EIGHT SERMONS
Preach’d at the Honourable
ROBERT BOYLE’s
LECTURE,
In the FIRST YEAR, MDCXCII.
By RICHARD BENTLEY
Master of Arts.
THE FIFTH EDITION.
To which is now added a SERMON Preach’d at the Publick-Commencement at Cambridge July V.
MDCXCVI. when He Proceded Doctor in Divinity.
CAMBRIDGE:
Printed for Cornelius Crownfield, Printer to the
University; And are to be Sold by James Knapton and
Robert Knaplock, Booksellers in LONDON, 1724.
To my most Honoured Patrons,
TRUSTEES,
Appointed by the Will of the Honourable
Robert Boyle, Esq;
The Right Reverend Father in God,
THOMAS,
Lord Bishop of Lincoln,
Sir Henry Ashurst, Kt and Baronet,
Sir John Rotheram, Serjeant at Law,
John Evelyn senior, Esquire.
Most Honoured,
GOD having disposed the Heart of that incomparable Person, the
Honourable Robert Boyle Esquire, lately deceased, the Glory of our Nation
and Age, whose Charity and Goodness were as universal as his Learning and Fame;
'To settle an Annual Salary for some Divine or Preaching Minister, who shall be enjoyned to perform the Offices following: 1. To preach Eight Sermons in the Year, for proving the
Christian Religion against notorious Infidels, viz. Atheists, Deists, Pagans,
Jews and Mahometans; not
descending to any Controversies that are among Christians themselves: The Lectures to be on the First Monday of the
respective Months of January, February, March, April,
May, September, October, November; in such Church as the Trustees shall from time to time appoint:
2. To be assisting to all Companies, and encouraging them in any Undertaking for propagating the
Christian Religion: 3. To be ready to satisfy such Real Scruples as any may have concerning
those Matters; and to answer such New Objections or Difficulties as may be started, to which good Answers have not yet been made: You have been pleased to believe
me able in some measure to perform these Offices, and to command this First Essay
to be made public. I am every sensible of the great Honour, as well as the great
Extent and Difficulty of the Task; and shall endeavour to the utmost of my poor
ability to answer the religious and generous Design of that Excellent Person, and
the good Opinion you have entertained of
My most Honoured Patrons,
Your very obliged and
humble Servant
March I7. 169½. R. BENTLEY.
THE
CONTENTS.
SERMON I.
THE Folly of Atheism, and (what is now called) Deism; even with Respect to the Present Life.
Psalm XIV. v. 12.
The Fool hath said in his Heart, There is no God; they are corrupt,
they have done abominable works, there is none that doth good.
Pag. 1
SERMON II.
Matter and Motion cannot think: Or, a Confutation of
Atheism from the Faculties of the Soul.
Acts XVII. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find
him; though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we Live, and Move, and have our Being.
p. 45.
SERMONS III, IV, V.
A Confutation of Atheism from the Structure and Origin of Human Bodies.
Acts XVII. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him; though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we Live,
and Move, and have our Being.
p. 85, 122, 163.
SERMONS VI, VII, VIII.
A Confutation of Atheism from the Origin and Frame of the World.
Acts XIV. 15, &c..
That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who
made Heaven and Earth and the Sea, and all things that are therein: Who in times
past suffer’d all Nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he lest not
himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven, and fruitful Seasons, filling our
hearts with Food and Gladness.
p. 203, 246, 293.
Commencement SERMON.
I Peter III. 15.
Be ready always to give an answer to every Man, that asketh you
a reason of the Hope that is in you.
p. 343
Serm. I.
THE
Folly of Atheism,
And (what is now called)
DEISM:
Even with Respect to the
PRESENT LIFE.
The First SERMON Preached
March 7. 179½.
Psalm XIV. verse 1.
The Fool hath said in his Heart, There is no God; they are corrupt,
they have done abominable works, there is none that doth good.
I Shall not now make any enquiry about the time and occasion and
other circumstances of composing this Psalm; nor how it comes to pass, that
with very little variation we have it twice over, both here the 14th. and again number the 53d. Not that these and such like are not
important considerations in themselves; but that I think them improper now, when
we are to argue and expostulate with such persons, as allow no Divine Authority
to our Text; and profess no greater, or, it may be they will say, less Veneration
for these Sacred Hymns, than for the profane Songs of Anacreon or Horace. So that although I my
self do really believe, that all such as say in their Hearts, There is no God, are
foolish
and corrupt, both in Understanding and Will; because I see infinite
Wisdom it self has pronounced them to be so: nevertheless this Argument would at
present have no force upon these men, till in due time and method we have evinced
the sufficient Authority of Holy Scripture. But however there are other Books extant,
which they must needs allow of as proper Evidence; even the mighty Volumes of
visible
Nature, and the everlasting Tables of Right Reason; wherein, if they do not wilfully
shut their Eyes, they may read their own Folly written by the Finger of God, in
a much plainer and more terrible Sentence, than Dan. 5. 5.
f defaced. Whence it will follow, that Speculative
Atheism does only subsist in Our speculation; whereas really Humane Nature
cannot be guilty of the crime: that indeed a few sensual and voluptuous Persons
may for a season eclipse this native Light of the Soul; but can never so wholly
smother and extinguish it, but that at come lucid intervals it will recover it
self
again, and shine forth to the conviction of their Conscience. And therefore they
believed, that the words would not admit of a strict and rigorous Interpretation; but ought to be
so temper’d and accommodated to the nature of things, as that
they may describe those profane persons; who, though they do not, nor can
really doubt in their Hearts of the Being of God, yet they openly
deny his Providence in the course of their lives. Now if this be all that
is meant by the Text, I do not see how we can defend, not only the fitness and propriety, but the very truth of the
expression. As to that natural and indeleble signature of God, which Human Souls in their first Origin are
supposed to be stamp’d
with, I shall shew at a fitter opportunity, that it is a mistake, and that we
have no need of it in our Disputes against Atheism. So that being free from that
prejudice, I interpret the words of the Text in the literal acceptation,
which will likewise take in the Expositions of others. For I believe that the Royal
in this comprehensive brevity of speech, There is no God, hath concluded
all the various Forms of Impiety; whether of such as excludes the Deity from governing
the World by his Providence, or judging it by his Righteousness, or creating it
by his Wisdom and Power. Because the consequence and result of all these Opinions
is terminated in downright Atheism. For the Divine Inspection into the Affairs of
the World doth necessarily follow from the Nature and Being of God. And he that
denies this, doth implicitly deny his Existence: he may acknowledg what he will
with his mouth, but in his heart he hath said, There is no God.
A God, therefore a Providence; was a general argument of virtuous
men, and not peculiar to the Stoics alone. And again, No Providence,
therefore no God; was the most plausible reason, and the most frequent in the
mouth of Atheistical Men. So that it seems to be agreed on all hands, that the
Existence of God and his Government of the World do mutually suppose and imply one
another.
There are some Infidels among us, that not only disbelieve the
Christian Religion; but oppose the assertions of Providence, of the
Immortality of the Soul, of an Universal judgment to come, and of
any Incorporeal Essence: and yet to avoid the odious name of Atheists,
would shelter and skreen themselves under a new one of Deists, which is not
quite so obnoxious. But I think the Text hath cut them short, and precluded
this subterfuge; in as much as it hath declared, that all such wicked Principles
are coincident and all one in the issue with the rankest Atheism: The Fool, that doth exempt the affairs of the World from the ordination and disposal of
God, hath said in his Heart, There is no God at all.
It was the Opinion of many of the Ancients, that Posidon. apud Ciceron. Plutarch. &c.
Epicurus introduced a Deity into his Philosophy,
not because he was persuaded of his Existence, (for when he had brought him upon
the Stage of Nature, he made him only Muta persona, and interdicted
him
from bearing any Part in it,) but purely that he might not incurr the offence
of the Magistrate. He was, generally therefore suspected Verbis reliquisse
Deum, re sustulisse; to have framed on purpose such a contemptible paultry
Hypothesis
about him, as indeed lest the Name and Title of God in the World; but nothing
of his Nature and Power. Just as a Mr. Des Cartes.
Philosopher of our own Age gave a ludicrous
and fictitious notion about the Rest of the Earth, To evade the hard
censure
and usage which Galileo had lately met with. For my own part, as I do not
exclude this reason from being a grand occasion of Epicurus’s owning a God;
so I
believe that he and Democritus too were compelled to it likewise by the
necessity
of their own Systems. For seeing they explain’d the Phæmomena of Vision, Imagination, and Thought it
self, by certain thin fleeces
of Atoms, that flow incessantly from the surfaces of Bodies, and by their subtilty
and fineness penetrate any obstacle, and yet retain the exact figures and lineaments of the several bodies from which they
proceed; and in this manner insinuating themselves through the pores of Humane
Bodies into the Contexture of the Soul, do there excite Sensation and Perception
of themselves: in consequence of this Hypothesis they were obliged to maintain,
that we could have no Fancy, or Idea, or Conception of any thing, but what did really
subsist either intire or in its several parts. Whence it followed, that mankind
could have no imaginations of Juppiter or Mars, of Minerva or
Isis; if there were not actually such Beings in nature to emit those
Effluvia, which gliding into the Soul must beget such imaginations. And thence it was,
that those Philosophers adapted their description of the Deity to the vulgar
apprehensions of those times; Gods and Goddesses innumerable, and all of Humane
figure: because otherwise the conceptions of mankind about them could not possibly be accounted for by their Physiology. So that if Epicurus
and Democritus were in earnest about their Philosophy, they did necessarily
and really believe the Existence of the Gods. But then as to the nature and
authority of them; they bereaved that Juppiter of his Thunder and Majesty: forbidding him to look or peep abroad,
so much as to enquire what News in the
Infinite Space about him; but, to content himself and be happy with an eternal laziness and dozing, unless
some rambling Troops of Atoms upon the dissolution of
a neighbouring World might chance to awake him. Now because no Israelite
in the days of the Psalmist is likely to have been so curious about natural
Knowledge, as to believe the Being of God for such a quaint and airy reason as
this, when he had once boldly denied his Dominion over the World; and since there
is not now one Infidel living, so ridiculous as to pretend to solve the Phænomena
of Sight, Fancy or Cogitation by those fleeting superficial films
of Bodies: I must beg leave to think, both that the Fool in the Text was
a thorough confirmed Atheist; and that the modern disguised
Deists do only call themselves so for the former
reason of Epicurus, to decline the publick odium, and
resentment of
the Magistrate and that they cover the most arrant Atheism under the mask and shadow
of a Deity: by which they understand no more, than some eternal inanimate Matter,
Come universal Nature, and Soul of the World, void of all sense and cogitation,
so far from being endowed with Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. And therefore in this
present Discourse they may deservedly come under that Character which the Text
hath
given of them, of Fools that have said in their Hearts, There is no God.
And now having thus far cleared our way; in the next place we
shall offer some notorious Proofs of the gross Folly and stupidity of Atheists.
If a Person that had a fair Estate in
reversion, which in all probability he
would speedily be possess’d of, and of
which he might reasonably promise to himself a long and happy Enjoyment,
should be allured by come skilful Physician; That in a very short time he would inevitably fall into a
Disease, which would so totally
deprive him of his Understanding and Memory, that he should lose the knowledge of
all things without him, nay all consciousness and sense of his own Person and Being: If, I
say, upon a certain belief of this indication, the man should appear overjoyed
at the News, and be mightily transported with the discovery and expectation; would
not all that saw him be astonished at such behaviour? Would they not be forward
to conclude, that the Distemper had seized him already, and even then the
miserable
Creature was become a meer Fool and an Idiot? Now the Carriage of our
Atheists or Deists is infinitely more amazing than this; no dotage so
infatuate, no phrensie so extravagant as theirs. They have been educated in a
Religion, that instructed them in the knowledge of a Supreme Being;
a Spirit most excellently Glorious, superlatively Powerful and Wise and Good, Creator
of all things out of nothing; That hath endued the Sons of Men, his peculiar Favorites,
with a Rational Spirit, and hath placed them as Spectators in this noble Theatre of the World, to view and applaud these glorious Scenes of Earth
and Heaven, the Workmanship of his Hands; That hath furnished them in general with a
sufficient store of all things, either necessary or convenient for life;
and particularly to such as fear and obey him, hath promised a supply of all wants,
a deliverance and protection from all dangers: Psal. 34. 9.
That they that seek him, shall want no manner of thing
that is good. Who besides his munificence to them in this life; Joh. 3. 16.
hath so
loved the World, That he sent his Onely-begotten Son,. the express Image of his Substance, and Partaker of his eternal
Nature and Glory, to 2 Tim. 1. 10.
bring Life and Immortality to light, and to tender them
to Mankind upon fair and gracious
Terms; That if they submit to his Mat. 11. 30.
easy yoke, and light burthen, and
observe
his Commandments which are not grievous, he then gives them 1 Joh. 5. 3.
the
promise
of eternal Salvation; he hath Heb. 5. 9. 1 Pet. 1. 4.
reserved for them in Heaven an Inheritance
incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away; he hath prepared for them an.
unspeakable, unconceivable
Perfection of Joy and Bliss, 1 Cor. 2. 9.
things that eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entred into the heart of man. What a delightful and ravishing
Hypothesis of Religion in this? And in this Religion they have had their Education.
Now let us suppose some great Professor in Atheism to suggest to some of these
men, That all this is meer dream and imposture; that there is no such excellent
Being, as they suppose, that created and preserves them; that all about them is
dark senseless Matter, driven on by the blind impulses of Fatality and Fortune;
that Men first sprung up, like Mushroms, out of the mud and slime of the Earth; and that all their Thoughts, and the whole of what they call
Soul, are only various Action and Repercussion of small particles of Matter, kept
a-while a moving by some Mechanism and Clock-work, which finally must cease and
perish by death. If it be true then (as we daily find it is) that Men listen with
complacency to these horrid Suggestions; if they let go their hope of Everlasting
Life with willingness and joy; if they entertain the thoughts of final
Perdition with exultation and triumph; ought they not to be esteem’d most notorious
Ἄθεον ὃν ἄλογον καὶ ἀναίοθητον γένος, Max. Tyr. Diss. 1.
Fools, even destitute of common sense, and abandon'd to a callousness
and numness of Soul?
What then, is Heaven it self, with its pleasures for evermore, to be parted with so unconcernedly?
2 Tim. 4. 8. Jam. 1. 12.
Is a Crown of
Righteousness, a Crown of Life, to be surrendred with laughter? Cor. 4.
is an exceeding and eternal weight of Glory too light in the balance against the hopeless death of the Atheist, and utter
extinction? ’Twas a noble saying of the Emperor Marcus, That
he would not endure to live one day in the World, if he did not believe it to be
under the government of Providence. Let us but imagin that excellent Person confuted
and satisfied by some Epicurean of his time; that All was but Atoms, and
Vacuum, and Necessity, and Chance. Would He have been so
pleased and delighted with the conviction? would he have so triumph'd in being overcome? or rather, as he hath told us, would he not have gone down with
sorrow and despair to the Grave? Did I but once see an Atheist lament and bewail
himself; That upon a strict and impartial examination he had found to his cost, that
all was a mistake; that the Prerogative of Human Nature was vanished and gone;
those glorious hopes of Immortality and Bliss, nothing but cheating Joys and
pleasant
Delusions; that he had undone himself by losing the comfortable Error, and would
give all the World to have better arguments for Religion: there would be great
hopes of prevailing upon such an Atheist as this. But, alas! there are none of
them of this temper of mind; there are none that V. 2. of this Psalm. v. 4.
understand and seek after
God; they have no knowledge; nor any desire of it; they Act. 13. 46.
thrust
the Word of God from them, and judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life;
they willingly prefer Darkness before Light; and obstinately choose to
perish
for ever in the Grave, rather than be Heirs of Salvation in the Resurrection of
the Just. These certainly are the Fools in the Text, indocil intractable Fools, whole
stolidity can baffle all Arguments, and be proof against Demonstration it self; Phil. 3. 19.
whose end (as the words of St.
Paul do truly describe them)
whose end and very Hope is Destruction, an eternal Deprivation of
Being; whose God is their Belly, the gratification of sensual
Lusts; whose Glory is in their Shame, in the debasing of Mankind to the condition
of Beasts; who mind earthly things, who if (like that great Apostle) they
were 2 Cor. 12. 2.
caught up to the third Heaven, would (as the Spies did of
Canaan)
Num. 13. 32.
bring down an evil report of those Regions of Bliss. And I fear, unless
it please God by extraordinary methods Mar. 9. 24. Eph. 1. 19.
to help their unbelief
and enlighten
the eyes of their understanding; they will carry their Atheism with them to
the Pit; and the flames of Hell only must convince them of their Error.
This supine and inconsiderate behaviour of the Atheists is so
extremely absurd, that it would be deem’d incredible, if it did not occur to
our daily Observation; it proclaims
aloud, that they are not led astray by their Reasoning, but led captive by their
Lusts to the denial of God. When the very pleasures of Paradise are contemn’d and
trampled on, like Pearls cast before Swine; there’s small hope of reclaiming them
by arguments of Reason. But however, as Solomon adviseth, we will answer
these Prov. 16. 4.
Fools not according to their lest we
also be like unto them. It is expedient that we put to silence the ignorance of these foolish men, that Believers may be the more confirmed and more resolute in the Faith.
Did Religion bestow Heaven without any terms or conditions indifferently
upon all; if the Crown of Life was hereditary, and free to Good and Bad; and not
settled by Covenant upon the Elect of God only, such as Tit. 2. 12.
live soberly
and righteously and godly in this present world; I believe there would be no such thing as an Infidel
among us. And without controversy ’tis the Way and Means of attaining to Heaven,
that makes profane Scorners so willingly let go the Expectation of it. ’Tis not the
Articles of the Creed, but the Duty to God and their Neighbour, that is such an
inconsistent incredible Legend.
They will not practise the Rules of Religion, and therefore they cannot believe
the Promises and Rewards of it.
But however, let us suppose them to have acted like rational and
serious Men: and perhaps upon a diligent inquisition they have found, that the
Hope of Immortality deserves to be joyfully quitted, and that either out
of Interest, or Necessity.
I. And first, One may conceive indeed, how there might
possibly
be a necessity of quitting it. It might be tied to such Terms, as would render
it impossible ever to be obtain’d. For example, if it should be required of all
the Candidates of Glory and Immortality, to give a full and knowing Assent to
such
things as are repugnant to Common Sense, as contradict the κοιναὶ
ἔννοι , the
universal Notions and indubitable Maxims of Reason; if they were to believe, that
One and the same Thing may be and not be at the same time and in the
same respect; If allowing the received Idea’s and denominations of Numbers and Figures
and Body, they must seriously affirm, that Two and two do make a Dozen, or that the Diameter of
a Circle is as long as the Circumference, or that the same Body may be
all of it in distant places at once. I must confess that the offers of Happiness upon
such Articles of Belief as these, would be meer tantalizing of Rational Creatures; and the Kingdom of Heaven would become the Inheritance of only Idiots and Fools.
For whilst a man of Common Capacity doth think and reflect upon such
Propositions; he cannot possibly bribe his Understanding to give a Verdict for their Truth.
So that he would be quite frustrated of the Hope of Reward, upon such unpracticable
Conditions as these: neither could he have any evidence of the Reality of the
Promise,
superior to what he is conscious to of the Falsity of the Means. Now if any
Atheist
can shew me, in the System of Christian Religion, any such absurdities and repugnancies
to our natural Faculties; I will either evince them to be Interpolations and Corruptions
of the Faith, or yield my self a Captive and a Proselyte to his Infidelity.
II. Or, 2dly, they may think ’tis the Interest of Mankind,
that there should be no Heaven at all; because the Labour to acquire it is more
worth than the Purchase: God Almighty (if there be one) having much overvalued the
Blessings of his Presence. So that upon a fair estimation, ’tis a greater advantage
to take one’s swing in Sensuality, and have a glut of Voluptuousness in this Life,
freely resigning all pretenses to future Happiness; which, when a man is once extinguish’d
by Death, he cannot be supposed either to want or desire: than to be tied up by Commandments and Rules so contrary to
Flesh
and Blood; to Mark 8. 34.
take up one’s
Cross, to deny himself; and refuse the Satisfaction of Natural Desires. This
indeed is the true Language of Atheism, and the Cause of it too. Were not this
at the Bottom, no man in his Wits could contemn and ridicule the expectation of Immortality.
Now what power or influence can Religion have upon the minds of there men; while
not only their Affections and Lusts, but their supposed Interest shall plead
against
it? But if we can once silence this powerful Advocate, we shall without much difficulty carry
the Cause at the Bar of impartial Reason.
Now here is a notorious instance of the Folly of
Atheists,
that while they repudiate all Title to the Kingdom of Heaven, meerly for the present
Pleasure of Body, and their boasted Tranquillity of Mind; besides the extreme madness
in running such a desperate Hazard after Death, (which I will not now treat of)
they deprive themselves here of that very Pleasure and Tranquillity they seek for.
For I shall now endeavour to shew, That Religion it self gives us the greatest Delights
and Advantages even in this life also, though there should prove in the event to
be no Resurrection to another. Prov. 3. 17.
Her ways are ways of pleasure, and all her paths are peace.
But before I begin that, I must occurr to one specious
Objection
both against this Proposition and the past part of my Discourse; Namely, that Religion
doth perpetually haunt and disquiet us with dismal apprehensions of
everlasting
Burnings in Hell; and that there is no shelter or refuge from those Fears, but behind the Principles of Atheism.
(1.) First therefore I will freely acknowledge to the Atheists; that
some part of what hath been said is not directly conclusive against them; if they
say, that before they revolted from the Faith, they had sinned away all
expectation
of ever arriving at Heaven: and consequently had good reason so joyfully to receive the news of Annihilation by Death, as an advantageous
change for the everlasting torments of the Damn’d. But because I cannot expect, that
they will make such a shameless and senseless Confession, and supply us with that invincible argument
against
themselves: I must say again, that to prefer final Extinction before a happy Immortality
does declare the most deplorable stupidity of mind. Nay although they should
confess,
that they believed themselves to be Reprobates, before they disbelieved Religion; and took Atheism as a
sanctuary and Refuge from the Terrors of Hell: yet still
the imputation of Folly will stick upon them: in as much as they chose
Atheism
as an Opiate to still those frightning Apprehensions, by inducing a dulness and lethargy of mind; rather than they would make
use
of that active and salutary Medicine, a hearty Repentance; that they did not know
the Rom. 2. r.
Riches of the goodness and forbearance and long-suffering of God, and
that a sincere Amendment of Life was never too late nor in vain; 1 Tim. 4. 10, 1 Joh. 5. 14.
1 Tim. 1. 15. Rom. 5. 6, 10.
Jesus Christ
being the Saviour of all men,
and a propitiation for the sins of the whole world; who came into the
world to save sinners, even the chief of them
all; and died for the ungodly, and his bitterest enemies.
(2.) And secondly, As to the Fears of Damnation;
those terrors are not to be charged upon Religion it self, which proceed either
from the Want of Religion, or Superstitious mistakes about it. For as an honest and
innocent Man doth know the punishments, which the Laws of his Country denounce
against Felons and Murderers and Traytors, without being terrified or concern’d
at them: So a Christian, in truth as well as in name, though he believe the consuming
Vengeance prepared for the disobedient and unbelievers, is not at all dismayed at the apprehensions of it.
Indeed it adds spurs, and gives wings to his diligence, it excites him to
Phil. 2. 12.
work out his Salvation with fear and trembling, a religious and ingenuous fear,
that is temper’d with hope and with love and unspeakable joy. But he knows, that
if he fears him who is Matt. 10. 28.
able to destroy both soul and body in Hell, he needs
not fear that his own soul or body shall ever go thither.
I allow that some debauched and profligate Wretches, or some
designing perfidious Hypocrites, that are religious in outward profession, but
corrupt and abominable in their works, are most justly as well as usually liable to
these horrors of mind. ’Tis not my business to defend or excuse such as these; 1 must leave them, as long as they keep their hardness and impenitent hearts, to those gnawing and excruciating Fears, those whips of the divine Nemesis, that frequently
scourge even Atheists themselves. For the Atheists also can never wholly extinguish those horrible forebodings of Conscience. They endeavour indeed to compose
and charm their Fears, but a thousand occasions daily awaken the sleeping Tormenters.
Any slight Consideration either of themselves, or of any thing without;
whatsoever
they think on, or whatsoever they look on; all administer some reasons for suspicion
and diffidence, lest possibly they may be in the wrong; and then ’tis a
Heb. 10. 31.
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. There are they great
fear, as ’tis in the 5th verse of this Psalm, under terrible presages
of Heb. 10. 27.
judgment and fiery indignation. Neither can they say, That these Terrors,
like Tales about Spectres, may disturb some small Pretenders and puny Novices, but
dare not approach the vere Adepti, the Masters and Rabbies of Atheism.
Cic. Plutarch, &c.
For ’tis well known both from ancient and modern Experience, that
the very boldest of them, out of their Debauches and Company, when they chance to
be surprized with Solitude or Sickness, are the most suspicious and timorous and
despondent Wretches in the World: and that the boasted Happy Atheist in the Indolence
of body, and an undisturbed Calm and Serenity of mind, is altogether as rare a Creature, as the
Vir Sapiens was among the
Stoics; whom they often met with in Idea and Description, in Harangues and
in Books, but freely own’d that he never had or was like to exist actually in Nature.
And now as to the present advantages which we owe to Religion,
they are very conspicuous; whether we consider Mankind,
(1.) Separately, or (2.) under Society and Government.
1. And first, in a Single Capacity. How is a good Christian animated and
cheer’d by a stedfast belief of the Promises of the Gospel; of an everlasting
enjoyment of perfect Felicity, such as,
after millions of millions of Ages is still
youthfull and flourishing and inviting as
at the first? no wrinkles in the face, no
gray hairs on the head of Eternity; no
end, no diminution, no satiety of those
delights. What a warm and vigorous influence does a Religious Heart feel from
a firm expectation of these Glories? Certainly this Hope alone is of inestimable
value; ’tis a kind of anticipation and
pledge of those Joys; and at least gives
him one Heaven upon Earth, though
the other should prove a Delusion. Now
what
are the mighty Promises of Atheism in competition with
these?
let us know the glorious Recompences it proposes: utter Extinction and Cessation
of Being; to be reduced to the same condition, as if we never had been born. O
dismal
reward of Infidelity! at which Nature does shrink and shiver with horror. What some
of the Vide Pocokii Notas ad Portam Mosis. p. 158. &c.
Learned Doctors among the
Jews have esteem’d the most dreadfull
of all Punishment, and. have assigned for the portion of the blackest Criminals
of the Damn’d; so interpreting Tophet, Ahaddon, the Vale of Slaughter and
the like, for final Excision and Deprivation of Being: this Atheism exhibits to
us, as an Equivalent to Heaven. ’Tis well known, what hath been disputed among School-men
to this effect. And ’tis an observation of Plutarch. Ὅτι οὐδ... ..ῆν, &c.
p. 1104, 1105. Ed. Ruald.
Plutarch, that the Generality of Mankind,
πάντες καὶ πᾶσαι, as well Women as Men,
chose
rather to endure all the Punishments of Hell, as described by the Poets; than part
with the Hope of Immortality, though immortal only in misery. I easily grant, that this would be a very hard Bargain; and that Not to be at all
is more eligible, than to be miserable always; our Saviour himself
haveing determin'd the question; Matt. 14. 2.
Wo to that man, by whom the Son of Man is
betrayed; good were it for that man, if he had never been born. But however
thus much it evidently shews, That this desire of Immortality is a natural Affection
of the Soul; ’tis Self-preservation in the highest and truest meaning; ’tis
interwoven in the very Frame and Constitution of Man. How then can the Atheist reflect
on his own Hypothesis without extreme sorrow and dejection of Spirit? Will
he say, that when once he is dead, this Desire will be nothing; and that He that
is not, cannot lament his Annihilation? So indeed it would be hereafter according
to his Principles. But nevertheless, for the present, while he continues in Life
(which we now speak of) that dusky Scene of Horror, that melancholy Prospect of
final Perdition will frequently occur to his Fancy: the sweetest Enjoyments of Life
will often become flat and insipid, will be damp’d and
extinguish’d, be bitter’d and poison’d by the malignant and
venomous quality of this Opinion.
Is it not more comfortable to a man, to think well of himself,
to have a high Value and Conceit of the Dignity of his Nature, to believe a
noble Origination of his Race, the Off-spring and Image of the great King of
Glory: rather than that men first proceded, as Vermin are thought to do, by the
sole influence of the Sun out of Dirt and Putrefaction?
Is it not a firmer foundation for Contentment and Tranquillity, to believe that All things were at first created, and are
since continually order’d
and dispos’d for the best, and that principally for the Benefit and
Pleasure of
Man: than that the whole Universe is meer bungling and blundring;
no Art or Contrivance to be seen in’t: nothing effected for any purpose and design; but all ill-favouredly cobled and jumbled together by the unguided
agitation and rude shuffles of Matter?
Can any man wish a better Support
under affliction, than the Friendship and
Favour of Omnipotence, of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness; that is
both able, and willing and knows how to relieve him? Phil. 4. 13,
Such a man can do all things through Christ that
strengtheneth him, he can patiently suffer all things with cheerful
submission and resignation
to the Divine Will. He has a secret Spring of spiritual Joy, and the continual
Feast
of a good Conscience within, that forbid him to be miserable. Bur what a forlorn
destitute Creature is the Atheist in distress? He hath no friend in Extremity, but
Poison or a Dagger or a Halter or a Precipice. A violent Death is the last refuge
of the Epicureans, as well as the Stoics. This, says
Lib. 3.
Lucretius, is the
distinguishing Character of a genuine Son of our Sect, that he will not
endure to live in Exile and Want and Disgrace out of a vain fear of Death; but
dispatch himself resolutely into the State of eternal Sleep and Insensibility. And
yet for all this swaggering, not one of a hundred of them hath boldness enough
to follow the Direction. The base and degenerous Saying of one of them is very well
known; Mecænas apud Senec. Ep. 101.
Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede, coxa. &c.
That Life is always
sweet, and he should still desire
to prolong it though, after he had been maim’d and distorted by the Rack, he
should
be condemn’d to hang on a Gibbet.
And then, as to the Practical Rules and Duties of Religion.
As the Miracles of our Lord are peculiarly eminent above the Lying Wonders
of Dæmons, in that they were not made out of vain ostentation of Power,
and to raise unprofitable Amazement; but for the real Benefit and Advantage of
men, by feeding the Hungry, healing all sorts of Diseases, ejecting of Devils, and
reviving the Dead: so likewise the Commands which he hath imposed on his Followers
are not like the absurd Ceremonies of Pagan Idolatry, the frivolous
Rites of their Initiations and Worship, that might look like Incantation and Magic,
but had no tendency in their Nature to make Mankind the happier. Our Saviour
hath enjoyn’d us a
Rom. 12. 1.
Reasonable
service; accommodated to the rational part of
our nature. All his Laws are in themselves, abstracted from any Consideration of Recompense,
conducing to the Temporal
Interest of them that observe them. For what can be more availing to a man’s Health,
or his Credit, or Estate, or Security in this World, than Charity and Meekness,
than Sobriety and Temperance, than Homily and Diligence in his Calling? Do not Pride
and Arrogance infallibly meet with Contempt? Do not Contentiousness and Cruelty
and Study of Revenge seldom fail of Retaliation? Are not envious and covetous, discontented
and anxious minds tormenters to themselves? Do not we see, that slothfull and intemperate
and incontinent persons destroy their Bodies with diseases, their Reputations with
disgrace, and their Families with want? Are Adultery and Fornication forbidden
only by Moses and Christ? or do not Heathen Law-givers
punish such Enormities with Fines or Imprisonment, with Exile or Death? ’Twas an
Objection of Julianus apud Cyrillum, p. 134.
Julian the
Apostate; that there were no new Precepts of Morality in our Religion:
Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbours wife. Why all the World, says he, is agreed about these
Commandments: and in every Country under Heaven, there are Laws and Penalties made
to enforce all the Ten, excepting only the Sabbath and the Worship of
strange Gods. We can answer Him another way; but he may make our Infidels ashamed
to complain of those Ordinances as hard Impositions, which the sense of all Nations
has thought to be reasonable: which not only the Philosophers of Greece
and Italy and the learned World; but the Banians of Mogul, the Talapoins
of Siam, the Mandarins of China, the Moralists of Peru and
Mexico, all the Wisdom of Mankind have declared to be necessary Duties.
Nay if the Atheists would but live up to the Ethics of Epicurus himself, they would
make few or no Proselytes from the Christian Religion. For none revolt from the
Faith for such things as are thought peculiar to Christianity; Not because they
must Matt. 5. 44.
love and pray for their enemies, but because they must not poison or
stab them: not because they must not ver. 28.
look upon a Woman to lust after her, but because they are much more restrain’d from committing the Act. If wanton glances and lascivious thoughts had been permitted by
the Gospel, and only the gross Act forbidden; they would have apostatized nevertheless.
This we may conjecture from what
Plato de Legib. lib. 10. p. 886. Ed. Steph.
Plato and others have told us, that it was commonly
ἀκράτεια ἡδονῶν καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν, immoderate Affections and Lusts, that in the very times
of Paganism induced men to be Atheists. It seems their impure and brutal Sensuality
was too much confined by the Religion of those Countries, where even Venus
and Bacchus had their Temples. Let not therefore voluptuos Atheists lay all
the fault of their Sins upon the Infirmity of Humane Nature; nor plead that Flesh
and Blood cannot resist those Temptations, which have all their force and prevalence
from long Custom and inveterated Habit. What inticement, what pleasure is there
in common profane Swearing? yet neither the fear of God nor of the Law will persuade
men to leave it. ’Tis prevailing Example that hath now made it fashionable, but
it hath not always been so, nor will be hereafter. So other Epidemical Vices;
they are rise and predominant only for a season, and must not be
ascribed to Humane
Nature in the Lump. In some Countries Intemperance is a necessary part of
Conversation; in others Sobriety is a Vertue
universal, without any respect to the Duties of
Religion. Nor can they say, that this is only the difference of Climate, that inclines
one Nation to Concupiscence and Sensual Pleasures; another to Blood-thirstiness and
Desire of Revenge. It would
discover great ignorance in History, not to know
that in all Climates a whole People has been over-run with some recently invented
or newly imported kind of Vice, which their Grandfathers never knew. In the latest
Accounts of the Country of Guiana, we are told that the eating of Humane
Flesh is the beloved pleasure of those Savages: two Nations of them by mutual devouring
are reduced to two handfulls of men. When the Gospel of our Saviour was preached
to them, they received it with gladness of heart; they could be brought to forgoe
Plurality of Wives; though that be the main impediment to the conversion of the
East Indies. But the great Stumblingblock with these Americans, and the only Rock of Offense was
the forbidding them to eat their Enemies; That irresistible Temptation
made them quickly to revolt and relapse into their Infidelity. What must we
impute this to? to the temperature of the Air, to the nature of the Soil, to
the influence of the Stars? Are these Barbarians of man-eating Constitutions, that they
so hanker after this inhumane Diet, which We cannot imagin without horror? Is not
the same thing practised in other parts of that Continent? Was it not so in Europe of old, and is it not now so in Africa? If an Eleventh Commandment
had been given, Thou shalt not eat Humane Flesh; would not these Canibals
have esteem’d it more difficult than all the Ten? And would, not they have really
had as much reason as our Atheists; to plead the power of the Temptation, and
the propensity of Flesh and Blood? How impudent then are the Atheists, that
traduce the easie and gracious Conditions of the Gospel, as Unreasonable and
Tyrannical Impositions? Are not God’s ways equal, O ye Children of
Destruction, and
are not your ways unequal?
II. Secondly and lastly, For the good Influence of Religion upon
Communities and Governments, habemus confitentes reos; ’tis so apparent
and unquestionable, that ’tis one of the Objections of the Atheists, That it was
first contrived and introduced by Politicians, to bring the wild and draggling Herds
of Mankind under Subjection and Laws. Luke 19. 22.
Out of thy own mouth shalt thou be judged, thou wicked servant. Thou say’st that the Wide Institutors of Government, Souls elevated
above the ordinary pitch of men, thought Religion necessary to Civil Obedience.
Why then dost thou endeavour to undermine this Foundation, to undo this Cement of
Society, and to reduce all once again to thy imaginary State of Nature, and Original
Confusion? No Community ever was or can be begun or maintain’d, but upon the Basis
of Religion. What Government can be imagin’d without Judicial Procedings? and what
methods of Judicature without a Religious Oath? which implies and supposes an
Omniscient Being, as conscious to its falshood or truth, and a revenger of
Perjury. So that the very nature of an Oath (and therefore of Society
also) is subverted by the Atheist; who professeth to acknowledge nothing superiour
to himself, no omnipresent observer of the actions of men. For an
Hobbes de Cive, Leviathan.
Atheist to compose
a System of Politics is as absurd and ridiculous, as Epicurus’s
Sermons were about περὶ Οσιότητος.
Laert. De sanctitate, de pietate adversus Deos. Cic.
Sanctity and Religious Worship. But there
was hope, that the Doctrine of absolute uncontroulable Power and the formidable name
of Leviathan might flatter and bribe the Government into a toleration
of Infidelity. We need have no recourse to notions and supposition; we have
sad experience and convincing example before us, what a rare Constitution of Government
may be had in a whole Nation of Atheists. The Natives of
De Laert. p. 34, 47, 50. Voyage du Sieur de Champlain. p. 28. & 93.
Newfoundland
and new France in America, as they are said to live without
any sense of Religion, so they are known to be destitute of its advantages
and blessings; without any Law or form of Community; without any Literature or
Sciences or Arts; no Towns, no fixed Habitations, no Agriculture, no Navigation.
And ’tis entirely owing to the power of Religion, that the whole World is not at
this time as barbarous as they. And yet I ought not to have called these
miserable
Wretches a Nation of Atheists. They cannot be said to be of the Atheist's
opinion; because they have no opinion at all in the matter: They do not say in
their hearts, There is no God; for they never once deliberated, if there
was one or no. They no more deny the Existence of a Deity; than they deny
the Antipodes, the Copernican System, or the Satellites Jovis: about which they have had no notion or conception at all. ’Tis
the Ignorance of those poor Creatures, and not their Impiety: their
Ignorance as much to be pitied, as the impiety of the Atheists to be
detested and punish’d. ’Tis of mighty importance to the Government to put
some
timely stop to the spreading Contagion of this Pestilence that walketh by day, that dares to
disperse its cursed seeds and principles in the face of the Sun.
The Fool in the Text had only said in his heart, There is no
God: he had not spoken it aloud, nor openly blasphem’d, in
places of public resort. There’s too much reason to fear, that some of all orders
of men, even Magistracy it self, have taken the Infection: a thing of dreadfull
consequence and most imminent danger.
Plutach. Λαθεβιάσας.
Lucret. &c.
Epicurus was somewhat wiser than
ordinary, when he so earnestly advised his Disciples against medling in publick
affairs: He knew the nature and tendency of his own Philosophy; that it would
soon
become suspected and odious to a Government, if ever Atheists were employ’d in places
of Trust. But because he had made one great Rule superior to all, That every
man’s only Good was pleasure of Body and contentment of Mind; hence
it was that men of ambitious and turbulent Spirits, that were dissatisfied and uneasie
with Privacy and Retirement, were allowed by his own Principle to engage in
matters of State. And there they generally met with that fortune, which their
Master foresaw.
Several Cities of Plutarch. Ὅτι
οὐδὲ ἡδέως ζῆν. Cicero, Athenæus, Ælian. &c.
Greece
that had made experiment of them in Public Concerns, drove them out, as Incendiaries and Pests of Commonweals,
by severe Edicts and Proclamations. Atheism is by no means tolerable in the most
private condition: but if it aspire to authority and power; if it acquire the
Command of an Army or a Navy; if it get upon the Bench or into the Senate, or on
a Throne: What then can be expected but the basest Cowardise and Treachery, but the
foulest prevarication in Justice, but betraying and selling the Rights and Liberties
of a People, but arbitrary Government and tyrannical Oppression? Nay if Atheism
were once, as I may say, the National Religion: it would make its own Followers
the most miserable of men; it would be the Kingdom of Satan divided against it
self;
and the Land would be soon brought to desolation.
Josephus de Bello Judaico, l. 2. c. 12.
Josephus, that knew them,
hath inform’d us, that the Sadducees, those Epicureans among the Jews, were
not only rough and cruel to men of a different Sect from their own; but perfidious
and inhumane one towards another. This is the genuine spirit and the natural product
of Atheism. No man, that adheres to that narrow and selfish Principle,
can ever be Just or Generous or Grateful;
Si sibi ipse consentiat, et non interdum natura bonitate vincatur. Cic.
de Offic. 1. 2.
unless he be sometime overcome by Good-nature
and a happy Constitution. No Atheist, as such, can be a true Friend, an affectionate
Relation, or a loyal Subject. The appearance and shew of mutual Amity among them,
is wholly owing to the smallness of their number, and to the obligations of a Faction.
’Tis like the Friendship of Pickpockets and Highwaymen, that are said to
observe
strict Justice among themselves, and never to defraud a Comrade of his share of the
Booty. But if we could imagine a whole Nation to be Cut-purses and Robbers; would
there then be kept that square-dealing and equity in such a monstrous den of
Thieves? And if Atheism should be supposed to become universal in this Nation
(which seems to be design’d and endeavour’d, though we know the Gates of
Hell shall not be able to prevail) farewell all Ties of Friendship and Principles of
Honour; all Love for our Country and Loyalty to our Prince; nay, farewel all Government and Society it self, all
Professions and
Arts, and Conveniencies of Life, all that is laudable or valuable in the World.
May the Father of Mercies and God of Infinite Wisdom reduce the
Foolish from their Errors, and make them wise unto Salvation; Confirm the
Sceptical and wavering Minds, and so prevent Us, that stand fast, in all our doings,
and further us with his continual help, that we may not be of them that draw back
unto Perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the Soul, Amen.
Matter and Motion cannot think:
OR, A
CONFUTATION
OF
ATHEISM
FROM THE
Faculties of the Soul.
The Second SERMON Preached
April 4. 1692.
Acts XVII. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after
him, and find him; though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we Live,
and Move, and have our Being.
THESE words are a part of that Discourse which St. Paul
had at Athens. He had not been long in that inquisitive and pragmatical City,
but we find him Acts 17. 18.
encountered by the
Epicureans
and Stoics, two sorts of people that were very ill qualified for the
Christian Faith: the one
by reason of their Carnal Affections, either believing no God at all, or that he
was like unto themselves, dissolv’d in Ἀεργὸν καὶ ἀμελές.
Laziness and Ease; the other out of Spiritual
Pride presuming to assert, that Arriani Epictet. l. 1. c. 12. Ὥς κατάγε τὸν λόγον,
οὐδὲ χειρων το Θεῶν, οὐὐδὲ μικρότερος.
Seneca Ep. 53. Est aliquid quo sapiens antecedat Deum: ille natura beneficio, non suo sapiens est.
a Wise Mau of their Sect was equal, and in
some
cases superior to the Majesty of God himself. These men
V. 19.
corrupted through
Philosophy and vain deceit, took our Apostle, and carried him
unto Areopagus, (a place in the City, whither was the greatest resort
of Travellers and Strangers, of the gravest Citizens and Magistrates, of their Orators
and Philosophers;) to give an account of himself and the new Doctrine that he
spoke of V. 20.
For, say they, thou bringest
strange things to our ears; we would know therefore what these things mean. The Apostle, who was to speak to such a promiscuous Assembly, has with most admirable Prudence and Art, so accommodated his Discourse, that every branch and member of it is directly opposed to a known Error and Prejudice of some Party of his Hearers. I will beg leave to be the more prolix in explaining the whole; because it will
be a ground and introduction not only to this present, but some other subsequent
Discourses.
From the Inscription of an Altar to the Unknown God, which is
mentioned by Heathen Authors, Lucianus in Philopat. Philostrat. de vita Apol. l. 6. c. 2. Pausan. in Eliacis.
