operates not by necessity of nature, but voluntarily, and therefore with understanding: as a man who speaks, that before was silent, according to the liberty of his will.

Now of the world's beginning there is a general tradition derived down through the uninterrupted course of so many ages to us. It is true, the philosophers renewed the confusion of tongues, that disunited the builders of Babel, in their account of the architecture of the world: yet they generally agreed it was made by a most wise agent. And this doctrine is so agreeable to rea

son, that you may as soon bridle the current of Nilus, and make it return to its fountain, as suspend the persuasion of it in the minds of men, or make it turn back as false. Now what account can be given of this uncontrolable opinion? It is most rational to conceive that it came from the first man, (instructed by his Creator) when the tradition was easy, the world not being

numerous.

Add to this the rudeness of former ages, and the simplicity of living becoming the new-made world. This account the most ancient histories give of the rise of commonwealths, that the first nations were a confused chaos, till the soul of society was infused to regulate them. But that which I shall particularly insist on as a convincing proof, is this; the invention of many arts beneficial to men, and the bringing them to perfection by degrees. If the world were without beginning, it would have had no age of childhood and ignorance, but being always old, and instructed by infinite study and experience, it would have always known what it successively learnt in the school of the last three thousand years, since the memorials of profane histories are transmitted to Some that asserted the eternity of the world, were sensible of the force of this argument, and made a pitiful shift to evade it. They fancied, that though the world had no beginning, yet as animals proceed by different ages, till they arrive at extreme and impotent old age; in like manner it happened to the earth, not in all its parts at once: for then in that vast succession of ages, the world and race of men had been spent; but sometimes in one part, and after in another. But with this difference, that whereas man after decrepit age never renews his youth, a country once wasted with age, returns by virtue of the celestial influences to its former vigour, and is in a perpetual circulation to new infancy, new youth, and so to old age. And from hence it

us.

is, that it learns again those things that were well known in former ages, the remembrance of which was entirely lost. But the vanity of this fiction is easily discovered.

1. Is it possible that in such a number of years, of which memorials remain before and since this fiction, that in no part of the world should be seen or heard of this decrepit age and new childhood, which according to this opinion hath innumerable times happened in the circle of eternity, sometimes in one, sometimes in another province? If we fancy nature were so changeable according to the revolution of the heavens, we may with equal reason believe, that by various conjunctions of the stars, it hath and may fall out, that water should burn, and fire cool; that serpents should be innocent, and lambs pernicious; that flies should live an age, and eagles but a day.

2. Since it is affirmed that the whole world doth not sink into this oblivion at once, it must follow that in some vigorous parts of the knowledge of arts still remained, and from thence should be derived to other parts (that were ascending from their ignorance) as it is usual in the commerce of distant regions. So that it will never fall out that arts and sciences once invented should be totally lost. It is true, some particular nation, not by change of nature, but human accidents, may lose the arts wherein it formerly flourished; as is eminently visible in the Greek, that is now far more ignorant and unpolished than in former ages. But this cannot with any pretence of reason be said of the whole world. It is evident therefore if the world were eternal, it had always been most wise and civil, and that its gradual attaining the knowledge of things of public advantage, is a sufficient conviction of its beginning in time, by the counsel and will of an intellectual agent.

To the still voice of reason, the loud voice of all nations accords in confirming this truth. The civil, the barbarous, the fixed, the vagabond, the free, the enslaved, though divided into so many empires, and kingdoms, and provinces, and many so distant that not the least commerce passes between them, though so contrary in a thousand fashions and customs that depend on the liberty of men that is mutable, yet * all consent in the ac

* Omnes duce natura eo vehimur, ut deos esse dicamus, Cic. lib. de nat. Deor. Arist. lib. 1. de Cal, Plat, lib. 10. de Leg. Plut. cont. Colet. in fin.

*

knowledgment of a God, being instructed by nature that is always the same, and immutable. It is as natural to the human understanding by considering the frame of the world, to believe there is a God, as it is the property of the eye to see the light. Aristotle supposes that if some persons from their birth were confined to dwellings under the earth, and afterwards should ascend into these habitable parts, that upon the first sight of the heavens and earth, with their visible ornaments, of the regular and established course of nature, they would conclude that they were the works of God. The assent to this truth is enforced, but, without offering extreme violence to the rational faculties, none can contradict it. Indeed in their conceptions of him, few have the glass of the mind so clear and even as to represent him aright. Some divide what is indivisible, and of one make many gods. Some attribute corporeal parts to a pure spirit; some figure him in statues to make the invisible seen; and in other manner deform him. Yet no error, no ignorance has absolutely defaced the notion of him. And that no societies of men are without the belief of a first being, superior to all things in the world, and of absolute power over them, and consequently worthy of supreme honour from all reasonable creatures; their prayers, vows, sacrifices, solemnities, oaths, are a visible testimony. From hence it is that conscience acquits or condemns, shines or burns, refreshes or torments according to the innocence or guilt of men's actions, with respect to the divine judgment-seat. This is a witness none can reproach, a judge none can decline, an executioner none can resist. Though the guilty person may be secure from human justice by force or concealment, yet he feels secret palpitations, is in perplexity and confusion from the fears of a superior justice to which he is accountable. Nay, sometimes an enraged conscience constrains an offender to reveal his crimes, though a death full of misery and shame be inevitable upon the discovery. The reflections of an accusing mind, cause such terrors as no powers of men can inflict or remove. These were expressed by the poets under the representation of angry furies, not to be corrupted by any solicitations, that with flaming brands, and whips of scorpions eagerly pursue the guilty, and make them restless even in the midst of outward prosperities.

