection. From
   hence it follows, that liberty, properly speaking, is not in itself an
   imperfection but a perfection. For it is, in the highest and completest
   degree, in God himself: every act, wherein he exercises any moral attribute,
   as goodness, justice, or truth, proceeding from the most perfect liberty and
   freest choice; without which, goodness would not be goodness, nor justice
   and truth any excellencies; these things, in the very idea and formal notion
   of them, utterly excluding all necessity. It has indeed been sometimes
   taught, that liberty is a great imperfection; because it is the occasion of
   all sin and misery: But, if we will speak properly, it is not liberty that
   exposes us to misery, but only the abuse of liberty. It is true, liberty
   makes men capable of sin, and consequently liable to misery; neither of
   which they could possibly be, without liberty. But he that will say every
   thing is an imperfection, by the abuse whereof a creature may become more
   unhappy than if God had never given it that power at all, must say that a
   stone is a more excellent and perfect creature than man, because it is not
   capable of making itself miserable, as man is. And, by the same argument,
   reason and knowledge, and every other perfection, nay even existence itself,
   will be proved to be an imperfection; because it is that without which a
   creature could not be miserable. The truth therefore is; the abuse of
   liberty, that is, the corruption and depravation of that without which no
   creatures could be happy, is the alone cause of their misery: but as for
   liberty itself, it is a great perfection; and the more perfect any creature
   is, the more perfect is its liberty; and the perfectest liberty of all is
   such liberty as can never, by any ignorance, deceit, or corruption, be
   biassed or diverted from choosing what is the proper object of free choice,
   the greatest good.

   5thly. That the highest moral perfections of rational creatures do not
   exclude natural liberty. From hence it follows, that though probably no
   rational creature can be, in a strict philosophical sense, impeccable, yet
   we may easily conceive how God can place such creatures, as he judges worthy
   of so excellent a gift, in such a state of knowledge and near communion with
   himself, where goodness and holiness shall appear so amiable, and where they
   shall be exempt from all means of temptation and corruption; that it shall
   never be possible for them, notwithstanding the natural liberty of their
   will, to be seduced from their unchangeable happiness in the everlasting
   choice and enjoyment of their greatest good: Which is the state of good
   angels and of the saints in heaven.

   Lastly; That the grounds of all moral obligations are eternal and necessary,
   and depend not on any laws. From what hath been said upon this head, it
   follows that the true ground and foundation of all eternal moral
   obligations, is this; that the same reasons, (viz. the fore-mentioned
   necessary and eternal different relations which different things bear one to
   another: and the consequent fitness or unfitness of the application of
   different things, or different relations, one to another, unavoidably
   arising from that difference of the things themselves;) these very same
   reasons, I say, which always and necessarily do determine the will of God,
   as hath been before shown, ought also constantly to determine the will of
   all subordinate intelligent beings. And when they do not, then such beings,
   setting up their own unreasonable self-will in opposition to the nature and
   reason of things, endeavour (as much as in them lies) to make things be what
   they are not, and cannot be; which is the highest presumption and greatest
   insolence imaginable: It is acting contrary to their own reason and
   knowledge; it is an attempting to destroy that order by which the universe
   subsists, and it is also, by consequence, offering the highest affront
   imaginable to the creator of all things, who himself governs all his actions
   by these rules, and cannot but require the same of all his reasonable
   creatures. They who found all moral obligations ultimately in the will of
   God must recur at length to the same thing; only with this difference, that
   they do not clearly explain how the nature and will of God himself must be
   necessarily good and just, as I have endeavoured to do. They who found all
   moral obligations only upon laws made for the good of societies, hold an
   opinion which, (besides that it is fully confuted by what has been already
   said concerning the eternal and necessary difference of things,) is moreover
   so directly and manifestly contradictory and inconsistent with itself, that
   it seems strange it should not have been more commonly taken notice of. For,
   if there be no difference between good and evil, antecedent to all laws,
   there can be no reason why any laws should be made at all, when all things
   are naturally indifferent. To say that laws are necessary to be made for the
   good of mankind, is confessing that certain things tend to the good of
   mankind, that is, to the preserving and perfecting of their nature; which
   wise men therefore think necessary to be established by laws. And if the
   reason why certain things are established by wise and good laws is, because
   those things tend to the good of mankind, it is manifest they were good
   antecedent to their being confirmed by laws: Otherwise, if they were not
   good antecedent to all laws, it is evident there could be no reason why such
   laws should be made, rather than the contrary; which is the greatest
   absurdity in the world.

   AND The conclusion. now from what has been said upon this argument, I hope
   it is in the whole sufficiently clear that the being and attributes of God
   are, to attentive and considering minds, abundantly capable of just proof
   and demonstration, and that the adversaries of God and religion have no
   reason on their side, (to which they would pretend to be strict adherers,)
   but merely vain confidence, and great blindness and prejudice, when they
   desire it should be thought, that, in the fabric of the world, God has left
   himself wholly without witness, and that all the arguments of nature are on
   the side of atheism and irreligion. Some men, I know, there are, who, having
   never turned their thoughts to matters of this nature, think that these
   things are all absolutely above our comprehension; and that we talk about we
   know not what, when we dispute about these questions. But since the most
   considerable atheists that ever appeared in the world, and the pleaders for
   universal fatality, have all thought fit to argue in this way, in their
   attempts to remove the first foundations of religion, it is reasonable and
   necessary that they should be opposed in their own way, it being most
   certain, that no argumentation, of what kind soever, can possibly be made
   use of on the side of error, but may also be used with much greater
   advantage on the behalf of truth.

   2. From what has been said upon this argument, we may see how it comes to
   pass, that though nothing is so certain and undeniable as the necessary
   existence of God, and the consequent deduction of all his attributes, yet
   men, who have never attended to the evidence of reason, and to the notices
   that God hath given us of himself, may easily be in great measure ignorant
   of both. That the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones is
   so certain and evident, that whoever affirms the contrary affirms what may
   very easily be reduced to an express contradiction; yet whoever turns not
   his mind to consider it at all, may easily be ignorant of this and
   numberless other the like mathematical and most infallible truths.

   3. Yet the notices that God has been pleased to give us of himself are so
   many and so obvious,—in the constitution, order, beauty, and harmony of the
   several parts of the world,—in the frame and structure of our own bodies,
   and the wonderful powers and faculties of our souls,—in the unavoidable
   apprehensions of our own minds, and the common consent of all other men,—in
   every thing within us, and every thing without us; that no man of the
   meanest capacity and greatest disadvantages whatsoever, with the slightest
   and most superficial observation of the works of God, and the lowest and
   most obvious attendance to the reason of things, can be ignorant of Him, but
   he must be utterly without excuse. Possibly he may not, indeed, be able to
   understand or be affected by nice and metaphysical demonstrations of the
   being and attributes of God, but then for the same reason he is obliged also
   not to suffer himself to be shaken and unsettled by the subtile sophistries
   of sceptical and atheistical men, which he cannot perhaps answer, because he
   cannot understand; but he is bound to adhere to those things which he knows,
   and those reasonings he is capable to judge of, which are abundantly
   sufficient to determine and to guide the practice of sober and considering
   men.

   4. But this is not all: God has, moreover, finally,—by a clear and express
   revelation of himself, brought down from heaven by his own Son, our blessed
   Lord and Redeemer, and suited to every capacity and understanding,—put to
   silence the ignorance of foolish, and the vanity of sceptical and profane
   men; and, by declaring to us himself, his own nature and attributes, he has
   effectually prevented all mistakes which the weakness of our reason, the
   negligence of our application, the corruption of our nature, or the false
   philosophy of wicked and profane men, might have led us into;—and so has
   infallibly furnished us with sufficient knowledge to enable us to perform
   our duty in this life, and to obtain our happiness in that which is to come.
   But this exceeds the bounds of my present subject, and deserves to be
   handled in a particular discourse.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [86] Ouk estin ou heneka an theos pseudoito.—Komidē hara ho theos haploun
   kai alēthes en te ergō kai en lugō. Kai oute allous exapata, oute kata
   phantasias, oute kata logous, oute kata sēmeiōn pompas, outh hupar oud'
   onar.—Plato de Repub. lib. 2, sub finem.
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

    A

                                   DISCOURSE

    CONCERNING

THE UNCHANGEABLE OBLIGATIONS OF
NATURAL RELIGION

    AND THE

TRUTH AND CERTAINTY

    OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION.
     _________________________________________________________________

   BEING EIGHT SERMONS PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL
   CHURCH OF ST. PAUL, IN THE YEAR 1705, AT THE
   LECTURE FOUNDED BY THE HONOURABLE
   ROBERT BOYLE, ESQ.
     _________________________________________________________________

  BY SAMUEL CLARKE, DD.

    LATE RECTOR OF ST. JAMES’S, WESTMINSTER.
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

    TO THE

  MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,

THOMAS,

    LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, AND PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND;

  SIR HENRY ASHURST, BARONET;
  SIR JOHN ROTHERAM, KNIGHT, SERGEANT AT LAW;
  JOHN EVELIN, ESQ.

    TRUSTEES APPOINTED BY THE HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE, ESQ.

THIS DISCOURSE

  IS HUMBLY DEDICATED.
     _________________________________________________________________

THE PREFACE.

   I SHOULD not have presumed to publish these papers in vindication of natural
   and revealed religion, after so many excellent discourses already written
   upon that subject, had I not thought myself obliged to it, in order to
   pursue more fully the design of the honourable founder of this lecture, and
   to answer the expectation of the most reverend and the honourable trustees
   appointed by him. The honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. was a person no less
   zealously solicitous for the propagation of true religion, and the practice
   of piety and virtue, than diligent and successful in improving experimental
   philosophy, and enlarging our knowledge of nature; and it was his settled
   opinion, that the advancement and increase of natural knowledge would always
   be of service to the cause and interest of true religion, in opposition to
   atheists and unbelievers of all sorts. Accordingly he, in his life-time,
   made excellent use of his own observations to this purpose in all his
   writings, and made provision after his death for carrying on the same design
   perpetually. In pursuance of which end I endeavoured, in my former
   discourse, to strengthen and confirm the arguments which prove to us the
   being and attributes of God, partly by metaphysical reasoning, and partly
   from the discoveries (principally those that have been lately made,) in
   natural philosophy. And in the present treatise I have attempted, in a
   plainer and easier method, to establish the unalterable obligations of
   natural religion, and the truth and certainty of the Christian revelation.
   If what I have said, may, in any measure, promote the interest of true
   religion in this sceptical and profane age, and answer the design for which
   this lecture was founded, I have my end.

   It may perhaps be expected, that I should take some notice of certain
   remarks which have been published upon my former sermons. Had the author of
   those remarks entered into the merits of the cause, or offered any
   considerable reasons in opposition to what I had laid down, I should have
   thought myself obliged to give him a particular answer; but since his book
   is made up chiefly of railing and gross misconstructions, and all that he
   pretends to say, by way of argument, depends entirely upon supposition of
   the truth of the Cartesian hypothesis, which the best mathematicians in the
   world have demonstrated to be false, I presume it may be sufficient to show
   here the insincerity of that author, and the weakness of his reasoning, by a
   few brief observations.

   The only argument he alleges against me, in his whole book, is this: that if
   we know not distinctly what the essence of God, [87] and what the essence of
   matter is, wé cannot possibly demonstrate them at all to be two different
   essences.

   To which I answer: It is plain we know not the essences of things by
   intuition, but can only reason about them from what we know of their
   different properties or attributes. Now, from the demonstrable attributes of
   God, and from the known properties of matter, we have as unanswerable
   reasons to convince and satisfy us that their essences are entirely
   different, though we know not distinctly what those essences are, as our
   faculties can afford us, in judging of any the certainest things whatsoever.
   For instance: the demonstrable attributes of God are, that he is
   self-existent, independent, eternal, infinite, unchangeable, incorruptible,
   intelligent, free, all-powerful, wise, just, and good: The known properties
   of matter are, that it is not necessary or self-existent, but dependent,
   finite; (nay, that it fills but a few very small and inconsiderable portions
   of space,) that it is divisible, passive, unintelligent, and consequently
   incapable of any active powers. Now nothing can be more certain and evident,
   than that the substances to which these incompatible attributes or
   properties belong, or the essences from which they flow, are entirely
   different one from the other, though we do not distinctly know what the
   inmost substances or essences themselves are. If any man will think a mere
   hypothesis (the Cartesian or any other,) concerning the inmost nature of
   substances to be a more satisfactory discovery of the different essences of
   things than we can attain by reasoning thus from their demonstrable
   properties, and will choose rather to draw fond consequences from such
   hypotheses and fictions founded upon no proof at all, than to make use of
   such philosophy as is grounded only upon clear reason or good
   experiments,—I know no help for it, but he must be permitted to enjoy his
   opinion quietly.

   The rest of the book is all either an indecent and unreasonable reviling of
   the learned Mr Locke, from whom I neither cited any one passage, nor (that I
   know of) borrowed any argument from him; and therefore is altogether
   impertinent: or else it consists of gross misrepresentations of my sense,
   and very unfair constructions and false citations of my words, of which I
   shall presently give some instances.

   The first 8, and the 35th and 36th pages of the remarks, are spent in
   attempting to prove, that, if we do not first know what the essence of God,
   and what the essence of matter is, (that is, if the Cartesian hypothesis or
   fiction concerning the essences of spiritual and material substance be not
   granted to be true,)—there is no way left by which it can be proved at all
   that the essence of God and matter is not one and the same: To which I have
   already given an answer, viz. that, from the demonstrable attributes of God,
   and from the known properties of matter (being incompatible with each
   other,) we have as absolute certainty of their essences or substances being
   different, though we do not distinctly know what those essences are, as our
   faculties enable us to attain in any metaphysical question; for incompatible
   properties can no more possibly be in any unknown than in any known subject.

   Page 12.—The author of the Remarks asserts, that Des Cartes and his
   followers have mathematically proved that the essence of matter consists in
   length, breadth, and depth: And upon this confident assertion, his whole
   book depends in every part. To this, therefore, I answer, that that
   hypothesis is really so far from being mathematically proved to be true,
   that, on the contrary, he cannot but know (if he knows any thing of these
   matters,) that the greatest mathematicians of the present age, men
   confessedly greater in that science than any that ever lived before them,
   have clearly proved (as I before said) that it is absolutely false. [88] And
   not to take the least notice of this throughout his whole book argues either
   great insincerity or great ignorance.

   I had affirmed, that to imagine an eternal and infinite nothing was being
   reduced to the necessity of imagining a contradiction or impossibility: For
   this he argues against me (Remark. pag. 14,) as if I had asserted, that it
   was possible to imagine an eternal and infinite nothing, whereas I asserted
   that it was impossible, and an express contradiction so to do: This is great
   insincerity.

   I had charged the Cartesians with being unavoidably reduced to the absurdity
   of making matter a necessarily-existing being. In citing this passage,
   (Remark, pages 14 and 15,) he ridiculously represents me as saying that this
   absurdity consisted in making extension necessary; though he knew that in
   that very passage I supposed matter and extension to be entirely different
   things: This likewise is great insincerity.

   I have said, that the idea of immensity was an idea that no way belonged to
   matter. Instead of this, he cites me asserting, senselessly, (Remark, page
   15,) that extension no way belongs to matter; as if that which is not
   immense or infinite, is, therefore, not extended at all: This is the
   greatest disingenuity in the world.

   Remark, page 15.—He says, I am sure this author cannot produce one, no not
   one Cartesian, that ever made matter a necessarily-existing being,—that ever
   contradicted himself in words upon this subject,—that ever was mightily, or
   not mightily, or at all perplexed with what Mr Clarke calls his
   argument;—nay, that ever heard of that thing he calls his argument. Why are
   they thus misrepresented and imposed upon? To this I answer: it had been
   sufficient to make good my charge, to have shown, that, from the Cartesian
   hypothesis, it followed, by unavoidable consequence, that matter must be a
   necessarily-existing being, though the Cartesians themselves had not seen
   that consequence. Yet I cited, moreover, a passage out of Regis, wherein it
   is plain he perceived and owned that consequence. But, because the Remarker
   seems not satisfied with this, and pretends to triumph here with great
   pleasure and assurance, I will for once comply with his challenge, and
   produce him another, and that an unexceptionable Cartesian, even Des Cartes
   himself, who was greatly perplexed with the argument I mentioned, and was
   unavoidably reduced to make matter a necessarily-existing being, and at the
   same time did contradict himself in words upon this subject. It was objected
   to Des Cartes by some very learned men, that [89] if extension and matter
   were the same thing, it seemed to them to follow, that God could neither
   possibly make the world finite, nor annihilate any part of matter, without
   creating, at the same time, just as much more to supply its place. To this
   he answers; [90] that, according to his hypothesis, it does indeed imply a
   contradiction to suppose the world to be finite, or to suppose God
   annihilating any part of matter; but yet he will not say God cannot do it,
   or that God cannot cause that two and three shall not make five, or any
   other contradiction whatsoever: Is not this making matter a
   necessarily-existing being, to own that it is a contradiction to suppose God
   annihilating it, or setting bounds to it? Is not this contradicting himself,
   for a man to affirm (as Cartes does in all his writings,) that the world was
   created by God, and depends upon him, and yet at the same time to declare
   that it implies as plain a contradiction to suppose any part of matter
   annihilable by the power of God, as to suppose that two and three should not
   make five? Is not this really a ridiculing of the power of God? And was not
   Des Cartes, therefore, greatly perplexed with the argument I mentioned? And
   is not an hypothesis, from which such consequences unavoidably and
   confessedly follow, a fine land-mark of distinction between spiritual and
   material substances? and whatever opposes this hypothesis, [91] a depriving
   us of the means of proving the existence of the one only true God?

   The Remarker humbly desires his reader (page 16,) to be persuaded that he is
   of no particular sect in matters of philosophy, but only of the party of
   truth wherever he meets with it. Yet the same man had declared before, (page
   12,) that he believed Des Cartes had mathematically proved his hypothesis;
   and takes not the least notice of its having since been fully confuted by
   mathematicians confessedly far more eminent in that science than Des Cartes
   was. This is a very singular mark of impartiality, and of being addicted to
   no party in matters of philosophy.

   Speaking of the Cartesian argument drawn from the idea of God, I had used
   these words:—Our first certainty of the existence of God arises not from
   this, that, in the idea we frame of him in our minds, or rather in the
   definition that we make of the word [God,] as signifying a being of all
   possible perfections, we include self-existence: but, &c.—meaning, that,
   according to that argument, self-existence was rather made only a part of
   the definition of the word than proved to be a real attribute of the being
   itself. Instead of this the Remarker, (pages 17 and 19,) by a childish
   misunderstanding of the syntax of the sentence, and referring the particle
   [or] to a wrong member of the period, cites my words in a quite different
   manner: as if I had said, in the idea we frame of God in our own minds, or
   rather in the idea we frame of him in the definition that we make of the
   word, &c. and he is very facetious (pages 17 and 19,) in ridiculing this
   framing of an idea in a definition, which he calls, as it truly is, a real
   piece of nonsense. But when, upon the review, he finds himself the true and
   only author of it, for want of understanding grammar, I suppose it will make
   him more modest and careful.

   He accuses me (Remark, pages 18, 20, &c.) of not understanding the Cartesian
   argument drawn from the idea of God. I confess myself very ready to submit
   to this charge; and I can show him much more learned writers than either of
   us, who have likewise [92] not understood that argument. If he does
   understand it, he will do the world a very acceptable piece of service to
   make it out.

   What he says in his 21st, 22d, 23d, and 24th pages, is such a heap of
   misconstructions, and so entirely void of sense, that I confess I cannot at
   all tell what he means.

   From my using the word mere matter, he concludes (page 29,) that I imagine
   there is another sort of matter which is not a mere bare, pure, incogitative
   matter; and that these terms necessarily import this sense. Whereas, in
   every one of the places he cites, it is as express and evident as words can
   make it, that by mere matter I understand the matter of which the world
   consists, not as opposed to another sort of matter, but either as opposed to
   motion and to the form of the world, or as considered by itself, and without
   the government and direction of a supreme intelligent mind. This, therefore,
   is the highest degree of insincerity.

   He charges me, (pages 4 and 29, and 30,) with making a translation quite
   different from Spinoza’s sense and words. How I could mistranslate what I
   did not translate at all, I understand not: but whether I have
   misrepresented Spinoza’s sense, or no, (as I think I have not,) this I can
   only leave to the learned world to judge.

   I reduced Spinoza’s opinion to this, that the material world, and every part
   of it, with the order and manner of being of each part, is the only
   self-existing or necessarily-existing being; and this I think is as clearly
   contained in the words I cited from him [93] as any thing can be. Here the
   Remarker asserts (page 30,) that Spinoza never taught this doctrine; nay,
   that he taught the quite contrary. To prove which, he cites a passage, where
   Spinoza affirms, that [94] all who have in any degree considered the divine
   nature, deny that God is corporeal. Now, this also is extremely insincere;
   for, had this author cited here the whole sentence of Spinoza, as he had
   cited it before in his 26th page, it would have appeared evidently, that
   Spinoza, by denying God to be corporeal, meant only fallaciously to deny his
   being any particular piece of matter, any [95] finite body, and of a certain
   figure. For, that he believed infinite corporeal substance, that is, the
   whole material universe, to be God, (besides the places I had cited from
   him,) he in express words acknowledges, [96] in a passage which this very
   author cites in the 4th page of his remarks; and he maintains it at large
   through the whole of that very scholium [97] from whence the remarker has
   with the greatest insincerity taken the present objection. But, besides;
   suppose Spinoza had not explained himself in this place, and had in this
   single passage contradicted what he had plainly taught throughout the rest
   of his book, would this have been any just reason to say that Spinoza never
   taught the doctrine I imputed to him? nay, that he taught the quite
   contrary?

   He charges me (page 32,) with arguing only against the accessories of
   atheism, and leaving the essential hypothesis in its full force; nay, with
   confirming and establishing (page 11,) Spinoza’s atheism. It seems, in the
   opinion of this author, that proving the material world to be, not a
   necessary but a dependent being, made, preserved, and governed, by a
   self-existent, independent, eternal, infinite mind, of perfect knowledge,
   wisdom, power, justice, goodness and truth—is arguing only against the
   accessories of atheism, and that the essential hypothesis of atheism is left
   untouched, nay, confirmed and established, by all who will not presume to
   define the essence of that supreme mind according to the unintelligible
   language of the schools and the groundless imagination of Des Cartes
   concerning the substance or essence of matter and spirit. I confess it
   appears to me, on the contrary, that the essence of atheism lies in making
   God either an unintelligent being, [such as is the material world,] or at
   least a necessary agent, [such as Spinoza makes his one substance to be,]
   void of all freedom, wisdom, power, and goodness; and that other
   metaphysical disputes are only about the accessories; and that there is much
   more ground, on the other side, to suspect that very hypothesis, of which
   this writer is so fond, to be favourable to the atheist’s main purpose. For
   if, from Des Cartes’s notion of the essence of matter, it follows (as he
   himself, in the places now cited, confesses in express words,) that it
   implies a contradiction to suppose the material world finite, or to suppose
   any part of matter can be annihilated by the power of God, I appeal to this
   author, whether this does not naturally tend to make men think matter a
   necessary and self-existent being?

   He charges me (page 33,) with falsely accusing Spinoza of making God a mere
   necessary agent; and cites a passage or two out of Spinoza, wherein that
   author seems to assert the contrary. The words which I cited from Spinoza do
   as clearly express what I charged him with, as it is possible for any thing
   to be expressed; for he asserts plainly, [98] that from the power of God all
   things proceed necessarily; that all things are determined by the necessity
   of the divine nature; that whatever is in the power of God must necessarily
   exist; that things could not have been produced by God in any other manner
   or order than they now are; and that God does not act by a liberty of will.
   All this the Remarker very insincerely passes over, without the least
   notice. And the words which he cites out of Spinoza do not at all prove the
   contrary to what I asserted. For when Spinoza says, [99] that God alone is a
   free cause, and that God acts by the laws of his own nature, without being
   forced by any; it is evident he does not there mean a freedom of will, but
   only fallaciously signifies, that the necessity by which all things exist in
   the manner they do, is an inward necessity in the nature of the things
   themselves, in opposition to any force put upon them from without; which
   external force, it is plain indeed that [the to pan] the whole universe (the
   God of Spinoza) cannot be subject to; because it is supposed to contain all
   things within itself. But, besides, supposing (as I said before) that
   Spinoza had directly contradicted himself in this one passage, how would
   that have proved my charge against him to have been false?

   He says (page 34,) that I am guilty myself of what I groundlessly imputed to
   Spinoza, viz. of making God a mere necessary agent; namely, by affirming
   that there is a necessary difference between good and evil, and that there
   is such a thing as fitness and unfitness, eternally, necessarily, and
   unchangeably in the nature and reason of things, antecedently to will and to
   all positive or arbitrary appointment whatsoever. This, he says, is a
   groundless and positive assertion, and plainly imports the eternal necessary
   co-existence of all things as much as Spinoza’s hypothesis does. Is not this
   an admirable consequence? because I affirm the proportions of things, and
   the differences of good and evil, to be eternal and necessary, that
   therefore I affirm the existence of the things themselves to be also eternal
   and necessary? because I affirm the proportion, suppose between a sphere and
   a cylinder, to be eternal and necessary, that therefore I affirm the
   existence of material spheres and cylinders to be likewise eternal and
   necessary? because I affirm the difference between virtue and vice to be
   eternal and necessary, that therefore I affirm men, who practise virtue or
   vice, to have existed eternally? This accusation shows both extreme
   ignorance, and great malice, in the author of the remarks.

