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PRINCETON, N. J.
BX 5133 . B4 5 S4 1838
Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742
Sermons preached at Boyle's
shelf.... lecture
*
W-
' I
THE WORKS OF
RICHARD BENTLEY, D.D.
COLLECTED AND EDITED
m
BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE.
VOL. III.
THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS.
LONDON
PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKI.YN,
46 St. Martin’s Lane.
»
SERMONS
PREACHED AT BOYLES LECTURE ;
REMARKS UPON
A DISCOURSE OF FREE-THINKING ;
PROPOSALS FOR AN
EDITION OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT;
ETC. ETC.
/
BY RICHARD BENTLEY, D. D.
EDITED, WITH NOTES,
BY THE REY. ALEXANDER DYCE.
LONDON:
FRANCIS MACPHERSON,
MIDDLE ROW, IIOLBORN.
1838.
THE
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
In reprinting the pieces which constitute the present
volume, I have adopted the text of the following
editions :
I. Eight Sermons Preach'd at the Honourable
Robert Boyle's Lecture, in the First Year mdcxcii. By
Richard Bentley, M.A. The Sixth Edition. To
which are added, Three Sermons: One at the Public
Commencement, July 5, 1696. when he proceeded Doctor
in Divinity ; another before the University , Nov . 5,1715.
and one before his late Majesty King George I. Feb . 3,
17tt. Cambridge, mdccxxxv. 8vo.
The Boyle Lectures were originally put forth
each as a distinct publication, the first six in 1692,
the last two in 1693, London, 4to : and during the
latter year a general title-page was prefixed to them
— The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism de¬
monstrated from The Advantage and Pleasure of a Reli¬
gious Life, The Faculties of Human Souls, The Structure
of Animate Bodies, and The Origin and Frame of the
VI
PREFACE.
World, &c. Ill the fourth ed. London, 1699, 4to,
the author made various important corrections and
alterations.
Before sending to press the seventh and eighth of
these Lectures, Bentley addressed several letters to
Sir Isaac (then Mr.) Newton, respecting the use to
which he had there turned the discoveries of that
great philosopher. The answers of Newton, first
published by Richard Cumberland, Four Letters from
Sir Isaac Newton to Doctor Bentley. Containing
Some Arguments in Proof of a Deity, London, 1756,
8vo, are now appended to the Lectures.
Of the three Sermons on different subjects the
original editions are : Of Revelation and the Messias.
A Sermon Preached at the Publick Commencement at
Cambridge. July 5th, 1696. London, 1696, 4to. A
Sermon upon Popery : Preach'd before the University
of Cambridge, November vth, mdccxv. Cambridge,
1715, 8 vo. A Sermon Preach'd before His Majesty
King George, at his Royal Chapel of St. James's, on
Sunday, Februai'y 3, 1 7tt. Publish'd by His Majesty's
Special Command. London, 1717, 8vo.
II. A Speech by Dr. Bentley , Archdeacon of Ely,
to the Clergy of that Diocese, at his Visitation held
in Cambridge, December 13, 1716. In The St. James's
Evening Post, {Numb. 246.) From Thursday, De¬
cember 20, to Saturday, December 22, 1716.
PREFACE.
Vll
III. Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free-
thinking : in a Letter to F. H., D.D. By Phileleu-
therus Lipsiensis.
Est genus hominum, qui esse primos se omnium
rerum volunt,
Nec sunt -
- An ancles
Personam formare novam ? Servetur ad imum
Qualis ah incepto processerit, et sibi constet.
The eighth edition. With further Additions from the
Author's MS. ( Part the Second. The eighth edition.
— Part the Third. The second edition .) Cambridge,
1743, 8 vo.
The First and Second Parts came forth separately
in 1713, 8vo. In an “ Advertisement” to ed. 1743, (see
p. 473 of the present vol.) we are told, that two
half-sheets of the Third Part were first added to the
seventh edition of the two former Parts, 1737. In
some copies of the fourth edition of the Second Part,
1714, those two half-sheets are found, the addition
probably having been made in 1737. A few pages
more of the Third Part originally appeared in the
ed. of 1743.
IV. Dr. Bentley's Proposals for Printing a New
Edition of the Greek Testament , and St. Hierom's
Latin Version. With a full Answer to all the Re-
Vlll
PREFACE.
marks of a late Pamphleteer. By a Member of Tri¬
nity College in Cambridge.
Cunarum labor est Angues superare mearum . Ovid.
Tollentemque minas 8? sibila colla tumentem
Dejice. Virgil.
London, 1721, 4to.
Two editions of the Proposals , each consisting
of two leaves in folio, had previously appeared in
1720.
V. Richardi Bentleii, cum septem in Theologia
Doctores crearet, Oratiuncula ; Cantabrigice in Comitiis
habita, Jidii vi. mdccxxv. Prefixed by Bentley to
his editions of Terence, Cantab. 1726, Amstel. 1727,
4to.
The present volume comprehends all the pub¬
lished theological writings of Bentley. The Boyle
Lectures which he delivered during the year 1694,
a defence of Christianity against the objections of
infidels, were unfortunately never committed to the
press (see Monk’s Life of B. vol, i. p. 56) ; and
though copies are mentioned as extant by Kippis in
his ed. of the Biog. Brit. (vol. ii. p. 243, 1780), no
traces of them are now to be discovered : the late
Dean Vincent, (as I am informed by the truly learned
Mr. Kidd,) was of opinion that they have been irre-
PREFACE.
IX
trievably lost. Concerning another unprinted piece
by Bentley, a Prselection on the disputed verse of
St. John, see p. 485.
It may be necessary to apprise some readers
* that La Friponnerie Laique des Pretendus Esprits-
Forts d’ Angleterre, which has furnished me with a
considerable number of notes for the Remarks upon
a Late Discourse of Free-thinking, is a French trans¬
lation of that work, by Armand de la Chapelle, pub¬
lished at Amsterdam in 1738.
ALEXANDER DYCE.
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PRIHGETO
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THEQLQGICS L#
CONTENTS.
PAGE
EIGHT BOYLE LECTURES . 1
THE FOLLY OF ATHEISM, AND (WHAT IS NOW CALLED) DEISM,
EVEN WITH RESPECT TO THE PRESENT LIFE.
Psalm xiv. 1.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they
have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. ... 1
SERMON II.
MATTER AND MOTION CANNOT THINK : OR, A CONFUTATION
OF ATHEISM FROM THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL.
Acts, xvii. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and
find him ; though he be not far from every one of us : for in him we
live, and move, and have our being . 27
SERMONS III. IV. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE STRUCTURE AND
ORIGIN OF HUMAN BODIES.
Acts, xvii. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and
find him ; though he be not far from every one of us : for in him we
live, and move, and have our being . 51, 73, 96
SERMONS VI. VII. VIII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE ORIGIN AND FRAME
OF THE WORLD.
Acts, xiv. 15, &c.
That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who made
heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein ; who in
Xll
CONTENTS.
PAGE
times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Neverthe¬
less, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave
us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food
and gladness . 119, 146, 173
FOUR LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO
DR. BENTLEY . 201
THREE SERMONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS ... 217
I. OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
Preached at the Public Commencement, July 5, 1696.
1 Peter, iii. 15.
Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason
of the hope that is in you . 219
II. UPON POPERY.
Preached November 5, 1715.
2 Cor. ii. 17.
For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sin¬
cerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. . . . 241
III. BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
Preached Feb. 3, 1716-7.
Rom. xiv. 7.
For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. . . 263
VISITATION CHARGE . 279
REMARKS UPON A DISCOURSE OF FREE-THINKING 287
PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING A NEW EDITION OF
THE GREEK TESTAMENT . 475
ORATIUNCULA
539
EIGHT SERMONS
VREACIIED AT THE
HON. ROBERT BOYLE’S LECTURE,
IN THE YEAR MDCXCII.
(From ed. 1735.)
♦
TO
MY MOST HONOURED PATRONS, TRUSTEES,
APPOINTED BY THE WILL OF THE
HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE, ESQ.,
THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD
THOMAS,
LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN,*
SIR HENRY ASHURST, Kt. and Baronet,
SIR JOHN ROTHERAM, Serjeant at Law,
JOHN EVELYN, Senior, Esquire.
Most Honoured,
God having disposed the heart of that incomparable
person, the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire, lately deceased,
the glory of our nation and age, whose charity and goodness were as
universal as his learning and fame ; ‘To settle an annual salary for
some divine or preaching minister, who shall be enjoined to perform
the offices following: 1. To preach eight Sermons in the year, for
proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels, viz. Atheists,
Deists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans ; not descending to any con¬
troversies that are among Christians themselves : thef lectures to be
on the first Monday of the respective months of January, February,
March, April, May, September, October, November ; in such church
as the trustees shall from time to time appoint : 2. To be assisting
to all companies and encouraging them in any undertaking for pro¬
pagating the Christian religion : 3. To be ready to satisfy such real
scruples as any may have concerning those matters ; and to answer
[* Dr. Thomas Tenison. — D.]
[f the ; 1st ed. “ these.” — D.]
XVI
DEDICATION.
such new objections or difficulties as may be started, to which good
answers have not yet been made You have been pleased to believe
me able in some measure to perform these offices, and to command
this first essay to be made public. I am very sensible of the great
honour, as well as the great extent and difficulty of the task ; and
shall endeavour, to the utmost of my poor ability, to answer the re¬
ligious and generous design of that excellent person, and the good
opinion you have entertained of.
My most honoured Patrons,
Your very obliged and humble servant,
R. BENTLEY.
March 17, 1692.*
[* Not in 1st ed. — D.]
^^mfy of'
PRINCETON
THEOLOGIC&
s&wnabS
»*VV„
▼vrvv «r»
THE FOLLY OF ATHEISM,
AND (WHAT IS NOW CALLED)
DEISM,
EVEN WITH RESPECT TO
THE PRESENT LIFE.
SERMON I.
Preached March the 7th, 169
Psalm xiv. verse 1.
The fool hath said in his heart , There is no God. They are
corrupt , they have done abominable works, there is none
that doeth good.
I shall not now make any inquiry about the time and
occasion and other circumstances of composing this Psalm ;
nor how it comes to pass, that, with very little variation, we
have it twice ovei’, both here the 14th, and again number the
53d. Not that these and such like are not important con¬
siderations in themselves ; but that I think them improper
now, when we are to argue and expostulate with such per¬
sons as allow no divine authority to our text, and profess
no greater, or, it may he they will say, less veneration for
these sacred hymns, than for the profane songs of Anacreon
or Horace. So that although I myself do really believe, that
all such as say in their hearts , There is no God, are foolish
and corrupt, both in understanding and will, because I see*
[* sec ; 1st ed. “ see that.” — D.]
VOL. III.
n
2
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
Infinite Wisdom itself* has pronounced them to he so ; never¬
theless this argument would at present have no force upon
these men, till in due time and method we have evinced the
sufficient authority of holy Scripture. But, however, there
are other books extant, which they must needs allow of as
proper evidence ; even the mighty volumes of visible nature,
and the everlasting tables of right reason ; wherein, if they
do not wilfully shut their eyes, they may read their own
folly written by the finger of God, in a much plainer and
more terrible sentence than Belshazzar’sa was by the hand
upon the wall.