Lucian, Philostratus,
and others, he takes occasion (v. 24.) to declare
unto them, that God that made the World and all things therein. This
first Doctrine, though admitted by many of his Auditors, is directly both
against Epicureans, that ascribed the Origin and Frame of the World not to the Power of God, but
the fortuitous concourse of Atoms; and Peripatetics, that supposed all
things to have been eternally, as they now are, and never to have been made at all,
either by the Deity or without him. Which God, says he,
V. 25.
seeing
that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth, dwelleth not in the Temples made with hands,
neither is worshipped with men’s hands as though he needed any
thing, seeing he giveth to all Life and Breath and all things. This is opposed to the Civil and Vulgar Religion of Athens, which furnish’d and
serv’d
the Deity with Temples and Sacrifices, as if he had really needed Habitation and
Sustenance. And that the common Heathens had such mean apprehensions about the Indigency
of their Gods, appears plainly, to name no more, from Aristophanes’s Plutus, and the Dialogues of Lucian. But the
Philosophers were not concern’d in this point: all Parties and Sects, even the
Lucret. 2. Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri.
Epicureans themselves, did maintain (τὸ αὐταρκὲς) the
self-sufficiency
of the God-head: and seldom or never sacrificed at all, unless in compliance and
condescension to the custom of their Country. There’s a very remarkable passage
in Tertullian’s Apology, Tertul. Apolog. cap. 46. Quis enim Philosophum sacrificare compellit?
Quinimmo et deos vestros palam destruunt, et superstitiones vestras commentariis quoque accusant.
Who forces a
Philosopher to sacrifice,
&c.? It appears from thence, that the Philosophers, no less than the Christians, neglected the Pagan Worship and Sacrifices;
though what was conniv’d at in the one, was made highly penal and capital
in the other. V. 26.
And hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on
all the face of the Earth; and hath determin’d the times before appointed, and the
bound of their habitation. This Doctrine about the beginning of Humane Race,
though agreeable enough to the Platonists and Stoics, is apparently
levell’d against the Epicureans and Aristotelians; one of whom produced
their Primitive Men from meer Accident or Mechanism; the other denied that Man
had any beginning at all, but had eternally continued thus by Succession and Propagation.
Neither were the Commonalty of Athens unconcern’d in this point. For although,
as we learn from Isocrates in Pangeg. Demosth. in Epitaph. Cic.
Or. pro Placco. Euripides, &c.
Isocrates, Demosthenes and others of their Countrymen,
they professed themselves to be αὐτόχθοιες, Aborigines, not transplanted
by Colonies or otherwise from any Foreign Nation, but born out of their own Soil
in Attica, and had the same Earth for their Parent, their Nurse, and their Country; and though some perhaps
might believe, Diog. Laert. in Præf.
that all the rest of Mankind were derived from Them, and so might
apply and interpret the Words of the Apostle to this foolish Tradition: yet that
conceit of deriving the whole Race of Men from the Aborigines of Attica
was entertain’d but by a few; for they generally allowed that the Thucyd.
lib. 6. Herodot. &c.
Egyptians
and Sicilians, and some others were Aborigines also, as well as
themselves. Then follow the words of the Text, V. 27, 28.
That they
should seek the Lord,
if haply they might feel after him, and find him; though he be not far from every
one of us. For in him we Live, and Move, and have our Being. And this he confirms
by the Authority of a Writer that lived above 300 years before; As certain
also
of your own Poets have said, For we are also his Off-spring. This indeed was
no Argument to the Plutarch. de Aud. Poet. & contra Colot.
Epicurean Auditors; who undervalued all Argument from Authority, and
especially from the Poets. Their Master Epicurus had
boasted, Laert. in vita Epicuri.
that in all his Writings he had not
cited one single Authority out of any Book whatsoever. And the Poets they particularly
hated; because on all occasions they introduced the Ministry of the Gods, and
taught the separate Existence of humane Souls. But it was of great weight and moment
to the Common People, who held the Poets in mighty esteem and veneration, and
used
them as their Masters of Morality and Religion. And the other Sects too of
Philosophers
did frequently adorn and confirm their Discourses by Citations out of Poets. V. 29.
For
as much then as we are the off-spring of God, we ought not to think that the
Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver, or Stone graven by art or man’s device.
This is directly levell’d against the gross Idolatry of the Vulgar, (for the
Philosophers are not concern’d in it) that believed the very Statues of Gold and Silver and other
Materials, to be God, and terminated their Prayers in those Images; as I might shew
from many passages of Scripture, from the Apologies of the Primitive Christians,
and the Heathen Writers themselves. V. 30, 31.
And the times of this ignorance God winked
at, (the meaning of which is, as upon a like occasion the fame Apostle hath expressed
it, that Act. 14. 16.
in times past he suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways) but now
commandeth every one to repent; Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he
will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Hitherto the Aponte had never contradicted all his Audience at once: though at
every part of his Discourse 16me of them might be mealy, yet others were of his
side, and all along a moderate silence and attention was observed; because every
Point was agreeable to the notions of the greater Party. But when they heard
of the Resurrection of the Dead, the interruption and clamor became
universal:
so that here the Apostle was obliged to break off, and V. 33.
depart from among them.
What could be the reason of this general dissent from the notion of the Resurrection,
since almost all of them believed the Immortality of the Soul? St. Chrysostom hath
a conceit, that the Athenians took Ἀνάστασις (the original word for
Resurrection) to be preached to them as a Goddess, and in this fancy he is follow’d
by some of the Moderns. The ground of the conjecture is the 18th verse of this Chapter,
where some said, What will this Babler say? other some, He seemeth
to be a setter forth of strange Gods, (ξένων δαιμονίων,
strange Deities, which
comprehends both Sexes) because he preached unto them, Ἰησοῦν καὶ τὴν Ἀνάστασιν,
Jesus and the Resurrection.. Now,
say they, it could not be said Deities in the plural number, unless it be
supposed that
Ἀνάστασις is a Goddess, as well as
Jesus a God.
But we know, such a permutation of Number is frequent in all Languages. We have
another example of it in the very Text, V. 28.
As certain also of your own poets have
said,
For we are also his Off-spring. And yet the Apostle meant only one, Arati Phœn. v. 5. Πάντη
δὲ Διὸς κεχρήμετα πάντες, Τοῦ γὰρ ὃν γένος ἐσμέν.
Aratus
the Cilician, his Countryman, in whose Astronomical Poem this passage
is now extant. So that although he preached to the Athenians
Jesus
alone, yet by a common mode of Speech he might be called, a setter forth of
strange
Gods. ’Tis my opinion, that the general distaste and clamour proceeded from
a mistake about the nature of the Christian Resurrection. The word Resurrection
(ἀναστήσασθαι and
ἀνάστασις) was well enough known
amongst the
Athenians, as appears at this time from Hom. Il. w. 551. Ο̡δέ μιν ἀνστήσεις &c. Æsch. Eumen.
655.
Ἀ̓νδρὸς δ᾽ ἐπειδὰν αἷμ᾽ ἀνασπάσῃ κόνις,
Ἅπαξ θανόντος οὔτις ἔστ᾽ ἀνάστασις.
Soph. Electra, 136. Ἀλλ᾽ οὔτοι τόν γ᾽ ἐξ ἀΐδα
παγκοίνου λίμνας πατέρ᾽ ἀνστάσεις, οὔτε γόοισιν, οὐ λιτ...ῖς.
Homer, Æschylus and
Sophocles; they could hardly then possibly imagin it to signify a Goddess. But
then it always denoted a returning from the State of the Dead to this present World,
to eat and drink and converse upon Earth, and so after another period of Life to
die again as before. And Festus a Roman seems to have had the same apprehensions about it. For when he declares the
case of St. Paul his Prisoner to King
Agrippa, he tells him, That the Accusation was only about certain
questions
of the Jewish Superstition; and Acts 25.19.
of one
Jesus which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. So that when the Athenians
heard him mention the Resurrection of the Dead, which according to their acceptation
of the word was a contradiction to common Sense, and to the Experience of all Places
and Ages; they had no patience to give any longer attention. His Luke 24. 11.
words seemed to them as idle tales, as the first news of
our Saviour's Resurrection did to the Apostles themselves. All interrupted and
mocked him, except a few, that seem to have understood him aright, which said they would
hear him again of this matter. Just as when our Saviour said in an Allegorical
and Mystical sense, John 6. 53.
Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his
Blood, ye have no life in you; the Hearers understood him literally and grosly.
V. 60.
The Jews therefore
strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give
us his Flesh to eat; this is a hard saying, who can hear it? V. 66.
And from that
time many of his Disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
I have now gone through this excellent Discourse of the Apostle,
in which many most important Truths are clearly and succinctly deliver’d; such as the
Existence, the Spirituality, and All-sufficiency of God, the Creation
of the World, the Origination of Mankind from one common flock according to the
History of Moses, the Divine Providence in over-ruling all Nations and
People, the new Doctrine of Repentance by the preaching of the Gospel, the
Resurrection of the Dead, and the appointed Day of an universal Judgment. To all
which particulars by God's Permission and Assistance I shall say something in due time. But at
present
I have confined my self to that near and internal and convincing Argument of the
Being of God, which we have from Human Nature it self; and which appears to be principally
here recommended by St. Paul in the words of the Text, That they
should
seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him,
though he be not far from every one of us. For in him (that is, by his power) we
live, and move, and have our being.
The Proposition, which I shall speak
to, from this Text is this: That the
very Life and Vital Motion and the Formal Essence and Nature of Man is wholly owing to the power of
God: and that the consideration of our Selves, of our own Souls and Bodies, doth
directly and nearly conduct us to the acknowledgment of his Existence. And,
1. I shall prove, That there is an immaterial Substance in us,
which we call Soul and Spirit, essentially distinct from our Bodies: and that this
Spirit doth necessarily evince the Existence of a Supreme and Spiritual Being. And,
2. That the Organical Structure of Human Bodies, whereby they are
fitted to live and move and be vitally informed by the Soul, is unquestionably the
workmanship of a most wise and powerful and beneficent Maker. But I will reserve
this latter part for the next opportunity; and my present undertaking shall be
this, To evince the Being of God from the consideration of Human Souls.
(1.) And first, I say, there is an immaterial Substance in us, which we call
Soul, essentially distinct from our Bodies.
I shall lay it down as self-evident, That
there is something in our Composition, that thinks and apprehends, and reflects and deliberates; that determines and doubts,
consents and
denies; that wills, and demurrs, and resolves, and chooses, and rejects; that receives
various sensations and impressions from external objects, and produces voluntary
motions of several parts of our Bodies. This every man is conscious of; neither
can any one be so Sceptical as to doubt of or deny it: that very doubting
or denying being part of what I would suppose, and including several
of the rest in their Idea’s and Notions. And in the next place ’tis as
self-evident,
that these Faculties and Operations of Thinking, and Willing, and Perceiving,
must
proceed from something or other as their efficient Cause: meer Nothing being never
able to produce any thing at all. So that if these powers of Cogitation, and Volition,
and Sensation, are neither inherent in Matter as such, nor producible in Matter
by any motion and modification of it; it necessarily follows that they proceed
from some cogitative Substance, some incorporeal Inhabitant within us, which we call Spirit and Soul.
(1.) But first, these Faculties of Sensation and Preception are not inherent
in Matter as such. For if it were so; what monstrous absurdities would follow? Every Stock and Stone would be a percipient and rational Creature. We should have
as much feeling upon clipping a Hair of the Head, as upon pricking a Nerve. Or
rather, as Men, that is, as a complex Being compounded of many vital parts, we
should have no feeling nor perception at all. For every single Atom of our Bodies
would be a distinct Animal, endued with self-consciousness and personal Sensation
of its own. And a great number of such living and thinking Particles could not
possibly by their mutual contact and pressing and striking compose one greater individual
Animal, with one Mind and Understanding, and a vital Consension of the whole Body: any more than a
swarm of Bees, or a crowd of Men and Women can be conceived to
make up one particular Living Creature compounded and constituted of the aggregate
of them all.
(2.) It remains therefore, secondly,
that seeing Matter in general, as Matter, has not any Sensation or Thought; if it have them at all,
they must be the result of some Modification of it: it must acquire them by some
Organical Disposition; by such and such determinate Motions, by the action and passion
of one particle upon another. And this is the Opinion of every Atheist and counterfeit
Deist of these times; that believes there is no Substance but Matter, and excludes
all incorporeal Nature out of the number of Beings.
Now to give a clear and full confutation of this Atheistical Assertion,
I will proceed in this method.
1. First I will give a true Notion and Idea of Matter; whereby
it will again appear that it has no inherent Faculty of Sense and Perception.
2. I will prove, that no particular sort of Matter, as the Brain
and Animal Spirits, hath any power of Sense and Perception.
3.1 will shew, that Motion in general superadded to Matter cannot
produce any Sense and Perception.
4. I will demonstrate that no particular sort of Motion, as of the Animal Spirits through Muscles and Nerves, can beget Sense and Perception.
5. I will evince, that no Action and Passion of the Animal Spirits,
one Particle upon another, can create any Sense and Perception.
6. I will answer the Atheist’s Argument of matter of Fact and
Experience in brute Beasts; which, say they, are allowed to be meer Matter, and
yet have some degree of Sense and Perception.
And first I will give a true Notion. and Idea of Matter; whereby
it will appear that it has no inherent Faculty of Sense and Perception. And I will
offer no other, but what all competent Judges, and even Atheists themselves do
allow of; and which being part of the Epicurean and Democritean
Philosophy
is providentially one of the best Antidotes against their other impious Opinions:
as the Oil of Scorpions is said to be against the poison of their Stings. When we
frame in our minds any notion of Matter, we conceive nothing else but Extension
and Bulk; which is impenetrable and divisible and passive; by which three properties
is understood, that any particular quantity of Matter doth hinder
all other from intruding into its place, till it self be removed out of it;
that it may be divided and broken into numerous parts of different sizes and figures,
which by various ranging and disposing may produce an immense diversity of Surfaces
and Textures; that if it once be bereaved of Motion, it cannot of it self acquire
it again, but it either must be impell’d by some other Body from without, or, (say
we, though not the Atheist) be intrinsecally moved by an immaterial self-active
Substance, that can penetrate and pervade it. Wherefore in the whole Nature and
Idea of Matter, we have nothing but Substance with Magnitude, and Figure, and Situation,
and a capacity of being moved and divided. So that no parts of Matter consider’d
by themselves, are either hot or cold, either white or black, either bitter or
sweet, or betwixt those extremes. All the various mixtures and Conjugations of Atoms do beget nothing but new inward Texture, and alteration
of Surface. No sensible Qualities, as Light and Colour, and Hear, and Sound, can
be subsistent in the Bodies themselves absolutely consider’d, without
a relation to our Eyes, and Ears, and other Organs of Sense. These Qualities
are only the effects of our Sensation, which arise from the different motions upon
our Nerves from objects without, according to their various modification and
position.
For example, when pellucid colourless Glass, or Water, by being beaten into powder
or froth, do acquire a very intense whiteness; what can we imagine to be produced
in the Glass or Water, but a new disposition of parts? Nay an object under the
self-same disposition and modification, when ’tis viewed by us under differing proportions,
doth represent very differing colours, without any change at all in it self. For
that very same opake and white Powder of Glass, when ’tis seen thro’ a good Microscope,
doth exhibit all its little fragments pellucid and colourless; as the whole appear’d
to the naked eye, before it was pounded. So that Whiteness, and Redness, and Coldness,
and the like, are only Idea’s and Vital Passions in Us that see and feel: but can no more be conceived
to be real and distinct Qualities in the Bodies them-selves; than Roses or Honey can be thought to smell or taste
their own Sweetness, or an Organ be conscious of its Music, or Gun-powder of its
Flashing and Noise.
Thus far then we have proved, and ’tis agreed on all hands, that
in our conception of any quantity of Body, there is nothing but Figure and Site,
and a Capacity of Motion. Which Motion, if it be actually excited in it, doth only
cause a new Order and Contexture of parts: so that all the Idea’s of
sensible Qualities
are not inherent in the inanimate Bodies; but are the Effects of their Motion upon
our Nerves: and sympathetical and vital Passions produced within our selves.
2. Our second enquiry must be; what
it is in the constitution and composition of a Man that hath the Faculty
of receiving such Idea’s and Passions.
Let us carry in our minds this true
notion of Body in general, and apply
it to our own Substance; and observe
what prerogatives this Rational Machine (as the Atheists would make us to be)
can challenge above other parcels of Matter. We observe then in this
understanding piece of Clock-work; that this Body, as well as other
senseless Matter, has colour, and warmth, and softness, and the like. But we have
proved it before, and ’tis acknowleged; that there Qualities are not subsistent
in those Bodies, but are Idea’s and Sensations begotten in something else. So that
’tis not Blood and Bones, that can be conscious of their own hardness or redness:
and we are still to seek for something else in our Frame and Make, that must receive
there impressions. Will they say that there Idea’s are performed by the Brain?
But the difficulty returns upon them again: for we perceive that the like qualities
of softness, whiteness and warmth, do belong to the Brain it self; and since the
Brain is but Body, those Qualities (as we have shewn) cannot be inherent in It, but are the
Sensations of
some other Substance without it. It cannot be the Brain
then, which imagins those qualities to be in it self.
But they may say., ’tis not the Gross Substance of the
Brain that causes Perception; but the Animal Spirits, that have their residence
there; which are void of sensible qualities, because they never fall under our
Senses by reason of their minuteness. But
we conceive, by our Reason, though we cannot see them with our Eyes, that every
one of these also hath a determinate figure: they are Spheres, or Cubes, or Pyramids,
or Cones, or of come shape or other that is irregular and nameless: and all these
are but Modes and Affections of Magnitude; and the Idea’s of such Modes can no more
be subsistent in the Atoms so modified, than the Idea of Redness was just now found
to be inherent in the Blood, or that of Whiteness in the Brain. And what relation
or affinity is there between a minute Body and Cogitation, any more than the greatest? Is a small drop of Rain any
wiser than the Ocean? or do we grind inanimate Corn
into living and rational Meal? my very Nails, or my Hair, or the Horns and Hoofs
of a Beast may bid as fair for Understanding and Sense, as the finest Animal
Spirits of the Brain.
3. But Thirdly, they will say, ’tis not the Bulk and
Substance of the Animal Spirits, but their Motion and Agility, that produces Cogitation and Sense. If then Motion in general or any degree of its velocity
can beget Cogitation; surely a Ship under sail must be a very intelligent Creature;
though while she lies at Anchor, those Faculties be asleep: some cold Water or Ice
may be phlegmatic and senseless; but when it boils in a Kettle, it has wonderfull
Heats of Thinking and Ebullitions of Fancy. Nay the whole corporeal Mass, all the
brute and limpid Matter of the Universe must upon these terms be allowed to have
Life and Understanding: since there is nothing that we know of, in a state of absolute Rest.
Those things that seem to be at rest upon the surface of the
Earth, are daily wheel'd about its Axis, and yearly about the Sun with a
prodigious swiftness.
4. But Fourthly, they will say, ’tis not Motion in general, that
can do there feats of Sensation and Perception; but a particular sort of it in an
Organized Body through the determinate Roads and Channels of Muscles and Nerves.
But, I pray, among all the kinds of Motion, whether straight or circular, or parabolical
or in what curve they please; what pretense can one make to Thinking and
Liberty of Will, more than another? Why do not these persons make a Diagram of
these
cogitative Lines and Angles; and demonstrate their properties of Perception and Appetite, as plainly
as we know the other properties of Triangles and Circles? But how little can any
Motion, either circular or other, contribute to the production of Thought? No
such
circular Motion of an Atom can be all of it existent at once; it must needs be
made gradually and successively both as to place and time: for Body cannot at
the same instant be in more places than one. So that at any instant of time the
moving Atom is but in one single point of the Line. Therefore all its Motion but
in that one point is either future or past; and no other parts are coexistent or
contemporary with it. Now what is not present, is nothing at all, and can be the
efficient of nothing. If Motion then be the cause of Thought; Thought must be produced
by one single Point of Motion, a Point with relation to time as well as to place.
And such a Point to our Conceptions is almost equivalent to Permanency and Rest, or at least to any
other Point of any Motion whatsoever. What then is become of the privilege of that organical Motion of the Animal Spirits above any other? Again, we have shown,
that this circular and other Motion is but the successive Flux of an Atom, and
is never existent together; and indeed is a pure Ens Rationis, an
operation of the Soul, which considering past motion and future, and recollecting
the whole by the Memory and Fancy, calls this by one denomination and that by
another. How then can that Motion be the efficient of Thought, which is
evidently the Effect and the Product of it?
5. But Fifthly, they will say farther, (which is their last
refuge) that ’tis not Motion alone, or under this or that Denomination, that produceth
Cogitation; but when it falls out that numerous Particles of Matter, aptly
disposed
and directed, do interfere in their Motions, and strike and knock one another; this
is it which begets our Sensation. All the active power and vigour of the Mind, our
Faculties of Reason, Imagination and Will are the wonderfull result of this mutual Occurse,
this Pulsion and Repercussion of Atoms. Just as we experience it in the Flint and
the Steel; you may move them apart as long as you please, to very little purpose: but ’tis the Hitting and Collision of them that
must make them strike Fire. You
may remember I have proved before, that Light and Heat, and the rest of
those Qualities,
are not such Idea’s in the Bodies, as we perceive in our Selves. So that this
smiting
of the Steel with the Flint doth only make a Comminution, and a very rapid Whirling
and Melting of some Particles: but that Idea of Flame is wholly in Us. But what
a strange and miraculous thing should we count it, if the Flint and the
Steel, instead of a few Sparks, should chance to strike out Definitions
and Syllogisms? And yet it’s altogether as reasonable, as this sottish opinion
of the Atheists; That dead senseless Atoms can ever justle and knock one another into Life and Understanding. All that can be effected by such encounters of Atoms, is either the imparting or receiving of Motion, or a new determination and direction of its
Course. Matter, when it
acts upon Matter, can communicate nothing but Motion; and that we have shew'd
before to be utterly unable to produce those Sensations. And again, how can that
Concussion of Atoms be capable of begetting those internal and vital Affections,
that selfconsciousness and those other Powers and Energies that we feel in our
Minds: seeing they only strike upon the outward Surfaces; they cannot inwardly
pervade one another: they cannot have any penetration of Dimensions and
Conjunction of Substance. But, it may be, these Atoms of theirs may have Sense
and Perception in them, but they are refractary and sullen; and therefore, like
Men of the same Tempers, must be bang'd and buffeted into Reason. And indeed
that way of Argumentation would be most proper and effectual upon these
Atheistical Atomists themselves. 'Tis a vigorous Execution of good Laws, and not
rational Discourses only, either neglected or not understood, that must reclaim
the profaneness of those perverse and unreasonable Men. For what can be said
more to such persons, that are either so disingenuous or so stupid, as to profess to believe,
That all the natural Powers and acquired Habits of the Mind, that penetrating Understanding
and accurate Judgment, that strength of Memory and readiness of Wit, that Liberality
and Justice and Prudence and Magnanimity, that Charity and Beneficence to Mankind,
that ingenuous Fear and awfull Love of God, that comprehensive Knowledge of the Histories and Languages of so many Nations, that experienced Insight into the works
and wonders of Nature, that rich Vein of Poetry and inexhausted Fountain of Eloquence,
those lofty flights of Thought and almost intuitive Perceptions of abstruse Notions,
those exalted Discoveries of Mathematical Theorems and Divine Contemplations; all
the admirable Endowments and Capacities of humane Nature, which we sometimes see
actually existent in one and the same Person, can procede from the
blind shuffling and casual clashing of Atoms. I could as easily take up with that
senseless assertion of the Seneca Ep. 113. Plutarch. de Contrad. Stoic.
Stoics, That Vertues and
Vices and Sciences and Arts, and Fancies and Passions and Appetites are all of them real Bodies and
distinct Animals; as with this of the Atheist, That they can all be derived from
the Power of mere Bodies. ’Tis utterly incredible and impossible; and we cannot
without indignation go about to refute such an absurd imagination, such a gross
contradiction to unprejudiced Reason. And yet if the Atheists had not been driven
from all their posts and their subterfuges; if we had not pursued their Atoms through
all their turnings and windings, their cells and recesses, their interferings and
justlings; they would boast, that they could not be answer’d; and make a mighty
flutter and triumph.
Nay though they are so miserably confounded and baffled, and can
offer no further explication of the Cause and the Manner; yet they will, Sixthly, urge matter of Fact and Experience, that
mere Body may produce Cogitation and Sense. For, say they, do but observe the actions of
some Brutes,
how nearly they approach to human Reason, and visibly discover some glimpses of
Understanding: and if that be performed by the pure Mechanism of their Bodies (as many do allow, who yet believe the Being of God, and an immaterial
Spirit in Man) then ’tis but raising our Conceptions, and supposing Mankind to be
Engines of a finer Make and Contexture, and the business is done. I must confess,
that the Cartesians and some others, men that have given no occasion to be
suspected of Irreligion, have asserted that Brutes are meer Machines and
Automata. I cannot now engage in the Controversy, neither is there any
necessity
to do so; for Religion is not endanger’d by either opinion. If Brutes be
said to
have Sense and Immaterial Souls; what need we be concern’d, whether those Souls
shall be immortal, or annihilated at the time of Death. This objection supposes the
Being of God; and He will do all things for the wisest and best ends. Or if Brutes
be supposed to be bare Engins and Machines; I admire and adore the divine Artifice
and Skill in such a wonderful contrivance. But I shall deny then that they have
any Reason or Sense, if they be nothing but Matter. Omnipotence it self cannot create
cogitative Body. And ’tis not any imperfection in the power of God, but an incapacity
in the Subject; The Idea’s of Matter and Thought are absolutely incompatible.
And this the Cartesians themselves do allow. Do but convince Them, that
Brutes have the least participation of Thought, or Will, or Appetite, or Sensation,
or Fancy; and they’l readily retract their Opinion. For none but besotted
Atheists,
do join the two Notions together, and believe Brutes to be rational or sensitive
Machines. They are either the one or the other; either endued with Sense and
some
glimmering. Rays of Reason from a higher Principle than Matter; or (as the Cartesians
say) they are purely Body, void of all Sensation and Life: and like the Idols
of the Gentiles, they have eyes and see not; ears, and hear not; noses, and
smell not; they eat
without hunger, and drink without thirst, and howl without pain. They perform the
outward material actions; but they have no inward Self-consciousness, nor any
more Perception of what they do or suffer, than a Looking-Glass has of the Objects
it reflects, or the Index of a Watch of the Hour it points to. And as one of those Watches, when it was first presented to the Emperor of China, was taken there for an Animal: so
on the contrary, our Cartesians take brute Animals for a sort of Watches.
For considering the infinite distance betwixt the poor mortal Artist, and the Almighty
Opificer; the few Wheels and Motions of a Watch, and the innumerable Springs and
Organs in the Bodies of Brutes; they may affirm (as they think, without either absurdity
or impiety) that they are nothing but moving Automata, as the fabulous
Vide Zenobium &c Suidam in Δαιδάλου ποιήματα &
Scholiastem Eurip. Hecubæ V. 838.
Statues of Dædalus,
bereaved of all true life, and vital Sensation; which never act spontaneously and freely, but as Watches must be wound up to
set them a
going; so Their Motions also are excited and inhibited, are moderated and managed
by the Objects without them.
(2.) And now that I have gone through the six parts that I
proposed,
and sufficiently shewn that Sense and Perception can never be the product of any
kind of Matter and Motion; it remains therefore, that it must necessarily procede from
some Incorporeal Substance within us. And though
we cannot conceive the manner of the Soul’s Action and Passion; nor what hold it
can lay on the Body, when it voluntarily moves it: yet we are as certain, that it
doth so, as of any Mathematical Truth whatsoever; or at least of such as are proved
from the Impossibility or Absurdity of the Contrary, a way of Proof that is allowed
for infallible Demonstration. Why one motion of the Body begets an Idea of
Pleasure
in the Mind, another an Idea of Pain; why such a disposition of the Body induces
Sleep, another disturbs all the operations of the Soul, and occasions a Lethargy
or Frenzy; this Knowledge exceeds our narrow Faculties, and is out of the reach
of our discovery. I discern some excellent Final causes of such a vital Conjunction
of Body and Soul; but the instrumental I know not, nor what invisible Bands and
Fetters unite them together. I resolve all that into the sole Pleasure and Fiat
of our Omnipotent Creator: whose Existence (which is my last Point) is so
plainly and nearly deducible from the established proof of an Immaterial Soul; that no wonder the resolved Atheists do so labour and bestir
themselves
to fetch Sense and Perception out of the Power of Matter. I will dispatch it in
three words. For since we have shewn, that there is an Incorporeal Substance
within us: whence did that proceed, and how came it into Being? It did not exist
from all Eternity, that's too absurd to be supposed; nor could it come out of
nothing into Being without an Efficient Cause. Something therefore must have
created our Souls out of Nothing; and that Something (since nothing can give more than it has)
must
it self have all the Perfections, that it hath given to Them. There is therefore
an immaterial and intelligent Being, that created our Souls: which Being was either
eternal it self, or created immediately or ultimately by some other Eternal, that
has all those Perfections. There is therefore Originally an Eternal,
immaterial, Intelligent Creator; all which together are the Attributes of God alone.
And now that I have finished all the parts, which I proposed to
discourse of; I will conclude all with a short application to the Atheists. And I would
advise them as a Friend, to
leave off this dabbling and smattering in Philosophy, this shuffling and cutting
with Atoms. It never succeded well with them, and they always come off with the
loss. Their old Master Epicurus seems to have had his Brains so muddled and
confounded with them, that he scarce ever kept in the right way; though the main
Maxim of his Philosophy was to trust to his Senses, and follow his Nose.
Epicurus apud Laert. Lucret. l. 5. Cicero de Fin. l. 1, Acad. l. 2.
I will
not take notice of his doting conceit, that the Sun and Moon are no bigger, than
they appear to the Eye, a foot or half a yard over; and that the Stars are no larger
than so many Glowworms. But let us see how he manages his Atoms, those Almighty
Tools that do every thing of themselves without the help of a Workman. Lucret.
l. 2. Cic. de Fato & de Nat. Deorum Plutarch,
&c.
When the
Atoms (says he) descend in infinite space (very ingeniously spoken, to make
High and Low in Infinity) they do not fall plumb down, but decline a little from the Perpendicular, either obliquely or in a Curve: and this Declination (says he)
from the direct Line is the cause of our Liberty of Will. But, I say, this Declination of Atoms in their Descent, was
it self either necessary or voluntary. If
it was necessary, how then could that Necessity ever beget Liberty? if it was
voluntary, then Atoms had that power
of Volition before: and what becomes
then of the Epicurean Doctrine of the
fortuitous Production of Worlds? The
whole business is Contradiction and ridiculous Nonsense. ’Tis as if one should
say, that a Bowl equally poized, and thrown upon a plain and smooth Bowling Green, will run necessarily and fatally in a direct Motion: but if it be
made with a Byas, that may decline it a
little from a straight Line, it may acquire by that Motion a Liberty of Will,
and so run spontaneously to the Jack. It would behoove the Atheists to give
over such trifling as this, and resume the
old solid way of confuting Religion.
They should deny the Being of the Soul,
because they cannot see it. This would
be an invincible Argument against us:
for we can never exhibit it to their
Touch, nor expose it to their View; nor shew them the Colour and
Complexion of a Soul. They should
dispute, as a bold Brother of theirs did; That he was sure there was no God,
because
(says he) if there was one, he would have struck me to Hell with Thunder and Lightning,
that have so reviled and blasphemed him. This would be an Objection indeed. Alas,
all that we could answer, is in the next words to the Text, That God hath appointed
a day in which he will judge all the world in Righteousness, and that the
Goodness and Forbearance, and Long-suffering of God, which are some of his
Attributes, and Essential Perfections of his Being, ought not to be abused
and perverted into arguments against his Being. But if this will not do, we
must yield our selves overcome: for we neither can, nor desire to command fire
to come down from Heaven and consume them; and give them such experimental
Conviction of the Existence of God. So that they ought to take these Methods, if
they would successfully attack Religion. But if they will still be medling with Atoms,
be hammering and squeezing Understanding out of them; I would advise them to make use of their own Understandings for the Instance.
Nothing, in my opinion could run us down, more effectually than that. For we
readily allow, that if any Understanding can possibly be produced by such clashing of
senseless
Atoms; ’tis that of an Atheist, that hath the fairest Pretensions and the best
Title to it. We know, it is the Fool, that hath said in his heart, there is no God.
And ’tis no less a Truth than a Paradox, That there are no greater Fools than
Atheistical Wits; and none so credulous as Infidels. No Article
of Religion, though as demonstrable as the Nature of the thing can admit, hath credibility
enough for them. And yet these same cautious and quick sighted Gentlemen can wink
and swallow down this sottish Opinion about Percipient Atoms, which excedes in Incredibility
all the Fictions of Æsop’s Fables. For is it not every whit as likely or
more, that Cocks and Bulls might discourse, and Hinds and Panthers hold Conferences
about Religion, as that Atoms can do so? that Atoms can invent Arts and Sciences,
can institute Society and Government, can make Leagues and Confederacies, can
devise Methods of Peace and Stratagems of
War? And moreover, the Modestly of Mythology deserves to be commended, the
Scenes there are laid at a distance; ’Tis once upon a time, in the Days of Yore, and in
the Land of Utopia, there was a Dialogue between an Oak and a Cedar: whereas
the Atheist is so impudently silly, as to bring the Farce of his Atoms upon the
Theatre of the present Age; to make dull senseless Matter transact all public and
private Affairs, by Sea and by Land, in Houses of Parliament, and Closets of Princes.
Can any Credulity be comparable to this? If a Man should affirm, that an Ape casually
meeting with Pen, Ink, and Paper, and falling to scribble, did happen to write
exactly the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbs; Would an Atheist believe
such
a story? and yet he can easily digest as incredible as that; that the innumerable
Members of a Human Body, which in the style of the Scripture Psal. 139. 16.
are all written
in the Book of God, and may admit of almost infinite Variations and Transpositions
above the xxiv Letters of the Alphabet, were at first fortuitously scribled, and by mere accident compacted into
this beautiful, and noble, and most wonderfully useful Frame, which we now see it
carry. But this will be the Argument of my next Discourse, which is the second
Proposition
drawn from the Text, That the Admirable Structure of Human Bodies, whereby they are
fitted to live and move, and be vitally informed by the Soul, is unquestionably
the Workmanship of a most wise and powerful and beneficent Maker: To which Almighty
Creator, together with the Son and the Holy Ghost, be all Honour and Glory and Majesty
and Power both now and from henceforth evermore. Amen.
A
CONFUTATION
OF
ATHEISM
FROM THE
Structure and Origin of Human Bodies..
PART I.
The Third S E R M O N Preached
May 2. 1692.
ACTS XVII. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after
him, and find him; though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we Live,
and Move, and have our Being.
I Have said enough in my last, to shew the fitness and pertinency
of the Apostle’s Discourse to the persons he address’d to: whereby it sufficiently
appears that he was no Babler, as some of the Athenian Rabble reproached him; not a
σπερμολόγος a busy prating Fellow; as in another language they say
Plantus. Virgil. Livius.
Sermones serere, and
Rumores serere in a like mode of Expression; that he did not talk
at random, but was throughly acquainted with the several humours and opinions of
his Auditors. And as Moses was learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians, so it is manifest from this Chapter alone, if nothing
else had been now extant,
that St. Paul was a great Master in all the Learning of the Greeks. One thing further I shall observe from the words of the Text, before I enter
upon the Subject which I proposed; that it requires Some industry and consideration to find out the Being of God;
we must
seek the Lord, and feel after him, before we can find him by the
Light of Nature. The search indeed is not very tedious nor difficult; He is not far from every one of
us; for in him
we live, and move, and have our Being. The Consideration of our Mind and Understanding,
which is an incorporeal Substance independent from Matter; and the contemplation of our own Bodies, which have all
the stamps and characters of excellent Contrivance; these alone, though we look upon nothing abroad, do
very easily and proximately guide us to the wise Author of all things. But however,
as we see in our Text, Some Thoughts and Meditation are necessary to it; and a man
may possibly be so stupid, or wilfully ignorant or perverse, as not to have
God in all his thoughts, or to say in his heart, There is none. And this
being observed, we have an effectual answer to that Cavil of the Atheists; who
make it an objection against the Being of God, that they do not discover him without
any Application, in spite of their corrupt Wills and debauch’d Understandings.
If, say they, such a God as we are told of, had created and formed us, surely he
would have left upon our Minds, a native and indeleble Inscription of Himself, whereby
we must needs have felt him, even without seeking, and believed in
him whether we would or no. So that these Atheists being conscious to themselves,
that they are void of such Belief, which (they say) if God was, would actually and
necessarily be in them, do bring their own wicked Doubting and Denying of God, as Evidence
against his Existence; and make their
very Infidelity an argument for it self. To which we reply, That God hath endow’d Mankind with Powers and Abilities,
which we call natural Light, and Reason, and common Sense; by the due
use of which we cannot miss of the Discovery of his Being; and this is sufficient. But as to that original Notion and
Proposition, GOD IS, which the Atheist pretends should have been actually
imprinted on us, antecedently to all use
of our Faculties; we may affirm, that
the absence of such a Notion doth not
give the least presumption against the
truth of Religion: because though God
be supposed to be, yet that Notion distinct from our Faculties would not be
requisite; nor is it asserted by Religion.
First, it would not be requisite; because, without any such primitive Impression, we can easily attain to the
knowledge of the Deity by the sole use
of our Natural Reason. And again, such
an Impression would have render’d the
Belief of a God irresistible and necessary,
and thereby have bereaved it of all that is good and acceptable in it. For as the taking away the Freedom
of Human Will, and making us mere Machines under fatal Ties and Impulses, would
destroy the very nature of Moral Vertue; so likewise as to Faith, there would be
nothing worthy of praise and recompense in it, if there were lest no possibility
of Doubting and Denying. And secondly, such a radical Truth, GOD IS, springing
up together with the Essence of the Soul, and previous to all other Thoughts, is
not asserted by Religion. No such thing, that I know of, is affirmed or suggested
by the Scriptures. There are several Topics there used against the Atheism and Idolatry
of the Heathens; such as the visible marks of Divine Wisdom and Goodness in the
Works of the Creation, the vital Union of Souls with Matter, and the admirable Structure
of animate Bodies, and the like. But if our Apostle had asserted such an anticipating
Principle engraven upon our Souls before all Exercise of Reason; what did he talk of seeking the Lord, if haply they might
feel after
him and find him? since if the knowledge of him was in that manner innate
and perpetual, there would be no occasion of seeking, nor any hap
or hazard in the finding. Such an Inscription would be self evident without Reasoning
or Study, and could not fail constantly to exert its Energy in their Minds. What
did he talk of the Unknown God, and ignorantly worshiping? when
if such an Original Signature were always inherent in their hearts; God could not
be unknown to, or ignorantly worship’d by any. That primary Proposition would have
been clear, and distinct, and efficacious, and universal in the minds of Men. S.
Paul therefore, it appears, had no apprehension of such a First Notion;
nor made use of it for an argument; which (since whosoever hath it, must needs
know that he hath it) if it be not believed before by the Adversary, is false; and
if it be believed, is superfluous; and is of so frail and brittle a texture, that
whereas other arguments are not answered by bare denying without contrary Proof,
the mere doubting and disbelieving of this must be granted to be
ipso facto the breaking and confuting of it. Thus much therefore we have proved against
the Atheists; that such an original irresistible Notion is neither
requisite upon supposition of a Deity, nor is pretended to by Religion; so that
neither the Absence of it is any argument against the Being of God, nor a
supposed
false Assertion of it an objection against the Scripture. ’Tis enough that all
are furnish’d with such Natural Powers and Capacities; that if they
seriously reflect,
if they seek the Lord with meditation and study, they cannot fail of finding
and discovering him: whereby God is not left without witness, but the
Atheist without excuse. And now I haste to the second Proposition deduced
from the Text, and to the Argument of my present Discourse, That the organical Structure
of humane Bodies whereby they are fitted to live, and move, and be vitally informed
by the Soul is unquestionably the workmanship of a most wise, and powerfull, and
beneficent Maker.
First. ’Tis allowed and acknowledged by all parties, that the Bodies
of Men and other Animals are excellently well fitted for Life, and Motion, and Sensation; and the
several parts of them well adapted and accommodated to their particular Functions. The Eye is very proper and meet for seeing, the Tongue
for tasting and speaking, the Hand for holding and lifting, and ten thousand Operations beside: and so for the inward
Parts; the Lungs are suitable for Respiration, the Stomach for Concoction, the
Lacteous Vessels for the Reception of
the Chyle, the Heart for the Distribution of the Blood to all the parts of the
Body, This is matter of Fact, and beyond all dispute; and in effect is no
more than to say, that Animals are Animals; for if they were deprived of
these Qualifications, they could not be
so. This therefore is not the matter in
Question between us and the Atheists:
But the Controversy is here. We, when
we consider so many constituent parts in the Bodies of Men, all admirably compacted into so noble an Engine; in each
of the very Fingers, for example, there
are Bones, and Gristles, and Ligaments,
and Membranes, and Muscles, and Tendons, and Nerves, and Arteries, and
Veins, and Skin, and Cuticle, and Nail;
together with Marrow, and Fat, and
Blood, and other Nutricious Juices; and
all those solid Parts of a determinate Size, and Figure, and Texture, and Situation; and each of them
made up of Myriads of little Fibres and Filaments, not discoverable by the naked
Eye; I say, when we consider how innumerable parts must constitute so small a
member, as the Finger, we cannot look upon It or the whole Body, wherein appears
so much Fitness, and Use, and Subserviency to infinite Functions, any otherwise than
as the effect of Contrivance and Skill, and consequently the Workmanship of a
most
Intelligent and Beneficent Being. And though now the Propagation of Mankind be in
a settled method of Nature, which is the instrument of God: yet we affirm that
the first Production of Mankind was by the Immediate Power of the Almighty Author
of Nature: and that all succeeding Generations of Men are the Progeny of one primitive
Couple. This is a Religious Man’s account of the Frame and Origination of
himself.
Now the Atheists agree with us, as to the Fitness of Man’s Body and its
several
Parts to their various Operations and Functions (for that is visible and past all
contradiction) but they vehemently oppose, and horribly dread the Thought, That this Usefulness of the Parts and the Whole
should first arise from Wisdom and Design. So that here will be the point in debate,
and the subject of our present Undertaking; Whether this acknowledged Fitness of
Humane Bodies must be attributed, as we say, to a wise and good God; or, as the Atheist averr, to dead
senseless Matter. They have contrived several tricks and
Μεθοδειας τῆς πλάνης Eph. 4. 14.
methods of Deceit, one repugnant to another, to evade (if possible) this
most cogent Proof of a Deity; All which I will propose and refute: and I hope to
make it appear, that here, as indeed every where, but here certainly, in the great
Dramatic Poem of Nature, is, dignus Deo vindice Nodus, a necessity
of introducing a God.
And first, I will answer what Exceptions they can have against
Our account: and secondly, I will confute all the Reasons and Explications they
can give of their Own.
1. First, I will answer what Exceptions they can have
against
Our account of the Production of Mankind. And they may object, That the Body it
self, though pretty good in its kind and upon their Hypothesis, nevertheless
doth not look like the Workmanship of so great a Master, as is
pretended by Us; that infinite Wisdom and Goodness and Power would have bestowed
upon us more Senses than five, or at least these five in a much higher Perfection;
that we could never have come out of the Hands of the Almighty, so subject to
numerous Diseases, so obnoxious to violent Deaths; and at best, of such a
short and transitory Life. They can no more ascribe so sorry an Effect to an
Omniscient Cause, than some ordinary piece of Clock-work with a very few motions
and uses, and those continually out of order, and quickly at an end, to the best Artist of the Age. But to this we reply: First, as to the five Senses, it would be rash indeed to affirm,
That God, if he had pleased, could not have endued us with more. But thus much we
may averr, That though the Power of God be infinite and perfect yet the Capacities
of Matter are within limits and bounds. Why then doth the Atheists suspect that there
may possibly be any more ways of Sensation than what we have already? Hath he an Idea, or Notion, or Discovery
of any more? So fur from that, that he cannot make any addition or progress in
those
very Senses he hath, further than they themselves have informed him. He cannot imagin
one new Colour, or Tast, or Smell, beside those that have actually fallen under his
Senses. Much less can he that is destitute of an entire Sense, have any Idea or
Representation of it; as one that is born deaf hath no Notion of Sounds; or Blind,
of Colours and Light. if then the Atheists can have no Imagination of more Senses
than five, why doth he suppose that a Body is capable of more? If we had double
or Triple as many, there might still be the same suspicion for a greater number without
end; and the Objection therefore in both cases is equally unreasonable and groundless.