   I had used these words, (Demonstrat, page 8:)—“How an eternal duration can
   now be actually past, is a thing utterly as impossible for our narrow
   understandings to comprehend, as any thing that is not an express
   contradiction can be imagined to be; and yet, to deny the truth of the
   proposition, that an eternal duration is now actually past, is to assert
   something still far more unintelligible, even a real and express
   contradiction.” Instead of this, the Remarker, (page 39,) citing my words,
   with extreme disingenuity leaves out one half of the sentence and makes me
   to say, absolutely, that something is still far more unintelligible than
   that which is utterly impossible to be understood. Such gross
   misrepresentations as these, in leaving out one part of a sentence, to make
   the rest nonsense, can very hardly proceed but from want of honesty.

   Lastly, (page 41,) he says, that in my Sermons there is not one argument
   offered to prove, against Spinoza, that God is a spirit. I persuaded myself,
   that the proving God to be a being absolutely distinct from the material
   world, self-existent, intelligent, free, all-powerful, wise, and good, had
   been proving him to be a spirit. But it seems no proof is of any force with
   this author, if it be not agreeable to the Cartesian philosophy, in which
   alone he seems to have any knowledge. To this, therefore, I am not obliged
   to trouble either myself or the reader with giving any further answer.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [87] Note—That in this whole question, the word essence is not to be taken
   in the proper metaphysical sense of the word, as signifying that by which a
   thing is what it is; for in that sense the attributes of God do constitute
   his essence; and solidity, or impenetrability, is the essence of matter. But
   essence is all along to be understood as signifying here the same with
   substance.

   [88] See Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia, page 384 and 402. Edit. tertia.

   [89] Quæro an a Deo fieri potuisset ut mundus esset finitus?—Epist. ad
   Cartesium68, partis primæ. Nondum illud possum concoquere, eam esse inter
   res corporeas connexionem, ut nec mundum Deus creare potuerit nisi
   infinitum, nec ullum corpus in nihilum redigere, quin eo ipso teneatur aliud
   paris quantitatis statim creare.—Epist. 5. partis secundæ.

   [90] Puto implicare contradictionem ut mundus sit finitus.—Cartes. Epist.69,
   partis primæ. Mihi autem non videtur de ulla unquam re esse dicendum, ipsam
   a Deo fieri non posse. Cum enim omnis ratio veri et boni ab ejus
   omnipotentia dependeat; ne quidem dicere ausim, Deum facere non posse ut
   mons sit sine valle, vel ut unum et duo non sint tria; sed tantum dico,
   talia implicare contradictionem in meo conceptu. Quod idem etiam de spatio,
   quod sit plane vacuum, &c.—Epist. 6, partis secundæ.

   [91] Remark, page 25.

   [92] See Cudworth’s System, page 721, &c.

   [93] Præter Deum nulla dari neque concipi potest substantia.—Spinoza ethic.
   par. prop. 14. Una substantia non potest produci ab alia substantia.—Prop.
   6. Res nullo alio modo neque alio ordine a Deo produci potuerunt quam
   productæ sunt.—Prop. 33. Ad naturam substantiæ pertinet existere.—Prop. 7.

   [94] Omnes qui naturam divinam aliquo modo contemplati sunt, Deum esse
   corporeum negant—Ethic. par. I. prop. 15. Schol.

   [95] Per corpus intelligimus quamcunque quantitatem longam, latam, et
   profundam, certa aliqua figura terminatum; quo nihil absurdius de Deo, ente
   scilicet absolute infinito, dici potest.—Ibid.

   [96] Substantiam corpoream quæ non nisi infinita concipi potest, nulla
   ratione natura divina indignam esse dici potest.

   [97] Schol. ad prop. 15. par 1.

   [98] A summa Dei potentia omnia necessario effluxisse. Omnia ex necessitate
   divinæ naturæ determinata sunt, &c. Quicquid concipimus in Dei potestate
   esse, id necessario est. Res nullo alio modo, neque alio ordine, a Deo
   produci potuerunt quam productæ sunt. Deum non operari ex libertate
   voluntatis.

   [99] Sequitur, soum Deum esse causam liberam. Deus ex solis suæ naturæ
   legibus, et a nemine coactus, agit.
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

    A

                                   DISCOURSE

    CONCERNING

THE UNCHANGEABLE OBLIGATIONS OF
NATURAL RELIGION,

    AND THE

TRUTH AND CERTAINTY OF THE
CHRISTIAN REVELATION.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Isa. v. 20. Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put
   darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and
   sweet for bitter.

   Rom. i. 22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

   1 Cor. ii. 10. But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit.
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

   HAVING, The introduction. in a former discourse, endeavoured to lay firmly
   the first foundations of religion, in the certainty of the existence and of
   the attributes of God, by proving, severally and distinctly:—

   That something must needs have existed from eternity, and how great soever
   the difficulties are, which perplex the conceptions and apprehensions we
   attempt to frame of an eternal duration, yet they neither ought nor can
   raise in any man’s mind any doubt or scruple concerning the truth of the
   assertion itself that something has really been eternal:

   That there must have existed from eternity some one unchangeable and
   independent being, because, to suppose an eternal succession of merely
   dependent beings, proceeding one from another in an endless progression,
   without any original independent cause at all, is supposing things that have
   in their own nature no necessity of existing, to be from eternity caused or
   produced by nothing; which is the very same absurdity and express
   contradiction as to suppose them produced by nothing at any determinate
   time:

   That that unchangeable and independent being, which has existed from
   eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be
   self-existent, that is, necessarily-existing:

   That it must of necessity be infinite or everywhere present; a being most
   simple, uniform, invariable, indivisible, incorruptible, and infinitely
   removed from all such imperfections as are the known qualities and
   inseparable properties of the material world:

   That it must of necessity be but one; because, to suppose two, or more,
   different self-existent independent principles may be reduced to a direct
   contradiction:

   That it must necessarily be an intelligent being:

   That it must be a free and voluntary, not a necessary agent:

   That this being must of necessity have infinite power, and that in this
   attribute is included, particularly, a possibility of creating or producing
   things, and also a possibility of communicating to creatures the power of
   beginning motion, and a possibility of induing them with liberty or freedom
   of will; which freedom of will is not inconsistent with any of the divine
   attributes:

   That he must of necessity be infinitely wise:

   And lastly, that he must necessarily be a being of infinite goodness,
   justice, and truth, and all other moral perfections; such as become the
   supreme governor and judge of the world.

   It remains now, in order to complete my design of proving and establishing
   the truth and excellency of the whole superstructure of our most holy
   religion, that I proceed, upon this foundation of the certainty of the being
   and attributes of God, to demonstrate in the next place the unalterable
   obligations of natural religion, and the certainty of divine revelation, in
   opposition to the vain arguings of certain vicious and profane men, who,
   merely upon account of their incredulity, would be thought to be strict
   adherers to reason, and sincere and diligent inquirers into truth; when,
   indeed, on the contrary, there is but too much cause to fear that they are
   not at all sincerely and really desirous to be satisfied in the true state
   of things, but only seek, under the pretence and cover of infidelity, to
   excuse their vices and debaucheries which they are so strongly inslaved to
   that they cannot prevail with themselves upon any account to forsake them:
   And yet a rational submitting to such truths, as just evidence and
   unanswerable reason would induce them to believe, must necessarily make them
   uneasy under those vices, and self condemned in the practice of them. It
   remains therefore, (I say) in order to finish the design I proposed to
   myself, of establishing the truth and excellency of our holy religion, in
   opposition to all such vain pretenders to reason as these, that I proceed at
   this time, by a continuation of the same method of arguing, by which I
   before demonstrated the being and attributes of God, to prove distinctly the
   following propositions:—

   I. That the same necessary and eternal different relations that different
   things bear one to another, and the same consequent fitness or unfitness of
   the application of different things or different relations one to another,
   with regard to which the will of God always and necessarily does determine
   itself to choose to act only what is agreeable to justice, equity, goodness,
   and truth, in order to the welfare of the whole universe, ought likewise
   constantly to determine the wills of all subordinate rational beings, to
   govern all their actions by the same rules, for the good of the public in
   their respective stations: That is, these eternal and necessary differences
   of things make it fit and reasonable for creatures so to act: they cause it
   to be their duty, or lay an obligation upon them, so to do, even separate
   from the consideration of these rules being the positive will or command of
   God, and also antecedent to any respect or regard, expectation or
   apprehension, of any particular private and personal advantage or
   disadvantage, reward or punishment, either present or future, annexed,
   either by natural consequence, or by positive appointments, to the
   practising or neglecting those rules.

   II. That though these eternal moral obligations are, indeed, of themselves
   incumbent on all rational beings, even antecedent to the consideration of
   their being the positive will and command of God, yet that which most
   strongly confirms, and in practice most effectually and indispensably
   enforces them upon us, is this, that both from the nature of things, and the
   perfections of God, and from several other collateral considerations, it
   appears, that as God is himself necessarily just and good in the exercise of
   his infinite power in the government of the whole world, so he cannot but
   likewise positively require that all his rational creatures should in their
   proportion be so too, in the exercise of each of their powers in their
   respective spheres: That is, as these eternal moral obligations are really
   in perpetual force merely from their own nature and the abstract reason of
   things, so also they are moreover the express and unalterable will, command,
   and law of God to his creatures, which he cannot but expect should, in
   obedience to his supreme authority, as well as in compliance with the
   natural reason of things, be regularly and constantly observed through the
   whole creation.

   III. That, therefore, though these eternal moral obligations are also
   incumbent, indeed, on all rational creatures, antecedent to any respect of
   particular reward or punishment, yet they must certainly and necessarily be
   attended with rewards and punishments; because the same reasons which prove
   God himself to be necessarily just and good, and the rules of justice,
   equity, and goodness, to be his unalterable will, law, and command, to all
   created beings, prove also that he cannot but be pleased with and approve
   such creatures as imitate and obey him by observing those rules, and be
   displeased with such as act contrary thereto; and, consequently, that he
   cannot but some way or other make a suitable difference in his dealings with
   them, and manifest his supreme power and absolute authority, in finally
   supporting, maintaining, and vindicating effectually the honour of these his
   divine laws, as becomes the just and righteous governor and disposer of all
   things.

   IV. That consequently, though, in order to establish this suitable
   difference between the fruits or effects of virtue and vice, so reasonable
   in itself, and so absolutely necessary for the vindication of the honour of
   God, the nature of things and the constitution and order of God’s creation
   was originally such, that the observance of the eternal rules of justice,
   equity, and goodness does indeed of itself tend, by direct and natural
   consequence, to make all creatures happy, and the contrary practice to make
   them miserable; yet since, through some great and general corruption and
   depravation, (whencesoever that may have arisen, the particular original
   whereof could hardly have been known now without revelation;) since, I say,
   the condition of men in this present state is such, that the natural order
   of things in this world is an event manifestly perverted, and virtue and
   goodness are visibly prevented, in great measure, from obtaining their
   proper and due effects in establishing men’s happiness proportionable to
   their behaviour and practice; therefore it is absolutely impossible, that
   the whole view and intention, the original and the final design, of God’s
   creating such rational beings as men are, and placing them in this globe of
   earth, as the chief and principal, or indeed (may we not say) the only
   inhabitants, for whose sake alone this part at least of the creation is
   evidently fitted up and accommodated; it is absolutely impossible (I say)
   that the whole of God’s design in all this should be nothing more than to
   keep up eternally a succession of such short-lived generations of men as at
   present are, and those in such a corrupt, confused, and disorderly state of
   things as we see the world is now in, without any due observation of the
   eternal rules of good and evil, without any clear and remarkable effect of
   the great and most necessary differences of things, and without any final
   vindication of the honour and laws of God in the proportionable reward of
   the best, or punishment of the worst of men. And consequently it is certain
   and necessary, (even as certain as the moral attributes of God before
   demonstrated,) that, instead of continuing an eternal succession of new
   generations in the present form and state of things, there must at some time
   or other be such a revolution and renovation of things, such a future state
   of existence of the same persons, as that, by an exact distribution of
   rewards or punishments therein, all the present disorders and inequalities
   may be set right, and that the whole scheme of providence, which to us who
   judge of it by only one small portion of it, seems now so inexplicable and
   much confused, may appear at its consummation to be a design worthy of
   infinite wisdom, justice, and goodness.

   V. That, though the indispensable necessity of all the great and moral
   obligations of natural religion, and also the certainty of a future state of
   rewards and punishments, be thus in general deducible even demonstrably, by
   a chain of clear and undeniable reasoning, (yet in the present state of the
   world, by what means soever it came originally to be so corrupted, of which
   more hereafter,) such is the carelessness, inconsiderateness, and want of
   attention of the greater part of mankind; so many the prejudices and false
   notions imbibed by evil education; so strong and violent the unreasonable
   lusts, appetites, and desires of sense; and so great the blindness,
   introduced by superstitious opinions, vicious customs, and debauched
   practices, through the world,—that very few are able, in reality and effect,
   to discover these things clearly and plainly for themselves; but men have
   great need of particular teaching, and much instruction, to convince them of
   the truth and certainty, and importance of these things; to give them a due
   sense, and clear and just apprehensions concerning them; and to bring them
   effectually to the practice of the plainest and most necessary duties.

   VI. That, though in almost every age there have indeed been in the heathen
   world some wise, and brave, and good men, who have made it their business to
   study and practice these things themselves, and to teach and exhort others
   to do the like, who seem therefore to have been raised up by providence as
   instruments to reprove in some measure, and put some kind of check to the
   extreme superstition and wickedness of the nations wherein they lived: Yet
   none of these have ever been able to reform the world with any considerably
   great and universal success; because they have been but very few that have
   in earnest set themselves about this excellent work; and they that have
   indeed sincerely done it have themselves been entirely ignorant of some
   doctrines, and very doubtful and uncertain of others, absolutely necessary
   for the bringing about that great end; and those things which they have been
   certain of and in good measure understood, they have not been able to prove
   and explain clearly enough, and those that they have been able both to prove
   and explain by sufficiently clear reasoning, they have not yet had authority
   enough to enforce and inculcate upon men’s minds with so strong an
   impression as to influence and govern the general practice of the world.

   VII. That therefore there was plainly wanting a divine revelation to recover
   mankind out of their universally degenerate estate, into a state suitable to
   the original excellency of their nature; which divine revelation, both the
   necessities of men and their natural notions of God gave them reasonable
   ground to expect and hope for, as appears from the acknowledgments which the
   best and wisest of the heathen philosophers themselves have made, of their
   sense of the necessity and want of such a revelation, and from their
   expressions of the hopes they had entertained that God would some time or
   other vouchsafe it unto them.

   VIII. That there is no other religion now in the world, but the Christian,
   that has any just pretence or tolerable appearance of reason to be esteemed
   such a divine revelation; and therefore if Christianity be not true, there
   is no revelation of the will of God at all made to mankind.

   IX. That the Christian religion, considered in its primitive simplicity, and
   as taught in the Holy Scriptures, has all the marks and proofs of its being
   actually and truly a divine revelation that any divine revelation, supposing
   it was true, could reasonably be imagined or desired to have.

   X. That the practical duties which the Christian religion enjoins, are all
   such as are most agreeable to our natural notions of God, and most
   perfective of the nature, and conducive to the happiness and well-being of
   men: That is, Christianity,—even in this single respect, as containing
   alone, and in one consistent system, all the wise and good precepts (and
   those improved, augmented, and exalted to the highest degree of perfection,)
   that ever were taught singly and scatteredly, and many times but very
   corruptly, by the several schools of the philosophers; and this without any
   mixture of the fond, absurd, and superstitious practices of any of those
   philosophers,—ought to be embraced and practised by all rational and
   considering deists, who will act consistently, and steadily pursue the
   consequences of their own principles; as at least the best scheme and sect
   of philosophy that ever was set up in the world, and highly probable, even
   though it had no external evidence, to be of divine original.

   XI. That the motives, by which the Christian religion enforces the practice
   of these duties, are such as are must suitable to the excellent wisdom of
   God, and most answerable to the natural expectations of men.

   XII. That the peculiar manner and circumstances with which it enjoins these
   duties and urges these motives, are exactly consonant to the dictates of
   sound reason, or the unprejudiced light of nature, and most wisely
   perfective of it.

   XIII. That all the [credenda, or] doctrines, which the true, simple, and
   uncorrupted Christian religion teaches,—(that is, not only those plain
   doctrines which it requires to be believed as fundamental and of necessity
   to eternal salvation, but even all the doctrines which it teaches as matters
   of truths,)—are, though indeed many of them not discoverable by bare reason
   unassisted with revelation, yet, when discovered by revelation, apparently
   most agreeable to sound unprejudiced reason, have every one of them a
   natural tendency, and a direct and powerful influence, to reform men’s lives
   and correct their manners, and do together make up an infinitely more
   consistent and rational scheme of belief than any that the wisest of the
   ancient philosophers ever did, or the cunningest of modern unbelievers can
   invent or contrive.

   XIV. That as this revelation, to the judgment of right and sober reason,
   appears even of itself highly credible and probable, and abundantly
   recommends itself in its native simplicity, merely by its own intrinsic
   goodness and excellency, to the practice of the most rational and
   considering men, who are desirous in all their actions to have satisfaction,
   and comfort, and good hope within themselves, from the conscience of what
   they do; so it is moreover positively and directly proved to be actually and
   immediately sent to us from God, by the many infallible signs and miracles
   which the Author of it worked publicly as the evidence of his divine
   commission, by the exact completion both of the prophecies that went before
   concerning him, and of those that he himself delivered concerning things
   that were to happen after, and by the testimony of his followers, which in
   all its circumstances was the most credible, certain, and convincing
   evidence, that was ever given to any matter of fact in the world.

   XV. And lastly, that they who will not, by such arguments and proofs as
   these, be convinced of the truth and certainty of the Christian religion,
   and be persuaded to make it the rule and guide of all their actions, would
   not be convinced, (so far as to influence their hearts, and reform their
   lives,) by any other evidence whatsoever; no, not though one should rise on
   purpose from the dead to endeavour to convince them.

   I might here, Of the several sorts of deists. before I enter upon the
   particular proof of these several propositions, justly be allowed to
   premise, that, having now to deal with another sort of men than those
   against whom my former discourse was directed, and being consequently in
   some parts of this treatise to make use of some other kinds of arguments
   than those which the nature of that discourse permitted and required, the
   same demonstrative force of reasoning, and even mathematical certainty,
   which in the main argument was there easy to be obtained, ought not here to
   be expected; but that such moral evidence, or mixed proofs, from
   circumstances and testimony, as most matters of fact are only capable of,
   and wise and honest men are always satisfied with, ought to be accounted
   sufficient in the present case: Because all the principles indeed upon which
   atheists attempt to build their schemes, are such as may, by plain force of
   reason, and undeniably demonstrative argumentations, be reduced to express
   and direct contradictions. But deists pretend to own all the principles of
   reason, and would be thought to deny nothing but what depends entirely on
   testimony and evidence of matter of fact, which they think they can easily
   evade.

   But, if we examine things to the bottom, we shall find that the matter does
   not in reality lie here. For I believe there are in the world, at least in
   any part of the world where the Christian religion is in any tolerable
   purity professed, very few such deists as will truly stand to all the
   principles of unprejudiced reason, and sincerely, both in profession and
   practice, own all the obligations of natural religion, and yet oppose
   Christianity merely upon account of their not being satisfied with the
   strength of the evidence of matter of fact. A constant and sincere
   observance of all the laws of reason and obligations of natural religion,
   will unavoidably lead a man to Christianity, if Christianity be fairly
   proposed to him in its natural simplicity and he has due opportunities of
   examining things and will steadily pursue the consequences of his own
   principles. And all others, who pretend to be deists without coming up to
   this, can have no fixed and settled principles at all, upon which they can
   either argue or act consistently, but must of necessity sink into downright
   atheism, (and consequently fall under the force of the former arguments,) as
   may appear by considering the several sorts of them.

   1. Of the first sort of deists: And of Providence. Some men would be thought
   to be deists, because they pretend to believe the existence of an eternal,
   infinite, independent, intelligent being; and, to avoid the name of
   Epicurean atheists, teach also that this supreme being made the world:
   though [100] at the same time they agree with the Epicureans in this, that
   they fancy God does not at all concern himself in the government of the
   world, nor has any regard to, or care of, what is done therein. But if we
   examine things duly, this opinion must unavoidably terminate in absolute
   atheism. For though to imagine that God, at the creation of the world, or at
   the formation of any particular part of it, could (if he had pleased,) by
   his infinite wisdom, foresight, and unerring design, have originally so
   ordered, disposed, and adapted all the springs and series of future
   necessary and unintelligent causes, that, without the immediate
   interposition of his almighty power upon every particular occasion, they
   should regularly, by virtue of that original disposition, have produced
   effects worthy to proceed from the direction and government of infinite
   wisdom: though this, I say, may possibly by very nice and abstract reasoning
   be reconcileable with a firm belief both of the being and attributes of God,
   and also with a consistent notion even of providence itself; yet to fancy
   that God originally created a certain quantity of matter and motion, and
   left them to frame a world at adventures, without any determinate and
   particular view, design, or direction; this can no way be defended
   consistently, but must of necessity recur to downright atheism, as I shall
   show presently, after I have made only this one observation, that as that
   opinion is impious in itself, so the late improvements in mathematics and
   natural philosophy have discovered that, as things now are, that scheme is
   plainly false and impossible in fact. For, not to say, that, seeing matter
   is utterly incapable of obeying any laws, the very original laws of motion
   themselves cannot continue to take place but by something superior to
   matter, continually exerting on it a certain force of power according to
   such certain and determinate laws; it is now evident, beyond question, that
   the bodies of all plants and animals, much the most considerable parts of
   the world, could not possibly have been formed by mere matter, according to
   any general laws of motion. And not only so, but that most universal
   principle of gravitation itself, the spring of almost all the great and
   regular inanimate motions in the world, answering (as I hinted in my former
   discourse,) not at all to the surfaces of bodies, (by which alone they can
   act one upon another,) but entirely to their solid content; cannot possibly
   be the result of any motion originally impressed on matter, but must of
   necessity be caused (either immediately or mediately) by something which
   penetrates the very solid substance of all bodies, and continually puts
   forth in them a force or power entirely different from that by which matter
   acts on matter: Which is, by the way, an evident demonstration, not only of
   the world’s being made originally by a supreme intelligent cause, but
   moreover that it depends every moment on some superior being, for the
   preservation of its frame; and that all the great motions in it are caused
   by some immaterial power, not having originally impressed a certain quantity
   of motion upon matter, but perpetually and actually exerting itself every
   moment in every part of the world. Which preserving and governing power,
   whether it be immediately the power and action of the same supreme cause
   that created the world, of him without whom not a sparrow falls to the
   ground, and with whom the very hairs of our head are all numbered; or
   whether it be the action of some subordinate instruments appointed by him to
   direct and preside respectively over certain parts thereof; does either way
   equally give us a very noble idea of providence. Those men, indeed, who,
   merely through a certain vanity of philosophising, have been tempted to
   embrace that other opinion, of all things being produced and continued only
   by a certain quantity of motion, originally impressed on matter without any
   determinate design or direction, and left to itself to form a world at
   adventures; those men, I say, who, merely through a vanity of
   philosophising, have been tempted to embrace that opinion, without attending
   whither it would lead them, ought not, indeed, to be directly charged with
   all the consequences of it. But it is certain, that many, under that cover,
   have really been atheists; and the opinion itself (as I before said) leads
   necessarily, and by unavoidable consequence, to plain atheism. For if God be
   an all-powerful, omnipresent, intelligent, wise, and free being, (as it hath
   been before demonstrated that he necessarily is), he cannot possibly but
   know, at all times and in all places, every thing that is; and foreknow what
   at all times and in all places it is fittest and wisest should be; and have
   perfect power, without the least labour, difficulty, or opposition, to order
   and bring to pass what he so judges fit to be accomplished: and consequently
   it is impossible but he must actually direct and appoint [101] every
   particular thing and circumstance that is in the world, or ever shall be,
   excepting only what by his own pleasure he puts under the power and choice
   of subordinate free agents. If, therefore, God does not concern himself in
   the government of the world, nor has any regard to what is done therein, it
   will follow that he is not an omnipresent, all-powerful, intelligent and
   wise being; and, consequently, that he is not at all. Wherefore the opinion
   of this sort of deists stands not upon any certain consistent principles,
   but leads unavoidably to downright atheism; and, however in words they may
   confess a God, [102] yet in reality and in truth they deny him.

