vain principle as the fear of a Deity in the nature of man, if there had not been a God in the world.

2dly, If fear be not a fufficient account of this univerfal confent, the Atheist thinks it may very probably be refolved into univerfal tradition. But this likewife is liable to great exception. For whence came this tra dition? It must begin fometime; it must have its original from fome body; and it were well worth our knowing who that man was that firft raised this fpirit, which all the reafon of mankind could never conjure down fince. Where did he live, and when? In what country, and in what age of the world? What was his name, or his fon's name, that we may know him? This the Atheist can give no punctual account of; only he imagines it not improbable, that fome body long ago, (no body knows when), beyond the memory of all ages, did start such a notion in the world; and that it hath paffed for current ever fince. But if this tradition be granted fo very ancient as to have been before all books, and to be elder than any hiftory, it may, for any thing any body can tell, have been from the beginning and then it is much more likely to be a notion which was bred in the mind of man, and born with him, than a tradition tranfmitted from hand to hand through all generations; efpecially if we confider how many rude and barbarous nations there are in the world, which confent in the opinion of a God, and yet have fcarce any certain tradition of any thing that was done among them but two or three ages before.

:

3dly, But if neither of these be fatisfactory, he hath one way more; which, although it fignify little to men of fober and fevere reafon, yet it very unhappily hits the jealous and fufpicious humour of the generality of men, who, from the experience they have had of themfelves and others, are very apt to fufpect that every body, but especially their fuperiors and governors, have a defign to impofe upon them for their own ends. In fhort, it is this: That this noife about a God is a mere ftate-engine, and a politic device, invented at firft by fome great prince, or minifter of ftate, to keep people in awe and order. And if fo, from hence (faith the Atheift) we may eafily apprehend, how from fuch an original it might be generally propagated, and become univerfally

univerfally current, having the ftamp of public authority upon it befides, that people have always been found easy to comply with the inclinations of their, prince. And from hence likewife we may fee the reafon why this notion hath continued fo long. For being found by experience to be fo excellent an inftrument of government, we may be fure it would always be che rifhed and kept up.

And now he triumphs, and thinks the bufinefs is ve ry clear. Thus it was, fome time or other, (moft pro bably towards the beginning of the world, if it had a beginning, when all mankind was under one univerfal monarch), fome great Nebuchadnezzar fet up this i mage of a Deity, and commanded all people and nations to fall down and worship it. And this being found a fuccefsful device to awe people into obedience to government, it hath been continued to this day, and is like to laft to the end of the world. To this fine conjecture I have thefe four things to say.

1. That all this is mere conjecture and fuppofition: he cannot bring the leaft fhadow of proof or evidence for any one tittle of it.

2. This fuppofition grants the opinion of a God to conduce very much to the fupport of government and order in the world; and confequently to be very bene ficial to mankind. So that the Atheist cannot but acknowledge, that it is great pity that it fhould not be true; and that it is the common intereft of mankind, if there were but probable arguments for it, not to admit of any flight reafons against it; and to punifh all thofe who would feduce men to Atheism, as the great disturbers of the world, and pefts of human fociety.

3. This fuppofition can have nothing of certainty in it, unless this be true, that whoever makes a politic advantage of other mens principles, ought to be prefumed: to contrive those principles into them: whereas it is much more common, becaufe more eafy, for men to ferve their own ends of thofe principles or opinions which they do not put into men, but find there. So. that if the queftion of a Ged were to be decided by the: probability of this conjecture, (which the Atheist applauds himself moft in), it would be concluded in the affirmative; it being much more likely, fince politicians

C. 3

reap

reap the advantages of obedience, and a more ready fubmiffion to government, from mens believing that there is a God, that they found the minds of men prepoffeffed to their hands with the notion of a God, than that they planted it there.

4. We have as much evidence of the contrary to this fuppofition, as fuch a thing is capable of, viz. that it was not an arcanum imperii, a fecret of government, to propagate the belief of a God among the people, when the governors themfelves knew it to be a cheat. For we find in the hiftories of all ages of which we have any records, (and of other ages we cannot poffibly judge), that princes have not been more fecure from troubles of confcience, and the fears of religion, and the terrors of another world, (nay many of them more fubject to thefe), than other men; as I could give many inftances, and thofe no mean ones. What made Caligula creep under the bed when it thundered? What made Tiberius, that great master of the crafts of government, complain fo much of the grievous ftings. and lafhes he felt in his confcience ? What made Cardinal Wolfey, that great minifter of ftate in our own nation, to pour forth his foul in those fad words: "Had I been as diligent to please my God, as I have "been to pleafe my King, he would not have forfaken me now in my grey hairs?" What reafon for fuch actions and fpeeches, if thefe great men had known that religion was but a cheat? But if they knew nothing of this fecret, I think we may fafely conclude, that the notion of a God did not come from the court; that it was not the invention of politicians, and a juggle of ftate, to cozen the people into obedience.

