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It is true there is an evident connection of causes and effects in the celestial and elementary world, whereby times and seasons are continued, and the succession of mutable things is preserved, so that nature always consuming, remains entire. Though all vegetative and sensitive beings die, yet the species are immortal. For the living are brought forth to succeed in the place of the dead. But the inquiring mind cannot rest here: for it is impossible to conceive a train of effects, one caused by another, without ascending to the first efficient that is not an effect. For nothing can act before it exists. The order of causes requires that we ascend to the supreme, which derives being and virtue to all the intermediate. Thus nature produces things from seminal causes, that depend on things already in being. The seed of flowers and trees suppose the fruits of the earth before growing, but the first tree could not be so produced. To fancy an infinite succession of causes depending one upon another, without arriving to a first, can only fall into the thoughts of a disordered mind. How came this horse, that lion in nature? It is by generation from another, and that from another, and so infinitely. How came this man into the world? It is because he was begotten by such a father, and he by another, and so infinitely. Thus atheism that rejects one truly infinite cause, is obliged to admit an infinity in all things, an incomprehensibility in all things. It is therefore evident the efficient principles in nature are from the sole power of the first and independent cause. They could not proceed from themselves; and that a most wise and powerful being is the original of all things is as evident. Is it conceivable that the insensible mass that is called matter, should have had an eternal being without original? Whereas there is not the least imaginable repugnance in the attributes of the first and highest being, in whom all those perfections concur, which as proper to the Deity, are formed in the mind in the idea of it, as his spiritual nature, eternity, immensity, wisdom, omnipotence, &c. of which it is equally true, that no one either absolutely or relatively considered, involves a contradiction, that make it impossible for the Supreme Being to possess it; is it not perfectly inconsistent to attribute to matter the lowest and most contemptible of all beings, the highest and most noble perfection, and independent existence? One may assert it in words, but not seriously without the utter deserting of reason. Man in

comparably excels this matter, he understands it, and that understands not him, yet he has a derived being in time. It is therefore necessary that that should have some cause of its being. But supposing the self subsistence of matter from eternity; could the world, full of innumerable forms, spring by an impetus from a dead formless principle? It is equally impossible that a blind cause, casual or fatal, should give being and order to the uni

verse.

Besides, all subordinate causes are sustained in their beings and powers by fresh influences from the first, and directed in their operations. To attribute the manifold effects in the world to second causes working in a blind manner without an universal intellectual mover, that disposes, tempers, and governs them, is as unreasonable as to attribute human works to the common instruments of art, without the direction of the understanding that uses them. The hand or pencil has not skill to do any thing, but as it obeys the mind, that gives it the impression of art, and regulates its motion. The earth knows not the various fruits that spring from it, nor the sea its living productions. And the sun, though a more specious, is not a more intelligent and artificial agent. Nature under another name is the ordinary power of God, that by its intimate concourse with second causes produces and supports things. And it is one of the considerable wonders of his providence, that the stream of perishing things, always emptying, is always full; there being a supply from the fountains. of continual productions of what is lost in the dead sea: so that the world is always the same, and always new.

And from what hath been argued, we may judge how unreasonable it is to doubt whether there be a principle in nature of excellent wisdom, because not seen in his own essence: For if reason compel us to acknowledge that the works of art wrought by manual instruments, proceed from an unseen mind that directed their motions according to the idea framed in itself, we ought more strongly to conclude there is a divine mind though invisible to mortal eyes, that contrived at first, and with knowledge performs all the works of nature. To deny the existence of a being not subjected to our outward senses, is equally of no force

* Εἰ δὲ ἐκ τῶ βλέπειν αυτὸν, ἐδ εἶναι φήσομεν, ὦ φυλαίομεν επί την ὁμοιοτη τα τῆς πρὸς τὰς τεχνὰς κρίσεως. Gal. de opifice hominis.

in both the instances. By the same reason St. Austin confounds the atheist objecting that he could not see the Deity, to whom he propounds this question, that since his body was only visible, and not his soul, why should it not be buried? And upon the reply, that the quickening presence of the soul was evident in the actions of life performed by the body; he truly infers, if a vital principle imperceptible in itself is discovered by vital actions, the Deity, though by the perfection of his nature undiscernible to our senses, is clearly seen by the light of his effects. And those who are wilfully blind, if God should by any new sensible effects make a discovery of himself, yet would remain inconvincible: for the arguments of his presence from extraordinary effects, are liable to the same exceptions pretended against the ordinary.

