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I Believe in God,

SERMON VI.

THE BEING OF GOD PROVED FROM THE

FRAME OF THE WORLD.

JER. li. 15.

He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established Jer. x. 12. the world by his wifdom, and hath ftretched out the hea

ven by his understanding.

THE attentive obfervation of this world, or vifible SERM. frame, is not only in itself a most worthy employment of VI. our thoughts, (much more noble than any of those petty cares, which commonly poffefs or distract our minds,) but, if either the example of the best men, or the great usefulnefs thereof, to the best purposes, can oblige us, even a confiderable duty not to be neglected by us. For it is that which affords moft cogent and fatisfactory arguments to convince us of, and to confirm us in, the belief of that truth which is the foundation of all religion and piety, the being of one God, incomprehenfibly excellent in all perfections, the maker and upholder of all things; it inftructs us not only that God is, but more diftinctly fhews what he is; declaring his chief and peculiar attributes of wisdom, goodness, and power fuperlative; it also serves to beget in our minds affections toward God, fuitable to thofe notions; a reverent adoration of his unfearchable wisdom; an awful dread of his powerful Majesty; a

VI.

SERM. fame end and effect, (to the fame useful end, to the fame handsome effect?) Are not confufion, difparity, deformity, unaccountable change and variety, the proper iffues of chance? It is Ariftotle's difcourfe: That one or two things, faith he, should happen to be in the fame manner, is not unreasonable to fuppofe; but that all things should confpire by chance, it looks like a fiction to conceive: what is universal and perpetual cannot refult from chance. We can only, saith he again, with good reason affert, or suppose fuch caufes of things, as we fee generally or frequently to occur b. Now did we ever obferve (or ever any man through the whole courfe of times) any new thing like or comparable to any of thefe, to spring up cafually? Do we not with admiration regard (as a thing very rare and unaccountable) in other pieces of matter any gross refemblance to thefe, that feemeth to arife from contingent motions and occurrences of bodies? If chance hath formerly produced fuch things, how comes it, that it doth not fometime now produce the like; whence becomes it for fo many ages altogether impotent and idle? Is it not the fame kind of caufe? hath it not the fame inftruments to work with, and the fame materials to work upon? The truth is, as it doth not now, so it did not, it could not ever produce fuch effects; fuch effects are plainly improper and incongruous to fuch a caufe: chance never writ a legible book; chance never built a fair house; chance never drew a neat picture; it never did any of these things, nor ever will; nor can be without abfurdity supposed able to do them; which yet are works very grofs and rude, very easy and feasible, as it were, in comparison to the production of a flower or a tree. It is not therefore reasonable to ascribe those things to chance: To what then? will you

1 --Fortuna amica varietati conftantiam refpuit. Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2. Ὁ λίαν ὑπερβάλλων ἀριθμὸς ἢ δύναται μετέχειν τάξεως θείας γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο δυνά μεως ἔργον, ἥτις καὶ τόδε συνέχει τὸ πᾶν. Αrift. Pol. vii. 4.

- Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἕν ἢ δύο τοῦτον τρόπον ἔχειν, ἐδὲν ἄτοπον· τὸ δὲ πάνθ' ὁμοίως πλάσ ματι ἔοικεν, ἅμα δὲ ἐκ ἐστὶν ἐν τοῖς φύσει τὸ ὡς ἔτυχεν. οὐδὲ τὸ πανταχοῦ, καὶ πᾶσιν ixágxov Tò ÁTò Ths Túxns. De Cœlo, ii. 8.

Μόνα γὰρ ταῦτα θετέον εὐλόγως, ὅσα ἐπὶ πολλῶν, ἢ πάντων ὁρῶμεν ὑπάρχοντα. Id. de Cœlo.

fay, to neceffity? If you do, you do only alter the phrafe; SERM. for neceffary caufality (as applicable to this cafe, and VI. taken without relation to fome wifdom or counfel that' established it) is but another name for chance; they both are but several terms denoting blindness and unadvisednefs in action; both muft imply a fortuitous determination of causes, acting without design or rule. A fortuitous determination, I fay; for motions of matter, not guided by art or counfel, must be in their rife fortuitous, (infomuch as that according to the nature of the thing there is no repugnance, and we may eafily conceive it poffible, that the matter might have been moved otherwife; there being therein no principle originally determining it to this more than to that fort of motion ;) and the fame motions in their procefs must be determinate, because in their fubject there is no principle, whereby it can alter its courfe. The fame effect therefore of this kind, if neceffary, is cafual as to its original, and in that refpect may be faid to come from chance; if cafual, is neceffary in the progress, and may thence be said to proceed from neceffity. And although we should suppose the beginning of these causes in their action, or motion, to be eternal, it were all one; for whether now, or yesterday, or from eternity, infers no difference (except the entangling our minds, and encumbering the case with impertinent circumftances) as to our purpose; not the circumftance of the time, but the quality of the cause being only here confiderable; the fame causes (abstracting from all counsel ordering them) being alike apt or inept yesterday as to-day, always as fometimes, from all eternity as at any fet time, to produce fuch effects. Neither can we therefore reasonably attribute the effects we speak of to neceffity; except only to fuch an hypothetical neceffity, as implies a determination from caufes acting by will and understanding; of fuch a neceffity matter is very fufceptive; being perfectly obedient to art directing it with competent force; as on the other hand we find it by reafon and experience altogether unapt, without fuch direction, of itself (that is, either neceffarily or contin

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VI.