And now, from all this that hath been faid, it seems to be very evident, that the general confent of mankind in this apprehenfion, that there is a God, muft in all reafon be aferibed to fome more certain and univerfal caufe than fear, or tradition, or ftate-policy, viz. to this, that God himself bath wrought this image of himfelf upon the mind of man, and fo woven it into the very frame of his being, that, like Phidias's picture in Minerva's fhield, it can never totally be defaced, with out the ruin of human nature.

I know but one objection that this difcourfe is liable

to

to; which is this, That the universal confent of mankind, in the apprehenfion of a God, is no more an argument that he really is, than the general agreement of fo many nations, for fo many ages, in the worship of many gods, is an argument that there are many.

To this I answer, 1. That the generality of the philofophers, and wife men of all nations and ages, did diffent from the multitude in these things. They believed but one fupreme Deity, which, with refpect to the various benefits men received from him, had several titles bestowed upon him. And although they did fervilely comply with the people in worthipping God by fenfible images and reprefentations; yet it appears by their writings, that they defpifed this way of worthip, as fuperftitious, and unfuitable to the nature of God. So that polytheifm and idolatry are far from being able to pretend to univerfal confent, from their having had the vote of the multitude in most nations for feveral ages together; because the opinion of the vulgar, feparated from the confent and approbation of the wife, fignifies no more than a great many cyphers would do without figures.

2. The grofs ignorance and mistakes of the Heathenabout God and his worthip, are a good argument that there is a God; because they fhew, that men, funk into the most degenerate condition, into the greatest blindnefs and darkness imaginable, do yet retain fome fenfe and awe of a Deity; that religion is a property of our Datures; and that the notion of a Deity is intimate to. our understandings, and flicks close to them, feeing men will rather have any God than none; and rather than want a Deity, they will worship any thing.

3. That there have been fo many falfe gods devifed, is rather an argument that there is a true one, than that, there is none. There would be no counterfeits but for the fake of fomething that is real. For though all pretenders feem to be what they really are not, yet they pretend to be fomething that really is for to counterfeit is to put on the likeness and appearance of fome real excelleney. There would be no brafs money, if there were not good and lawful money. Bristol stones. would not pretend to be diamonds, if there never had been any diamonds. Thofe idols, in Henry VIL.'s

time

time, (as Sir Francis Bacon calls them), Lambert Symnel, and Perkin Warbeck, had never been fet up, if there had not once been a real Plantagenet and Duke of York. So the idols of the Heathen, though they be fet up in affront to the true God; yet they rather prove that there is one, than the contrary.

III. Speculative Atheism is abfurd, because it requires more evidence for things than they are capable of. Ariftotle hath long fince well obferved, how unreasonable it is to expect the fame kind of proof and evidence for every thing, which we have for fome things. Mathe matical things, being of an abstracted nature, are capable of the clearest and strictest demonstration: but conclufions in natural philofophy are capable of proof by an induction of experiments; things of a moral nature, by moral arguments; and matters of fact, by credible teftimony. And though none of these be ca pable of that ftrict kind of demonftration which mathematical matters are; yet have we an undoubted affu rance of them, when they are proved by the best argu. ments that things of that kind will bear. No man can demonftrate to me, unlefs we will call every argument that is fit to convince a wife man a demonstration, that there is fuch an ifland in America as Jamaica: yet, upon the testimony of credible perfons who have feen it, and authors who have written of it, I am as free from all doubt concerning it, as I am from doubting of the cleareft mathematical demonftration. So that this is to be entertained as a firm principle, by all thofe who pretend to be certain of any thing at all, That when any thing, in any of thefe kinds, is proved by as good arguments as a thing of that kind is capable of, and we have as great affurance that it is, as we could poffibly have fuppofing it were, we ought not in reason to make any doubt of the existence of that thing.

Now to apply this to the prefent cafe: The being of a God is not mathematically demonftrable; nor can it be expected it fhould, becaufe only mathematical matters admit of this kind of evidence. Nor can it be proved immediately by fenfe, becaufe God being fupposed. to be a pure fpirit, cannot be the object of any corpo real fenfe. But yet we have as great affurance that there is a God,, as the nature of the thing to be proved