And as the impious principles of these persons do pre¬
clude any argumentation from the revealed word of God, so
they prevent us also from speaking at present to the second
part of the text. The whole verse hath apparently two pro¬
positions : the one denoting the folly of Atheism ; The fool
hath said in his heart , There is no God : the second declaring
the corruption and flagitiousness of life whichf naturally
attend it ; they are corrupt , they have done abominable works ,
there is none that doeth yood. Now, this latter part to a
genuine Atheist is mere jargon , as he loves J to call it ; an
empty sound of words without any signification. He allows
no natural morality, nor any other distinction of good and
evil, just and unjust, than as human institution and the
modes and fashions of various countries denominate§ them.
The most heroical actions or detestable villanies are in the
nature of || things indifferent to his approbation, if by secrecy
they are alike concealed from rewards or punishments, from
ignominy or applause. So that, till we have proved, in its
proper place, the eternal and essential difference between
virtue and vice, we must forbear to urge Atheists with the
corruption and abominableness of their principles. But I
presume the first part of the text, the folly and sottishness
[* itself; Is# ed. “ himself.” — D.] 8 Dan. v. 5.
[f which; Is# ed. “ that.” — D.] [J he loves ; Is# ed. “ they love.” — D.]
[§ denominate; Is# ed. “ do denominate.” — D.]
[|| of ; Is# ed. “ of the.” — D.]
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
Q
U
of Atheism (which shall be the subject of this discourse) will
be allowed to come home to their case, since they make such
a noisy pretence to wit and sagacity ; and I believe several
of them first engage in that labyrinth of nonsense and folly,
out of an absurd and preposterous affectation of seeming
wiser than their neighbours.
But, before I proceed any farther, it will be necessary to
clear and vindicate this expression of the Psalmist, The fool
hath said in his heart , There is no God. For I know not any
interpreters that will allow it to be spoken of such as flatly
deny the being of God; but of them that, believing his
existence, do yet seclude him from directing the affairs of
the world, from observing and judging the actions of men.
I suppose they might be induced to this from the commonly
received notion of an innate idea of God, imprinted upon
every soul of man at their creation, in characters that can
never be defaced. Whence it will follow, that speculative
Atheism does only subsist* in our speculation ; wrhereas really
human nature cannot be guilty of the crime : that, indeed, a
few sensual and voluptuous persons may for a season eclipse
this native light of the soul; but can never so wholly
smother and extinguish it, but that at some lucid intervals
it will recover itself again, and shine forth to the conviction
of their consciences, f And therefore they believed, that the
words would not admit of a strict and rigorous interpreta¬
tion ; but ought to be so tempered and accommodated to the
nature of things, as that they may describe those profane
persons, who, though they do not , nor can,% really doubt in
their hearts of the being of God, yet§ openly deny his provi¬
dence in the course of their lives. Now, if this be all that is
meant by the text , I do not see how we can defend, not only
the fitness and propriety, but the very truth of the expres¬
sion. As to that natural and indelible signature of God,
which human souls in their first origin are supposed to be
[* does only subsist ; 1st ed. “ doth subsist only.” — D.]
[f consciences ; 1st ed. “ conscience.” — D.]
[J can; 1st ed. “ cannot." — D.] [§ yet; 1st ed, “ yet do.” — D.]
4
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
stamped with, I shall shew, at a fitter opportunity, that it is a
mistake, and that we have no need of it in our disputes
against Atheism. So that, being free from that prejudice, I
interpret the words of the text in the literal acceptation,
which will likewise take in the expositions of others. For I
believe that the royal Psalmist in this comprehensive brevity
of speech. There is no God, hath concluded all the various
forms of impiety ; whether such* as excludes the Deity from
governing the world by his providence, or judging it by his
righteousness, or creating it by his wisdom and power;
because the consequence and result of all these opinions is
terminated in downright Atheism. For the divine inspection
into the affairs of the world doth necessarily follow from the
nature and being of God. And he that denies this doth
implicitly deny his existence : he may acknowledge what he
will with his mouth, but in his heart he hath said, There is
no God. A God, therefore a Providence, was a general argu¬
ment of virtuous men, and not peculiar to the Stoics alone.
And again, No Providence, therefore no God, was the most
plausible reason, and the most frequent in the mouths of
atheistical men. So that it seems to be agreed on all hands,
that the existence of God and his government of the world
do mutually suppose and imply one another.
There are some infidels among us that not only disbelieve
the Christian religion, but oppose the assertions off Provi¬
dence, of the immortality of the soul, of an universal judg¬
ment to come, and of any incorporeal essence ; and yet, to
avoid the odious name of Atheists, would shelter and screen
themselves under a new one of Deists, which is not quite so
obnoxious. But I think the text hath cut them short, and
precluded this subterfuge ; inasmuch as it hath declared, that
all such wicked principles are coincident and all one in the
issue with the rankest Atheism : The fool, that doth exempt
the affairs of the world from the ordination and disposal of
God, hath said in his heart, There is no God at all. It was
[* such j ls< ed. “ of such.” — D.]
[f oppose the assertions of j ls< ed. “ impugn the assertion of a.” — D.]
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
the opinion of many of the ancients., that Epicurusb intro¬
duced a Deity into his philosophy, not because he was per¬
suaded of his existence, (for, when he had brought him upon
the stage of nature, he made him only muta 'persona , and
interdicted him from bearing any part in it,) but purely that
he might not incur the offence of the magistrate. He was
generally, therefore, suspected* verbis reliquisse Deum, re
sustulisse ; to have framed on purpose such a contemptible
paltry hypothesis about him, as indeed left the name and
title of God in the world, but nothing of his nature and
power. Just as a philosopher0 of our own age gave a ludi¬
crous and fictitious notion about the rest of the earth , to
evade the hard censure and usage which Galileo had lately
met with. For my own part, as I do not exclude this reason
from being a grand occasion of Epicurus’s owning a God,t
so I believe that he and Democritus too were compelled to
it likewise by the necessity of their own systems. For see¬
ing they explained the phenomena of vision, imagination,
and thought itself, by certain thin fleeces of atoms, that flow
incessantly from the surfaces of bodies, and by their subtilty
and fineness penetrate^ any obstacle, and yet retain the
exact figures and lineaments of the several bodies from which
they proceed; and in this manner insinuating themselves
through the pores of human bodies into the§ contexture of
the soul, do there excite || sensation and perception of them¬
selves : in consequence of^| this hypothesis they were obliged
to maintain, that we could have no fancy, or idea,** or con¬
ception of any thing, but what did really subsist either entire
or in its several parts. Whence it followed, that mankind
b Posidon. apud Ciceron. Plutarch. &c.
[* magistrate. He was generally, therefore, suspected ; ls£ ed. “ govern¬
ment. Wherefore he was generally suspected.” — D.]
c Mr. Des Cartes. [f owning a God ; Is* ed. “ Deism.” — D.]
[J penetrate; 1st ed. “do penetrate.” — D.]
[§ through the pores of human bodies into the ; 1st ed. “ into the eyes and
the.” — D.]
[|| there excite; Is/ ed. “ there produce and excite.” — D.]
[^f of ; 1st ed. “ therefore of.” — D.]
[** fancy, or idea; 1st ed. “ phantasie, idea.” — D.]
6
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
could have no imaginations* of Jupiter or Mars, of Minerva
or Isis, if there were not actually such beings in nature to
emit those effluvia, which, gliding into the soul, must beget
such imaginations. t And thence it was, that those philoso¬
phers adapted their description of the Deity to the vulgar
apprehensions of those times ; gods and goddesses innu¬
merable, and all of human figure, because otherwise the
conceptions of mankind about them could not possibly be
accounted for byj their physiology. So that if Epicurus and
Democritus were in earnest about their philosophy, they did
necessarily and really believe the existence of the gods. But
then, as§ to the nature and authority of them, they bereaved
that Jupiter of his thunder and majesty; forbidding him to
look or peep abroad, so much as to inquire what news in the
infinite space about him ; hut to content himself and be
happy with an eternal laziness and dozing, unless some ram¬
bling troops of atoms , upon the dissolution of a neighbouring
world, might chance to awake him. Now, because no
Israelite in the days of the Psalmist is likely to have been so
curious about natural knowledge, as to believe the being of
a God 1 1 for such a quaint and airy reason as this, when he
had once boldly denied his dominion over the world ; and
since^f there is not now one infidel living so ridiculous as to
pretend to solve the phenomena of sight, fancy, or cogita¬
tion, by those fleeting superficial films of bodies ; I must beg
leave to think, both that** the fool in the text was a thorough
confirmed Atheist, and that the modern disguised Deists do
only call themselves so for the former reason of Epicurus, to
decline the public odium and resentment of the magistrate,
and that they coverfit the most arrant Atheism under the
mask and shadow of a Deity ; by which they understand no
[* imaginations ; ls2 ed. “ imagination.” — D.]
[f imaginations ; lii ed. “ an imagination.” — D.]
[| by; 1st ed. “ from.” — D.] [§ But then, as ; lsi ed. “ But as.” — D.]
[|| of a God ; 1st ed. “ of God.” — D.]
[^[ since ; lsi ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[** think, both that; 1st ed. “think that.” — D.]
[ft and that they cover ; 1st ed. “ and do cover.” — D.]
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
7
more than some eternal inanimate matter, some universal
nature, and soul of the world, void of all sense and cogita¬
tion, so far from being endowed* with infinite wisdom and
goodness. And therefore, in this present discourse, they
may deservedly come under that character which the text
hath given of them, of fools, that have said in their hearts,
There is no God.
And now, having thus far cleared our way, in the next
place we shall offer some notorious proofs of the gross folly
and stupidity of Atheists.
If a person that had a fair estate in reversion, which in
all probability he would speedily be possessed of, and of
which he might reasonably promise to himself a long and
happy enjoyment, should be assured by some skilful physi¬
cian, that in a very short time he would inevitably fall into a
disease whichf would so totally deprive him of his under¬
standing and memory, that he should lose the knowledge of
all things without him, nay, all consciousness and sense of his
own person and being: if, I say, upon a certain belief of
this indication, the man should appear overjoyed at the
news, and be mightily transported with the discovery and
expectation, would not all that saw him be astonished at
such behaviour ? would they not be forward to conclude,
that the distemper had seized him already, and evenj then
the miserable creature was become a mere fool and an idiot ?
Now, the carriage of our Atheists or Deists is infinitely more
amazing than this ; no dotage so infatuate, no frenzy so ex¬
travagant as theirs. They have been educated in a religion
that instructed them in the knowledge of a supreme Being ;
a Spirit most excellently glorious, superlatively powerful,
and wise, and good. Creator of all things out of nothing ;
that hath endued the sons of men, his peculiar favourites,
[* so far from being endowed ; ls£ ed. “ endued with none at all, much
less.” — D.]
[f which ; Is< ed. “ that.” — D.]
[J and even ; Is* ed. “ and that even.” — D.]