SERM. gently) to come into any regular form, or to pursue any conftant courfe; it being, as we fee, fhattered into particles innumerable, different in fize, fhape, and motion, according to all variety more than imaginable; thence only fit in their proceedings to crofs and confound each other: the determination therefore of fuch causes as these to fuch ends and effects, can be only the refult of wisdom, art, and counsel; which alone (accompanied with fufficient power) can digeft things, void of understanding, into handfome order, can direct them unto fit uses, can preserve them in a conftant tenor of action; these effects must therefore, I fay, proceed from wisdom, and that no mean one, but such as greatly furpaffes our comprehenfion, joined with a power equally great: for to digeft bodies fo very many, fo very fine and fubtile, fo divers in motion and tendency, that they shall never hinder or disturb one another, but always confpire to the fame defign, is a performance exceedingly beyond our capacity to reach how it could be contrived or accomplished; all the endeavours of our deepest skill and most laborious industry cannot arrive to the producing of any work not extremely inferior to any of these, not in comparison very fimple and base; neither can our wits serve to devise, nor our sense to direct, nor our hand to execute any work, in any degree like to thofe. So that it was but faintly, though truly, faid of him in Cicero, concerning things of this kind; Nature's nulla ars, powerful fagacity no skill, no hand, no artist can follow by

Naturæ folertiam

nulla ma- imitation.

nus, nemo

opifex con

imitando.

Cic. de N.

D. ii. 32.

And if we have reason to acknowledge fo much wisdom fequi poffit and power difcovered in one plant, and the fame confequently multiplied in fo many thousands of divers kinds; how much more may we discern them in any one animal, in all of them? the parts of whom in unconceivable variety, in delicate minuteness, in exquifiteness of shape, pofition, and temper, do indeed fo far exceed the other, as they appear defigned to functions far more various and more noble; the enumeration of a few whereof, obvious to our fenfe, in fome one living creature, together with conjectures about their manner of operation and their use,

how much industry of man hath it employed; how many SERM. volumes hath it filled, and how many more may it do, VI. without detecting a ten thousandth part of what is there moft obvious and eafy; without piercing near the depth of that wisdom, which formed fo curious a piece? So much however is palpably manifeft, that each of these fo many organs was defigned, and fitted on purpose to that chief ufe, or operation, we see it to perform; this, of them to continue the kind; that, to preferve the individuum ; this, to discern what is neceffary, convenient, or pleasant to the creature, or what is dangerous, offenfive, or deftructive thereto; that, to pursue or embrace, to decline or shun it; this, to enjoy what is procured of good; that, to remove what is hurtful or useless, or to guard from mischief and injury; that each one is furnished with such apt inftruments, suitable to its particular needs, appetites, capacities, ftations, is most apparent; and I muft therefore here afk again, (and that with more advantage,) whence this could proceed; whence all these parts came to be fashioned and fuited; all of them fo neceffary, or so convenient, that none without the imperfection and the prejudice of the creature, fome not without its destruction, can be wanting? who shaped and tempered those hidden subtile springs of life, sense, imagination, memory, paffion; who impressed on them a motion fo regular and fo durable, which through so many years, among fo many adverse contingencies affailing it, is yet fo fteadily maintained? Can this however proceed from giddy chance, or blind neceffity? could ever (of old or lately, it is all one) senseless matter jumble itfelf fo fortunately, into fo wonderful poftures, fo that of those innumerable myriads of atoms, or small infenfible bodies, (which compose each of these curious engines,) none should in its roving miss the way; none fail to stop and feat itself in that due place, where exacteft art would have difpofed it? Could fo many, fo dim, fo narrow marks.

· Επελθε τῶν μελῶν ἁπάντων τὴν διάπλασιν, τὸ σχῆμα, τὰς ἐνεργείας, τὴν πρὸς άλληλα συμφωνίαν· καὶ πάσης πόλεως εὐνομουμένης καὶ φιλοσόφους ἅπαντας τοὺς πολίτας ἐχέσης ἀκριβεσέραν ὄψει τὴν μελῶν τύτων πρὸς ἄλληλα πολιτείαν. Chryf. tom. vi. Or. 69.

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