Secondly, we affirm, that our Senses have that degree of Perfection which
is most fit and suitable to our Estate and Condition. For though the Eye
were so piercing, as to discry even opake and little Objects some hundreds of Leagues
off, even that improvement of our fight would do us little service; it would be terminated by neighbouring Hills and Woods; or in
the largest and evenest plain by the very convexity of the Earth; unless we could
always inhabit the tops of Mountains and Cliffs, of had Wings too to fly aloft,
when we had a mind to take a Prospect. And if Mankind had had Wings (as perhaps
some extravagant Atheist may think us deficient in that) all the World must have
consented to clip them; or else Humane Race had been extinct before this time,
nothing upon that supposition being safe from Murder and Rapine: Or if the Eye
were so acute, as to rival the finest Microscopes, and to discern the smallest Hair upon the leg of a Gnat, it would be a curse and not a
blessing to us; it would
make all things appear rugged and deformed; the most finely polish’d Chrystal would
be uneven and rough: The sight of our own selves would affright us: The smoothest Skin would be beset all over with ragged Scales, and bristly Hairs. And
beside,
we could not see at one view above what is now the space of an Inch, and it would
take a considerable time to survey the then mountainous bulk of our own Bodies. Such a Faculty of
sight so disproportion’d to our other
Senses
and to the Objects about us would be very little better than Blindness it self. And
again, God hath furnished us with Invention and Industry, so that by optical Glasses we can more than supply
that imaginary defect of our own Eyes, and discover more remote and minute Bodies
with that assistance, than perhaps the most whimsical Atheist would desire to do
without it. So likewise if our Sense of Hearing were exalted proportionally
to the former, what a miserable condition would Mankind be in? What whisper could
be low enough, but many would over-hear it? What Affairs, that most require it,
could be transacted with secrecy? and whither could we retire from perpetual humming
and buzzing? every breath of Wind would incommode and disturb us: we should have
no quiet or sleep in the silentest nights and most solitary places; and we must
inevitably be struck Deaf or Dead with the noise of a clap of Thunder. And the like
inconveniences would follow if the Sense of Feeling was advanced to such
a degree as the Atheist requires. How could sustain the pressure of our very Cloaths in such a condition; much less carry burthens and
provide for conveniences of Life? We could not bear the assault of an Insect, or
a Feather, or a puff of Air without pain. There are examples now of wounded
persons,
that have roared for anguish and torment at the discharge of Ordnance, though at
a very great distance; what insupportable torture then should we be under upon
alike concussion in the Air, when all the whole Body would have the tenderness of
a Wound? In a word, all the Changes and Emendations that the Atheists would make
in our Senses, are so far from being Improvements, that they would prove the utter
ruin and Extirpation of Mankind.
But perhaps they may have better success in their complaints about
the Distempers of the Body and the Shortness of Life. We do not wonder indeed,
that the Atheist should lay a mighty stress upon this Objection. For to a man that
places all his Happiness in the Indolency and Pleasure of Body, what can be more
terrible than Pain or a Fit of Sickness? nothing but Death alone, the most dreadfull
thing in the World. When an Atheist reflects upon Death, his very Hope is Despair; and ’tis the crown and top of his Wishes, that it may prove his utter Dissolution
and Destruction. No question if an Atheist had had the making of himself, he would
have framed a Constitution that could have kept pace with his insatiable Lust, been
invincible by Gluttony and Intemperance, and have held out vigorous a thousand years
in a perpetual Debauch. But we answer; First, in the words of St. Paul: Rom. 9. 20.
Nay, but, O Man, who art thou, that repliest against God? shall the thing formed
say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? We do adore and magnifie
his most holy Name for his undeserved Mercy towards us, that he made us the Chief
of the visible Creation; and freely acquit his Goodness from any imputation of
Unkindness, that he has placed us no higher. Secondly, Religion gives us a very
good account of the present Infirmity of our Bodies. Man at his first Origin was a Vessel of Honour, when he came first out of the Hands of the Potter; endued with all imaginable Perfections
of the Animal Nature; ’till by Disobedience and Sin,
Diseases
and Death came first into the World. Thirdly, The Distempers of the Body are not
so formidable to a Religious Man, as they are to an Atheist: He hath a quite different
judgment and apprehension about them: he is willing to believe, that our present
condition is better for us in the Issue, than that uninterrupted Health and Security,
that the Atheist desires; which would strongly tempt us to forget God and the concerns of a better Life. Whereas now he receives
a Fit of Sickness, as the παιδεία τοῦ πατρὸς, the kind Chastisement and Discipline of his Heavenly Father, to wean
his Affections from the World, where he is but as on a Journey; and to fix his thoughts
and desires on things above, where his Country and his Dwelling is: that where he
hath placed his Treasure and Concerns, there his heart may be also. Fourthly, Most of the Distempers that are incident to us are of our
own making, the effects of abused Plenty, and Luxury, and must not be charged upon
our Maker; who out of the abundant Riches of his Compassion hath provided for us
store of excellent Medicines, to alleviate in a great measure those very Evils which we bring upon our selves. And now we are come to
the last Objection of the Atheist, That Life is too short. Alas for him, what pity
’tis that he cannot wallow immortally in his sensual Pleasures! But if his Life
were many whole Ages longer than it is, he would still make the same Complaint, Lucret. l. 3.
Brevis est hic fructus homullis. For Eternity, and that’s the thing he trembles at, is every whit as
long, after a thousand years as after fifty. But Religion gives Us a better
prospect
and makes us look beyond the gloomy Regions of Death with Comfort and Delight: When this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and
this mortal put on immortality. We are so far from repining at God, that he hath not extended the period of our Lives
to the Longevity of the Antediluvians; that we give him thanks for contracting the
Days of our Trial, and receiving us more maturely into those Everlasting Habitations
above, that he hath prepared for us.
And now that I have answer’d all the Atheist’s Exceptions against
Our account of the Production of Mankind, I come in the next place to examine all
the Reasons and Explications they can give of their own.
The Atheists upon this occasion are divided into Sects, and (which is the mark and character of Error) are at variance and repugnancy with
each other and with themselves. Some of them will have Mankind to have been thus
from all Eternity. But the rest do not approve of infinite Successions, but are
positive for a Beginning; and they also are subdivided into three Parties: the
first ascribe the Origin of Men to the Influence of the Stars upon some
extraordinary Conjunction or Aspect: Others again reject all Astrology; and some of
these mechanically produce Mankind, at the very first Experiment, by the action
of the Sun upon duly prepared Matter: but others are of opinion, that after
infinite blundering and miscarrying, our Bodies at last came into this Figure by
mere Chance and Accident. There's no Atheist in the World, that reasons about
his Infidelity (which God knows most of them never do) but he takes one of these four Methods. I will
refute them every one in the same order that I have named them: the two former
in the present Discourse, reserving the others for another occasion.
I. And First, the Opinion of those Atheists that will have Mankind
and Other Animals to have subsisted eternally in infinite Generations already past,
will be found to be flat Nonsense and Contradiction to it self, and repugnant
also to matter of Fact. First, it is contradiction to it self. Infinite Generations
of Men (they say) are already past and gone: but whatsoever is now past, was once actually present; so that each of those Infinite Generations was once in its turn
actually present: therefore all except One Generation were once future and not
in being, which destroys the very supposition: for either that One Generation
must
it self have been Infinite, which is Nonsense; or it was the Finite Beginning of
Infinite Generations between it self and us, that is Infinity terminated at both
ends, which is Nonsense as before. Again, Infinite past Generations of Men have
been once actually present: there may be some one Man suppose then, that
was at infinite distance from Us now: therefore that man’s Son likewise, forty
years younger suppose than his Father, was either at infinite distance from Us or
at finite: if that Son too was at infinite distance from Us, then one Infinite
is longer by forty years than another; which is absurd: if at finite, then forty
years added to finite makes it infinite, which is as absurd as the other. And again,
The number of Men that are already dead and gone is infinite, as they say: but
the number of the Eyes of those Men must necessarily be twice as much as that of
the Men themselves, and that of the Fingers ten times as much, and that of the Hairs
of their Heads thousands of times. So that we have here one Infinite number twice,
ten times, and thousands of times as great as another, which is contradiction again.
Thus we see it is impossible in it self, that any successive duration should be
actually and positively infinite, or have infinite successions already gone and
past. Neither can these
Difficulties be applied to the Eternal Duration of God Almighty. For though we cannot
comprehend Eternity and infinity: yet we underhand what they are
Not. And something, we are sure, must have Existed from all Eternity; because
all things could not emerge and start out of Nothing. So that if this præ-existent Eternity is not compatible with a
successive Duration, as we clearly and distinctly perceive that it is not; then it remains, that some
Being, though infinitely above our finite comprehensions, must have an identical, invariable Continuance from all Eternity;
which Being is no other than God. For as his Nature is perfect and immutable without
the least shadow of change; so his Eternal Duration is permanent and indivisible,
not measurable by Time and Motion, nor to be computed by number of successive Moments.
One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
And Secondly, this Opinion of infinite Generation is repugnant
likewise to matter of Fact. ’Tis a Truth beyond opposition, that the universal Species of
Mankind hath had a gradual increase,
notwithstanding what War, and Famine,
and Pestilence, and Floods, and Conflagrations, and the Religious Profession of Celibacy, and other
Causes, may at certain periods of time have interrupted and retarded it. This is
manifest from the History of the Jewish Nation, from the account of the Roman
Census, Vide Observations upon the Bills of Mortality.
and Registers of our own Country, where the proportion of Births
to Burials is found upon observation to be yearly as Fifty to Forty. Now if Mankind
do increase though never so slowly, but one Couple suppose in an Age; ’tis enough
to evince the falshood of Infinite Generations already expired. For though an
Atheist
should contend, that there were ten thousand million couple of Mankind now in being,
(that we may allow him multitude enough) ’tis but going back so many Ages, and we
descend to a single Original Pair. And ’tis all one in respect of Eternal Duration
yet behind, whether we begin the world so many millions of Ages ago, or date it
from the late Æra of about Six Thousand years. And moreover this recent beginning
of the World is further established from the known Original of Empires and Kingdoms, and the Invention of Arts and Sciences: whereas if infinite Ages of Mankind had already preceded, there could nothing have been left to be invented or improved by the
successful industry and curiosity of our own.
The Circulation of the Blood, and the Weight and Spring of the Air (which is as
it were the Vital Pulse and the great Circulation of Nature, and of more importance
in all Physiology, than any one Invention since the beginning of Science) had never
lain hid so many myriads of Generations, and been reserved for a late happy
Discovery
by two great Luminaries of this Island. I know the Atheist may endeavour to evade
this by supposing, That though Mankind have been from everlasting, and have perpetually
encreas’d by generation; yet at certain great periods there may be univerial Deluges,
which may not wholly extinguish Mankind (for, they’l say, there is not Water enough
in Nature for that) but may cover the Earth to such a Height, that none but a few Mountainers may escape, enough to continue Human Race; and yet being illiterate
Rustics (as Mountainers always are) they can preserve no Memoirs of former times,
nor propagate any Sciences or Arts; and so the World must needs be thought
by Posterity to have begun at such periods. But to this I answer, First, That
upon this supposition there must have been infinite Deluges already past: for if
ever this Atheist admits of a first Deluge, he is in the same noose that he was.
For then he must assert, That there were infinite Generations and an infinite
increase
of Mankind before that first Deluge; and then the Earth could not receive them,
but the infinite Bodies of Men must occupy an infinite Space, and then all the Matter
of the Universe must be human Body; and many other absurdities will follow,
absurdities
as infinite, as the Generations he talks of. But if he says, That there have been
infinite Deluges heretofore, this is impossibility again; for all that I said
before against the Notion of infinite past Generations, is alike applicable to this.
Secondly, Such Universal Deluges (since the Deity is now excluded) must be produced
in a natural way: and therefore gradually, and not in an instant: and therefore
(because the Tops of Mountains, they lay, are never overflown) the civilized People
may escape thither out of Villages and Cities; and consequently,
against the Atheist, Arts, and Sciences, and Histories, may be preserved, and derived
to the succeding World. Thirdly, Let us imagine the whole Terraqueous Globe with
its Atmosphere about it; What is there here, that can naturally died an
Universal
Deluge? If you would drown one Country or Continent with Rains and Inundations,
you must borrow your Vapour and Water from some other part of the Globe. You can
never overflow all at a time. If the Atmosphere it self was reduced into Water,
(as some think it possible) it would not make an Orb above 32 foot deep, which
would soon be swallowed up by the cavity of the Sea, and the depressed parts of
the Earth, and be a very feeble attempt towards an Universal Deluge. But then what
immense Weight is there above, that must overcome the expansive force of the Air, and compress it into near the thousandth part of the room that it now takes up? We, that acknowledge a God Almighty, can give an account of one Deluge, by saying it was miraculous; but it would be strange to see an Atheist have recourse to a Miracle; and that not once only, but upon infinite
occasions.
But perhaps they may endeavour to prove the possibility of such a natural Deluge,
by borrowing an ingenious Notion, and pretending, That the face of Nature may be
now quite changed from what it was; and that formerly the whole Collection of Waters
might be an orbicular Abyss, arched over with an exterior Crust or Shell of Earth,
and that the breaking and fall of this Crust might naturally make a Deluge. I'll
allow the Atheist all the fair play in the world. Let us suppose the Fall of this
imaginary Crust. First, It seems to be impossible, but that all the Inhabitants
of this Crust must be dash'd to pieces in its Ruins. So that this very Notion brings
us to the necessity of a new production of Men; to evade which it is introduced
by the Atheist. Again, If such a Crust naturally fell, then it had in its own
constitution
a tendency towards a Fall; that is, it was more likely and inclinable to fall this thousand years, than the
last. But if the Crust was always gradually nearer and nearer to falling; that plainly evinces, that it had not endured eternally before it’s Fall. For let them
assign any imaginable period
for it’s falling, how could it have held out till then (according to the supposition)
the unmeasurable duration of infinite Ages before? And again, such a Crust could
fall but once; for what Architect can an Atheist suppose, to rebuild a new Arch
out of the ruins of the other? But I have shewn before that this Atheist hath need
of infinite Deluges to effect his design; and therefore leave him to contrive how
to make infinite Crusts one upon the back of another; and now procede to examine
in the second place, The Astrological Explication of the Origin of Men.
II. If you ask one of this Party, what
Evidence he is able to produce for the
truth of his Art, he may perhaps offer some Physical Reasons for a general influence of the Stars upon terrestrial
Bodies: but as Astrology is consider’d to
be a System of Rules and Propositions,
he will not pretend to give any reason of it à priori;
but resolves all that into Tradition from the Chaldeans and
Egyptians, who first learnt it by long
observation, and transmitted it down to
Posterity; and that now it is daily confirmed by Events; which
are experienced to answer the Predictions. This is all that can be said for Astrology
as Art. So that the whole Credibility of this Planetary production of Mankind
must
depend upon Observation. But are they able to shew among all the Remains of the
Chaldaic Observations for Four hundred and seventy thousand years (as they
pretended) any Tradition of such a Production? So far from that, that the
Chaldeans believed the world and mankind to have been from everlasting, which
opinion I have refuted before. Neither can the Egyptian Wizards with their
long Catalogue of Dynasties, and Observations for innumerable Years, supply the
Atheists with one instance of such a Creation. Where are the fragments of Petosiris
and Necepso, that may countenance this Assertion? I believe if they had had
any example of men born out of the Soil, they would rather have ascribed it to the
fruitful Mud of the So Diodorus Siculus, lib. 1. c. 2.
Φασὶ τοίνυν Αἰγόπτιο;
κατὰ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς τῶν ὅλων γένεσιν ποώτους τοὺ:
ἀνθρώπους γενέα...
κατὰ την Αἰγυπτον διά τε τὴν εὐκρασίαν τῆς χώρας, καὶ διὰ
τὴν ύσιν τω Νείλου: &c.
Nile (as they did the breeding of Frogs, and Mice, and Monsters) than to the efficacy
of Stars. But with the leave of these Fortune-tellers, did the Stars do this feat
once only, which gave beginning to Human Race? or have they frequently done so,
and may do it again? If frequently, why is not this Rule deliver’d in Ptolemee
and Albumazar? If once only at the beginning, then how came it to be
discover’d? Who were there then in the world, to observe the Births of
those
First Men, and calculate their Nativities, as they sprawl’d out of Ditches? Those
Sons of Earth were very wise Children, if they themselves knew, that the Stars were
their Fathers. Unless we are to imagine, that they understood the Planets and the
Zodiac by instinct, and fell to drawing Schemes of their own Horoscopes, in the
same Dust they sprung out of? Vitruvius, lib. 9. c. 4. Lucret. liIb. 5.
Ut Babylonica Chaldæam doctrina, &c. Apuleius de Deo Socratis:
Seu
illa (Luna) proprio et perpeti fulgore, ut Chaldæi arbitrantur, parte luminis compos, parte altera cassa fulgoris.
For my part I can
have no great veneration for Chaldaic Antiquity; when I see they could
not discover in so many thousand years, that the Moon was an opake Body, and received
her Light from the Sun. But suppose their Observations had been never so
accurate, it could add no Authority to modern Astrology, which is borrowed from
the Greeks. ’Tis well known that Berosus, or his Scholars, new modelled
and adapted the Babylonian Doctrines to the Græcian Mythology. The
supposed Influences of Aries and Taurus for example, have a manifest relation to the Græcian Stories of the Ram that carried Phrixus, and
the Bull that carried Europa. Now which of these is the Copy, and which the
Original? Were the Fables taken from the Influences, or the Influences from the
Fables? the Poetical Fables more ancient than all Records of History; or the Astrological
Influences, that were not known to the Greeks till after Alexander
the Great? But without question those Fabulous Tales had been many a time told
and sung to lull Children asleep, before ever Berosus set up his Intelligence-Office
at Cos. And the same may be said of all the other Constellations. First,
Poetry had filled the Skies with Asterisms and Histories belonging to them; and
then Astrology devises the feigned Virtues and Influences of each, from force property of the Image, or Allusion to the
Story. And the same trifling futility appears in their XII Signs of the Zodiac, and their mutual Relations and Aspects. Why no more Aspects than diametrically
opposite, and such as make æquilateral Figures? Why are the Masculine and Feminine,
the Fiery and Airy, and Watry and Earthly Signs all placed at such regular distances?
Were the Virtues of the Stars disposed in that order and rank, on purpose only to
make a pretty Diagram upon Paper? But the Atheistical Astrologer is doubly pressed
with this absurdity. For if there was no Counsel at the making of the world, how
came the Asterisms of the same nature and energies to be so harmoniously placed
at regular intervals? And how could all the Stars of one Asterism agree and conspire
together to constitute an Universal? Why does not every single Star shed a
separate
influence; and have Aspects with other Stars of their own Constellation? But what need there many words? As if the late Discoveries of the Celestial Bodies had not plainly detected the
imposture of Astrology? The Planet Saturn is found to have a great Ring that encircles him, and five
lesser
Planets that move about him, as the Moon doth about the Earth: and Juppiter
hath
four Satellites, which by their Interposition between him and us make
some
hundreds of Eclipses every year. Now the whole Tribe of Astrologers, that never
dream’d of these Planets, have always declared, that when Juppiter and
Saturn come about again to any given Point, they exert (consider’d singly by
themselves) the same Influence as before. But ’tis now manifest, that when either
of them return to the same point; the Planets about them, that must make up an
united influence with them, have a different situation in respect of us and each
other, from what they had the time before: and consequently the joint Influence
must be perpetually varied, and never be reducible to any Rules and Observations.
Or if the influences be conveyed hither distinct, yet sometimes some of the Little
Planets will eclipse the Great one at any given point; and by that means intercept
and obstruct: the Influence. I cannot now insist on many other Arguments deducible
from the late Improvements of Astronomy, and the truth of the Copernican
System; For if the Earth be not the Centre of the Planetary Motions, what
must become then of the present Astrology, which is wholly adapted to that vulgar
Hypothesis? And yet nevertheless, when they lay under such wretched mistakes
for many Myriads of Years, if we are willing to believe them; they would all along,
as now, appeal to Experience and Event for the confirmation of their Doctrines.
That’s the invincible Demonstration of the Verity of the Science: And indeed as
to their Predictions, I think our Astrologers may assume to themselves that infallible
Oracle of Tiresias,
O Laertiade, quicquid dico, aut erit, aut non.
There’s but a true and a false in any telling of Fortune; and a man that never
hits on the right side, cannot be called
a bad Guesser, but must miss out of design, and be notably skilful at lighting
on the wrong. And were there not formerly as great pretensions to it from the
superstitious Observation of the Entrails of Cows, of the flying of Vulturs, and the pecking of Chickings? Nay, the old Augurs and Soothsayers had better reason to profess
the Art of Divining, than the modern Astrological Atheist: for they supposed there
were some Dæmons, that directed the Indications. So likewise the Chaldean
and Egyptian Astrologers were much more excusable than He. It was the Religion
of their Countries to worship the Stars, as we know from unquestionable Authority.
Maimonides More Nevochim De Zabiis & Chaldæis. Plato in Cratylo. Diodorus, lib. 1. cap. 2. Eusebius Demonst. Evangel. lib. 1. c. 6.
Φοίνικας τοιγαροῦν καὶ
Αἰγυπτίους πρώτους ἁπάντων κατέχει
λόγος ἣλιον σα
σελήντιτω
καὶ ἀστέξας Θεοὺς
ἀ...φῆναι
They believed them Intelligent Beings, and no other than very Gods; and therefore
had some Reason to suspect, that they might govern Human Affairs. The Influence of
the Stars was in their apprehensions no let’s than Divine Power. But an
Atheist,
that believes the Planets to be dark, solid and senseless Bodies, like the brute
Earth he treads on; and the Fixt Stars and the Sun to be inanimate Basis of Fire; what
Reasons can He advance for the Credit of such Influences? He acknowledgeth
nothing besides Matter and Motion; so that all that he can conceive to be transmitted hither from the Stars, must needs be perform’d either by Mechanism or Accident; either of which is wholly unaccountable,
arid the latter irreconcileable to any Art or System of Science. But if both were
allowed the Atheist; yet as to any production of Mankind, they will be again refuted
in my following Discourse. I can preserve a due esteem for some great Men of the last Age, before the Mechanical Philosophy was revived, though they were too much
addicted to this nugatory Art. When Occult Quality, and Sympathy and Antipathy, were
admitted for satisfactory Explications of things, even wise and vertuous Men might
swallow down any Opinion that was countenanced by Antiquity. But at this time of
day, when all the general powers and capacities of Matter are so clearly
understood;
must be very ridiculous himself, that doth not deride and explode the antiquated
Folly. But we may see the miserable Shifts that some men are put to; when
that which was first founded upon, and afterward supported by Idolatry,
is now become the tottering Sanctuary of Atheism. If the Stars be no Deities, Astrology is groundless: and if the Stars
be Deities, why is the Astrologer an Atheist? He may easily be no Christian; and
’tis difficult indeed to be both at once: because, as I have said before, Idolatry
is at the bottom; and by submitting Humane Actions and Inclinations to the Influence
of the Stars, they destroy the very Essence of Moral Virtue and the Efficacy of
Divine Grace: and therefore Astrology was justly condemn’d by the
Concil. Laod. Can. 36. Conc. 6. in Trullo. Can. 61. Cod. Just.
lib. 9. tit. 18.
Cod. Theodos. l. 9. tit. 16. Βασιλικῶν
lib. 60. tit. 39.
Ancient Fathers
and Christian Emperors. An Astrologer, I say, may very easily be no Christian;
he may be an idolater or a Pagan: but I could hardly think Astrology to be compatible
with rank Atheism; if I could suppose any great gifts of Nature to be in that
person, who is either an Atheist or an Astrologer. But let him be what he will, he is not able to do much hurt by his
Reasons and Example. For Religion it self,
according to his Principles, is derived from the Stars. And he owns, ’tis not any just Exceptions he hath taken
against Christianity, but ’tis his Destiny and Fate; ’tis Saturn in the Ninth House
and not Judgment and Deliberation, that made him an Atheist.
A
CONFUTATION
OF
ATHEISM
FROM THE
Structure and Origin of Human Bodies..
PART II.
The Fourth SERMON Preached
June 6. 1692.
Acts XVII. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after
him, and find him; though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we Live,
and Move, and have our Being.
IN the former part of this Enquiry I have examin’d and refuted
two Atheistical Notions opposed to the great
Doctrine of the Text, That we owe
our Living and Being to the power of
God: The one of the Aristotelian Atheists, who, to avoid the difficulties of the first production
of Mankind, without the intervention of Almighty Wisdom and Power, will have the
Race to have thus continued without beginning, by an eternal succession of infinite
past Generations; which Assertion hath been detected to be mere nonsense, and contradictory
to it self: The other of the Astrological undertakers, that would raise Men like
Vegetables out of some fat and slimy soil well digested by the kindly heat of the
Sun, and impregnated with the influence of the Stars upon some remarkable and periodical
conjunctions: Which opinion hath been vamp’d up of late by Cardan and
Cosalpinus, and other News-mongers from the Skies; a Pretense as groundless
and silly, as the dreaming Oncirocriticks of Artemidorus and Astrampsychus, or the modern Chiromancy and Divinations of Gypsies.
I procede now to the two remaining Paradoxes of such Sects of
Atheists,
as laying aside Astrology and the unintelligible Influence of Heavenly Bodies, except
that which procedes from their Gravity and Heat, and Light, do either produce Mankind mechanically
and necessarily from certain connexions of Natural Causes; or more dully and supinely, though altogether as reasonably, resolve the whole Business into the unaccountable
shuffles and tumults of Matter, which they call Chance and Accident. But at
present
I shall only take an account of the supposed Production of Humane Bodies by Mechanism
and Necessity.
The Mechanical or Corpuscular Philosophy, though peradventure
the oldest, as well as the best in the world, had lain buried for many Ages in
contempt and oblivion; till it was happily restor’d and cultivated anew by
some
excellent Wits of the present Age. But it principally owes its re-establishment
and lustre, to Mr. Boyle that Honourable Person of ever Blessed Memory, who
hath not only shewn its usefulness in Physiology above the vulgar Doctrines of
Real Qualities and Substantial Forms; but likewise its great serviceableness to
Religion it self. And I think it hath been competently prov’d in a former Discourse,
how friendly it is to the Immateriality of Humane Souls, and consequently to the Existence of
a Supreme Spiritual Being. And I may have occasion hereafter to shew further, that
all the Powers of Mechanism are intirely dependent on the Deity, and do afford a
solid argument for the Reality of his Nature. So far am I from the apprehension of any great feats, that this Mechanical Atheist can do against Religion. For if
we consider the Phænomena of the Material World with a due and serious attention,
we shall plainly perceive, that its present frame and Systeme and all the established
Laws of Nature are constituted and preserved by Gravitation alone. That is the powerfull
cement, which holds together this magnificent structure of the world; Job. 26. 7.
Which stretcheth the North over the empty space, and hangeth
the Earth upon Nothing; if we may transfer the words of Job from
the first and real Cause to the secondary Agent. Without Gravity; the whole
Universe,
if we suppose an undetermin’d power of Motion infused into Matter, would
have been a confuted Chaos, without beauty or order, and never liable and permanent in any condition. Now it
may be prov'd in it's due place, that this Gravity, the great Basis of all
Mechanism, is not it self Mechanical; but the immediate Fiat and Finger of
God, and the Execution of the Divine Law; and that Bodies have not the power of
tending towards a Centre, either from other Bodies or from themselves: which at
once; if it be proved, will undermine and ruine all the Towers and Batteries that
the Atheists have raised against Heaven. For if no Compound Body in the visible
world can subsist and continue without Gravity, and if Gravity do immediately
flow from a Divine Power and Energy; it will avail them nothing, though they should be able to explain all the particular Effects, even the Origination of
Animals, by mechanical principles. But however at present I will forbear to urge this against the Atheist. For, though I
should
allow him, that this Catholic Principle of Gravitation is essential to Matter without
introducing a God; yet I will defie him to shew, how a Humane Body could be at
first
produced naturally, according to the present System of things, and the mechanical affections of Matter.
And because this Atheist professeth to believe as much as we;
that the first production of Mankind was in a quite different manner from the preterit
and ordinary method of Nature, and yet affirms nevertheless, that That was Natural
too; which seems at the first sight to be little less than a contradiction; it should
lie upon Him to make out, how matter by undirected Motion could at first necessarily
fall, without ever Erring or Miscarrying, into such a curious formation of Humane
Bodies; a thing that by his own confession it was never able to do since, or at
least hath not done for some thousands of years: he should declare to us what shape
and contexture Matter then had, which it cannot have now: how it came to be altered
by long course of time, so that living Men can no longer be produced out of putrefaction
in the primary way; and yet the species of Mankind. that now consists of and
is nourished by Matter so altered, should continue to be the same as it was from the beginning. He should undertake
to explain to us the first steps and the whole progress of such a formation;
at least by way of Hypothesis, how it naturally might have been, tho’ he
affirm not that it was actually so. Whether he hath a new Notion peculiar to
himself
about that Production, or takes up with some old one, that is ready at hand: whether
that most witty Conceit of Plutarch. de Plac. Phi. lib. 5. c. 19. &c.
Sympos. l. 8. c. 8. Censorinus de die Natali cap. 4.
Anaximander, That the first Men and all Animals
were bred in some warm moisture, inclosed in crustaceous skins, as if they were
various kinds of Crabfish and Lobsters; and so continued till they arrived at perfect
age; when their shelly Prisons growing dry and breaking made way for
their liberty: or the no less ingenious opinion of the great
Plutarch. de Plac. Phil. 5. 19. Censorin. ibidem.
Empedocles; That Mother Earth first brought forth vast numbers of Legs, and Arms, and Heads,
and the other members of the Body, scatter’d and distinct, and all at their growth; which coming together and cementing (as the pieces of
Snakes and Lizards are said to do, if one cuts them asunder) and so configuring themselves into Humane shape, made
lusty proper Men of thirty years age in an instant: or rather the divine Doctrine
of Epicurus and the
Censorinus ibid. Lucret lib. 5. Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. c. 2.
Ægyptians; That there first: grew up a sort of
Wombs, that had their Roots in the Earth, and attracted thence a kind of Milk for
the nourishment of the inclosed Fœtus; which at the time of maturity broke
through those Membranes, and shifted for themselves. I say, he ought to acquaint
us which of these he is for, or bring a new explication of his own; and not require
Us to prove the Negative, That a Spontaneous production of Mankind, neither warranted
by example, nor defended by reason, nevertheless may not possibly have been true.
This is a very unreasonable demand, and we might justly put him off with such an
answer as this; That there are several things, which all men in their wits do disbelieve,
and yet none but madmen will go about to disprove. But to shew him how much we endeavour
to satisfie and oblige him, I will venture once for his fake to incurr the censure of some persons for being elaborately trifling. For
with respect to the most of Mankind, such wretched absurdities are more wisely contemn’d
than confuted; and to give them a serious answer, may only make them look more
considerable.
First then, I take it for granted by him, That there were the
same
Laws of Motion, and the like general Fabric of the Earth, Sea, and Atmosphere, at
the beginning of Mankind, as there are at this day. For if any Laws at first were
once settled and constituted; like those of the Medes and Persians, they are never to be reversed. To violate and infringe them, is the
same as
what we call Miracle; and doth not sound very Philosophically out of the mouth of
an Atheist. He must allow therefore, that Bodies were endowed with the same affections
and tendencies then as ever since, and that if an II Kings, 5. 6.
Axhead be supposed to
float upon water, which is specifically much lighter than it; it had been supernatural
at that time, as well as in the days of Elisha. And this is all that I desire
him to acknowledge at =present. So that he may admit of those Arguments as valid and
conclusive against his Hypothesis, that are fairly drawn from the
present
powers of Matter, and the visible constitution of the World.
Now that we may come to the point; All Matter is either Fluid
or Solid, in a large acceptation of the words, that they may comprehend even all
the middle degrees between extreme Fixedness and Coherency, and the most rapid intestine
motion of the Particles of Bodies. Now the most cavilling Atheist must allow,
that a solid inanimate Body, while it remains in that state, where there is none,
or a very small and inconsiderable change of Texture, is wholly incapable of a
vital production. So that the first Humane Body, without Parents and without Creator, if such an one ever was,
must have naturally been produced in and constituted
by a Fluid. And because this Atheist goes mechanically to work; the universal Laws
of Fluids must have been rigidly observed during the whole process of the Formation.
Archimedes de Insidentibus humido, lib. i. Stevin
des Elemens Hydrostatiques.
Now this is a Catholic Rule of Statics; That if any Body be bulk for
bulk heavier than a Fluid, it will sink to the bottom of that Fluid; and if lighter, it will float upon it; having part of it
self extant, and part immersed to
such
a determinate depth, as that so much of the Fluid as is equal in Bulk to the immersed
part, be equal in Gravity to the whole. And consequently if several portions of
one and the same Fluid have a different specific gravity, the heavier will always
(in a free vessel) be gradually the lower; unless violently shaken and blended
together by external concussion. But that cannot be in our present case. For am unwilling to affront this .Atheist so much, as to suppose him
to believe, that the first organical Body might possibly be effected in some Fluid
portion of Matter, while its Heterogeneous parts were jumbled and confounded together
by a Storm, or Hurricane, or Earthquake. To be sure he will rather have the primitive
Man to be produced by a long process in a kind of digesting Balneum, where
all the heavier Lees may have time to subside, and a due .Æquilibrium be
maintain’d, not disturb’d by any such rude and violent shocks, that would ruffle and break
all the little Stamina of the Embryon, if it were a making before.
Now because all the parts of an undisturb’d Fluid are either of equal Gravity,
or gradually placed and storied according to the differences of it; any concretion
that can be supposed to be naturally and mechanically made in such a Fluid, must
have a like structure of its several parts; that is, either be all over of a similar
Gravity, or have the more ponderous parts nearer to its Basis. But there need no
more concessions than this, to extinguish these supposed First-born of Nature in
their very formation. For suppose a Humane body to be a forming in such a Fluid
in any imaginable posture, it will never be reconcileable to this Hydrostatical
Law. There will be always something lighter beneath, and something heavier above;
because Bone, or what is then the Stuff and Rudiments of Bone, the heaviest
in specie,
will be ever in the midst. Now what can make the heavier particles of Bone ascend
above the lighter ones of Flesh, or depress these below those, against the tendency of their own Nature? This would be wholly as miraculous, as the
swimming of Iron in Water at the command of Elisha; and as impossible to
be, as that the Lead of an Edifice should naturally and spontaneously mount up to
the Roof, while lighter materials employ themselves beneath it: or that a Statue,
like that in Nebuchadnezzar’s Vision, whole Head was of fine and most ponderous
Gold, and his Feet of lighter materials, Iron and Clay, should mechanically erect it self upon them for its
Basis.
Secondly, Because this Atheist goes mechanically to work, he
will not offer to affirm, That all the parts of the Embryon could according
to his explication be formed at a time. This would be a supernatural thing, and
an effectual refutation of his own Principles. For the Corpuscles of Matter
having no consciousness of one anothers acting (at least before or during the Formation; as will be allowed by that very
Atheist, that attributes
Reason and Perception
to them, when the Formation is finished) they could not consent and make a compact
together, to carry on the work in several places at once; and one party of them be forming the Brain, while another is modelling the Heart,
and a third delineating the Veins. No, there must be, according to Mechanism, a
successive and gradual operation: Some few Particles must first be united together, and so by apposition and mutual connexion
still more and more by degrees, till
the whole System be completed: and a Fermentation must be excited in some assignable
place, which may expand it self by its Elastical power; and break through, where
it meets with the weakest resistance; and so by that so simple and mechanical action,
may excavate all the various Ducts and Ventricles of the Body. This is the only general
account, as mean as it appears to be, that this Machine of an Atheist can give of
that fearfull and wonderfull Production. Now to confute there Pretenses,
First, There is that visible Harmony and Symmetry in a Humane Body, such a
mutual communication of every vessel and member of it; as gives an internal evidence,
that it was not formed successively, and patch’d up by piece-meal. So uniform and
orderly a system with innumerable Motions and Functions, all so placed and
constituted, as never to interfere
and clash one with another, and disturb the Oeconomy of the whole, must needs be
ascribed to an Intelligent Artist; and to such an Artist, as did not begin the
matter unprepared and at a venture; and, when he was put to a stand, paused and hesitated, which way he
should procede; but he had first in his comprehensive
Intellect a complete Idea and Model of the whole Organical Body, before he
enter’d upon the Work. But Secondly, if they affirm, That mere Matter by its mechanical
Affections, without any design or direction, could form the Body by steps and degrees;
what member then do they pitch upon for the foundation and cause of all the rest?
Let them shew us the beginning of this Circle; and the first Wheel of this Perpetual
Motion. Did the Blood first exist, antecedent to the formation of the Heart? But that is to let the Effect before the Cause: because all the Blood that we know of, is made in and by the Heart, having the quite different form and qualities of Chyle, before it comes thither. Must the Heart then have been formed and confirmed, before the Blood was in being? But here again, the Substance of the Heart
it self is
most certainly made and nourished by the Blood, which is conveyed to it by the Coronary Arteries. And thus
it is through the whole system of the Body; every member doth mutually
sustain and supply one another; and all are coætaneous, because none of them can
subsist alone. But they will say, Cartesius de Formatione Fætûs.
That a little Ferment first making a
Cavity, which became the left Ventricle of the Heart, did thence further expand
it self, and thereby delineate all the Arteries of the Body. Now if such a
slight and lorry business as that, could produce an Organical Body; one might
reasonably expect, that now and then a dead lump of Dough might be leaven'd
into an Animal: for there a like Ferment makes notable Tumours and Ventricles;
besides sundry long and small Chanels, which may pass tolerably well for
Arteries and Veins. But I pray, in this supposed Mechanical Formation, when the
Ferment was expanded to the extremities of the Arteries, if it still had any clastical force remaining, why did it not go on and break through the Receptacle,
as other Ferment must be allowed to have done at the Mouth and the Nostrils? There
was as yet no membranous Skin formed, that might stop and repel it. Or if the
force
of it was spent, and did not wheel about and return; what mechanical cause then
shall we assign for the Veins? for this Ferment is there supposed to have proceded
from the small capillary extremities of them to the Great Vein and the Heart;
otherwise it made Valves. which would have stopp’d its own passage. And why
did that Ferment, that at first dispersed it self from the Great Artery into infinite
little ramifications, take a quite contrary method in the making of the Veins, where
innumerable little Rivulets have their confluence into the Great Vein, the common
chanel of the Blood? Are such opposite motions both equally mechanical, when in
both cases the Matter was under the same modification? And again, When the first Ferment is excited, and forms the left Ventricle of the Heart; if the Fluid Matter be uniform and of a
similar texture, and therefore on all sides equally resist the Expansion; then the Cavity must continue One, dilated
more and more, ’till the expansive force and the uniform resistance be reduced to
an equality, and so nothing at all can be formed by this Ferment, but a single round
Bubble. And moreover this Bubble (if that could make a Heart) by reason of its comparative
Levity to the Fluid that incloses it, would necessarily ascend to the top; and
consequently
we should never find the Heart in the midst of the Breast. But if the Fluid be
supposed to consist of Heterogeneous Particles, then we cannot conceive how those dissimilar
parts should have a like situation in two several Fluids, when the Ferment begins.
So that upon this supposition there could be no Species of Animals, nor any Similitude
between them: One would have its Lungs, where another hath its Liver, and all the
other Members preposterously placed; there could not be a like Configuration of
Parts in any two Individuals. And again, What is that which determines the Growth
of all living Creatures? What principles of Mechanism are sufficient to explain
it? Why do not all Animals continually increase in bigness during the whole space of their Lives, as it is reported
of the Crocodile? What aets a bound to their mature and dimensions? Or if we
suppose
a Bound and Ne plus ultra to be mechanically fixed: but then why so
great a variety in the Bulk of the several Kinds? why also such Constancy
observed in that manifold Variety? For as some of the largest Trees have Seeds
no bigger or even less than some diminutive Plants, and yet every Seed is a
perfect Plant with Trunk and Branches and Leaves inclosed in a Shell: Swammerdam Histor. Insect. p. 3.
So the
first Embryon
of an Ant is supposed by inquisitive Naturalists to be as big, as that of an Elephant,
and to promise as fair at its primitive Formation for as spacious a Body: which
nevertheless by an immutable Decree can never arrive to the millionth part of the
others Bulk. And what modification of the first liquid Matter can vary so much,
as to make one Embryon capable of so prodigiously vast augmentation, while another
is confined to the minuteness of an Insect? Is not this manifestly a Divine Sanction, that hath fixed and determin’d the Shape, the Stature, the Appetites, and the Duration
of all Creatures in the World? Hither
must we have recourse in that great and
mysterious Affair of an Organical Formation: And I profess that I cannot discern one step in the whole, that is agreeable to the natural Laws of Motion. If
we consider the Heart, which is supposed to be the first principle of Motion
and Life, and divide it by our Imagination into its constituent Parts, its Arteries and Veins and Nerves and Tendons
and Membranes, and innumerable little
Fibres, that these Secondary Parts do
consist of; we shall find nothing here
Singular, but what is in any other Muscle
of the Body. ’Tis only the Site and
Posture of these several Parts and the
Configuration of the whole, that give
it the Form and Functions of a Heart. Now why should the first single Fibres
in the Formation of the Heart be peculiarly drawn in Spiral Lines; when the
Fibres of all other Muscles are made by
a transverse rectilinear Motion? What
could determine the Fluid Matter into
that odd and singular Figure, when as
yet no other Member is supposed to be form’d, that might direct the Course of that Fluid Matter? Let
Mechanism here make an Experiment of
its Power, and produce a spiral and turbinated motion of the whole moved Body without
an external Director. When all the Organs are once framed by a supernatural and
divine Principle, we do willingly admit of Mechanism in many Functions of the Body: but that the Organs themselves should be mechanically formed, we conceive it to
be impossible and utterly inexplicable. And if any Atheist will give a clear and
philosophical account of the things that are here touch’d upon; he may then hear
of many more and perhaps more difficult than these, which their unfitness for a
popular Auditory, and the remaining parts of my Subject that press forward to be
treated of, oblige me now to omit.
But as the Atheist, when he is put to
it to explain, How any Motion of dead
Matter can beget Thought and Perception, will endeavour to defend his baffled
Impiety with the instance of Brutes,
which he calls Thinking Machines: so
will he now also appeal from the Arbitration of Reason in the Case of Animal
Productions, to Example and Matter of Fact. He will declaim to us about the
admirable Structure of the Bodies of Insects; that they have all the Vital Parts,
which the largest of Quadrupeds and
even Man himself can boast of; and yet
they are the easy and obvious Products
of unintelligent Nature, that spontaneously and mechanically form them out
of putrefied Carcasses and the warm
moisture of the Soil: and (which is
mightily to his purpose) the Insects, so begotten without Parents, have nevertheless
fit Organs of Generation and Difference of Sex, and can propagate their own
kinds, as if themselves had been begotten so too: and that if Mother Earth
in this her barrenness and decrepitness of
Age can procreate such swarms of curious Engins, which not only themselves
enjoy their portion of Life, but by a
most wonderful Instinct impart it to
many more, and continue their Species:
might she not in the flower of her
Youth, while she was succulent and fertil, have produced Horses and Elephants
and even Mankind it self, the largest and
perfectest Animals, as easily as in this
parched and steril condition she can
make a Frog or an Insect? Thus he thinks, he hath made out from Example and Analogy, that at the
Beginning of things every Species of Animals might spring mechanically out of the
Soil without an Intelligent Creator. And indeed there is no one thing in the World, which hath given so much Countenance and Shadow of
Possibility to the Notion of
Atheism, as this unfortunate mistake about the æquivocal generation of Insects:
And as the oldest Remains of Atheistical Writings are full of this Comparison;
so it is the main refuge of those, that in this and the last Age have had the Folly
and Impudence to appear in so wretched a Cause.