* Quales sint varium est, esse, nemo negat. Cic.

*As when wild Pentheus, grown mad with fear,
Whole troops of hellish hags about him spies,
Two bloody suns stalking the dusky sphere,
And twofold Thebes runs rolling in his eyes :
Or through the scene staring Orestes flies,
With eyes flung back upon his mother's ghost,
That with infernal spirits all embost,

And torches quench'd in blood doth her stern son accost.

}

But on the contrary, the testimony of conscience when clear and innocent produces that tranquillity, complacence and joy, that no outward troubles can extinguish.

The weight of this argument is great: for that which is common to the whole species, and perpetual from its first being through all its duration, is the † impression of nature, which in its universal principles either of the understanding, or the will, is never deceived. Thus the inclination to that good that is convenient to our faculties; the approving as most just to do to another what we desire in the same circumstances should be done to us, are natural principles, whose rectitude and verity are so evident, that no man is so contumacious as to require a proof of them. If we discredit its authority in this single instance, that there is a God, we may with equal reason suspect its testimony in all other things; that the persons we converse with are phantoms, that the objects that strike our senses are only shadows, that what appears white is black, that what is felt as cold is hot, that what is evident to all men's minds is false, viz. that the whole is greater than a part. In short, the most rational discourses would have as little firmness and certainty, as the incoherent fancies of one that is distracted, or dreams. We must renounce sense and reason, having no assurance of such things as are clear, and manifest, but the instinct of nature that determines our assent. Now what account can be given of the sense of the

* Fletcher. Christ's victor.

+ Dos animæ a primordio. Tert. Quisquamne est hominum qui non cum istius principii notione diem primæ nativitatis intraverit ? cui non sit ingenitum, non impressum, non insitum esse regem & dominum, cæterorumque quæcunq; sunt moderatorem? Arnob. 1. 1.

‡ Quæ est enim gens, quod genus hominum, quod non habent sine doctrina anticipationem quandam deorum? De quo autem omnium natura consentit, id verum esse necesse est. Tul. lib. de nat. Deor.

stamped on the minds of men?

From

Deity indelibly whence is it that of all their thoughts, none is more evident than that of an eternal being sovereign in all perfections? And as it is impossible to conceive a circle without roundness, or a body without extension, or a man without reason, so it is not possible to conceive a God but under the notion of a being absolutely perfect, and therefore eternal, and independent in his existence, which is the first of all perfections. If there be no God, from whence comes it that nature has impressed such a strong belief of a being not only false but impossible? For if there be no God, it is impossible there should be. There is no middle between the two attributes of being, necessary and contingent. And that an eternal being should now begin to exist, is a palpable contradiction. We must therefore conclude that the author of the human soul has so framed it, that by the free use of its faculties it necessarily comes to the knowledge of its original. From hence it is universal and constant. And can there be a testimony of equal authority, clearness and sincerity as this of nature, understood in every language, and received in every place; and where it is most simple, it is most the same, and therefore more convincing.

To elude the force of this argument there are several weak

evasions.

I. That the most men are practical atheists, and live without God in the world. To this I answer:

1. That men deny God in their works, is of no validity to disprove the natural notion of him; for by this confession we must cancel almost all the law of nature. How many notoriously rebel against the infallible principles of common reason? How many dishonour their parents? Yet there is no precept more clearly natural, and acknowledged by the rudest nations, than the obligation to the immediate authors of our lives. How many by fraud or rapine enrich their estates, or violate the honour of the marriage-bed, and do that to others they would not have done to themselves? But though they contradict the law of nature in their actions, can they abolish it in their hearts? Can they make conscience dumb, that it shall never reproach their impieties, because they are deaf to its voice? It is as impossible as to

* Quæ enim nobis natura informationem deorum ipsorum dedit, eadem insculpsit in mentibus, ut eos æternos & beatos haberemus.-Tull.

C