CHAP. VI. THE CONSTANCY AND REGULARITY OF ALL THE HAT the Earth and Heavens move at all, THA but especially that they have fuch particular and beneficial motions, appears, from the preceding chapters, to be the work of God. And the concurrence of the fame infinite hand is as manifeft in the perpetuity, conftancy, and regularity of those motions. For without this Almighty guide and manager, how is it poffible that all those vaft and unwieldy maffes fhould continue their beneficial motions throughout all ages? Should perform their useful ftages without any the leaft intermiffion, interruption, or disorder that we know of? What motion, what contrivance, what piece of clock-work, was there ever under the whole Heavens, that ever came m came up to fuch a perfection, and that had not fome ftops or fome deviations, and many imperfections? But yet none was ever fo ftupid as to conclude fuch a machine (though never fo imperfect) was made by any other than fome rational being, fome artist that had skill enough for fuch a work. As he in Cicero argues from his friend Pofidonius's piece of watch-work, that fhewed the motions of the Sun, Moon, and five erraticks; that if it had been carried among the Scythians or Britons, Quis in illa barbaric dubitet, quin ea fphæra fit perfecta ratione? with more to the fame purpose: no man even in that ftate of barbarity would make any doubt, whether it was the workmanship of reafon or no ". And is there lefs reason to imagine thofe motions I have been treating of to be other than the work of God, which are infinitely more conftant and regular than thofe of man! Or, to ufe the laft mentioned Stoic's argument, can it be thought that Archimedes was able to do more in imitating the motions of the Heavens, (in his fphere) than nature in effecting them? De Nat. Deor. I. ii. c. 34. See the place cited at large in my Phyfico Theology, p. 2. And now to reflect upon the whole, and fo conclude what hath been faid concerning thefe feveral motions; we may all along perceive in them fuch manifeft fignals of a Divine hand, that they all feem, as it were, to confpire in the demonftration of their infinite Creator and Orderer. For befides what, in all probability, is in other parts of the univerfe, we have a whole fyftem of our own, manifeftly proclaiming the workmanship of its maker. For we have not these vaft and unwieldy maffes of the Sun, and its planets, dropt here and there at random, and moving about the great expanfum, in uncertain paths, and at fortuitous rates and measures, but in the completeft manner, and according to the ftricteft rules of order and harmony; fo as to anfwer the great ends of their creation, and the divine providence; to difpatch the noble offices of the feveral globes; to perform the great works of nature in them; to comfort and cherish every thing refiding on them, by thofe useful changes of day and night, and the feveral feafons of the year. These things are fo evident to the reason of all men, that Tully might well make his Stoic to alledge this as one of his principal arguments for for the proof of a Deity : "The fourth caufe, faith he, and that even the chief, is the equality of the motion, and the revolution of the Hea vens; the diftinction, utility, beauty, and order of the Sun, Moon, and all the ftars: the bare view alone of which things is fufficient to demonstrate them to be no works of chance. As if any one should come into an house, the Gymnafium, or Forum, when he should fee the order, manner, and management of every thing, he could never judge these things to be done without an efficient, but muft imagine there was fome being prefiding over them, and whofe orders they obeyed. So much more in fo great motions, fuch viciffitudes, and the orders of fo many and great things;a man cannot but conclude, that such great acts of nature are governed by fome mind, fome intelligent being, And fo again afterwards (Chap. 21) when, among other things, he had been speaking of the motions of the planets, he thus argues, " I cannot poffibly understand, faith he, how all this conftancy can be among the ftars; this fo great agreement of times through all eternity, among fuch various courfes (how this can be) without De Nat. Deor. 1. ii. c. 5. T 3 fome fome mind, reafon, and counfel." And a little after this, fpeaking of the fixt stars, he faith, "But the perennial, and perpetual courses of thofe ftars, together with their admirable and incredible conftancy, declare a divine power and mind to be in them. And this he takes to be fo plain a cafe, that he that could not discern it, he thinks could difcern nothing." And then he thus concludes, "In the Heavens then, there is neither any chance, nor any temerity, nor error, or vanity: but, on the contrary, there is all order, truth or exactnefs, reason and conftancy. And fuch things as are void, of thefe are counterfeit, falfe, and full of error.-He therefore that thinks the admirable cœleftial order, and incredible conftancy, on which the confervation and good of all things depend, to be void of a mind, he himself deferves to be accounted devoid of a mind." Thus with great force and reason, Tully's Stoic rightly infers the prefence and concurrence of a Divine Being and Power from the motions of the Heavens: only not being aware who that Being was, he erroneously imagines the heavenly bodies themfelves to have divinity, and puts them therefore into the number of the gods; which error is excellently refuted by Lactantius, in his Inftit, Divin. 1. ii. c. 5. &c. BOOK |