Now to this last Subterfuge of the Mechanical Atheists we can
occurr several ways. And at present we affirm First, ex abundanti, That
though we should allow them the spontaneous production of some minute Animals, yet
a like primitive Origination of Mankind could not thence be concluded. Because they
first tacitly suppose, that there is an universal decay of Moisture and Fertility
in the Earth. And they cannot avoid the necessity of so doing: For if the Soil
be as fruitful now, as it was in the beginning; why would it not produce Men, and the nobler kinds of
Beasts
in our days too, if ever it did so? So
that if that supposition be evinc’d to be
erroneous and groundless, all the Arguments that they build upon it, will be subverted at once. Now what more
easily refuted, than that old vulgar Assertion of an universal Drought and Exsiccation of the Earth? As if the Sun
could evaporate the least drop of its
Moisture, to that it should never descend
again, but be attracted and elevated quite
out of the Atmosphere? ’Tis now a matter agreed and allowed by all competent
Judges, that every Particle of Matter is
endowed with a Principle of Gravity,
whereby it would descend to the Centre,
if it were not repelled upwards by heavier Bodies. So that the smallest Corpuscle of Vapour, if we suppose it to be
exhaled to the top of the Atmosphere,
thence it must come down again, or at
least must there remain incumbent upon
others: for there’s either Nothing or nothing heavier above it to protrude it any
higher, neither can it spontaneously
mount any more against the tendency
of its nature. And lest some ignorant Atheist should suspect, that peradventure there may be no such
Top of the Atmosphere; but that it may be continued on to the Sun or to indefinite
Space: he must vouchsafe to be instructed, That the whole weight of any Column of
the Atmosphere, and likewise the Specific gravity of its Basis are certainly known
by many Experiments; and that by this computation (even making allowance for its
gradually larger Expansion, the higher we go,) the very top of any Pillar of Air
is not One hundred Miles distant from the Surface of the Earth. So that hence it
is manifest, that the whole Terraqueous Globe with its Atmosphere cannot naturally
have lost the least particle of Moisture, since the foundation of the World. But
still they may insist, That although the whole Globe cannot be deprived of any of
its Moisture, yet the habitable Earth may have been perpetually the drier, seeing
it is assiduously drained and exhausted by the Seas. But to this we reply, That
the very contrary is demonstrable; That the longer the World shall continue, the
moister the whole Aggregate of the Land will be, For (to rake no notice of the
supply of its moisture by Rains and Snow and Dews and Condensation
of Vapours, and perhaps by subterraneous passages) the tops of Mountains and Hills
will be continually washed down by the Rains, and the Chanels of Rivers corroded
by the Streams; and the Mud that is thereby conveyed into the Sea will raise its
bottom the higher; and consequently the Declivity of Rivers will be so much the
less; and therefore the Continents will be the less drain’d, and will
gradually
increase in Humidity from the first period of their Duration to the final Consummation
of all things: if the successive of Plants and Animals, which are all made up of
and nourish’d by Water, and perhaps never wholly return to Water again, do not keep
things at a poise; or if the Divine Power do not interpose and change the
settled course and order of Nature.
But let us allow. their supposition, That the Total of the dry Land may have been robbed of
some of its Moisture which it had at its first Constitution: yet still there are some parts of the Earth
sufficiently soak’d and water’d, to produce, Men and Animals now, if ever they did at all. For do not the
Nile, and the Niger, and the Ganges, and the
Menam, make yearly Inundations in our days, as they have formerly done?
And are not the Countries so overflown still situate between the Tropics under the
direct and most vigorous Rays of the Sun, the very place where there Mechanical
Atheists lay the Scene of that great Transaction? So that if Mankind had ever sprung
naturally out of the Soil, the Experiment would succede now every year in Æthiopia
and Siam; where are all the requisite qualifications that ever have been,
for such a production. And again, if there hath been such a gradual diminution
of the Generative Faculty of the Earth, that it hath dwindled from nobler Animals
to puny Mice and Insects; why was there not the like decay in the production of Vegetables? We
should have loft by this time the whole Species of Oaks and Cedars and the
other tall and lofty Sons of the Forest, and have found nothing but dwarfish Shrubs
and creeping Moss and despicable Mushroms. Or if they deny the present spontaneous
production of larger Plants, and confine the Earth to as Pigmic Births in the Vegetable Kingdom, as they
do in the other: yet Purely in such a supposed universal decay of Nature, even
Mankind it self that is now nourished (though not produced) by the Earth, must
have degenerated in Stature and Strength in every Generation. And yet we have certain
demonstration from the Ægyptian Mummies, and Roman Urns and Rings
and Measures and Ædifices and many other Antiquities, that Human Stature is not
diminished at all for the last Two Thousand years. Now if the Decay has not been
constant and gradual, there has been no Decay at all; or at least no natural one,
nor what may be accounted for by this Mechanical Atheist. I conclude therefore,
That although we should allow the spontaneous production of Insects; yet no Argument
can be deduced from thence for a like Origination of Mankind.
Bur, Secondly, we affirm, That no Insect or Animal did ever procede
æquivocally from Putrefaction, unless in miraculous Cases, as in Egypt by the
Divine Judgments; but all are generated from Parents of their own kind, Male and Female; a Discovery of that great Importance, that perhaps
few Inventions of this Age can pretend to equal Usefulness and Merit; and which
alone is sufficient (if the Vices of Men did not captivate their Reason) to explode
and exterminate rank Atheism out of the World. For if all Animals be propagated
by Generation from Parents of their own Species, and there be no instance in Nature
of even a Gnat or a Mite either now or in former Ages spontaneously produced: how
came there to be such Animals in Being, and whence could they procede? There is
no need of much study and deliberation about it: for either they have exited eternally
by infinite Successions already gone and past, See the Former Sermon.
which is in its very Notion
absurd
and impossible; or their Origin must be ascribed to a supernatural and Divine Power,
that formed and created them. Now to prove our assertion about the Seminal production
of all living Creatures; that we may not repeat the Reasons which we have offer'd
before against the first Mechanical Formation of Human Bodies, which are equally
valid against the spontaneous Origin of the minutest Insects; we appeal
to Observation and Experiment, which carry the strongest conviction with them, and
make the most sensible and lasting impressions. Ἵπποι μὲν σφηκῶν γένεσις, ταῦροι δὲ μελιοσῶν.
Nicander.
For whereas it hath been the general Tradition and Belief, that
Maggots and Flies breed in putrefied Carcasses, And particularly Bees come from
Oxen, and Hornets from Horses, and Scorpions from Crabfish, &c. all is now found
to be Fable and Mistake. That sagacious and learned Naruralist Redi De generatione insectorum.
Francisco
Redi made innumerable trials with the putrid Flesh of all sorts of Beasts and Fowls
and Fishes and Serpents, with corrupted Cheese and Herbs and Fruits and even Insects
themselves: and he constantly found, that all those Kinds of Putrefaction did
only afford a Nest and Aliment for the Eggs and Young of those Insects that he admitted
to come there; but produced no Animal of themselves by a spontaneous Formation.
For when he suffer'd those things to putrefy in Hermetically sealed Glasses, and
Vessels close cover’d with Paper; and not only so, lest the Exclusion of the Air might be supposed to hinder the Experiment; but in Vessels cover’d with fine Lawn, so as to admit the Air and keep out the Insects: no living thing
was ever produced there, though he exposed them to the action of the Sun, in the
warm Climate of Florence, and in the kindest season of the year. Even Flies
crush’d and corrupted, when inclosed in such Vessels, did never procreate a new
Fly: though there, if in any case, one would have expected that success. And
when the Vessels were open, and the Insects had free access to the Aliment within them, he diligently
observed, that no other Species were produced, but of
such as
he saw go in and feed and deposit their Eggs there: which they would readily do
in all Putrefaction; even in a mucilage of broiled Spiders, where Worms were soon hatch’d out of such Eggs, and quickly changed into Flies of the
same kind with their
Parents. And was not that a Transformation indeed, if according to the
vulgar opinion those dead and corrupted Spiders spontaneously changed into flies?
And thus far we are obliged to the diligence of Redi; from whence we may
conclude, That no dead Flesh nor Herbs
nor other putrefied Bodies, nor any
thing that hath not then actually either
a vegetable or animal Life can produce
any Insect. And if we should allow,
as he did, that every Animal and Plant doth naturally breed and nourish by its
substance some peculiar Insect: yet the
Atheist could make no advantage of this
Concession as to a like Origination of
Mankind. For surely ’tis beyond even
an Atheist's Credulity and Impudence,
to affirm that the first Men might procede out of the Galls and Tumors of Leaves
of Trees, as some Maggots and Flies are supposed to do now; or might grow
upon Trees, as the story goes about Barnacles; or perhaps might be the Lice
of some vast prodigious Animals, whole
Species is now extinct. But though we
suppose him guilty of such an extravagant folly, he will only shift the difficulty, and not wholly remove it; for
we shall still expect an account of the spontaneous Formation of those mountainous
kind of Animals and Men-bearing Trees. And as to the Worms that
are bred in the Intestines and other inward parts of Living Creatures, their production is not material
to our present enquiry, till some Atheist do affirm, that his own Ancestors had
such an Original. I say, if we should allow this concession of Redi, it
would do no service to our Adversaries: but even here also they are defeated by
the happy curiosity of Malpighius de Gallis, Swammerdam de gen. Insect. Lewenhoeck Epistol.
Malpighi and others, who observed and discovered,
That each of those Tumors and Excrecences of Plants, out of which generally issues
a Fly or a Worm, are at first made by such Insects, which wound the tender buds
with a long hollow Trunk, and deposit an Egg in the hole with a sharp corroding
liquor, which causeth a swelling in the leaf, and so closeth the orifice: and within
this Tumor the Worm is hatcht and receives its aliment, till it hath eat its way
through. Neither need we recurr to an æquivocal production of Vermin in the
Phthiriasis and in Herod’s Disease, who was σκωληκόβρωτος,
Act. 12. 23.
eaten of worms, or maggots.
Those horrible distempers are always accompanied with putrefying ulcers; and
it hath been observed by the most accurate
Continuat. Epistol. p. 101.
Lewenhoeck, that Lice and
Flies, which have a most wonderfull instinct and acuteness of sense to find out convenient
places for the hatching and nourishment of their young, do mightily endeavour to lay
their Eggs upon Sores; and that One will lay above a hundred Eggs, and may naturally
increase to some hundred of thousands in a quarter of a year: which gives a full
and satisfactory account of the Phænomena of those Diseases. And whereas
it is said, Exod. 16. v. 20. That
some of the Israelites left of the Manna until the morning, and it bred worms and
stank; which an Atheist may make an objection, as either against Us, or
against
the truth of the Scriptures: I understand it no otherwise, than that the Manna
was fly-blown. It was then the Month of October, which in that Southern
Climate, after the preceding Autumnal Rains, doth afford a favourable season and
copious nutriment for infinite swarms of Insects. Neither do I ascribe it to a miraculous
power, that some of the Manna should breed worms, but that all the rest should be preserved
sound and untainted. And if any one shall
rigidly urge from that passage the literal expression of breeding; he
must
allow Moses to speak in the language of the Vulgar in common affairs of life.
We do now generally believe the Copernican System; yet I suppose upon ordinary
occasions we shall still use the popular terms of Sun-rise and Sun-set, and not introduce
a new pedantic description of them from the motion of the Earth. And then as to
the vulgar opinion, That Frogs are made in the Clouds and brought down by the Rains,
it may be thus easily refuted: for at that very instant, when they are supposed to descend, you may find by dissection not only their Stomachs full of meat, but
their Intestines full of excrement: to that they had lurked before in the day-time
in holes and bushes and grass, and were then invited abroad by the freshness of
a Shower. And by this time we may understand, what credit and authority those old
Stories ought to have about monstrous productions in Ægypt after the inundation
of the Nile, of Mice and Frogs and Serpents, half flesh and half mud; nay of the Legs, and Arms, and other Limbs of Men,
&
quicquid Græcia mendax; altogether as true, as what is seriously
related by Helmont Imago Ferment. &c. p. 92. Edit. 1652.
Helmont, That
foul Linen, stopt in a vessel that hath Wheat
in it, will in 21 days time turn the Wheat into Mice: which one may guess to have
been the philosophy and information of some Housewife, who had not so carefully
cover’d her Wheat, but that the Mice could come at it, and were there taken napping,
just when they had made an end of their cheer. Corn is so innocent from this calumny
of breeding of Mice; that it doth not produce the very Weevils that live in it
and consume it: the whole course of whose generation and periodical changes
hath
been curiously observed and described by the ingenious Lewenhoek. And moreover,
that we may deprive the Atheist of all hopes and pretensions of Argument from this
baffled opinion of æquivocal insects, we will acquaint him from the most accurate
observations of Swammerdam, That even the supposed change of Worms into Flies
is no real transmutation; but that most of those Members, which at
last become visible to the Eye, are existent at the beginning, artificially complicated together, and cover’d with Membranes and Tunicles,
which are afterwards stript off and laid aside: and all
the rest of that process is no more surprizing, than the eruption of Horns in
some Brutes, or of Teeth and Beard in
Men at certain periods of age. And as
we have establish’d our assertion of the seminal production of all kinds of Animals: so likewise we affirm, That the
meanest Plant cannot be rais’d without
seed by any formative power residing
in the Soil. To which assertion we are
encourag’d, First, from the known Seeds of all Vegetables, one or two only
excepted, that are left to future discovery:
which Seeds by the help of Microscopes
are all found to be real and perfect
Plants, with Leaves and Trunk curiously
folded up and enclosed in the Cortex:
nay one single grain of Wheat or Barly
or Rye, shall contain four or five distinct
Plants under one common Tunicle: a
very convincing argument of the Providence and Goodness of God; that those
Vegetables that were appointed to be the chief sustenance of Mankind, should
have that multiplied fœcundity above
any others: and secondly, by that famous
experiment of Malpighi, who a long
time enclosed a quantity of Earth in a
vessel, secured by a fine cloth from the small imperceptible seeds of Plants that
are blown about with the winds; and
had this success of his Curiosity, to be
the first happy discoverer of this noble
and important Truth, That no species
of Plants can be produc’d out of Earth
without a præexistent seed; and consequently they were all created and raised
at the beginning of things by the Almighty Gardener, God blessed for ever.
And Lastly, as to those various and elegant Shells, that are dug up in Continents and embodied in Stones and Rocks
at a vast distance from any Sea; which
this Atheist may possibly allege for an
instance of a Plastick faculty of Nature;
now generally agreed by the most
diligent Inquirers about them, That they
are no sportfull productions of the Soil,
as was formerly believed, but that all
did once belong to real and living Fishes;
since each of them exactly resembles some Shell of the Seas, both in its out-ward lineaments, and inward texture, and specific gravity, and
all other properties: which therefore are so far from being subservient to
Atheists
in their audacious attempts against God and Religion, that they rather afford an
experimental confirmation of the Universal Deluge.
And thus we have competently shewn,
that every Species of Living Creatures,
every small Insect, and even the Herbs
of the Field give a casting vote against
Atheism, and declare the necessity of a supernatural Formation. If the Earth in
its first constitution had been left to it
self, what horrid deformity and desolation had for ever overspread its face? not
one living Inhabitant would be found on
all its spacious surface; not so much as
a Worm in the Bowels of it, nor one
single Fish in the vast Bosom of the Sea;
not a Mantle of Grass or Moss, to cover and conceal the nakedness of Nature.
An eternal Sterility must have possessed
the World, where all things had been
fixed and fasten’d everlastingly with the
Adamantin chains of Specific Gravity;
if the Almighty had not spoken and
said, Let the Earth bring forth Grass,
the Herb yielding Seed, and the Fruit-tree yielding Fruit after
its kind; and it was so. ’Twas God, that then created the first seminal forms
of all Animals and Vegetables, that commanded the Waters to bring forth
abundantly, and the Earth
to produce Living Creatures after their kind; that made Man in his own
Image after his own likeness: that by the efficacy of his first Blessing
made him be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth; by whose alone power and conservation
we all live and move and have our Being.
May the
same most Glorious God of his infinite mercy grant, that
as we have sought the Lord, and felt after him, and found him
in these works of his Creation: so now that we have known God, we may glorify him as God,
both now, and for evermore, Amen.
A
CONFUTATION
OF
ATHEISM
FROM THE
Structure and Origin of Human Bodies..
The Third and Last PART
The Fifth SERMON Preached
September 5. 1692.
Acts XVII. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him; though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we Live, and Move, and have our Being.
IN my former Discourses I have endeavour’d to prove, that Human Race was neither (1)
from Everlasting without beginning; nor (2) owes its beginning to the Influence
of Heavenly Bodies; nor (3) to what they call Nature, that is, the necessary
and mechanical motions of dead senseless Matter. I procede now to examin the fourth
and last Plea of the Enemies to Religion and their own Souls, That Mankind came accidentally
into the World, and hath its Life and Motion and Being by mere Chance and
Fortune.
We need not much wonder, that this
last Opinion should obtain almost universally among the Atheists of these
times. For whereas the Other require
come small stock of Philosophy to understand or maintain them: This Account is so
easy and compendious, that
it needs none at all; and consequently is the more proper and agreeable to
the great Industry and Capacity of the
most numerous Party of them. For
what more easy to say, than that all
the Bodies of the first Animals and
Plants were shuffled into their several
Forms and Structures fortuitously, that
is, these Atheists know not how, nor
will trouble themselves to endeavour
to know? For that is the meaning of
Chance; and yet this is all, that they say, or can say to the great Matter in question. And indeed this
little is enough in all reason; and could they impose on the rest of Mankind, as
easily as delude themselves, with a notion, That Chance can effect a thing; it would be the
most expedite and effectual means to make their Cause victorious
over Vertue and Religion. For if you once allow them such an acceptation of Chance, you have precluded your
self (they think) from any more reasoning and objecting
against them. The Mechanical Atheist, though you grant him his Laws of Mechanism,
is nevertheless inextricably puzzled and baffled with the first Formation of Animals: for he
must undertake to determine all the various Motions and Figures and Positions
and Combinations of his Atoms; and to demonstrate, that such a quantity of Motion
impressed upon Particles so shaped and situated, will necessarily range and dispose them into the Form and Frame of an Organical Body: an attempt as difficult
and unpromising of success, as if he himself should make the Essay to produce
some new Kinds of Animals out of such senseless Materials, or to rebuild the moving and living Fabric out of its dust in the grave.
But the Atheist, that we are now to deal with, if you do but concede to him, that
Fortune may be an Agent; presumes himself safe and invulnerable, secure above the
reach of any further disputes. For if you procede to ask questions, and bid him
assign the proper Causes and determinate Manner of that fortuitous Formation, you
thereby deny him what you granted before, and take away the Very Hypothesis
and the Nature of Chance; which supposeth that no certain Cause or Manner of
it can possibly be assigned. And as the stupidity of some Libertines, that demand
a fight of a Spirit or Humane Soul to convince them of its existence, hath been
frequently and deservedly exposed; because whatsoever may be the object of our Sight,
must: not be a Soul or Spirit, but an opake Body: so this Atheist would tax us
of the like Nonsense and Contradiction; if after he hath named to us Fortune or
Chance, we should expos from him any particular and distinct account of the Origin
of Mankind. Because it is the very offence and notion of his Chance, to be wholly unaccountable: and if an account
could be given of it; it would then no longer be Chance but Mechanism, or a
necessary
production of certain Effects from certain Causes according to the Universal Laws of
Motion. Thus we are to know, that if once we admit of Fortune in the Formation of
Mankind; there is no further enquiry to be made, no more Difficulties to be solved,
and no Account to be demanded. And who then can admire, if the inviting easiness and
compendiousness of this Assertion
should
so dazle the Eyes of our Atheist, that
he overlooks those gross Absurdities, that are so conspicuous in it?
(1) For first, if this Atheist would have his Chance or Fortune
to be a real and substantial Agent; as the Vulgar seem to have commonly apprehended,
some making it a Divinity, others they do not conceive what: he is doubly more
stupid and more supinely ignorant than those Vulgar; in that he assumes such a
notion of Fortune, as besides its being erroneous, is inconsistent with his
Atheism.
For since according to the Atheists, the whole Universe is Corpus
& inane, Body and nothing else: this Chance, if it do really
and physically effect any thing, must it self be Body also. And what a numerous
train of Absurdities do attend such an assertion? too visible and obvious to
deserve to be here insisted on. For indeed it is no less than flat contradiction
to it self. For if this Chance be supposed to be a Body; it must then be a part
of the common Mass of Matter: and consequently be subject to the universal and
necessary Laws of Motion: and therefore it cannot be Chance, but true Mechanism and Nature.
(2) But secondly, if he forbear to call
Chance a real Agent, and is content to
have it only a Result or Event; since
all Matter or some portion of it may be
naturally exempt from those supposed
Mechanical Laws, and be endowed with
a power of spontaneous or fortuitous Motion; which power, when it is exerted, must produce an Effect properly
Casual, and therefore might constitute
the first Animate Bodies accidentally, against the supposed natural tendency of
the Particles of those Bodies: even this
second Affection is contrary to common Sense, as well as common Observation: For how can he conceive,
that any parcel of dead Matter can spontaneously divert and decline it self from
the line of its motion without a new impulse from external Bodies? If it can intrinsically
stir it self, and either commence its Motion or alter its course; it must have
a principle of self-activity, which is Life and Sense. Serm. 2.
But Sense I have proved
formerly to be incompatible with mere Bodies, even those of the most compound and
elaborate textures; much more with single Atoms or solid Particles of Matter, that
having no intestine motion of Parts are destitute of the first foundation and capacity
of Life. And moreover, though these Particles should be supposed to have this internal
principle of Sense, it would still be repugnant to the notion of Chance: because
their Motions would not then be Casual, but Voluntary; not by Chance, but Choice
and Design. And again, we appeal to Observation, whether any Bodies have such a
power of fortuitous Motion: we should surely have experiment of it in the
effects
of Nature and Art: No Bodywould retain the same constant and uniform Weight according to
its Bulk and Substance; but would vary perpetually, as that spontaneous power of
Motion should determine its present tendency. All the various Machines and Utensils
would now and then play odd Pranks and Capricio’s quite contrary to their proper
Structures and Designs of the Artificers. Whereas on the contrary all Bodies are
observed to have always a certain and determinate Motion according to the degrees
of their External Impulse, and their inward Principle of Gravitation, and the
Resistance
of the Bodies they occurr with: which therefore is without Error exactly foreseen
and computed by sagacious Artists. And if ever Dead Matter should deviate from this
Motion; it could not procede from it self, but a supernatural Agent; and ought
not to be called a Chance, but a Miracle.
For Chance is but a mere name, and
really Nothing in it self: a Conception
of our own Minds, and only a Compendious way of speaking, whereby we would
express, That such Effects, as are
commonly attributed to Chance, were verily produced by their true and proper Causes, but without their
designing to produce them. And in any Event called Casual, if you take away the
real and physical Causes, there remains nothing, but a simple Negation of the Agents
intending such an Event: which Negation being no real Entity, but a Conception
only of Man’s Intellect wholly extrinsecal to the Action, can have no title to a
share in the production. As in that famous Example (which Plutarch. περὶ τύχης.
Plutarch says, is the
only one, where Fortune is related to have done a thing artificially) when a Painter
having finiih’d the Picture of a Horse, excepting the loose Froth about his Mouth
and his Bridle; and after many unsuccessfuI essays despairing to do that to his
satisfaction, in a great rage threw his Spunge at it, all besmear’d, as it was,
with the Colours; which fortunately hitting upon the right place, by one bold stroke
of Chance most exactly supplied the want of Skill in the Artist: even here it is manifest, that considering the Quantity and Determination of the Motion, that was impressed
by the Painter's hand upon the Spunge, compounded with the specific Gravity of the Spunge,
and resistance of the Air; the Spunge did mechanically and unavoidably move in that
particular line of Motion, and so necessarily hit upon that part of the Picture;
and all the paint, that it left there, was as certainly placed by true natural
Causes,
as any one stroke of the Pencil in the whole Piece. So that this strange effect of
the Spunge was fortuitous only with respect to the Painter, because he did not
design
nor foresee such an effect; but in it self and as to its real Causes it was
necessary
and natural. In a word, the true notion of Fortune (τῆς τύχης) denoteth
no more, than the Ignorance of such an event in some Knowing Agent concerned about
it. So that it owes its very Being to Human Understanding, and without relation
to that is really Nothing. How absurd then and ridiculous is the Atheist, that
would make this Fortune the cause of the Formation of Mankind; whereas manifestly
there could be no such Thing or Notion in the World as Fortune, till Human Nature
was actually formed? It was Man that first made Fortune, and not Fortune that produced Man. For since Fortune in its proper acceptation supposeth the
Ignorance of something, in a subject capable of Knowledge; if you take away Mankind,
such a Notion hath no Existence, neither with relation to Inanimate Bodies that
can be conscious of nothing, nor to an Omniscient God, that can be ignorant of nothing.
And so likewise the adequate Meaning of Chance (τοῦ Αὐτομάτου) (as it is distinguished from Fortune; in that the latter is understood
to befal only Rational Agents, but Chance to be among Inanimate Bodies) is a bare
Negation that signifies no more than this, That any Effect among
such Bodies ascribed to Chance, is really produced by Physical Agents, according to the established
Laws of Motion, but without their Consciousness of concurring to the Production,
and without their Intention of such an Effect. So that Chance in its true
sense is all one with Nature; and both words are used promiscuously by
Plato X. de Legibus. Πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ
καὶ γῆν καὶ ἀέρα, φύσει
πάντα εἶναι καὶ τύχῃ
φασίν——ού̓τε
διὰ. τινὰ θεὸν,
ού̓τὲ διὰ τέχνην, ἀλλά
ὃ λέγομεν, φύσει καὶ
τύχῃ..
some ancient Writers to express the same thing. And we must be wary, lest we
ascribe any real Subsistence or Personality to this Nature or
Chance: for it is merely a notional and imaginary thing; an abstract Universal,
which is properly Nothing; a Conception of our own making, occasion’d by our
reflecting upon the settled Course of things; denoting only thus much, That all
those Bodies move and act according to their essential properties and qualities without any
consciousness or intention of so doing. So that in this genuine acceptation. of
Chance, here is nothing supposed, that can supersede the known Laws of Natural Motion:
and thus to attribute the Formation of Mankind to Chance, is all one with the former
Atheistical Assertion that ascribes it to Nature or Mechanism: and consequently
it hath received a prolix and sufficient Refutation in my preceding Discourse.
(3) But thirdly, ’tis likely that our Atheist may
willingly renounce the Doctrine of Chance as a thing differing
from Nature, and may ailow it to be
the same thing, and that too no real and substantial Agent, but only an absract
intellectual Notion: but still he hath
another Expedient in reserve, which is
and safe way between the former rigorous Mechanism and the extravagancies of Fortuitous Motion:
viz. That at the Beginning all things (’tis true). proceded
necessarily and fatally according to the Mechanical powers and affections of Matter: but
nevertheless the several Kinds of Animals were not formed at the first trial and
effort without one error or miscarriage; (as strict Mechanism would suppose;)
but there was an immense Variety of Ferments and Tumors and Excrescences of the
Soil, pregnant and big with Βουγενῆ ἀνδρόπρωρα Emped.
Fœtus’s of all imaginable
shapes and structures
of Body: Millions of which were utterly uncapable of Life and Motion, being the
Molæ, as it were, and the Abortions of Mother Earth: and many of those that
had Life and Powers to preserve their own Individuals, yet wanted the due
means of Propagation, and therefore could not transmit their Species to the following
Ages: and that those few only, that we now find in Being, did happen (for he cannot
express it but by the Characters of a Chance) to have all the parts necessary not
only for their own Lives,
but for the Continuation of their Kinds.
This is the favourite Opinion, among
the Atheists, and the most plausible of
all; by which they think they may
elude that most formidable Argument for
the Being of God, from the admirable
contrivance of Organical Bodies and the
exquisite fitness of their several Parts for
those Ends and Uses they are put to,
and seem to have been designed for. For, say they, since those innumerable Instances of Blunder and Deformity were
quickly removed out of Knowledge and
Being; it is plain that no Animals ought
now to be found, but such as have due Organs necessary for their own nourishment and increase of their Kinds: so that
this Boasted Usefulness of Parts, which
makes Men attribute their Origination to
an intelligent and wise Agent, is really
no argument at all: because it follows
also from the Atheists Assertion. For since some Animals are actually preserved in Being till now, they must needs
all of them have those parts that are of Use and Necessity: but That at first was
only a Lucky Hit without Skill or Design, and ever since is a necessary condition of their Continuation. And so for instance when they are urged with the admirable Frame and
Structure of the Eye; which consists of so great a Variety of Parts, all excellently
adapted to the Uses of Vision; that (to omit Mathematical Considerations with relation
to Optics) hath its many Coats and Humours transparent and colourless, lest it
should
tinge and sophisticate the Light that it lets in, by a natural Jaundice; that
hath its Pupil so constituted, as to admit of Contraction and Dilatation according
to the differing degrees of Light, and the Exigencies of seeing; that hath Eye-lids
so commodiously placed, to cleanse the Ball from Dust, to shed necessary moisture
upon it through numerous Glandules, and to be drawn over it like a Curtain for the
convenience of sleep; that hath a thousand more Beauties in its figure and texture
never studied nor admired enough: they will briskly reply, that they willingly
concede all that can be laid in the commendation of so noble a member; yet notwithstanding
they cannot admit for good reasoning, Psal. 94. 9.
He that formed the Eye, shall not he
see? For it was blind Nature alone or Matter mechanically moved without consciousness
or direction, that made this curious Organ of Vision. For the short of the matter
is this: This elegant structure of the Eye is no more than is necessary to
Seeing; and this noble faculty of Seeing is no more than is necessary to Life;
and consequently is included in the very suppositions of any Animals living and
continuing till now; though those be but the very few that at the beginning had
the good fortune to have Eyes, among many Millions of Monsters that were
destitute of them, Lucret. Lib. 5.
sine vultu cæca reperta,
and therefore did fatally perish soon after their Birth. And thus when
we insist on other like arguments of Divine Wisdom in the frame of Animate
Bodies; as the artificial Volition of many Myriads of Valves, all so situate as
to give a free passage to the Blood and other Humors in their due Chanels and
Courses, but not permit them to regurgitate and disturb the great Circulation
and Oeconomy of Life; as the Spiral, and nor Annulary, Fibres of the
Intestines for the better Exercise of their Functions; as the provident furnishing of Temporary parts for the
Fœtus during the time of gestation, which are afterwards laid
aside; as the strange sagacity of little Insects in choosing fit Places for the Exclusion of their Eggs,
and for the provision of proper food, when the young ones are hatcht and need it; as the ardent στοργὴ or natural Affection in those Animals, whose off-spring
cannot at first procure their own sustenance, but must infallibly perish, if not
fed by the Parents; as the untaught instincts and Impress upon every species, directing
them without imitation or deliberation to the ready knowledge of proper food, to
one and the best way of their preservation and defence, and to the never-failing
propagation of their own kind: what-ever Considerations of this nature you
propose
to this Atheist, as indeed such Instances are innumerable, all evidently setting
forth the Almighty’s Wisdom and Goodness to such as are able to judge, and will
judge impartially; he hath this one subterfuge from them all, That those things
are mistaken for tokens of Skill and Contrivance, though they be but necessary Consequences
of the present Existence of those Creatures. For he that supposeth any
Animals to subsist, doth by that very supposition allow them every Member and
Faculty that are necessary to subsistence; such as are those we have just now enumerated.
And therefore, unless we can prove a priori and independent of this Usefulness,
now that Things are once supposed to have existed and propagated; That among
almost
infinite Trials and Essays at the beginning of things, among Millions of monstrous
Shapes and imperfect Formations, a few such Animals, as now exist, could not
possibly be produced; those After-Considerations are of very little moment:
because
if such Animals could in that way possibly be formed, as might live and move
and propagate their Beings; all this admired and applauded Usefulness of their
several
Fabrics is but a necessary condition and consequence of their Existence and Propagation.
This is the last pretense and sophistry
of the Atheists against the Proposition
in my Text, That we received our Life
and Being from a Divine Wisdom and
Power. And as they cannot justly accuse me of any ways concealing or balking their grand Objection:
so I believe
these following Considerations will give them no reason to boast,
That it cannot receive a just and satisfactory Answer.
(1) First therefore, we affirm that we can prove and have done
it already by arguments à priori (which is the challenge of the Atheists)
that these Animals, that now exist, could not possibly have been formed at
first by millions of Trials. For since they allow by their very Hypothesis (and without standing to that Courtesy we have proved it before) that there
can be no casual or spontaneous Motion of the Particles of Matter: it will follow
that every single Monster among so many supposed Multaque tum tellus etiam Portenta creare, &c. Lucret. 5.
Myriads must have been mechanically
and necessarily formed according to the known Laws of Motion, and the temperament
and quality of the Matter that it was made of. Which is sufficient to evince,
that no such Monsters were or could have been formed. For to denominate them even
Monsters; they must have had some rude kind of Organical Bodies; some
Stamina of Life,
though never so clumsy; some System of Parts compounded of Solids and Liquids,
that executed, though but bunglingly, their peculiar Motions and Functions. But
we have lately shewn it impossible for Nature unassisted to constitute such Bodies, whose
stricture is against
the Law of Specific Gravity. So that she could not make the least endeavour
towards the producing of a Monster; or of any thing that hath more Vital and Organical
Parts, than we find in a Rock of Marble or a Fountain of Water. And again, though
we should not contend with them about their Monsters and Abortions; yet since they
suppose even the perfect Animals, that are still in being, to have been formed mechanically among the
rest; and only add some millions of Monsters to the reckoning; they
are liable to all the Difficulties in the former Explication, and are expresly
refuted through the whole preceding Sermon where it is abundantly shown, that a
Spontaneous Production is against the Catholic Laws of Motion, and against Matter
of Fact; a thing without Example, not only in Man and the nobler Animals, but in the Smallest of Insects and
the Vilest of Weeds: though the Fertility of the Earth cannot be said to have been
impaired since the beginning of the World.
(2) Secondly, we may observe that this Evasion of the Atheist
is fitted only to elude such Arguments of Divine Wisdom, as are taken from things
Necessary to the conservation of the Animal, as the Faculties of Sight and Motion
and Nutrition, and the like; because such Usefulness is indeed included in a general
Supposition of the Existence of that Animal: but it miserably fails him against
other Reasons from such Members and Powers of the Body, as are not necessary absolutely
to Living and Propagating, but only much conduce to our better Subsistence and happier
Condition. So the most obvious Contemplation of the frame of our Bodies; as that
we all have double Sensories, two Eyes, two Ears, two Nostrils, is an effectual Confutation
of this Atheistical Sophism. For a double Organ of these Senses is not at all comprehended
in the Notion of bare Existence: one of them being sufficient to have preserved Life, and kept up the Species; as common
Experience is a witness. Nay even the very Nails of our Fingers are an infallible
Token of Design and Contrivance: for they are useful and convenient to give strength
and firmness to those Parts in the various Functions they are put to; and to defend
the numerous Nerves and Tendons that are under them, which have a most exquisite
sense of Pain, and without that native Armour would continually be exposed to
it: and yet who will say, that Nails are absolutely necessary to Human Life, and are
concluded in the Supposition of Simple Existence? It is manifest therefore, that
there was a Contrivance and Foresight of the Usefulness of Nails antecedent to their
Formation. For the old stale pretense of the Atheists,
Lucret. lib. 4. Nil ideo quoniam natum est in corpore, ut uti Possemus: sed quod natum est, id procreat usum.
That things were first
made fortuitously, and afterwards their Usefulness was observ'd or discover’d, can
have no place here; unless Nails were either absolutely requisite to the Existence
of Mankind, or were found only in some Individuals or some Nations of men, and so might be ascribed to necessity upon one account, or to Fortune
upon the other. But from the Atheists supposition, That among the infinite Diversity
of the first terrestrial Productions, there were Animals of all imaginable shapes
and Structures of Body, all of which survived and multiplied, that by reason of
their Make and Fabric could possibly do so; it necessarily follows, that we should
now have some Nations without Nails upon their Fingers; others with one Eye only
as the Poets describe the Cyclopes in Sicily, and the Arimaspi in
Scythia; others with one Ear, or one Nostril, or indeed without any Organ
of Smelling, because that Sense is not necessary to Man’s subsistence; others destitute
of the use of Language, since Mutes also may live: one People would have the Feet
of Goats, as the feigned Satyrs and Panisci; another would
resemble the
Head of Juppiter Ammon, or the horned Statues of Bacchus; the
Plinius & Strabo. Sciapodes, and
Enotocætæ; and other monstrous Nations would no
longer be Fables, but real instances in Nature: and, in a word, all the ridiculous
and extravagant shapes that can be imagin’d, all the fancies and whimsies
of Poets and Painters and Ægyptian Idolaters, if so be they are
consistent
with Life and Propagation, would be now actually in Being, if our Atheist’s Notion
were true: which therefore may deservedly pass for a mere Dream and an Error: till
they please to make new Discoveries in Terra Incognita, and bring along with
them some Savages of all these fabulous and monstrous Configurations.
(3) But thirdly, that we may procede yet further with the
Atheist,
and convince him, that not only his Principle is absurd, but his Consequences
also
as absurdly deduced from it: we will allow him an uncertain extravagant Chance
against the natural Laws of Motion: though not forgetting that that notion hath been refuted before,
and therefore this Concession is wholly ex abundanti. I
say then, that though
there were really such a thing as this Chance or Fortune; yet nevertheless it would
be extremely absurd to ascribe the Formation of Humane Bodies to a Cast of this
Chance. For let us consider the very Bodies themselves. Here are confessedly all the marks and characters
of Design in their structure, that can be required, though one suppose a Divine
Author had made them; here is nothing in the Work it self, unworthy of so great
a Master: here are no internal arguments from the Subject against the truth of
that Supposition. Have we then any capacity to judge and distinguish, what is
the Effect of Chance, and what is made by Art and Wisdom? When a Medal is dug
out of the ground, with some Roman Emperor’s Image upon it, and an Inscription
that agrees to his Titles and History, and an Impress upon the Reverie relating
to some memorable occurrence in his Life; can we be sure, that this Medal was really
coined by an Artificer, or is but a Product of the Soil from whence it was taken, that might casually or naturally receive that texture and figure: as many kinds of Fossils are very odly and elegantly shaped according to the modification of their constituent Salts, or the cavities they were formed in? Is it a matter of doubt and controversie,
whether the Pillar of Trajan or Antoninus, the Ruins of
Persepolis, or the late Temple
of Minerva were the Designs and Works of Architecture; or perhaps might originally
exist so, or be raised up in an Earthquake by subterraneous Vapour? Do not we all
think our Caves infallibly certain, that this or that very commodious House must
needs have been built by Humane Art; though perhaps a natural Cave in a Rock may
have something not much unlike to Parlors or Chambers? And yet he must be a mere
Idiot, that cannot discern more Strokes and Characters of Workmanship in the Structure
of an Animal (in an Humane Body especially) than in the most elegant Medal or
Edifice in the World. They will believe the first Parents of Mankind to have been
fortuitously formed without Wisdom or Art: and that for this lorry reason, Because
it is not simply impossible, but that they may have been formed so. And who
can demonstrate (if Chance be once admitted of) but that possibly all the
Inscriptions and other remains of Antiquity may be mere Lusus Naturæ, and
not Works of Human Artifice? If this be good reasoning, let us no longer make pretences to Judgment or a faculty of discerning between things
Probable and Improbable: for, except flat contradictions, we may upon equal
reasons
believe all things or nothing at all. And do the Atheists thus argue in common matters
of Life? Would they have Mankind lie idle, and lay aside all care of Provisions
by Agriculture or commerce; because possibly the Dissolution of the World may happen
the next moment? Lucret. 5. Dictis dabit ipsa fidem res Forsitan, et graviter terrarum motibus orbis Omnia conquassari in parvo tempore cernes.
Had
Dinocrates really carved Mount Athos, into a Statue
of Alexander the Great, and had the memory of the fact been obliterated by
some accident; who could afterwards have proved it impossible, but that it might casuaally have been formed so? For every Mountain must have some determinate
figure, and why then not a Humane one, as possibly as another? And yet I suppose
none could have seriously believ’d so, upon this bare account of Possibility. ’Tis
an opinion, that generally obtains among Philosophers, That there is but one Common
Matter, which is diversified by Accidents, and the same numerical quantity of it by variation
of Texture may constitute successively all kinds of Bodies in the World. So that
’tis not absolutely impossible; but that, if you take any other Matter of equal
weight and substance with the Body of a Man, you may blend it so long, till it
be shuffled into humane shape and an Organical structure. But who is he so abandon’d to
sottilh credulity, as
to think, upon that Principle, That a clod of Earth in a Sack may ever by eternal
shaking receive the Fabric of Man’s Body? And yet this is very near a-kin, nay
it is exactly parallel to the reasoning of Atheists about fortuitous Production.
If mere Possibility be a good foundation for Belief; even Lucian’s True
History may be true upon that account, and
Palæph. Περὶ Απίστων De Incredibilibus.
Palæphatus’s Tales
may be credible in spite of the Title.
It hath been excellently well urged in this case both by Ancients
and Moderns, that to attribute such admirable Structures to blind Fortune or Chance, is no less
absurd than to
suppose, That if innumerable figures of the XXIV Letters be cast abroad at random, they might
constitute in due order
the whole Cicero de Natura Deorum, 21. 37.
Æneis of Virgil or the Annales of Ennius. Now
the Atheists may pretend to elude this Comparison; as if the Case was not fairly
stated. For herein we first make an Idea of a particular Poem; and then demand, if
Chance can possibly describe That: and so we conceive Man’s Body thus actually
formed, and then affirm that it excedes the power of Chance to constitute a Being
like That: which, they may say, is to expect Imitation from Chance, and not simple Production. But at the fiat Beginning of things there was no Copy to be followed, nor any præ-existent Form of Humane Bodies to be imitated. So that to put
the case fairly, we should strip our minds and fancies from any particular Notion
and Idea of a Living Body or a Poem: and then we than understand, that what Shape
and Structure soever should be at first casually formed, so that it could live and
propagate, might be Man: and whatsoever should result from the strowing of
those
loose Letters, that made any Sense and Measures, might be the Poem we seek for.
To which we reply, That if we should allow them, that there was
no præ-existent Idea of Humane Nature, till it was actually formed, (for the
Idea of Man in the Divine Intellect must not now be consider’d) yet because they
declare, that great Multitudes of each Species of Animals did fortuitously emerge
out of the Lucret. 5. Hinc ubi quæque loci regio opportuna dabatur Crescebant uteri, &c. & ibidem.
Inde
loci mortalia sæcla creavit, Multa modis multis varia ratione coorta.
Soil in distant Countries and Climates; what could that be less than
Imitation in blind Chance, to make many Individuals of one Species so exactly alike? Nay though they
should now, to cross us and evade the
force of the Argument, desert
their ancient Doctrine, and derive all sorts of Animals from single Originals of
Each kind, which should be the common Parents of all the Race: yet surely even in
this account they must necessarily allow Two at least Male and Female, in every
Species: which Chance could neither make so very nearly alike, without Copying
and Imitation: nor so usefully differing, without Contrivance and Wisdom. So that let them
take whether they will: If they deduce all Animals from single pairs of a sort;
even to make the Second of a Pair, is to write after a Copy; it is, in the former
comparison, by the casting of loose Letters to compose the præ-existent particular
Poem of Ennius: But if they make numerous Sons and Daughters a Earth among every
Species Of Creatures, as all their Authors have supposed; this is not only, as was
said before, to believe a Monky may once scribble the Leviathan of Hobbes, but may do the
same frequently by an Habitual kind of Chance.
Let us consider, how next to impossible it is that Chance (if
there were such a thing) should in such an immense Variety of Parts in an Animal
twice hit upon the same Structure, so as to make a Male and Female. Let us resume
the former instance of the XXIV Letters thrown at random upon the ground. ’Tis a
Mathematical Demonstration, That these XXIV do admit of so many Changes in their
order, Tacquetti Arithmes. cap. de Progressione.
may make such a long roll of differently ranged Alphabets, not two of which are
alike; that they could not all be exhausted, though a Million millions of writers
should each write above a thousand Alphabets a-day for the space of a Million millions
of years. What strength of Imagination can extend it self to embrace and comprehend
such a prodigious Diversity? And it is as infallibly certain, that suppose any
particular order of the Alphabet be assigned, and the XXIV Letters be cast at a
venture, so as to fall in a Line; it is so many Million of millions odds to one
against any single throw, that the assigned Order will not be cast. Let us now
suppose,
there be only a thousand constituent Members in the Body of a Man, (that we may
take few enough) it is plain that the different Position and Situation of these
thousand Parts, would make so many differing Compounds and distinct Species of Animals.