   If, Human affairs not beneath the regard of Providence. to avoid this, they
   will own God’s government and providence over the greater and more
   considerable parts of the world, but deny his inspection and regard to human
   affairs here upon earth, as being too minute and small for the supreme
   governor of all things to concern himself in; [103] this still amounts to
   the same. For if God be omnipresent, all-knowing, and all-powerful, he
   cannot but equally know, and with equal ease be able to direct and govern,
   [104] all things as any, and the minutest things [105] as the greatest. So
   that if he has no regard nor concern for these things, his attributes must,
   as before, be denied, and consequently his being. But, besides, human
   affairs are by no means the minutest and most inconsiderable part of the
   creation: For, (not to consider now, that excellency of human nature which
   Christianity discovers to us,) let a deist suppose the universe as large as
   the widest hypothesis of astronomy will give him leave to imagine, or let
   him suppose it as immense as he himself pleases, and filled with as great
   numbers of rational creatures as his own fancy can suggest; yet the system
   wherein we are placed will at least, for ought he can reasonably suppose, be
   as considerable as any other single system; and the earth whereon we dwell
   as considerable as most of the other planets in this system, and mankind
   manifestly the only considerable inhabitants on this globe of earth. Man,
   therefore, has evidently a better claim to the particular regard and concern
   of providence than any thing else in this globe of ours; and this our globe
   of earth as just a pretence to it as most other planets in the system; and
   this system as just a one, as far as we can judge, as any system in the
   universe. If therefore there be any providence at all, and God has any
   concern for any part of the world, mankind, even separate from the
   consideration of that excellency of human nature which the Christian
   doctrine discovers to us, may as reasonably be supposed to be under its
   particular care and government as any other part of the universe.

   2. Of the second sort of deists. Some others there are that call themselves
   deists, because they believe, not only the being, but also the providence of
   God; that is, that every natural thing that is done in the world is produced
   by the power, appointed by the wisdom, and directed by the government of
   God. Though not allowing any difference between moral good and evil, they
   suppose that God takes no notice of the morally good or evil actions of men;
   these things depending, as they imagine, merely on the arbitrary
   constitution of human laws. But how handsomely soever these men may seem to
   speak of the natural attributes of God, of his knowledge, wisdom, and power,
   yet neither can this opinion be settled on any certain principles, nor
   defended by any consistent reasoning; nor can the natural attributes of God
   be so separated from the moral but that he who denies the latter may be
   reduced to a necessity of denying the former likewise. For since (as I have
   formerly proved,) there cannot but be eternal and necessary differences of
   different things, one from another, and, from these necessary differences of
   things, there cannot but arise a fitness or unfitness of the application of
   different things or different relations one to another; and infinite
   knowledge can no more fail to know, or infinite wisdom to choose, or
   infinite power to act, according to these eternal reasons and proportions of
   things, than knowledge can be ignorance, wisdom be folly, or power weakness;
   and consequently the justice and goodness of God are as certain and
   necessary as his wisdom and power;—it follows unavoidably, that he who
   denies the justice or goodness of God, or, which is all one, denies his
   exercise of these attributes in inspecting and regarding the moral actions
   of men, must also deny, either his wisdom, or his power, or both; and,
   consequently, must needs be driven into absolute atheism: For though in some
   moral matters men are not indeed to be judged of by the consequences of
   their opinions, but by their profession and practice, yet in the present
   case( [106] it matters not at all what men affirm, or how honourably they
   may seem to speak of some particular attributes of God; but what,
   notwithstanding such profession, must needs in all reason be supposed to be
   their true opinion; and their practice generally appears answerable to it.

   For, Profane and debauched deists not capable of being argued with.
   concerning these two sorts of deists, it is observable, that as their
   opinions can terminate consistently in nothing but downright atheism, so
   their practice and behaviour is generally agreeable to that of the most
   openly professed atheists. They not only oppose the revelation of
   Christianity, and reject all the moral obligations of natural religion, as
   such, but generally they despise also the wisdom of all human constitutions
   made for the order and benefit of mankind, and are as much contemners of
   common decency as they are of religion. They endeavour to ridicule and
   banter all human as well as divine accomplishments; all virtue and
   government of a man’s self, all learning and knowledge, all wisdom and
   honour, and every thing for which a man can justly be commended or be
   esteemed more excellent than a beast. They pretend commonly, in their
   discourse and writings, to expose the abuses and corruptions of religion;
   but (as is too manifest in some of their books as well as in their talk,
   they aim really against all virtue in general, and all good manners, and
   against whatsoever is truly valuable and commendable in men. They pretend to
   ridicule certain vices and follies of ignorant or superstitious men; but the
   many very profane and very lewd images, with which they industriously affect
   to dress up their discourse, show plainly that they really do not so much
   intend to expose and deride any vice or folly, as on the contrary to foment
   and please the debauched and vicious inclinations of others as void of shame
   as themselves. They discover clearly, that they have no sense at all of the
   dignity of human nature, nor of the superiority and excellency of their
   reason above even the meanest of the brutes. They will sometimes in words
   seem to magnify the wisdom, and other natural attributes of God, but in
   reality, by ridiculing whatever bears any resemblance to it in men, they
   show undeniably that they do not indeed believe there is any real difference
   in things, or any true excellency in one thing more than in another. By
   turning every thing alike, and without exception, into ridicule and mockery,
   they declare plainly that they do not believe any thing to be wise, any
   thing decent, any thing comely or praiseworthy at all. They seem not to have
   any esteem or value for those distinguishing powers and faculties; by
   induing them wherewith God has “taught them more than the beasts of the
   field, and made them wiser than the fowls of heaven.” [107] In a word;
   “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things
   are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
   whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be
   any praise;” [108] these things they make the constant subject of their
   mockery and abuse, ridicule and raillery. On the contrary, whatsoever things
   are profane, impure, filthy, dishonourable, and absurd; these things they
   make it their business to represent as harmless and indifferent, and to
   laugh men out of their natural shame and abhorrence of them; nay, even to
   recommend them with their utmost wit. Such men as these are not to be argued
   with, till they can be persuaded to use arguments instead of drollery: For
   banter is not capable of being answered by reason; not because it has any
   strength in it, but because it runs out of all the bounds of reason and good
   sense, by extravagantly joining together such images as have not in
   themselves any manner of similitude or connexion; by which means all things
   are alike easy to be rendered ridiculous, by being represented only in an
   absurd dress. These men, therefore, are first to be convinced of the true
   principles of reason before they can be disputed with; and then they must of
   necessity either retreat into downright atheism, or be led by undeniable
   reasoning to acknowledge and submit to the obligations of morality, and
   heartily repent of their profane abuse of God and religion.

   3. Of the third sort of deists. Another sort of deists there are, who,
   having right apprehensions concerning the natural attributes of God, and his
   all-governing providence, seem also to have some notion of his moral
   perfections also. That is, as they believe him to be a being infinitely
   knowing, powerful, and wise, so they believe him to be also in some sense a
   being of infinite justice, goodness, and truth, and that he governs the
   universe by these perfections, and expects suitable obedience from all his
   rational creatures. But then, having a prejudice against the notion of the
   immortality of human souls, they believe that men perish entirely at death,
   and that one generation shall perpetually succeed another, without any thing
   remaining of men after their departure out of this life, and without any
   future restoration or renovation of things. And imagining that justice, and
   goodness in God, are not the same as in the ideas we frame of these
   perfections, when we consider them in men, or when we reason about them
   abstractly in themselves, but that in the supreme governor of the world they
   are something transcendent, and of which we cannot make any true judgment,
   nor argue with any certainty about them: they fancy, though there does not
   indeed seem to us to be any equity or proportion in the distributions of
   rewards and punishments in this present life, yet that we are not sufficient
   judges concerning the attributes of God, to argue from thence with any
   assurance for the certainty of a future state. But neither does this opinion
   stand on any consistent principles. For if justice and goodness be not [109]
   the same in God, as in our ideas, then we mean nothing, when we say that God
   is necessarily just and good; and for the same reason it may as well be said
   that we know not what we mean, when we affirm that he is an intelligent and
   wise being, and there will be no foundation at all left on which we can fix
   any thing. Thus the moral attributes of God, however they be acknowledged in
   words, yet in reality they are by these men entirely taken away; and upon
   the same grounds the natural attributes may also be denied. And so upon the
   whole, this opinion likewise, if we argue upon it consistently, must finally
   recur to absolute atheism.

   4. Of the fourth sort of deists. The last sort of deists are those who, if
   they did indeed believe what they pretend, have just and right notions of
   God, and of all the divine attributes in every respect; who declare they
   believe that there is one eternal, infinite, intelligent, all-powerful, and
   wise being, the creator, preserver, and governor of all things; that this
   supreme cause is a being of infinite justice, goodness, and truth, and all
   other moral as well as natural perfections; that he made the world for the
   manifestation of his power and wisdom, and to communicate his goodness and
   happiness to his creatures; that he preserves it by his continual all-wise
   providence, and governs it according to the eternal rules of infinite
   justice, equity, goodness, mercy, and truth; that all created rational
   beings, depending continually upon him, are bound to adore, worship, and
   obey him, to praise him for all things they enjoy, and to pray to him for
   every thing they want; that they are all obliged to promote, in their
   proportion, and according to the extent of their several powers and
   abilities, the general good and welfare of those parts of the world wherein
   they are placed, in like manner as the divine goodness is continually
   promoting the universal benefit of the whole; that men, in particular, are
   every one obliged to make it their business, by an universal benevolence, to
   promote the happiness of all others; that, in order to this, every man is
   bound always to behave himself so towards others, as in reason he would
   desire they should in like circumstances deal with him; that, therefore, he
   is obliged to obey and submit to his superiors in all just and right things,
   for the preservation of society and the peace and benefit of the public; to
   be just and honest, equitable and sincere, in all his dealings with his
   equals, for the keeping inviolable the everlasting rule of righteousness,
   and maintaining an universal trust and confidence, friendship and affection,
   amongst men; and, towards his inferiors, to be gentle, and easy, and
   affable,—charitable, and willing to assist as many as stand in need of his
   help, for the preservation of universal love and benevolence amongst
   mankind, and in imitation of the goodness of God, who preserves and does
   good to all creatures, which depend entirely upon him for their very being
   and all that they enjoy; that, in respect of himself, every man is bound to
   preserve, as much as in him lies, his own being, and the right use of all
   his faculties, so long as it shall please God, who appointed him his station
   in this world, to continue him therein; that, therefore, he is bound to have
   an exact government of his passions, and carefully to abstain from all
   debaucheries or abuses of himself, which tend either to the destruction of
   his own being, or to the disordering of his faculties, and disabling him
   from performing his duty, or hurrying him into the practice of unreasonable
   and unjust things: Lastly, that accordingly as men regard or neglect these
   obligations, so they are proportionably acceptable or displeasing unto God,
   who, being supreme governor of the world, cannot but testify his favour or
   displeasure at some time or other; and, consequently, since this is not done
   in the present state, therefore there must be a future state of rewards and
   punishments in a life to come. But all this, the men we are now speaking of
   profess to believe only so far as it is discoverable by the light of nature
   alone, without believing any divine revelation. These, I say, are the only
   true deists, and indeed the only persons who ought in reason to be argued
   with, in order to convince them of the reasonableness, truth, and certainty
   of the Christian revelation. But, alas! there is, as I before said, too much
   reason to believe, that there are very few such deists as these, among
   modern deniers of revelation. For such men as I have now described, if they
   would at all attend to the consequences of their own principles, could not
   fail of being quickly persuaded to embrace Christianity. For, being fully
   convinced of the obligations of natural religion, and the certainty of a
   future state of rewards and punishments; and yet observing, at the same
   time, how little use men generally are able to make of the light of reason,
   to discover the one, or to convince themselves effectually of the certainty
   and importance of the other; it is impossible but they must be sensible of
   the want of a revelation; it is impossible but they must earnestly desire
   God would be pleased, by some direct discovery of his will, to make these
   things more clear and plain, more easy and obvious, more certain and evident
   to all capacities; it is impossible but they must wish God would be pleased
   particularly to signify expressly the acceptableness of repentance, and his
   willingness to forgive returning sinners; it is impossible but they must be
   very solicitous to have some more particular and certain information
   concerning the nature of that future state, which reason teaches them in
   general to expect. The consequence of this, is; that they must needs be
   possessed beforehand with a strong hope that the Christian revelation may,
   upon a due examination, appear to be true. They must be infinitely far from
   ridiculing and despising any thing that claims to be a divine revelation,
   before they have sincerely and thoroughly examined it to the bottom. They
   must needs be before-hand very much disposed in its favour; and be very
   willing to be convinced that what tends to the advancing and perfecting the
   obligation of natural religion, to the securing their great hopes, and
   ascertaining the truth of a future state of rewards and punishments, and can
   any way be made appear to be worthy of God, and consistent with his
   attributes, and has any reasonable proof of the matters of fact it depends
   upon— is, really and truly, what it pretends to be, a divine revelation. And
   now, is it possible that any man, with these opinions and these
   dispositions, should continue to reject Christianity, when proposed to him
   in its original and genuine simplicity, without the mixture of any
   corruptions or inventions of men? Let him read the sermons and exhortations
   of our Saviour as delivered in the gospels, and the discourses of the
   apostles, preserved in their acts and their epistles, and try if he can
   withstand the evidence of such a doctrine, and reject the hopes of such a
   glorious immortality so discovered to him. That there is now no consistent
   scheme of deism in the world. The heathen philosophers, those few of them
   who taught and lived up to the obligations of natural religion, had indeed a
   consistent scheme of deism so far as it went; and they were very brave and
   wise men, if any of them could keep steady and firm to it. But the case is
   not so now. The same scheme of deism is not any longer consistent with its
   own principles, if it does not now lead men to embrace and believe
   revelation, as it then taught them to hope for it. Deists, in our days, who
   obstinately reject revelation when offered to them, are not such men as
   Socrates and Tully were; but, under pretence of deism, it is plain they are
   generally ridiculers of all that is truly excellent even in natural religion
   itself. Could we see a deist, whose mind was heartily possessed with worthy
   and just apprehensions of all the attributes of God, and a deep sense of his
   duty towards that supreme author and preserver of his being,—could we see a
   deist who lived in an exact performance of all the duties of natural
   religion, and by the practice of righteousness, justice, equity, sobriety,
   and temperance, expressed in his actions, as well as words, a firm belief
   and expectation of a future state of rewards and punishments; in a word,
   could we see a deist, who, with reverence and modesty, with sincerity and
   impartiality, with a true and hearty desire of finding out and submitting to
   reason and truth, would inquire into the foundations of our belief, and
   examine thoroughly the pretensions which pure and uncorrupt Christianity has
   to be received as a divine revelation,—I think we could not doubt to affirm,
   of such a person, as our Saviour did of the young man in the Gospel, that he
   was not far from the kingdom of God; and that, being willing to do his will,
   he should know of the doctrine whether it was of God. But, as I have said,
   there is great reason to doubt there are few or none such deists as these
   among the infidels of our days. This, indeed, is what they sometimes
   pretend, and seem to desire should be thought to be their case. But, alas,
   their trivial and vain cavils; their mocking and ridiculing, without and
   before examination; their directing the whole stress of their objections
   against particular customs, or particular and perhaps uncertain opinions, or
   explications of opinions, without at all considering the main body of
   religion; their loose, vain, and frothy discourses; and, above all, their
   vicious and immoral lives,—show plainly and undeniably, that they are not
   really deists, but mere atheists; and consequently not capable to judge of
   the truth of Christianity. If they were truly and in earnest such deists as
   they pretend, and would sometimes be thought to be, those principles (as has
   been already shown in part, and will more fully appear in the following
   discourse,) would unavoidably lead them to Christianity; but, being such as
   they really are, they cannot possibly avoid recurring to downright atheism.

   The sum is this: There is now [110] no such thing as a consistent scheme of
   deism. That which alone was once such, namely, the scheme of the best
   heathen philosophers, ceases now to be so, after the appearance of
   revelation; because (as I have already shown, and shall more largely prove
   in the sequel of this discourse,) it directly conducts men to the belief of
   Christianity. All other pretences to deism may, by unavoidable consequence,
   be forced to terminate in absolute atheism. He that cannot prevail with
   himself to obey the Christian doctrine, and embrace those hopes of life and
   immortality which our Saviour has brought to light through the Gospel,
   cannot now be imagined to maintain with any firmness, steadiness, and
   certainty, the belief of the immortality of the soul and a future state of
   rewards and punishments after death; because all the main difficulties and
   objections lie equally against both. For the same reason, he who disbelieves
   the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments,
   cannot defend, to any effectual purpose, or enforce with any sufficient
   strength, the obligations of morality and natural religion, notwithstanding
   that they are indeed incumbent upon men, from the very nature and reason of
   the things themselves. Then, he who gives up the obligations of morality and
   natural religion, cannot possibly have any just and worthy notion of the
   moral attributes of God, or any true sense of the nature and necessary
   difference of things; and he that once goes thus far has no foundation left
   upon which he can be sure of the natural attributes or even of the existence
   of God; because, to deny what unavoidably follows from the supposition of
   his existence and natural attributes, is in reality denying those natural
   attributes and that existence itself. On the contrary, he who believes the
   being and natural attributes of God, must of necessity (as has been shown in
   my former discourse) confess his moral attributes also. Next, he who owns,
   and has just notions of the moral attributes of God, cannot avoid
   acknowledging the obligations of morality and natural religion. In like
   manner, he who owns the obligations of morality and natural religion must
   needs, to support those obligations, and make them effectual in practice,
   believe a future state of rewards and punishments. And, finally, he who
   believes both the obligations of natural religion and the certainty of a
   future state of rewards and punishments, has no manner of reason left why he
   should reject the Christian revelation, when proposed to him in its original
   and genuine simplicity. Wherefore, since those arguments which demonstrate
   to us the being and attributes of God are so closely connected with those
   which prove the reasonableness and certainty of the Christian revelation,
   that there is now no consistent scheme of deism left,—all modern deists
   being forced to shift from one cavil to another, and having no fixed and
   certain set of principles to adhere to;—I thought I could no way better
   prevent their ill designs, and obviate all their different shifts and
   objections, than by endeavouring, in the same method of reasoning by which I
   before demonstrated the being and attributes of God, to prove, in like
   manner, by one direct and continued thread of arguing, the reasonableness
   and certainty of the Christian revelation also.

   To proceed therefore to the proof of the propositions themselves.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [100]


   Omnis enim per se divûm natura necesse est

   Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur.

   Semota a nostris rebus, sejunctaque longe.

   Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,

   Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil, indiga nostri,

   Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira.
   Lucret. lib. 1. To makarion kai aphtharton, oute auto pragmata echei, oute
   allō parechei; hōste oute argais, oute charisi sunechetai.—Laert. in Vita
   Epicuri. Nor is the doctrine of those modern philosophers much different,
   who ascribe every thing to matter and motion, exclusive of final causes, and
   speak of God as an intelligentia supramundana; which is the very cant of
   Epicurus and Lucretius.

   [101] Quo confesso, confitendum est eorum consilio mundum administrari.—Cic.
   de Nat. Deor. lib. 2.

   [102] Epicurum verbis reliquisse Deos, re sustulisse.—Cic. de Nat. Deor.
   lib. 2.

   [103] Eisi gar tines hi nomizousin heinai ta theia, kai toiauta o logos auta
   exephēnen, agatha, kai dunamin echonta tēn akrotatēn, kai gnōsin tēn
   teleiotatēn, tōn mentoi anthropinōn kataphronein, hōs mikrōn kai heutelōn
   ontōn, kai anaxiōn tēs heautōn epimeleias.—Simplic. in Epictet.

   [104] Deorum providentia mundus administratur; iidemque consulunt rebus
   humanis; neque solum universis, verum etiam singulis.—Cic. de Divinat. lib.
   1.

   [105] All' ouden tach𓣽 anisōs eiē chalepon endeixasthai toutoge, hōs
   epimeleis smikrōn eisi theoi, ouk ēpion ē tōn megethei diapherontōn—Plato de
   Leg. lib.10. Ei de tou holou kosmou ho theos hou pimeleitai anankē kai tōn
   merōn auto8u pronoein; hōsper kai hai technai poiousi. Kai gar iatros tou
   holou sōmatos epimelēthēnai prothemenos, ouk an amelēseie tōn merōn; oude
   stratēgos oueu' oikonomos, ē politikos anēr tōn gar merōn ameloumenōn,
   anankē cheironōs to holon diatithesthai.—Simplic. in Epictet.

   [106] Quasi ego id curem, quid ille aiat aut neget: Illud quæro, quid et
   consentaneum sit dicere, qui, &c.—Cic. de Finib. lib. 2.

   [107] Job xxxv. 11.

   [108] Phil. iv. 8.

   [109] Kath' hēmas gar hē autē aretē esti tōn makariōn pantōn; hōste kai hē
   autē aretē anthrōpou kai Theou.—Orig. contr. Cel. lib. 4.

   [110] Ita sit, ut si ab illa rerum summa, quam superius comprehendimus,
   aberravercs, omnis ratio intereat, et ad nihilum omnia revertantur.—Lactan,
   lib.7.
     _________________________________________________________________

   I. Proposition I. The same necessary and eternal different relations that
   different things bear one to another, and the same consequent fitness or
   unfitness of the application of different things or different relations one
   to another, with regard to which the will of God always and necessarily does
   determine itself, to choose to act only what is agreeable to justice,
   equity, goodness, and truth, in order to the welfare of the whole universe,
   ought likewise constantly to determine the wills of all subordinate rational
   beings, to govern all their actions by the same rules, for the good of the
   public, in their respective stations; that is, these eternal and necessary
   differences of things make it fit and reasonable for creatures so to act;
   They cause it to be their duty, or lay an obligation upon them so to do,
   even separate from the consideration of these rules being the positive will
   or command of God, and also antecedent to any respect or regard, expectation
   or apprehension, of any particular private and personal advantage or
   disadvantage, reward or punishment, either present or future, annexed either
   by natural consequence, or by positive appointment, to the practising or
   neglecting of those rules.

   The several parts of this proposition may be proved distinctly, in the
   following manner.

   I. That there are eternal and necessary differences of things. That there
   are differences of things, and different relations, respects, or
   proportions, of some things towards others, is as evident and undeniable as
   that one magnitude or number is greater, equal to, or smaller than another.
   That from these different relations of different things there necessarily
   arises an agreement or disagreement of some things with others, or a fitness
   or unfitness of the application of different things or different relations
   one to another, is likewise as plain as that there is any such thing as
   proportion or disproportion in geometry and arithmetic, or uniformity or
   difformity in comparing together the respective figures of bodies. Further,
   that there is a fitness or suitableness of certain circumstances to certain
   persons, and an unsuitableness of others, founded in the nature of things
   and the qualifications of persons antecedent to all positive appointment
   whatsoever; also, that, from the different relations of different persons
   one to another, there necessarily arises a fitness or unfitness of certain
   manners of behaviour of some persons towards others; is as manifest as that
   the properties which flow from the essences of different mathematical
   figures have different congruities or incongruities between themselves, or
   that, in mechanics, certain weights or powers have very different forces,
   and different effects one upon another, according to their different
   distances, or different positions and situations in respect of each other:
   For instance; that God is infinitely superior to men is as clear as that
   infinity is larger than a point, or eternity longer than a moment; and it is
   as certainly fit that men should honour and worship, obey and imitate God,
   than on the contrary in all their actions endeavour to dishonour and disobey
   him, as it is certainly true that they have an entire dependence on him, and
   he, on the contrary, can in no respect receive any advantage from them; and
   not only so, but also that his will is as certainly and unalterably just and
   equitable in giving his commands as his power is irresistible in requiring
   submission to it. Again: It is a thing absolutely and necessarily fitter in
   itself, that the supreme author and creator of the universe should govern,
   order, and direct all things to certain and constant regular ends, than that
   every thing should be permitted to go on at adventures, and produce
   uncertain effects merely by chance and in the utmost confusion, without any
   determinate view or design at all. It is a thing manifestly fitter in
   itself, that the all-powerful governor of the world should do always what is
   best in the whole, and what tends most to the universal good of the whole
   creation, than that he should make the whole continually miserable, or that,
   to satisfy the unreasonable desires of any particular depraved natures, he
   should at any time suffer the order of the whole to be altered and
   perverted. Lastly, it is a thing evidently and infinitely more fit, that any
   one particular innocent and good being should, by the supreme ruler and
   disposer of all things, be placed and preserved in an easy and happy estate,
   than that, without any fault or demerit of its own, it should be made
   extremely, remedilessly, and endlessly miserable. In like manner, in men’s
   dealing and conversing one with another, it is undeniably more fit,
   absolutely and in the nature of the thing itself, that all men should
   endeavour to promote the universal good and welfare of all, than that all
   men should be continually contriving the ruin and destruction of all. It is
   evidently more fit, even before all positive bargains and compacts, that men
   should deal one with another according to the known rules of justice and
   equity, than that every man, for his own present advantage, should, without
   scruple, disappoint the most reasonable and equitable expectations of his
   neighbours, and cheat and defraud, or spoil by violence, all others, without
   restraint. Lastly, it is, without dispute, more fit and reasonable in
   itself, that I should preserve the life of an innocent man, that happens at
   any time to be in my power, or deliver him from any imminent danger, though
   I have never made him any promise so to do, than that I should suffer him to
   perish, or take away his life, without any reason or provocation at all.

