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God to be a corporeal being, and that the fun, moon, and ART. ftars, and a great many other beings, are Gods: fince then, though all may acknowledge a Deity in general, they are yet fubdivided into fo many different conceits about it, no argument can be drawn from this fuppofed confent; which is not fo great in reality, as it feems to be. But in answer to this, we must observe, that the conftant fenfe of mankind' agreeing in this, that there is a fuperior Being that governs the world, fhews, that this fixed perfuafion has a deep root: though the weakness of several nations being practifed upon by defigning men, they have in many things corrupted this notion of God. That might have arifen from the tradition of fome true doctrines vitiated in the conveyance. Spirits made by God to govern the world by the order and under the direction of the Supreme Mind, might eafily come to be looked on as fubordinate Deities: fome evil and lapfed fpirits might in a courfe of fome ages pass for evil Gods. The apparitions of the Deity under fome figures might make these figures to be adored: and God being confidered as the fupreme Light, this might lead men to worship the fun as his chief vehicle: and fo by degrees he might pafs for the fupreme God. Thus it is eafy to trace up thefe miftakes to what may justly be supposed to be their first source and rife. But ftill the foundation of them all, was a firm belief of a fuperior nature that governed the world. Mankind agreeing in that, an occafion was thereby given to bad and defigning men to graft upon it fuch other tenets as might feed fuperftition and idolatry, and furnish the managers of those impostures with advantages to raise their own authority. But how various foever the feveral ages and nations of the world may have been as to their more fpecial opinions and rites; yet the general idea of a God remained ftill unaltered, even amidst all the changes that have happened in the particular forms and doctrines of religion.

Another argument for the being of God is taken from the vifible world, in which there is a vast variety of beings curioufly framed, and that seem defigned for great and noble ends. In these we fee clear characters of God's eternal power and wisdom. And that is thus to be made out. It is certain, that nothing could give being to itself; fo the things which we see, either had their being from all eternity, or were made in time: and either they were from all eternity in the fame ftate, and under the fame revolutions of the heavens, as they are at prefent, or they fell into the order and method in which they do now roll, by fome happy chance; out of which all the beauty and usefulness of the creation did arife. But if all these fuppofitions are manifeftly falfe, then it will remain, that if things neither were from all eternity as they now are, nor

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ART. fell into their prefent ftate by chance, then there is a fuperior Effence that gave them being, and that moulded them as we fee they now are. The first branch of this, that they were not as now they are from all eternity, is to be proved by two forts of arguments; the one intrinfical, by demonftrating this to be impoffible; the other moral, by fhewing that it is not at all credible. As to the firft, it is to be confidered, that a fucceffive duration made up of parts, which is called Time, and is measured by a fucceffive rotation of the heavens, cannot poffibly be eternal. For if there were eternal revolutions of Saturn in his course of thirty years, and eternal revolutions of days as well as years, of minutes as well as hours, then the one must be as infinite as the other; so that the one must be equal to the other, both being infinite; and yet the latter are fome millions of times more than the other; which is impoffible. Further; of every past duration, as this is true, that once it was prefent; fo this is true, that once it was to come; this being a neceffary affection of every thing that exifts in time: if then all paft durations were all once future, or to be, then we cannot conceive fuch a fucceffion of durations eternal, fince once every one of them was to come. Nor can all this, or any part of it, be turned against us, who believe that fome beings are immortal, and fhall never cease to be; for all thofe future durations have never actually been, but are still produced of new, and so continued in being. This argument may feem to be too fubtile, and it will require fome attention of mind to obferve and discover the force of it; but after we have turned it over and over again, it will be found to be a true demonstration. The chief objection that lies against it is, that in the opinion of those who deny that there are any indivifible points of matter, and that believe that matter is infinitely divifible, it is not abfurd to fay, that one infinite is more than another: for the smallest crum of matter is infinite, as well as the whole globe of the earth: and therefore the revolutions of Saturn may be infinite, as well as the revolutions of days, though the one be vaftly more numerous than the other. But there is this difference betwixt the fucceffion of time, and the compofition of matter; that those who deny indivifibles, fay, that no one point can be affigned: for if points could be affigned or numbered, it is certain that they could not be infinite; for an infinite number feems to be a contradiction: but if the feries of mankind were infinite, fince this is vifibly divided into fingle individuals, as the units in that feries, then here arifes an infinite number compofed of units or individuals, that can be affigned. The fame is to be faid of minutes, hours, days, and years: nor can it be faid with equal reafon, that every portion of time is divifible

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to infinity, as well as every parcel of matter. It seems evi- A R T. dent, that there is a present time; and that paft, prefent, and to come, cannot be faid to be true of any thing all at once: therefore the objection against the affigning points in matter, does not overthrow the truth of this argument. But if it is thought that this is rather a flight of metaphyficks that entangles one, than a plain and full conviction, let us turn next to fuch reasonings as are more obvious, and that are more easily apprehended.

The other moral arguments are more fenfible as well as they are of a more complicated nature; and proceed thus: The hiftory of all nations, of all governments, arts, sciences, and even instituted religions, the peopling of nations, the progrefs of commerce and of colonies, are plain indications of the novelty of the world; no fort of trace remaining by which we can believe it to be ancienter than the books of Mofes reprefent it to be. For though some nations, such as the Egyptians and the Chineses, have boafted of a much greater antiquity; yet it is plain, we hear of no feries of history for all thofe ages; so that what they had relating to them, if it is not wholly a fiction, might have been only in astronomical tables, which may be eafily run backwards as well as forward. The very few eclipfes which Ptolemy could hear of is a remarkable inftance of the novelty of history; fince the observing such an extraordinary accident in the heavens, in fo pure an air, where the fun was not only obferved, but adored, muft have been one of the first effects of learning or induftry. All these characters of the novelty of the world have been fo well confidered by Lucretius, and other atheists, that they gave up the point, and thought it evident that this present frame of things had certainly a beginning.