And if only XXIV parts, as before, may be so multifariously placed and ordered,
as to make many Millions of Millions of differing Rows: in the Supposition of a
thousand parts, how immense must that capacity of variation be? even beyond all thought and denomination, to be expressed
only in mute figures, whose multiplied Powers are beyond the narrowness of Language,
and drown the Imagination in astonishment and confusion. Especially if we
observe,
that the Variety of the Alphabet consider’d above, was in mere Longitude only:
but the Thousand parts of our Bodies may be Diversified by Situation in all the
Dimensions of Solid Bodies: which multiplies all over and over again, and overwhelms
the fancy in a new Abyss of unfathomable Number. Now it is demonstratively certain,
that it is all this odds to one, against any particular trial, That no one man could
by casual production be framed like another; (as the Atheists suppose thousands
to be in several regions of the Earth;) and I think ’tis rather more odds than
less, that no one Female could be added to a Male; in as much as that most
necessary
Difference of Sex is a higher token of Divine Wisdom and Skill, above all the power
of Fortuitous Hits, than the very Similitude of both Sexes in the other parts of
the Body. And again we must consider, that the vast imparity of this Odds against the accidental likeness of
two Casual Formations is never lessen’d and diminish'd by Trying and Casting. ’Tis
above a Hundred to one against any particular throw, That you do not cast any given
Set of Faces with four Cubical Dice: because there are so many several Combinations
of the six Faces of four Dice. Now after you have cast all the Hundred trials but
one: ’tis still as much odds at the last remaining time, as it was at the
first.
For blind insensible Chance cannot grow cunning by many experiments; neither have
the preceding Casts any influence upon those that come after. So that if this Chance
of the Atheists should have essayed in vain to make a Species for a Million millions
of Ages, ’tis as many Millions odds against that Formation, as it was at the first moment in the beginning of Things.
How incredible is it therefore; that it should hit upon two Productions alike,
Lucret. 5. Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatm Summa, reensque Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia cepit.
within so
short duration of the world, according to the Doctrine of our Atheists? how much more, that it should do so within the compass of a hundred years, and of a
small tract of Ground;
so that this Male and Female might come together? If any Atheist can be induced
to stake his Soul for a wager, against such an inexhaustible disproportion; let
him never hereafter accuse others of Easiness and Credulity.
(4) But fourthly, we will still make more ample Concessions,
and suppose with the Atheist, that his Chance has actually formed all Animals in
their terrestrial Wombs. Let us see now, how he will preserve them to Maturity
of Birth. What Climate will he cherish them in, that they be not inevitably destroyed
by Moisture or Cold? Where is that æquability of Nine Months warmth to be found?
that uniform warmth, which is so necessary even in the incubation of Birds, much
more in the time of gestation of Viviparous Animals. I know, his Party have placed this great Scene in
Cesalpin. Berigard.
Ægypt, or
some where between the two Tropics. Now not to mention the Cool of the Nights,
which alone would destroy the Conceptions; ’tis known that all those Countries have either incessant Rains every year for whole months together,
or are quite laid under water by Floods from the higher Grounds; which would certainly
corrupt and putrefy all the teeming Wombs of the Earth, and extinguish the whole
brood of Embryons by untimely Abortions.
(5) But fifthly, we will still be more
obliging to this Atheist, and grant him
his petition, That Nature may bring
forth the young Infants vitally into the
World. Let us see now what Sustenance, what Nurses he hath provided
for them. If we consider the present
Constitution of Nature; we must affirm,
that most Species must have been lost
for want of fostering and feeding. ’Tis
a great mistake, that Man only comes
weak and helpless into the world:
whereas ’tis apparent, that excepting
Fish and Insects (and not all of them
neither) there are very few or no Creatures, that can provide for themselves at
.first without the assistance of Parents.
So that unless they suppose Mother Earth
to be a great Animal, and to have nurtured up her young Off-spring with a
conscious Tenderness and providential Care; there is no possible help for it, but they must have been
doubly starved both with hunger and cold.
(6) But sixthly, we will be yet more civil to this Atheist, and
forgive him this Difficulty also. Let us suppose the first Animals maintain’d
themselves
with food, though we cannot tell how. But then what security hath he made for the
Preservation of Human Race from the Jaws of ravenous Beasts; The Divine Writers
have acquainted us, that God at the beginning gave Mankind Dominion (an
impressed awe and authority) Gen. 1. 28.
over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth.
But in the Atheists Hypothesis there are no imaginable means of Defence.
For ’tis manifest, that so many Beasts of Prey, Lions, Tigres, Wolves, and the like,
being of the same age with Man, and arriving at the top of their strength in one
year or two, must needs have worried and devoured those forlorn Brats of our
Atheists
even before they were wean’d from the Lucret. 5.
Foramina Terræ, or at least in a
short time after: since all the Carnivorous Animals would have multiplied exceedingly by several Generations, before those Children that escaped at
first, could come to the Age of Puberty. So that Men would always lessen, and their
Enemies always encrease.
But some of them will here pretend, that Epicurus was out
in this matter; and that they were not born mere Infants out of those Wombs of
the Earth; but Men at their full growth, and in the prime of their strength. But
I pray what should hinder those grown lusty Infants, from breaking sooner those Membranes
that involved them; as the Shell of the Egg is broken by the Bird, and the Amnion
by the Fœtus? Were the Membranes so thick and tough, that the
Fœtus must stay there, till he had Teeth to eat through them, as young Maggots do
through a Gall? But let us answer these Fools according to their Folly. Let us grant, that they were born with Beards, and in the full
time of Manhood. They are not yet in a better condition: here are still many Enemies
against few, many Species against One; and those Enemies speedily
multiplying in the second and third and much lower Generations; whereas the Sons
of the First Men must have a tedious time of Childhood and Adolescence, before
they can either themselves assist their Parents, or encourage them with new hopes
of Posterity. And we must consider withal, that (in the potion of Atheism) those
Savages were not then, what civilized Mankind is now; but
Mutum & turpe pecus, without Language, without mutual Society, without Arms of Offence, without
Houses
or Fortifications; an obvious and exposed Prey to the ravage of devouring Beasts;
a most sorry and miserable Plantation towards the Peopling of a World.
And now that I have followed the Atheists through so many dark
mazes of Error and Extravagance: having to my knowledge omitted nothing on their
side, that looks like a Difficulty; nor proposed any thing in Reply, but what I
my self really believe to be a just and solid Answer: I shall here close up the
Apostle’s Argument of the Existence of God from the consideration of Human Nature.
And I appeal to all sober and impartial Judges of what hath been deliver’d; Whether
those Noble Faculties of our Souls may be only a mere Sound and Echo from the clashing
of senseless Atoms, or rather indubitably must procede from a Spiritual Substance
of a Heavenly and Divine Extraction: whether these admirable Fabrics of our Bodies
shall! be ascribed to the fatal Motions or fortuitous Shufflings of blind Matter,
or rather beyond controversy to the Wisdom and Contrivance of the Almighty Author
of all things, Isai. 28. 29.
Who is wonderful its Counsel, and Excellent in Working. To whom,
&c.
A
CONFUTATION
OF
ATHEISM
FROM THE
Origin and Frame of the World..
PART I.
The Sixth SERMON Preached
October 3. 1692.
Acts XIV. 15, &c.
That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea, and
all things that are therein: Who in times past suffer’d all Nations to walk in
their Own ways. Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did
good, and gave us Rain from Heaven, and fruitful Seasons, filling our hearts with Food
and Gladness.
ALL the Arguments, that can be
brought, or can be demanded, for the Existence of God, may, perhaps not absurdly, be reduced to three General Heads: The First of which
will include all the Proofs from the Vital and Intelligent portions of the Universe,
the Organical Bodies of the various Animals, and the Immaterial Souls of Men. Which
Living and Understanding Substances, as they make incomparably the most considerable
and noble Part of the naturally known and visible Creation; so they do the most
clearly and cogently demonstrate to Philosophical Enquirers the necessary Self-existence,
and omnipotent Power, and unsearchable Wisdom, and boundless Beneficence of their
Maker. This first Topic therefore was very fitly and divinely made laic of by our
Apostle in his Conference with Philosophers and that inquisitive People of
Athens; the latter Chap. 17. v. 2.
spending their time in nothing else, but either to
tell or hear some New thing; and the other, in nothing, but to call in
question the aloft evident Truths, that were deliver’d
and receiv’d of Old. And these Arguments we have hitherto pursued in their utmost latitude and extent. So that now we shall procede to the Second Head, or the Proofs of a Deity from the Inanimate part of the World; since even Natural
Reason, as well as Holy Scripture, assures us, Psal. 19. 1.
That the Heavens declare the Glory of God, and the Firmament
sheweth his Handy-work; Jer. 51. 15.
That
he made the Earth by his power, He hath established
the World by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the Heaven by his understanding;
Psal. 148. 5.
That He commanded and they were created; He hath also established them
for ever and ever; Ps. 147. 8.
He covereth the Heavens with Clouds, He prepareth Rain for
the Earth, Ps. 65. 2
He crowneth the
Year with his Goodness .
These Reasons for God’s Existence from the Frame and
System of
the World, as they are equally true with the Former, so they have always been more
popular and plausible to the illiterate part of Mankind; insomuch as the
Lucret. 5. Præterea cœli rationes ordine certo, Et varia annorum cernebant
tempora verti: & lib. 6. Nam bene qui didicere Deos securum
agere ævum, Si tamen interea mirantur &c. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. 2.
Quis hunc hominem dixeris, qus cum tam certos cœli motus, tam ratos astrorum ordines,
&c. Plutarch. de plac. phil 1. 6.
Θεοῦ γὰρ ἔννοιαν ἔχον ἀπὸ τῶν φαινομένων
ἀστέρων, ὁξῶντες τούτους
μεγάλης συμφωνίας ὄντας αἰτίους, καὶ τετοιγμένας ἡμέραντε καὶ
νύκτα, χειμᾶνά τε καὶ θεξος, ἀνατολάς τ9ε καὶ δισμάς.
Epicureans,
and some others, have observed, that mens contemplating the most ample Arch of the Firmament, the innumerable
multitude of the Stars, the regular Rising and Setting of the Sun, the periodical
and constant Vicissitudes of Day and Night and Seasons of the Year, and the other
Affections of Meteors and Heavenly Bodies, was the principal and almost only ground
and occasion, that the Notion of a God came first into the World: making no mention
of the former Proof from the Frame of Human Nature, That in God we Live and Move
and have our Being. Which Argument being so natural and internal to Mankind,
doth nevertheless (I know not how) seem more remote and obscure to the Generality
of Men; who are readier to fetch a Reason from the immense distance of the starry
Heavens and the outmost Walls of the World, than seek one at home, within
themselves,
in their own Faculties and Constitutions. So that hence we may perceive, how prudently
that was waved, and the Second here insisted on by St. Paul to the rude
and simple Semi-barbarians of Lycaonia: He lest not himself without witness,
in that he did good, and gave us Rain from Heaven, and fruitful Seasons, filling
our Hearts with Food and Gladness. Which words we shall now interpret in a large and free Acceptation;
so that
this Second Theme may comprehend all the Brute Inanimate Matter of the Universe, as the Former comprized all visible Creatures in the World, that have Understanding
or Sense or Vegetable Life. These two Arguments are the Voices of Nature, the unanimous
Suffrages of all real Beings and Substances created, that are naturally knowable
without Revelation. And if, Lastly, in the Third place, we can evince the
Divine Existence from the Adjuncts and Circumstances of Human Life: if we find
in all Ages, in all civiliz’d Nations, an Universal Belief and Worship of a Divinity; if we find many unquestionable Records of Super-natural and Miraculous
Effects.; if we find many faithful Relations of Prophecies punctually accomplished; of Prophecies
so well attested, above the suspicion of Falshood; remote and particular and unlikely to
come to pass, beyond the possibility of good Guessing or the mere Foresight of Human
Wisdom; if we find a most warrantable tradition, that at sundry times and
in divers manners God spake unto Mankind by his Prophets and by his Son and his
Apostles„ who have deliver’d to us in Sacred Writings a clearer Revelation of his Divine Nature and Will: I say, this Third Topic from Human
Testimony be found agreeable to the standing Vote and Attestation of Nature, What
further proofs can be demanded or desired? what fuller evidence can our Adversaries
require, since all the Classes of known Beings are summoned to appear? Would they
have us bring more Witnesses, than the All of the World? and will they not stand
to the grand Verdict and Determination of the Universe? They are incurable Infidels,
that persist to deny a Deity; when all Creatures in the World, as well spiritual
as corporeal, all from Human Race to the lowest of Insects, from the Cedar of
Libanus to the Moss upon the Wall, from the vast Globes of the Sun and
Planets, to the smallest Particles of Dust, do declare their absolute dependance
upon the first Author and Fountain of all Being and Motion and Life, the only Eternal
and Self-existent God; with whom inhabit all Majesty and Wisdom and Goodness for
ever and ever.
But before I enter upon this Argument from the Origin and Frame
of the World; it will not be amiss to premise some Particulars that may serve for
an illustration of the Text, and be a proper Introduction to the following
Discourses.
As the Apostles, Barnabas and Paul, were preaching the
Gospel at Ver. 8.
Lystra a City of Lycaonia in Asia the Less, among the rest of their Auditors there was a lame Cripple from his Birth, whom Paul commanded
with a loud voice, To stand upright on his feet; and immediately by a miraculous Energy he leaped and walked. Let us compare the present Circumstances with those of my former Text, and
observe the remarkable difference in the Apostle’s procedings. No question but there
were several Cripples at Athens, so very large and populous a City; and if that could be dubious, I might add,
that the very Climate disposed the Inhabitants to impotency in the Feet. Lucret. Lib. 6.
Atthide
tentantur gressus, oculique in Achæis Finibus—are the words of Lucretius; which ’tis probable he transcribed from Epicurus a Gargettian
and Native of Athens, and therefore an unquestionable Evidence in a matter
of this nature. Neither is it likely, that all the Athenian Cripples
should escape the sight of St Paul; Ver. 17.
since
he disputed there in the Market
daily with them that met him. How comes it to pass then, that we do not hear
of a like Miracle in that City; which one would think might have greatly conduced
to the Apostle’s design, and have converted or at least confuted and put to
silence,
the Epicureans and Stoics? But it is not difficult to give an account
of this seeming Disparity; if we attend to the Qualifications of the Lame person
at Lystra; whom Paul stedfastly beholding, and Ver. 9.
perceiving that
he had FAITH to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy
Feet.. This is the necessary Condition, that was always required by our Saviour and his Apostles.
Luke 18. 42.
And Jesus said unto the blind man, Receive
thy sight, thy FAITH hath saved thee; and to the Woman that had the Issue of Blood,
8. 48.
Daughter be of good comfort, thy FAITH hath made thee
whole, go in peace. ’Twas want of FAITH in our Saviour’s Countrymen, which
hinder’d him from shedding among them the salutary Emanations of his Divine Vertue:
Matt. 13. 58.
And he did not many mighty works there, because
of their Unbelief. There were many diseased persons in his own Country,
but very few that were rightly disposed for a supernatural Cure. St. Mark
hath a very observable Expression upon the same occasion: Mark 6. 5.
And he COULD do no mighty works there, save that he laid his
hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. Καὶ οὐκ ΗΔΥΝΑΤΟ ἐκεῖ
οὐδεμίαν δίναμιν ποῖησαι. We read in St.
Luke 5. 17. And the POWER (δύναμις) of the Lord was present to heal them.
And, chap. 6. v. 19. And the whole multitude
sought to touch him: for there went Virtue (δύναμις)
out of him, and healed them all. Now since δύναμις and
ἡδύνατο are words of the
same Root and Signification; shall
we to interpret the Evangelist, as if our Saviour had not Power
to work Miracles among his unbelieving Countrymen? This is the passage, which that
impious and and impure Atheist Vanini Dial. p. 439.
Lucilio Vanino
singled out for his Text,
in his pretended and mock Apology for the Christian Religion; wickedly insinuating,
as if the Prodigies of Christ were mere Impostures and acted by Confederacy: and
therefore where the Spectators were incredulous, and consequently watchful and
suspicious,
and not easily imposed on, he COULD do no mighty Work there; there his Arm was
shortned, and his Power and Virtue too feeble for such supernatural Effects. But
the gross Absurdity of this suggestion is no less conspicuous, than the villainous
Blasphemy of it. For can it be credible to any rational person, that St. Mark
could have that meaning? that he should tax his Lord and Saviour, whom he knew
to be God Almighty, with Deficiency of power? He could do no
mighty Works; that is, he would do none, because of their Unbelief. There’s
a frequent change of those words in all Languages of the World. And we may appeal
with Chrys. ad locum Τοῦτο δὲ καὶ ἐν
κοινῇ σ9υ9νηθεία φυλαττόμεον ἰδοι τις ἄν. So δύναμαι is volo,
Acts 4. 20. John 7. 7. and θέλω
is possum. Vid. Budæi Comm. L. Gr.
St. Chrysostom to the common
custom of Speech, whatever Country we
live in. This therefore is the genuine Sense of that expression; Christ would
not heal their infirmities, because of the hardness and slowness of their Hearts,
in that they believed him not. And I think there is not one instance in all the
History of the New Testament of a Miracle done for any ones sake, that did not believe
Jesus to be a good person, and sent from God; and had not a disposition of Heart
fit to receive his Doctrine. See John ch. 9. and Matt. 16. 14.
For to believe he was the Messias and Son of God,
was not then absolutely necessary, nor rigidly exacted; the most Signal of the Prophecies
being not yet fulfilled by him, till his Passion and Resurrection. But, as I said,
to obtain a Miracle from him, it was necessary to believe him a good person and sent from God.
Luk. 23. 8.
Herod therefore hoped in vain to have seen
some Miracle done by him; Mark 8. 12.
And when the
Pharisees sought
of him a sign from Heaven, tempting him; they received this disappointing
Answer, Verily I say unto you, There shall no Sign be given to this generation. And we may observe in the
Gospels, That where the Persons
themselves
were incapable of actual Faith; Matt. 17. 15. 15. 22. Luke 8. 4.
yet the Friends and Relations of those Dead that
were raised again to life, of those Lunatics and Demoniacs that were restored to
their right minds, were such as sought after him and believed on him. Luke 22. 52.
And as to the healing of Malchus’s Ear, it was a peculiar and
extraordinary Case: For though the person was wholly unworthy of so gracious a Cure; yet in the account of the meek Lamb of God it was a kind of Injury done to him
by the fervidness of St. Peter, who knew not yet what Spirit he was of, and
that his Matter’s Kingdom was not of this World. But besides this obvious meaning of the Words of the Evangelist there may perhaps be a
sublimer Sense couched under the Expression. For in the Divine Nature Will
and Can are frequently the self-same thing; and Freedom and Necessity,
that are opposites here below, do in Heaven above most amicably agree and joyn hands
together. And this is not a Restraint, or Impotency; but the Royal Prerogative
of the most absolute King of Kings; that he wills to do nothing but what
he can; and that he can do nothing which is repugnant to his divine
Wisdom and essential Goodness. God cannot do what is unjust, nor say what
is untrue, nor promise with a mind to deceive. Our Saviour therefore could
do no mighty Work in a Country of Unbelievers; because it was not fit and
reasonable.
And so we may say of our Apostle, who was acted by the Spirit of God; that he
could do no Miracle at Athens, and that because of their Unbelief. There is a very
sad and melancholy Account of the success of his stay there. Τινὲς δὲ ἄνδρες
c. 17. v. 34.
Howbeit CERTAIN Men
clave unto him and believed; A more diminutive expression, than if they had been called
a few. And we do
not find, that he ever visited this City again, as he did several others, where
there were a competent number of Disciples. And indeed if we consider the Genius
and Condition of the Athenians at that time, How vitious and corrupt they
were; how conceited of their own Wit and Science and Politeness, as if they had
invented Corn and Oil and distributed them to the World; Cicero pro Flacco.
Adsunt Athenienses, unde humanitas,
doctrina. religio, fruges, jura, leges ortæ atque in omnes terras distributæ putantur.
Iscc. Paneg. Diod. Sic. 13.
and had first taught
Civility, and Learning, and Religion, and Laws to the rest of Mankind; how they
were puffed up with the fulsome Flatteries of their Philosophers and Sophists and
Poets of the Stage: we cannot much wonder, that they should so little regard an
unknown Stranger, that preached unto them an unknown God.
I am aware of an Objection, that for ought we can now affirm,
St. Paul might have done several Miracles at Athens, though they be
not related by St. Luke. I confess I am far from asserting, That all the
See John 21. 25. and 2. Cor. 12. 12.
Miracles of our Saviour are recorded in the Gospels, or of his
Apostles in the
Acts.
But nevertheless, in the patent Circumstances, I think we may conjecture, That if
any Prodigy and Wonder had been performed by our Apostle among those curious and
pragmatical Athenians; it would have had such a consequence, as might have
deserved some place in Sacred History, as well as this before us at Lystra:
Ver. 11.
where when the people saw what Paul had done, they lift
up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The Gods are come down to us
in the likeness of men; and the Priests came with Oxen and Garlands, and would
have sacrificed to them, as to Juppiter and Mercurius. That this
was a common Opinion among the Gentiles, that the Gods sometimes assumed
Humane shape, and converted upon Earth as Strangers and Travellers, must needs
be well known to any one, that ever looks into the ancient Poets. Even the Vagabond
Life of Apollonius Tyanensis shall be called by a bigotted Sophist,
Eunapius. cap. 2.
ἐπιδημία ἐς ἀνθρώπους Θεοῦ, a Peregrination of a God among Men. And
when the Lystrians say, ὁμοιωθέντες ἀνθρώποις,
Gods in the Shape of Men, they mean not, that the Gods had other Figure than Humane even in Heaven it self (for that was the receiv’d Doctrine of most of the
Vulgar Heathen, and of some Sects of Philosophers too,) but that They, who in their
own Nature were of a more august Stature and glorious Visage, had now contracted
and debased themselves into the narrower Dimensions and meaner Aspects of mortal
Men. Now when the Apostles heard of this intended Sacrifice, Ver. 14.
they rent their
cloaths and ran in among the people, crying out, &c. St. Chrysostom
upon this place hath a very odd Exposition. He enquires why Paul and Barnabas
do now at last reprove the People, when the Priest and Victims were even at the
Gates; and not presently, when they lift up their Voice, and called them Gods:
for which he assigns this reason, Ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἦν τοῦτο οὐδέπω δῆλον,
τῇ γαρ οἰκείᾳ φωνῇ ἐφθέγγοντο· διὰ τοῦτο οὐδὲν ἀυτοῖς ἔλ9εγον,
ἐπειδὴ δὲ εἶδον τὰ στέμματα, τότε ἐξελθόντες
διέῤῥόηξαν τὰ ἱμάτια ἀυτῶν. Chrys. ad loc.
That because they spoke Λυκαονιστὶ, in the Lycaonian
Tongue, the Apostles did not then understand them: but now they perceived
their meaning by the Oxen and the Garlands. Indeed it is very probable, that the
Lycaonian Language was very different from the Greek; as we may gather
from Ephorus apud Strab. lib. 14.
Ephorus and Strabo that cites him, who make almost all the
Inland Nations of Asia Minor to be Barbarians; and from
Steph. voce. Δὲρβη.
Stephanns Byzantius, who acquaints us, that ἄρκευθος, a Juniper-tree, was
called δέλβεια
in the Speech of the Lycaonians, εκ τῇ τῶν λυκαόνων φωνῇ. But
notwithstanding
we can by no means allow, that the great Apostle of the Gentiles should be
ignorant of that Language: He that so solemnly affirms of himself, 1 Cor. 14. 18.
I thank my God, 1 speak with Tongues more than
you all. And at the first Effusion of his heavenly Gift, Acts 2.
the dwellers in Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia (some of them near Neighbours to the
Lycaonians) heard the Apostles speak in their several Tongues
the wonderful Works of God. And how could these two Apostles have
preached the Gospel to the Ver. 7.
Lystrians, if they did not use the common Language
of the Country? And to what purpose did they Ver. 15.
cry out and
speak to
them, if the Hearers could not apprehend? or how could they by those Ver. 15.
Sayings restrain
the People from sacrificing; if what they said was not intelligible? But it
will be asked, why then were the Apostles so flow and backward in reclaiming them? and what can be
answer’d to the Query of St. Chrysostom? When I
consider
the circumstances and nature of this affair, I am persuaded they did not hear that
discourse of the people. For I can hardly conceive, that Men under such apprehensions as the Lystrians then were, in the dread Presence and under the very Nod
of the almighty Juppiter, not an Idol of Wood or Stone, but the real and very God
(as the Οὐ ξύλινον, οὐδὲ λίθινον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀληθινόν. Athenæus, 6. 15.
Athenians made their Complement to
Demetrius Poliorcetes)
should exclaim in his sight and hearing: this, I say, seems not probable nor
natural; nor is it affirm’d in the Text: ᾬδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν ἰδὼν ἐς πλησίον ἄλλον.
but they might buzz and whisper it one to another, and
silently withdrawing from the pretence
of the Apostles, they then lift up their voices and noised it about the
City. So that Paul and Barnabas were but just then inform’d of their
idolatrous design, when they rent their Cloaths, and ran in among them, and expostulated
with them; Ver. 15.
Sirs, why do ye these things? we also are men of like
passions with you; ὁμοιοπαθεῖς ὑμῖν,
Mortales sumus similes vobis homines. So Εἰτι πάθω,
If I die, a common Expression in Gr. Writers.
Mortal men like your selves, as it is judiciously render’d in the ancient Latin Version,
otherwise the Antithesis is not so plain: For the Heathen Theology made
even the Gods themselves subject to human Passions and Appetites, to Anger,
Sorrow, Lull, Hunger, Wounds, Lameness, &c. Αἴ γαρ ἐνὼν ὣς
Εἰτα ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήξαος
ἥματα πάντα. Hom.
and exempted them from nothing but
Death and Old Age: and we preach unto you, that ye should turn from these vanities (i. e. Idols) unto the Living God, which made Heaven and Earth and the Sea, and all
things that are therein: who in times past suffered all Nations to walk in their
own ways: Πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, not all Nations, but all the Heathen
(the word HEATHEN comes from ἔθνη)
Acts 4. 27. 14. 5. 26. 17. Fal. 2. 14.
all the Gentiles, distinguished
from the Jews, as the same words are translated Rom. 15. 11. and
2 Tim. 4. 17. and ought to have been so, Rom.
1. 5. and 16. 26. but much more in our Text, which according to the present
Version seems to carry a very obscure, if not erroneous meaning; but by a true
interpretation is very easy and intelligible; That hitherto God had suffer'd all
the Gentiles to walk in their own ways; and excepting the Jews only, whom he
chose for his own people, and prescribed them a Law, he permitted the rest of
Mankind to walk by the mere light of Nature without the assistance of
Revelation: but that now in the fulness of time, he had even to the Gentiles
also
sent salvation, and opened the door of faith, and granted
repentance unto life. So that these words of our Apostle are exactly co-incident with that remarkable
passage
in his discourse to the Athenians: Acts 17. 30.
And the (past) times of
this ignorance (of the Gentile World) God winked at (or ὑπεριδών.
overlook’d:) but
now commandeth all men every where to repent. And nevertheless, says
our Text, even in that gloomy state of Heathenism, he left not himself without
witness, in that he did good, ἀγαθοποιῶν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, always doing
good from Heaven,
(בד עבד הוא לחון טבתא
·מן שמיא ומחות מטרא
So that they read ἀγαθοποιῶν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ,
καὶ ὑετὸν δ. Horat.
Nec siquid miri faciat natura, Deos id Tristes ex also cœli demittere tecto.
which seems to be the genuine punctuation, and is authorized
by the Syriac Interpreters) and gave us Rain and fruitful Seasons, filling
our hearts with food and gladness. Even the very Gentiles might feel after him
and find him; since the admirable frame of Heaven and Earth and Sea, and
the munificent provision of food and sustenance for his Creatures, did competently
set forth his Eternal Power and Godhead; so that stupid Idolaters and prophane
Atheists were then and always without excuse.
Our Adversaries have used the same methods to elude the
present
Argument from the Frame of the World, as they have done to evade the former from
the Origin of Mankind. Some have maintain’d, That this World
hath thus existed from all Eternity in its present form and condition: but Others
say, That the Forms of particular Worlds are generable and corruptible; so
that our present System cannot have sustain’d an infinite Duration already gone
and expired: but however, say they, Body in general, the common Basis and
Matter of all Worlds and Beings, is self-existent and eternal; which being naturally
divided into innumerable little particles or atoms, eternally endued with an ingenit
and inseparable power of Motion, by their omnifarious concursions and combinations
and coalitions, produce successively (or at once, if Matter be infinite) an infinite
number of Worlds; and amongst the rest there arose this visible complex System
of Heaven and Earth. And thus far they do agree, but then they differ about the
cause and mode of the production of Worlds, some ascribing it to Fortune, and others
to Mechanism or Nature. ’Tis true, the Astrological Atheists, will give us no trouble
in the present dispute; because they cannot form a peculiar Hypothesis here,
as they have done before about the Origination of Animals. For though some of them are
so vain and senseless, as to pretend to a Thema Mundi, a calculated Scheme
of the Nativity of our World: yet it excedes even Their absurdity, to suppose the
Zodiac and Planets to be efficient of, and antecedent to themselves; or to exert
any influences, before they were in Being. So that to refute all possible Explications
that the Atheists have or can propose, I shall procede in this following method.
I. First, I will prove it impossible that the primary Parts of
our World, the Sun and the Planets with their regular Motions and Revolutions,
should have subfilled eternally in the present or a like Frame and Condition.
II. Secondly, I will shew, That Matter abstractly and absolutely
consider’d,
cannot have subsisted eternally; or, if it has, yet Motion cannot have co-existed
eternally with it, as an inherent Property and essential Attribute of the Atheist’s
God, Matter.
III. Thirdly, Though Universal Matter should have endured from
everlasting,
divided into infinite Particles in the Epicurean way, and though Motion
should have been coæval and coeternal with it: yet those Particles or Atoms could never of themselves by omnifarious
kinds of Motion, whether Fortuitous or Mechanical, have fallen or been disposed
into this or a like visible System.
IV. And Fourthly,
à _posteriori, That the Order and Beauty
of the Inanimate Parts of the World, the discernible Ends and Final Caules of them, the τό Βελτίον, or a Meliority above what was necessary to be, do evince by a
reflex Argument, That it is the Product and Workmanship, not of blind Mechanism or blinder Chance; but of an intelligent and benign Agent, who by his excellent
Wisdom made the Heavens and Earth: and gives Rains and fruitful Seasons for the
service of Man.
I shall speak to the two first Propositions in my present Discourse; reserving the latter for other Opportunities.
I. First, therefore: That the present
or a like Frame of the World hath not subsisted from Everlasting. We will
readily concede, that a thing may be trulyEternal, though its duration be terminated at one End. For
so we affirm Human Souls to be Immortal and Eternal, though ἦν ὅτι οὐκ ἦσαν, there
was a rime when they were Nothing; and therefore their Infinite Duration will always
be bounded at one Extreme by that first beginning of Existence. So that, for ought
appears as yet; the Revolutions of the Earth and other Planets about the Sun, though
they be limited at one end by the present Revolution, may nevertheless have been
Infinite and Eternal without any beginning. But then we must consider, that this
Duration of Human Souls is only potentially Infinite. For their Eternity codas
only in an endless capacity of Continuance without ever ceasing to be, in a bound-less
Futurity that can never be exhausted, or all of it be past and present. But their
Duration can never be positively and actually Eternal; because it
is most manifest, that no Moment can ever be assigned, wherein it shall be true,
that such a Soul hath then actually an Infinite Duration. For that supposed Infinite Duration will
by the very Supposition be limited at two extremes, though never so remote asunder; and consequently must needs be
Finite. Wherefore the true Nature and Notion of a Soul’s Eternity is this: That
the future moments of its Duration can never be all past and present, but
still there will be a Futurity and Potentiality of more for ever and ever. So that
we evidently perceive, from this instance, That whatever successive Duration, shall
be bounded at one end, and be all past and present, for that reason must
be Finite. Which necessarily evinceth, That the present or a like World can never
have been Eternal; or that there cannot have been Infinite past Revolutions of a
Planet about a Sun. For this supposed Infinity is terminated at one extreme by the
present Revolution, and all the other Revolutions are confessedly past;
so
that the whole Duration is bounded at one end, and all past and present;
and therefore cannot have been Infinite, by what was proved before. And this will shew us the vast difference between the false successive Eternity backwards, and the real one to come. For, consider the
present Revolution of the Earth, as the Bound and Confine of them both. God Almighty, if he so pleaseth, may continue this Motion to perpetuity
in Infinite Revolutions to come: because Futurity is inexhaustible, and can never
be all spent and run out by past and present moments. But then, if we look
backwards from this present Revolution, we may apprehend the impossibility of infinite
Revolutions on that side: because all are already past, and so were once
actually present, and consequently are finite, by the argument before. For
surely we cannot conceive a Præteriteness (if I may say so) still backwards
in
infinitum, that never was present as we can an endless futurity, that never
will be present. So that though one is potentially infinite; yet nevertheless the
other is actually finite. And this Reasoning doth necessarily conclude against the
past infinite duration of all successive Motion and mutable Beings: but it doth
not at all aired the eternal Existence of God, in whose invariable nature there is
no Past or Future; who is omnipresent not only as to Space, but as to Duration; and with
respect to such Omnipresence, it is certain and manifest, that Succession and Motion are mere impossibilities, and repugnant
in the very terms.
And Secondly, though what hath been now laid, hath given us
so
clear a view of the nature of successive Duration, as to make more Arguments needless: yet I
shall here briefly
shew, how our Adversaries Hypothesis without any
outward opposition destroys and confutes it self. For let us suppose infinite Revolutions
of the Earth about the Sun to be already gone and expired: I take it to be self-evident;
that, if None of those past Revolutions has been infinite ages ago, all the Revolutions
put together cannot make the duration of infinite ages. It follows therefore from
this supposition, that there may be some one assignable Revolution among them,
that was at an infinite distance from the present. But it is self-evident
likewise, that no one past Revolution could be infinitely distant from the
present for then an infinite or unbounded Duration may be bounded at two extremes
by two Annual Revolutions; which is absurd and a contradiction. And again, upon the
same supposition of an eternal Duration of the World, and of infinite Annual Revolutions
of the Earth about the Sun; I would ask concerning the Monthly Revolutions of the
Moon about the Earth, or the diurnal ones of the Earth upon its one Axis, both which by the very Hypothesis are coæval with the former; whether these also have been finite or infinite?
Not finite to be sure; because then a finite number would be greater than an infinite,
as it or 365 are more than an Unit. Nor infinite neither; for then two or three
Infinites would exceed one another: as a Year excedes a Month, or both excede a
Day. So that both ways the Supposition is repugnant and impossible.
Serm. III.
And Thirdly, the Arguments already used, from the gradual Increase
of Mankind, from the known Plantations of most Countries, from the recent
Invention of Letters and Arts, &c. do conclude as forcibly against the Eternity
of the World, as against infinite Generations of Human Race. For if the present Frame of
the Earth be supposed eternal; by the same notion they make Mankind to have been
coeternal with it. For otherwise this eternal Earth, after she had been eternally barren and desolate, must at
last have
spontaneously produced Mankind, without new cause from without, or any alteration
in her own texture: which is so gross an absurdity, that even no Atheist hath yet
affirmed it. So that it evidently follows, since Mankind had a beginning; that the
present Form of the Earth, and therefore the whole System of the World had a beginning
also.
Which being proved and established;
we are now enabled to give answers to some bold Queries and Objections of
Atheists; That since God is described as a Being infinitely powerful and perfectly good; and that these Attributes were
essential to him from all Eternity; why
did he not by his Power, for the more
ample communication of his Goodness,
create the World from Eternity, if he
created it at all? or at least, many Millions of Ages ago before this short span
of duration of five or six thousand
Years? To the first we reply, That since
we have discover’d an internal and natural impossibility, that a successive
Duration should be actually eternal; ’tis to
Us a flat contradiction, that the World should have been created from everlasting. And therefore it is
no affront to the Divine Omnipotence, if by reason of the formal incapacity and
repugnancy of the thing, we conceive that the World could not possibly have been
made from all Eternity, even by God himself Which gives an answer to the second
Question, Why created so lately? For if it could not be created from Eternity,
there can no infant be assigned for its Creation in Time, though never so many
Myriads and Millions of years since, but the same Query may be put, Why but now, and Why
so late? For even before that remoter period, God was eternally existent, and might
have made the World as many Myriads of Ages still backwards before That: and
consequently
this Objection is absurd and unreasonable. For else if it was good and allowable,
it would eternally hinder God from exerting his Creative Power: because he could
never make a World so early, at any given Moment; but it may truly be said he could
have created it sooner. Or if they think, there may be a Soonest Instant
of possible Creation: yet since all Instants have an equal pretence to it in humane
apprehension, why may not this
recent production of the World, according to Sacred authority, be supposed to be
that Sooner? At lean it may make that Claim to it, that cannot be baffled by their
Arguments, which equally con-elude against all Claims, against any conceivable
Beginning of the World.
And so when they profanely ask, Why did not this supposed
Deity, if he really made the Heavens, make them boundless and immense, a fit
and honourable Mansion for an infinite and incomprehensible Being? or at least vastly more ample and magnificent, than this narrow Cottage of a World? we may
make them this answer; First, it seems impossible and a contradiction, that a created World should
be infinite; because it is the nature of Quantity and Motion; that they can never
be actually and positively infinite: They have a Power indeed and a capacity of
being increased without end; so as no Quantity can be assigned so vast, but
still
a larger may be imagin’d; no Motion so swift or languid, but a greater Velocity
or Slowness may still be conceived; no positive Duration of it so long, than which a longer may not be
supposed; but even that very Power hinders them from being actually infinite. From
whence secondly it follows; that though the World was a million of times
more spacious and ample, than even Astronomy supposes it; or yet another million
bigger than that, and so on in infinite progression; yet still they might make the
same Exception world without end. For since God Almighty can do all that is
possible;
and Quantity hath always a possibility of being enlarged more and more: he could
never create so ample a World, but still it would be true, that he could
have made a bigger; the fœcundity of his Creative Power never growing barren, nor
ever to be exhausted. Now what may always be an exception against all possible Worlds,
can never be a just one against any whatsoever.
And when they scoffingly demand,
Why would this imaginary Omnipotence
make such mean pieces of Workmanship? what an indigent and impotent
thing is his principal Creature Man?
would not boundless Beneficence have communicated his divine Perfections in the most eminent degrees?
They may receive this reply, That we are far from such arrogance, as to pretend
to the highest dignity, and be the chief of the whole Creation; we believe an invisible
World and a Scale of Spiritual Beings all nobler than our selves: nor yet are we
so low and base as their Atheism would depress us; not walking Statues of Clay,
not the Sons of brute Earth, whose final Inheritance is Death and Corruption; we
carry the image of God in us, a rational and immortal Soul; and though we be now
indigent and feeble, yet we aspire after eternal happiness, and firmly expel a great
exaltation of all our natural powers. But whatsoever was or can be made, whether
Angels or Archangels, Cherubims, or Seraphims, whether Thrones or
Dominions or Principalities or Powers, all the glorious Host of Heaven,
must needs be finite and Imperfect and dependent Creatures: and God out of the
exceeding greatness of his power is full able, without end, to create higher
Classes of Beings. For where can we put a stop to the Efficacy of the Almighty? or what can we assign for the Highest of all
possible finite Perfections? There can be no such thing as an almost infinite:
there can be nothing Next or Second to an omnipotent God: Horat. Car. 1. 12.
Nec viget
quicquam simile aut secundum; as the Heathen Poet said excellently well of the supposed Father of Gods and
Men. The infinite Distance between the Creator and the noblest of all Creatures
can never be measured nor exhausted by endless addition of finite degrees. So that
no actual Creature can ever be the most perfect of all possible Creation. Which
shews
the folly of this Query, that might always be demanded, let things be as they will;
that would impiously and absurdly attempt to tie the Arm of Omnipotence from doing
any thing at all, because it can never do its Utmost.
II. I procede now to the Second Proposition, That neither Matter
universally and abstractly consider’d, nor Motion as its Attribute and Property,
can have existed from all Eternity. And to this I shall speak the more briefly; not only because it is an abstruse
and metaphysical Speculation; but because it is of far less moment and
consequence
than the rest: since without this we can evince the Existence of God from the Origin
and Frame of the Universe. For if the present or a like System of the World cannot
possibly have been eternal; By the first Proposition.
and if without God it could neither naturally nor
fortuitously emerge out of a Chaos; By the third Proposition.
we must necessarily have recourse to a Deity,
as the Contriver and Maker of Heaven and Earth; whether we suppose he created them
out of Nothing, or had the Materials ready eternally to his hand. But nevertheless,
because we are verily persuaded of the truth of this Article, we shall briefly assign some reasons of our Belief in these following Particulars.
First, It is a thing possible, that Matter may have been produced
out of Nothing. It is urged as an Universal Maxim; that Nothing can procede
from Nothing. Now this we readily allow; and yet it will prove nothing
against
the. Possibility of Creation. For when they say, Nothing from Nothing; they must so understand it,
as excluding all Causes, both material and efficient. In which sense it is most
evidently and infallibly true: being equivalent to this proposition; that Nothing
can make it self, or, Nothing cannot bring its no-self out of non-entity into Something.
Which only expresses thus much, That Matter did not produce it self, or, that all
Substances did not emerge our of an Universal Nothing. Now who-ever talked at that
rate? We do not lay, the World was created from Nothing and by Nothing; we
assert
an eternal God to have been the Efficient Cause of it. So that a Creation of the
World out of Nothing by Something; and by that Something, that includes in its Nature
a necessary Existence and perfusion of Power; is certainly no Contradiction; nor opposes that common Maxim. Whence it manifestly follows, That since God may do
any thing that implies not a Contradiction; if there be such an Essence as God,
he may have created Matter out of nothing, that is, have given an existence to Matter,
which had no Being before.
And Secondly, It is very probable, that Matter has been actually
created out of Nothing. Serm. II.
In a former Discourse we have proved
sufficiently, that Human Souls are not mere modification
of Matter, but real and spiritual Substances, that have as true an Existence, as
our very Bodies themselves. Now no man, as I conceive, can seriously think, that
his own Soul hath existed from all Eternity. He cannot believe the Stuff or Materials
of his Soul to have been eternal, and the Soul to have been made up of them at the
time of his conception. For a Humane Soul is no compound Being; ’tis not made of
Particles, as our Bodies are; but ’tis one simple homogeneous Essence: Neither can
he think, that the Personality of his Soul with its Faculties inherent in it has
existed eternally; this is against common &life: and it needs no Refutation. Nay though a Man could be so extravagant, as to hold this Assertion; That his Soul, his
personal
self, has been from
everlasting; yet even this in
the issue would be destructive to Atheism since it supposes an eternal Being, endued
with Understanding and Wisdom. We will take it then as a thing confessed,
that the Immaterial Souls of Men have been produced out of Nothing. But if God
hath
actually created those intelligent Substances, that have such Nobility and Excellency
of Being above brute senseless Matter; ’tis pervicaciousness to deny,
that he created Matter also: unless they'll say, necessary Existence is included in the
very Essence and Idea of Matter.
But Matter doth not include in its Nature a necessity of
Existence. For Human Souls, as is proved before, have been actually created, and
consequently have not necessary Existence included in their Essence. Now can any
man believe, that his spiritual Soul, that understands, and judges, and
invents; endowed with those Divine Faculties of Sense, Memory and Reason; hath a dependent and
precarious Being created and preserved by another; while the Particles of this
dead Ink and Paper have been necessarily eternal and uncreated? ’Tis
against
natural reason; and no one while he contemplates an individual Body, can discern
that necessity of its Existence. But men have been taught to believe, that Extension or Space and Body are both the
self-same thing. So that
because they cannot imagine
how Space can either begin or cease to exist; they presently conclude, that extended
infinite Matter must needs be eternal. Serm. VII.