8
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
with a rational spirit, and hath placed them as spectators in
this noble theatre of the world, to view and applaud these
glorious scenes of earth and heaven, the workmanship of his
hands ; that hath furnished them in general with a sufficient
store of all things, either necessary or convenient for life ;
and, particularly to such as fear and obey him, hath pro¬
mised a supply of all wants, a deliverance and protection
from all dangers :* that they that seek him shall want no
manner of thing that is good.A Who,t besides his muni¬
ficence to them in this life, hath soj loved the world, that he
sent his only-begotten Son,e the express image of his sub¬
stance, and partaker of his eternal nature and glory, to bring
life and immortality to light, f and to tender them to mankind
upon fair and gracious terms ; that if they submit§ to his
easy yoke and light bur den, e and observe || his command¬
ments, which are not grievous fi he then gives^f them the pro¬
mise of eternal salvation; he hath** reserved for them in
heaven an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that
fadeth not away he hath ft prepared for them an unspeak¬
able, unconceivable perfection of joy and bliss, things that
eye liath%% not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man .k What a delightful and ravishing hypo¬
thesis of religion is§§ this ! And in this religion they have
had their education. Now let us suppose some great pro¬
fessor in Atheism to suggest to some of these men, that j 1 1| all
this is mere^Hf dream and imposture ; that there is no such
excellent Being, as they suppose, that created and preserves
them ; that all about them is dark senseless matter, driven
[* from all dangers ; ls£ ed. “ from dangers.” — D.]
d Ps. xxxiv. 9 [10]. [f Who; lsi ed. “And.” — D.]
[ X hath so; 1st ed. “ he so.” — D.] e John, iii. 16. f 2 Tim. i. 10.
[§ submit; 1 st ed. “ submitted.”— D.] s Matt. xi. 30.
[|| observe; 1 st ed. “ observed.” — D.] h 1 John, v. 3.
[^[ gives; ls< ed. “ gave.” — D.] [** bath; 1st ed. “had.” — D.]
* Heb. v. 9. 1 Pet. i. 4. [ff hath; ls£ ed. “ had.” — D.]
[+t hath; 1 st ed. “had.” — D.] k 1 Cor. ii. 9.
f [§§ is; so 1st ed. ; ed. 1735, “in.” — D.]
[|||| these men, that; ls£ ed. “ these, that.” — D.]
[^|^| mere ; 1st ed. “ a mere.” — D.]
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
9
on by the blind impulses of fatality and fortune ; that men
first sprung up, like mushrooms, out of the mud and slime
of the earth ; and that all their thoughts, and the whole of
what they call soul, are only various action and repercussion
of small particles of matter, kept awhile a-moving by some
mechanism and clock-work, which finally must cease and
perish* by death. If it be true, then, (as we daily find it is,)
that menf listen with complacency to these horrid sugges¬
tions ; if they let go their hope of everlasting life with will¬
ingness and joy; if they entertain the thoughts of final per¬
dition with exultation and triumph ; ought they not to be
esteemed most notorious fools} even destitute of common
sense, and abandoned to a callousness and numbness of
soul ?
What then, is heaven itself, with its pleasures for ever¬
more, to be parted with so unconcernedly ? Is a crown of
righteousness, a crown of life,m to be surrendered with laugh¬
ter ? Is an exceeding and eternal weight of gloryn too light
in the balance against the hopeless death of the Atheist, and
utter extinction ? ’Twas a noble saying of the Emperor
Marcus, That he would not endure to live one day in the
world, if he did not believe it to be under the government of
Providence. Let us but imagine that excellent person con¬
futed and satisfied by some Epicurean of his time, that all
was but atoms, and vacuum, and necessity, and chance :
would he have been so pleased and delighted with the con¬
viction ? would he have so triumphed in being overcome ?
Or rather, as he hath told us, would he not have gone down
with sorrow and despair to the grave ? Did I but once see
an Atheist lament and bewail himself, that, upon a strict
and impartial examination, he had found, to his cost, that all
was a mistake; that the prerogative of human nature was
[* must cease and perish ; 1st ed. “ ceases and perishes.” — D.]
[f men; 1st ed. “ they.” — D.]
1 vA0e ov kclI &\oyov taxi a.va.lcrQr]rov yevos. Max. Tyr. Diss. 1. [= Diss. xvii.
ed. Markl. &Qeov, . . . teal avaurOes ylvos . . . &Koyov, ic. r. A.. — D.]
m 2 Tim. iv. 8. Jam. i. 12. n 2 Cor. iv. 17.
VOL. III.
C
10
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
vanished and gone ; those glorious hopes of immortality and
bliss, nothing but cheating joys and pleasant delusions ; that
he had undone himself by losing the comfortable error, and
would give all the world to have better arguments for reli¬
gion : there would be great hopes of prevailing upon such an
Atheist as this. But, alas ! there are none of them of this
temper of mind; there are none that understand and seek
after God;0 they have no knowledge , nor any desire of it;*
they thrust the word of God from them , and judge themselves
unworthy of everlasting life ;P they willingly prefer darkness
before light ; and obstinately choose to perish for ever in the
grave, rather than be heirs of salvation in the resurrection of
the just. These certainly are the fools in the text, indocile
intractable fools, whose stolidity can baffle all arguments,
and bet proof against demonstration itself; whose end (as
the words of St. Paul do truly describe them), whose end and
very hope isj destruction , an eternal deprivation of being ;
whose God is their belly, the gratification of sensual lusts;
whose glory is in their shame, in the debasing of§ mankind
to the condition of beasts ; who mind earthly things ; 9 who, if
(like that great Apostle) they were caught up to the third
heaven, r would (as the spies did of Canaan) bring down an
evil report s of those regions of bliss. And I fear, unless it
please God by extraordinary methods to help their unbelief,
and enlighten the eyes of their understanding j they will carry
their Atheism with them to the pit ; and the flames of hell
only must convince them of their error.
This supine and inconsiderate behaviour of the Atheists
is so extremely absurd, that it would be deemed incredible,
if it did not occur to our daily observation ; it proclaims
aloud, that they are not led astray by their reasoning, but
° Ver. 2 and 4 of this Psalm. [* it; 1st ed. “instruction.” — D.]
p Acts, xiii. 46. [f he; 1st ed. “is.” — D.j
[J end and very hope is ; 1st ed. “ end is.” — D.]
[§ debasing of; 1st ed. “ debasing and villanizing of.” — D.]
i Phil. iii. 19. r 2 Cor. xii. 2. s Numb. xiii. 32.
1 Mar. ix. 24. Eph. i. 19 [18].
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
11
led captive by their lusts to the denial of God. When the
very pleasures of paradise are contemned and trampled on,
like pearls cast before swine, there’s small hope of reclaim¬
ing them by arguments of reason. But however, as Solo¬
mon adviseth, we will answer these fools not according to
tlieir folly, lest we also be like unto them.'1 It is expedient
that we put to silence the ignorance of these foolish men, that
believers may be the more confirmed and more resolute in
the faith.
Did religion bestow heaven without any terms or condi¬
tions indifferently upon all ; if the crown of life was here¬
ditary, and free to good and bad ; and not settled by cove¬
nant upon the elect of God only, such as live soberly , and
righteously , and godly, in this present world? I believe
there would be no such thing as an infidel among us. And,
without controversy, ’tis the way and means of attaining to
heaven, that makes profane scorners so willingly let go the
expectation of it. ’Tis not the articles of the creed, but the
duty to God and their neighbour, that is such an incon¬
sistent incredible legend. They will not practise the rules
of religion, and therefore they cannot believe the promises
and rewards of it.
But, however, let us suppose them to have acted like
rational and serious men; and, perhaps, upon a diligent
inquisition, they have found, that the hope of immortality
deserves to be joyfully quitted, and that either out of interest
or necessity.*
I. And first, one may conceive, indeed, how there might
possibly be a necessity of quitting it. It might be tied to
such terms as would render it impossible ever to be obtained.
For example; if it should be required of all the candidates
of glory and immortality, to give a full and knowing assent
to such things as are repugnant to common sense, as contra¬
dict the Koival evvoiai, the universal notions and indubitable
maxims of reason ; if they were to believe, that one and the
u Prov. xxvi. 4. v Tit. ii. 12.
[* necessity ; lit eel. “ necessity , which is both.” — D.]
12
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
same thing may be and not be at the same time and in the
same respect ; if, allowing the received ideas and denomina¬
tions of numbers, and figures, and body, they must seriously
affirm, that two and two do make a dozen, or that the
diameter of a circle is as long as the circumference, or that
the same body may be all of it in distant places at once : I
must confess, that the offers of happiness, upon such articles
of belief as these, would be mere tantalising of rational crea¬
tures ; and the kingdom of heaven would become the inhe¬
ritance of only idiots and fools. For, whilst a man of com¬
mon capacity doth think and reflect upon such propositions,
he cannot possibly bribe his understanding to give a verdict
for their truth. So that he would be quite frustrated of the
hope of reward, upon such impracticable conditions as these ;
neither could he have any evidence of the reality of the pro¬
mise, superior to what he is conscious to of the falsity of the
means. Now, if any Atheist can shew me, in the system of
Christian religion, any such absurdities and repugnancies to
our natural faculties, I will either evince them to be inter¬
polations and conniptions of the faith, or yield myself a
captive and a proselyte to his infidelity.
II. Or, 2dly, they may think ’tis the interest of mankind
that there should be no heaven at all, because the labour to
acquire it is more worth than the purchase ; God Almighty
(if there be one) having much overvalued the blessings of his
presence. So that, upon a fair estimation, ’tis a greater
advantage to take one’s swing in sensuality, and have a glut
of voluptuousness in this life, freely resigning all pretences to
future happiness ; which, when a man is once extinguished
by death, he cannot be supposed either to want or desire ;
than to be tied up by commandments and rules so contrary*
to flesh and blood ; to take up one’s cross, to deny himself jw
and refuse the satisfaction of natural desires. This, indeed,
is the true language of Atheism, and the cause of it too.
Were not this at the bottom, no man in his wits could con-
[* so contrary; Is# ed. “ so thwart and contrary.” — D.]
Mark, viii. 34.
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
13
temn and ridicule the expectation of immortality. Now,
what power or influence can religion have upon the minds of
these men, while not only their affections and lusts, but their
supposed interest shall plead against it ? But, if we can once
silence this powerful advocate, we shall without much diffi-
culty carry the cause at the bar of impartial reason.
Now, here is a notorious instance of the folly of Atheists,
that while they repudiate all title to the kingdom of heaven,
merely for the present pleasure of body, and their boasted
tranquillity of mind, besides the extreme madness in running
such a desperate hazard after death (which I will not now
treat of), they* deprive themselves here of that very plea¬
sure and tranquillity they seek for. For I shall now endea¬
vour to shew, that religion itself gives us the greatest delights
and advantages even in this life also, though there should
prove in the event to be no resurrection to another. Her
ways are ivays of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace .x
But, before I begin that, I must occur to one specious
objection both against this proposition and the past part of
my discourse ; namely, that religion doth perpetually haunt
and disquiet us with dismal apprehensions of everlasting
burnings in hell ; and that there is no shelter orf refuge
from those fears, but behind the principles of Atheism.
(1.) First, therefore, I will freely acknowledge to the
Atheists, that some part of what hath been said is not
directly conclusive against them, if they say that, before
they revolted from the faith, they had sinned away all expec¬
tation of ever arriving at heaven ; and, consequently, had
good reason so joyfully to receive the news of annihilation
by death, as an advantageous change for the everlasting tor¬
ments of the damned. But, because I cannot expect that
they will make such a shameless and senseless confession,
and supply us with that invincible argument against them¬
selves, I must say again, that to prefer final extinction before
a happy immortality does declare the most deplorable stu-
[* they ; 1st ed. “ they unwittingly.” — D.]
x Prov. iii. 17. [t or; ed. “nor.” — D.]
