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Solifque et luna curfus, ex ordine ponam.
Nam certè neque confilio primordia rerum,
Ordine fe quæque, atque fagaci mente locârunt,
Nec quos quæque darent motus pepigere profecto :
Sed quia multa modis multis primordia rerum
Ex infinito jam tempore percita plagis,
Ponderibufque fuis confuerunt concita ferri,
Omnimodifque coire, atque omnia pertentare,
Quæcunque inter fe poffent congreffa creare:
Propterea fit, uti magnum vulgata per ævum
Omnigenos cætus, et motus experiundo,
Tandem ea conveniant, quæ ut convenere, repente
Magnarum rerum fiunt exordia fæpe,

Terrai, maris, et cæli, generifque animantum.

Thus he, like a good poet, but a very bad maker and contriver of the world. For I appeal to any man of reason, whether any thing can be more unreasonable, than obftinately to impute an effect to chance which carries in the very face of it all the arguments and characters of a wife defign and contrivance ? Was ever any confiderable work, in which there was required a great variety of parts, and a regular and orderly dif pofition of those parts, done by chance? Will chance fit means to ends, and that in ten thousand instances, and not fail in any one? How often might a man, after he had jumbled a fet of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or fo much as make a good difcourfe in profe; and may not a little book be as eafily made by chance, as this great volume of the world? How long might a man be in fprinkling colours upon canvas with a carelefs hand, before they would happen to make the exact picture of a man? and is a man easier made by chance than his picture? How long might twenty thousand blind men, which fhould be sent out from the feveral remote parts of England, wander up and down, before they would all meet upon Salisburyplains, and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army ? And yet this is much more eafy to be imagined, than how the innumerable blind parts of matter fhould rendezvous themselves into a world. A man that fees Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster,

might with as good reafon maintain, (yea with much better, confidering the vaft difference between that little structure and the huge fabric of the world), that it was never contrived nor built by any man, but that the ftones did by chance grow into thofe curious figures into which they seem to have been cut and graven; and that, upon a time, (as tales ufually begin), the materials of that building, the ftone, mortar, timber, iron, lead, and glafs, happily met together, and very fortunately ranged themselves into that delicate order in which we see them now fo clofe compacted, that it must be a very great chance that parts them again. What would the world think of a man that should advance fuch an opinion as this, and write a book for it? If they would do him right, they ought to look upon him as mad but yet.with a little more reason than any man can have to fay, that the world was made by chance, or that the first men grew up out of the earth as plants do now. For can any thing be more ridiculous, and against all reafon, than to afcribe the produc tion of men to the first fruitfulness of the earth, without fo much as one inftance and experiment in any age or history to countenance fo monftrous a fuppofition? The thing is at first fight so grofs and palpable, that no difcourse about it can make it more apparent. And yet these shameful beggars of principles, who give this precarious account of the original of things, affume to themselves to be the men of reafon, the great wits of the world, the only cautious and wary perfons that hate to be impofed upon, that must have convincing evidence for every thing, and can admit of nothing without a clear demonftration for it.

II. Speculative Atheism is unreasonable, because it gives no reafonable account of the univerfal confent of mankind in this apprehenfion, That there is a God. That men do generally believe a God, and have done in all ages, the prefent experience of the world, and the records of former times, do abundantly testify.. Now, how comes this perfuafion to have gained fo univerfal a poffeffion of the mind of man, and to have found fuch general entertainment in all nations, even thofe that are most barbarous ? If there be no fuch thing as God in the world, how comes it to pafs, that

this object doth continually encounter our understandings? whence is it, that we are fo perpetually haunted with the apparition of a Deity, and followed with it where ever we go? If it be not natural to the mind of man, but proceeds from fome accidental distemper of our understandings, how comes it to be fo univerfal, that no differences of age, or temper, or education, can wear it out, and fet any confiderable number of men free from it? Into what can we refolve this ftrong inclination of mankind to this error and mistake? How come all nations to be thus feduced? It is altogether unimaginable, but that the reafon of fo univerfal a confent in all places and ages of the world, and among all differences of perfons, fhould be one and conftant. But no one and conftant reafon of this can be given, but from the nature of man's mind and understanding, which hath this notion of a Deity born with it, and ftamped upon it; or, which is all one, is of fuch a frame, that, in the free use and exercise of itself, it will find out God. And what more reasonable than to think, that if we be God's workmanship, he should fet this mark of himself upon all reasonable creatures, that they may know to whom they belong, and may acknowledge the author of their beings? This feems to be a credible and fatisfactory account of fo universal a confent in this matter. But now what doth the Atheist refolve this into? He is not at one with himself what account to give of it: nor can it be expected he should; for he that will overlook the true reafon of a thing, which usually is but one, may eafily find many falle ones, error being infinite. But there are three which he principally relies upon; fear, tradition, and policy of state. I fhall briefly confider these.