But I shall fully prove hereafter, that
Body and Space or Distance are quite different things, and that a Vacuity is interspersed
among the Particles of Matter, and such a one as hath a vastly larger Extension, than all the Matter of the
Universe. Which now being
supposed; they ought to
abstract their Imagination from that false infinite Extension, and conceive one Particle
of Matter, surrounded on all sides with vacuity, and contiguous to no other Body.
And whereas formerly they Fansied an immense boundless Space, as an homogeneous
One; which great Individual they believed might deserve the Attribute of
necessary
Existence: Let them now please to imagine one solitary Atom, that hath no
dependence on the rest of the World; and is no more sustained in Being by other Matter, than it could be created by it; and then I would ask the question,
whether this poor Atom, sluggish and unactive as it is, doth involve Necessity of
Existence, the first and highest of all perfections, in its particular nature and
notion? I dare presume for the Negative in the judgments of all serious
men. Lucret. Lib. 1.
And I observe the. Epicureans take much pains to convince us, that
in natural corruptions and dissolutions, Atoms are not reduc’d to Nothing; which
surely would be needless, if the very Idea of Atoms imported Self existence. And
yet if one Atom do not include so much in its Notion and Essence; all Atoms put
together, that is, all the Matter of the Universe can not include it. So that upon
the whole matter, since Creation is no contradiction; since God hath certainly created
nobler Substances than Matter; and since Matter is not necessarily eternal; it
is most reasonable to believe, that the eternal and Self-existent God created the
material World, and produced it out of Nothing.
And then as to the last Proposition,
that Motion as an attribute or Property of Matter cannot have been from Eternity. That we may wave
some
Metaphysical Arguments, which demonstrate that Local Motion cannot be positively
eternal; We shall only observe in two Words; That if Matter be not essentially
eternal, as we have shewed before; much less can Motion be, that is but the adjunct
and accident of it. Nay though we should concede an Eternity to Matter; yet why
must Motion be coæval with it? which is not only not inherent and essential to
Matter; but may be produced and destroyed at the pleasure of free Agents: both which are flatly repugnant
to an eternal and necessary Duration. I am aware, how some have asserted that the
fame quantity of Motion is always kept up in the World; which may seem to favour
the Opinion of its infinite Duration: but that Assertion doth solely depend upon
an absolute Plenum; which being refuted in my next Discourse, it will then appear
how absurd and false that conceit is, about the same quantity of Motion; how
easily
disproved from that Power in Human Souls to excite Motion when they please, and
from the gradual increase of Men and other Animals, and many Arguments
besides. Therefore lee this also be concluded, That Motion has not been eternal
in an infinite past Duration: Which was the last thing to be proved.
A
CONFUTATION
OF
ATHEISM
FROM THE
Origin and Frame of the World..
PART II.
The Seventh SERMON Preached
November 7. 1692.
Acts XIV. 15,
&c.
That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who
made Heaven and Earth and the Sea, and all things that are therein: Who in times
past suffer’d all Nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he left not
himself
without witness in that he did good, and gave as Rain from Heaven, and fruitful
Seasons,
filling our hearts with Food and Gladness.
WHEN we first enter'd upon
this Topic, the demonstration of God’s Existence from the Origin and Frame of the World, we offer’d to prove four
Propositions.
1. That this present System of Heaven and Earth cannot possibly have
subsisted from all Eternity.
2. That Matter consider’d generally, and abstractly from any
particular Form and Concretion, cannot possibly have been eternal: Or, if Matter
could be so; yet Motion cannot have coexisted with it eternally, as an inherent
property and essential attribute of Matter. These two we have already established
in the preceding Discourse; we shall now shew in the third place.
3. That, though we should allow the Atheists, that Matter
and Motion may have been from everlasting; yet if (as they now suppose) there were
once no Sun, nor Stars, nor Earth, nor Planets; but the Particles, that now
constitute
them, were diffused in the mundane Space in manner of a Chaos without any concretion
or coalition; those dispersed Particles could never of themselves by any kind
of Natural motion, whether call’d Fortuitous or Mechanical, have conven’d into
this present or any other like Frame of Heaven and Earth.
I. And first as to that ordinary Cant of illiterate and puny
Atheists,
the fortuitous or casual Concurse of Atoms, that compendious and easy
Dispatch of the most important and difficult affair, the Formation of a World;
(besides that in our next undertaking is will be refuted all along) I shall now
briefly dispatch it, Serm. V.
from what hath been formerly said concerning the true
notions of Fortune and Chance. Whereby it is evident, that in the Atheistical
Hypothesis of the World's production, Fortuitous and Mechanical must be the self-same thing. Because Fortune
is no real entity nor physical essence, but a mere relative signification,
denoting only this; That Rich a thing said to fall out by Fortune, was really effected
by material and necessary Causes; but the Person, with regard to whom it is called
Fortuitous, was ignorant of those Causes or their Tendencies, and did not
design or fore-see such an effect. This is the only allowable and genuine notion
of the word Fortune. But thus to affirm, that the World was made fortuitously, is
as much as to say, That before the World was made, there was force Intelligent Agent or Spectator; who
designing to do something else, or expecting that something else would be done
with the Materials of the World, there were some occult and unknown motions and
tendencies in Matter, which mechanically formed the World beside his design or
expectation. Now the Atheists, we may presume, will be loth to assert a fortuitous
Formation in this proper sense and meaning; whereby they will make Understanding
to be older than Heaven and Earth. Or if they should so assert it; yet, unless
they will affirm that the Intelligent Agent did dispose and direct the inanimate
Matter, (which is what we would bring them to) they must still leave their Atoms
to their mechanical Affections; not able to make one step toward the production of
a World beyond the nccessary Laws of Motion. It is plain then, that Fortune, as to the matter before us, is but a
synonymous word with Nature and Necessity. It remains that we examine the adequate meaning of Serm. V.
Chance; which properly
signifies, That all events called Casual, among inanimate Bodies, are mechanically and
naturally produced according to the determinate figures and textures and motions of those Bodies; with this negation
only, That those inanimate Bodies are
not conscious of their own operations,
nor contrive and cast about how to bring
such events to pass. So that thus to say,
that the World was made casually by
the concourse of Atoms, is no more than
to affirm, that the Atoms composed the
World mechanically and fatally; only
they were not sensible of it, nor studied
and consider’d about so noble an undertaking. For if Atoms formed the World
according to the essential properties of
Bulk, Figure and Motion, they formed
it mechanically; and if they formed it mechanically without perception
and design; they formed it casually. So that
this negation of Consciousness being all
that the notion of Chance can add to
that of Mechanism; We, that do not
dispute this matter with the Atheists,
nor believe that Atoms ever acted by
Counsel and Thought, may have leave
to consider the several names of Fortune and Chance and Nature and Mechanism, as one and the
same Hypothesis. Wherefore once for all to overthrow all possible Explications
which Atheists have or may assign for the formation of the World, we will undertake
to evince this following Proposition.
II. That the atoms or Particles which now constitute Heaven
and Earth, being once separate and diffused in the Mundane Space, like the
supposed
Chaos, could never, without a God by their Mechanical affections, have
convened into this present Frame of Things or any other like it.
Which that we may perform with the greater clearness and
conviction; it will be necessary, in a discourse about the Formation of the World, to give
you a brief account of some of the most principal and systematical Phænomena, that occur in the World now that it is formed.
(1.) The most considerable Phænomenon belonging to
Terrestrial
Bodies is the general action of Gravitation whereby All known Bodies in the
vicinity of the Earth do tend and press toward its Center; not only such as are
sensibly and evidently Heavy, but even those that are
comparatively the Lightest, and even in their
proper place, and natural Elements, (as they usually speak) as Air gravitates even
in Air; and Water in Water. This hath been demonstrated and experimentally proved
beyond contradiction, by several ingenious Persons of the present Age, but by none
so perspicuously and copiously and accurately, as by the Mr. Boyle’s Physicom. Exp. of Air. Hydrostat. Paradoxes.
Honourable Founder of
this Lecture in his incomparable Treatises of the Air and Hydrostatics.
(2.) Now this is the constant Property of Gravitation, That the weight of all Bodies around the Earth is ever proportional to the Quantity
of their Matter: As for instance, a Pound weight (examin’d Hydrostatically) of all kinds of Bodies, though of the
most different forms and textures, doth always contain an equal quantity of solid Mass or corporeal Substance. This is the ancient Doctrine
of the Lucret. lib. 1.
Epicurean
Physiology, then and since very probably indeed, but yet precariously asserted:
But it is lately demonstrated and put beyond controversy by that very excellent and divine Theorist
Newton Philos. Natur. Princ. Math. lib. prop 6.
Mr. Isaac
Newton, to whose most admirable sagacity and industry we shall frequently be
obliged in this and the following Discourse.
I will not entertain this Auditory with an account of the Demonstration; but referring the Curious to the Book it
self for full satisfaction, I shall now procede and build upon it as a Truth solidly established, That all Bodies weigh
according to their Matter; provided only that the compared Bodies be at equal
distances from the Center toward which they weigh. Because the further they are
removed from the Center, the lighter they are: decreasing gradually and uniformly
in weight, in a duplicate proportion to the Increasse of the Distance.
(3.) Now since Gravity is found proportional to the Quantity of
Matter, there is a manifest Necessity of admitting a Vacuum, another principal
Doctrine of the Atomical Philosophy. Because if there were every where
an absolute plenitude and density without any empty pores and interstices between
the Particles of Bodies, then all Bodies of equal dimensions would contain an equal Quantity of Matter; and
consequently,
as we have shew'd before, would be equally ponderous: to that Gold, Copper, Stone,
Wood, &c, would have all the same specific weight; which Experience assures us
they have not: neither would any of them descend in the Air., as we all see they
do; because, if all Space was Full, even the Air would be as dense and specifically
as heavy as they. If it be said, that, though the difference of specific Gravity
may procede from variety of Texture, the lighter Bodies being of a more loose and
porous composition, and the heavier more dense and compact; yet an aethereal subtile
Matter, which is in a perpetual motion, may penetrate and pervade the minutest and
inmost Cavities of the closest Bodies, and adapting it self to the figure of every
Pore, may adequately fill them; and ta prevent all vacuity, without increasing the
weight: To this we answer; That that subtile Matter it self must be of the fame
Substance and Nature with all other Matter, and therefore It also must weigh proportionally
to its Bulk; and as much of it as at any time is comprehended within the Pores of a particular Body must gravitate jointly with
that Body so that if the Presence of this atherea1 Matter made an absolute Fulness,
all Bodies of equal dimensions would be equally heavy: which being refuted by experience,
it necessarily follows, that there is a Vacuity; and that (notwithstanding some little objections full of cavil and
sophistry) mere and simple Extension or Space
hath a quite different nature and notion from real Body and impenetrable Substance.
(4) This therefore being established; in the next place it’s of
great consequence to our present enquiry, if we can make a computation, How great
is the whole Summ of the Void spaces in our system, and what proportion it bears
to the corporeal substance. Mr. Boyle of Air and Porosity of Bodies.
By many and accurate Trials it manifestly appears,
that Refined Gold, the most ponderous of known Bodies, (though even that must
be allowed to be porous too, because it’s dissoluble in Mercury and Aqua Regis
and other Chymical Liquors; and because it’s naturally a thing impossible, that
the Figures and Sizes of its constituent Particles should be so justly adapted, as to touch one another
in every Point,) I say, Gold is in specific weight to common Water as 19 to 1;
and Water to common Air as 850 to 1: so that Gold is to Air as 16150 to 1. Whence
it clearly appears, seeing Matter and Gravity are always commensurate, that (though
we should allow the texture of Gold to be intirely close without any vacuity) the
ordinary Air in which we live and respire is of so thin a composition, that 16149
parts of its dimensions are mere emptiness and Nothing; and the remaining One only
material and real substance. But if Gold it self be admitted, as it must be, for
a porous Concrete, the proportion of Void to Body in the texture of common Air will
be so much the greater. And thus it is in the lowest and densest region of the Air
near the surface of the Earth, where the whole Mass of Air is in a Plate of violent
compression, the inferior being press’d and constipated by the weight of all
the incumbent. But, since the Air is now certainly known to consist of Mr. Boyle ibid.
elastic or
springy Particles, that have a continual tendency and endeavour to expand and display themselves; and the
dimensions, to which they expand themselves, to be reciprocally as the Compression; it follows, that the higher you ascend in it, where it is less and less compress’d
by the superior Air, the more and more it is rarified. So that at the height of
a few miles from the surface of the Earth, it is computed to have some million
parts of empty space in its texture for one of solid Matter. And at the height of
one Terrestrial Semidiameter (not above 4000 miles) the Æther is of that wonderful tenuity,
Newton Philos. Nat. Principia Math p. 503.
that by an exact calculation, if a
small Sphere of common Air of one
such Diameter (already 16149 parts Nothing) should be further expanded to the thinness of that
Æther, it would more than take up the vast Orb of Saturn, which
is many million million times bigger than the whole Globe of the Earth, And yet
the higher you ascend above that region, the Rarefaction gradually increases without
stop or limit: so that, in a word., the whole Concave of the Firmament, except the
Sun and Planets and their Atmospheres, may be consider’d as a mere Void. Let us allow then, that all the Matter
of the System of our Sun may be 50000 times as much as the whole Mass of the Earth; and we appeal to
Astronomy, if we are not liberal enough and even prodigal in
this concession. And let us suppose further, that the whole Globe of the Earth is
intirely solid and compact without any void interstices; notwithstanding what
hath
been chewed before, as to the texture of Gold it self. Now though we have made
such
ample allowances; we shall find, notwithstanding, that the void Space of our
System
is immensly bigger than all its corporeal Mass. For, to procede upon our supposition,
that all the Matter within the Firmament is 50000 times bigger than the
solid Globe of the Earth; if we assume the Diameter of the Orbis Magnus
(wherein the Earth moves about the Sun) to be only 7000 times as big as the Diameter
of the Earth (though the latest and most accurate Observations make it thrice 7000)
and the Diameter of the Firmament to be only 100000 times as long as the Diameter of the
Orbis Magnus (though it cannot possibly be less than that, but may be vastly and unspeakably bigger) we must pronounce, after such
large concessions on that side, and such great abatements on ours, That the Summ
of empty Spaces within the Concave of the Firmament is 6860 million million
million times bigger than All the Matter contain’d in it.
Now from hence we are enabled to form a right conception and
imagination of the supposed Chaos; and then we may procede to determin
the controversy with more certainty and satisfaction; whether a World like the
Present could possibly without a Divine Influence be formed in it or no?
(1.) And first, because every Fixt Star is supposed by
Astronomers
to be of the same Nature with our Sun; and each may very possibly have Planets
about them, though by reason of their vast distance they be invisible to Us:
we will assume this reasonable supposition, That the same proportion of Void Space
to Matter, which is found in our Sun’s Region within the Sphere of the Fixt Stars,
may competently well hold in the whole Mundane Space. I am aware, that in this
computation we must not assign the whole Capacity of that Sphere for the Region of our
Sun; but allow half of its Diameter for the Radii of the several Regions
of the next Fixt Stars. So that diminishing our former number, as this last
consideration
requires; we may safely affirm from certain and demonstrated Principles, That the
empty Space of our Solar Region (comprehending half of the Diameter of the Firmament)
is 8575 hundred thousand million million times more ample than all the corporeal
substance in it. And we may fairly suppose, that the same proportion may hold
through the whole Extent of the Universe.
(2.) And secondly as to the state or
condition of Matter before the World
was a-making, which is compendiously
exprest by the word Chaos; they must
either suppose, that the Matter of our
Solar System was evenly or well-nigh
evenly diffused through the Region of
the Sun, which would represent a particular Chaos: or that all Matter universally was so spread through the whole
Mundane Space; which would truly exhibit a General Chaos; no part of the
Universe being rarer or denser than another. And this is agreeable to the ancient Description of Chaos,
That Diod. Sicul. lib. 1. Κατὰ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς τῶν ὅλων σύστ9ασιν
μίαν ἔχειν ἰδέαν οὐρανόντε καὶ γῆν, μεμι9γμήνηl αὐτῶν τῆς
φύσεως. Apoll. Rhodius lib. 1. Ἤειδεν δ᾽ ὡς γαῖα καὶ
οὐρανὸς ἡδὲ θάλαοσα, Τὸ πρὶν ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοισι μιῇ συναρηρότα μορφῇ.
the
Heavens and Earth had μίαν ἰδέαν, μίαν μορφὴν, one form, one
texture and constitution which could not be, unless all the Mundane Matter were
uniformly and evenly diffused. ’Tis indifferent to our Dispute, whether they
suppose it to have continued a long time or very little in the state of Diffusion.
For if there was but one single Moment in all past Eternity, when Matter was so
diffused: we shall plainly and fully prove, that it could never have convened afterwards
into the present Frame and Order of Things.
(3.) It is evident from what we have newly prov’d, that in the
supposition of such a Chaos or such an even diffusion either of the whole Mundane
Matter or that of our System (for it matters not which they assume) every single
Particle would have a Sphere of Void Space around it 8575 hundred
thousand
million million times bigger than the dimensions of that Particle. Nay further, though the proportion already appear
so immense; yet every single Particle would really be surrounded with a Void sphere
Eight times as capacious as that newly mention’d; its Diameter being compounded
of the Diameter of the Proper Sphere, and the Semi-diameters of the contiguous Spheres
of the neighbouring Particles. From whence it appears, that every Particle (supposing
them globular or not very oblong) would be above Nine million times their own length
from any other Particle. And moreover in the whole Surface of this Void sphere
there can only Twelve Particles be evenly placed, as the Hypothesis requires;
that is, at equal Distances from the Central one and from each other. So that if
the Matter of our System or of the Universe was equally dispersed, like the
supposed
Chaos; the result and issue would be, not only that every Atom would be many million
times its own length distant from any other: but if any One should be moved mechanically
(without direction or attraction) to the limit of that distance; ’tis above a hundred
million millions Odds to an Unit, that it would not strike upon any other Atom, but glide through
an empty interval without any contact.
(4.) ’Tis true, that while I calculate these Measures, I suppose all the Particles of Matter to be at
absolute rest among themselves, and situated in an exact and mathematical
evenness;
neither of which is likely to be allowed by our Adversaries, who not admitting the
former, but asserting the eternity of Motion, will consequently deny the latter
also: because in the very moment that Motion is admitted in the Chaos, such an
exact evenness cannot possibly be preserved. But this I do, not to draw any argument
against them from the Universal Rest or accurately equal diffusion of Matter; but
only that I may better demonstrate the great Rarity and Tenuity of their imaginary
Chaos, and reduce it to computation. Which computation will hold with exactness enough,
though we allow the Particles of the Chaos to be variously moved, and to differ
something in size and figure and situation, For if some Particles should approach
nearer each other than in the former Proportion; with respect to some other Particles they would be as much remoter. So that notwithstanding
a small diversity of their Positions and Distances, the whole Aggregate of Matter, as long as it retain’d the name and nature of Chaos, would retain well-nigh an
uniform tenuity of Texture, and may be consider’d as an homogeneous. Fluid. As
several Portions of the same sort of Water are reckoned to be of the fame specific
gravity; though it be naturally impossible that every Particle and Pore of it,
consider’d Geometrically, should have equal sizes and dimensions.
We have now represented the true scheme and condition of the Chaos;
how all the Particles would be disunited; and what vast intervals of empty Space
would lie between each. To form a System therefore, ’tis necessary that these
squander’d
Atoms should convene and unite into great and compact Masses, like the Bodies of the Earth and
Planets. Without such a
coalition the diffused Chaos must have continued and reign’d to all eternity. But
how could particles so widely dispersed combine into that closeness of Texture? Our
Adversaries can have only
there two ways of accounting for it.
First, By the Common Motion of Matter, proceeding from external
Impulse and Conflict (without attraction) by which every Body moves uniformly in
a direct line according to the determination of the impelling force. For, they may
say, the Atoms of the Chaos being variously moved according to this Catholic Law,
must needs knock and interfere; by which means some that have convenient figures
for mutual coherence might chance to stick together, and others might join to
those,
and so by degrees such huge Masses might be formed, as afterwards became Suns and
Planets: or there might arise some vertiginous Motion or Whirlpools in the Matter
of the Chaos; whereby the Atoms might be thrust and crowded to the middle of
those
Whirlpools, and there constipate one another into great solid Globes, such as now
appear in the World.
Or secondly by mutual Gravitation
or attraction. For they may assert, that Matter hath inherently and essentially such an internal energy,
whereby it incessantly tends to unite it self to all other Matter: so that
several
Particles, placed in a Void space, at any distance whatsoever would without any
external impulse spontaneously convene and unite together. And thus the Atoms of
the Chaos, though never so widely diffused, might by this innate property of Attraction
soon assemble themselves into great sphærical Masses, and constitute Systems like
the present Heaven and Earth.
This is all that can be proposed by Atheists, as an efficient
cause of the World. For as to the Epicurean Theory, of Atoms descending
down an infinite space by an inherent principle of Gravitation, which tends not
toward other Matter, but toward a Vacuum or Nothing; and verging from the
Perpendicular Lucret. Nec regione loci certa, nec
tempore certo.
no body knows why, nor when, nor where; ’tis
such
miserable absurd stuff so repugnant to it self, and so contrary to the known Phænomena
of Nature, though it contented supine unthinking Atheists for a thousand years together; that we will not now honour it with a
special refutation.
But what it hath common with the other Explications, we will fully confute together
with Them in these three Propositions.
(1.) That by common Motion (without attraction) the dissever’d
Particles of the Chaos could never make the World; could never convene into such
great compact Mass, as the Planets now are; nor either acquire or continue such
Motions, as the Planets now have.
(2.) That such a mutual Gravitation or spontaneous Attraction
can neither be inherent and essential to Matter; nor ever supervene to it,
unless impress’d and infused into it by a Divine Power.
(3.) That though we should allow such Attraction to be natural
and essential to all Matter; yet the Atoms of a Chaos could never so convene
by it, as to form the present System: or if they could form it, it could neither
acquire such Motions, nor continue permanent in this flare without the Power
and Providence of a Divine Being.
I. And first, that by Common Motion the Matter
of Chaos could never convene into such Masss, as the Planets
now are. Any man, that considers the spacious void intervals of the Chaos,
how immense they are in proportion to the bulk of the Atoms, will hardly induce himself to believe, that Particles
so widely disseminated could ever throng
and crowd one another into a close
and compact texture. He will rather
conclude that those few that should
happen to clash, might rebound after
the collision; or if they cohered, yet
by the next conflict with other Atoms
might be separated again, and so on in
an eternal vicissitude of Fast and Loose,
without ever consociating into the huge
condense Bodies of Planets; some of
whose Particles upon this supposition
must have travell’d many millions of
Leagues through the Gloomy regions of
Chaos, to place themselves where they
now are. But then how rarely would
there be any clashing at all; how very
rarely in comparison to the number of
Atoms? The whole multitude of them
generally speaking, might freely move
and rove for ever with very little occurring or interfering. Let us conceive two of the nearest Particles according to our former
Calculation; or rather let us try the same proportions in another Example, that
will come caller to the Imagination. Let us suppose two Ships, fitted with
durable Timber and Rigging, but without Pilot or Mariners, to be placed in the
vast Atlantic or the
Pacifique Ocean, as far asunder as may be. How many thousand years might
expire, before those solitary Vessels should happen to strike one against the other? Bur let us imagine the Space yet more ample, even the whole face of the Earth
to be cover’d with Sea, and the two Ships to be placed in the opposite Poles: might
not they now move long enough without any danger of clashing? And yet I find, that
the two nearest Atoms in our evenly diffused Chaos have ten thousand times less
proportion to the two Void circular Planes around them, than our two Ships would
have to the whole Surface of the Deluge. Let us assume then another Deluge ten
thousand times larger than Noah’s. Is it not now utterly incredible, that
our two Vessels, placed there Antipodes to each other, should ever happen to concur? And yet let me add, that the Ships would move in one and the
same
Surface; and consequently must needs encounter, when they either advance towards
one another in direct lines, or meet in the intersection of cross ones; but the
Atoms may not only fly side-ways, but over like-wise and under each other: which
make it many million times more improbable that they should interfere than the
Ships, even in the last and unlikeliest. instance. But they may say, Though the
Odds indeed be unspeakable that the Atoms do not convene in any set number of Trials,
yet in an infinite Succession of them may not such a Combination possibly happen? But let them
consider, Serm. V.
that the improbability of Casual Hits is never diminished
by repetition of Trials; they are as unlikely to fall out at the Thousandth as
at the First. So that in a matter of mere Chance, when there is so many Millions
odds against any assignable Experiment; ’tis in vain to expect it should ever
succede, even in endless Duration.
But though we should concede it to be simply possible, that the
Matter of Chaos might convene into great Masses, like Planets: yet it’s
absolutely
impossible, that those Masses should acquire such revolutions about the Sun. Let
us suppose any one of those Masses to be the Present Earth. Now the annual Revolution
of the Earth must procede (in this Hypothesis) either from the Summ and
Result of the several motions of all the Particles that formed the Earth, or
from a new impulse from some external Matter, after it was formed. The former
is apparently absurd, because the Particles that form’d the round Earth
must
needs convene from all points and quarters towards the middle, and would generally
tend toward its Center; which would make the whole Compound to rest in a Poise: or at
least that overplus of Motion, which the Particles of one Hemisphere could
have above the other, would be very small and inconsiderable; too feeble and
languid to propel so vast and ponderous a Body with that prodigious velocity. And
secondly, ’tis impossible, that any external Matter should impell that compound Mass;
after it was formed. ’Tis manifest, that nothing else could impell it, unless
the Æthereal Matter be supposed to be carried about the Sun like a Vortex
or Whirlpool, as a Vehicle to convey it and the rest of the Planets. But this
is refuted from what we have shewn above, that those Spaces of the Æther may
be reckon’d a mere Void, the whole Quantity of their Matter scarce amounting to
the weight of a Grain. ’Tis refuted also from Matter of Fact in the Motion of Comets;
which, as often as they are visible to Us Newton ibidem p. 408.
are in the Region of our Planets;
and there are observed to move, some in quite contrary courses to Theirs, and come
in cross and oblique ones, in Planes inclined to the Plane of the Ecliptic in all
kinds of Angles: which firmly evinces, that the Regions of the Æther are empty
and free, and neither refill nor assist the Revolutions of Planets. But moreover
there could not possibly arise in the Chaos any Vortices or Whirlpools at
all; either to form the Globes of the Planets, or to revolve them when formed.
’Tis acknowledged by all, that inanimate unactive Matter moves always in a
streight Line, nor ever
reflects in an Angle, nor bends in a Circle (which is a continual reflexion)
unless
either by some external Impulse, that may divert it from the direct motion,
or by an intrinsec Principle of Gravity or Attraction that may make it
describe
a curve line about the attracting Body. But this latter Cause is not now
supposed
and the former could never beget Whirlpools in a Chaos of so great a Laxity and
Thinness. For ’tis matter of certain experience and universally allowed, that all
Bodies moved circularly have a perpetual endeavour to recede from the Center, and
every Moment would fly out in right Lines, if they were not violently restrain’d
and kept in by contiguous Matter. But there is no such restraint in the supposed
Chaos, no want of empty room there no possibility of effecting one single Revolution
in way of a Vortex, which necessarily requires (if Attraction be not
supposed) either an absolute Fulness of Matter, or a pretty close Constipation and mutual Contact
of its Particles.
And for the same reason ’tis evident, that the Planets could not
continue their Revolutions about the Sun; though they could possibly acquire them.
For to drive and carry the Planets in such Orbs as they now describe, that Æthereal
Matter must be compact and dense, as dense as the very Planets themselves: otherwise
they would certainly fly out in Spiral Lines to the very circumference of the
Vortex. But we have often inculcated, that the wide Tracts of the Æther may
be reputed as a mere extended Void. So that there is nothing (in this Hypothesis)
that can retain and bind the Planets in their Orbs for one single moment; but they
would immediately desert them and the neighbourhood of the Sun, and vanish away
in Tangents to their several Circles into the Abyss of Mundane Space.
II. Secondly we affirm, that mutual
Gravitation or spontaneous Attraction
cannot possibly be innate and essential
to Matter. By Attraction we do not
here understand what is properly, though
vulgarly, called so, in the operations
of drawing, sucking, pumping, &c.
which is really Pulsion and Trusion; and belongs to that Common Motion, which we have already shewn
to be insufficient for the formation of a World. But we now mean (as we have explain’d
it before) such a power and quality, whereby all parcels of Matter would mutually attract or mutually tend and press to all others;
so that, for instance, two
distant
Atoms in vacuo would spontaneously convene together without the impulse of
external Bodies.
Now first we say, if our Atheists suppose
this power to be inherent and essential to
Matter; they overthrow their own Hypothesis: there could never be a Chaos at
all upon these terms, but the present form
of our System must have continued from
all Eternity; against their own supposition, and what we have proved in ourLast.
Vide Serm. VI. & Serm. VIII.
For if they affirm, that there
might be a Chaos notwithstanding innate
Gravity; then let them assign any Period though never so remote, when the diffused Matter might convene. They must
confess, that before that assigned Period
Matter had existed eternally, inseparably
endued with this principle of Attraction; and yet had never attracted nor convened before, in that infinite duration: which is so monstrous
an absurdity, as even They will blush to be charged with. But some perhaps may
imagin, that a former System might be dissolved and reduced to a Chaos, from which
the present System might have its Original, as that Former had from another, and
so on; new Systems having grown out of old ones in infinite Vicissitudes from
all past eternity. But we say, that in the Supposition of innate Gravity no
System at all could be dissolved. For how is it possible, that the Matter of solid
Masses
like Earth and Planets and Stars should fly up from their Centers against its inherent
principle of mutual Attraction, and diffuse it self in a Chaos? This is absurder
than the other: That only supposed innate Gravity not to be exerted; this makes
it to be defeated, and to act contrary to its own Nature. So that upon all accounts
this essential power of Gravitation or Attraction is irreconcilable with the
Atheist’s
own Doctrine of a Chaos.
And secondly ’tis repugnant to Common Sense and Reason. ’Tis utterly unconceivable, that inanimate brute Matter, without the mediation
of some Immaterial Being, should operate upon and affect other Matter without mutual
Contact; that distant Bodies should act upon each other through a Vacuum
without the intervention of something else by and through which the action may be
conveyed from one to the other. We will not obscure and perplex with multitude of
words, what is so clear and evident by its own light, and must needs be allowed
by all, that have competent use of Thinking, and are initiated into, I do not
say
the Mysteries, but the plainest Principles of Philosophy. Now mutual Gravitation
or Attraction, in our present acception of the Words, is the same thing with This;
’tis an operation or virtue or influence of distant Bodies upon each other through
an empty Interval, without any Effluvia or Exhalations or other corporeal
Medium to convey and transmit it. This Power therefore cannot be innate and
essential
to Matter. And if it be not essential; it is consequently most manifest, since
it doth not depend upon Motion or Rest or Figure or Position of Parts, which are
all the ways that Matter can diversify it self, that it could never
supervene to it, unless impress’d and infus’d into it by an immaterial and divine
Power.
We have proved, that a Power of mutual Gravitation, without
contact or impulse, can in no-wise be attributed to
mere Matter: or if it could; we shall
presently shew, that it would be wholly
unable to form the World out of a Chaos. What then if it be made appear, that
there is really such a Power of Gravity, which cannot be ascribed to mere
Matter, perpetually acing in the constitution of the present System? This
would be a new and invincible Argument for the Being of God: being a
direct and positive proof, that an immaterial living Mind doth inform and actuate the dead Matter and
support the
Frame of the World. I will lay before
you some certain Phænomena of Nature;
and leave it to your consideration from
what Principle they can procede. ’Tis
demonstrated, That the Sun, Moon and
all the Planets do reciprocally gravitate
one toward another, that the Gravitating power of each of them is exactly
proportional to their Matter, and arises from the several Gravitations or Attractions of all the individual
Particles that compose the whole Mass: that all Matter near the Surface of the
Earth, (and so in all the Planets) doth not only gravitate downwards, but upwards
also and side-ways and toward all imaginable Points; though the Tendency downward
be prædominant and alone discernible, because of the Greatness and Nearness of the
attracting Body, the Earth: that every Particle of the whole System doth attract
and is attracted by all the rest, All operating upon All: that this Universal Attraction
or Gravitation is an incessant, regular and uniform Action by certain and
establish’d
Laws according to Quantity of Matter and Longitude of Distance: that it cannot be
destroyed nor impaired nor augmented by any thing, neither by Motion or Rest,
nor Situation nor Posture, nor alteration of Form, nor diversity of Medium:
that it is not a Magnetical Power, nor the effect of a Vortical Motion; those common
attempts towards the Explication of Gravity: Newton Philofophiæ Naturalis Princ. Math. lib. III.
These things, I say, are fully demonstrated,
as matters of Fact, by that very ingenious Author, whom we cited before. Now
how is it possible that these things should be effected by any Material and Mechanical
Agent? We have evinced, that mere Matter cannot operate upon Matter without mutual
Contact. It remains then, that these Phænomena are produced either
by the intervention of Air or Æther or other such medium, that communicates
the Impulse from one Body to another; or by Effluvia and Spirits that are emitted from
the one, and pervene to the other. We can conceive no other way of performing them
Mechanically. But what impulse or agitation can be propagated through the Æther
from one Particle entombed and wedged in the very Center of the Earth to another
in the Center of Saturn? Yet even these two Particles do reciprocally affect
each other with the same force and vigour, as they would do at the same distance
in any other Situation imaginable. And because the Impulse from this Particle is
not directed to That only; but to all the rest in the Universe, to all quarters and
regions, at once invariably and incessantly: to do this mechanically, the
same physical Point of Matter must move all manner
of ways equally and constantly in the same instant and moment; which is flatly impossible.
But if this Particle cannot propagate such Motion; much less can it send out
Effluvia to all points without intermission or variation; such multitudes of
Effluvia as to lay hold on every Atom in the Universe without missing of one.
Nay every single Particle of the very Effluvia (since they also attract and
gravitate) must in this Supposition emit other secondary Effluvia all the World
over; and those others still emit more, and so in infinitum. Now if these things be repugnant to
Human Reason; we have great reason to affirm, That Universal Gravitation, a thing
certainly existent in Nature, is above all Mechanism and material Causes, and procedes
from a higher principle, a Divine energy and impression.
III. Thirdly we affirm; That, though
we should allow, that reciprocal Attraction is essential to Matter; yet the
Atoms of a Chaos could never so convene by it, as to form the present System; or if they could form it, yet it could neither acquire there Revolutions, nor subsist in the
present
condition, without the Conservation and Providence of a Divine Being.
(1.) For first, if the Matter of the Universe, and
consequently
the Space through which it’s diffused, be supposed to be Finite (and I think
it might be demonstrated to be so; but that we have already exceded the just measures
of a Sermon) then, since every single Particle hath an innate Gravitation toward
all others, proportionated by Matter and Distance: it evidently appears, that the
outward Atoms of the Chaos would necessarily tend inwards and descend from all
quarters toward the Middle of the whole Space; for in respect to every Atom there
would lie through the Middle the greatest quantity of Matter and the most vigorous
Attraction: and those Atoms would there form and constitute one huge sphærical
Mass: which would be the only Body in the Universe. It is plain therefore, that
upon this Supposition the Matter of the Chaos could never compose such divided
and different Maas, as the Stars and Planets of the present World.
But allowing our Adversaries, that the Planets might be composed: yet however they could not
possibly acquire
such Revolutions in Circular Orbs,
or (which is all one to our present purpose) in Ellipses very little Eccentric.
For let them assign any place where the Planets were formed. Was it nearer to the
Sun, than the present distances are? But that is notoriously absurd: for then they
must have ascended from the place of their Formation, against the essential property
of mutual Attraction. Or were each formed in the same Orbs, in which they now move? But then they
must have moved from the Point of Rest, in an horizontal Line without
any inclination or descent. Now there is no natural Cause, neither Innate Gravity
nor Impulse of external Matter, that could beget such a Motion. For Gravity alone
must have carried them downwards to the Vicinity of the Sun. And that the ambient
Æther is too liquid and empty, to impel them horizontally with that prodigious
celerity, we have sufficiently proved before. Or were they made in same higher regions
of the Heavens; and from thence descended by their essential Gravity, till they all arrived at their
respective
Orbs; each with its present degree of Velocity, acquired by the fall? But then
why did they not continue their descent, till they were contiguous to the Sun;
whither both Mutual Attraction and Impetus carried them? What natural Agent could
turn them a-side, could impel them so strongly with a transverse Side-blow
against that tremendous Weight and Rapidity, when whole Planets were a falling?
But if we should suppose, that by some cross attraction or other they might acquire an obliquity of descent,
so
as to miss the body of the Sun, and to fall on one side of it: then indeed the
force of their Fall would carry them quite beyond it; and so they might fetch a
compass about it, and then return and ascend by the same steps and degrees of Motion
and Velocity with which they descended before. Such an eccentric Motion as this,
much after the manner that Comets revolve about the Sun, they might possibly acquire
by their innate principle of Gravity: but circular Revolutions in concentric Orbs
about the Sun or other central Body could in no-wise be attain’d without the power of the Divine Arm. For the Case of the Planetary Motions
is this. Let us conceive all the Planets to be formed or constituted with their
Centers in their several Orbs; and at once to be impress’d on them this Gravitating Energy toward all other Matter,
and a transverse Impulse of a just quantity in each, projecting them directly
in Tangents to those Orbs. The Compound Motion, which arises from this
Gravitation and Projection together, describes the present Revolutions of the Primary Planets
about the Sun, and of the Secondary about Those: the Gravity prohibiting, that they
cannot recede from the Centers of their Motions; and the transverse Impulse with-holding,
that they cannot approach to them. Now although Gravity could be innate (which we
have prov’d that it cannot be) yet certainly this projected, this transverse and
violent Motion can only be ascribed to the Right hand of the most high God, Creator
of Heaven and Earth.
But finally, if we should grant them,
that these Circular Revolutions could be
naturally attained; or, if they will, that
this very individual World in its present posture and motion was actually formed
our of Chaos by Mechanical Causes: yet
it requires a Divine Power and Providence to have preserved it so long in the
present state and condition. For what
are the Causes, that preserve the System
of our Sun and his Planets; so that the
Planets continue to move in the same
Orbs, neither receding from the Sun,
nor approaching nearer to him? We
have shewn, that a Transverse Impulse,
impress’d upon the Planets, retains them
in their several Orbs, that they are not
drawn down toward the Sun. And again,
their Gravitating Powers so incline them towards the Sun, that they are not carried upwards beyond their due distance
from him. These two great Agents, a
Transverse Impulse, and Gravity, are the Secondary Causes, under God, that maintain the System of Sun and
Planets. Gravity we understand to be a constant Energy or Faculty, perpetually acting by
certain Measures and naturally inviolable
Laws; we say, a Faculty and Power:
for we cannot conceive that the Act of
Gravitation of this present Moment can
propagate it self or produce that of the
next. But the Transverse Impulse we conceive to have been one single Act. For by reason of the Inactivity
of Matter and its inability to change its present State either of Moving or Resting,
that Transverse Motion would from one single Impulse continue for ever equal and
uniform, unless changed by the resistance of occurring Bodies or by a Gravitating
Power. So that the Planets, since they move Horizontally (whereby Gravity doth
not alter their swiftness) and through the liquid and unresisting Spaces of the
Heavens (where either no Bodies at all or inconsiderable ones do occur) may preserve
the fame Velocity, which the first Impulse imprest upon them, not only for five
or fix thousand years, but many Millions of Millions. It appears then, that if
there was but One Vast Sun in the Universe, and all the rest were Planets,
revolving around him in Concentric Orbs, at convenient Distances: such a System, as that,
would very long endure; could it but naturally have a Principle of Mutual Attraction,
and be once actually put into Circular Motions. But the Frame of the present World
hath a quite different structure: here’s an innumerable multitude of Fixt Stars or Suns; all which being made up of the
same common Matter,
must be supposed to be equally endued with a Power of Gravitation. For if All have
not such a power, what is it that could make that difference between Bodies of the
same sort? Nothing surely but a Deity, could have so arbitrarily indued our Sun
and Planets with a Power of Gravity not essential to Matter; while all the Fixt
Stars, that are so many Suns, have nothing of that Power. If the Fixt Stars then
are supposed to have no Power of Gravitation, ’tis a plain proof of a Divine Being.
And ’tis as plain a proof of a Divine Being; if they have the Power of Gravitation.
For since they are neither revolved about a common Center, nor have any
Transverse
Impulse, what is there else to restrain them from approaching toward each other,
as their Gravitating Power incites them? What Natural Cause can overcome Nature
it self? What is it that holds and keeps them in fixed Stations and Intervals
against
an incessant and inherent Tendency to desert them? Nothing could hinder, but that
the Outward Stars with their Systems of Planets must necessarily have descended toward the middlemost System of the
Universe,
whither all would be the most strongly attracted from all parts of a Finite Space.
It is evident therefore that the present Frame of Sun and Fixt Stars could not
possibly
subsist without the Providence of that Almighty Deity, Psal. 148.
who spake the word and they were made, who commanded and they were created; who
hath
made them fast for ever and ever, and hath given them a Law, which shall not be broken.
(2.) And secondly in the Supposition of an infinite
Chaos, ’tis hard indeed to determin, what would follow in this imaginary
Case
from an innate Principle of Gravity. But to hasten to a conclusion, we will grant
for the present, that the diffused Matter might convene into an infinite Number
of great Masses at great distances from one another, like the Stars and Planets
of this visible part of the World. But then it is impossible, that the Planets
should
naturally attain these circular Revolutions, either by Principle of Gravitation,
or by impulse of ambient Bodies. It is plain, here is no difference as to this; whether the World be Infinite or Finite:
so that the same Arguments that we have used before, may be equally urged in this
Supposition. And though we should concede, that these Revolutions might be acquired,
and that all were settled and constituted in the present State and Posture of Things;
yet, we say, the continuance of this Frame and Order, for so long a duration as
the known Ages of the World, must necessarily infer the Existence of God. For though
the Universe was infinite, the now Fixt Stars could not be fixed, but would naturally
convene together, and confound System with System: because, all mutually attracting,
every one would move whither it was most powerfully drawn. This, they may say,
is indubitable in the case of a Finite World, where some Systems must needs be Outmost,
and therefore be drawn toward the Middle: but when Infinite Systems succede one
another through an Infinite Space, and none is either inward or outward; may not
all the Systems be situated in an accurate Poise; and, because equally attracted
on all sides, remain fixed and unmoved? But to this we reply; That unless the very mathematical Center of Gravity of
every System be placed and fixed in the very mathematical Center of the Attractive Power of all the rest; they cannot
be evenly attracted on all sides, but must preponderate some way or other. Now he
that considers, what a mathematical Center is, and that Quantity is infinitely divisible
will never be persuaded, that such an Universal Equilibrium arising from the coincidence
of Infinite Centers can naturally be acquired or Maintained. If they say; that
upon the Supposition of Infinite Matter, every System would be infinitely, and therefore
equally attracted on all sides; and consequently would rest in an exact Equilibrium,
be the Center of its Gravity in what Position soever: this will overthrow their
very Hypothesis. For at this rate in an infinite Chaos nothing at all
could be formed; no Particles could convene by mutual Attraction; because every
one there must have Infinite Matter around it, and therefore must rest for ever,
being evenly balanced between Infinite Attractions. Even the Planets upon this principle
must gravitate no more toward the Sun, than any other way: to that they would not revolve in curve Lines,
but fly away in direct Tangents, till they struck against other Planets or Stars
in some remote regions of the Infinite Space. An equal Attraction on all
sides
of all Matter is just equal to no Attraction at all: and by this means all the
Motion in the Universe must procede from external Impulse alone; which we have
proved before to be an incompetent Cause for the Formation of a World.
And now, O thou almighty and eternal Creator, Psal. 8.
having
considered
the Heavens the work of thy fingers, the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained, with all the company of Heaven we laud and magnify thy glorious Name, evermore
praising thee and saying; Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and Earth
are full of thy Glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most High.
A
CONFUTATION
OF
ATHEISM
FROM THE
Origin and Frame of the World..