   These The absurdity of those who deny the eternal and necessary differences
   of things. things are so notoriously plain and self-evident that nothing but
   the extremest stupidity of mind, corruption of manners, or perverseness of
   spirit, can possibly make any man entertain the least doubt concerning them.
   For a man indued with reason, to deny the truth of these things, is the very
   same thing as if a man that has the use of his sight should, at the same
   time that he beholds the sun, deny that there is any such thing as light in
   the world; or as if a man that understands geometry or arithmetic, should
   deny the most obvious and known proportions of lines or numbers, and
   perversely contend that the whole is not equal to all its parts, or that a
   square is not double to a triangle of equal base and height. Any man of
   ordinary capacity, and unbiassed judgment, plainness, and simplicity, who
   had never read, and had never been told, that there were men and
   philosophers who had in earnest asserted, and attempted to prove, that there
   is no natural and unalterable difference between good and evil, would, at
   the first hearing, be as hardly persuaded to believe that it could ever
   really enter into the heart of any intelligent man to deny all natural
   difference between right and wrong, as he would be to believe that ever
   there could be any geometer who would seriously and in good earnest lay it
   down, as a first principle, that a crooked line is as straight as a right
   one. So that indeed it might justly seem altogether a needless undertaking
   to attempt to prove and establish the eternal difference of good and evil,
   had there not appeared certain men, as Mr. Hobbes and some few others, who
   have presumed, contrary to the plainest and most obvious reason of mankind,
   to assert, and not without some subtilty endeavoured to prove, that there is
   no such real difference originally, necessarily, and absolutely in the
   nature of things; but that all obligation of duty to God arises merely from
   his absolute irresistible power, and all duty towards men merely from
   positive compact; and have founded their whole scheme of politics upon that
   opinion: Wherein, as they have contradicted the judgment of all the wisest
   and soberest part of mankind, so they have not been able to avoid
   contradicting themselves also; for, not to mention now, that they have no
   way to show how compacts themselves come to be obligatory, but by
   inconsistently owning an eternal original fitness in the thing itself, which
   I shall have occasion to observe hereafter: Besides, this, I say, if there
   be naturally and absolutely in things themselves no difference between good
   and evil, just and, unjust, then, in the state of nature, before any compact
   be made, it is equally as good, just, and reasonable, for one man to destroy
   the life of another, not only when it is necessary for his own preservation,
   but also arbitrarily and without any provocation at all, [111] or any
   appearance of advantage to himself, as to preserve or save another man’s
   life, when he may do it without any hazard of his own: The consequence of
   which is, that not only the first and most obvious way for every particular
   man to secure himself effectually, would be, (as Mr Hobbes teaches) to
   endeavour to prevent and cut off all others, but also that men might destroy
   one another upon every foolish and peevish, or arbitrary humour, even when
   they did not think any such thing necessary for their own preservation: And
   the effect of this practice must needs be, that it would terminate in the
   destruction of all mankind; which being undeniably a great and insufferable
   evil, Mr Hobbes himself confesses it reasonable that, to prevent this evil,
   men should enter into certain compacts to preserve one another. Now, if the
   destruction of mankind by each other’s hands be such an evil, that, to
   prevent it, it was fit and reasonable that men should enter into compacts to
   preserve each other, then, before any such compacts, it was manifestly a
   thing unfit and unreasonable in itself that mankind should all destroy one
   another. And if so, then for the same reason it was also unfit and
   unreasonable, antecedent to all compacts, that any one man should destroy
   another arbitrarily and without any provocation, or at any time when it was
   not absolutely and immediately necessary for the preservation of himself;
   which is directly contradictory to Mr. Hobbes’s first supposition, [112] of
   there being no natural and absolute difference between good and evil, just
   and unjust, antecedent to positive compact. And in like manner, all others,
   who, upon any pretence whatsoever, teach that good and evil depend
   originally on the constitution of positive laws, whether divine or human,
   must unavoidably run into the same absurdity: For, if there be no such thing
   as good and evil in the nature of things, antecedent to all laws, then
   neither can any one law be better than another, nor any one thing whatever
   be more justly established and enforced by laws, than the contrary; nor can
   [113] any reason be given why any laws should ever be made at all: But all
   laws equally will be either arbitrary and tyrannical, [114] or frivolous and
   needless, because the contrary might with equal reason have been
   established, if, before the making of the laws, all things had been alike
   indifferent in their own nature. There is no possible way to avoid this
   absurdity, but by saying, that, out of things in their own nature absolutely
   indifferent, those are chosen by wise governors to be made obligatory by
   law, the practice of which they judge will tend to the public benefit of the
   community. But this is an express contradiction in the very terms. For, if
   the practice of certain things tends to the public benefit of the world, and
   the contrary would tend to the public disadvantage, then those things are
   not in their own nature indifferent, but were good and reasonable to be
   practised before any law was made, and can only for that very reason be
   wisely enforced by the authority of laws. Only here it is to be observed,
   that, by the public benefit, must [115] not be understood the interest of
   any one particular nation, to the plain injury or prejudice of the rest of
   mankind, any more than the interest of one city or family, in opposition to
   their neighbours of the same country. But those things only are truly good
   in their own nature which either tend to the universal benefit and welfare
   of all men, or at least are not destructive of it. The true state,
   therefore, of this case, is plainly this: Some things are in their own
   nature good and reasonable, and fit to be done; such as keeping faith, and
   performing equitable compacts, and the like; and these receive not their
   obligatory power from any law or authority, but are only declared,
   confirmed, and enforced by penalties upon such as would not perhaps be
   governed by right reason only. Other things are in their own nature
   absolutely evil; such as breaking faith, refusing to perform equitable
   compacts, cruelly destroying those who have neither directly nor indirectly
   given any occasion for any such treatment, and the like: And these cannot,
   by any law or authority whatsoever, be made fit and reasonable, or excusable
   to be practised. Lastly, other things are in their own nature indifferent;
   that is, (not absolutely and strictly so; as such trivial actions, which
   have no way any tendency at all either to the public welfare or damage; for,
   concerning such things, it would be childish and trifling to suppose any
   laws to be made at all; but they are) such things, whose tendency to the
   public benefit or disadvantage is either so small or so remote, or so
   obscure and involved, that the generality of people are not able of
   themselves to discern on which side they ought to act; and these things are
   made obligatory by the authority of laws, though perhaps every one cannot
   distinctly perceive the reason and fitness of their being enjoined; of which
   sort are many particular penal laws in several countries and nations. But to
   proceed:

   The An answer to the objection drawn from the variety of the opinions of
   learned men, and the laws of different nations concerning right and wrong.
   principal thing that can, with any colour of reason, seem to countenance the
   opinion of those who deny the natural and eternal difference of good and
   evil, (for Mr. Hobbes’s false reasonings I shall hereafter consider by
   themselves,) is the difficulty there may sometimes be, to define exactly the
   bounds of right and wrong, the variety [116] of opinions that have obtained
   even among understanding and learned men concerning certain questions of
   just and unjust, especially in political matters, and the many contrary laws
   that have been made in divers ages and in different countries concerning
   these matters. But as, in painting, two very different colours, by diluting
   each other very slowly and gradually, may, from the highest intenseness in
   either extreme, terminate in the midst insensibly, and so run one into the
   other, that it shall not be possible even for a skilful eye to determine
   exactly where the one ends and the other begins; and yet the colours may
   really differ as much as can be, not in degree only, but entirely in kind,
   as red and blue, or white and black; so, though it may perhaps be very
   difficult, in some nice and perplexed cases, (which yet are very far from
   occurring frequently,) to define exactly the bounds of right and wrong, just
   and unjust, and there may be some latitude in the judgment of different men
   and the laws of divers nations; yet right and wrong are nevertheless in
   themselves totally and essentially different; even altogether as much as
   white and black, light and darkness. The Spartan law, perhaps, which [117]
   permitted their youth to steal, may, as absurd as it was, bear much dispute
   whether it was absolutely unjust or no, because every man having an absolute
   right in his own goods, it may seem that the members of any society may
   agree to transfer or alter their own properties upon what conditions they
   shall think fit; but if it could be supposed that a law had been made at
   Sparta, or at Rome, or in India, or in any other part of the world, whereby
   it had been commanded or allowed, that every man might rob by violence, and
   murder whomsoever he met with, or that no faith should be kept with any man,
   nor any equitable compacts performed, no man, with any tolerable use of his
   reason, whatever diversity of judgment might be among them in other matters,
   would have thought that such a law could have authorised or excused, much
   less have justified such actions, and have made them become good; because,
   it is plainly not in men’s power to make falsehood be truth, though they may
   alter the property of their goods as they please. Now, if, in flagrant
   cases, the natural and essential difference between good and evil, right and
   wrong, cannot but be confessed to be plainly and undeniably evident, the
   difference between them must be also essential and unalterable in all, even
   the smallest, and nicest, and most intricate cases, though it be not so easy
   to be discerned and accurately distinguished; for, if, from the difficulty
   of determining exactly the bounds of right and wrong in many perplexed
   cases, it could truly be concluded that just and unjust were not essentially
   different by nature, but only by positive constitution and custom, it would
   follow equally, that they were not really, essentially, and unalterably
   different, even in the most flagrant cases that can be supposed; which is an
   assertion so very absurd, that Mr. Hobbes himself could hardly vent it
   without blushing, and discovering plainly, by his shifting expressions, his
   secret self-condemnation. There are, therefore, certain necessary and
   eternal differences of things, and certain consequent fitnesses or
   unfitnesses of the application of different things, or different relations
   one to another, not depending on any positive constitutions, but founded
   unchangeably in the nature and reason of things, and unavoidably arising
   from the differences of the things themselves; which is the first branch of
   the general proposition I proposed to prove.

   2. That the will of God always determines itself to act according to the
   eternal reason of things. Now, what these eternal and unalterable relations,
   respects, or proportions of things, with their consequent agreements or
   disagreements, fitnesses, or unfitnesses, absolutely and necessarily are in
   themselves, that also they appear to be, to the understandings of all
   intelligent beings, except those only who understand things to be what they
   are not, that is, whose understandings are either very imperfect or very
   much depraved. And by this understanding or knowledge of the natural and
   necessary relations, fitnesses, and proportions of things, the wills
   likewise of all intelligent beings are constantly directed, and must needs
   be determined to act accordingly, excepting those only who will things to be
   what they are not and cannot be; that is, whose wills are corrupted by
   particular interest or affection, or swayed by some unreasonable and
   prevailing passion. Wherefore, since the natural attributes of God, his
   infinite knowledge, wisdom, and power, set him infinitely above all
   possibility of being deceived by any error, or of being influenced by any
   wrong affection, it is manifest his divine will cannot but always and
   necessarily determine itself to choose to do what in the whole is absolutely
   best and fittest to be done; that is, to act constantly according to the
   eternal rules of infinite goodness, justice, and truth; as I have
   endeavoured to show distinctly in my former discourse, in deducing severally
   the moral attributes of God.

   3. That all rational creatures are obliged to govern themselves in all their
   actions, by the same eternal rule of reason. And now that the same reason of
   things, with regard to which the will of God always and necessarily does
   determine itself to act in constant conformity to the eternal rules of
   justice, equity, goodness, and truth, ought also constantly to determine the
   wills of all subordinate rational beings, to govern all their actions by the
   same rules, is very evident. For, as it is absolutely impossible in nature
   that God should be deceived by any error, or influenced by any wrong
   affection, so it is very unreasonable and blame-worthy in practice, that any
   intelligent creatures, whom God has made so far like unto himself, as to
   indue them with those excellent faculties of reason and will, whereby they
   are enabled to distinguish good from evil, and to choose the one and refuse
   the other, should either negligently suffer themselves to be imposed upon
   and deceived in matters of good and evil, right and wrong, or wilfully and
   perversely allow themselves to be over-ruled by absurd passions, and corrupt
   or partial affections, to act contrary to what they know is fit to be done.
   Which two things, viz. negligent misunderstanding, and wilful passions or
   lusts, are, as I said, the only causes which can make a reasonable creature
   act contrary to reason, that is, contrary to the eternal rules of justice,
   equity, righteousness, and truth: For, was it not for these inexcusable
   corruptions and depravations, it is impossible but the same proportions and
   fitnesses of things, which have so much weight, and so much excellency, and
   beauty in them, that the all-powerful creator and governor of the universe,
   (who has the absolute and uncontrollable dominion of all things in his own
   hands, and is accountable to none for what he does, yet) thinks it no
   diminution of his power to make this reason of things the unalterable rule
   and law of his own actions in the government of the world, and does nothing
   by mere will and arbitrariness; it is impossible, (I say,) if it was not for
   inexcusable corruption and depravation, but the same eternal reason of
   things must much more have weight enough to determine constantly the wills
   and actions of all subordinate, finite, dependent, and accountable beings.
   Proved from the original nature of things. For originally, and in reality,
   it is as natural and (morally speaking) necessary, that the will should be
   determined in every action by the reason of the thing, and the right of the
   case, as it is natural and (absolutely speaking) necessary, that the
   understanding should submit to a demonstrated truth; and it is as absurd and
   blame-worthy, to mistake negligently plain right and wrong, that is, to
   understand the proportions of things in morality to be what they are not, or
   wilfully to act contrary to known justice and equity, that is, to will
   things to be what they are not and cannot be, as it would be absurd and
   ridiculous for a man, in arithmetical matters, ignorantly to believe that
   twice two is not equal to four, or wilfully and obstinately to contend,
   against his own clear knowledge, that the whole is not equal to all its
   parts. The only difference is, that assent to a plain speculative truth is
   not in a man’s power to withhold; but to act according to the plain right
   and reason of things, this he may, by the natural liberty of his will,
   forbear; but the one he ought to do, and it is as much his plain and
   indispensable duty, as the other he cannot but do, and it is the necessity
   of his nature to do it: He that will-fully refuses to honour and obey God,
   from whom he received his being, and to whom he continually owes his
   preservation, is really guilty of an equal absurdity and inconsistency in
   practice, as he that in speculation denies the effect to owe any thing to
   its cause, or the whole to be bigger than its part. He that refuses to deal
   with all men equitably, and with every man as he desires they should deal
   with him, is guilty of the very same unreasonableness and contradiction in
   one case, as he that in another case should affirm one number or quantity to
   be equal to another, and yet that other at the same time not to be equal to
   the first: Lastly, he that acknowledges himself obliged to the practice of
   certain duties both towards God and towards men, and yet takes no care
   either to preserve his own being, or at least not to preserve himself in
   such a state and temper of mind and body, as may best enable him to perform
   those duties, is altogether as inexcusable and ridiculous as he that in any
   other matter should affirm one thing at the same time that he denies
   another, without which the former could not possibly be true; or undertake
   one thing at the same time that he obstinately omits another, without which
   the former is by no means practicable: Wherefore all rational creatures,
   whose wills are not constantly and regularly determined, and their actions
   governed by right reason and the necessary differences of good and evil,
   according to the eternal and invariable rules of justice, equity, goodness,
   and truth, but suffer themselves to be swayed by unaccountable arbitrary
   humours and rash passions, by lusts, vanity, and pride, by private interest,
   or present sensual pleasures; these, setting up their own unreasonable
   self-will in opposition to the nature and reason of things, endeavour (as
   much as in them lies) to make things be what they are not, and cannot be;
   which is the highest presumption and greatest insolence, as well as the
   greatest absurdity imaginable: It is acting contrary to that understanding,
   reason, and judgment, which God has implanted in their natures, on purpose
   to enable them to discern the difference between good and evil;—it is
   attempting to destroy that order by which the universe subsists;—it is
   offering the highest affront imaginable to the creator of all things, who
   made things to be what they are, and governs every thing himself according
   to the laws of their several natures;—in a word, all wilful wickedness and
   perversion of right is the very same insolence and absurdity in moral
   matters, as it would be in natural things for a man to pretend to alter the
   certain proportions of numbers,—to take away the demonstrable relations and
   properties of mathematical figures,—to make light darkness, and darkness
   light,—or to call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet.

   Further: And from the sense that all, even wicked men, unavoidably have of
   their being under such an obligation. As it appears thus, from the abstract
   and absolute reason and nature of things, that all rational creatures ought,
   that is, are obliged to take care that their wills and actions be constantly
   determined and governed by the eternal rule of right and equity: so the
   certainty and universality of that obligation is plainly confirmed, and the
   force of it particularly discovered and applied to every man by this; that,
   in like manner as no one who is instructed in mathematics can forbear giving
   his assent to every geometrical demonstration, of which he understands the
   terms, either by his own study, or by having had them explained to him by
   others; so no man, who either has patience and opportunities to examine and
   consider things himself, or has the means of being taught and instructed in
   any tolerable manner by others, concerning the necessary relations and
   dependencies of things, can avoid giving his assent to the fitness and
   reasonableness of his governing all his actions by the law or rule before
   mentioned, even though his practice, through the prevalence of brutish
   lusts, be most absurdly contradictory to that assent. That is to say, by the
   reason of his mind, he cannot but be compelled to own and acknowledge that
   there is really such an obligation indispensably incumbent upon him; even at
   the same time that in the actions of his life he is endeavouring to throw it
   off and despise it: For the judgment and conscience of a man’s own mind,
   concerning the reasonableness and fitness of the thing, that his actions
   should be conformed to such or such a rule or law, is the truest and
   formallest obligation, even more properly and strictly so than any opinion
   whatsoever of the authority of the giver of a law, or any regard he may have
   to its sanction by rewards and punishments. For whoever acts contrary to
   this sense and conscience of his own mind, is necessarily self-condemned;
   and the greatest and strongest of all obligations is that which a man cannot
   break through without condemning himself. The dread of superior power and
   authority, and the sanction of rewards and punishments, however, indeed,
   absolutely necessary to the government of frail and fallible creatures, and
   truly the most effectual means of keeping them in their duty, is yet really
   in itself only a secondary and additional obligation or enforcement of the
   first. The original obligation of all (the ambiguous use of which word, as a
   term of art, has caused some perplexity and confusion in this matter,) is
   the eternal reason of things; that reason, which God himself, who has no
   superior to direct him, and to whose happiness nothing can be added nor any
   thing diminished from it, yet constantly obliges himself to govern the world
   by: And the more excellent and perfect (or the freer from corruption and
   depravation) any creatures are, the more cheerfully and steadily are their
   wills always determined by this supreme obligation, in conformity to the
   nature, and in imitation of the most perfect will of God: So far, therefore,
   as men are conscious of what is right and wrong, so far they are under an
   obligation to act accordingly; and, consequently, that eternal rule of right
   which I have been hereto describing, it is evident ought as indispensably to
   govern men’s actions, as it cannot but necessarily determine their assent.

   Now that the case is truly thus; that the eternal And from the judgment of
   mens’ consciences upon their own past actions. differences of good and evil,
   the unalterable rule of right and equity, do necessarily and unavoidably
   determine the judgment, and force the assent of all men that use any
   consideration, is undeniably manifest from the universal experience of
   mankind; for no man willingly and deliberately transgresses this rule in any
   great and considerable instance, but he acts contrary to the judgment and
   reason of his own mind, and secretly reproaches himself for so doing: And no
   man observes and obeys it steadily, especially in cases of difficulty and
   temptation, when it interferes with any present interest, pleasure, or
   passion, but his own mind commends and applauds him for his resolution in
   executing what his conscience could not forbear giving its assent to, as
   just and right: And this is what St. Paul means, when he says, (Rom. ii. 14,
   15,) that when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things
   contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves;
   which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
   also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else
   excusing one another.

   It Of that natural knowledge which Plato thought to be reminiscence. was a
   very wise observation of Plato, which he received from Socrates, that if you
   take a young man, impartial and unprejudiced, one that never had any
   learning, nor any experience in the world, and examine him about the natural
   relations and proportions of things, [or the moral differences of good and
   evil,] you may, only by asking him questions, without teaching him any thing
   at all directly, cause him to express in his answers just and adequate
   notions of geometrical truths, [and true and exact determinations concerning
   matters of right and wrong.] From whence he thought it was to be concluded,
   that all knowledge and learning is nothing but memory, or only a
   recollecting, upon every new occasion, what had been before known in a state
   of pre-existence. And some others, both ancients and moderns, have concluded
   that the ideas of all first and simple truths, either natural or moral, are
   innate and originally impressed or stamped upon the mind. In their inference
   from the observation, the authors of both these opinions seem to be
   mistaken; but thus much it proves unavoidably,—that the differences,
   relations, and proportions of things, both natural and moral, in which all
   unprejudiced minds thus naturally agree, are certain, unalterable, and real
   in the things themselves, and do not at all depend on the variable opinions,
   fancies, or imaginations of men prejudiced by education, laws, customs, or
   evil practices: And also that the mind of man naturally and unavoidably
   gives its assent, as to natural and geometrical truth, so also to the moral
   differences of things, and to the fitness and reasonableness of the
   obligation of the everlasting law of righteousness, whenever fairly and
   plainly proposed.

   Some men, The most profligate men not utterly insensible of the difference
   of good and evil. indeed, who, by means of a very evil and vicious
   education, or through a long habit of wickedness and debauchery, have
   extremely corrupted the principles of their nature, and have long accustomed
   themselves to bear down their own reason by the force of prejudice, lust,
   and passion, that they may not be forced to confess themselves
   self-condemned, will confidently and absolutely contend that they do not
   really see any natural and necessary difference between what we call right
   and wrong, just and unjust; that the reason and judgment of their own mind
   does not tell them they are under any such indispensable obligations as we
   would endeavour to persuade them; and that they are not sensible they ought
   to be governed by any other rule than their own will and pleasure. But even
   these men, the most abandoned of all mankind, however industriously they
   endeavour to conceal and deny their self-condemnation, yet they cannot avoid
   making a discovery of it sometimes when they are not aware of it. For
   example, there is no man so vile and desperate who commits at any time a
   murder and robbery, with the most unrelenting mind, but would choose, [118]
   if such a thing could be proposed to him to obtain all the same profit or
   advantage, whatsoever it be that he aims at, without committing the crime,
   rather than with it, even though he was sure to go unpunished for committing
   the crime. Nay, I believe there is no man even in Mr Hobbes’s state of
   nature, and of Mr Hobbes’s own principles, but if he was equally assured of
   securing his main end, his self-preservation, by either way, would choose to
   preserve himself rather without destroying all his fellow-creatures, than
   with it, even supposing all impunity, and all other future conveniences of
   life, equal in either case. Mr. Hobbes’s own scheme, of men’s agreeing by
   compact to preserve one another, can hardly be supposed without this. And
   this plainly evinces, that the mind of man unavoidably acknowledges a
   natural and necessary difference between good and evil, antecedent to all
   arbitrary and positive constitution whatsoever.

   But Men’s natural sense of eternal moral obligations, proved from the
   judgment they all pass upon the actions of others. the truth of this, that
   the mind of man naturally and necessarily assents to the eternal law of
   righteousness, may still better, and more clearly, and more universally
   appear, from the judgment that men pass upon each other’s actions, than from
   what we can discern concerning their consciousness of their own. For men may
   dissemble and conceal from the world the judgment of their own conscience;
   nay, by a strange partiality, they may even impose upon and deceive
   themselves, (for who is there that does not sometimes allow himself, nay,
   and even justify himself in that wherein he condemns another?) But men’s
   judgments concerning the actions of others, especially where they have no
   relation to themselves, or repugnance to their interest, are commonly
   impartial; and from this we may judge what sense men naturally have of the
   unalterable difference of right and wrong. Now the observation which every
   one cannot but make in this matter is this; that virtue and true goodness,
   righteousness and equity, are things so truly noble and excellent, so lovely
   and venerable in themselves, and do so necessarily approve themselves to the
   reason and consciences of men, that even those very persons who, by the
   prevailing power of some interest or lust, are themselves drawn aside out of
   the paths of virtue, [119] can yet hardly ever forbear to give it its true
   character and commendation in others. And this observation holds true, not
   only in the generality of vicious men, but very frequently even in the worst
   sort of them, viz. those who persecute others for being better than
   themselves. Thus the officers who were sent by the Pharisees to apprehend
   our Saviour, could not forbear declaring [120] that he spake as never man
   spake; and the Roman governor, when he gave sentence that he should be
   crucified, could not at the same instant forbear openly declaring that he
   found no fault in him. [121] Even in this case men cannot choose but think
   well of those persons whom the dominion of their lusts will not suffer them
   to imitate, or whom their present interest and the necessity of their
   worldly affairs compels them to discourage. They cannot but desire, that
   they themselves were the men they are not, and wish, with Balaam, that
   though they imitate not the life, yet at least they might die the death of
   the righteous, and that their last end might be like theirs. And hence it is
   that Plato judiciously observes, [122] that even the worst of men seldom or
   never make so wrong judgment concerning persons as they do concerning
   things, there being in virtue an unaccountable and as it were divine force,
   which, whatever confusion men endeavour to introduce in things by their
   vicious discourses and debauched practices, yet almost always compels them
   to distinguish right concerning persons, and makes them admire and praise
   just and equitable, and honest men. On the contrary, vice and injustice,
   profaneness and debauchery, are things so absolutely odious in their own
   nature, that however they insinuate themselves into the practice, yet they
   can never gain over to themselves the judgment of mankind. They who do evil,
   yet see and approve what is good, and condemn in others what they blindly
   allow in themselves; nay, and very frequently condemn even themselves also,
   not without great disorder and uneasiness of mind, in those very things
   wherein they allow themselves. At least, there is hardly any wicked man, but
   when his own case is represented to him under the person of another, will
   freely enough pass sentence against the wickedness he himself is guilty of;
   and, with sufficient severity, exclaim against all iniquity. This shows
   abundantly, that all variation from the eternal rule of right is absolutely
   and in the nature of the thing itself to be abhorred and detested, and that
   the unprejudiced mind of man as naturally disapproves injustice in moral
   matters, as in natural things it cannot but dissent from falsehood, or
   dislike incongruities. Even in reading the histories of past and far distant
   ages, where it is plain we can have no concern for the events of things, nor
   prejudices concerning the characters of persons; who is there, that does not
   praise and admire, nay highly esteem, and in his imagination love (as it
   were) the equity, justice, truth, and fidelity of some persons, and, with
   the greatest indignation and hatred, detest the barbarity, injustice, and
   treachery of others? Nay, further, when the prejudices of corrupt minds lie
   all on the side of injustice, as when we have obtained some very great
   profit or advantage through another man’s treachery or breach of faith; ye
   [123] who is there, that, upon that very occasion, does not (even to a
   proverb,) dislike the person and the action, how much soever he may rejoice
   at the event? But when we come ourselves to suffer by iniquity, then where
   are all the arguments and sophistries by which unjust men, while they are
   oppressing others, would persuade themselves that they are not sensible of
   any natural difference between good and evil? When it comes to be these
   men’s own case to be oppressed by violence, or overreached by fraud, where
   then are all their pleas against the eternal distinction of right and wrong?
   How, on the contrary, do they then cry out for equity, and exclaim against
   injustice? How do they then challenge and object against Providence, and
   think neither God nor man severe enough, in punishing the violators of right
   and truth? Whereas if there was no natural and eternal difference between
   just and unjust, no man could have any reason to complain of injury, any
   other than what laws and compacts made so; which in innumerable cases will
   be always to be evaded.

