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produce consciousness and self-perception in what was before inconscious; but also because every smallest atom thereof being supposed to be a percipient by itself, and to have a perfect life and understanding of its own, there must be in every one man and animal, not one, but a heap or commonwealth of innumerable percipients. Lastly, whereas these hylozoic. Atheists make every atom of matter omniscient, but nothing at all omnipotent, or assert perfect knowledge, without any perfect power, a knowledge without sense, and underived from sensibles; we demand of them, where the intelligibles or objects of this knowledge are? and whence the ideas thereof are derived? For since they proceed not in a way of passion from sensibles existing without, nor could result from those atoms neither, as comprehending themselves, they must needs come from nothing, and many of them, at least, be the conceptions of nothing. There cannot possibly be any other original, by the wit of man devised, of knowledge and understanding, than from an absolutely perfect and omnipotent Being, comprehending itself, and the extent of its own infinite power, or all possibilities of things, that is, all intelligibles. But there can be but one such omnipotent Being, and therefore no more than one original, and eternal unmade mind, from whence all the other minds are derived. Wherefore this hylozoic Atheism is nothing but the breaking and crumbling of the simple Deity, one perfect understanding Being, into matter, and all the several atoms of it.

And now have we made it manifest, that these Atheists are so far from being able to disprove a God from this topic of cogitation, knowledge, or

understanding, that they cannot possibly solve the phenomenon thereof, without a God; it indeed affording invincible arguments of his existence. For, first, if no life or cogitation, soul or mind, can possibly spring out of matter or body, devoid of life and understanding, and which is nothing but a thing extended into length, breadth, and thickness; then is it so far from being true, that all life and understanding is junior to senseless matter, and the offspring thereof, that of necessity either all lives and souls were self-existent from eternity, or else there must be one perfect unmade. life and mind, from whence all other imperfect ones were derived: there must be an eternal knowledge before sense and sensibles; which is that that hath printed the stamps and signatures of itself, upon the matter of the whole world. Indeed nothing can be more certain than this, that all knowledge and understanding in ourselves is not a mere passion from singular sensibles or bodies existing without us, as the forementioned Atheists also conclude; (from whence they would again infer, that knowledge, as such, is in its own nature junior to sensibles, and the mere creature of them, and consequently no creator;) there being nothing, which comes to us from the objects of sense without, but only local motion and pressure, and there being other objects of the mind, besides singular sensibles; not only all universals, but also such intelligibles, as never were, nor can be in sense. Now, if our human knowledge and understanding be not a passion from things existing without us; then can it have no other original than in way of participation, from a perfect mind, the mind of an infinitely fecund and powerful

Being, comprehending itself, and in itself all things; all the possibilities of things before they were made, their respects, and the verities belonging to them. So that a perfect omnipotent Being, together with the possibilities of things contained in it, is the first Nonrov, intelligible, or object of mind and understanding, by which all other singulars are understood. And were there no such perfect, infinitely fecund, and powerful Being, there could have been no mind or understanding at all. As also, were there no perfect mind, viz. that of an omnipotent Being comprehending itself, and all possibilities of things virtually contained in it; all the knowledge, and intelligible ideas of our imperfect minds, must needs have sprung from nothing. And thus is the existence of a God again demonstrated from that phenomenon of knowledge or understanding.

HAVING quite routed and vanquished the Atheists' main body, we shall now blow away the remainder of their weaker and scattered forces, viz. their objections against Providence, their queries, and their arguments from interest, with a breath or two. Their first objection is against Providence, as to the fabric of the world, from the faultiness of the mundane system, intellectually considered, and in order to ends; "Quia tanta stat prædita culpa;" That because it is so ill-made, therefore it could not be made by a God. Where the Atheist takes it for granted, that whosoever asserts a God, or a perfect mind,

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a Lucret. lib. i. vers. 183.

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to be the original of all things, does therefore ipso facto suppose all things to be well made, and as they should be. And this doubtless was the sense of all the ancient Theologers, however some modern Theists deviate therefrom; these concluding the perfection of the Deity not at all to consist in goodness, but in power and arbitrary will only. As if to have a will determined by a rule or reason of good, were the virtue of weak, impotent, and obnoxious beings only, or of such as have a superior over them to give law to them, that is, of creatures; but the prerogative of a being irresistibly powerful, to have a will absoJutely indifferent to all things, and undetermined by any thing but itself, or to will nothing because it is good, but to make its own arbitrary or contingent and fortuitous determination the sole reason of all its actions, nay, the very rule or measure of goodness, justice, and wisdom itself. And this is supposed by them to be the liberty, sovereignty, and dominion of the Deity. Wherefore such Theists as these would think themselves altogether unconcerned in these atheistic objections against Providence, or in defending the fabric of the world, as faultless, they being as ready as the Atheists themselves, to acknowledge, that the world might really have been much better made than it now is; only that it must be said to be well, because so made, but pretending nevertheless, that this is no impeachment at all of the existence of a God, "Quia Deus non tenetur ad optimum," because God is no way bound or obliged to the best;—he being indeed, according to them, nothing but arbitrary will omnipotent. But what do these Theists here else, than whilst

they deny the fortuitous motion of senseless matter to be the first original of all things, themselves in the mean time enthrone fortuitousness and contingency in the will of an omnipotent Being, and there give it an absolute sovereignty and dominion · over all? So that the controversy betwixt the Atheists and these Theists seems to be no other than this, whether senseless matter fortuitously moved, or a fortuitous will omnipotent, such as is altogether undetermined by goodness, justice, and wisdom, be the sovereign Numen, and original of all things. Certainly we mortals could have little better ground for our faith and hope, in such an omnipotent arbitrary will as this, than we could have in the motions of senseless atoms furiously agitated, or of a rapid whirlwind. Nay, one would think, that of the two it should be more desirable to be under the empire of senseless atoms, fortuitously moved, than of a will altogether undetermined by goodness, justice, and wisdom, armed with omnipotence; because the former could harbour no hurtful or mischievous designs against any, as the latter might. But this irrational will, altogether undetermined by goodness, justice, and wisdom, is so far from being the highest liberty, sovereignty, and dominion, the greatest perfection, and the divinest thing of all, that it is indeed nothing else but weakness and impotency itself, or brutish folly and madness. And therefore those ancients, who affirmed, that Mind was Lord over all, and the supreme King of heaven and earth, held at the same time, that Good was the sovereign monarch of the universe, Good reigning in Mind, and together with it, because Mind is that, which

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