The folution that those men who found themselves driven from this of the world's being eternal, have given to this difficulty, by faying that all things have run by chance into the combinations and channels in which we see nature run, is fo abfurd, that it looks like men who are refolved to believe any thing, how abfurd foever, rather than to acknowledge religion. For what a ftrange conceit is it, to think that chance could fettle on fuch a regular and useful frame of things, and continue so fixed and stable in it; and that chance could do fo much at once, and fhould do nothing ever since? The conftancy of the celeftial motions; the obliquity of the zodiack, by which different seasons are affigned to different climates; the divifions of this globe into fea and land, into hills and vales; the productions of the earth, whether latent, such as mines, minerals, and other foffils; or visible, fuch as grafs, grain, herbs, flowers, fhrubs, and trees; the small begin

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ART. nings, and the curious compofitions of them: the variety and curious structure of infects; the difpofition of the bodies of perfecter animals; and, above all, the fabrick of the body of man, especially the curious difcoveries that anatomy and microscopes have given us; the ftrange beginning and progrefs of thofe; the wonders that occur in every organ of fenfe, and the amazing structure and ufe of the brain, are all fuch things, fo artificial, and yet fo regular, and fo exactly shaped and fitted for their feveral ufes, that he who can believe all this to be chance, seems to have brought his mind to digest any abfurdity.

That all men fhould refemble one another in the main things, and yet that every man fhould have a peculiar look, voice, and way of writing, is neceflary to maintain order and diftinction in fociety: by these we know men, if we either fee them, hear them fpeak in the dark, or receive any writing. from them at, a distance; without thefe, the whole commerce of life would be one continued courfe of mistake and confufion. This, I fay, is fuch an indication of wisdom, that it looks like a violence to nature to think it can be otherwise.

The only colour that has fupported this monftrous conceit, that things arife out of chance, is, that it has long paffed current in the world, that great varieties of infects do arife out of corrupted matter. They argue, that if the fun's fhining on a dunghill can give life to fuch fwarms of curious creatures, it is but a little more extraordinary, to think that animals and men might have been formed out of well-difpofed matter, under a peculiar afpect of the heavens. But the exacter obfervations that have been made in this age by the help of glaffes, have put an end to this anfwer, which is the best that Lucretius and other atheifts found to reft in. It is now fully made out, that the production of all infects whatfoever is in the way of generation: heat and corruption do only hatch thofe eggs, that infects leave to a prodigious quantity every where. So that this, which is the only fpecious thing in the whole plea for atheism, is now given up by the univerfal confent of all the enquirers into nature.

And now to bring the force of this long argument to a head: If this world was neither from all eternity in the ftate in which it is at prefent, nor could fall into it by chance or accident, then it muft follow, that it was put into the ftate in which we now fee it, by a Being of vaft power and wifdom. This is the great and folid argument on which Religion refts; and it receives a vaft acceffion of ftrength from this, that we plainly fee matter has not motion in or of itself: every part of it is at quiet till it is put in motion, that is not natural to it; for many parts of matter fall into a state of rest

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and quiet; fo that motion must be put in them by fome im- AR T. pulfe or other. Matter, after it has paffed through the highest refinings and rectifyings poffible, becomes only more capable of motion than it was before; but ftill it is a paffive principle, and must be put in motion by some other being. This has appeared fo neceffary even to those who have tried their utmoft force to make God as little needful as poffible in the ftructure of the universe, that they have yet been forced to own, that there must have been once a vast motion given to matter by the Supreme Mind.

A third argument for the being of a God, is, that upon fome great occafions, and before a vaft number of witneffes, some perfons have wrought miracles: that is, they have put nature out of its course, by fome words or figns, that of themselves could not produce thofe extraordinary effects and therefore fuch persons were affifted by a Power fuperior to the course of nature; and by confequence there is fuch a Being, and that is God. To this the atheists do first say, that we do not know the fecret virtues that are in nature: the loadftone and opium produce wonderful, effects; therefore, unless we knew the whole extent of nature, we cannot define what is fupernatural and miraculous, and what is not fo. But though we cannot tell how far nature may go, yet of fome things we may, without hefitation, fay they are beyond natural powers. Such were the wonders that Mofes wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, by the speaking a few words, or the stretching out of a rod. We are fure thefe could not by any natural efficiency produce those wonders. And the like is to be faid of the miracles of Chrift, particularly of his raising the dead to life again, and of his own refurrection. These we are fure did not arife out of natural caufes. The next thing atheists fay to this, is, to dispute the truth of the facts: but of that I fhall treat in another place, when the authority of revealed religion comes to be proved from thofe facts. All that is neceffary to be added here, is, that if facts that are plainly fupernatural, are proved to have been really done, then here is another clear and full argument, to prove a Being fuperior to nature, that can difpofe of it at pleafure: and that Being muft either be God, or fome other invifible Being, that has a ftrength fuperior to the fettled courfe of nature. And if invifible Beings, fuperior to nature, whether good or bad, are once acknowledged, a great ftep is made to the proof of the Supreme Being.

There is another famed argument taken from the idea of God; which is laid thus: that because one frames a notion of infinite perfection, therefore there must be fuch a Being, from whom that notion is conveyed to us. This argu

ment