   An answer to the objection drawn from the total ignorance of some barbarous
   nations in matters of morality. There is but one thing that I am sensible
   of, which can here with any colour be objected against what has been
   hitherto said concerning the necessity of the mind’s giving its assent to
   the eternal law of righteousness; and that is, the total ignorance which
   some whole nations are reported to lie under of the nature and force of
   these moral obligations. I am not satisfied the matter of fact is true; but
   if it was, yet mere ignorance affords no just objection against the
   certainty of any truth. Were there upon earth a nation of rational and
   considerate persons, whose notions concerning moral obligations, and
   concerning the nature and force of them, were universally and directly
   contrary to what I have hitherto represented, this would be indeed a weighty
   objection; but ignorance and stupidity are no arguments against the
   certainty of any thing. There are many nations and people almost totally
   ignorant of the plainest mathematical truths; as, of the proportion, for
   example, of a square to a triangle of the same base and height: And yet
   these truths are such, to which the mind cannot but give its assent
   necessarily and unavoidably, as soon as they are distinctly proposed to it.
   All that this objection proves, therefore, supposing the matter of it to be
   true, is only this; not, that the mind of man can ever dissent from the rule
   of right, much less that there is no necessary difference in nature between
   moral good and evil, any more than it proves that there are no certain and
   necessary proportions of numbers, lines, or figures; but this it proves
   only, that men have great need to be taught and instructed in some very
   plain and easy, as well as certain truths; and if they be important truths,
   that then men have need also to have them frequently inculcated, and
   strongly enforced upon them: Which is very true; and is (as shall hereafter
   be particularly made to appear,) one good argument for the reasonableness of
   expecting a revelation.

   4. Of the principal moral obligations in particular. Thus it appears, in
   general, that the mind of man cannot avoid giving its assent to the eternal
   law of righteousness, that is, cannot but acknowledge the reasonableness and
   fitness of men’s governing all their actions by the rule of right or equity;
   and also that this assent is a formal obligation upon every man, actually
   and constantly to conform himself to that rule. I might now from hence
   deduce, in particular, all the several duties of morality or natural
   religion; but, because this would take up too large a portion of my intended
   discourse, and may easily be supplied abundantly out of several-late
   excellent writers, I shall only mention the three great and principal
   branches from which all the other and smaller instances of duty do naturally
   flow, or may without difficulty be derived.

   First, Of piety, or men's duty towards God. then; in respect of God, the
   rule of righteousness is, that we keep up constantly in our minds the
   highest possible honour, esteem, and veneration for him, which must express
   itself in proper and respective influences upon all our passions, and in the
   suitable direction of all our actions;—that we worship and adore him, and
   him alone, as the only supreme author, preserver, and governor of all
   things;—that we employ our whole being, and all our powers and faculties in
   his service, and for his glory, that is, in encouraging the practice of
   universal righteousness, and promoting the designs of his divine goodness
   amongst men, in such way and manner as shall at any time appear to be his
   will we should do it;—and, finally, that, to enable us to do this
   continually, we pray unto him constantly for whatever we stand in need of,
   and return him continual and hearty thanks for whatever good things we at
   any time receive. There is no congruity or proportion in the uniform
   disposition and correspondent order of any bodies or magnitudes, no fitness
   or agreement in the application of similar and equal geometrical figures one
   to another, or in the comparing them one with another, so visible and
   conspicuous as is the beauty and harmony of the exercise of God’s several
   attributes, meeting with suitable returns of duty and honour from all his
   rational creatures throughout the universe;—the consideration of his
   eternity and infinity, his knowledge and his wisdom, necessarily commands
   our highest admiration;—the sense of his omnipresence forces a perpetual,
   awful regard towards him;—his supreme authority, as being the creator,
   preserver, and absolute governor of all things, obliges us to pay him all
   possible honour and veneration, adoration, and worship, and his unity
   requires that it be paid to him alone;—his power and justice demand our
   fear;—his mercy and placableness encourage our hope;—his goodness
   necessarily excites our love;—his veracity and unchangeableness secure our
   trust in him;—the sense of our having received our being, and all our powers
   from him, makes it infinitely reasonable that we should employ our whole
   being and all our faculties in his service;—the consciousness of our
   continual dependence upon him both for our preservation and the supply of
   every thing we want, obliges us to constant prayer;—and every good thing we
   enjoy, the air we breathe, and the food we eat, the rain from heaven, and
   the fruitful seasons, all the blessings and comforts of the present time,
   and the hopes and expectations we have of what is to come, do all demand our
   heartiest gratitude and thanksgiving to him. [124] The suitableness and
   proportion, the correspondency and connexion of each of these things
   respectively, is as plain and conspicuous as the shining of the sun at
   noon-day; [125] and it is the greatest absurdity and perverseness in the
   world for creatures, indued with reason, to attempt to break through and
   transgress this necessary order and dependency of things: All inanimate and
   all irrational beings, by the necessity of their nature, constantly obey the
   laws of their creation, and tend regularly to the ends for which they were
   appointed; how monstrous then is it that reasonable creatures, merely
   because they are not necessitated, should abuse that glorious privilege of
   liberty by which they are exalted in dignity above the rest of God’s
   creation, to make themselves the alone unreasonable and disorderly part of
   the universe!—that a tree planted in a fruitful soil, and watered
   continually with the dew of heaven, and cherished constantly with the kindly
   warmth and benign influence of the sunbeams, should yet never bring forth
   either leaves or fruit, is in no degree so irregular, and contrary to
   nature, as that a rational being, created after the image of God, and
   conscious of God’s doing every thing for him that becomes the relation of an
   infinitely good and bountiful Creator to his creatures, should yet never on
   his part make any return of those duties which arise necessarily from the
   relation of a creature to his Creator.

   Secondly. Of righteousness or the duty of men one towards another. In
   respect of our fellow-creatures, the rule of righteousness is; that in
   particular we so deal with every man, as in like circumstances we could
   reasonably expect he should deal with us, and that in general we endeavour,
   by an universal benevolence, to promote the welfare and happiness of all
   men: The former branch of this rule is equity, the latter is love.

   Of justice and equity. As to the former, viz. equity; the reason which
   obliges every man in practice, so to deal always with another as he would
   reasonably expect that others should in like circumstances deal with him, is
   the very same as that which forces him, in speculation, to affirm, that if
   one line or number be equal to another, that other is reciprocally equal to
   it. Iniquity is the very same in action as falsity or contradiction in
   theory, and the same cause which makes the one absurd makes the other
   unreasonable. Whatever relation or proportion one man in any case bears to
   another, the same that other, when put in like circumstances, bears to him.
   Whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable, for another to do for me, that,
   by the same judgment, I declare reasonable or unreasonable that I in the
   like case should do for him. And to deny this either in word or action, is
   as if a man should contend, that though two and three are equal to five, yet
   five are not equal to two and three. [126] Wherefore, were not men strangely
   and most unnaturally corrupted by perverse and unaccountably false opinions,
   and monstrous evil customs and habits, prevailing against the clearest and
   plainest reason in the world, it would be impossible that universal equity
   should not be practised by all mankind, and especially among equals, where
   the proportion of equity is simple and obvious, and every man’s own case is
   already the same with all others, without any nice comparing or transposing
   of circumstances. It would be as impossible [127] that a man, contrary to
   the eternal reason of things, should desire to gain some small profit to
   himself, by doing violence and damage to his neighbour, as that he should be
   willing to be deprived of necessaries himself, to satisfy the unreasonable
   covetousness or ambition of another. In a word, it would be impossible for
   men not to be as much ashamed of doing iniquity, as they are of believing
   contradictions. In considering indeed the duties of superiors in various
   relations, the proportion of equity is somewhat more complex, but still it
   may always be deduced from the same rule of doing as we would be done by, if
   careful regard be had at the same time to the difference of relation; that
   is, if, in considering what is fit for you to do to another, you always take
   into the account, not only every circumstance of the action, but also every
   circumstance wherein the person differs from you, and in judging what you
   would desire that another, if your circumstances were transposed, should do
   to you, you always consider not what any unreasonable passion or private
   interest would prompt you, but what impartial reason would dictate to you to
   desire. For example, a magistrate, in order to deal equitably with a
   criminal, is not to consider what fear or self-love would cause him in the
   criminal’s case to desire, but what reason and the public good would oblige
   him to acknowledge was fit and just for him to expect. And the same
   proportion is to be observed in deducing the duties of parents and children,
   of masters and servants, of governors and subjects, of citizens and
   foreigners, in what manner every person is obliged, by the rule of equity,
   to behave himself in each of these and all other relations. In the regular
   and uniform practice of all which duties among all mankind, in their several
   and respective relations, through the whole earth, consists that universal
   justice which is the top and perfection of all virtues: which, if, as Plato
   says, [128] it could be represented visibly to mortal eyes, would raise in
   us an inexpressible love and admiration of it; which would introduce into
   the world such a glorious and happy state as the ancient poets have
   attempted to describe in their fiction of a golden age; which in itself is
   so truly beautiful and lovely, that, as Aristotle [129] elegantly expresses
   it, the motions of the heavenly bodies are not so admirably regular and
   harmonious, nor the brightness of the sun and stars so ornamental to the
   visible fabric of the world, as the universal practice of this illustrious
   virtue would be conducive to the glory and advantage of the rational part of
   this lower creation; which, lastly, is so truly noble and excellent in its
   own nature, that the wisest and most considering men have always declared,
   [130] that neither life itself, nor [131] all other possible enjoyments in
   the world, put together, are of any value or esteem in comparison of, or in
   competition with, that right temper and disposition of mind from which flows
   the practice of this universal justice and equity. On the contrary,
   injustice and iniquity, violence, fraud, and oppression, the universal
   confusion of right and wrong, and the general neglect and contempt of all
   the duties arising from men’s several relations one to another, is the
   greatest and most unnatural corruption of God’s creation that it is possible
   for depraved and rebellious creatures to introduce: As they themselves who
   practise iniquity most, and are most desirous to defend it, yet whenever it
   comes to be their own turn to suffer by it, are not very backward to
   acknowledge. To comprise this matter, therefore, in one word; what the
   sun’s forsaking that equal course, which now, by diffusing gentle warmth and
   light, cherishes and invigorates every thing in a due proportion through the
   whole system, and on the contrary, his burning up, by an irregular and
   disorderly motion, some of the orbs with insupportable heat, and leaving
   others to perish in extreme cold and darkness; what this, I say, would be to
   the natural world, that very same thing, injustice, and tyranny, iniquity,
   and all wickedness, is to the moral and rational part of the creation. The
   only difference is this; that the one is an obstinate and wilful corruption,
   and most perverse depravation of creatures made after the image of God, and
   a violating the eternal and unalterable law or reason of things, which is of
   the utmost importance; whereas the other would be only a revolution or
   change, of the arbitrary and temporary frame of nature.

   Of universal mutual benevolence. The second branch of the rule of
   righteousness, with respect to our fellow-creatures, I said, was universal
   love or benevolence; that is, not only the doing barely what is just and
   right in our dealings with every man, but also a constant endeavouring to
   promote, in general, to the utmost of our power, the welfare and happiness
   of all men. The obligation to which duty, also, may easily be deduced from
   what has been already laid down. For if (as has been before proved) there be
   a natural and necessary difference between good and evil, and that which is
   good is fit and reasonable, and that which is evil is unreasonable to be
   done; and that which is the greatest good, is always the most fit and
   reasonable to be chosen: Then, as the goodness of God extends itself
   universally over all his works through the whole creation, by doing always
   what is absolutely best in the whole; so every rational creature ought, in
   its sphere and station, according to its respective powers and faculties, to
   do all the good it can to all its fellow-creatures. To which end, universal
   love and benevolence is as plainly the most direct, certain, and effectual
   means, as [132] in mathematics the flowing of a point is to produce a line,
   or, in arithmetic, the addition of numbers to produce a sum; or in physics,
   certain kind of motions to preserve certain bodies, which other kinds of
   motions tend to corrupt. Of all which, the mind of man is so naturally
   sensible, that, except in such men whose affections are prodigiously
   corrupted by most unnatural and habitual vicious practices, there is no duty
   whatsoever, the performance whereof affords a man so ample pleasure [133]
   and satisfaction, and fills his mind with so comfortable a sense of his
   having done the greatest good he was capable to do, of his having best
   answered the ends of his creation, and nearliest imitated the perfections of
   his Creator, and consequently of his having fully complied with the highest
   and principal obligations of his nature; as the performance of this one
   duty, of universal love and benevolence, naturally affords. But further; the
   obligation to this great duty may also otherwise be deduced from the nature
   of man, in the following manner. Next to that natural self-love, or care of
   his own preservation, which every one necessarily has in the first place for
   himself, there is in all men a certain natural affection for their children
   and posterity, who have a dependence upon them; and for their near relations
   and friends, who have an intimacy with them. And because the nature of man
   is such, that they cannot live comfortably in independent families, without
   still further society and commerce with each other; therefore they naturally
   desire to increase their dependences, by multiplying affinities, and to
   enlarge their friendships by mutual good offices, and to establish societies
   by a communication of arts and labour, till, [134] by degrees, the affection
   of single persons becomes a friendship of families, and this enlarges itself
   to society of towns, and cities, and nations, and terminates in the agreeing
   community of all mankind: The foundation, preservation, and perfection of
   which universal friendship or society is mutual love and benevolence. And
   nothing hinders the world from being actually put into so happy a state but
   perverse iniquity, and unreasonable want of mutual charity. Wherefore, since
   men are plainly so constituted by nature, that they stand in need of each
   other’s assistance to make themselves easy in the world, and are fitted to
   live in communities, and society is absolutely necessary for them, and
   mutual love and benevolence is the only possible means to establish this
   society in any tolerable and durable manner; and in this respect [135] all
   men stand upon the same level, and have the same natural wants and desires,
   and are in the same need of each other’s help, and are equally capable of
   enjoying the benefit and advantage of society, it is evident every man is
   bound by the law of his nature, and as he is also prompted by the [136]
   inclination of his uncorrupted affections, to [137] look upon himself as a
   part and member of that one universal body or community which is made up of
   all mankind, to think himself [138] born to promote the public good and
   welfare of all his fellow-creatures, and consequently obliged, as the
   necessary and only effectual means to that end, to [139] embrace them all
   with universal love and benevolence, so that he cannot, [140] without acting
   contrary to the reason of his own mind, and transgressing the plain and
   known law of his being, do willingly any hurt and mischief to any man, no,
   not even to those who have first injured him, [141] but ought, for the
   public benefit, to endeavour to appease with gentleness rather than
   exasperate with retaliations; and finally, to comprehend all in one word,
   (which is the top and complete perfection of this great duty,) ought to
   [142] love all others as himself. This is the argumentation of that great
   master Cicero, whose knowledge and understanding of the true state of
   things, and of the original obligations of human nature, was as much greater
   than Mr. Hobbes’s as his helps and advantages to attain that knowledge were
   less.

   Thirdly. Of sobriety, or men’s duty towards themselves; and of the
   unlawfulness of self-murder. With respect to ourselves, the rule of
   righteousness is; that every man preserve his own being, as long as he is
   able, and take care to keep himself at all times in such temper and
   disposition both of body and mind, as may best fit and enable him to perform
   his duty in all other instances. That is; he ought to bridle his appetites,
   with temperance; to govern his passions, with moderation; and to apply
   himself to the business of his present station in the world, whatsoever it
   be, with attention and contentment. That every man ought to preserve his own
   being as long as he is able, is evident; because what he is not himself the
   author and giver of, he can never of himself have just power or authority to
   take away. He that sent us into the world, and alone knows for how long time
   he appointed us our station here, and when we have finished all the business
   he intended we should do, can alone judge when it is fit for us to be taken
   hence, and has alone authority to dismiss and discharge us. This reasoning
   has been admirably applied by Plato, Cicero, and others of the best
   philosophers. So that though the stoics of old, and the deists of late,
   have, in their ranting discourses, and some few of them in their rash
   practice, contradicted it, yet they have never been able, with any colour of
   reason, to answer or evade the force of the argument; which, indeed, to
   speak the truth, has been urged by the fore-mentioned philosophers with such
   singular beauty, as well as invincible strength, that it seems not capable
   of having any thing added to it. Wherefore I shall give it you, only in some
   of their own words. We men, (says [143] Plato, in the person of Socrates,)
   are all, by the appointment of God, in a certain prison or custody, which we
   ought not to break out of, and run away. We are as servants, or as cattle,
   in the hand of God. And would not any of us, saith he, if one of our
   servants should, contrary to our direction, and to escape out of our
   service, kill himself, think that we had just reason to be very angry, and
   if it was in our power, punish him for it? So likewise Cicero; God, says he,
   [144] the supreme governor of all things, forbids us to depart hence without
   his order: and though, when the divine providence does itself offer us a
   just occasion of leaving this world, (as when a man chooses to suffer death
   rather than commit wickedness,) a wise man will then indeed depart joyfully,
   as out of a place of sorrow and darkness into light; yet he will not be in
   such haste as to break his prison contrary to law; but will go when God
   calls him, as a prisoner when dismissed by the magistrate or lawful power.
   Again: that short remainder of life, saith he, [145] which old men have a
   prospect of, they ought neither too eagerly to desire, nor yet on the
   contrary unreasonably and discontentedly deprive themselves of it: for, as
   Pythagoras teaches, it is as unlawful for a man, without the command of God,
   to remove himself out of the world, as for a soldier to leave his post
   without his general’s order. And in another place: unless that God, saith
   he, [146] whose temple and palace this whole world is, discharges you
   himself out of the prison of the body, you can never be received to his
   favour. Wherefore you, and all pious men, ought to have patience to continue
   in the body, as long as God shall please, who sent us hither; and not force
   yourselves out of the world, before he calls for you, lest you be found
   deserters of the station appointed you of God. And to mention no more,—that
   excellent author, Arrian: wait, saith he, [147] the good pleasure of God:
   when he signifies it to be his will that you should be discharged from this
   service, then depart willingly; but, in the meantime, have patience, and
   tarry in the place where he has appointed you: wait, and do not hurry
   yourselves away wilfully and unreasonably. The objections, which the author
   of the defence of self-murder, prefixed to the Oracles of Reason, has
   attempted to advance against this argument, are so very weak and childish
   that it is evident he could not, at the time he wrote them, believe in
   earnest that there was any force in them; as when he says, that the reason
   why it is not lawful for a centinel to leave his station without his
   commander’s order, is because he entered into the service by his own
   consent; as if God had not a just power to lay any commands upon his
   creatures without their own consent: Or when he says, that there are many
   lawful ways to seek death in; as if, because a man may lawfully venture his
   life in many public services, therefore it was lawful for him directly to
   throw it away upon any foolish discontent. But the author of that discourse
   has since been so just as to confess his folly, and retract it publicly
   himself. Wherefore, to proceed. For the same reason that a man is obliged to
   preserve his own being at all, he is bound likewise to preserve himself, as
   far as he is able, in the right use of all his faculties: that is, to keep
   himself constantly in such temper, both of body and mind, by regulating his
   appetites and passions, as may best fit and enable him to perform his duty
   in all other instances, For, as it matters not whether a soldier deserts his
   post, or by drunkenness renders himself incapable of performing his duty in
   it; so for a man to disable himself, by any intemperance or passion, from
   performing the necessary duties of life, is, at least for that time, the
   same thing as depriving himself of life. And neither is this all. For great
   intemperance and ungoverned passions not only incapacitate a man to perform
   his duty, but also expose him to run headlong into the commission of the
   greatest enormities: there being no violence or injustice whatsoever, which
   a man, who has deprived himself of his reason by intemperance or passion, is
   not capable of being tempted to commit. So that all the additional
   obligations which a man is any way under, to forbear committing the most
   flagrant crimes, lie equally upon him to govern his passions and restrain
   his appetites: without doing which, he can never secure himself effectually
   from being betrayed into the commission of all iniquity. This is indeed the
   great difficulty of life, to subdue and conquer our unreasonable appetites
   and passions. But it is absolutely neccessary to be done: And it is [148]
   moreover the bravest and most glorious conquest in the world. Lastly: For
   the same reason that a man is obliged not to depart wilfully out of this
   life, which is the general station that God has appointed him, he is obliged
   likewise to attend the duties of that particular station or condition of
   life, whatsoever it be, wherein providence has at present placed him, with
   diligence, and contentment: Without being either uneasy and discontented,
   that others are placed by providence in different and superior stations in
   the world; or so extremely and unreasonably solicititous to change his state
   for the future, as thereby to neglect his present duty,

   The law of nature eternal, universal, and absolutely unchangeable. From
   these three great and general branches, all the smaller and more particular
   instances of moral obligations may (as I said) easily be deduced.

   5. And now this, (this eternal rule of equity, which I have been hitherto
   discribing,) is that right reason which makes the principal distinction
   between man and beasts. This is the law of nature, which (as Cicero
   excellently expresses it) is [149] of universal extent, and everlasting
   duration, which can neither be wholly abrogated, nor repealed in any part of
   it, nor have any law made contrary to it, nor be dispensed with by any
   authority; which [150] was in force before ever any law was writen, or the
   foundation of any city or commonwealth was laid; which [151] was not
   invented by the wit of man, nor established by the authority of any people,
   but its obligation was from eternity, and the force of it reaches throughout
   the universe; which, being founded in the nature and resaon of things, did
   not then begin to be a law, when it was first writen and enacted by men, but
   is of the same original with the eternal reasons or proportions of things,
   and the perfections or attributes of God himself, so [152] that if there was
   no law at Rome against rapes at that time when Tarquin offered violence to
   Lucretia, it does not therefore follow that he was at all the more
   excusable, or that his sin against the eternal rule of equity was the less
   heinous. This is that law of nature to which the reason of all men, [153]
   everywhere as naturally and necessarily assents, as all animals conspire in
   the pulse and motion of their heart and arteries, or as all men agree in
   their judgment concerning the whiteness of snow or the brightness of the
   sun. For though in some nice cases, the bounds of right and wrong may indeed
   (as was before observed,) be somewhat difficult to determine; and in some
   few even plainer cases, the laws and customs of certain barbarous nations
   may be contrary one to another, (which some have been so weak as to think a
   just objection against there being any natural difference between good and
   evil at all,) yet in reality this [154] no more disproves the natural assent
   of all men’s unprejudiced reason to the rule of right and equity than the
   difference of men’s countenances in general, or the deformity of some few
   monsters in particular, proves that there is no general likeness or
   uniformity in the bodies of men. For, whatever difference there may be in
   some particular laws, it is certain, as to the main and principal branches
   of morality, there never was any nation upon earth but owned that to love
   and honour God, to be grateful to benefactors, to perform equitable
   compacts, to preserve the lives of innocent and harmless men, and the like,
   were things fitter and better to be practised than the contrary. In fine,
   this is the law of nature, which, being founded in the eternal reason of
   things, is as absolutely unalterable, as natural good and evil, as
   mathematical, or arithmetical truths, [155] as light and darkness, as sweet
   and bitter, as pleasure and pain: The observance of which, [156] though no
   man should commend it, would yet be truly commendable in itself. Which to
   suppose depending on the opinions of men, and the customs of nations, that
   is to suppose that what shall be accounted the virtue of a man depends
   merely on imagination or customs to determine, is [157] as absurd as it
   would be to affirm that the fruitfulness of a tree, or the strength of a
   horse, depends merely on the imagination of those who judge of it. In a
   word, it is that law, which if it had its original from the authority of
   men, and could be changed by it, then [158] all the commands of the
   cruellest and most barbarous tyrants in the world would be as just and
   equitable as the wisest laws that ever were made, and [159] to murder men
   without distinction, to confound the rights of all families by the grossest
   forgeries, to rob with unrestrained violence, to break faith continually,
   and defraud and cheat without reluctance, might, by the decrees and
   ordinances of a mad assembly, be made lawful and honest: In which matters,
   if any man thinks that the votes and suffrages of fools have such power as
   to be able to change the nature of things, why do they not likewise decree
   (as Cicero admirably expresses himself) that poisonous things may become
   wholsome, and that any other thing which is now destructive of mankind may
   become preservative of it.