To what has been said concerning the proofs of the Deity from the frame of things in the world, and the ordinary course of natural causes, I shall add further, that in every age such events have befallen men with that congruity to their actions, that natural reason has clearly argued from hence, that an immortal providence observes them, and rewards them accordingly. Indeed sometimes there is a promiscuous dispensing of temporal good and evil things for most wise reasons; partly to convince men that the recompences of moral actions are not distributed by the just God here, but reserved for the next life: and partly that the foundation of true virtue might not be taken away; for that consists in preferring the honest good before the pleasant or profitable in this world; so that there could not be a perfect choice of it, if the certain expectation of a present temporal benefit were the motive to allure men to its practice: but usually it is otherwise. Common experience verifies, that estates unjustly got, either waste away insensibly, as a body by the secret force of slow poison, or speedily are scattered by the luxury of the next heir, whereas what is obtained by honest industry, has a blessing conveyed along with it. And sometimes the divine providence is so visible in retributions here, that impiety itself cannot overlook it. As when good men are signally preserved from imminent dangers, and become successful in worthy designs beyond all human expectations. Or in punishing the wicked: as, 1. When there is such an exact cor

* Unde scio quia vivis, cujus animam non video? Unde scio? Respondebis, quia loquor, quia ambulo, quia operor. Stulte, ex operibus corporis agnoscis viventem, ex operibus creaturæ non agnoscis creatorem ?

respondence between the evils one has done, and the evils he suffers, that the signatures and prints of the crimes are apparent in the sufferings. Per quæ quis peccat, per hæc & torquetur. The complices of the sin, are the executioners of the punishment. 2. When there is such a concurrence of circumstances in a judgment, either as to the time and place, or the instruments, that it is not possible for the considering mind to reckon it among casual things, or to attribute it merely to second causes, to the rage of enemies, but must rise higher, and acknowledge that the blow was reached from a just and sure hand, that disposed of all accidents, and of the counsels and resolutions of men for the accomplishment of his righteous will. Or, 3. When persons in the highest dignity, who have abused their power by cruelties to others, are miserably cut off. Even heathens adored a power above, that has more sovereign authority over the greatest monarchs, than they have over the meanest slaves. Many pregnant examples may be alleged; I will instance in a few: thus Adonibezec instructed by his punishment concerning his sins, gave glory to God: "Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath rewarded me. It astonished one of the wisest and most virtuous of the Romans, that Pompey should perish in the defence of the juster cause, and Cesar prosper in his violent usurpation; but if he had lived a while longer, and seen the † usurper killed in the senate-house that Pompey had dedicated to the common-wealth, where Cesar then exercised his tyranny, and that dying he fell at the feet of Pompey's statue, all stained with his blood, the darkness had been dispelled, and providence cleared up to his sight. Herod for assenting to the impious flattery of the people who deified him, was immediately struck with a shameful disease, and consumed by wretched vermin, as the just punishment of his pride. § Pope Alexander the sixth, was poisoned with that wine he had prepared for the murdering some rich cardinals. || Henry the third of France was cut off by a stroke as dreadful as unexpected, on that day of the month, and in that chamber where he was president of the council that contrived the bloody massacre of the protest

*Cato: Res divinæ habent multum caliginis.
+ Josephus. Guicciardine.

+ Plut. Life of Julius Cesar.

Mezeray.

ants. Though that abhorred fact was done by the malicious fury of a monk, yet the circumstances argue the process of divine justice, that by the time and place, the perpetual witnesses of actions, gave evidence of his crimson guilt against him. In short, though extraordinary calamities may befal men for causes indiscernible to us, yet often there is such a perspicuous demonstration of a holy just providence in them, that all are compelled to confess there is a God that judges the earth.

CHAP. V.

The beginning of the world proved from the uninterrupted tradition of it through all ages. The invention of the arts, and bringing them to perfection, an argument of the world's beginning. The weakness of that fancy that the world is in a perpetual circulation from infancy to youth, and to full age, and a decrepit state, and back again, so that arts are lost and recovered in that change. The consent of nations a clear argument that there is a God. The impressions of nature are infallible. That the most men are practical atheists; that some doubt and deny God in words, is of no force to disprove his existence. There are no absolute atheists. Nature in extremities has an irresistible force, and compels the most obdurate to acknowledge the Deity.

I SHALL now come to the second head of arguments for the existence of the Deity, drawn from the proofs of the world's beginning; from whence it follows that an eternal intellectual cause gave it being according to his pleasure. For it implies an exquisite contradiction that any thing should begin to exist by its own power. Whatever is temporal, was made by a superior eternal power, that drew it from pure nothing. And the other consequence is as strong, that the cause is an intellectual being that produced it according to his will. For supposing a cause to be entirely the same, and not to produce an effect that afterwards it produces, without any preceding change, it is evident that it

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