The Third and Last PART.
The Eighth SERMON Preached
December 5. 1692.
Acts XIV. 15, &c.
That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living
God, who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea, and all things that are therein: Who
in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he
left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us Rain from
Heaven, and fruitful Seasons, filling our hearts with Food and Gladness.
HAVING abundantly proved in our Last Exercise, That the Frame of the present World could neither be
made nor preserved without the Power of God; we than now
consider
the structure and motions of our own System, if any characters of Divine Wisdom
and Goodness may be discoverable by us. And even at the first and
general View it very evidently appears to us (which is our FOURTH and Last
Proposition,) That the Order and Beauty of the Systematical Parts of the World,
the Discernible Ends and Final Causes of them, the τὸ βελτίον or Meliority above
what was necessary to be, do evince by a reflex Argument, that it could not
be produced by Mechanism or Chance, but by an Intelligent and Benign Agent, that
by his excellent Wisdom made the Heavens.
But before we engage in this Disquisition, we must offer one necessary Caution; that we need not nor do not confine and determin the
purposes of God
creating all Mundane Bodies, merely
to Human Ends and Uses. Not that
we believe it laborious and painful to
Omnipotence to create a World out of
Nothing; or more laborious to create a
great World, than a small one: so as we
might think it disagreeable to the Majesty and Tranquillity of the
Divine Nature to take so much
pains for our sakes. Nor do we count it any absurdity, that such a vast and immense
Universe should be made for the sole use of such mean and unworthy Creatures as
the Children of Men. For if we consider the Dignity of an Intelligent Being, and
put that in the scales against brute inanimate Matter; we may affirm, without
over-valuing Human Nature, that the Soul of one vertuous and religious Man is of
greater worth and excellency than the Sun and his Planets and all the Stars in the
World. If therefore it could appear, that all the Mundane Bodies are some way conducible
to the service of Man; if all were as beneficial to us, as the Polar Stars were
formerly for Navigation as the Moon is for the flowing and ebbing of Tides, by which
an inestimable advantage accrues to the World; for her officious Courtesy in long
Winter Nights, especially to the more Northern Nations, who in a continual Night
it may be of a whole month are so pretty well accommodated by the Light of the Moon
reflected from frozen Snow, that they do not much envy their Antipodes a month’s presence of the Sun: if all the Heavenly Bodies were thus
serviceable to us, we should not be backward to assign their usefulness to Mankind, as the
sole end of their Creation. But we dare not undertake to shew,
what advantage is brought to Us by those innumerable Stars in the Galaxy and other
parts of the Firmament, not discernible by naked eyes, and yet each many
thousand times bigger than the whole body of the Earth: If you say, they
beget in us a great Idea and Veneration of the mighty Author and Governour of
such stupendous Bodies, and excite and elevate our minds to his adoration and
praise; you
say very truly and well. But would it not raise in us a higher apprehension of
the infinite Majesty and boundless Beneficence of God, to
suppose that those remote and vast Bodies were formed, not merely upon Our account to be peept at
through an Optic Glass, but for different ends and nobler purposes? And yet
who will deny, but that there are great multitudes of lucid Stars even beyond
the reach of the best Telescopes; and that every visible Star may have opake
Planets revolve about them, which we cannot discover? Now if they were not created for Our
sakes; it is certain and evident, that they were nor made for their own. For Matter
hath no life nor perception, is not conscious of its own existence, nor capable
of happiness, nor gives the Sacrifice of Praise and Worship to the Author of its
Being. It remains therefore, that all Bodies were formed for the sake of Intelligent
Minds: and as the Earth was principally designed for the Being and Service and Contemplation
of Men; why may not all other Planets be created for the like Uses, each for their
own Inhabitants which have Life and understanding? If any man will indulge
himself
in this Speculation, he need not quarrel with revealed Religion upon such an account.
The Holy Scriptures do not forbid him to suppose as great a Multitude of Systems
and as much inhabited, as he pleases. ’Tis true; there is no mention in Moses’s Narrative of the Creation, of any People in other Planets. But it plainly appears, that the Sacred
Historian doth only treat of the Origins of Terrestrial Animals: he hath given us
no account of God's creating the Angels; and yet the same Author, in the ensuing parts of the Pentateuch,
makes not unfrequent mention of the Angels of God. Neither need we be sollicitous
about the condition of those Planetary People, nor raise frivolous Disputes, how
far they may participate in the Miseries of Adam's Fall, or in the benefits of
Christ’s incarnation. As if, because they are supposed to be Rational, they
must needs be concluded to be Men? For what is Man? not a Reasonable
Animal merely, for that is not an adequate and distinguishing Definition; but
a Rational Mind of such particular Faculties, united to an Organical Body of
such
a certain Structure and Form, in such peculiar Laws of Connexion between the Operations
and Affections of the Mind and the Motions of the Body. Now God Almighty by the inexhausted
fecundity of his creative Power may have made innumerable Orders and Classes of
Rational Minds; some in their natural perfections higher than Human Souls, others
inferior. But a Mind of superior or meaner capacities than Human would
constitute
a different species though united to a Human Body in the fame Laws of Connexion: and a Mind of Human Capacities
would make another Species, if united to a different Body in different Laws of Connexion.
For this Sympathetical Union of a Rational Soul with Matter, so as to produce a
Vital communication between them, is an arbitrary institution of the Divine Wisdom: there is no
reason nor foundation in the separate natures of either substance,
why any Motion in the Body should produce any Sensation at all in the Soul; or why
This motion should produce That particular Sensation, rather than any other. God
therefore may have join’d immaterial Souls, even of the same Class and Capacities
in their separate State, to other kind of Bodies and in other Laws of Union; and
from those different Laws of Union there will arise quite different affections and natures and species of the compound Beings. So that
we ought not upon any account to conclude, that if there be Rational Inhabitants in the Moon or Mars or any unknown Planets of other Systems, they must therefore have Human Nature, or be involved in the Circumstances of Our World. And thus much was necessary to be here inculcated (which will obviate and preclude
the most considerable objections of our Adversaries) that we do not determine the
Final Causes and Usefulness of the Systematical parts of the World, merely as they
have respect to the Exigencies or Conveniencies of Human Life.
Let us now turn our thoughts and imaginations to the Frame of
our System, if there we may trace any visible footsteps of Divine Wisdom and Beneficence.
But we are all liable to many mistakes by the prejudices of Childhood and Youth,
which few of us ever correct by a serious scrutiny in our riper years, and a Contemplation
of the Phænomena of Nature in their Causes and Beginnings. What we have always
seen to be done in one constant and uniform manner; we are apt to imagin there
was but that one way of doing it, and it could not be otherwise. This is a great
error and impediment in a disquisition of this nature: to remedy which, we ought
to consider every thing as not yet in Being; and then diligently examin, if it
must needs have been at all, or what other ways it might have been as possibly as the present; and if We find a greater Good
and Utility in the present constitution, than would have accrued either from the
total Privation of it, or from other frames and structures that might as possibly
have been as It: we may then reasonably conclude, that the present constitution
proceded, neither from the necessity of material Causes, nor the blind shuffles
of an imaginary Chance, but from an intelligent and Good Being, that formed it that
particular way out of choice and design. And especially if this Usefulness be
conspicuous
not in one or a few instances only, but in a long train and series of Things,
this will give us a firm and infallible assurance, that we have not pass’d a wrong
Judgment.
I. Let us procede therefore by this
excellent Rule in the contemplation of
Our System. ’Tis evident that all the
Planets receive Heat and Light from the
body of the Sun. Our own Earth in
particular would be barren and desolate,
a dead dark lump of Clay, without the
benign influence of the Solar Rayes;
which without question is true of all the other Planets. It is good therefore, that there should
be a Sun, to warm and cherish the Seeds of Plants, and excite them to Vegetation;
to impart an uninterrupted Light to all parts of his System for the Subsistence
of Animals. But how came the Sun to be Luminous? not from the necessity of natural
Causes, or the constitution of the Heavens. All the Planets might have moved about
him in the same Orbs and the same degrees of Velocity as now; and yet the Sun might
have been an opake and cold Body like Them. For as the six Primary Planets revolve
about Him, so the Secondary ones are moved about Them, the Moon about the Earth,
the Satellites about Juppiter. and others about Saturn; the one as
regularly as the other, in the same Sesquialteral proportion of the times of their
Periodical Revolutions to the Semidiameters of their Orbs. So that, though we
suppose
the preterit Existence and Conservation of the System, yet the Sun might have been
a Body without Light or Heat, of the same kind with the Earth and Juppiter and
Saturn. But then what horrid darkness and desolation must have reign’d in
the World? It had been unfit for the Divine purposes in creating
vegetable and sensitive and rational Creatures. It was therefore the contrivance and choice
of a Wise and Good Being; that the Central Sun should be a Lucid Body, to communicate warmth and light and life to the Planets around him.
II. We have shewed in our Last,
that the concentric Revolutions of the
Planets about the Sun procede from a compound Motion; a Gravitation towards the
Sun, which is a constant Energy infused into Matter by the Author
of all things, and a projected transverse
Impulse in Tangents to their several
Orbs, that was impress’d at first by the
Divine Arm, and will carry them around till the end of the World. But now admitting that Gravity may be essential to
Matter; and that a transverse Impulse
might be acquired too by Natural Causes,
yet to make all the Planets move about
the Sun in circular Orbs; there must be
given to each a determinate Impulse,
these present particular degrees of Velocity which they now have, in proportion to their Distances from the Sun and
to the quantity of the Solar Matter. For had the Velocities of the several Planets been greater or
less than they are now, at the same distances from the Sun; or had their
Newton Phil. Natur. Princip. Math.
Distances
from the Sun, or the quantity of the Sun’s Matter and consequently his Attractive
Power been greater or less than they are now, with the same Velocities: they would
not have revolved in concentric Circles as they do, but have moved in Hyperbola’s
or in Ellipses very Eccentric, The same may be said of the Velocities of the Secondary
Planets with respect to their Distances from the Centers of Their Orbs, and to the
Quantities of the Matter of those Central Bodies, Now that all there Distances and
Motions and Quantities of Matter should be so accurately and harmoniously adjusted
in this great Variety of our System, is above the fortuitous Hits of blind
material Causes, and must certainly flow from that eternal Fountain of Wisdom, the
Creator of Heaven and Earth, who Ὁ θεὸς ἀεὶ γεωμετρεῖ. Plat.
always acts Geometrically, by just
and adequate numbers and weights and measures. And let us examin it further by
our Critical Rule: Are the present Revolutions
in circular Orbs more beneficial, than the other would be? If the Planets had
Moved in those Lines above named; sometimes they would have approached to the Sun
as near as the Orb of Mercury, and sometimes have exorbitated beyond the
distance of Saturn; and some have quite left the Sun without ever returning.
Now the very constitution of a Planet would be corrupted and destroyed by such
a change of the Interval between it and the Sun: no living thing could have endured
such unspeakable excesses of Heat and Cold: all the Animals of our Earth must
inevitably have perished, or rather never have been. Gen. 1.
So that as
sure as it
good, very good, that Human Nature should exist; so certain it is that the
circular Revolutions of the Earth (and Planets) rather than those other Motions
which might as possibly have been, do declare not only the Power of God, but his
Wisdon and Goodness.
III. It is manifest by our last Discourse, that the Æthereal
Spaces are perfectly fluid; they neither assist nor retard, neither guide nor divert
the Revolutions of the Planets; which rowl through those Regions as free and unresisted,
as if they moved in a vacuum. So that any of them might as possibly have
moved _in opposite Courses to the present, and in Planes crossing the Plane of the
Ecliptic in any kind of Angles. Now if the System had been fortuitously formed by
the convening Matter of a Chaos; how is it conceivable, that all the Planets both
Primary and Secondary, should revolve tie fame Way from the West to the East, and
that in the same Plane too without any considerable variation? No natural and
necessary Cause could so determin their motions; and ’tis millions of millions odds to an
unit in such a Cast of Chance. Such an apt and regular Harmony, such an admirable Order
and Beauty must deservedly be ascribed to Divine Art and Conduct. Especially if
we consider, that the smallest Planets are situated nearest the Sun and each other; whereas Juppiter and Saturn, that are vastly greater than the rest and have many Satellites about them, are wisely removed to the extreme Regions of the System, and placed at an immense
Distance one from the other.
For even now at this wide interval they are observed in their Conjunctions to
disturb
one anothers motions a little by their gravitating Powers: but if such vast Masses
of Matter had been situated much nearer to the Sun or to each other (as they might
as easily have been, for any mechanical or fortuitous Agent) they must
necessarily
have caused a considerable disturbance and disorder in the whole System.
IV. But let us consider the particular
Situation of our Earth and its distance from the Sun. It is now placed so conveniently, that Plants thrive and flourish
in it, and Animals live: this is matter
of fact, and beyond all dispute. But
how came it to pass at the beginning,
that the Earth moved in its present Orb? We have shown before, that if Gravity
and a Projected Motion be fitly proportion’d, any Planet would freely revolve
at any assignable distance within the
Space of the whole System. Was it
mere Chance then, or Divine Counsel
and Choice, that constituted the Earth
in its present Situation? To know this; we will enquire, if this
particular Distance from the Sun be
better for our Earth and its Creatures, than a greater or less would have been.
We may be mathematically certain, That the Heat of the Sun is according to the density of the Sun beams, and is reciprocally proportional to the square of the
distance from the Body of the Sun. Newton ibidem. p. 415.
Now by this Calculation, suppose the Earth should be
removed and placed nearer to the Sun, and revolve for instance in the Orbit of
Mercury; there the whole Ocean would even boil with extremity of Heat, and
be all exhaled into Vapors; all Plants and Animals would be scorched and consumed
in that fiery Furnace. But suppose the Earth should be carried to the great
Distance
of Saturn; there the whole Globe would be one Frigid Zone, the deepest Seas under the very Equator would be frozen
to the bottom; there would be no Life,
no Germination; nor any thing that comes now under our knowledge or senses. It was
much better therefore, that the Earth should move where it does, than in a much
greater or less Interval from the Body of the Sun. And if you place it at any other Distance,
either less or more than Saturn or Mercury; you will still alter
it for the worse proportionally to the Change. It was situated therefore where it
is, by the Wisdom of some voluntary Agent; and not by the blind motions of Fortune
or Fate. If any one should think with himself, How then can any Animal at all live
in Mercury and Saturn in such intense degrees of Heat and Cold? Let
him only consider, that the Matter of each Planet may have a different density and
texture and form, which will dispose and qualifie it to be acted on by greater or
less degrees of Heat according to their several Situations; and that the Laws of
Vegetation and Life and Sustenance and Propagation are the arbitrary pleasure of
God, and may vary in all Planets according to the Divine Appointment and the Exigencies
of Things, in manners incomprehensible to our Imaginations. ’Tis enough for our
purpose to discern the tokens of Wisdom in the placing of our Earth; if its
present
constitution would be spoil’d and destroy'd, if we could not wear Flesh and Blood,
if we could not have Human Nature at those different Distances.
V. We have all learnt from the Doctrine of the Sphere, that the
Earth revolves with a double motion. For while it is carried around the Sun in the
Orbis Magnus once a year, it perpetually wheels about its own Axis once
in a day and a night: so that in 24 hours space it hath turn’d all the parts of
the Equinoctial to the rayes of the Sun. Now the Uses of this vertiginous motion are very conspicuous; for this is it that gives Day and Night
successively
over the face of the whole Earth, and makes it habitable all around: without this
Diurnal Rotation one Hemisphere would lie dead and torpid in perpetual Darkness
and Frost, and the best part of the other would be burnt up and depopulated by
so
permanent a Heat. It is better therefore, that the Earth should often move about
its own Center, and make there Vicissitudes of Night and Day, than expose always
the same side to the action of the Sun. But how came it to be so moved? not from
any necessity of the Laws of Motion or the System of the Heavens. It might annually have compassed the Sun, and yet have always turn'd the
same Hemisphere towards it. This is matter of Fact and Experiment in the motion
of the Moon; which is carried about the Earth, in the very same manner as the
Earth about the Sun, and yet always shews the same face to Us. She indeed,
notwithstanding this, turns all her Globe to the Sun by moving in her menstrual
Orb, and enjoys Night and Day alternately, one Day of Hers being equal to about
14 Days and Nights of Ours. But should the Earth move in the same manner about
the Sun, as the Moon does about the Earth; one half of it could never see the
Day, but must eternally be condemned to Solitude and Darkness. That the Earth
therefore frequently revolves about its own Center, is another eminent token of
the Divine Wisdom and Goodness.
VI. But let us compare the mutual proportion of these Diurnal
and Annual Revolutions; for they are distinct from one another, and have a different
degree of Velocity. The Earth rowls once about its Axis in a natural Day: in which
time all the parts of the Equator move something more than 3 of the Earths Diameters; which makes
about a 1100 in the space of a year. But within the same space of a year the Center
of the Earth is carried above 50 times as far once round the Orbis Magnus, whose wideness we now assume to be
20000
Terrestrial Diameters. So that the
annual motion is more than 50 times swifter than the Diurnal Rotation, though we measure the latter from the Equator, here the Celerity is the greatest.
Tacquet de Circulorum volutionibus.
But it
must needs be acknowledged, since the Earth revolves not upon a material and
rugged, but a geometrical Plane, that the proportions of the Diurnal and Annual
Motions may be varied in innumerable degrees; any of which might have happen’d as
probably as the present. What was it then that prescribed this particular Celerity
to each Motion, this proportion and temperament between them both? Let us examin
it by our former Rule: if there be any Meliority in the present constitution; if any
considerable Change would be for the worse. We will
suppose then, that
the annual Motion is accelerated doubly; so that a periodical Revolution would be performed in 6
Months.
Such a Change would be pernicious; not only because the Earth could not move in
a Circular Orb, which we have consider’d before; but because the Seasons being then
twice as short as they are now, the cold Winter would overtake us, before our Corn
and Fruits could possibly be ripe. But shall this Motion be as much retarded, and
the Seasons lengthen’d in the same proportion? This too would be as fatal as
the
other: for in most Countries the Earth would be so parched and effete by the drought
of the Summer, that it would afford still but one Harvest, as it doth at the present:
which then would not be a sufficient store for the consumption of a Year,
that would be twice as long, as now. But let us suppose, that the Diurnal
Rotation is either considerably swifter or slower. And first let it be retarded;
so as to make (for example) but 12 Circuits in a year: then every day and night
would be as long as Thirty are now, not so fitly proportion’d neither to the common
affairs of Life, nor to the exigencies of Sleep and Sustenance in a constitution of
Flesh and Blood. But let it then be accelerated;
and wheel a thousand times about its Center, while the Center describes one
circle about the Sun: then an Equinoctial day would consist but of four Hours, which
would be an inconvenient Change to the inhabitants of the Earth; such hasty Nights
as those would give very unwelcome interruptions to our Labours and Journeys and
other Transactions of the World. It is better therefore, that the Diurnal
and Annual Motions should be so proportion’d as they are. Let it therefore be
ascribed
to the transcendent Wisdom and Benignity of that God, who hath made all things very good, and loveth all things that he hath
made.
VII. But let us consider, not the Quantity and Proportion only, but the Mode
also of this Diurnal Motion. You must
conceive an imaginary Plane, which passing through the Centers of the Sun and
the Earth extends it self on all sides as
far as the Firmament: this Plane is called
the Ecliptic; and in this the Center of
the Earth is perpetually carried without
any deviation. But then the Axis of the
Earth, about which its Diurnal Rotation is made, is not erect
to this Plane of the Ecliptic, but inclines toward it from the Perpendiculum in an Angle of 23 degrees and a half Now why is
the Axis of the Earth in this particular posture, rather than any other? did it
happen by Chance, or procede from Design? To determin this question, let us see,
as we have done before, if This be more beneficial to us, than any other Constitution.
We all know from the very Elements of Astronomy, that this inclined Position of
the Axis, which keeps always the same Direction and a constant Parallelism to
it self, is the sole cause of these grateful and needful Vicissitudes of the four Seasons of the Year, and the
Variation in length of Days. If we take
away the Inclination; it would absolutely undo these Northern Nations; the
Sun would never come nearer us, than
he doth now on the tenth of March or
the twelfth of September. But would we rather part with the
Parallelism?
Let us suppose then that the Axis of the
Earth keeps always the same Inclination toward the body of the Sun: this indeed would
cause a variety of Days and
Nights and Seasons on the Earth; but then every particular Country would have always the
same
diversity of Day and Night, and the same constitution of Season, without any alteration:
some would always have long Nights and short Days, others again perpetually long
Days and short Nights: one Climate would be scorched and swelter’d with everlasting
Dog-days; while an eternal December blasted another. This surely is not quite
so good as the present Order of Seasons. But shall the Axis rather observe no constant
inclination to any thing, but vary and waver at uncertain times and places? This
would be a happy Constitution indeed. There could be no health, no life nor subsistence
in such an irregular System; by those surprizing Nods of the Pole we might be
tossed backward or forward in a moment from January to June, nay
possibly
from the January of Greenland to the June of Abssinia.
It is better therefore upon all accounts that the Axis should be continued
in its present posture and direction: so that this also is a signal Character of
Divine Wisdom and Goodness.
But because several have imagin’d, that
this skue posture of the Axis is a most
unfortunate and pernicious thing; that
if the Poles had been erect to the Plane
of the Ecliptic, all mankind would have
enjoyed a very Paradise upon Earth; a
perpetual Spring, an eternal Calm and
Serenity, and the Longævity of .Methuselah without pains or diseases; we
are obliged to consider it a little further.
And first as to the Universal and Perpetual Spring, ’tis a mere Poetical Fancy, and (bating the equality of Days and
Nights which is a thing of small value)
as to the other properties of a Spring,
it is naturally impossible, being repugnant to the very form of the Globe. For
to those People that dwell under or near
the Æquator, this Spring would be a
most pestilent and insupportable Summer; and as for those Countries that are
nearer the Poles, in which number are our own and the most considerable Nations of the World, a Perpetual Spring
will not do their business; they must
have longer Days, a nearer approach of
the Sun, and a less Obliquity of his
Rayes; they must: have a Summer and
a Harvest-time too to ripen their Grain and Fruits and Vines, or
else they must bid an eternal adieu to the very best of their sustenance. It is
plain, that the Center of the Earth must move all along in the
Orbis Magnus; whether we suppose a Perpetual Æquinox,
or an oblique Position of the Axis. So that the whole Globe would continue in the
same Distance from the Sun, and receive the same quantity of Heat from him in
a Year or any assignable time, in either Hypothesis. Though the Axis then had been
perpendicular; yet take the whole Year about, and the Earth would have had the
same measure of Heat, that it has now. So that here lies the question? Whether
is more beneficial, that the Inhabitants of the Earth should have the Yearly
quantity of Heat distributed equally every day, or so disposed as it is, a greater
share
of it in Summer and in Winter a less? It must needs be allowed, that the Temperate
Zones have no Heat to spare in Summer; ’tis very well if it be sufficient for the
maturation of Fruits. Now this being granted; ’tis as certain and manifest, that
an even distribution of the Yearly Heat would never have brought those Fruits to
maturity, as this is a known and familiar experiment. That such a quantity of Fewel
all kindled at once will cause Water to boil, which being lighted gradually and
successively will never be able to do it. It is clear therefore, that in the constitution
of a Perpetual Æquinox the best part of the Globe would be desolate and useless: and as to that little that could be inhabited, there is no reason to expect, that
it would constantly enjoy that admired Calm and Serenity. If the
assertion were true; yet some perhaps may think, that such a Felicity, as would
make Navigation impossible, is not much to be envied. But it's altogether
precarious, and has no necessary foundation neither upon Reason nor Experience.
For the Winds and Rains and other affections of the Atmosphere do not solely
depend (as that assertion poseth) upon the course of the Sun; but partly and perhaps
most
frequently upon Steams and Exhalations from subterraneous Heat, upon the
Positions
of the Moon, the Situations of Seas or Mountains or Lakes or Woods, and many other
unknown or uncertain Causes. So that, though the Course of the Sun should be invariable, and never
swerve from the Equator; yet the
temperament of the Air would be mutable nevertheless, according to the absence or
presence or various mixture of the other Causes. The ancient Philosophers for many
ages together unanimously taught, that the Torrid Zone was not habitable. The
reasons
that they went upon were very specious and probable; till the experience of these latter ages evinced
them to be erroneous. They argued from cœlestial Causes only, the constant
Vicinity of the Sun and
the directness of his Rayes; never suspecting, that the Body of the Earth had so great
an efficiency in the changes of the Air; and that then could be the coldest and
rainiest season, the Winter of the Year, when the Sun was the nearest of all; and
steer’d directly over mens Heads. Which is warning sufficient to deter any man from
expecting such eternal Serenity and Halcyon-days from so incompetent and partial
a Cause, as the constant Course of the Sun in the Æquinoctial Circle. What general
condition and temperament of Air would follow upon that Supposition we cannot possibly define; for ’tis not
caused by certain and regular Motions, not subject to Mathematical Calculations. But if we may
make a conjecture from the present Constitution; we shall hardly wish for a
Perpetual Æquinox to save the charges
of Weather-glasses: for ’tis very well
known, that the Months of March and
September, the two Æquinoxes of Our
year, are the most windy and tempestuous, the most unsettled and unequable
of Seasons in most Countries of the
World. Now if this notion of an uniform Calm and Serenity be false or
precarious; then even the last supposed advantage, the constant Health and Longevity of Men must be given up also,
as a groundless conceit: for this (according to the Assertors themselves) doth solely, as an effect of Nature, depend
upon the other. Nay further, though we should allow them their Perpetual
Calm and equability of Heat; they will never be able to prove, that therefore Men would be so vivacious as they
would have us believe. Nay perhaps
the contrary may be inferr'd, if we may
argue from present experience: For the
Inhabitants of the Torrid Zone, who suffer the least and shortest recesses of the Sun, and are within
one step and degree of a Perpetual Æquinox, are not only shorter lived (generally speaking) than other Nations nearer the Poles; but inferior to them in Strength
and Stature and Courage, and in all the capacities of the Mind. It appears therefore,
that the gradual Vicissitudes of Heat and Cold are to far from shortning the thread
of man’s Life, or impairing his intellectual Faculties; that very probably they
both prolong the one in some measure, and exalt and advance the other. So that
still we do profess to adore the Divine Wisdom and Goodness for this variety of
Seasons, for Gen. 8.
Seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and
summer and winter.
VIII. Come we now to consider the Atmosphere, and the exterior
Frame and Face of the Globe; if we may find any tracks and footsteps of Wisdom in
the Constitution of Them. I need not now inform you, that the Air is a thin fluid
Body, endued with Elasticity or Springiness, and capable of Condensation and Rarefaction;
See Mr. Boyle of the Air.
and should it be much more expanded or condensed, than it naturally is, no Animals
could live and breath: it is probable also, that the Vapours could not be duly raised and
supported in it; which at once would deprive the Earth of all its
ornament and glory, of all its living Inhabitants and Vegetables too. But ’tis certainly
known and demonstrated, that the Condensation and Expansion of any portion of the
Air, is always proportional to the weight and pressure incumbent upon it: so that
if the Atmosphere had been either much greater or less than it is, as it might
easily have been, it would have had in its lowest region on the Surface of the Earth
a much greater density or tenuity of texture; and consequently have been unserviceable
for Vegetation and Life. It Inuit needs therefore be an Intelligent Being that could
so justly adapt it to those excellent purposes. ’Tis concluded by Astronomers,
that the Atmosphere of the Moon hath no Clouds nor Rains, but a perpetual and uniform
serenity: because nothing discoverable in the Lunar Surface is ever covered and
absconded from us by the interposition of any clouds or mists, but such as rise
from our own Globe. Now if the Atmosphere of Our Earth had been of
such a Constitution; there could nothing, that now grows or breaths in it, have
been formed or preserved; Human Nature must have been quite obliterated out of
the Works of Creation. If our Air had not been a springy elastical Body, no Animal
could have exercised the very function of Respiration: and yet the ends and uses
of Respiration are not served by that Springiness, but by some other unknown and
singular Quality. Mr. Boyle's Second Continuation of Physico-mechanical
Exp. about the Air.
For the Air, that in exhausted Receivers of Air-pumps is exhaled
from Minerals and Flesh and Fruits and Liquors, is as true and genuine as to Elasticity
and Density or Rarefaction, as that we respire in: and yet this factitious Air
is so far from being fit to be breathed in, that it kills Animals in a moment, even
sooner than the very absence of all Air, than a Vacuum it self: All which do infer
the most admirable Providence of the Author of Nature; who foreknew the
necessity
of Rains and Dews to the present structure of Plants, and the uses of Respiration to Animals; and therefore
created those correspondent properties in the Atmosphere of the Earth.
IX. In the next place let us consider the ample provision of Waters,
those inexhausted Treasures of the Ocean: Lucret. Et mare,
quod late terrarum distinet oras.
and though some have grudged the great
share that it takes of the Surface of the Earth, yet we shall propose this too, as
a conspicuous mark and character of the Wisdom of God. For that we may not now
say,
that the vast Atlantic Ocean is really greater Riches and of more worth to
the World, than if it was changed into a fifth Continent; and that the Dry Land
is as yet much too big for its Inhabitants; and that before they than want Room
by increasing and multiplying, there may be new Heavens and a new Earth;
We dare venture to affirm, that those copious Stores of Waters are no more than
necessary for the present constitution of our Globe. For is not the whole
Substance
of all Vegetables mere modified Water? and consequently of all Animals too; all
which either feed upon Vegetables or prey upon one another? Is not an
immense quantity of it continually exhaled by the Sun, to fill the Atmosphere with
Vapors and Clouds, and feed the Plants of the Earth with the balm of Dews and the
fatness of Showers? It seems incredible at first hearing, that all the Blood in
our Bodies should circulate in a trice, in a very few minutes: but I believe it
would be more surprizing, if we knew the short and swift periods of the great Circulation
of Water, that vital Blood of the Earth, which composeth and nourisheth all things. If we could but compute that prodigious Mass of it, that is daily thrown
into the channel of the Sea from all the Rivers of the World: we should then know
and admire how much is perpetually evaporated and call again upon the Continents
to supply those innumerable Streams. And indeed hence we may discover, not only
the Use and Necessity, but the Cause too of the vastness of the Ocean.
I never yet heard of any Nation, that complained they had too broad or too deep
or too many Rivers, or wished they were either smaller or fewer: they understand better than so, how to value and esteem those inestimable gifts
of Nature. Now supposing that the multitude and largeness of Rivers ought to continue
as great as now; we can easily prove, that the extent of the Ocean could be no
less than it is. For it’s evident and necessary, (if we follow the most fair and
probable Hypothesis, that the Origin of Fountains is from Vapors and Rain) that
the Receptacle of Waters, into which the mouths of all those Rivers must empty
themselves,
ought to have so spacious a Surface, that as much Water may be continually brushed
off by the Winds and exhaled by the Sun, as (besides what falls again in Showers
upon its own Surface) is brought into it by all the Rivers. Now the Surface of the
Ocean is just so wide and no wider: for if more was evaporated than returns into
it again, the Sea would become less; if lets was evaporated, it would grow bigger.
So that, because since the memory of all ages it: hath continu'd at a stand
without considerable variation, and if it hath gain'd ground upon one Country,
hath lost as much in another; it must consequently be exactly proportioned to the
present constitution of Rivers. How rash therefore and vain are those
busy Projectors in Speculation, that imagin they could recover ro the World many
new and noble Countries, in the most happy and temporate Climates, without any damage
to the old ones, could this same Mass of the Ocean be lodged and circumscribed
in a much deeper Channel and within narrower Shores! For by how much they would
diminish the present extent of the Sea, so much they would impair the Fertility
and Fountains and Rivers of the Earth: because the quantity of Vapors, that must
be exhaled to supply all there, would be lessened proportionally to the bounds of
the Ocean; for the Vapors are not to be measured from the bulk of the Water, but
from the space of the Surface. So that this also doth infer the superlative Wisdom
and Goodness of God, that he hath treasured up the Waters in so deep and spacious
a Storehouse, Psa 104.
the place that he hath founded and appointed for them.
X. Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatam
Naturam rerum, tanta stat prædita culpa.
Principio, quantum cœli tegit impetus ingens.
Inde avidam partem montes Sylvæque ferartum
Possedere, tenent rupes, vastæque paludes,
Et mare, quid late terrarum distinet oras.
Luccret. lib. 5.
But
some men are out of Love with the features and mean
of our Earth; they do not like this rugged and irregular Surface, these Precipices
and Valleys and the gaping Channel of the Ocean. This with them is Deformity, and
rather carries the face of a Ruin or a rude and indigested Lump of Atoms that casually
convened so, than a Work of Divine Artifice. They would have the vast Body of a
Planet to be as elegant and round as a factitious Globe represents it; to be every
where smooth and equable, and as plain as the Elysian Fields. Let us examin,
what weighty reasons they have to disparage the present constitution of Nature in
so injurious a manner. Why, if we suppose the Ocean to be dry, and that we look
down upon the empty Channel from some higher Region of the Air, how horrid and ghastly
and unnatural would it look? Now admitting this Supposition; Let us suppose too that the Soil of this dry Channel were covered
with Grass and Trees in manner of the Continent, and then see what would follow.
If a man could be carried asleep and placed in the very middle of this dry Ocean; it
must be allowed, that he could not distinguish it from the inhabited Earth. For if the
bottom should be unequal with Shelves
and Rocks and Precipices and Gulfs; these being now appparel’d with a vesture of Plants, would only resemble the
Mountains and Valleys that he was accustomed to before. But very probably he would wake in a large and
smooth
Plain for though the bottom of the
Sea were gradually inclin’d and sloping
from the Shore to the middle: yet the
additional Acclivity, above what a Level
would seem to have, would be imperceptible in so short a prospect as he could take of it. So that to make this
Man sensible what a deep Cavity he was
placed in; he must be carried so high in
the Air, till he could see at one view
the whole Breadth of the Channel, and
so compare the depression of the Middle
with the elevation of the Banks. But
then a very small skill in Mathematics is enough to instruct us, that before he could arrive to that
distance
from the Earth, all the inequality of Surface would be lost to his View: the wide
Ocean would appear to him like an even and uniform Plane (uniform as to its Level,
though not as to Light and Shade) though every Rock of the Sea was as high as the
Pico of Teneriff. But though we should grant, that the dry Gulf of
the Ocean would appear vastly hollow and horrible from the top of a high Cloud:
yet what a way of reasoning is this from the freaks of Imagination, and impossible
Suppositions? Is the Sea ever likely to be evaporated by the Sun, or to be emptied
with Buckets? Why then must we fancy this impossible dryness; and then upon that
fiditious account calumniate Nature, as deformed and ruinous and unworthy of a Divine
Author? Is there then any physical deformity in the Fabric of a Human Body;
because
our Imagination can strip it of its Muscles and Skin, and shew us the scragged and knotty
Backbone, the gaping and ghastly Jaws, and all the Sceleton underneath? We have shewed before, that the Sea could not be much narrower
than it is, without a great loss to the World: and must we now
have an Ocean of mere Flats and Shallows, to the utter ruin of Navigation; for
fear our heads should turn giddy at the imagination of gaping Abysses and
unfathomable Gulfs? But however, they may say, the Sea-shores at least might have
been even and uniform, nor crooked and broken as they are into innumerable
Angles and Creeks and Inlets and Bays, without Beauty or Order, which carry the
Marks more of Chance and Confusion, than of the production of a wise Creator. And
would not this be a fine bargain indeed? to part with all our Commodious Ports
and Harbours, which the greater the Inlet is, are so much the better, for the
imaginary pleasure of an open and streight Shore without any retreat or flicker
from the Winds; which would make the Sea of no use at all as to Navigation and
Commerce. But what apology can we make for the horrid deformity of Rocks and
Crags, of naked and broken Cliff's, of long Ridges of barren Mountains, in the
convenientest Latitudes for Habitation and Fertility, could but those rude heaps
of Rubbish and Ruins be removed out of the way? We have one general and
sufficient
answer for all seeming defeats or disorders in the constitution of Land or Sea; that we do not contend to have the Earth
pass for a
Paradise, or to make a very
Heaven of our Globe, we reckon it only as the Land of our peregrination,
and aspire after Heb. 11.
a better, and a cælestial Country. ’Tis enough, if it
be so framed and constituted, that by a carefull Contemplation of it we have great
reason to acknowledge and adore the Divine Wisdom and Benignity of its Author. But
to wave this general Reply; let the Objectors consider, that these supposed
irregularities must necessarily come to pass from the established Laws of Mechanism
and the ordinary course of Nature. For supposing the Existence of Sea and Mountains;
if the Banks of that Sea must never be jagged and torn by the impetuous assaults
or the silent underminings of Waves; if violent Rains and Tempests must not wash
down the Earth and Gravel from the tops of some of those Mountains, and expose
their naked Ribbs to the face of the Sun; if the Seeds of subterraneous
Minerals must not ferment, and sometimes cause Earthquakes and furious eruptions
of Volcano's, and tumble down broken Rocks, and lay them in confusion: then
either all things must have been overruled miraculously by the immediate interposition
of God without any mechanical Affections or settled Laws of Nature, or else the
body of the Earth must have been as fixed as Gold, or as hard as Adamant, and wholly
unfit for Human Habitation. Gen. 1.
So that if it was good in the
sight of God, that the present Plants and Animals, and Human Souls united to Flesh and Blood
should be upon this Earth under a settled constitution of Nature these supposed
Inconveniences, as they were foreseen and permitted by the Author of that Nature,
as necessary consequences of such a constitution; so they cannot infer the least imperfection in his Wisdom and Goodness. And to murmure at them is as unreasonable, as to complain that he hath made us Men and not Angels, that he hath placed us
upon this Planet, and not upon some other, in this or another System, which may
be thought better than Ours. Let them also consider, that this objectedd Deformity
is in our Imaginations only, and not really in Things themselves. There is no
Universal
Reason (I mean such as is not confined to Human Fancy, but will reach through
the whole Intellectual Universe) that a Figure by us called Regular, which hath equal
Sides and Angles, is absolutely more beautifull than any irregular one. All Pulchritude
is relative; and all Bodies are truly and physically beautifull under all
possible
Shapes and Proportions; that are good in their Kind, that are fit for their proper
uses and ends of their Natures. We ought not then to believe, that the Banks of
the Ocean are really deformed, because they have not the form of a regular Bulwark; nor that the Mountains are out of
shape,
because they are not exact Pyramids or
Cones; nor that the Stars are unskilfully placed, because they are not all situated
at uniform distance. These are not Natural Irregularities, but with respect to our
Fancies only; nor are they incommodious to the true Uses of Life and the Designs of
Man’s Being on the Earth. And let them further consider, that these Ranges of barren Mountains, by condensing
the Vapors, and producing Rains and
Fountains and Rivers, give the very
Plains and Valleys themselves that Fertility they boast of: that those Hills and
Mountains supply Us and the Stock of
Nature with a great variety of excellent
Plants. If there were no inequalities in
the Surface of the Earth, nor in the
Seasons of the Year; we should lose
a considerable share of the Vegetable
Kingdom: for all Plants will not grow
in an uniform Level and the same temper of Soil, nor with the same degree
of Heat. Nay let them lastly consider,
that to those Hills and Mountains we
are obliged for all our Metals, and with
them for all the conveniencies and comforts of Life. To deprive us of Metals
is to make us mere Savages; to change
our Corn or Rice for the old Arcadian Diet, our Houses and Cities for Dens
and Caves, and our Cloathing for Skins
of Beasts: ’tis to bereave us of all Arts
and Sciences, of History and Letters,
nay of Revealed Religion too that inestimable favour of Heaven: for without
the benefit of Letters, the whole Gospel would be a mere Tradition and old Cabbala, without certainty, without authority. Who would part with
these Solid
and Substantial Blessings for the little
fantastical pleasantness of a smooth uniform Convexity and Rotundity of a
Globe? And yet the misfortune of it is,
that the pleasant View of their imaginary
Globe, as well as the deformed Spectacle of our true one, is founded upon
impossible Suppositions. For that equal Convexity could never be seen and enjoyed by any man living. The Inhabitants of such an Earth could have only
the short prospect of a little Circular
Plane about three Miles around them;
though neither Woods nor Hedges nor
artificial Banks should intercept it: which little too would appear to have an
Acclivity on all sides from the Spectators; so that every man would have the displeasure of fancying himself the lowest,
and that he always dwelt and moved in
a Bottom. Nay, considering that in such
a constitution of the Earth they could
have no means nor instruments of Mathematical Knowledge; there is great
reason to believe, that the period of the final Dissolution might
overtake them, ere they would have known or had any Suspicion that they walked
upon a round Ball. Must we therefore, to make this Convexity of the Earth discernible
to the Eye, suppose a man to be lifted up a great height in the Air, that he may
have a very spacious Horizon under one View? But then again, because of the distance,
the convexity and gibbousness would vanish away; he would only see below him a
great circular Flat, as level to his thinking as the face of the Moon. Are there
then such ravishing Charms in a dull unvaried Flat, to make a sufficient compensation
Deut. 33. 15.
for the chief things of the ancient Mountains, and for the precious things of
the lasting Hills? Nay we appeal to the sentence of Mankind; If a
Land of Hills and Valleys has not more Pleasure too and Beauty than an uniform
Flat? which Flat if ever it may be said to be very delightful, is then only, when
’tis viewed from the top of a Hill. Vide Ælian. var. Hist. lib. III.
What were the Tempe of Thessaly,
so celebrated in ancient story for their unparallelled pleasantness, but a Vale
divided with a River and terminated with Hills? Are not all the descriptions of
Poets embellish’d with such Ideas, when they would represent any places of Superlative
Delight, any blissful Seats of the Muses or the Nymphs, any facred habitations of
Gods or Goddesses? They will never admit that a wide Flat can be pleasant, no nor
in the very Elysian FieldsVirg. Æn. 6.
At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti. & ibid.
Hoc superate jugum. & ibid.
Et tumulu cœpit.
; but those too must be diversified with depressed
Valleys and (welling Ascents. They cannot imagin Flours worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art
In Beds and curious Knots. but Nature boon
Pour’d forth profuse on Hill and Dale and Plain.
Paradise Lost, lib. 4.
even
Paradise to be a place of Pleasure, nor Heaven it self to be For Earth hath this variety from Heaven
Of Pleasure situate in Hill and Dale.
Ibid. lib. 6.
Heaven without them. Let this therefore
be another Argument of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness, that the Surface of the Earth
is not uniformly Convex (as many think it would naturally have been, if mechanically formed by a Chaos) but distinguished with
Mountains and Valleys, and furrowed from Pole to Pole with the Deep Channel of the
Sea; and that because of the τὸ βέλτιον, it is better that it
should be so.
Give me leave to make one short Inference from what has been said,
which shall finish this present Discourse, and with it our Task for the Year. We
have clearly discovered many Final Causes and Characters of Wisdom and Contrivance
in the Frame of the inanimate World; as well as in the Organical Fabric of the
Bodies of Animals. Now from hence ariseth a new and invincible Argument, that the
present Frame of the World hath not existed from all Eternity. For such an usefulness
of things or a fitness of means to Ends, as neither procedes from the necessity
of their Beings, nor can happen to them by Chance, doth necessarily infer that there
was an Intelligent Being, which was the Author and Contriver of that Usefulness.
Serm. V.
We have formerly demonstrated, that the Body of a Man, which consists of an incomprehensible variety of Parts, all admirably fitted for their
peculiar Functions and the Conservation of the Whole, could no more be formed fortuitously; than the
Æneis of Virgil, or any other long Poem with good
Sense
and just Measures, could be composed by the Casual Combinations of Letters. Now
to pursue this Comparison; as it is utterly impossible to be believed, that
such
a Poem may have been eternal, transcribed from Copy to Copy without any first Author
and Original: so it is equally incredible and impossible, that the Fabric of Human
Bodies, which hath such excellent and Divine Artifice, and, if I may so say,
such
good Sense and true Syntax and harmonious Measures in its Constitution, should
be propagated and transcribed from Father to Son without a first Parent and Creator
of it. An eternal usefulness of Things, an eternal Good Sense, cannot possibly be
conceived without _an -eternal Wisdom and Understanding. But that can be no other
than that eternal and omnipotent God; Prov. 3.
that by Wisdom hath founded the Earth, and by Understanding hath established the Heavens: To whom be all Honour and Glory and Praise and Adoration from henceforth
and for evermore, AMEN.