   6. Eternal moral obligations antecedent in some respect even to this
   consideration, of their being the will and command of God himself. Further
   yet: As this law of nature is infinitely superior to all authority of men,
   and independent upon it, so its obligation, primarily and originally, is
   antecedent also even to this consideration, [160] of its being the positive
   will or command of God himself: For, [161] as the addition of certain
   numbers necessarily produces a certain sum, and certain geometrical or
   mechanical operations give a constant and unalterable solution of certain
   problems or propositions; so in moral matters there are certain necessary
   and unalterable respects or relations of things which have not their
   original from arbitrary and positive constitution, but are of eternal
   necessity in their own nature. For example; [162] as, in matters of sense,
   the reason why a thing is visible is not because it is seen, but it is
   therefore seen because it is visible; so in matters of natural reason and
   morality, that which is holy and good (as creatures depending upon and
   worshiping God, and practising justice and equity in their dealings with
   each other, and the like,) is not therefore holy and good, because it is
   commanded to be done, but is therefore commanded of God, because it is holy
   and good. The existence, indeed, of the things themselves, whose proportions
   and relations we consider, depends entirely on the mere arbitrary will and
   good pleasure of God; who can create things when he pleases, and destroy
   them again whenever he thinks fit. But when things are created, and so long
   as it pleases God to continue them in being, their proportions, which are
   abstractly of eternal necessity, are also in the things themselves
   absolutely unalterable. Hence God himself, though he has no superior from
   whose will to receive any law of his actions, yet disdains not to observe
   the rule of equity and goodness, as [163] the law of all his actions in the
   government of the world, and condescends to appeal even to men for Ezekiel
   xviii. the equity and righteousness of his judgments. To this law, the
   infinite perfections of his divine nature make it necessary for him (as has
   been before proved,) to have constant regard, and (as a learned prelate of
   our own has excellently shown, [164] ) not barely his infinite power, but
   the rules of this eternal law are the true foundation and the measure of his
   dominion over his creatures. (For, if infinite power was the rule and
   measure of right, it is evident that goodness and mercy, and all other
   divine perfections, would be empty words without any signification at all.)
   Now, for the same reason that God, who hath no superior to determine him,
   yet constantly directs all his own actions by the eternal rule of justice
   and goodness; it is evident all intelligent creatures, in their several
   spheres and proportions, ought to obey the same rule according to the law of
   their nature, even though it could be supposed separate from that additional
   obligation of its being the positive will and command of God; and, doubtless
   there have been many men in all ages, in many parts of the heathen world,
   who, not having philosophy enough to collect from mere nature any tolerably
   just and explicit apprehensions concerning the attributes of God, much less
   having been able to deduce from thence any clear and certain knowledge of
   his will, have yet had a very great sense of right and truth, and been fully
   persuaded in their own minds of many unalterable obligations of morality:
   But this speculation, though necessary to be taken notice of in the distinct
   order and method of discourse, is in itself too dry, and of less use to us,
   who are abundantly assured that all moral obligations are, moreover, the
   plain and declared will of God, as shall be shown particularly in its proper
   place.

   7. The law of nature obligatory, antecedent to all consideration of
   particular rewards and punishments. Lastly, This law of nature has its full
   obligatory power, antecedent to all consideration of any particular private
   and personal reward or punishment, annexed, either by natural consequence or
   by positive appointment, to the observance or neglect of it. This also is
   very evident; because if good and evil, right and wrong, fitness and
   unfitness of being practised, be (as has been shown) originally, eternally,
   and necessarily, in the nature of the things themselves, it is plain that
   the view of particular rewards or punishments, which is only an
   after-consideration, and does not at all alter the nature of things, cannot
   be the original cause of the obligation of the law, but is only an
   additional weight to enforce the practice of what men were before obliged to
   by right reason: There is no man, who has any just sense of the difference
   between good and evil, but must needs acknowledge that virtue and goodness
   are truly amiable, [165] and to be chosen for their own sakes and intrinsic
   worth, though a man had no prospect of gaining any particular advantage to
   himself, by the practice of them; and that, on the contrary, cruelty,
   violence, and oppression, fraud, injustice, and all manner of wickedness,
   are of themselves hateful, and by all means to be be avoided; even though a
   man had absolute assurance that he should bring no manner of inconvenience
   upon himself by the commission of any or all of these crimes. [166] This
   likewise is excellently and admirably expressed by Cicero: [167] Virtue,
   saith he, is that which, though no profit or advantage whatsoever was to be
   expected to a man’s self from the practice of it, yet must, without all
   controversy, be acknowledged to be truly desirable for its own sake alone.
   And, accordingly, [168] all good men love right and equity, and do many
   things without any prospect of advantage at all, merely because they are
   just and right and fit to be done: On the contrary, vice is so odious in its
   own nature, and so fit to be avoided, even though no punishment was to
   ensue, that no man, [169] who has made any tolerable proficiency in moral
   philosophy, can in the least doubt, but, if he was sure the thing could be
   for ever concealed entirely both from God and men, so that there should not
   be the least suspicion of its being ever discovered, yet he ought not to do
   any thing unjustly, covetously, wilfully, passionately, licentiously, or any
   way wickedly, Nay, [170] if a good man had it in his power to gain all his
   neighbour’s wealth by the least motion of his finger, and was sure it would
   never be at all suspected either by God or man, unquestionably he would
   think he ought not to do it; and whoever wonders at this, has no notion what
   it is to be really a good man: [171] Not that any such thing is possible in
   nature, that any wickedness can be indeed concealed from God, but only, upon
   such a supposition, the natural and necessary difference between justice and
   injustice is made to more clearly and undeniably.

   Thus far is clear. Yet it does not from thence at all follow, either that a
   good man ought to have no respect to rewards and punishments, or that
   rewards and punishments are not absolutely necessary to maintain the
   practice of virtue in this present world. But now from hence it does not at
   all follow, either that a good man ought to have no respect to rewards and
   punishments, or that rewards and punishments are not absolutely necessary to
   maintain the practice of virtue and righteousness in this present world. It
   is certain, indeed, that virtue and vice are eternally and necessarily
   different; and that the one truly deserves to be chosen for its own sake,
   and the other ought by all means to be avoided, though a man was sure, for
   his own particular, neither to gain nor lose any thing by the practice of
   either. And if this was truly the state of things in the world, certainly
   that man must have a very corrupt mind, indeed, who could in the least
   doubt, or so much as once deliberate with himself, which he would choose.
   But the case does not stand thus. The question now in the general practice
   of the world, supposing all expectation of rewards and punishments set
   aside, will not be, whether a man would choose virtue for its own sake, and
   avoid vice; but the practice of vice is accompanied with great temptations
   and allurements of pleasure and profit; and the practice of virtue is often
   threatened with great calamities, losses, and sometimes even with death
   itself. And this alters the question, and destroys the practice of that
   which appears so reasonable in the whole speculation, and introduces a
   necessity of rewards and punishments. For though virtue is unquestionably
   worthy to be chosen for its own sake, even without any expectation of
   reward, yet it does not follow that it is therefore entirely
   self-sufficient, and able to support a man under all kinds of sufferings,
   and even death itself, for its sake, without any prospect of future
   recompense. Here, therefore, began the error of the Stoics, who taught that
   the bare practice of virtue was itself the chief good, and able of itself to
   make a man happy, under all the calamities in the world. Their defence
   indeed of the cause of virtue was very brave: they saw well that its
   excellency was intrinsic, and founded in the nature of things themselves,
   and could not be altered by any outward circumstances; that therefore virtue
   must needs be desirable for its own sake, and not merely for the advantage
   it might bring along with it; and if so, then consequently neither could any
   external disadvantage, which it might happen to be attended with, change the
   intrinsic worth of the thing itself, or ever make it cease to be truly
   desirable. Wherefore, in the case of sufferings and death, for the sake of
   virtue; not having any certain knowledge of a future state of reward,
   (though the wisest of them did indeed hope for it, and think it highly
   probable;) they were forced, that they might be consistent with their own
   principles, to suppose the practice of virtue a sufficient reward to itself
   in all cases, and a full compensation for all the sufferings in the world.
   And accordingly they very bravely indeed taught, that the practice of virtue
   was not only [172] infinitely to be preferred before all the sinful
   pleasures in the world; but also [173] that a man ought without scruple to
   choose, if the case was proposed to him, rather to undergo all possible
   sufferings with virtue, than to obtain all possible worldly happiness by
   sin. And the suitable practice of some few of them, as of Regulus, for
   instance, who chose to die the cruelest death that could be invented, rather
   than break his faith with an enemy, is indeed very wonderful, and to be
   admired. But yet, after all this, it is plain that the general practice of
   virtue in the world can never be supported upon this foot. The discourse is
   admirable, but it seldom goes further than mere words: And the practice of
   those few who have acted accordingly, has not been imitated by the rest of
   the world. Men never will generally, and indeed it is not very reasonable to
   be expected they should, part with all the comforts of life, and even life
   itself, without expectation of any future recompense. So that, if we suppose
   no future state of rewards, it will follow, that God has indued men with
   such faculties, as put them under a necessity of approving and choosing
   virtue in the judgment of their own minds; and yet has not given them
   wherewith to support themselves in the suitable and constant practice of it.
   The consideration of which inexplicable difficulty ought to have led the
   philosophers to a firm belief and expectation of a future state of rewards
   and punishments, without which their whole scheme of morality cannot be
   supported. And because a thing of such necessity and importance to mankind
   was not more clearly and directly and universally made known, it might
   naturally have led them to some farther consequences also, which I shall
   have occasion particularly to deduce hereafter.

   Thus have I endeavoured to deduce the original obligations of morality from
   the necessary and eternal reason and proportions of things. Some have chosen
   to found [174] all difference of good and evil, in the mere positive will
   and power of God: But the absurdity of this, I have shown elsewhere. Others
   have contended, that all difference of good and evil, and all obligations of
   morality, ought to be founded originally upon considerations of public
   utility. And true indeed it is, in the whole, that the good of the universal
   creation does always coincide with the necessary truth and reason of things.
   But otherwise, (and separate from this consideration, that God will
   certainly cause truth and right to terminate in happiness,) what is for the
   good of the whole creation, in very many cases, none but an infinite
   understanding can possibly judge. Public utility is one thing to one nation,
   and the contrary to another: And the governors of every nation will and must
   be judges of the public good: And by public good they will generally mean
   the private good of that particular nation. But truth and right (whether
   public or private) founded in the eternal and necessary reason of things, is
   what every man can judge of, when laid before him. It is necessarily one and
   the same, to every man’s understanding, just as light is the same to every
   man’s eyes.

   He who thinks it right and just, upon account of public utility, to break
   faith (suppose) with a robber, let him consider that it is much more useful
   to do the same by a multitude of robbers, by tyrants, by a nation of
   robbers: And then all faith is evidently at an end. For, mutato nomine de
   te, &c. What fidelity and truth are, is understood by every man; but between
   two nations at war, who shall be judge which of them are the robbers?
   Besides: To rob a man of truth and of eternal happiness, is worse than
   robbing him of his money and of his temporal happiness: And therefore it
   will be said that heretics may even more justly, and with much greater
   utility to the public, be deceived and destroyed by breach of truth and
   faith, than the most cruel robbers. Where does this terminate?

   The manifold absurdities of Mr Hobbes’s doctrines concerning the original of
   right shown in particular. And now, from what has been said upon this head,
   it is easy to see the falsity and weakness of Mr Hobbes’s doctrines, that
   there is no such thing as just and unjust, right and wrong, originally in
   the nature of things; that men in their natural state, antecedent to all
   compacts, are not obliged to universal benevolence, nor to any moral duty
   whatsoever; but are in a state of war, and have every one a right to do
   whatever he has power to do; and that, in civil societies, it depends wholly
   upon positive laws or the will of governors to define what shall be just or
   unjust. The contrary to all which having been already fully demonstrated,
   there is no need of being large, in further disproving and confuting,
   particularly, these assertions themselves. I shall therefore only mention a
   few observations, from which some of the greatest and most obvious
   absurdities of the chief principles, upon which Mr Hobbes builds his whole
   doctrine in this matter, may most easily appear.

   1. First, then, the ground and foundation of Mr Hobbes’s scheme, is this,
   [175] that all men being equal by nature, and naturally desiring the same
   things, have [176] every one a right to every thing, are every one desirous
   to have absolute dominion over all others; and may every one justly do
   whatever at any time is in his power, by violently taking from others either
   their possessions or lives, to gain to himself that absolute dominion. Now
   this is exactly the same thing as if a man should affirm that a part is
   equal to the whole, or that one body can be present in a thousand places at
   once. For to say that one man has a full right to the same individual
   things, which another man at the same time has a full right to, is saying
   that two rights may be [177] contradictory to each other; that is, that a
   thing may be right, at the same time that it is confessed to be wrong. For
   instance; if every man has a right to preserve his own life, then [178] it
   is manifest I can have no right to take any man’s life away from him, unless
   he has first forfeited his own right, by attempting to deprive me of mine.
   For otherwise, it might be right for me to do that which, at the same time,
   because it could not be done but in breach of another man’s right, it could
   not be right for me to do; which is the greatest absurdity in the world. The
   true state of this case, therefore, is plainly this. In Mr Hobbes’s state of
   nature and equality, every man having an equal right to preserve his own
   life, it is evident every man has a right to an equal proportion of all
   those things which are either necessary or useful to life. And consequently,
   so far is it from being true, that any one has an original right to possess
   all, that, on the contrary, whoever first attempts, without the consent of
   his fellows, and except it be for some public benefit, to take to himself
   more than his proportion, is the beginner of iniquity, and the author of all
   succeeding mischief.

   2. To avoid this absurdity, therefore, Mr Hobbes is forced to assert, in the
   next place, that since every man has confessedly a right to preserve his own
   life, and consequently to do every thing that is necessary to preserve it,
   and since, in the state of nature, men will necessarily have [179] perpetual
   jealousies and suspicions of each other’s encroaching, therefore just
   precaution gives every one a right to endeavour, [180] for his own security,
   to prevent, oppress, and destroy all others, either by secret artifice or
   open violence, as it shall happen at any time to be in his power, as being
   the only certain means of self-preservation. [181] But this is even a
   plainer absurdity, if possible, than the former. For (besides that,
   according to Mr Hobbes’s principles, men, before positive compacts, may
   justly do what mischief they please, even without the pretence of
   self-preservation,) what can be more ridiculous that to imagine a war of all
   men against all, the directest and certainest means of the preservation of
   all? Yes, says he, because it leads men to a necessity of entering into
   compact for each other’s security. But then to make these compacts
   obligatory, he is forced (as I shall presently observe more particularly) to
   recur to an [182] antecedent law of nature, and this destroys all that he
   had before said. For the same law of nature which obliges men to fidelity,
   after having made a compact, will unavoidably, upon all the same accounts,
   be found to oblige them before all compacts, to contentment and mutual
   benevolence, as the readiest and certainest means to the preservation and
   happiness of them all. It is true, men, by entering into compacts, and
   making laws, agree to compel one another to do what perhaps the mere sense
   of duty, however really obligatory in the highest degree, would not, without
   such compacts, have force enough of itself to hold them to in practice; and
   so, compacts must be acknowledged to be in fact a great addition and
   strengthening of men’s security. But this compulsion makes no alteration in
   the obligation itself, and only shows that that entirely lawless state,
   which Mr Hobbes calls the state of nature, is by no means truly natural, or
   in any sense suitable to the nature and faculties of man, but, on the
   contrary, is a state of extremely unnatural and intolerable corruption, as I
   shall presently prove more fully from some other considerations.

   3. Another notorious absurdity and inconsistency in Mr. Hobbes’s scheme, is
   this: That he all along supposes some particular branches of the law of
   nature (which he thinks necessary for the foundation of some parts of his
   own doctrine,) to be originally obligatory from the bare reason of things;
   at the same time that he denies and takes away innumerable others, which
   have plainly in the nature and reason of things the same foundation of being
   obligatory as the former, and without which the obligation of the former can
   never be solidly made out and defended. Thus, he supposes that, in the state
   of nature, before any compact be made, every [183] man’s own will is his
   only law; that [184] nothing a man can do, is unjust: and that [185]
   whatever mischief one man does to another is no injury nor injustice;
   neither has the person, to whom the mischief is done, how great soever it
   be, any just reason to complain of wrong; (I think it may here reasonably be
   presumed, that if Mr. Hobbes had lived in such a state of nature, and had
   happened to be himself the suffering party, he would in this case have been
   of another opinion:) And yet at the same time he supposes, that in the same
   state of nature men are by all means obliged [186] to seek peace, and [187]
   to enter into compacts to remedy the fore-mentioned mischiefs. Now if men
   are obliged, by the original reason and nature of things to seek terms of
   peace, and to get out of the pretended natural state of war, as soon as they
   can; how come they not to be obliged originally by the same reason and
   nature of things, to live from the beginning in universal benevolence, and
   avoid entering into the state of war at all? He must needs confess they
   would be obliged to do so, did not self-preservation necessitate them every
   man to war upon others: But this cannot be true of the first aggressor; whom
   yet Mr Hobbes, in the place [188] now cited, vindicates from being guilty of
   any injustice; and therefore herein he unavoidably contradicts himself.
   Thus, again; in most instances of morality, he supposes right and wrong,
   just and unjust, to have no foundation in the nature of things, but to
   depend entirely on positive laws; that [189] the rules or distinctions of
   good and evil, honest and dishonest, are mere civil constitutions; and
   whatever the chief magistrate commands, is to be accounted good; whatever he
   forbids, evil; that it is the law of the land only which makes robbery to be
   robbery; [190] or adultery to be adultery; that the commandments, [191] to
   honour our parents, to do no murder, not to commit adultery, and all the
   other laws of God and nature, are no further obligatory than the civil power
   shall think fit to make them so; nay, that where the supreme authority
   commands men to worship God by an image or idol, in heathen countries, [192]
   (for in this instance he cautiously excepts Christian ones,) it is lawful,
   and their duty to do it; and (agreeably, as a natural consequence to all
   this,) that it is men’s positive duty to obey the commands of the civil
   power in all things, even in things [193] clearly and directly against their
   conscience; (that is, that it is their positive duty to do that which at the
   same time they know plainly it is their duty not to do;) [194] keeping up
   indeed always in their own minds an inward desire to observe the laws of
   nature and conscience, but not being bound to observe them in their outward
   actions, except when it is safe so to do; (He might as well have said that
   human laws and constitutions have [195] power to make light be darkness, and
   darkness light; to make sweet be bitter, and bitter sweet: And, indeed, as
   one absurdity will naturally lead a man into another, he does say something
   very like it; namely, that the [196] civil authority is to judge of all
   opinions and doctrines whatsoever; to [197] determine questions
   philosophical, mathematical; and, because indeed the signification of words
   is arbitrary, even [198] arithmetical ones also; as whether a man shall
   presume to affirm that two and three make five or not:) And yet at the same
   time, some particular things, which it would either have been too flagrantly
   scandalous for him to have made depending upon human laws; as that [199] God
   is to be loved, honoured, and adored; [200] that a man ought not to murder
   his parents; and the like: Or else, which were of necessity to be supposed
   for the foundation of his own scheme; [201] as that compacts ought to be
   faithfully performed, and [202] obedience to be duly paid to civil powers:
   The obligation of these things he is forced to deduce entirely from the
   internal reason and fitness of the things themselves; [203] antecedent to,
   independent upon, and unalterable by all human constitutions whatsoever: In
   which matter he is guilty of the grossest absurdity and inconsistency that
   can be. For if those greatest and strongest of all our obligations; to love
   and honour God, for instance, or, to perform compacts faithfully; depend not
   at all on any human constitution, but must of necessity (to avoid making
   obligations reciprocally depend on each other in a circle,) be confessed to
   arise originally from, and be founded in, the eternal reason and unalterable
   nature and relations of things themselves; and the nature and force of these
   obligations be sufficiently clear and evident; so that he who dishonours
   God, [204] or wilfully breaks his faith, [205] is (according to Mr Hobbes’s
   own reasoning) guilty of as great an absurdity in practice, and of as
   plainly contradicting the right reason of his own mind, as he who in a
   dispute is reduced to a necessity of asserting something inconsistent with
   itself; and the original obligation to these duties can from hence only be
   distinctly deduced: Then, for the same reason, all the other duties likewise
   of natural religion; such as universal benevolence, justice, equity, and the
   like, (which I have before proved to receive in like manner their power of
   obliging from the eternal reason and relations of things,) must needs be
   obligatory, antecedent to any consideration of positive compact, and
   unalterably and independently on all human constitutions whatsoever: And
   consequently Mr Hobbes’s whole scheme, (both of a state of nature at first
   wherein there was no such thing as right or wrong, just or unjust, at all;
   and of these things depending afterwards, by virtue of compact, wholly and
   absolutely on the positive and arbitrary determination of the civil power;)
   falls this way entirely to the ground, by his having been forced to suppose
   some particular things obligatory, originally, and in their own nature. On
   the contrary, if the rules of right and wrong, just and unjust, have none of
   them any obligatory force in the state of nature, antecedent to positive
   compact, then, for the same reason, neither will they be of any force after
   the compact, so as to afford men any certain and real security; (excepting
   only what may arise from the compulsion of laws, and fear of punishment,
   which, therefore, it may well be supposed, is all that Mr Hobbes really
   means at the bottom.) For if there be no obligation of just and right
   antecedent to the compact, then whence arises the obligation of the compact
   itself, on which he supposes all other obligations to be founded? If, before
   any compact was made, it was no injustice for a man to take away the life of
   his neighbour, not for his own preservation, but merely to satisfy an
   arbitrary humour [206] or pleasure, and without any reason or provocation at
   all, how comes it to be an injustice, after he has made a compact, to break
   and neglect it? Or what is it that makes breaking one’s word, to be a
   greater and more unnatural crime, than killing a man merely for no other
   reason but because no positive compact has been made to the contrary? So
   that [207] this way also, Mr Hobbes’s whole scheme is entirely destroyed.

   4. That state, which Mr Hobbes calls the state of nature, is not in any
   sense a natural state; but a state of the greatest, most unnatural, and most
   intolerable corruption that can be imagined. For reason, which is the proper
   nature of man, can never (as has been before shown) lead men to any thing
   else than universal love and benevolence; and wars, hatred, and violence,
   can never arise but from extreme corruption. A man may sometimes, it is
   true, in his own defence, be necessitated, in compliance with the laws of
   nature and reason, to make war upon his fellows: But the first aggressors,
   who, upon Mr Hobbes’s principles, (that all men [208] have a natural will to
   hurt each other, and that every one in the state of nature has a right [209]
   to do whatever he has a will to;)—the first aggressors, I say, who, upon
   these principles, assault and violently spoil as many as they are superior
   to in strength, without any regard to equity or proportion; these can never,
   by any colour whatsoever, be excused from having utterly [210] divested
   themselves of human nature, and having introduced into the world, [211]
   contrary to all the laws of nature and reason, the greatest calamities, and
   most unnatural confusion, that mankind, by the highest abuse of their
   natural powers and faculties, are capable of falling under. Mr Hobbes
   pretends, indeed, that one of the first and most natural principles of human
   life [212] is a desire necessarily arising in every man’s mind, of having
   power and dominion over others; and that this naturally impels men to use
   force and violence to obtain it. But neither is it true, that men, following
   the dictates of reason and uncorrupted nature, desire disproportionate power
   and dominion over others; neither, if it was natural to desire such power,
   would it at all follow that it was agreeable to nature to use violent and
   hurtful means to obtain it. For since the only natural and good reason to
   desire power and dominion, (more than what is necessary for every man’s
   self-preservation) is, that the possessor of such power may have a larger
   compass, and greater abilities, and opportunities of doing good, (as is
   evident from God’s exercise of perfectly absolute power,) it is plain that
   no man obeying the uncorrupted dictates of nature and reason can desire to
   increase his power by such destructive and pernicious methods, the
   prevention of which is the only good reason that makes the power itself
   truly desirable: All violence, therefore, and war, are plainly the effects,
   not of natural desires, but of unnatural and extreme corruption; and this Mr
   Hobbes himself unwarily proves against himself by those very arguments
   whereby he endeavours to prove that war and contention is more natural to
   men than to bees or ants; for his arguments on this head are all drawn from
   men’s using themselves (as the animals he is speaking of cannot do,) to
   strive about honours and dignities, till the contention grows up into
   hatred, seditions, and wars; [213] to separate each one his private interest
   from the public, [214] and value himself highly above others, upon getting
   and engrossing to himself more than his proportion of the things of life, to
   find fault with each other’s management, [215] and, through self-conceit,
   being in continual innovation and distractions, to impose one upon another
   by lies, [216] falsifying, and deceit, calling good evil, and evil good, to
   grow envious at the prosperity of others, [217] or proud and domineering
   when themselves are in ease and plenty, and to keep up tolerable peace and
   agreement among themselves, [218] merely by artificial compacts and the
   compulsion of laws; all which things are so far from being truly the natural
   effects and result of men’s reason and other faculties, that, on the
   contrary, they are evidently some of the grossest abuses and most unnatural
   corruptions thereof, that any one who was arguing on the opposite side of
   the question could easily have chosen to have instanced in.