14
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
pidity of mind. Nay, although they should confess that
they believed themselves to be reprobates before they disbe¬
lieved religion, and took Atheism as a sanctuary and refuge
from the terrors of hell ; yet still the imputation of folly will
stick upon them, inasmuch as they chose Atheism as an
opiate to still those frightening apprehensions, by inducing a
dulness and lethargy of mind, rather than they would* make
use of that active and salutary medicine, a hearty repent¬
ance ; that they did not know the richness of the goodness ,
and forbearance, and long-suffering' of God fi and that a sin¬
cere amendment of life was never too late,t Jesus Christ being
the Saviour of all men, and a propitiation for the sins of the
ivhole world ; who came into the world to save sinners, even
the chief of them all ; and died for the ungodly, and his bit¬
terest enemies .z
(2.) And, secondly, as to the fears of damnation : those
terrors are not to be charged upon religion itself, which pro¬
ceed either from the want of religion, or superstitious mis¬
takes about it. For as an honest and innocent man doth
know the punishments which the laws of his country de¬
nounce against felons, and murderers, and traitors, without
being terrified or concerned at them ; so a Christian, in truth
as well as in name, though he believe the consuming ven¬
geance prepared for the disobedient and unbelievers, is not
at all dismayed at the apprehensions of it. Indeed, it adds
spurs and gives wings to his diligence ; it excites him to
work out his salvation with fear and trembling ;a a religious
and ingenuous fear, that is tempered with hope, and with
love, and unspeakable joy. But he knows that, if he fears
Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hellf he
needs not fear that his own soul or body shall ever go
thither.
I allow, that some debauched and profligate wretches, or
[* they would; ls< ed. “ to.” — D.] 7 Rom. ii. 4.
[t to° late ; ed. “ too late nor in vain.” — D.]
1 1 Tim. iv. 10. 1 John, v. 14 [ii. 2]. 1 Tim. i. 15. Rom. v. 6, 10.
* Phil. ii. 12. b Mattb. x. 28.
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
15
some designing perfidious hypocrites, that are religious in
outward profession, but corrupt and abominable in their
works, are most justly as well as usually liable to these
horrors of mind. *Tis not my business to defend or excuse
such as these ; I must leave them, as long as they keep their
hardness and impenitent hearts , to those gnawing and excru¬
ciating fears, those whips of the divine Nemesis, that fre¬
quently scourge even Atheists themselves. For the Atheists*
also can never wholly extinguish thosef horrible forebodings
of conscience. They endeavour, indeed, to compose and
charm their fears, butj; a thousand occasions daily awaken§
the sleeping tormentors. Any slight consideration either of
themselves, or of any thing without ; whatsoever they think
on, or whatsoever they look on ; all|| administer some rea¬
sons for suspicion and diffidence, lest possibly they may be
in the wrong ; and then Tis a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God.c There are they in great fear, as
Jtis in the fifth verse of this Psalm, under terrible presages
of judgment and fiery indignation .d Neither can they say,
that these terrors, like tales about spectres, may disturb
some small pretenders and puny novices, hut dare not ap¬
proach the vere adepti, the masters and rabbies of Atheism :
for Jtis well known,e both from ancient and modern experi¬
ence, that the very boldest of them, out of their debauches
and company, when they chance to he surprised with soli¬
tude or sickness, are the most suspicious, and timorous, and
despondent wretches in the world : and that the boasted
happy Atheist in the indolence of body, and an undisturbed
calm and serenity of mind, is altogether as rare a creature
as the vir sapiens was among the Stoics ; whom they often
met with in idea and description, in harangues and in books,
[* the Atheists ; Is# ed. “ they.” — D.]
[f those ; Is# ed. “ these.” — D.]
[J They endeavour, indeed, to compose and charm their fears, but ; not in
Is# ed. — D.]
[§ daily awaken ; Is# ed. “ do awake.” — D.]
[|| all j Is# ed. “ all do.”— D.] c Heb. x. 31.
d Heb. x. 27. e Cic., Plutarch, &c.
16
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
but freely owned that he never had or was like to exist actu¬
ally in nature.
And now', as to the present advantages which we owe to
religion, they are very conspicuous ; whether we consider
mankind, first, separately ; or secondly, under society and
government.
1. And first, in a single capacity. How is a good Chris¬
tian animated and cheered by a stedfast belief of the pro¬
mises of the Gospel ; of an everlasting enjoyment of perfect
felicity, such as after millions of millions of ages is still
youthful, and flourishing, and inviting as at the first ! no
wrinkles in the face, no grey hairs on the head of eternity ;
no end, no diminution, no satiety of those delights. What
a warm and vigorous influence does a religious heart feel
from a firm expectation of these glories ! Certainly this
hope alone is of inestimable value ; ’tis a kind of anticipa¬
tion and pledge of those joys ; and at least gives him one
heaven upon earth, though the other should prove a delu¬
sion. Now, what are the mighty promises of Atheism in
competition with these ?* let us know the glorious recom¬
penses it proposes. f Utter extinction and cessation of being ;
to be reduced to the same condition as if we never had been
born. O dismal reward of infidelity ! at which nature does
shrink and shiver with horror. What some of the learnedest
doctorsf among the Jews have esteemed the most dreadful of
all punishments, J and have assigned for the portion of the
blackest criminals of the damned; so interpreting Tophet,
Abaddon, the Vale of Slaughter, and the like, for final exci¬
sion and deprivation of being ; this Atheism exhibits to us
as an equivalent to heaven. ’Tis well known § what hath
been disputed among schoolmen to this effect. And ’tis an
observation of Plutarch, £ that the generality of mankind, 7 rav-
[* in competition with these ; not in lsi ed. — D.]
[f proposes ; ls£ ed. “ proposeth.” — D.]
f Vide Pocockii Notas ad Portam Mosis, p. 158, &c.
[J punishments ; lsi ed. “ punishment.” — D.]
[§ ’Tis well known ; 1st ed. “ We all know.” — D.]
e Plutarch, "On ovSe (rju, & c. p. 1104, 1105. edit. Ruald. [= Mor. t. v.
p. 339. ed. Wyttenb. — D.]
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM,
17
Te 9 teal TTaaat, as well women as men, chose rather to endure
all the punishments of hell, as described by the poets, than
part with the hope of immortality, though immortal only in
misery. I easily grant, that this would be a very hard bar¬
gain ; and that not to be at all, is more eligible than to be
miserable always; our Saviour himself having determined
the question : Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man
is betrayed l good were it for that man if he had never been
born .h But, however, thus much it evidently shews, that
this desire of immortality* is a natural affection of the soul ;
Jtis self -preservation in the highest and truest meaning ; Jtis
interwoven in the very frame and constitution of man. How,
then, can the Atheist reflect on his own hypothesis without
extreme sorrow and dejection of spirit ? Will he say, that,
when once he is dead, this desire will be nothing ; and that
he that is not cannot lament his annihilation ? So, indeed,
it would be hereafter, accordingf to his principles. But
nevertheless, for the present, while J he continues in life
(which we now speak of), that§ dusky scene of horror, that ||
melancholy prospect of final perdition, will frequently occur
to his fancy ; the sweetest enjoyments of life will often be¬
come flat and insipid, will be damped and extinguished, be
bittered and poisoned, by the malignant and venomous quality
of this opinion.
Is it not more comfortable to a man to think well of
himself, to have a high value and conceit of the dignity of his
nature, to believe a noble origination of his race, the off¬
spring and image of the great King of Glory, rather than
that men first proceeded, as vermin are thought to do, by
the sole influence of the sun, out of dirt and putrefaction ?
Is it not a firmer foundation for contentment and tran¬
quillity, to believe that all things were at first created, and
h Matth. xxvi. 24. [* immortality; 1st ed. “ existence.” — D.]
[f would be hereafter, according; 1st ed. “ will be according.” — D.]
[+ nevertheless, for the present, while ; ed. “ notwithstanding, while.”
-D.]
[§ that ; Is* ed. “ this.” — D.]
von. hi.
JO
[|| that; 1st ed. “ this.” — D.]
18
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
are since continually* ordered and disposed for the best;
and that principally for the benefit and pleasure of man, than
that the whole universe is mere bungling and blundering;
no art or contrivance to be seen in’t; nothing effected for
any purpose and design ; but all ill-favouredly cobbled and
jumbled together by the unguided agitation and rude shuffles
of matter?
Can any man wish a better support under affliction, than
the friendship and favour of Omnipotence, of Infinite Wisdom
and Goodness, thatf is both able and willing, and knows
how to relieve him ? Such a man can do all things through
Christ that strengtheneth him : * he can patiently suffer all
things with cheerful submission and resignation to the Divine
will. He has a secret spring of spiritual joy, and the con¬
tinual feast of a good conscience within, that forbid him to
be miserable. But what a forlorn, destitute creature is the
Atheist in distress ! He hath no friend in extremity, but
poison, or a dagger, or a halter, or a precipice. A violent
death is the last refuge of the Epicureans, as well as the
Stoics. This, says Lucretius, J is the distinguishing character
of a genuine son of our sect, that he will not endure to live
in exile, and want, and disgrace, out of a vain fear of death ;
but despatch himself resolutely into the state of eternal sleep
and insensibility. And yet, for all this swaggering, not one of
a hundred of them hathj boldness enough to follow the
direction. The base and degen erous saying of one of them
is very well known : That life is always sweet, and he should
still desire to prolong it ; though, after he had been maimed
and distorted by the rack, he should lastly be condemned to
hang on a gibbet. k
And then, as to the practical rules and duties of religion.
As the miracles of our Lord are peculiarly eminent above the
[* are since continually ; 1st ed. “ are continually.” — D.]
[t that; Is* ed. “ who.” — D.] ' Phil. iv. 13. 3 Lib. iii.
[+ hundred of them hath ; ls£ ed. “ hundred hath.” — D.]
k Mecaenas apud Senec. Ep. ci. Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede,
coxa, & c.
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
19
lying wonders of demons, in that they were not made out of
vain ostentation of power, and to raise unprofitable amaze¬
ment, but for the real benefit and advantage of men, by
feeding the hungry, healing all sorts of diseases, ejecting of
devils, and reviving the dead; so likewise the commands
which he hath imposed on his followers are not like the
absurd ceremonies of pagan idolatry, the frivolous rites of
their initiations and worship, that might look like incantation
and magic, but had no tendency in their nature to make
mankind the happier. Our Saviour hath enjoined us a rea¬
sonable service} accommodated to the rational part of our
nature. All his laws are in themselves, abstracted from any
consideration of recompense, conducing* to the temporal
interest of them that observe them. For what can be more
availing to a man’s health, or his credit, or estate, or security
in this world, than charity and meekness, than sobriety and
temperance, than honesty and diligence in his calling ? Do
not pride and arrogance infallibly meet with contempt ? Do
not contentiousness, and cruelty, and study of revenge, sel¬
dom fail of retaliation ? Are not envious and covetous, dis¬
contented and anxious minds tormentors to themselves ? Do
not we see, that slothful, and intemperate, and incontinent
persons destroy their bodies with diseases, their reputation +
with disgrace, and their families with want? Are adultery
and fornication forbidden only by Moses and Christ ? or do
not heathen lawgivers punish such enormities with fines or
imprisonment, with exile or death ? ’Twas an objection of
Julian the Apostate,m that there were no new precepts of
morality in our religion : Thou shall not kill, Thou shalt not
steal, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife • why, all
the world, says he, is agreed about these commandments ;
and, in every country under heaven, there are laws and pe¬
nalties made to enforce all the ten, excepting only the sab-
1 Rom. xii. 1. [* conducing; 1st ed. “ conducible.” — D.]
[f reputation; ls< ed. “ reputations.” — D.]
m Julianus apud Cyrillum, p. 134.