Of Revelation and the Messias.
A
SERMON
Preach'd at the
Public Commencement
AT
CAMBRIDGE
July 5th. 1696.
1 Pet. III. 15.
Be ready always to give an answer to every Man, that asketh you
a reason of the Hope that is in you.
BY the Hope that is in us, we do understand here, as in
other places of Scripture, not only the bare Hope strictly so called, but the Faith
too of a Christian. Whence it is, that in the Syriac version of the text, and in
some ancient Latin copies, the word Faith is added to the other; the Hope and the Faith that is in you. And indeed if we consider Hope as a natural passion; we shall find
it to be always attended and ussher’d in by Faith. For ’tis certain, there is no
Hope without some antecedent Belief, that the thing hoped for may come to pass; and the
strength and steadiness of our Hope is ever proportional to the measure
of our Faith. It appears therefore why the word Hope in the text may with
sufficient
propriety of speech comprehend the whole Faith of a Christian; and that, when
the Apostle exhorts us, to be ready always to answer every man that asks the
reason of our Hope; ’tis the same, as if he injoined us, to be never unprepared
nor unwilling to reply to any doubts or questions about the grounds of the
Christian Faith.
At the date of this Epistle, the whole World (with relation to
the text) might be consider’d under one general division, Jews and Gentiles:
First,
the Jews, Rom. 3. 2.
To
whom the Oracles of God were committed, and who from thence had the information and
expectation
of the Messias. There, when they asked a Christian the reason of his
Hope, were themselves already persuaded, that the Messias would come: and the only controversie between them was, Whether
Jesus was He? according to the message of John the Baptist, Luk. 7. 19.
Was
Jesus he that should
come, or must they look for another? Secondly, the Gentiles, who having no means
of knowledge besides mere natural Reason, could have no notions nor notices of this
expected Messias. These therefore, when they demanded the reason of a Christian’s
Hope, were first to be acquainted with the purpose and promise of God to send the
Messias, were to be instructed about the reasons and designs of that great embassy; about his quality and office, and all the circumstances of his Person: and
then was the proper time to shew, That Jesus was He; that the description
of the Messias was truly exhibited and represented in His character; and the ancient
prophecies all accomplish’d in His actions and events.
’Tis not for nothing, that the Apostle so presseth this advice in the text,
Be ready always to give a reason of the hope that is in
you. As if he had foretold, That there would be no age of the Christian World,
wherein this preparation would be superfluous. It hath pleas’d the divine
Wisdom,
never yet to leave Christianity wholly at leasure from opposers; but to give its
professors that perpetual exercise of their industry and zeal. And who can tell,
if without such adversaries to rouse and quicken them, they might not in long tract
of time have grown remiss in the duties, and ignorant in the doctrines of Religion? Perhaps before this time even
some of the Records of it might have perish'd by
mens negligence: as the Jews had like to have lost their Law, if divine Providence
had not preserved one copy of it in the Temple. It is, Matt 13. 25.
while men
sleep,
while they live in peace and security, and have no enemies to contest with, that
the great Enemy comes and sowes tares among the wheat. But of all the ages since the coming of Christ, I suppose this
present has least reason to complain for want of work and imployment in defense
of Religion. Here are not only the two parties in the text, Jews and Gentiles,
still in the world to engage with; but even in the midst of Christianity are the
most dangerous designs form’d against it: as if our Saviour’s prediction of particular
families were to be verified too of the whole Church, Matth. 10. 36.
That its
worst enemies
should be they of its own Houshold.
There are a sort of persons baptized indeed into the Christian
Faith, and educated in the profession of’ it: but in secret, I with I might
say so, nay even openly they oppose and blaspheme it; repudiating at once the whole
authority of Revelation, and debating the sacred Volumes to the rank of ordinary
Books of History and Ethics. The being of God and a Providence they profess to
believe, to acknowledge a difference between Good and Evil, to be verily
persuaded
of another Life to come; and to have their expectations of that state, as their
behaviour is in this. Nay even the whole system of Christian Morals they can willingly
embrace: but not as a collection of divine Statutes and Ordinances sent us by an
express from Heaven, but only as usefull rules
of life, discoverable by plain Reason
and agreeable to Natural Religion. So
that they cannot see the mighty occasion, that should invite even the eternal Son of God from the bosom of the
Father, to act: so mean and calamitous
a part upon the Stage of this sorry
world. What need of so great a master
to read mankind lectures of Morals,
which they might easily learn without
any teacher? ’Tis true, they are often
told of some sublime mysterious doctrines deliver'd by him, which they
own would ne'er have been thought of
by natural Reason. But then, that is so
far from recommending to them the importance of his errand from Heaven;
that for that very reason they deny the
truth of his message. For whatever
comes imperiously in the name of divine
Mystery, and soars above the pitch of
human knowledge, whatsoever things
they cannot fathom and grasp through
all the causes, designs, modes and relations of them, as the notion of the
Messias, his incarnation, mediation, satisfaction; all these they reject and explode,
as incomprehensible to pure Reason, which they set up as the only principle and measure of
belief.
In all this, these persons act the part, and place themselves
in the condition of Gentiles, whom we may imagine in the text, to ask the
reason of a Christians hope; since the whole body of these mens Religion is no more
than what even Heathens attain’d to: the modern Deism being the very same with
old Philosophical Paganism, only aggravated and damn’d with the additional crime
of Apostacy from the Faith. But besides this, these very persons will on other occasions
personate the Jews too, those other enquirers suppos’d in the text; and dispute
with Jewish objections against the Christian Religion: though they no more believe the matter of those objections, than
the thing they object against: like Celsus and Julian of old, that
gather’d arguments against the Christians from all the different Sects and Hypotheses
of Philosophy, though inconsistent one argument with another; and brought objections
too from the Old Testament, which they did not believe, against the New one,
which they were engaged by all methods to oppose.
In our present Discourse therefore, we shall endeavour to refute
these modern adversaries under their double shape and character first as they are
mere Deists or Pagans, renouncing all Revelation, and the very notion of the Messias and secondly, as they fight under Jewish colours; so as admitting,
there be a promised Messias the Saviour of the world, yet men ought to reject the
person of Jesus, and still to wait for another.
I. And first we shall consider them in
the quality of Deists and Disciples of
mere natural Reason. We profess our selves as much concerned, and as truly
as themselves are, for the use and authority of Reason in controversies of Faith. We look upon right Reason, as the native lamp of the soul, placed and kindled
there by our Creator, to conduct us in
the whole course of our judgments and
actions. True Reason, like its divine Author, never is it self deceived, nor
ever deceives any man. Even Revelation it self is not shy nor unwilling to
ascribe its own first credit and fundamental authority to the test and testimony
of Reason. Sound Reason is the touchstone to distinguish that pure and genuine gold from baser metals; Revelation truly divine from imposture and enthusiasm. So that the Christian
Religion is so far from declining or fearing the strictest trials of Reason; that
it every where appeals to it, is defended and supported by it, and indeed cannot
continue, in the Apostle’s description, James 1. 27.
pure and undefiled without it.
’Tis the benefit of Reason alone, under the providence and spirit of God, that we
our selves are at this day a Reformed Orthodox Church: that we departed from the
errors of Popery, and that we knew too where to stop; neither running into the
extravagancies of Fanaticism, nor Eliding into the indifferency of Libertinism.
Whatsoever therefore is inconsistent with natural Reason, can never be justly imposed,
as an Article of Faith. That the same Body is in many places at once; that plain
Bread is not Bread; such things, though they be said with never so much pomp, and
claim to infallibility; we have still greater authority to reject them, as being
contrary to common sense and our natural faculties, as subverting the foundations of all Faith,
even the grounds of their own credit, and all the principles of civil life.
So far are we from contending with our adversaries about the
dignity and authority of Reason: but then we differ with them about the exercise
of it, and the extent of its province. For the Deists there stop and set bounds
to their Faith; where Reason, their only guide, does not lead the way further
and walk along before them. We on the contrary, as Deut. 34.
Moses was shewn by divine
power a true sight of the promised Land, though himself could not pass over to
it: so we think, Reason may receive from Revelation some further discoveries
and new prospects of things, and be fully convinced of the reality of them;
though it self cannot pass on, nor travel those regions, cannot penetrate the
fund of those truths, nor advance to the utmost bounds of them. For there is
certainly a wide difference between what is contrary to Reason, and what is
superior to it, and out of its reach. To give an instance in created Nature how
many things are there, whose being we cannot doubt of; though unable to comprehend
the manner of their being so? That the human soul is vitally united to the
Body by a reciprocal commerce of action and passion; this we all consciously
feel
and know, and our adversaries will affirm it. Let them tell us then, what is the
chain, the cement, the magnetism, what they will call it, the invisible tie of that
union, whereby Matter and an incorporeal Mind, things that have no similitude nor
alliance to each other, can so sympathize by a mutual league of motion and sensation? No, they will not pretend to that; for they can frame no conceptions of it.
They are Pure, there is such an union from the operations and effects: but the
cause
and the manner of it are too. subtle and secret to be discovered by the eye of
Reason;
’tis mystery, ’tis divine magic, ’tis natural miracle. If then in created beings, they are content with us, to
confess their ignorance of the modes of existence, without doubting of things themselves: have not we much more reason to be humble
and modest in speculations about the essence of God, about the reasons of His counsels, and the ways of His actions? yes certainly: under those circumstances we may believe with
Reason even things
above and beyond Reason.
For example: If we have sure ground
to believe that such a book is the Revelation of God; and we find in it Propositions expressed in plain words, of a
determinate sense without ambiguity; so
as they cannot be otherwise interpreted,
by any just metaphor or fair construction allowed in common language: we
say we have sufficient reason to assent
to those propositions, as divine doctrines
and infallible truths, so far as they are declared there; though perhaps we cannot our
selves comprehend, nor demonstrate to others, the reasons and the
manner of them. Neither is this an
easy credulity, or unworthy of the most
cautious and morose searcher of truth.
For observe; we do not say, Any thing
incomprehensible to Reason is separate
and alone a proper object of belief: but
as it is supported and establish’d by
some other known and comprehensible
truth. As, if Abraham had been told
by some ordinary Man, That in His and Sarah’s decrepit age he should be blessed with a Son: this Promise
so alone, without its basis to stand on, could not have challeng’d
his assent; because the thing was impossible in the way of Nature. But since it
was God Almighty, Matt. 19. 26.
with whom all thing are possible, that was
the author of that Promise; by the mediation of that certain truth, the veracity
and omnipotence of God, without hesitation he believed, and so obtain’d the glory
to be Rom. 4. 11.
Father of the faithfull. And upon the
same grounds the Blessed
Virgin gave credit to the salutation of the Angel; though the message in it self
seem’d impossible to reason. So true it is, that Reason it self warrants us to procede and advance by Faith, even beyond the
sphere and regions of Reason. We
agree then with our adversaries about the authority of Reason: but we dissent about
the exercise of it, and the bounds of its jurisdiction. We believe even the abstrusest Mysteries of the Christian Religion: of which mysteries perhaps we can
assign no
reasons; but for our belief we assign a good one: Because they are plainly taught in the word of God, who can neither err nor deceive.
And this we affirm to be a reasonable conclusion; though it carry us even to the
confines of Heaven, beyond the limits of Reason. But if the Deists think to oblige
us to give a natural account of those mysteries, without the authority of Scripture:
for that we must beg their excuse. We will argue from strict Reason, as much as
they can pretend to: but we must not submit that our adversaries shall confine
us to improper topics and impossible ways of proof:
. It appears therefore, that though we should decline and despair
to give any account at all of the reasons and methods of God’s counsel in the mission
of his Son; and only appeal to the sentence of Scripture: yet the Deists ought to
be satisfied with that proof; since the Doctrine is so expresly taught in the oracles
of God. But besides this, what if even natural Light shall discover to us some faint,
but yet certain views of that mysterious instance of divine Wisdom and Goodness;
and exhibit to us a rational account, Why the Son of God should condescend to be
our Mediator and Redeemer. But before we engage in this attempt, let it be lawfull to implore the candor
of our Friends; if, while we endeavour so win over our Enemies, we may seem to
some, To do too little, or perhaps to others, To venture too far, and to advance
beyond our Lines. To discern then somc reasons of this wonderfull Mystery; we
must take our prospect from the highest mountain of Nature, from the first Creation,
and origin of human Race.
GOD, who at the beginning viewed all the works of his hands,
Gen. 1. 31.
and behold, all things were very good; made Man also upright and compleat,
without any defect in his whole composition, without any original perversness of Soul,
or false byass of Will or Judgment, without any natural obliquity or enormity of
Inclinations. He made him an intelligent Being, to know God and Himself: to understand
and feel present happiness, and to secure it by consideration and contrivance for
the future. He endow’d him with liberty of mind: that he might act, not of necessity, nor blind instinct like the Brutes; but with
consciousness and voluntary choice.
He implanted in him diverse Appetites and Affections, all usefull
instruments of his happiness, if fitly imployed: and none vitious and culpable radically
and in their whole nature; but then only, when they are applied to wrong objects,
or in right ones are raised or sunk beside their due temper and measure. I say it
again, for the justification of our Creator; that not one of the simple affections
of the Soul, no not Concupiscence, Hatred, Anger, Revenge, are in themselves criminal
and sinfull. Some of the Affections, ’tis true, have very bad names: but
those
are either mere excesses of simple Passions; or else mix’d and compound ones,
which have no proper real essence, but are only notional terms; as Envy
for example, a very bad thing indeed; but ’tis an evil of our own product, and
not
of God’s creating. For the real constituent parts of it, are Hatred and Grief, very
useful and lawful affections: but the evil of it is our own; when we entertain that
Hatred and Grief at the good that befalls others: which is what we express by the
complex name of Envy.
God therefore having so created Man, in every capacity pure and
perfect, might justly require of him, that he should maintain and preserve this
original rectitude; that in all his desires, designs and actions, he should
constantly adhere to the dictates of Reason and Nature; so as the least deviation would make
him obnoxious to God’s displeasure, and nothing less then compleat obedience recommend
him to his favour: according to the terms proposed to Cain, Gen. 4. 7.
If thou dost well,
shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou dost not well, sin lies at the door.
God, I say, might expect and require of man such a perfect obedience to the Law of
Nature: because it was both reasonable and possible for Man to perform it.
Reasonable it was, because every Statute of that Law promotes the true interest and felicity of Mankind, even in the very performance. ’Tis true, in the
present
posture of human affairs, a man’s duty is frequently inconsistent with his temporal interest. But from the beginning it was not so; neither would it be now,
if the whole world at once could be just and innocent. For ’tis not my keeping the Law, but anothers
transgressing it, that involves me in any misery. The scope and tendency
of the Law it self is always mine and every man’s advantage. For ’tis not a thing
foreign and aliene to our nature, imposed on us purely to try our obedience; but
it all results from our very frame and constitution. The general preservation of
man’s Natural good is the sole root and fountain of the Moral: the universal Profit
and Pleasure, the public Happiness of human Life gives being and denomination
to every virtue and vice: and the true rules and directions to preserve and secure
that happiness make up the whole Volume, the Code and Pandect of the Law of Nature.
Without doubt then it was reasonable to obey, where nothing was commanded us, but
to pursue our own interest: nothing forbidden us, but not to do our selves harm.
And secondly, it was possible for man to perform that entire obedience. For
since, as we have proved before, all his natural faculties are right and good,
and the Law it self accommodated and proportion’d to those faculties; there appears
no necessary intrinsic impediment, why he may not adequately observe it.
If every particular precept be possible to be done, ’tis not absolutely impossible
to fulfil the universal. And methinks they, that on other accounts acknowledge that
God requires such perfect obedience upon the terms of the Law of Nature, should
be very averse from believing, that there is a natural and fundamental insufficiency
in man to perform it. For certainly the just God cannot be so importune and unreasonable
a Master, as to enjoyn us what is physically impossible, to expect to reap where he has not
sown, to require Bricks without allowance of Straw.
But then, though there was no such original and natural disability
in Man; yet there arose a moral and circumstantial one, an accidental incapacity
supervening to his Nature, an impossibility from event, that ever any person from
the beginning of the world to the last period of it (always excepting the Man
Christ Jesus) should be wholly pure and free from the contagion of Sin. For our
first
Parents having fallen from their native state of innocence; the tincture of evil, like an hereditary disease, infected all their posterity: and the leaven of
sin having once corrupted the whole
Mass of Mankind,
all the species ever after would be sowred and tainted with it; the vitious ferment
perpetually diffusing and propagating it self through all generations. For let
us but consider the fate of human life; first a perpetual conversation among evil
Examples, and the strongest principle of our nature, Imitation; and then, the ignorance
and prejudices of Childhood, the fervour and temerity of Youth; the force and the
frequency of Temptations, and the narrow dubious confines between Virtue and Vice: and we may pronounce it
impossible, that any man should
so govern his steps through
all the lubricous paths of Life, as never once to flip and fall from his duty. Agreeably
to the testimony of Scripture, which hath concluded all under sin, Gal. 3.
22. and again; 1 Joh. 1. 8.
If we say, we have no sin, we deceive our
selves, and
the truth is not in us; and again, Rom. 3. 9. 23.
both
Jews and Gentiles are all under
sin; all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Rom. 3. 19.
Every mouth
then be stopp’d; and all the world must plead guilty before the tribunal of God: for by the deeds of the Law
(the Law of nature as well as of Moses) no flesh can be justified in his
sight. It is evident then from the principles of pure Reason, beside the authority
of Scripture; that upon the Deists Hypothesis, upon the terms of natural Religion,
no Salvation can be obtain’d: no Life and Immortality can be expected. For that
being the free offer and favour of God; he might justly set what price he pleas’d
upon it; even the greatest that we can possibly pay; nothing less than entire
obedience, than unspotted innocence, than consummate virtue.
Thus far then even Reason evinceth, and holds the Lamp to Revelation.
Some means of Reconciliation between God and Man, the Judge and the Offender,
must
be contrived; some vicarious satisfaction to justice, and model of a new Covenant;
or else the whole bulk of Mankind are for ever unhappy. And surely to prevent that,
to retrieve a perishing world, was a weighty concern; even of greater
importance than the very creating it, and more worthy of the care and consult of
Heaven. I say, the care of Heaven; for alas here on Earth, what expedient could
Man find out? How could Dust and Ashes take upon him to speak unto the Lord? Could any of the Sons of Adam presume to be advocate for
the rest? himself one of the criminals, himself in want of another advocate? and
what friend knew we at the court of Heaven; of that high power and favour with
God, as to offer his intercession? or so wonderfully kind to Us, as to pay our
satisfaction? We must freely own to the Deist; that here Reason was at a stand:
even Nature her self languish’d between hope and despair; and in the stile of the
Apostle, Rom. 8. 22.
the whole creation groan’d and travell’d in pain together; when behold (what Revelation hath informed and assured us of) the
eternal Son of the Almighty, Heb. 1. 3.
the brightness of the Paternal Glory and the
express image of his Substance, even He vouchsafed to be our Patron and Mediator, to
take our Nature upon him and to dwell among Men, to fulfil that Law of
righteousness wherein we were deficient, to bear our guilt and our burthen upon himself,
and to offer his most precious blood, as an expiation for our offenses, as the
seal of a new Covenant better than the Law of Nature: a Covenant of more
gracious terms, terms of Repentance and Remission of sins: to that if we truly believe in Him,
and sincerely endeavor to observe his Commands; our imperfect Righteousness through
the merits of his Sufferings shall be imputed, accepted and rewarded; as if it
were an entire obedience to the strict Law of Works and of natural Perfection.
And now I dare presume to ask even
our adversaries themselves, what flaws
or fallacies they can shew in all this.
If it be true then, that Reason it self
discovers such absolute necessity of some
way of Reconciliation between God and
Man; and if it was necessary for Man,
as being the party concern’d, to know
the particular way that God did approve
and accept of; and if mere Reason could
never find that out, but Revelation alone
must and ought to inform us; and lastly, if such Revelation be actually made, attested, and promulgated
to the world: what pretence is there left, why we should not believe and acquiesce
in it? if upon examination it bear all the marks of true Revelation; if it contain
nothing unworthy of it self, and of the wisdom and goodness of its Author.
And is not the Oeconomy of man’s Salvation, as it is set forth
in Holy Scriptures, every way agreeable to that divine character? No, if we ask
our Adversaries; ’tis an improper and unequal method; ’tis inconsistent with the
justice and impartiality of God. Rex Jupiter omnibus idem. God, say they,
if he had design’d such an universal benefit for Mankind, would have exhibited
it equally and indifferently, to every
Age and Nation alike. But the conditions of Salvation proposed in the Gospel are incompetent and much too narrow; being restrain’d to those times and
countries alone, that can hear of the
fame of Jesus, and believe in his Person. And what becomes then of all
the former Ages of men, before He was
born? What of those remote Nations
ever since, that could have no intelligence of him, nor hear the
least tidings of Judea and
Jerusalem? must all those Myriads of Souls perish for invincible ignorance,
for want of impossible Faith? Rom. 10. 14.
For how could they believe on him, of whom they had not heard?
and how could they hear without a Preacher? And why should the God of the
whole earth, the God that is no respecter of persons, no nor of nations, be so unaccountably kind, so
unjustly fond and partial to any single country? much less to a little obscure
people, the Jews, scarce heard of in the rest of the world, till they were
captives and slaves in it? and withdraw his paternal love from so many other Nations
much more considerable, and more worthy of his providence? Rom. 3. 29.
Is he God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the
Gentiles?
This way of discourse we may expect from the Deists: And I hope,
according to the advice of the text, we are both able and ready to give a Reply. For first as to that imagined Partiality of God, in preferring
any one country before the rest of the World, to be the Land of Christ’s Nativity; what a poor and contemptible cavil? For upon
supposition, that the Messias of God was to take human nature upon him,
and be born of a Woman: must he not of necessity be born in some one particular
Country, exclusively to all the rest? And is not that then a ridiculous objection against any single Country; that
may equally be urged against all
whatsoever?
Neither was it mere Fondness in the Deity, that he chose the
obscure
land of Palestine for the birth place of his Son, rather than Greece, or Italy, or Asia, the theatres of Art and Learning, and the
seats
of Empire? For not to mention Abraham and the Patriarchs, whose singular faith
and piety justly obtain’d of God, that their Posterity should have the
Rom. 9. 4.
adoption and the glory, and the covenants and the promises, and the
consanguinity of Christ; it appears also from event; that the circumstances of that nation were of
all others the most sutable to the deign of the Messias. For since it was fit
and necessary, that Prophecies should foretel of him long before his coming; that his pedegree and extraction
should be accurately deduced through a long series of Ancestors; and other such
marks be assigned of him, that men might know, This was He: what more proper,
to those
purposes, than the state of the Jews, that peculiar people, secluded and
distinguished one tribe from another, and the whole from all the
rest of Mankind, by the very frame of their polity? So that the Genealogies were
less confused, the Histories and Prophecies more faithfully recorded, and the accomplishment
of all more certain and illustrious, than they could have been in any other Nation
upon Earth; all of which, within that long compass of time, were blended together
by mutual commerce and mutual conquest, and other omnifarious causes of mixture
and confusion.
And then as to that other surmise, that God would have proposed fair and equal means of general
salvation; and not upon such narrow and insufficient
terms, as an actual Faith in the person of Jesus; a condition impossible
to the much greater part of Mankind: we acknowledge it to be true, infallibly
true; Faith in Christ Jesus the only way to Salvation since the preaching
of the Gospel: so as whosoever rejects that, when it is duly declared to him, and
refuses his assent and obedience to it, can have no portion in the Kingdom of Heaven.
But for those, that never once heard of the Lord of Life, that’s an undecided
case, which we do not determine. For who has authority to give sentence, where God
and Scripture are silent? Thus far we are assured there; that let the future condition
of those be as God pleases, at least he will not condemn them for invincible ignorance. Rom. 2. 11. 12.
For there is no respect of persons with Him; but as many as have
sinned without Law, shall perish without Law. The meaning whereof is, that the Gentile world shall
not be judged and condemned for the breach of the law of Moses, which never
was given them; but for sins against the law of Nature, and the common light of
Conscience. We may inferr then by parity of argument, That as many as shall sin without the Gospel,
shall perish without the
Gospel;
that is, not because they believed not in Jesus, whom they had not the
least notice of: but they will be tried and sentenced for sins against natural
Reason, for things within their power and capacity; Rom. 1. 18. 20, 21.
because when they knew God, they glorified him not, as God;
because they held the truth in unrighteoniness, so that they are without excuse.
But if the Deist shall still insist; that though we have justified
God from the calumny, as if he would condemn the Gentiles for want of impossible
Faith: yet still he maintains it to be unjust and incredible, that while one
small
part of Mankind enjoys the favour of the Gospel; all under the fate of Nature shall
have the hard measure of Summum Jus; must be all damn'd by rigid
inflexible justice, without equity or mercy, without any act of pardon, or at
the least room for Repentance: if he will rather obstinately believe, or hope, or
with; that the God of tender compassions, Who loveth all things
that he hath made, who will not require much, where little has been given, cannot
be so extreme with the Gentile world as to mark all that is done amiss; and yet to
slight
and overlook those shining examples of vertue not unfrequent among them.
If this be all he sticks at: God forbid, that on this single account, he should
exclude himself from the Communion of Faith. We can allow him this opinion; as
at worst a charitable error, as some indication of a large heart and a generous
love of Mankind. But then he must always remember, that even those virtuous Heathens,
whom he would so gladly place in some part of Heaven, can be laved on no other account
than by the merits and mediation of Jesus their Saviour. For without his satisfaction,
there is no remission of sins nor acceptation of repentance: and without remission
of sins, Rom. 3. 20.
by the deeds of the Law, and natural Righteousness, no flesh can be justified in the
sight of God. They are saved therefore, if they be saved at all, by
the sole benefit of Christ; though in this life they could not know nor thank their
Benefactor. For though they lived in the earliest ages of time, long before his
Incarnation, yet even then they might be 1 Pet. 1. 20.
purified by the blood of the Lamb, manifested indeed in latter times,
but preordained before the foundation of the world; so that from the first origin of it, he might extend
and impart, to all that were worthy, the efficacy of his Merits, and the privileges
of Faith and Grace, and a share in the inheritance of Glory and Immortality.
II. And now we may expect, that our Adversaries will put off the
garb and character of Deists; and make a new attempt for the fortune of the day, under the arms and conduct of the Jews.
It must be granted on all hands, that the Messias, whensoever
he is manifested to the world, must appear in that very manner, as the Jewish Prophets
describe him. All the characters must hit and correspond one to another; the same
features the same lineaments visible in both; the one the shadow and picture,
and the other the substance. Now, say they, it is evident from the Prophets; That
the Messias is to be a temporal Prince, to sit on the throne of David his
royal ancestor, and to make Jerusalem the seat of an universal and perpetual Empire. But
the character of Jesus is as different from this description, as a stable from a
palace. ’Tis true, we Christians endeavour to shew a similitude between them by
figurative interpretations of Scripture: which we call the spiritual and mystical
sense; but they call arbitrary and precarious, as having no foundation in the native
and naked Letter: which is not to be racked and wrested from its obvious
meaning; little credit being to be given to such extorted confessions.
Thus far our Objectors. But I suppose, the Prophetic language
and character is better understood, than that
this surmise should pass without a just
answer. Indeed if it were in this case
alone, that the expressions of the Prophets need a figurative interpretation,
the exception might appear fair and
plausible. But it cannot be denied, that
on many other occasions, besides the
matter of the Messias, their discourse
(after the genius of the Eastern nations)
is thick set with metaphor and allegory:
the same bold companions and dithyrambic liberty of stile every-where occur.
Which is an cause and natural account (besides the more secret
reasons that the Holy Spirit might have) why the Kingdom of Messias, though really
spiritual and not of this world, is so often dressed and painted by them
with the glories of secular Empire. For when the spirit of God came upon them, and breathed a new warmth and vigour through all the powers of the Body and
Soul; when by the influx of divine light the whole scene of Christ’s heavenly kingdom
was represented to their view; so that their hearts were ravished with joy, and
their imaginations turgid and pregnant with the glorious ideas: then surely, if ever, their
stile would be strong and lofty, full of allusions to all that
is great and magnificent in the kingdoms of this world. But then in other
passages
of the same Prophets, as it were on purpose to hint to us the true meaning of the
former, the Messias is describ’d plainly without poetical colours, to be a person of low condition, to have no form nor comeliness in him, a
man acquainted with sorrows, and numbred among transgressors; and by other
characters so clear and express: that some of the Jewish Rabbies, to elude so
strong a convixtion, have
maintain'd and propagated an absurd opinion, as if two Messiah's were foretold
by the Prophets, the one a triumphant monarch, and the other an unfortunate and afflicted person. What will not perverse and refractory minds take hold of,
rather than submit to an unwelcome truth?
It is evident then, that the kingdom of Christ so magnified in
the Prophetic stile is a spiritual kingdom. And yet to be free and ingenuous, we
must own that the whole nation of the Jews mistook the meaning of those passages.
Even our Saviour’s own disciples were not exempted from the common error. And the
whole posterity of that people are pertinacious in it to this day: which to many
is a mighty prejudice against the credit of the Gospel. What? as if it were such
a matter of astonishment, that they obstinately adhere to the literal sense, which promises
them a temporal kingdom with worldly honours and pleasures? an interpretation both
specious in it self, and agreeable to their proud hopes and carnal apprehensions,
which are miserably defeated and disappointed in Jesus? There seems to be
nothing so very unnatural and unaccountable in this. But then that very
Disappointment, so far it is from being an objection, that to a sagacious mind
and uncorrupt judgment, it self
is a convincing proof, that he was
truly the Messias. For let us reflect
upon the state of those times. ’Tis
certain in fact, that the whole nation
was possest with an inveterate persuasion, that the Messias was then a
coming. And ’tis as certain, that Jesus the Son of Mary profest himself that
Messias. Let us argue now upon human
reasons and the common principles of
action. If he was not the true Messias:
we are then to consider him, as an ordinary Jew, of mean quality and education.
Now to give any tolerable account, why such a one should pretend
himself to be the Messias, there are but
two ways possible. Either he was acted
by ambitious designs, which he hoped
to compass by that imposture: or by a
complexional and natural enthusiasm, verily imagining himself to be the Messias.
I suppose, 1 scarce need to say, that
both these suppositions are fully confuted by every word and action of his
life. But what I now observe, is this;
that upon either of those principles,
whether Ambition or Enthusiasm, he
would certainly have acted the part of
the Messias, in such a character as men
then ascribed to him; according to the
popular expectation, and the received
notion of those times. Now the whole
Nation expected, that the Messias was
to be a great General; to rescue them
from the Roman power, and to restore
the kingdom to Israel. ’Tis certain then,
that upon either of those motives, he would have blown the trumpet to rebellion, and attempted their deliverance.
Ambition would have animated him to
it; as the only way to his hopes and
wishes: or if Enthusiasm had inspired
him, what would he not have promised
and assumed to himself? to fight the
battles of the Lord; to execute vengeance upon the Heathen; to bind their
Kings with chains, and their Nobles
with fetters of iron. Such were the
designs of Barcocab and some other impostors of old: setting up to be the
Messias; they put their followers in
arms, and proclaimed liberty to the people. Not so the blessed Jesus: but when the multitude would
have made him their King, he withdrew himself even by miracle to avoid it. He
did not summon to arms, but to repentance and newness of life. He had a kingdom
indeed: but not of of this earthly Jerusalem, but of that which is
above. He was truly their deliverer: but not from the Roman yoke;
but from the more slavish yoke of the Law, from the more wretched bondage to
sin and death. Was this the air and language of Ambition? Was this the meen and
spirit of Enthusiasm? Nay rather does not Nature her self cry out and declare;
that for one of his low condition and vulgar education, to profess himself the Messias
in so surprizing a manner, in a character so unthought of, by an interpretation
of Prophecies so spiritual and divine, so infinitely better than the literal meaning,
against the universal prejudice of the nation, and the hopes and sollicitations
of his very followers; was certainly a thing more than human, an invincible testimony,
that he was really the Christ, and his doctrine from God and not of men.
But our Adversaries have another objection still behind: and our
answer thereto will put an end both to it and to the present discourse. And this
objection is borrow’d from the Law of Moses; which, say they, having a
promise
of eternity annexed to it, to be an everlasting covenant, a perpetual statute, a covenant of an
everlasting Priesthood, ought of necessity to be continued and confirmed by
the true Messias: whereas Jesus endeavoured to abolish it, and thereby wholly
subverted the credit of his own pretensions. But we answer in our Saviour’s declaration,
Matth. 5. 17.
that he came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it. We are to distinguish
then between the moral part of the Mosaic Law, and the political and ceremonial.
As to the Rites and Ceremonies; ’tis apparent, they had no intrinsic nor moral
holiness in them; no natural tendency to promote the happiness of men; nay rather
they were inconvenient and grievous, a yoke of bondage and servile discipline, which none
were able to bear. Even the rewards and penalties, which enforced their observation, did not naturally flow and result
from them, as effects from proper causes;
but they were miraculously added to
them by the sole virtue of the divine
promise. ’Tis true, they were fit and
proper for the ends of their institution;
to be types and shadows of better things
to come; to preserve the people from
Idolatry, by allowing no intercourse nor
commerce with other nations. But ’tis
evident for that very reason, as well as
many more, that those ceremonies were neither calculated for eternity, nor modelled for mankind in common. So that
when the reasons of their sanction no
longer continued, when the things they
typically represented, were come to
pass when the wall of partition was
to be removed, and according to the
Prophecies, all nations to be called to
Christ, and the ends of the earth to
be his possession; they must needs be
antiquated and abolished, like scaffolds
that are removed when the buildings are
finished: since under that new state none
of them had any further use, and several of them became impossible to be observed. And so for the Political institutions of
Moses; ’tis plain they were accommodated to the
circumstances of affairs, and the necessities of time and place; not absolutely
the very best, but the best that those ages of the world and the genius of that
people would bear. As for instance, the toleration of Polygamy and causeless Divorces;
these were indulged them, not as most pleasing to their Law-giver, but
Matth. 9. 8.
because
of the hardness of their hearts, in the words of our Saviour: because they
were too stiff-necked and headstrong to admit of a shorter bridle. These civil ordinances
therefore, when better precepts were once proposed and accepted in their place,
must of necessity drop and die of themselves, and become obsolete without any repeal:
just as the temporary edicts in war, and the agreements of the cartel do expire
of their own accord, when the peace is concluded. But then the Moral part of the
law of Moses, which is the sap and marrow, the soul and substance of the
whole, that indeed is of eternal and universal obligation. But then, who can
say, that this is abrogated and cancelled by Jesus? so far from that, that
every branch of it is ingrafted and incorporated into his Gospel. In this best of
senses therefore the Mosaic Law is confirmed and fulfilled by our Saviour. For Morality
is a thing immutable; and wiles human nature it self should be new molded by our
maker; vice and virtue must be always what they have been. So foolish was the cavil
of the Deists against our Saviour’s descent from Heaven; because he gave no other
Lectures of Morals, than what Nature and Reason had taught before. Nay if he had
taught us the reverse of those Morals, this had been an objection indeed. But in
that even the divinity of his doctrine most eminently appears; that the finger
of God upon the tables of our hearts, and the pens of the inspired Writers in the
volume of the Gospel have prescribed us one and the same lesson. As for Us, whose
employment it is to teach that lesson to others; let us but express it also in
our own lives and conversations; let us but add that credit to our doctrine, that
reputation to our profession so may we expect to bring over all our
adversaries to the truth and power of Religion; so may we expect, when we
give the account of our talents, to be received with that blessed approbation,
Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy
Master.
FINIS.
Indexes
Index of Scripture References
Index of Scripture Commentary
Index of Greek Words and Phrases
- Ἀ̓νδρὸς δ᾽ ἐπειδὰν αἷμ᾽ ἀνασπάσῃ κόνις, Ἅπαξ θανόντος οὔτις ἔστ᾽ ἀνάστασις:
1
- ἀγαθοποιῶν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ:
1
- ἀγαθοποιῶν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ὑετὸν δ.:
1
- ἀκράτεια ἡδονῶν καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν:
1
- ἀνάστασις:
1
- ἀναστήσασθαι:
1
- ἄρκευθος:
1
- Ἀεργὸν καὶ ἀμελές:
1
- Ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἦν τοῦτο οὐδέπω δῆλον, τῇ γαρ οἰκείᾳ φωνῇ ἐφθέγγοντο· διὰ τοῦτο οὐδὲν ἀυτοῖς ἔλ9εγον, ἐπειδὴ δὲ εἶδον τὰ στέμματα, τότε ἐξελθόντες διέῤῥόηξαν τὰ ἱμάτια ἀυτῶν:
1
- Ἀλλ᾽ οὔτοι τόν γ᾽ ἐξ ἀΐδα παγκοίνου λίμνας πατέρ᾽ ἀνστάσεις, οὔτε γόοισιν, οὐ λιτ...ῖς:
1
- Ἀνάστασις:
1
2
- Ἄθεον ὃν ἄλογον καὶ ἀναίοθητον γένος:
1
- ἐπιδημία ἐς ἀνθρώπους Θεοῦ:
1
- ἔθνη:
1
- ἡδύνατο:
1
- ἦν ὅτι οὐκ ἦσαν:
1
- Ἤειδεν δ᾽ ὡς γαῖα καὶ:
1
- Ἰησοῦν καὶ τὴν Ἀνάστασιν:
1
- Ἵπποι μὲν σφηκῶν γένεσις, ταῦροι δὲ μελιοσῶν:
1
- ὁμοιοπαθεῖς ὑμῖν:
1
- ὁμοιωθέντες ἀνθρώποις:
1
- Ὁ θεὸς ἀεὶ γεωμετρεῖ:
1
- Ὅτι οὐδὲ ἡδέως ζῆν:
1
- Ὅτι οὐδ... ..ῆν:
1
- ὑπεριδών:
1
- Ὥς κατάγε τὸν λόγον, οὐδὲ χειρων το Θεῶν, οὐὐδὲ μικρότερος:
1
- ᾬδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν ἰδὼν ἐς πλησίον ἄλλον:
1
- Αἴ γαρ ἐνὼν ὣς Εἰτα:
1
- Βασιλικῶν :
1
- Βουγενῆ ἀνδρόπρωρα:
1
- Δὲρβη.:
1
- Δαιδάλου ποιήματα :
1
- Εἰτι πάθω:
1
- Θεοῦ γὰρ ἔννοιαν ἔχον ἀπὸ τῶν φαινομένων ἀστέρων, ὁξῶντες τούτους μεγάλης συμφωνίας ὄντας αἰτίους, καὶ τετοιγμένας ἡμέραντε καὶ νύκτα, χειμᾶνά τε καὶ:
1
- Καὶ οὐκ ΗΔΥΝΑΤΟ ἐκεῖ οὐδεμίαν δίναμιν ποῖησαι:
1
- Κατὰ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς τῶν ὅλων σύστ9ασιν μίαν ἔχειν ἰδέαν οὐρανόντε καὶ:
1
- Λαθεβιάσας:
1
- Λυκαονιστὶ:
1
- Οὐ ξύλινον, οὐδὲ λίθινον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀληθινόν.:
1
- Ο̡δέ μιν ἀνστήσεις:
1
- Πάντα τὰ ἔθνη:
1
- Πάντη δὲ Διὸς κεχρήμετα πάντες, Τοῦ γὰρ ὃν γένος ἐσμέν:
1
- Πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γῆν καὶ ἀέρα, φύσει πάντα εἶναι καὶ τύχῃ φασίν——ού̓τε διὰ. τινὰ θεὸν, ού̓τὲ διὰ τέχνην, ἀλλά ὃ λέγομεν, φύσει καὶ τύχῃ.:
1
- Περὶ Απίστων :
1
- Τινὲς δὲ ἄνδρες :
1
- Τοῦτο δὲ καὶ ἐν:
1
- Φασὶ τοίνυν Αἰγόπτιο; κατὰ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς τῶν ὅλων γένεσιν ποώτους τοὺ: ἀνθρώπους γενέα...:
1
- Φοίνικας τοιγαροῦν καὶ Αἰγυπτίους πρώτους ἁπάντων κατέχει λόγος ἣλιον σα:
1
- αὐτόχθοιες:
1
- δέλβεια:
1
- δύναμαι :
1
- δύναμις:
1
2
3
- εκ τῇ τῶν λυκαόνων φωνῇ:
1
- θέλω :
1
- κοιναὶ ἔννοι :
1
- μίαν ἰδέαν, μίαν μορφὴν:
1
- ξένων δαιμονίων:
1
- πάντες καὶ πᾶσαι:
1
- περὶ Οσιότητος:
1
- περὶ τύχης:
1
- σκωληκόβρωτος:
1
- σπερμολόγος:
1
- στοργὴ:
1
- τὸ αὐταρκὲς:
1
- τὸ βέλτιον:
1
- τὸ βελτίον:
1
- τό Βελτίον:
1
- τῆς τύχης:
1
- τοῦ Αὐτομάτου:
1
Index of Latin Words and Phrases
- Mutum & turpe pecus:
1
- à _posteriori:
1
- à priori:
1
2
- Adsunt Athenienses, unde humanitas, doctrina. religio, fruges, jura, leges ortæ atque in omnes terras distributæ putantur:
1
- At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti.:
1
- Atthide tentantur gressus, oculique in Achæis Finibus:
1
- Brevis est hic fructus homullis:
1
- Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede, coxa:
1
- Dictis dabit ipsa fidem res Forsitan, et graviter terrarum motibus orbis Omnia conquassari in parvo tempore cernes:
1
- Effluvia:
1
2
3
4
5
6
- Ens Rationis:
1
- Est aliquid quo sapiens antecedat Deum: ille natura beneficio, non suo sapiens est:
1
- Et mare, quod late terrarum distinet oras:
1
- Et tumulu cœpit:
1
- Fœtus:
1
2
3
- Foramina Terræ:
1
- Hinc ubi quæque loci regio opportuna dabatur Crescebant uteri:
1
- Hoc superate jugum.:
1
- Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri. :
1
- Lusus Naturæ:
1
- Mortales sumus similes vobis homines.:
1
- Multaque tum tellus etiam Portenta creare:
1
- Muta persona:
1
- Nam bene qui didicere Deos securum agere ævum, Si tamen interea mirantur:
1
- Ne plus ultra:
1
- Nec regione loci certa, nec tempore certo:
1
- Nec siquid miri faciat natura, Deos id Tristes ex also cœli demittere tecto:
1
- Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum:
1
- Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatam Naturam rerum, tanta stat prædita culpa. Principio, quantum cœli tegit impetus ingens. Inde avidam partem montes Sylvæque ferartum Possedere, tenent rupes, vastæque paludes, Et mare, quid late terrarum distinet oras:
1
- Nil ideo quoniam natum est in corpore, ut uti Possemus: sed quod natum est, id procreat usum:
1
- O Laertiade, quicquid dico, aut erit, aut non:
1
- Orbis Magnus:
1
2
3
4
5
- Plenum:
1
- Præterea cœli rationes ordine certo, Et varia annorum cernebant tempora verti:
1
- Quis enim Philosophum sacrificare compellit? Quinimmo et deos vestros palam destruunt, et superstitiones vestras commentariis quoque accusant.:
1
- Quis hunc hominem dixeris, qus cum tam certos cœli motus, tam ratos astrorum ordines:
1
- Rex Jupiter omnibus idem:
1
- Rumores serere:
1
- Sermones serere:
1
- Seu illa:
1
- Si sibi ipse consentiat, et non interdum natura bonitate vincatur.:
1
- Stamina:
1
2
- Summum Jus:
1
- Terra Incognita:
1
- Thema Mundi:
1
- Verbis reliquisse Deum, re sustulisse:
1
- Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatm Summa, reensque Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia cepit:
1
- Vir Sapiens:
1
- dignus Deo vindice Nodus:
1
- ex abundanti:
1
2
- habemus confitentes reos:
1
- in infinitum:
1
2
- in specie:
1
- in vacuo:
1
- ipso facto:
1
- odium:
1
- possum:
1
- quicquid Græcia mendax:
1
- sine vultu cæca reperta:
1
- vere Adepti:
1
- volo:
1
Index of Pages of the Print Edition