   5. Lastly; The chief and principal argument, which is one of the main
   foundations of Mr Hobbes’s and his followers’ system, namely, that God’s
   irresistible power is the only foundation of his dominion, [219] and the
   only measure of his right over his creatures; and, consequently, that every
   other being has just so much right as it has natural power, that is, that it
   is naturally right for every thing to do whatever it has power to do: [220]
   This argument, I say, is of all his others the most notoriously false and
   absurd; as may sufficiently appear, (besides what has been already said of
   God’s other perfections being as much the measure of his right as his power
   is, [221] ) from this single consideration, suppose the devil, (for when men
   run into extreme impious assertions, they must be answered with suitable
   suppositions,) suppose, I say, such a being as we conceive the devil to be,
   of extreme malice, cruelty, and iniquity, was indued with supreme absolute
   power, and made use of it only to render the world as miserable as was
   possible, in the most cruel, arbitrary, and unequal manner that can be
   imagined; would it not follow undeniably, upon Mr Hobbes’s scheme, since
   dominion is founded on power, and power is the measure of right, and
   consequently absolute power gives absolute right, that such a government as
   this would not only be as much of necessity indeed to be submitted to, but
   also that it would be as just and right, and with as little reason to be
   complained of, [222] as is the present government of the world in the hands
   of the ever-blessed and infinitely good God, whose love and goodness and
   tender mercy appear everywhere over all his works?

   Here Mr Hobbes, as an unanswerable argument in defence of his assertion,
   urges, [223] that the only reason why men are bound to obey God is plainly
   nothing but weakness or want of power; because, if they themselves were
   all-powerful, it is manifest they could not be under any obligation to obey;
   and, consequently, power would give them an undoubted right to do what they
   pleased. That is to say; if men were not created and dependent beings, it is
   true they could not indeed be obliged to the proper relative duty of created
   and dependent beings, viz. to obey the will and command of another in things
   positive. But from their obligation to the practice of moral virtues, of
   justice, righteousness, equity, holiness, purity, goodness, beneficence,
   faithfulness, and truth, from which Mr Hobbes fallaciously, in this
   argument, and most impiously in his whole scheme, [224] endeavours to
   discharge them; from this they could not be discharged by any addition of
   power whatsoever; because the obligation to these things is not, as the
   obligation to obey in things of arbitrary and positive constitution, founded
   only in the weakness, subjection, and dependency of the persons obliged; but
   also, and chiefly, in the eternal and unchangeable nature and reason of the
   things themselves: For these things are the law of God himself, not only to
   his creatures, but also to himself, as being the rule of all his own actions
   in the government of the world.

   I have been the longer upon this head, because moral virtue is the
   foundation and the sum, the essence and the life, of all true religion; for
   the security whereof all positive institution was principally designed; for
   the restoration whereof all revealed religion was ultimately intended; and
   inconsistent wherewith, or in opposition to which, all doctrines whatsoever,
   supported by what pretence of reason or authority soever, are as certainly
   and necessarily false, as God is true.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [111] See Hobbes de Cive, c. 3. § 4.

   [112] Ex his sequitur injuriam nemini fieri posse, nisi ei quocum initur
   pactum. De Cive, c. 3. § 4. where see more to the same purpose.

   [113] Manifestum est rationem nullam esse lege prohibendi noxas tales, nisi
   agnoscant tales actus, etiam antecedenter ad ullam legem, mala
   esse.—Cumberl. de Leg. Nat. page 194.

   [114] Nam stoliditas inveniri quæ inanior potest, quam mala esse nulla
   contendere, et tanquam malos perdere et condemnare peccantes?—Arnob. advers.
   Gentes, lib. 2.

   [115] Qui autem civium rationem dicunt habendam, externorum negant; dirimunt
   hi communem generis humani societatem; qua sublata, justitia funditus
   tollitur.—Cic. de Offic. lib. 3.

   [116] Ta de kala kai ta dikaia. peri ōn hē politikē skopeitai, tosautēn
   echei diaphoran kai planēn ōste dokein nomō einai, phusei de mē.—Aristot.
   Ethic. lib. 1. cap. 1.

   [117] Kleptein nenomisto tous eleutherous paidas, ho ti tis
   dunaito.—Plutarch. Apophthegmata Laconica.

   [118] Quis est enim, aut quis unquam fuit, aut avaritia tam ardente aut tam
   effrænatis cupiditatibus, ut eandem illam rem, quam adspici scelere quovis
   velit, non multis partibus malit ad sese, etiam omni impunitate proposita,
   sine facinore, quam illo modo pervenire?—Cic. de Finib. lib. 3.

   [119] Placet suapte natura, adeoque gratiosa virtus est, ut insitum etiam
   sit malis probare meliores.—Senec. de Benef. lib. 4.

   [120] Joh. vii. 46.

   [121] Joh. xviii. 88.

   [122] Ou gar hoson ousias aretēs apesphalmenoi tunchanousin hoi polloi,
   tosouton kai tou krinein tous allous hoi ponēroi kai achrēstos theinn de ti
   kai eustochon esti kai toisi kakois hōste pampolloi kai tōn sphodra kakōn,
   eu tois logois kai dexais diarountai tous ameinous tōn anthrōpōn kai tous
   cheirous.—Plato de Leg. lib. 12.

   [123] Quis Pullum Numitorem, Fregellanum Proditorem, quanquam reipublicæ
   nostræ profuit, non odit?—Cic. de Finib. lib 5.

   [124] Quem vero astrorum ordines, quem dierum noctiumque vicissitudines,
   quem mensium temperatio, quemque ea quæ gignuntur nobis ad fruendum, non
   gratum esse cogant; hnnc hominem omnino numerare qui decet?—Cic. de Legib.
   lib. 2.

   [125] Ei gar noun eichomen, allo ti edei hēmas poiein kai koinē kai idia, ē
   umnein to theion, kai euphēmein, kai epexerchesthai tas chari9tas; Ouk edei
   kai skaptontas kai arountas kai esthiontas adein ton humnon ton eis ton
   theon; Megas ho theos, hoti hēmin pareschen organa tauta di hōn tēn gēn
   ergasometha; Megas ho theos, hoti cheiras dedōken, &c.—Arrian. lib. 1. cap.
   16.

   [126] Nihil est unum uni tam simile, tam par, quam omnes inter nosmetipsos
   sumus. Quod, si depravatio consuetudinum, si opinionum vanitas, non
   imbecillitatem animorum torqueret, et flecteret quocunque cæpisset; sui nemo
   ipse tam similis esset, quam omnes sunt omnium;—et coleretur jus æque ab
   omnibus.—Cic. de Leg. lib. 1.

   [127] Hoc exigit ipsa naturæ ratio, quæ est lex divina et humana, cui parere
   qui velit, nunquam committet ut alienum appetat, et id, quod alteri
   detraxerit, sibi assumat.—Cic. de Offic. lib. 3.

   [128] Deinous gar an pareichen erōtas, eiti toiouton eautēs enarges eidōlon
   pareicheto, &c.—Plat. in Phæd. Quæ si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores,
   ut ait Plato, excitaret sui.—Cic. de Offic. lib. 1. Oculorum est in nobis
   sensus acerrimus, quibus sapientiam non cernimus; quà m illa ardentes amores
   excitaret sui, si videretur!—Id. de fin. l. 2.

   [129] Hautē men oun hē dikaiosunē, aretē men esti teleia; kai outh' Hesperos
   outh' Heōos houtō thaumaston.—Ethic. lib. 5. c. 3.

   [130] Non enim mihi est vita mea utilior, quam animi talis affectio, neminem
   ut violem commodi mei gratia.—Cic. de Offic. lib. 3. Detrahere aliquid
   alteri, et hominem hominis incommodo suum augere commodum, magis est contra
   naturam, quà m mors, quà m paupertas, quà m dolor, quà m cætera quæ possunt
   aut corpori accidere, aut rebus externis.—Id.

   [131] Kai to parapan zēn, megiston men kakon, ton xumpanta chronon athanaton
   onta, kai kektēmenon panta ta legomena agatha, plēn dikaiosunēs te kai
   aretēs apasēs.—Plato de Leg. lib. 2.

   [132] Universaliter autem verum est, quod non certius, fluxus puncti lineam
   producit aut additio numerorum summam, quam quod benevolentia effectum
   præstat bonum.—Cumberland. de Leg. Naturæ, page 10. Pari sane ratione [ac in
   arithmeticis operationibus] doctrinæ moralis veritas fundatur in immutabili
   cohærentia inter felicitatem summam quam hominum vires assequi valent, et
   actus benevolentiæ universalis.—Id ibid. page 23. Eadem est mensura boni
   malique, quæ mensura est veri falsique in propositionibus pronuntiantibus de
   efficacia motum ad rerum aliarum conservationem, et corruptionem
   facientium.—Id. page 30.

   [133] Angusta admodum est circa nostra tantummodo commoda, lætitiæ matria;
   sed eadem erit amplissima, si aliorum omnium felicitas cordi nobis sit.
   Quippe hæc ad illam eandem habebit proportionem, quam habet immensa
   beatitudo Dei, totiusque humani generis, ad curtam illam fictæ felicitatis
   supellectilem, quam uni homini, eique invido et malevolo, fortunæ bona
   possint suppeditare.—Id. ibid. page 214.

   [134] In omni honesto, nihil est tam illustre, nec quod latius pateat, quam
   conjunctio inter homines hominum, et quasi quædam societas et communicatio
   utilitatum, et ipsa charitas generis humani; quæ nata a primo satu, quo a
   procreatoribus nati diliguntur,——serpit sensim foras, cognationibus
   primum,——deinde totius complexu gentis humanæ.—Cic. de Finib. lib. 5.

   [135] Nihil est unum uni tam simile, tam par, quam omnes inter nosmetipsos
   sumus. Quod nisi depravatio, &c. sui nemo ipse tam similis esset, quam omnes
   sunt omnium.—Cic. de Legib. lib. 1.

   [136] Impellimur autem natura, ut prodesse velimus quamplurimis.—Cic. de
   Finib. lib. 3.

   [137] Hominem esse quasi partem quandam civitatis et universi generis
   humani, eumque esse conjunctum cum hominibus humana quadam societate.—Cic.
   Quæst. Academ. lib. 1.

   [138] Homines hominum causa sunt generati, ut ipsi inter se alii aliis
   prodesse possint.—Cic. de Offic. lib. 1. Ad tuendos conservandosque homines,
   hominem natum esse.—Cic. de Finib. lib 3.

   [139] Omnes inter se naturali quadam indulgentia et benevolentia
   contineri.—Cic. de Legib. lib. 1.

   [140] Ex quo efficitur, hominem naturæ obedientem, homini nocere non
   posse.—Cic. de Offic. lib. 3.

   [141] Oute 󁶐ra antadikein dei, houte kakōs poiein oudena anthrōpōn, oud𓣽 an
   hotioun paschhēupo autōn.—Plato in Critone.

   [142] Tum illud effici, quod quibusdam incredibile videatur, sit autem
   necessarium, ut nihil sese plus quam alterum diligat.—Cic. de Legib. lib. 1.

   [143] En tine phroura esmen hoi anthrōpoi, kai ou deidē heauton ek tautēs
   luein, oud' apodidraskein.——Theous heinai hēmōn tous epimeloumenous. kai
   hēmas tous anthrōpous en tou ktēmatōn tois theois einai.——Oukoun kai su an,
   tou sautou ktēmatōn eiti auto heauto apoktinnuoi, mē sēmēnantos sou hoti
   boulei auto tethnanai, chalepanoi9s an autō, kai. ei tina echois timōrian,
   timōroi o en. —Plato in Phæd.

   [144] Vetat enim dominans ille in nobis Deus, injussu hinc nos suo
   demigrare. Cum verò causam justam Deus ipse dederit, ne ille medius fidius
   vir sapiens, lætus ex his tenebris in lucem illam excesserit; nec tamen illa
   vincula carceris ruperit; leges enim vetant; sed tanquam a magistratu, aut
   ab aliqua potestate legitima, sic a Deo evocatus, atque emissus,
   exirit.—Cic. Tusc. Quæst. lib. 1.

   [145] Illud breve vitæ reliquum nec avide appetendum sensibus, nec sine
   causa deserendum est; vetatque Pythagoras injussu imperatoris, id est, Dei,
   de præsidio et statione vitæ decedere.—Cic. de Senect.

   [146] Nisi enim Deus is, cujus hoc templum est omne quod conspicis, istis te
   corporis custodiis liberaverit; hue tibi aditus patere non potest.——Quare et
   tibi et piis omnibus retinendus est animus in custodia corporis; nec injussu
   ejus, a quo ille est nobis datus, ex hominum vita migrandum est; munus
   humanum assignatum a Deo defugisse videamini.—Cic. Somn. Scipion.

   [147] Ekdexasthe ton theon; hotan ekei nos sēmēnē kai upolusē umas tautēs
   tēs upēresias tot' hupoluesthe pros auton; epi de tou parintos anaschesthe
   enoikountes tautēn tēn chōran, eis hēn ekeinos umas etaxen. Meinate, mē
   alogistōs apelthēte.—Arrian, lib. 1.

   [148] Hoi men ara nikēs heneka palēs kai dromōn kai tōn toioutōn, etolmēsan
   apechesthai.——Hoi de hēmeteroi paides, adunatēsousi karterein, polu
   kallionos ena_a nikēs.—Plato de Legib. lib. 8.

   [149] Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio naturæ congruens, diffusa in omnes,
   constans, sempiterna, quæ vocet ad officium jubendo; vetando, a fraude
   deterreat.——Huic legi nec abrogari fas est, neque derogari ex hac aliquid
   licet, neque tota abrogari potest. Nec vero aut per senatum aut per populum
   solvi hac lege possumus.—Cic. de Repub. lib. 3. fragment.

   ——agrapta kasphalē theōn Nomima;——
   Ou gar ti nunge kachthes, all' aei pote
   Zē tauta, ko̰dei; oiden ex hotou' phanē.
   Toutōn egō ouk hemellon, andros oudenos
   Phronēma deisas', en theoi si tēn dikēn
   Dusein.—

   Sophocl. Antigon. 464.

   [150] Lex quæ seculis omnibus ante nata est, quam scripta lex ulla, aut quam
   omnino civitas constituta.—Cic. de Leg. lib. 1.

   [151] Legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatam, neque scitum aliquod esse
   populorum, sed æternum quiddami, quod universum mundum regat.—Cic. de Leg.
   lib. 2.

   [152] Nec si, regnante Tarquinio, nulla erat Romæ scripta lex de stupris,
   idcirco non contra illam legem sempiternam Sextus Tarquinius vim Lucretiæ
   attulit. Erat enim ratio profecta a rerum natura, et ad recte faciendum
   impellens, et a delicto avocans; quæ non tum denique incipit lex esse, cum
   scripta est, sed tum cum orta esset; orta autem simul est cum mente
   divina.—Cic. de Legib. lib. 2.

   [153] In judicio de bonitate harum rerum, æque omnes ubique convenirunt, ac
   omnia animalia in motu cordis et arteriarum pulsu, aut omnes homines in
   opinione de nivis candore et splendore solis.—Cumberland. de Leg. Natura,
   page 167.

   [154] Hoc tamen non magis tollit consensum hominum de generali natura boni,
   ejusque partibus vel speciebus præcipuis, quam levis vultuum diversitas
   tollit convenientiam inter homines in communi hominum definitione, aut
   similitudinem inter eos in partium principalium conformatione et usu. Nulla
   gens est quæ non sentiat actus Deum diligendi, &c.—nulla gens quæ non sentit
   gratitudinem erga parentes et benefactores, toti humano generi salutarem
   esse. Nulla temperamentorum diversitas facit ut quisquam non bonum esse
   sentiat universis, ut singulorum innocentium vitæ, membra, et libertas
   conserventur.—Cumberland de Legib. Naturæ, page 166. Neque enim an
   honorifice de Deo sentiendum sit, neque an sit amandus, timendus, colendus,
   dubitari potest. Sunt enim hæc religionum, per omnes gentes communia.——Deum
   eo ipso, quod homines fecerit rationales, hoc illis præcepisse, et cordibus
   omnium insculpsisse, ne quisquam cuiquam faceret, quod alium sibi facere
   iniquum duceret.—Hobbes, de Homine, cap. 14. [Inconsistently enough with his
   own principles.]

   [155] Nam ut vera et falsa, ut consequentia et contraria, sua sponte, non
   aliena, judicantur: sic constans et perpetua ratio vitæ, quæ est virtus;
   itemque inconstantia, quod est vitium; sua natura probatur.—Cic. de Legib.
   lib. 1.

   [156] Quod verè dicimus, etiamsi a nullo laudetur, laudabile esse
   natura.—Cic. de Offic. lib. 1.

   [157] Hæc autem in opinione existimare, non in natura ponere, dementis est.
   Nam nec arboris nec equi virtus, quæ dicitur, in opinione sita est, sed in
   natura.—Cic. de Legib. lib. 1.

   [158] Jam vero stultissimum illud; existimare omnia justa esse, quæ scita
   sint in populorum institutis aut legibus. Etiamne si quæ sunt tyrannorum
   leges, si triginta illi Athenis leges imponere voluissent, aut si omnes
   Athenienses delectarentur tyrannicis legibus, num idcirco hæ leges justæ
   haberentur?—Cic. de Leg. lib. 1.

   [159] Quod si populorum jussis, si principum decretis, si sententiis
   judicum, jura constituerentur; jus esset latrocinari, jus adulterare, jus
   testamenta falsa supponere, si hæc suffragiis aut scitis multitudinis
   probarentur. Quæ si tanta potentia est stultorum sententiis atque jussis, ut
   eorum suffragiis rerum natura vertatur; cur non sanciunt ut quæ mala
   perniciosaque sunt, habeantur pro bonis ac salutaribus, aut cur, cum jus ex
   injuriâ lex facere possit, bonum eadem facere; non possit ex malo?—Id. ibid.

   [160] Virtutis et vitiorum, sine ulla divina ratione, grave ipsius
   conscientiæ pondus est.—Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib 3.

   [161] Denique nequis obligationem legum naturalium arbitrariam et mutabilem
   a nobis fingi suspicetur, hoc adjiciendum censui; virtutum exercitium,
   habere rationem medii necessarii ad finem, (seposita consideratione imperii
   divini,) manente rerum natura tali qualis nunc est. Hoc autem ita intelligo,
   uti agnoscunt plerique omnes, additionem duarum unitatum duabus prius
   positis, necessario constituere numerum quaternarium; aut, uti praxes
   geometricæ et mechanicæ, problemata proposita solvunt immutabiliter; adeo ut
   nec sapientia nec voluntas divina cogitari possit quicquam in contrarium
   constituere posse.—Cumberland de Legib. Naturæ, page 231.

   [162] To horōmenon, hou dioti horōmenon ge esti, dia toupo horatai; alla
   tounantion, dioti horatai, apo touto hurōmenon. [Note,—These words are by
   Ficinus ridiculously translated videtur and visum est.] Oukoun kai to
   hosion, dioti hosion esti, phileitai hupo tōn theōn; all' ouk hoti
   phileitas, dia touto hosion esti.—Plato in Euthyphr.

   [163] Kath' hēmas gar hē autē aretē esti tōn makariōn pantōn; hōste kai hē
   autē aretē anthrōpou kai Theou—Origen. Advers. Celsum. lib. 4.

   [164] Dictamina divini intellectus sanciuntur in leges apud ipsum valituras,
   per immutabilitatem harum perfectionum.—Cumberland de Leg. Naturæ, page 343.
   Solebam ipse quidem, cum aliis plurimis antequam dominii jurisque omnis
   originem universaliter et distincte considerassem; dominium Dei, in
   creationem velut integram ejus originem, resolvere. Verum quoniam, &c.——in
   hanc tandem concessi sententiam, dominium Dei esse jus vel potestatem ei a
   sua sapientia et bonitate, velut a lege, datam ad regimen eorum omnium quæ
   ab ipso unquam creata fuerint vel creabuntur.——Nec poterit quisquam merito
   conqueri, dominium Dei intra nimis angustos limites hac explicatione
   coerceri; qua hoc unum dicitur, illius nullam partem consistere in potestate
   quicquam faciendi contra finem optimum, bonum commune.—Idem, page 345, 346.
   Contrà autem, Hobbiana resolutio dominii divini in potentiam ejus
   irresistibilem adeo apertè ducit ad, &c.—ut mihi dubium non sit, illud ab eo
   fictum fuisse, Deoque attributum, in eum tantum finem, ut juri suo omnium in
   omnia patrocinaretur.—Id. page 344. Nos e contrario, fontem indicavimus, e
   quo demonstrari potest, justitiam universalem, omnemque adeo virtutem
   moralem, quæ in rectore requiritur, in Deo præ cæteris refulgere, eadem
   planè methodo, qua homines ad eas excolendas obligari ostendemus.—Id.
   page347.

   [165] Dignæ itaque sunt, quæ propter intrinsecam sibi perfectionem
   appetantur, etiam si nulla esset naturæ lex, quæ illas imperaret.—Cumberland
   de Leg. Nat. page 281.

   [166]

   Anēr dikaios estin, ouch ho mē adikōn,
   All' hostis adikein hounamenos mē bouletai.
   Oud' hos ta aikra lambanein apescheto,
   All' hos ta megala karterei mē lambanōn,
   Hechein dunamenos, kai kratein azēmiōs.
   Oud' hos ge tauta p8anta diatērei monon,
   All' hostis adolon gnēsian t' echōn phusin,
   ̓Einai dikaios, k' ou dokein heinai thelei.
   Philemonis Fragmenta.

   [167] Honestum intelligimus, quod tale est, ut, detractâ omni utilitate,
   sine ullis præmiis fructibusque, per seipsum possit jure laudari.—Cic de
   Finib. lib. 2. Atque hæc omnia propter se solum, ut nihil adjungatur
   emolumenti, petenda sunt.—Id. de Inventione, lib. 2. Nihil est de quo minus
   dubitare possit, quam et honesta expetenda per se, et, eodem modo, turpia
   per se esse fugienda.—Id. de Finib. lib. 3.

   [168] Jus et omne honestum, sua sponte est expetendum. Etenim omnes viri
   boni, ipsam æquitatem et jus ipsum amant.—Id. de Legib. lib. 1. Optimi
   quique permulta ob eam unam causam faciunt, quia decet quia rectum, quia
   honestum est etsi nullum consecuturum emolumentum vident.—Id. de Finib. lib.
   2.

   [169] Satis enim nobis, (si modo aliquid in philosophia profecimus,)
   persuasum esse debet, si omnes Deos hominesque celare possimus, nihil tamen
   avare, nihil injuste, nihil libidinose, nihil incontinenter esse
   faciendum.—Id. de Offic. lib. 3. Si nemo sciturus, nemo ne suspicaturus
   quidem sit, quum aliquid divitiarum, potentiæ, dominationis, libidinis causa
   feceris; si id Diis hominibusque futurum sit semper ignotum, sisne
   facturus?—Id. ibid.

   [170] Itaque si vir bonus habeat hanc vim, ut, si digitis concrepuerit,
   possit in locupletum testamenta nomen ejus irrepere, hac vi non utatur, ne
   si exploratum quidem habeat id omnino neminem unquam suspicaturum.——Hoc qui
   admiratur, is se, quis sit vir bonus, nescire fatetur.—Idem. de Offic. lib.
   3.

   [171] Kan ei mē dunaton eiē tauta lanthanein kai theous kai anthrōpous,
   homōs doteon heinai, tou loeou heneka hina autē dikaiosunē pros adikian
   autēn kritheiē.—Plato de Republ. lib. 10.

   [172] Est autem unus dies bene et ex preceptis tuis actus, peccanti
   immortalitati anteponendus.—Cic. Tusc. Quæst. l. 5.

   [173] Quæro si duo sint, quorum alter optimus vir, æquissimus, summa
   justitia, singulari fide, alter insigni scelere et audacia; et si in eo sit
   errore civitas, ut bonum illum virum, sceleratum, facinorosum, nefarium
   putet; contra autem qui sit improbissimus, existimet esse summa probitate ac
   fide; proque hac opinione omnium civium, bonus ille vir vexetur, rapiatur,
   manus ei denique auferantur, effodiantur oculi, damnetur, vinciatur, uratur,
   exterminetur, egeat; postremò jure etiam optimo omnibus miserrimus esse
   videatur: Contra autem, ille improbus laudetur, colatur, ab omnibus
   diligatur, omnes ad eum honores, omnia imperia, omnes opes, omnes denique
   copiæ conferantur, vir denique optimus omnium æstimatione, et dignissimus
   omni fortuna judicetur; Quis tandem erit tam demens qui dubitet utrum se
   esse malit?—Idem. de Republ. lib. 3, fragment.

   [174] Cù m omnis ratio veri et boni ab ejus Omnipotentiâ dependeat.—Cartes.
   Epist. 6, partis secundæ.

   [175] Ab æqualitate naturæ oritur unicuique ea, quæ cupit, acquirendi
   spes.—Leviath. c. 13.

   [176] Natura dedit unicuique jus in omnia. Hoc est; in statu merè naturali,
   sive antequam homines ullis pactis sese invicem obstrinxissent, unicuique
   licebat facere quæcunque et in quoscunque libebat; et possidere, uti, frui
   omnibus, quæ volebat et poterat.—De Cive, c. 1. § 10.

   [177] Si impossibile sit singulis, omnes et omnia sibimet subjicere; ratio
   quæ hunc finem proponit singulis, qui uni tantum contingere potest, sæpius
   quam millies proponeret impossibile, et semel tantum possible.—Cumberl. de
   Leg. Nat. page 217.

   [178] Nec potest cujus quam jus seu libertas ab ulla lege relicta eo
   extendere, ut liceat oppugnare ea, quæ aliis eadem lege imperantur
   facienda.—Id. p. 219.