20
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
bath, and the worship of strange gods. We can answer him
another way; but he may make our infidels ashamed to
complain of those ordinances as hard impositions, which the
sense of all nations has thought to be reasonable ; which not
only the philosophers of Greece and Italy, and the learned*
world, but the Banians of Mogul, the Talapoins of Siam, the
Mandarins of China, the moralists of Peru and Mexico, all
the wisdom of mankind, have declared to be necessary duties.
Nay, if the Atheists would but live up to the ethics of Epi¬
curus himself, they would make few or no proselytes from
the Christian religion. For nonef revolt from the faith for
such things as are thought peculiar to Christianity: not
because they must love and pray for their enemies, n but
because they must not poison or stab them ; not because
they must not look upon a woman to lust after her,0 but
because they are much more restrained from committing
the act. J If wanton glances and lascivious § thoughts had
been permitted by the Gospel, and only the gross act for¬
bidden, || they would have apostatised nevertheless. This
we may conjecture from what Plato P and others have told us,
that it was commonly arcpdreLa i)8ovcov teal iTnOv/Juwv, im¬
moderate^ affections and lusts, that, in the very times of
paganism, induced men to be Atheists. It seems their im¬
pure and brutal sensuality was too much confined by the
religion of those countries where even Venus and Bacchus
had their temples. Let not, therefore, voluptuous Atheists
lay all the fault of their sins upon the infirmity of human
nature ; nor plead that flesh and blood cannot resist those
temptations which have all their force and prevalence from
long custom and inveterated habit. What enticement, what
[* learned; ls< ed. “ ancient.” — D.] [f For none; lsi ed. “ None.” — D.]
n Matth. v. 44. ° Verse 28.
[+ committing the act; 1st ed. “the perpetration of their lusts.” — D.]
[§ lascivious; ls£ ed. “ libidinous.” — D.]
[|| and only the gross act forbidden; not in Is* ed.-— D.]
v Plato de Legib. lib. x. p. 886. edit. Steph. [= t. viii. p. 464. ed. 1826. — D.]
[If immoderate; 1st ed. “ their immoderate.” — D.]
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
21
pleasure is there in common profane swearing ? Yet neither
the fear of God nor of the law will persuade men to leave
it. 5Tis prevailing example that hath now made it fashion¬
able ; but it hath not always been so, nor will be hereafter.
So other epidemical vices, they are rife and predominant
only for a season, and must not be ascribed to human nature
in the lump. In some countries, intemperance is a necessary
part of conversation ; in others, sobriety is a virtue universal,
without any respect to the duties of religion. Nor can they say,
that this is only the difference of climate that inclines one na¬
tion to concupiscence and sensual pleasures, another to blood¬
thirstiness and desire of revenge. It would discover great igno¬
rance in history, not to know that, in all climates, a whole
people has been overrun with some recently invented or newly
imported kind of vice, which their grandfathers never knew.
In the latest accounts of the country of Guiana, we are told,
that the eating of human flesh is the beloved pleasure of
those savages : two nations of them, by mutual devouring, are
reduced to two handfuls of men. When the Gospel of our
Saviour was preached to them, they received it with glad¬
ness of heart ; they could be brought to forego plurality of
wives, though that be the main impediment to the conversion
of the East Indies. But the great stumbling-block with
these Americans, and the only rock of offence, was the for¬
bidding them to eat their enemies : that irresistible temptation
made them quickly to revolt and relapse into their infidelity.
What must we impute this to ? to the temperature* of the
air, to the nature of the soil, to the influence of the stars ?
Are these barbarians of man-eating constitutions, that they
so hanker after this inhuman diet,f which we cannot imagine
without horror? Is not the same thing practised in other
parts of that continent ? Was it not so in Europe of old,
and is it not now so in Africa ? If an eleventh command¬
ment had been given. Thou shalt not eat human flesh; would
[* What must we impute this to? to the temperature; 1st ed. u What,
must we impute this to the temperature.”' — D.]
[f this inhuman diet; Is? ed. “ this diet.” — D.]
22
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
not these cannibals have esteemed it more difficult than all
the ten ? And would not they have really had as much
reason as our Atheists to plead the power of the temptation,
and the propensity of flesh and blood ? How impudent,
then, are the Atheists,* that traduce the easy and gracious
conditions of the Gospel, asf unreasonable and tyrannical
impositions ! Are not God's ways equal, O ye children of
destruction, and are not your ways unequal ?
II. Secondly and lastly, for the goodj influence of reli¬
gion upon communities and governments, habemus conjitentes
reos ; Tis so apparent and unquestionable, that Tis one of
the objections of the Atheists, that it was first§ contrived and
introduced by politicians, to bring the wild and straggling
herds of mankind under subjection and laws. Out of thy
own mouth shalt thou be judged, thou wicked servant .‘t
Thou sayest that the wise institutors of government, souls
elevated above the ordinary pitch of men, thought religion
necessary to civil obedience. Why, then, dost thou endea¬
vour to undermine this foundation, to undo this cement of
society, and to reduce all once again to thy imaginary state
of nature and original confusion ? No community ever was
or can be begun or maintained, but upon the basis of reli¬
gion. What government can be imagined without judicial
proceedings ? and what methods of judicature without a
religious oath? which implies and supposes an omniscient
Being, as conscious to its falsehood or truth, and a revenger
of perjury. So that the very nature of an oath (and there¬
fore of society also) is subverted by the Atheist, who pro-
fesseth to acknowledge nothing superior to himself, no omni¬
present Observer of the actions of men. For an Atheistr to
compose a system of politics is as absurd and ridiculous as
[* then are the Atheists; 1st ed. “ are they then.” — D.]
[f as; 1st ed. “ for.” — D.]
[J for the good; Is* ed. “ as to the benign.” — D.]
[§ the objections of the Atheists, that it was first ; 1st ed. “ the wise objec¬
tions of the Atheist, that it first was.” — D.]
i Luke, xix. 22. r Hobbes de Cive, Leviathan.
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
23
Epicurus’s sermons were about sanctity and religious wor¬
ship.* But there was hope, that the doctrine of absolute
uncontrollable power, and the formidable name of Leviathan,
might flatter and bribe the government into a toleration of
infidelity. We need have no recourse to notions* and sup¬
position ; we have sad experience and convincing example
before us, what a rare constitution of government may be
had in a whole nation of Atheists. The natives of Newfound¬
land and New France in America,11 as they are said to live
without any sense of religion, so they are known to be desti¬
tute of its advantages and blessings ; without any law, or
form of community ; without any literature, or sciences, or
arts ; no towns, no fixed habitations, no agriculture, no navi¬
gation. And ’tis entirely owing to the power of religion,
that the whole world is not at this time as barbarous as
they. And yet I ought not to have called these miserable
wretches a nation of Atheists. They cannot be said to be of
the Atheist’s opinion, because they have no opinion at all in
the matter : they do not say in their hearts, There is no God;
for they never once deliberated, if there was one or no.
They no more deny the existence of a Deity, than they deny
the Antipodes, the Copernican system, or the Satellites Jovis;
about which they have had no notion orf conception at all.
’Tis the ignorance of those poor creatures, and not their
impiety: their ignorance, as much to be pitied as the impiety
of the Atheists toj be detested and punished. ’Tis of mighty
importance to the government to put some timely stop to
the spreading contagion of this pestilence that walketh by
day, that dares to disperse its cursed seeds and principles in
the face of the sun. The fool in the text had only said in
his heart, There is no God: he had not spoken it aloud, nor
openly blasphemed, in places of public resort. There’s too
much reason to fear, that some of all orders of men, even
* Tlepl 'Oo-drriTos. Laert. De sanctitate et de pietate adversus Deos. Cic.
[* notions; 1st ed. “ notion.” — D.]
u De Laet, p. 34, 47, 50. Voyage du Sieur de Champlain, p. 28 et 93.
[f or; ls< ed. “ nor.” — D.] [t to; 1st ed. “ is to.” — D.]
24
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
magistracy itself, have taken the infection ; a thing of dread¬
ful consequence, and most imminent danger. Epicurusv was
somewhat* wiser than ordinary, when he so earnestly ad¬
vised his disciples against meddling in public affairs : he
knew the nature and tendency of his own philosophy ; that
it would soon become suspected and odious to a govern¬
ment, if ever Atheists were employed in places of trust.
But, because he had made one great rule superior to all,
that every man’s only good was pleasure of body and content¬
ment of mind, hence it was, that men of ambitious and tur¬
bulent spirits, that were dissatisfied and uneasy with privacy
and retirement, were allowed by his own principle to engage
in matters of state : and there they generally met with that
fortune which their master foresaw. Several cities of Greece,™
that had made experiment of them in public concerns, drove
them out, as incendiaries and pests of commonweals, by
severe edicts and proclamations. Atheism is by no means
tolerable in the most private condition; but if it aspire to
authority and power, if it acquire the command of an army
or a navy, if it get upon the bench, or into the senate, or
on a throne; what then can be expected but the basest
cowardice and treachery, but the foulest prevarication in
justice, but betraying and selling the rights and liberties of
a people, but arbitrary government and tyrannical oppres¬
sion ? Nay, if Atheism were once, as I may say, the national
religion, it would make its own followers the most miserable
of men ; it would be the kingdom of Satan divided against
itself; and the land would be soon brought to desolation.
Josephus, x whof knew them, hath informed us, that the Sad-
ducees, those Epicureans among the Jews, were not only
rough and cruel to men of a different sect from their own,
but perfidious and inhuman one towards another. This is
the genuine spirit and the natural product of Atheism. No
v Plutarch. Aade fiiaxras. Lucret. &c.
[* somewhat; 1st ed. “ not a little.” — D.]
w Plutarch. "Otj ovSe rjSe'us £fjv. Cicero, Atlienaeus, iElian, &c.
x Josephus de Bello Judaico, 1. ii. c. 12. [f who; 1st ed. “ that.” — D.]
SERM. I.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
25
man; that adheres to that narrow and selfish principle, can
ever be just, or generous, or grateful, unless he be sometime
overcome by good nature and a happy constitution. y No
Atheist, as such, can he a true friend, an affectionate relation,
or a loyal subject. The appearance and shew of mutual
amity among them is wholly owing to the smallness of their
number, and to the obligations of a faction. 5Tis like the
friendship of pickpockets and highwaymen, that are said to
observe strict justice among themselves, and never to defraud
a comrade of his share of the booty. But, if we could ima¬
gine a whole nation to be cut-purses and robbers, would
there then be kept that square dealing and equity in such a
monstrous den of thieves ? And if Atheism should be sup¬
posed to become universal in this nation (which seems to he
designed and endeavoured, though we know the gates of hell
shall not be able to prevail), farewell all ties of friendship
and principles of honour ; all love for our country and loyalty
to our prince ; nay, farewell all government and society
itself, all professions and arts, and conveniencies of life, all
that is laudable or valuable in the world.*
y Si sibi ipse consentiat, et non interdum naturae bonitate vincatur. Cic. de
Offic. i. 2.
