I Believe in God, SERMON VII. THE BEING OF GOD PROVED FROM THE GEN. i. 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. VII. THE belief of God's exiftence is the foundation of all SERM. religion, if which be not well laid in our minds by convincing reasons, the fuperftructures standing thereon may eafily be in danger of being fhaken and ruined; especially being affailed by the winds of temptation and oppofition, which every where blow fo violently in this irreligious age. No difcourfes therefore can perhaps be more needful, (or feasonably useful,) than fuch as do produce and urge reafons of that kind, apt to establish that foundation. Of fuch there be, I conceive, none better, or more fuitable to common capacity, than thofe, which are drawn from effects apparent to men's general obfervation and experience, the which cannot reasonably be afcribed to any other caufe, than unto God; that is, (according to the notion commonly answering to that name,) to a Being incomprehenfibly wife, powerful, and good. Of fuch effects there be innumerably many in this fenfible world among things natural, more ftrictly fo called, that is, fub SERM. fifting and acting without immediate use of understanding VII. or choice; the conftitutions and operations of which (be a ing evidently directed according to very much reafon, and to very good purpose) do evince their being framed and ordered by fuch a Being; as I have formerly, with competent largenefs, endeavoured to fhew. But befide thofe, there is expofed to our obfervation, yea fubject to our inward confcience, another fort of beings, acting in another manner, and from other principles; having in them a spring of voluntary motion and activity; not, as the rest, necessarily determined, or driven on, by a kind of blind violence, in one direct road to one certain end; but guiding themselves with judgment and choice, by feveral ways, toward divers ends; briefly, endued with reafon, to know what and why; and with liberty, to choose what and how they should act; and that this fort of beings (that is, we ourselves, all mankind) did proceed from the fame fource or original cause, as it is in way of history delivered and affirmed in our text, fo I fhall now endeavour by reafon (apt to perfuade even thofe, who would not allow this facred authority) to fhew. Indeed, if the Kom. i. 20. eternal power and divinity of God may, as St. Paul tells us, be feen in all the works of God; the fame peculiarly and principally will appear obfervable in this masterpiece, as it were, of the great Artificer; if the meanest creatures reflect somewhat of light, by which we may difcern the Divine existence and perfections; in this fine and best polished mirror we shall more clearly discover the fame: no where fo much of God will appear as in this work, which was defignedly formed to resemble and reprefent him. This then is the fubject of our present discourse, That in man, well confidered, we may difcern manifeft footsteps of that incomprehenfibly excellent Being, impreffed upon him; and this doubly, both in each man fingly taken, and in men as standing in conjunction or relation to each other: confidering man's nature, we shall have reafon to think it to have proceeded from God; confidering human focieties, we shall see cause to suppose them defigned and governed by God. 1. Confider we firft any one fingle man, or that human SERM. nature abstractedly, whereof each individual perfon doth VII. partake; and whereas that doth confift of two parts, one material and external, whereby man becomes a fenfible part of nature, and hath an eminent station among visible creatures; the other, that interior and invisible principle of operations peculiarly called human: as to the former, we did, among other fuch parts of nature, take cognizance thereof, and even in that discovered plain marks of a great wisdom that made it, of a great goodness taking care to maintain it. The other now we fhall chiefly confider, in which we may difcern not only σημεῖα, but ὁμοιώpara, of the Divine existence and efficiency; not only large tracks, but express footsteps; not only fuch figns as smoke is of fire, or a picture of the painter that drew it; but even fuch, as the spark is of fire, and the picture of its original. 1. And first, that man's nature did proceed from fome efficient caufe, it will (as of other things in nature) be reafonable to suppose. For if not fo, then it muft either spring up of itself, fo that at fome determinate beginning of time, or from all eternity, fome one man, or fome number of men did of themselves exift; or there hath been a fucceffion, without beginning, of continual generations indeterminate, (not terminated in any root, one or more, of fingular persons.) Now generally, that man did not at any time in any manner spring up of himself, appears, 1. From history and common tradition; which (as we shall otherwhere largely fhew) deliver the contrary; being therein more credible than bare conjecture or precarious affertion, deftitute of teftimony or proof. 