   [179] Omnium adversus omnes, perpetuæ suspiciones,——Bellum omnium in
   omnes.—De Cive, c. 1. § 12.

   [180] Spes unicuique securitatis conservationisque suæ in eo sita est, ut
   viribus artibusque propriis proximum suum, vel palam vel ex insidiis,
   præoccupare possit.—Ibid. c. 5. § 1.

   [181] Securitatis viam meliorem habet nemo anticipatione.—Leviath.c. 13.

   [182] See de Cive, c. 3. sec. 1.

   [183] Unicuique licebat facere quæcunque libebat.—De Cive, c. 1. § 10.

   [184] Consequens est, ut nihil dicendum sit injustum. Nomina justi et
   injusti, locum in hac conditione non habent.—Leviath. c. 13.

   [185] Ex his sequitur, injuriam nemini fieri posse, nisi ei quocum initur
   pactum.——Siquis alicui noceat, quocum nihil pactus est, damnum ei infert,
   non injuriam.——Etenim si is qui damnum recipit, injuriam expostularet; is
   qui fecit sic diceret, quid tu mihi? quare facerem ego tuo potius, quam meo
   libitu? &c. In qua ratione, ubi nulla intercesserunt pacta, non video quid
   sit quod possit reprehendi.—De Cive, c. 3, § 4.

   [186] Prima et fundamentalis lex nuturæ est, quærendam esse pacem, ubi
   haberi potest, &c.—De Cive, c. 2. § 2.

   [187] See De Cive. c. 2 and 3.

   [188] Ex his sequitur, injuriam nemini fieri posse, &c.

   [189] Regulas boni et mali, justi et injusti, honesti et inhonesti, esse
   leges civiles; ideoque quod legislator præceperit, id pro bono, quod
   vetuerit, id pro malo habendum esse.—De Cive, c. 12. § 1. Quod actio justa
   vel injusta sit, a jure imperantis provenit. Reges legitimi quæ imperant,
   justa faciunt imperando; quæ vetant, vetando faciunt injusta.—De Cive, c.
   12. § 1. [In which section it is worth observing, how he ridiculously
   interprets those words of Solomon, “Dabis servo tuo cor docile ut possit
   discernere inter bonum et malum,” to signify not his understanding or
   discerning, but his decreeing what shall be good, and what evil.]

   [190] Si tamen lex civilis jubeat invadere aliquid, non est illud furtum,
   adulterium, &c.—De Cive, c. 14. sec. 10.

   [191] Sequitur ergo, legibus illis, non occides, non mæchabere, non
   furabere, parentes honorabis; nihil aliud præcepisse Christum, quam ut cives
   et subditi suis principibus et summis imperatoribus in quæstionibus omnibus
   circa meum, tuum, suum, alienum, absolute obedirent.—De Cive, c. 17. § 10.

   [192] Si quæratur an obediendum civitati sit, si imperetur Deum colere sub
   imagine, coram iis quid id fieri honorificum esse putant, certè faciendum
   est.—De Cive, cap. 15. § 18.

   [193] Universaliter et in omnibus obedire obligamur.—De Cive, c. 14. § 10.
   Doctrina alia, quæ obedientiæ civili repugnat, est, quicquid faciat civis
   quicunque contra conscientiam suam, peccatum esse.—Leviath. c. 29. Opinio
   eorum qui docent, peccare subditos, quoties mandata principum suorum, quæ
   sibi injusta videntur esse, exsequuntur; et erronea est, et inter eas
   numeranda, quæ obedientiæ civili adversantur.—De Cive, c. 12, sec. 2.

   [194] Concludendum est, legem naturæ semper et ubique obligare in foro
   interno, sive conscientia, non semper in foro externo, sed tum solummodo,
   cum secure id fieri possit.—De Cive, c. 3.

   [195] Quæ si tanta potentia est stultorum sententiis atque jussis, ut eorum
   suffragiis rerum natura vertatur cur non sanciunt, ut quæ mala perniciosaque
   sunt, habeantur pro bonis ac salutaribus?—Cicero de Legib. lib. 1.

   [196] De Cive, c. 6. sec. 11.

   [197] Ibid. c. 17. sec. 12.

   [198] Ibid. c. 18. sec. 4.

   [199] Neque enim an honorificè de Deo sentiendum sit neque an sit amandus,
   timendus, colendus, dubitari potest. Sunt enim hæc religionum per omnes
   gentes communia.—De Homine, cap. 14.

   [200] Si is qui summum habet imperium, seipsum, imperantem dico, interficere
   alicui imperet, non tenetur. Neque parentem, &c. cù m filius mori quam
   vivere infamis atque exosus malit. Et alii casus sunt, cum mandata facta
   inhonesta sunt, &c.—De Cive, c. 6. sec. 13.

   [201] Lex naturalis est pactis standum esse, sive fidem observandam esse.—De
   Cive, c. 3. sec. 1.

   [202] Lex naturalis omnes leges civiles jubet observari.—Ibid. c.14. sec.
   10.

   [203] Legem civilem, quæ non sit lata in contumeliam Dei (cujus respectu
   ipsæ civitates non sunt sui juris, nec dicuntur leges ferre, &c.)—De Cive,
   c. 14. sec. 10. Pacti violatio, &c.—See de Cive, c. 3. sec 3.

   [204] See de Cive, c. 14. sec. 10.

   [205] Est similitudo quædam inter id, quod in vita communi vocatur injuria,
   et id quod in scholis solet appellari absurdum. Quemadmodum enim is, qui
   argumentis cogitur ad negationem assertionis quam prius asseruerat, dicitur
   redigi ad absurdum; eodem modo is, qui præ animi impotentia facit vel
   omittit id quod se non facturum vel non omissurum pacto suo ante promiserat,
   injuriam facit; neque minus in contradictionem incidit, quam qui in scholis
   reducitur ad absurdum.—Est itaque injuria, absurditas, quædam in
   conversatione, sicut absurditas, injuria quædam est in disputatione.—De
   Cive, c. 3. sec. 3.

   [206] Ex his sequitur, injuriam nemini fieri posse, nisi ei quocum initur
   pactum.—De Cive, c. 3. sec. 4. [Which whole section highly deserves to be
   read and well considered, as containing the secret of Mr Hobbes’s whole
   scheme.]

   [207] Itaque patet quod, si Hobbiana ratiocinatio esset valida, omnis simul
   legum civilium obligatio collaberetur; nec aliter fieri potest quin earum
   vis labefactetur ab omnibus principiis, quæ legum naturalium vim tollunt aut
   minuunt; quoniam his fundatur et regiminis civilis auctoritas ac securitas,
   et legum a civitatibus latarum vigor.—Cumberland de Leg. Nat. page 303.
   Etiam extra regimen civile, a malis omnigenis simul consideratis tutior
   erit, qui actibus externis leges naturæ constantissime observabet; quam qui,
   juxta doctrinam Hobbianam, vi aut insidiis alios omnes conando præoccupare,
   securitatem sibi quæsiverit.—Id. p. 304.

   [208] Voluntas lædendi omnibus inest in statu naturæ.—De Cive, c. 1. sec. 4.

   [209] In statu naturali, unicuique licebat facere quæcunque et in quoscunque
   libebat.—Ibid. sec. 10.

   [210] Si nihil existimat contra naturam fieri, hominibus violandis; quid cum
   eo disseras, qui omnino hominem ex homine tollat?—Cic. de Offic. lib. 3.

   [211] Tade de dikaia oud' heinai top9arapan phusei;——gignomena techēē kai
   toi` nomois, all' ou dē tinē phusei.——Phaskontōn heinai to dikaiotaton, ho,
   ti tis an nika biazomenos. aben aseb ai te kai staseis; hosēn lōbēn anbrōpōn
   neain domosia polesi te kai idiois oikois.—Plato de Leg. lib. 10.

   [212] Homines libertatis et dominii per naturam amatores.—Leviath. c. 17.
   Nemini dubium esse debet, quin avidius ferrentur homines natura, sua si
   metus abesset, ad dominationem quà m ad societatem.—De Cive, c. 1. sec. 2.

   [213] Homines inter se de honoribus et dignitatibus perpetuo contendunt, sed
   animalia illa [apes et formicæ] non item. Itaque inter homines invidia,
   odium, bellum, &c.—Leviath. c. 17.

   [214] Inter animalia illa bonum publicum et privatum idem est.—Homini autem
   in bonis propriis nihil tam jucundum est, quam quod alienis sunt
   majora.—Ibid.

   [215] Animantia quæ rationem non habent, nullum defectum vident vel videre
   se putant, in adminstratione suarum rerum publicarum. Sed in multitudine
   hominum, plurimi sunt qui præ cæteris sapere existimantes, conantur res
   novare; Et diversi novatores innovant diversis modis; id quod est distractio
   et bellum civile.—De Cive, c. 5. sec. 5.

   [216] Animantia illa verborum arte illa carent, qua homines alii aliis
   videri faciunt bonum malum, et malum bonum; magnum parvum; et parvum
   magnum.—Leviath. c. 17.

   [217] Animalia bruta, quamdiu bene sibi est, cæteris non invident: Homo
   autem tum maxime molestus est, quando otio opibusque maximè abundat.—Ibid.

   [218] Consensio creaturarum illarum brutarum, naturalis est; hominum
   pactitia tantum, id est, artificiosa.—De Cive, c. 5. § 5.

   [219] Regni divini naturalis jus derivatur ab eo, quod divinæ potentiæ
   resistere impossibile est.—Leviath. c. 31. In regno naturali, regnandi et
   puniendi eos qui leges suas violant, jus Deo est a sola potentia
   irresistibili.—De Cive, c. 15. sec. 5. Iis quorum potentiæ resisti non
   potest, et per consequens Deo omnipotenti, jus dominandi ab ipsa potentia
   derivatur.—Ibid.

   [220] Nam quoniam Deus jus ad omnia habet, et jus Dei nihil aliud est quam
   ipsa Dei potentia, hinc sequitur, unamquamque rem naturalem tantum juris ex
   natura habere, quantum potentiæ habet.—Spinoz. de Monarch. cap. 2. [See also
   Tractat. Theolog. politic. cap. 16.]

   [221] See Cumberland de Leg. Naturæ, locis supra citatis.

   [222] See Hobbes, de Cive, c. 3. § 4.

   [223] Quod si jus regnandi habeat Deus ab omnipotentia sua, manifestum est
   obligationem ad præstandum ipsi obedientiam, incumbere hominibus propter
   imbecillitatem. [To explain which, he adds in his note,]—Si cui durum hoc
   videbitur, illum rogo ut tacita cogitatione considerate velit, si essent duo
   omnipotentes, uter utri obedire obligaretur. Confitebitur, credo, neutrum
   neutri obligari. Hoc si verum est, verum quoque est quod posui, homines ideo
   Deo subjectos esse, quia omnipotentes non sunt.—De Cive, c. 15. sec. 7.

   [224] Ut enim omittam vim et naturam Deorum, ne homines quidem censetis,
   nisi imbecilli essent, futuros beneficos et benignos fuisse.—Cic de Nat.
   Deor. lib. 1.
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   II. Proposition II. Though these eternal moral obligations are indeed of
   themselves incumbent on all rational beings, even antecedent to the
   consideration of their being the positive will and command of God, yet that
   which most strongly confirms, and in practice most effectually and
   indispensably enforces them upon us, is this; that both from the perfections
   of God, and the nature of things, and from several other collateral
   considerations, it appears, that as God is himself necessarily just and good
   in the exercise of his infinite power in the government of the whole world,
   so he cannot but likewise positively require that all his rational creatures
   should in their proportion be so too, in the exercise of each of their
   powers in their several and respective spheres: That is; as these eternal
   moral obligations are really in perpetual force, merely from their own
   nature, and the abstract reason of things; so also they are moreover the
   express and unalterable will, command, and law of God to his creatures,
   which he cannot but expect should, in obedience to his supreme authority, as
   well as in compliance with the natural reason of things, be regularly and
   constantly observed through the whole creation.

   This proposition is very evident, and has little need of being particularly
   proved.

   For 1st. That moral duties are the positive will and command of God, proved
   from the consideration of the divine attributes. The same reasons which
   prove to us that God must of necessity be himself infinitely holy, and just,
   and good, manifestly prove, that it must also be his will, that all his
   creatures should be so likewise, according to the proportions and capacities
   of their several natures. That there are eternal and necessary differences
   of things, agreements and disagreements, proportions and disproportions,
   fitnesses and unfitnesses of things, absolutely in their own nature, has
   been before largely demonstrated. That, with regard to these fixed and
   certain proportions and fitnesses of things, the will of God, which can
   neither be influenced by any external power, nor imposed upon by any error
   or deceit, constantly and necessarily determines itself to choose always
   what in the whole is best and fittest to be done, according to the
   unalterable rules of justice, equity, goodness, and truth; has likewise been
   already proved. That the same considerations ought also regularly to
   determine the wills of all subordinate rational beings, to act in constant
   conformity to the same eternal rules, has in like manner been shown before.
   It remains therefore only to prove, that these very same moral rules, which
   are thus of themselves really obligatory, as being the necessary result of
   the unalterable reason and nature of things, are moreover the positive will
   and command of God to all rational creatures; and, consequently, that the
   wilful transgression or neglect of them, is as truly an insolent contempt of
   the authority of God, as it is an absurd confounding of the natural reasons
   and proportions of things. Now this also plainly follows from what has been
   already laid down: For, the same absolute perfection of the divine nature,
   which (as has been before shown) makes us certain that God must himself be
   of necessity infinitely holy, just, and good; makes it equally certain, that
   he cannot possibly approve iniquity in others. And the same beauty, the same
   excellency, the same weight and importance of the rules of everlasting
   righteousness, with regard to which God is always pleased to make those
   rules the measure of all his own actions, prove it impossible but he must
   likewise will and desire that all rational creatures should proportionably
   make them the measure of theirs. Even among men, there is no earthly father,
   but in those things which he esteems his own excellencies, desires and
   expects to be imitated by his children. How much more is it necessary that
   God, who is infinitely far from being subject to such passions and
   variableness as frail men are; and who has an infinitely tenderer and
   heartier concern for the happiness of his creatures, than mortal men can
   have for the welfare of their posterity; must desire to be imitated by his
   creatures in those perfections which are the foundation of his own
   unchangeable happiness? In the exercise of his supreme power, we cannot
   imitate him; in the extent of his unerring knowledge, we cannot attain to
   any similitude with himJob xl. 9. . We cannot at all thunder with a voice
   like him; nor are we able to search out and comprehend the least part of the
   depth of his unfathomable wisdom. But his holiness and goodness, his
   justice, righteousness, and truth; these things we can understand; in these
   things we can imitate him; nay, we cannot approve ourselves to him as
   obedient children, if we do not imitate him therein. If God be himself
   essentially of infinite holiness and purity; (as, from the light of nature,
   it is of all things most manifest that he is,) Hab. i. 13. it follows, that
   it is impossible but he must likewise be of purer eyes than to behold with
   approbation any manner of impurity in his creatures; and consequently it
   must needs be his will, that they should all (according to the measure of
   their frail and finite nature) be holy as he is holy. If God is himself a
   being of infinite justice, righteousness, and truth, it must needs be his
   will, that all rational creatures, whom he has created after his own image,
   to whom he has communicated some resemblance of his divine perfections, and
   whom he has indued with excellent powers and faculties to enable them to
   distinguish between good and evil, should imitate him in the exercise of
   those glorious attributes, by conforming all their actions to the eternal
   and unalterable law of righteousness. If God is himself a being of infinite
   Mat. v. 45. goodness, making the sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
   and sending rain on the just and on the unjust; Acts xiv. 17. having never
   left himself wholly without witness, but always doing good, given men rain
   from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling their hearts with food and
   gladness; it cannot but be his will that all reasonable creatures should, by
   mutual love and benevolence, permit and assist each other to enjoy in
   particular the several effects and blessings of the divine universal
   goodness. Lastly, if God is himself a being of infinite mercy and
   compassion, as it is plain he bears long with men before he punishes them
   for their wickedness, and often freely forgives them his ten thousand
   talents; it must needs be hisMat. xviii. 24. 28. will, that they should
   forgive one another their hundred pence; being merciful one to another, as
   he isLu. vi. 36. merciful to them all; and having compassion eachMat. xi.
   23. on his fellow-servants, as God has pity on them. Thus from the
   attributes of God, natural reason leads men to the knowledge of his will:
   All the same reasons and arguments, which discover to men the natural
   fitnesses or unfitnesses of things, and the necessary perfections or
   attributes of God, proving equally at the same time, that [225] that which
   is truly the law of nature, or the reason of things, is in like manner the
   will of God. And from hence the soberest and most intelligent persons among
   the heathens in all ages, very rightly and wisely concluded that the best
   and certainest part of natural religion, which was of the greatest
   importance, and wherein was the least danger of their being mistaken, was
   [226] to imitate the moral attributes of God, by a life of holiness,
   righteousness, and charity: Whereas in the external part of their worship,
   there was nothing but uncertainty and doubtfulness; it being absolutely
   impossible, without express revelation, to discover what in that particular
   they might be secure would be truly acceptable to God.

   This method of deducing the will of God from his attributes, is of all
   others the best and clearest, the certainest and most universal, that the
   light of nature affords: Yet there are also (as I said) some other
   collateral considerations, which help to prove and confirm the same thing;
   namely, that all moral obligations, arising from the nature and reason of
   things, are likewise the positive will and command of God: As

   2. And from the consideration of the nature of God’s creation. This appears
   in some measure from the consideration of God’s creation. For God, by
   creating things, manifests it to be his will that things should be what they
   are. And as providence wonderfully preserves things in their present state;
   and all necessary agents, by constantly and regularly obeying the laws of
   their nature, necessarily employ all their natural powers in promoting the
   same end; so it is evident it cannot but be the will of God, [227] that all
   rational creatures, whom he has indued with those singular powers and
   faculties of understanding, liberty, and free-choice, whereby they are
   exalted in dignity above the rest of the world; should likewise employ those
   their extraordinary faculties in preserving the order and harmony of the
   creation, and not in introducing disorder and confusion therein. The nature
   indeed and relations, the proportions and disproportions, the fitnesses and
   unfitnesses of things, are eternal and in themselves absolutely unalterable;
   but this is only upon supposition that the things exist, and that they exist
   in such manner as they at present do. Now that things exist in such manner
   as they do, or that they exist at all, depends entirely on the arbitrary
   will and good pleasure of God. At the same time, therefore, and by the same
   means, that God manifests it to be his will that things should exist, and
   that they should exist in such manner as they do; (as by creating them he at
   first did, and by preserving them he still continually does, declare it to
   be his will they should;) he at the same time evidently declares, that all
   such moral obligations as are the result of the necessary proportions and
   relations of things, are likewise his positive will and command. And
   consequently, whoever acts contrary to the forementioned reasons and
   proportion of things, by dishonouring God, by introducing unjust and unequal
   dealings among equals, by destroying his own being, or by any way
   corrupting, abusing, and misapplying the faculties wherewith God has indued
   him, (as has been above more largely explained,) is unavoidably guilty of
   transgressing at the same time the positive will and command of God, which
   in this manner also is sufficiently discovered and made known to him.

   3. And from the tendency of the practice of morality to the good and
   happiness of the whole world.The same thing may likewise further appear from
   the following consideration:—Whatever tends directly and certainly to
   promote the good and happiness of the whole, and (as far as is consistent
   with that chief end,) to promote also the good and welfare of every
   particular part of the creation, must needs be agreeable to the will of God;
   [228] who, being infinitely self-sufficient to his own happiness, could have
   no other motive to create things at all, but only that he might communicate
   to them his goodness and happiness; and who consequently cannot but expect
   and require, that all his creatures should, according to their several
   powers and faculties, endeavour to promote the same end. Now that the exact
   observance of all those moral obligations, which have before been proved to
   arise necessarily from the nature and relations of things; (that is to say,
   living agreeably to the unalterable rules of justice, righteousness, equity,
   and truth,) is the certainest and directest means to promote the welfare and
   happiness, as well of every man in particular, both in body and mind, as of
   all men in general, considered with respect to society, is so very manifest,
   that even the greatest enemies of all religion, who suppose it to be nothing
   more than a worldly or state-policy, do yet by that very supposition confess
   thus much concerning it; and, indeed, this it is not possible for any one to
   deny: For the practice of moral virtues does [229] as plainly and undeniably
   tend to the natural good of the world, as any physical effect or
   mathematical truth is naturally consequent to the principles on which it
   depends, and from which it is regularly derived. And without such practice,
   in some degree, the world can never be happy in any tolerable measure; as is
   sufficiently evident from Mr Hobbes’s own description of the extreme
   miserable condition that men would be in through the total defect of the
   practice of all moral virtue, if they were to live in that state which he
   styles (falsely and contrary to all reason, as has been before fully
   proved,) the state of nature; but which really is a state of the grossest
   abuse and most unnatural corruption and misapplication of men’s natural
   faculties that can be imagined. For, since God has plainly so constituted
   the nature of men, that they stand continually in need of each other’s help
   and assistance, and can never live comfortably without society and mutual
   friendship, and are indued with the faculties of reason and speech, and with
   other natural powers, evidently fitted to enable them to assist each other
   in all matters of life, and mutually to promote universal love and
   happiness; it is manifestly agreeable to nature, and to the will of God, who
   gave them these faculties, that they should employ them wholly to this
   regular and good end; and, consequently, it is on the contrary evident
   likewise, that all abuse and misapplication of these faculties, to hurt and
   destroy, to cheat and defraud, to oppress, insult, and domineer over each
   other, is directly contrary both to the dictates of nature and to the will
   of God, who, necessarily doing always what is best, and fittest, and most
   for the benefit of the whole creation, it is manifest cannot will the
   corruption and destruction of any of his creatures, any otherwise than as
   his preserving their natural faculties, (which in themselves are good and
   excellent, but cannot but be capable of being abused and misapplied,)
   necessarily implies a consequential permission of such corruption.

   And this now is the great aggravation of the sin and folly of all
   immorality; that it is an obstinate setting up the self-will of frail,
   finite, and fallible creatures; as in opposition to the eternal reason of
   things, the unprejudiced judgment of their own minds, and the general good
   and welfare both of themselves and their fellow-creatures; so also in
   opposition to the will of the supreme author and creator of all things, who
   gave them their beings and all the powers and faculties they are indued
   with: In opposition to the will of the all-wise preserver and governor of
   the universe, on whose gracious protection they depend every moment for the
   preservation and continuance of their beings: And in opposition to the will
   of their greatest benefactor, to whose bounty they wholly owe whatever they
   enjoy at present, and all the hopes of what they expect hereafter, this is
   the highest of all aggravations. The utmost ureasonableness, joined with
   obstinate disobedience, and with the greatest ingratitude.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [225] Ita principem legem illam et ultimam, mentem esse omnia ratione aut
   cogentis aut vetantis Dei.—Cic. de Leg. lib. 2. Quæ vis non modo senior est
   quam ætas populorum et civitatum, sed æqualis illius cœlum atque terras
   tuentis et regentis Dei. Neque enim esse mens divina sine ratione potest,
   nec ratio divina non hanc vim in rectis pravisque sanciendis habere.—Ibid.

   [226] Vis Deos propitiare? Bonus esto. Satis illos coluit, qui imitatus
   est.—Senee. Epist. 96. Kai gar an ein, ei pros ta dōra kai tas thusias
   apoblepousin hēmōn hoi theoi, alla mē pros tēn psuchēn, an tis hosios kai
   dikaios ōn tunchanē. Pollō ge mallon, oimai, ē pros tas poluteleis tautas
   pompas te kai thusias.—Plato in Alcibiade, 2. Collitur autem, non taurornm
   opimis corporibus contrucidatis, nec auro argentove suspenso, nec in
   thesauros stipe infusa; sed pia et recta voluntate.—Senec. Epist. 116.

   [227] Mens humana non potest non judicare, esse longè credibilius, quod
   eadem constantissima voluntas, à qua hominibus datum est esse, pariter
   mallet ipsos porro esse et valere, hoc est, conservari et felicitate frui,
   quam illo deturbari de statu, in quo ipsos collocavit——Sic scilicet e
   voluntate creandi, cognoscitur voluntas conservandi tuendique homines. Ex
   hac autem innotescit obligatio, qui tenemur ad inserviendum eidem voluntati
   notæ.—Cumberl. de Leg. Nat. page 227.

   [228] Dubitari non potest, quin Deus, qui ita naturalem rerum omnium ordinem
   constituit, ut talia sint actionum humanarum consequentia erga ipsos
   auctores, fecitque ut ordinaria hæc consequentia ab ipsis præsciri possint,
   aut summa cum probabilitate expectari, voluerit hæc ab iis considerari,
   antequam ad agendum se accingerent; atque eos his provisis velut argumentis
   in legum sanctione contentis determinari.—Cumberl. de Leg. Nat. page 228.
   Rector seu causa prima rationalis, cujus voluntate res ita disponuntur, ut
   hommibus satis evidenter indicetur, actus quosdam illorum esse media
   necessaria ad finem ipsis necessarium; vult homines ad hos actus obligari,
   vel hos actus imperat.—Id. page 285.

   [229] Pari sane ratione (ac in arithmeticis operationibus) doctrinæ moralis
   veritas fundatur in immutabili cohærentia inter felicitatem summam quam
   hominum vires asseq