[* world; after this word the lsf ed. has the following paragraph : —
“ And now having in the first place explained the words of the text, and
secondly detected the mere Deists of our age to be no better than disguised
Atheists, seeing they have now no pretence to the deism of Epicurus ; and
afterwards having shewn that willingly to entertain the hypothesis of Atheism
(which is literally to choose death and evil before life and good, and to love dark¬
ness rather than light1) is the most absurd and inconsiderate folly ; and that there
is nothing to excuse so silly a choice : not any necessity of it ; for religion doth
not impose any articles of faith that are repugnant to our faculties, and incre¬
dible to natural reason: not interest; because religion itself is, even in this
present life, the truest and best interest, as well of every single person (for a
Christian’s belief is the most comfortable, and his hope the most glorious, of
all men’s, and the practical duties he is obliged to are in themselves agreeable
to his nature and conducible to his temporal happiness,) as of communities and
governments ; because religion is not only useful to civil society, but fundamen¬
tally necessary to its very birth and constitution : having, I say, competently
x Deut. xxx. 15 ; Joh. iii. 10. [19.]
VOL. III.
E
26
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. I.
May the Father of mercies and God of infinite wisdom
reduce the foolish from their errors, and make them wise
unto salvation; confirm the sceptical and wavering minds 5
and so prevent us, that stand fast, in all our doings, and
further us with his continual help, that we may not be of
them that draw hack unto perdition, but of them that believe
to the saving of the soul. Amen .
proved these particulars, as far as the usual brevity of such discourses will
allow ; I shall conclude all with one short reflection, That if Atheism or modern
Deism he evinced to be folly, how great must that folly be ! It must not be bare
folly, but madness and distraction. Nor do we need to recur to the stoical pa¬
radox, that all fools are mad ; nor to that saying of one of their own party, who
(not out of derision, as some would have it, but out of compliment to the public)
called it insanientem sapientiam, the mad philosophy of Atheism. For so sot-
tishly to lose the purest pleasures and comforts of this world, and forego the
expectation of immortality in another; and so desperately to run the risk of
dwelling with everlasting burnings ; it plainly discovers itself to be what it is ; it
is manifestly the most pernicious folly and deplorable madness in the world.” —
D.]
MATTER AND MOTION CANNOT THINK :
OR,
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM
FROM THE
FACULTIES OF THE SOUL.
SERMON II.
Preached April the 4th, 1692.
Acts, xvii. 27.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after
him, and find him; though he be not far from every one of
us : for in him we live , and move, and have our being.
These words are a part of that discourse which St. Paul
had at Athens. He had not been long in that inquisitive
and pragmatical city, but we find him encountered by the
Epicureans and Stoics, a two sorts of people that were ill*
qualified for the Christian faith : the one, by reason of their
carnal affections, either believing no God at all, or that he
was like unto themselves, dissolved in laziness and ease ;b
the other, out off spiritual pride, presuming to assert, % that
a wise man of their sect was equal, and in some cases supe¬
rior, to the majesty of God himself.0 These men, corrupted
a Acts, xvii. 18. [* ill; 1st ed. “very ill.” — D.]
b ’Apybv Kal a/xeAes. [f out of; 1st ed. “through their.” — D.]
[J assert; lit ed. “ declare.” — D.]
c Arriani Epictet. 1. i. c. 12. 'f! s nard ye rbu \6yov ovSe xeipcov t u>v ®eu>v, ovSe
/uKpdrepos. Seneca, Ep. 53. Est aliquid quo sapiens antecedat Deum : ille
naturae beneficio, non suo sapiens est.
28
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. II.
through philosophy and vain deceit , took our Apostle, and car¬
ried him unto Areopagus ,d (a place in the city whither was
the greatest resort of travellers and strangers, of the gravest
citizens and magistrates, of their orators and philosophers,)
to give an account of himself and the new doctrine that he
spoke of: For, say they, thou bringest strange things to our
ears ; we would know therefore what these things mean.e The
Apostle, who was to speak to such a promiscuous assembly,
has with most admirable prudence and art so accommodated
his discourse, that every branch and member of it is directly
opposed to a known error and prejudice of some party of his
hearers. I will beg leave to be the more prolix in explaining
the whole, because it will be a ground and introduction not
only to this present, but some other subsequent discourses.
From the inscription of an altar to the Unknown God,
which is mentioned by heathen authors, Lucian, Philo stratus,*
and others/ he takes occasion (v. 24) to declare unto them
that God that made the world, and all things therein. This
first doctrine, though admitted by many of his auditors, is
directly both against ■ Epicureans, thatf ascribed the origin
and frame of the world not to the power of God, but the for¬
tuitous concourse of atoms ; andj Peripatetics, that supposed
all things to have been eternally as they now are, and never
to have been made at all, either by the Deity or without him.
Which God, says he, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and
earth, dwelleth not in the temples § made with hands, neither is
worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing,
seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things .& This
is opposed to the civil and vulgar religion of Athens, which
d Ver. 19. e Yer. 20.
[* Lucian, Pliilostratus ; 1 st ed. “ as Lucian, and Philostratus.” — D.]
f Lucianus in Philopat. Philostrat. de Vita Apol. lib. vi. c. 2. Pausan. in
Eliacis.
[f directly both against Epicureans, that; 1st ed. “ expressly against the
Epicureans, who.” — D.]
[J and ; ls£ ed. “ and to the.” — D.]
[§ in the temples ; 1st ed. “ in temples” — D.]
s Ver. 25.
SERM. II.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
29
furnished and served the Deity* with temples and sacrifices,
as if he had reallyf needed habitation and sustenance. And
that the common heathen had such mean apprehensions!,
about the indigency of their gods, appears plainly, to name
no more, from Aristophanes’s Plutus and the Dialogues of
Lucian. But the philosophers were not concerned§ in this
point : all parties and sects, even the Epicureans11 them¬
selves, || did maintain (to avTctp/ce 9) the self-sufficiency of the
Godhead ; and seldom or never sacrificed at all, unless in
compliance and condescension^ to the custom of their coun¬
try. There’s a very remarkable passage in Tertullian’s Apo¬
logy, Who forces a philosopher to sacrifice ?'1 & c. It appears
from thence, that the philosophers, no less than the Chris¬
tians, neglected the pagan worship and sacrifices ; though
what was connived at in the one was made highly penal and
capital in the other. And hath made of one blood all nations
of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth ; and hath
determined the times before appointed, and the bound[s ] of their
habitation J This doctrine about the beginning of human
race, though agreeable enough to the Platonists and Stoics,
is apparently levelled against** the Epicureans and Aristote¬
lians : one of whom producedff their primitive men from
mere accident or mechanism ; the other denied that man had
any beginning at all, but had eternally continued thus by suc¬
cession and propagation. Neither were the commonalty of
[* furnished and served the Deity; ] it ed. “ worshipped God.” — D.]
[f he had really; 1st ed. “ he really.” — D.]
[I heathen had such mean apprehensions ; 1st ed. “ heathens had such a
mean apprehension.”— D.]
[§ concerned ; ed. “ touched.” — D.]
h Lucret. ii. Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri. [v. 649. — D.]
[I| themselves ; ls£ ed. “ forsooth.” — D.]
[^J unless in compliance and condescension ; 1st ed. “ unless in conde¬
scension.” — D.]
> Tertull. Apol. cap. 46. Quis enim philosophum sacrificare .... com-
pellit ? Quinimmo et deos vestros palam destruunt, et superstitiones vestras
commentariis quoque accusant. 1 Ver. 26.
[** is apparently levelled against ; 1st ed. “doth apparently thwart.” — D.]
[ff produced; 1st ed. “ did produce.” — D.]
30
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. II.
Athens unconcerned in this point. For although, as we learn
from Isocrates, Demosthenes, and others of their country¬
men^ they professed themselves to be avTO'yfove^, aborigines ,
not transplanted by colonies or otherwise from any foreign
nation, but born out of their own soil in Attica, and had the
same earth for their parent, their nurse, and their countiy ;
and though some perhaps* might believe, that all the rest
of mankind were derived from them,1 and so might apply and
interpret the words of the Apostle to this foolish tradition ;
yet that conceit of deriving the whole race of men from the
aborigines of Atticat was entertained but by a few ; for they
generally allowed that the Egyptians and Sicilians, and
some others, were aborigines also, as well as themselves.111
Then follow the words of the text : That they should seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after him , and find him ; though
he be not far from every one of us : for in him we live , and
move , and have our being. n And this he confirms by the
authority of a writer that lived above three hundred years
before : as certain also of your own poets have said, For we
are also his offspring.' This indeed was no argument to the
Epicurean auditors, who undervalued all argument from
authority, and especially from the poets.0 Their master Epi¬
curus had boasted, that in all his writings he had not cited
one single authority out of any book whatsoever.? And the
poets they particularly hated, because on all occasions they
introduced the ministry of the gods, and taught the separate
existence of human souls. ButJ it was of great weight and
k Isocrates in Paneg. Demosth. in Epitaph. Cic. Orat. pro Flacco. Euri¬
pides, &c.
[* and though some perhaps; ls£ ed. “and perhaps some few.” — D.]
1 Diog. Laert. in Prsef.
[f of deriving the whole race of men from the aborigines of Attica ; not in
1st ed. — D.]
m Thucyd. lib. vi. Herodot. &c. n Verse 27, 28.
° Plutarch, de Aud. Poet, et contra Colot. p Laert. in Vita Epicuri.
[J who undervalued all argument from authority . and taught the
separate existence of human souls. But; 1st ed. “ who particularly had a con¬
tempt of and spite against the poets, because on all occasions they introduced
SERM. II.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
31
moment to the common people, who held the poets in mighty
esteem and veneration, and used them as their masters of
morality and religion. And the other sects too of philoso¬
phers* did frequently adorn and confirm their discourses by
citations out of poets. Forasmuch then as we are the off¬
spring of God , we ought not to think that the Godhead is like
unto gold , or silver, or stone, graven by art and-\ man’s device .9
This is directly levelled against the gross idolatry of the
vulgar (for the philosophers are not concerned in it), that
believed the very statues of gold, and silver, and other mate¬
rials, to be God, and terminated their prayers in those
images ; as I might shew from many passages of Scripture,
from the apologies of the primitive Christians, and the hea¬
then writers themselves. And the times of this ignorance
God winked at, (the meaning of which is, as upon a like
occasion the same Apostle hath expressed it, that in times
past he suffered all nations to walk in their own ways,r) but
now commandeth every one to repent: because he hath ap¬
pointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in
righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained ; whereof
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead.a Hitherto the Apostle had never contra¬
dicted all his audience at once : though at every part of his
discourse some of them might be uneasy, yet others were of
his side ; and all along a moderate silence and attention was
observed, because every point was agreeable to the notions
of the greater party 4 But when they heard of the resurrec¬
tion of the dead, the interruption and clamour became uni-
the ministry of the gods, and taught the separate existence of human souls :
and their master Epicurus had bragged, that in all his writings he had not
cited one single authority out of any book whatsoever. But.” — D.]
[* sects too of philosophers; Is* ed. “sects of philosophers likewise.” — D.]
i Ver. 29. r Acts, xiv. 16. 8 Ver. 30, 31.
[f and ; lsi ed. “ or.” — D.]
[J all his audience at once . the notions of the greater party ; 1st ed.
“ the opinions of all his hearers at once : so that although at every part of his
discourse some of them might be uneasy and nettled, yet a moderate silence
and attention was still observed, because it was agreeable to the notions of the
rest.” — D.]
32
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. II.
versal ; so that here the Apostle was obliged to break off, and
depart * from among them.* What could be the reason of
this general dissent from the notion of the resurrection, since
almost all of them believed f the immortality of the soul ?