2. From the present constant manner of man's production, which is not by fpontaneous emergency, but in way of fucceffive derivation, according to a method admirably provided for by nature. 3. Because if ever man did fpring up of himself, it fhould be reafonable that at any time, that often, that at least sometime in fo long a course of times, the like should happen, which yet no experience doth atteft. 4. There is an evident re SERM. lation between our bodies and fouls; the members and VII. organs of our bodies being wonderfully adapted to ferve the operations of our fouls. Now in our bodies (as we have before fhewed) there appear plain arguments of a moft wife Author, that contrived and framed them; therefore in no likelihood did our fouls arife of themfelves, but owe their being to the fame wife Cause. Also particularly, that not any men did at fome beginning of time spring up of themfelves is evident, because there is even in the thing itself a repugnance; and it is altogether unconceivable that any thing, which once hath not been, fhould ever come to be without receiving its being from another: and fuppofing fuch a rife of any thing, there could not in any cafe be any need of an efficient cause; fince any thing might purely out of nothing come to be of itself. Neither could any man fo exift from eternity, both from the general reasons affigned, which being grounded in the nature of the thing, and including no refpect to this circumftance of now and then, do equally remove this fuppofition, (for what is in itself unapt or unneceffary or improbable to be now, was always alike fo; the being from eternity or in time not altering the nature of the thing;) and alfo particularly, because there are no footfteps or monuments of man's (not to fay eternal, but even) ancient ftanding in the world; but rather many good arguments (otherwhere touched) of his late coming thereinto; which confideration did even convince Epicurus and his followers, and made them acknowledge man to be a novel production. I add, feeing it is neceffary to suppose some eternal and self-fubfiftent Being diftinct from man, and from any other particular fenfible being, (for there is no fuch being, which in reason can be fuppofed author of the rest; but rather all of them bear characters fignifying their original from a Being more excellent than themselves ;) and fuch an one being admitted, there is no need or reafon to fuppofe any other, (efpecially man and all others appearing unapt fo to fubfift,) therefore it is not reasonable to afcribe eternal felf-fub fiftence to man. This difcourfe I confirm with the fuf- SERM. frage of Ariftotle himself; who in his Phyficks hath thefe VII. words: In natural things, that which is definite and better, if poffible, muft rather exift: but it fuffices, that one, the firft of things immoveable, being eternal, should be to others the original of motion a; (I subjoin, and by parity of reason it is fufficient, that one and the best thing be eternally fubfiftent of itself, and the cause of fubfiftence to the rest.) As for the laft fuppofition, that there have been indeterminate fucceffions of men, without beginning, it is alfo liable to most of the former exceptions, befide that it is altogether unintelligible, and its having this peculiar difficulty in it, that it afcribes determinate effects to caufes indeterminate. And indeed it hath been to no other purpofe introduced, than to evade the arguments arifing from the nature of the thing, by confounding the matter with impertinent intrigues, fuch as the terms of infinite and indeterminate must neceffarily produce in man's fhallow understanding. I therefore, upon fuch grounds, affume it as a reasonable suppofition, that man's nature is nowife * auroguns, but hath proceeded from fome caufe. 2. I adjoin, fecondly, that it could not come from any fenfible or material caufe, nor from any complication of fuch caufes; for that the properties, the powers, the operations of man's foul are wholly different from in kind, highly elevated in worth, above all the properties, powers, and operations of things corporeal, in what imaginable manner foever framed or tempered: the properties, faculties, and operations of our fouls are, or refer to, several forts or ways of knowledge, (fenfe, fancy, memory, difcourfe, mental intuition;) of willing, (that is, of appetite toward and choice of good, or of difliking and refufing evil;) of paffion, (that is, of fenfible complacency or displeasure in refpect to good and evil apprehended under several notions and circumftances;) of autoxinola, or felf-moving, (the power and act of moving without • Εν γὰρ τοῖς φύσει δεῖ τὸ πεπερασμένον, καὶ τὸ βέλτιστον, ἐὰν ἐνδέχηται, ὑπάρχειν μᾶλλον· ἱκανὸν δὲ καὶ οἱ ἵν, τὸ πρῶτον τῶν ἀκινήτων αΐδιον ὄν, ἔσται τοῖς ἄλα xas ágyù końcami. Phyf. viii. 7. (*hath not sprung up of itself.) |