ift, He would make us believe, that this apprehenfion of a God doth fpring from an infinite jealousy in the mind of man, and an endless fear of the worst that may happen; according to that divine faying of the poet, which he can never fufficiently admire,

Primum in orbe deos fecit timor,

"Fear first made gods." So that it is granted on both fides, that the fear of a Deity doth univerfally poffefs the minds of men. Now, the queftion is, Whether it VOL. I.

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be more likely, that the exiftence of a God fhould be the cause of this fear, or that this fear fhould be the caufe why men imagine there is a God? If there be a God who hath impreffed this image of himfelf upon the mind of man, there is great reafon why all men fhould ftand in awe of him. But if there be no God, it is not eafy to conceive how fear fhould create an uni verfal confidence and affurance in men that there is one. For whence fhould this fear come? It must be either from without, from the fuggeftion of others, who firft tell us there is fuch a being, and then our fear believes; or else it must arife from within, from the nature of man, which is apt to fancy dreadful and terrible things. If from the fuggeftion of others who tell us fo, the queftion returns, Who told them fo? and will never be fatisfied, till the firft author of this report be found out. So that this account of fear refolves itself into tradition; which fhall be spoken to in its proper place. But if it be faid, that this fear arifes from with. in, from the nature of man, which is apt to imagine dreadful things, this likewife is liable to inexplicable difficulties. For, firft, The proper object of fear, is fomething that is dreadful; that is, fomething that threatens men with harm or danger; and that in God muft either be power or justice: and fuch an object as this fear indeed may create. But goodnefs and inercy are effential to the notion of a God, as well as power and juftice. Now, how fhould fear put men upon fancying a being that is infinitely good and merciful? No man hath reafon to be afraid of fuch a being, as fuch. So that the Atheist muft join another caufe to fear, viz. hope, to enable men to create this imagination of a God. And what would the product of these two contrary paffions be? the imagination of a being which we fhould fear would do us as much harm, as we could hope it would do us good? which would be quid pro quo, and which our reafon would oblige us to lay afide fo foon as we have fancied it, because it would fignify juft nothing. But, fecondly, Suppofe fear alone could do it, how comes the mind of man to be fubject to fuch groundless and unreasonable fears? The Ariftotelian Atheist will fay, it always was fo. But this is to afErm, and not to give any account of a thing. The Epicurean

picurean Atheist, if he will speak confonantly to himfelf, muft fay, that there happened, in the original conftitution of the firft men, fuch a contexture of atoms, as doth naturally dispose men to these panic fears; unlefs he will fay, that the firft men, when they grew out of the earth, and afterwards broke loofe from their root, finding themselves weak, and naked, and unarmed, and meeting with feveral fierce creatures stronger than themselves, they were put in fuch a fright, as did a little diftemper their understandings, and let loofe their imaginations to endless fufpicions and unbounded jealoufies, which did at last fettle in the conceit of an invifible being, infinitely powerful, and able to do them harm; and being fully poffeffed with this apprehenfion, nothing being more ordinary than for crazed perfons to believe their own fancies, they became religious; and afterwards, when mankind began to be propaga ted in the way of generation, then religion obliged them to inftil thefe principles into their children in their tender years, that fo they might make the greater impreffion upon them; and this courfe having been continued ever fince, the notion of a God hath been kept up in the world. This is very fuitable to Epicurus's hypothefis of the original of men; but if any man think fit to fay thus, I cannot think it fit to confute him. Thirdly, Whether men were from all eternity fuch timorous and fanciful creatures, or happened to be made fo in the firft conftitution of things, it feems, however, that this fear of a Deity hath a foundation in nature. And if it be natural, ought we not rather to conclude, that there is fome ground or reafon for thefe fears, and that Nature hath not planted them in us to no purpose, than that they are vain and groundless. There is no principle that Ariftotle, the great afferter of the eternity of the world, doth more frequently inculcate than this, That Nature doth nothing in vain : and the Atheist himself is forced to acknowledge, and fo every man muft who attentively confiders the frame of the world, that although things were made by chance, yet they have happened as well as if the greateft wisdom had the ordering and contriving of them. And surely wisdom would never have planted fuch a

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