St. Chrysostom hath a conceit, that the Athenians took
Avdaraat^ (the original word for resurrection) to he preached
to them as a goddess, and in this fancy he is followed by
some of the moderns. The ground of the conjecture is the
18th verse of this chapter, where some said, Wliat will this
babbler say ? other some. He seemeth to be a setter forth of
strange gods (fevcov Saipovlorv, strange deities , which com¬
prehends both sexes), because he preached unto them, 'lyaovv
ical TTjV Avaaracriv, Jesus and the Resurrection. Now, say
they, it could not be said deities in the plural number, unless
it be supposed that ’AvacrTacris is a goddess, as well as Jesus
a God. But we know such a permutation of number is fre¬
quent in all languages. We have another example of it in
the very7 text ; as certain also of your own poets have said,
For we are also his offspring :u and yet the Apostle meant
only one, Aratus the Cilician, his countryman, in whose astro¬
nomical poem this passage is now extant.v So that although
he preached to the Athenians Jesus alone, yet, by a common
mode of speech, he might be called a setter forth of strange
gods. JTis my opinion, that the general distaste and clamour
proceeded from a mistake about the nature of the Christian
resurrection. The word resurrection ( dvao-ryaacrdcu and
avdaraaL^) was well enough known amongst the Athenians,
as appears at this time from Homer, iEschylus, and Sopho¬
cles :w they could hardly then possibly imagine it to signify
[* was obliged to break off, and depart ; ls2 ed. “ broke off his discourse,
and departed .” — D.] 1 Ver. 33.
[t since almost all of them believed ; ed. “ seeing that almost all of
them did believe.” — D.]
u Ver. 28.
v Arati Phaen. v. 5 . Tvavrp 5e A ibs KexpvpcQa. irdvres, T ov -yap Kcd ylvos
icrp.lv.
w Horn. II. Cl. 55 1. OvSe piv dvcnpcrtis, &c. jEsch. Eumen. 655. [650. ed.
Stan. — D.] ’AvSpbs 5’ ineiSav dtp ’ dvacricacrri kSvis, " Aica £ Oavovros ovtis cctt
SERM. II.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
33
a goddess. But then it always* denoted a returning from
the state of the dead to this present world ; to eat and drink
and converse uponf earth ; and so, after another period of life,
to die again as before. And Festus, a Roman, seems to have
had the same apprehensions about it : for, when he declares
the case of St. Paul his prisoner to King Agrippa, he tells
him, that the accusation was only about certain questions of
the Jewish superstition ; and of one Jesus ivhich was dead,
whom Paul affirmed to be alive.x So that when the Athe¬
nians heard him mention the resurrection of the dead, which,
according to their acceptation of the word, was a contradic¬
tion to common sense, and to thej experience of all places
and ages, they had no patience to give any longer attention.
His words seemed to them as idle tales J as the first news of
our Saviour’s resurrection did to the apostles themselves.
All interrupted and mocked him, except a few, that seem to
have understood him aright, which said they would hear him
again of this matter. Just as when our Saviour said in an
allegorical and mystical sense. Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,7- the
hearers understood him literally and grossly : The Jews there¬
fore strove among themselves , saying, How can this man give
us his flesh to eat ? This is a hard saying ; who can hear it ?&
And from that time many of his disciples went back, and
walked no more with himP
I have now gone through this excellent discourse of the
apostle, in which many most important truths are clearly
and succinctly delivered ; such as the existence, the spiritu¬
ality, and all-sufficiency of God ; the creation of the world ;
the origination of mankind from one common stock, accord-
dvdcrrams. [/« ls< ed. the passage is pointed, ’AvS. S’ eir. at. av. k6vis "Air a£
Oav&VTOS, otir. ear av. — D.] Soph. Electra, 136. ’AAA’ ovroi rSv y' «’| atda
irayicolvov \lpvas Trarep' dvardcrtts, otfre yioicriv , ou Atrats.
[* they could hardly then possibly imagine it to signify a goddess. But
then it always ; 1st ed. “ (so that it could hardly possibly be imagined to be a
goddess) but it always.” — D.] [f upon j ls£ ed. “ upon the.” — D.]
* Acts, xxv. 9. [19.] [J and to the ; ls< ed. “ and the.” — D.]
y Luke, xxiv. 11. 1 John, vi. 53. a Ver. 60. b Ver. 66.
VOL. III.
F
34
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. II.
ing to the history of Moses ; the divine Providence in over¬
ruling all nations and people ; the new doctrine of repentance
by the preaching of the Gospel ; the resurrection of the dead ;
and the appointed day of an universal judgment. To all which
particulars, by God’s permission and assistance, I shall say
something in due time. But at present I have confined my¬
self to that near and internal* and convincing argument of
the being of God, which we have from human nature itself ;
and which appears to be principally here recommended by
St. Paul in the words of the text. That they should seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after him , and find him ; though
he he not far from every one of us : for in him (that is, by his
power) we live, and move, and have our being .
The proposition, which I shall speak to from this text, is
this : that the very life, and vital motion, and the formal
essence and nature of man, is Avholly owing to the power of
God; and that the consideration of ourselves, of our own
souls and bodies, both directly and nearly conduct us to the
acknowledgment of his existence. And,
1. I shall prove, that there is an immaterial substance in
us, which we call soul and spirit, essentially distinct from our
bodies ; and that this spirit doth necessarily evince the exist¬
ence of a supreme and spiritual Being. And,
2. That the organical structure of human bodies, where¬
by they are fitted to live and move, and be vitally informed
by the soul, is unquestionably the workmanship of a most
wise, and powerful, and beneficent Maker. But I will reserve
this latter part for the next opportunity; and my present
undertaking shall be this, to evince the being of God from
the consideration of human souls.
(1.) And first, I say, there is an immaterial substance in
us, which we call soul, essentially distinct from our bodies.
I shall lay it t down as self-evident, that there is something
in our composition that thinks and apprehends, and reflects
and deliberates ; thatj determines and doubts, consents and
[* internal; 1st ed. “intrinsical.” — D.] [f it; 1st eel. “ this.” — D.]
[t that ; not in 1st ed. — D.]
SERM. II.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
35
denies ; that wills, and demurs, and resolves, and chooses,
and rejects ; that receives various sensations and impressions
from external objects, and produces voluntary motions of
several parts of our bodies. This every man is conscious of ;
neither can any one be so sceptical as to doubt of or deny it ;
that very doubting or denying being part of what I would
suppose,* and including several of the rest in their ideas and
notions. And in the next place, Tis as self-evident, that
these faculties and operations of thinking, and willing, and
perceiving, must proceed from something or other as their
efficient cause ; mere nothing being never able to produce
any thing at all. So that if these powers of cogitation,
and volition, and sensation, are neither inherent in matter
as such, nor producible in matterf by any motion and modi¬
fication of it, it necessarily follows, that they proceed from
some cogitative substance, some incorporeal inhabitant within
us, which we call spirit and soul.
1.) But first, these faculties of sensation and perception
are not inherent in matter as such ; for, if it were so, what
monstrous absurdities would follow ! every stock and stone
would be a percipient and rational creature. We should -
have as much feeling upon clipping a hair of the head, as
upon pricking a nerve. Or rather, as men, that is, as a§
complex being, compounded of many vital parts, we should
have no feeling nor perception at all. For every single atom
of our bodies would be a distinct animal, endued with self-
consciousness and personal sensation of its own. And a
great number of such living and thinking particles could not
possibly, by their mutual contact and pressing and striking,
compose one greater individual animal, with one mind and
understanding, and a vital consension of the whole body,
[* part of what I would suppose ; 1st ed. “ each of them mentioned and sup¬
posed before.” — D.]
[f producible in matter ; 1st ed. “acquirable to matter.” — D.]
[J clipping a hair of the head, as upon pricking a nerve ; 1st ed. “ the clip¬
ping off a hair, as the cutting of a nerve.” — D.]
f§ as aj 1st ed. “ a.” — D.]
36
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. II.
any more than a swarm of bees, or a crowd of men and
women, can be conceived to make up one particular living
creature, compounded and constituted of the aggregate of
them all.
2.) It remains, therefore, secondly, that seeing matter in
general, as matter, has not any sensation or thought; if it
have them at all, they must be the result of some modifica¬
tion of it : it must acquire them by some organical disposi¬
tion ; by such and such determinate motions, by the action
and passion* of one particle upon another. And this is the
opinion of every Atheist and counterfeit Deist of these times,
that believes there is no substance but matter, and excludes
all incorporeal nature out of the number of beings.
Now, to give a clear and fullf confutation of this atheis¬
tical assertion, I will proceed in this method.
I. First I will give a true notion and idea of matter;
whereby it will again J appear that it has no inherent faculty
of sense and perception.
II. I will prove, that no particular sort§ of matter, as
the brain and animal spirits, j| hath any power of sense and
perception.
III. ^I will shew, that motion in general superadded to
matter cannot produce any sense and perception.
IV. I will demonstrate, that no particular sort of^[ mo¬
tion, as of the animal spirits** through muscles and nerves,
can beget sense and perception.
V. I will evince, that no action and passionft of the
animal spirits, one particle uponJ| another, can create any
sense and perception.
[* passion ; ls< ed. “ reaction.” — D.]
[f clear and full ; 1st ed. “ clearer and fuller.” — D.]
[+ again ; not in ls£ ed. — D.] [§ sort ; ls< ed. “ species.” — D.]
[|| spirits; 1st ed. “spirit.” — D.]
[^[ particular sort of; 1st ed. “ determinate.” — D.]
[** spirits ; Is£ ed. “ spirit.” — D.]
[ff passion ; ls< ed. “ percussion.” — D.]
[++ spirits, one particle upon ; 1st ed. “ spirit, one particle against.” — D.]
SERM. II.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
37
VI. I will answer the Atheist’s argument of matter of
fact and experience in brute beasts, which, say they, are
allowed to be mere matter, and yet have some degree of
sense and perception.
And first I will give a true notion and idea of matter ;
whereby it will appear that it has no inherent faculty of
sense and perception. And I will offer no other but what
all competent judges, and even Atheists themselves, do allow
of ; and which, being part of the Epicurean and Democri-
tean philosophy, is providentially one of the best antidotes
against their other impious opinions ; as the oil of scorpions
is said to be against the poison of their stings. When we
frame in our minds any notion of matter, we conceive
nothing else but extension and bulk, which is impenetrable,
and divisible, and passive ; by which three properties is un¬
derstood, that any one* particular quantity of matter doth
hinder all other from intruding into its place till itself be
removed out of it ; that it may be divided and broken into
numerous parts, of different sizes and figures, which by various
rangingf and disposing may produce an immense diversity
of surfaces and textures ; that, if it once be f bereaved of
motion, it cannot of itself acquire it again ; but it either must
be impelled § by some other body from without, or (say we,
though not the Atheist) be intrinsically moved by an imma¬
terial self-active substance, that can penetrate and pervade
it. Wherefore in the whole nature and idea of matter we
have nothing but substance with magnitude, || and figure, and
situation, and a capacity of being moved and divided. So
that no parts of matter, considered by themselves, are either
hot or cold, either white or black, either bitter or sweet, or
[* any one ; Is* ed. “ any.” — D.]
[f ranging; 1st ed. “ ranking.” — D.]
[I once be ; Is* ed. “ be once.” — D.]
[§ but it either must be impelled ; Is* ed. “ nor till it be thrust or struck.”
-D.]
[|| but substance with magnitude ; Is* ed. “ but magnitude.”— D.
38
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. II.
betwixt those* extremes. All the various mixtures and con¬
jugations of atoms do beget nothing but new inward texture,
and alteration of surface. No sensible qualities, as light,
and colour, and heat, and sound, can be subsistent in the
bodies themselves absolutely considered, without a relation
to our eyes, and ears, and other organs of sense. These
qualities are only the effects of our sensation, which arise
from the different motions upon our nerves from objects
without, according to their various modification and position.
For example : when pellucid colourless glass or water, by
being beaten intof powder or froth, do acquire a very intense
whiteness, what can we imagine to be produced in the glass
or water but a new disposition of parts ? nay, an object
under the self-same disposition and modification, when ’tis
viewed by us under differing proportions, doth represent very
differing colours, without any change at all in itself. For
that very same opake and whitej powder of glass, when ’tis
seen through a good microscope, doth exhibit all its little
fragments pellucid and colourless, as the wrhole appeared to
the naked eye before it was pounded. So that whiteness,
and redness, and coldness, and the like, are only ideas and
vital passions in us that see and feel ; but can no more be
conceived to be real and distinct qualities in the bodies
themselves, than roses or honey can be thought to smell or
taste their own sweetness, or an organ be conscious of§ its
music, or gunpowder of || its flashing and noise.
Thus far, then, we have proved, and ’tis agreed on all
hands, that in our conception of any quantity of body there
is nothing but figure, and site, and a capacity of motion :
which motion, if it be actually excited in it,^[ doth only
cause a new order and contexture of parts : so that all the
[* those; 1 st ed. “ the.” — D.] [f into; lsi ed. “ into a.” — D.]
[| that very same opake and white; Hi ed. “that same opake, white.” — D.]
[§ of; 1st ed. “ to.”' — D.] [|| of; 1st ed. “to.” — D.]
of motion: which motion, if it be actually excited in it; Is* ed. “ of mo¬
tion, either of the whole, or the insensible parts : which motion, if it be actually
impressed upon it.” — D.]
SERM. II.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
39
ideas of sensible qualities are not inherent in the inanimate
bodies, but are the effects of their motion upon our nerves,
and sympathetical and vital passions produced within our¬
selves.
II. Our second inquiry must be, what it is in the consti¬
tution and composition of a man that hath the faculty of
receiving such ideas and passions ? Let us* carry in our
minds this true notion of body in general, and apply it to
our own substance, and observe what prerogatives this ra¬
tional machine (as the Atheists would make us to be) can
challenge above other parcels of matter. We observe, then,
in this understanding piece of clock-work, that thist body,
as well as other senseless matter, has colour, and warmth,
and softness, and the like. But we have proved it before,
and ’tis acknowledged, that these qualities are not subsistent
in those bodies, but are ideas and sensations^ begotten in
something else : so that ^tis not blood and bones that can be
conscious of their own hardness or§ redness ; and we are
still to seek for something else in our frame and make, that
must receive these impressions. Will they say that these
ideas are performed by the brain ? But the difficulty returns
upon them again ; for we perceive that the like qualities of
softness, whiteness, and warmth, do belong to the brain
itself ; and since || the brain is but
ao-t rolvvv Alyvirnoi Kara t^v
apxys tuu SAoov yevecriv TTparous robs avdpccirovs yevecrOcu Kara ryv Atyvirrov, Sid.
re tV evKpacrlav rys xd>pa.s> tal 5ia tV tyvtnv rov N elXov, &c. [t. i. p. 13. ed.
Wessel. — D.]
d Vitruvius, lib. ix. cap. 4. Lucret. lib. v. Ut Babylonica Chaldseam doc-
trina, &c. [v. 726. In ls« ed. Bentley gives “ Chaldaeum:” and see his Epist.
ad Mill. vol. ii. p. 295. — D.] Apuleius de Deo Socratis: Seu ilia (luna) pro-
prio et perpeti fulgore, ut Chaldaei arbitrantur, parte luminis compos, parte
altera cassa fulgoris. [Sive ilia proprio seu perpeti candore, &c. : vide Ap-
puleii Opp. t. ii. p. 117. ed. Ouden. — D.]
SERM. III.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
69
that carried Phrixus, and the bull that carried Europa. Now
which of these is the copy, and which the original ? Were
the fables taken from the influences, or the influences from
the fables ? the poetical fables more ancient than all records
of history; or the astrological influences, that were not
known to the Greeks till after Alexander the Great ? But,
without question, those fabulous tales had been many a time
told and sung to lull children asleep, before ever Berosus set
up his intelligence-office at Cos.* And the same may be said
of all the other constellations. First, poetry had filled the
skies with asterisms and histories belonging to them ; and
then astrology devises the feigned virtues and influences of
each, from some property of the image, or allusion to the
story. And the same trifling futility appears in their twelve
signs of the zodiac, and their mutual relations and aspects.
Why no more aspects than diametrically opposite, and such
as make equilateral figures ? Why are the masculine and
feminine, the fiery and airy, and watery and earthlyf signs
all placed at such regular distances ? Were the virtues of
the stars disposed in that order and rank on purpose only
to make a pretty diagram upon paper ? But the atheistical
astrologer is doubly pressed with this absurdity. For, if
there was no counsel at the making of the world, how came
the asterisms of the same nature and energies to be so har¬
moniously placed at regular intervals ? and how could all the
stars of one asterism agree and conspire together to consti¬
tute an universal ? Why does not every single star shed a
separate influence, and have aspects with other stars of their
own constellation ? But what need there many words ? as if
the late discoveries of the celestial bodies had not plainly
detected the imposture of astrology ? The planet Saturn is
found to have a great ring that encircles him, and fivej lesser
planets that move about him, as the moon doth about the
earth : and Jupiter hath four satellites, which by their inter-
[* Cos; ls< ed. “ Coos.” — D.]
[f earthly; 1st ed. “ earthy.” — D.]
[J five; \st ed. “ three.” — D.]
70
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. III.
position between him and us make some hundreds of eclipses
every year. Now the whole tribe of astrologers, that never
dreamed of these planets, have always declared, that when
Jupiter and Saturn come about again to any given point,
they exert (considered singly by themselves) the same influ¬
ence as before. But ’tis now manifest, that when either of
them return to the same point, the planets about them, that
must make up an united influence with them, have a different
situation in respect of us and each other from what they had
the time before ; and consequently the joint influence must
be perpetually varied, and never be reducible to any rules
and observations. Or, if the influences be conveyed hither
distinct, yet sometimes some of the little planets will eclipse
the great one at any given point, and by that means* inter¬
cept and obstruct the influence. I cannot now insist on
many other arguments deducible from the late improvements
of astronomy, and the truth of the Copernican system jt for,
if the earth be not the centre of the planetary motions, what
must become then of the present astrology, which is wholly
adapted to that vulgar hypothesis ? And yet nevertheless,
when they lay under such wretched mistakes for many myriads
of years, if we are willing to believe them, they would all
along, as now, appeal to experience and event for the con¬
firmation of their doctrines. That’s the invincible demon¬
stration of the verity of the science. And indeed, as to their
predictions, I think our astrologers may assume to them¬
selves that infallible oracle of Tiresias,
O Laertiade, quicquid dico, aut erit, aut non 4
There’s but a true and a false in any telling of fortune ; and
a man that never hits on the right side cannot be called a
bad guesser, but must miss out of design, and be notably
skilful at lighting on the wrong. And were there not for¬
merly as great pretensions to it from the superstitious obser-
[* by that means; 1st ed. “therefore.” — D.]
[t and the truth of the Copernican system ; not in ed. — D.]
[J Hor. Serm. ii. 5. 59. Eds . dicam . . . . — D.]
SERM. III.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
71
vation of the entrails of cows, of the flying of vultures, and the
pecking of chickens ? Nay, the old augurs and soothsayers
had better reason to profess the art of divining than the mo¬
dern astrological Atheist ; for they supposed there were some
demons that directed the indications. So likewise the Chal¬
dean and Egyptian astrologers were much more excusable
than he. It was the religion of their countries to worship
the stars, as we know from unquestionable authority. They
believed them intelligent beings, and no other than very
gods f and therefore had some reason to suspect that they
might govern human affairs. The influence of the stars was
in their apprehensions no less than divine power. But an
Atheist, that believes the planets to be dark, solid, and sense¬
less bodies, like the brute earth he treads on ; and the fixed
stars and the sun to be inanimate balls of fire ; what reasons
can he advance for the credit of such influences ? he acknow¬
ledged nothing besides matter and motion ; so that all that
he can conceive to be transmitted hither from the stars must
needs be performed either by mechanism or accident ; either
of which is wholly unaccountable, and the latter irreconcil¬
able to any art or system of science. But, if both were
allowed the Atheist, yet, as to any production of mankind,
they will be again refuted in my following discourse. I can
preserve a due esteem for some great men of the last age,
before the mechanical philosophy was revived, though they
were too much addicted to this nugatory art. When occult
quality, and sympathy and antipathy, were admitted for
satisfactory explications of things, even wise and virtuous
men might swallow down any opinion that was countenanced
by antiquity. But at this time of day, when all the general
powers and capacities of matter are so clearly understood, he
must be very ridiculous himself that doth not deride and
explode the antiquated folly. But we may see the miserable
e Maimonides, More Nevochim de Zabiis et Chaldaeis. Plato in Cratylo.
Diodorus, lib. i. cap. 2. Eusebius, Demonst. [Praepar.] Evangel, lib. i. c. 6.
Qolvucas Toiyapov-' /cal Alyvirriovs npdrovs airavToiv Kwrex* 1 Aiov /cal
treA.'^t'Tjv /cal acrrepas &eobs aTrotprjvai.
72
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. III.
shifts that some men are put to, when that which was first
founded upon, and afterwards supported by idolatry , is now
become the tottering sanctuary of Atheism : if the stars be
no deities, astrology is groundless ; and if the stars be deities,
why is the astrologer an Atheist ? He may easily be no
Christian ; and ’tis difficult, indeed, to be both at once :
because, as I have said before, idolatry is at the bottom ; and
by submitting human actions and inclinations to the influ¬
ence of the stars, they destroy the very essence of moral
virtue, and the efficacy of divine grace ; and therefore
astrology was justly condemned by the ancient fathers and
Christian emperors.f An astrologer, I say, may very easily
be no Christian ; he may be an idolater or a pagan : but I
could hardly think astrology to be compatible with rank
atheism, if I could suppose any great gifts of nature to be
in that person who is either an Atheist or an astrologer.
But,* let him be what he will, he is not able to do much hurt
by his reasons and example ; for religion itself, according to
his principles, is derived from the stars. And he owns, ’tis
not any just exceptions he hath taken against it,f but ’tis his
destiny and fate: ’tis Saturn in the ninth house, and not
judgment and deliberation, that made him an Atheist.
f Concil. Laod. can. 36. Cone. 6. in Trullo, can. 61. Cod. Just. lib. ix.
tit. 18. Cod. Theodos. lib. ix. tit. 16. BacnMKuv lib. lx. tit. 39.
[* to be in that person who is either an Atheist or an astrologer. But ;
lit ed. “ to be where either do reside. But.” — D.]
[f it ; 1st ed. “ Christianity.” — D.]
A
CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM
FROM THE
STRUCTURE AND ORIGIN OF HUMAN BODIES.
PART II.
SERMON IV.
Preached June the 6th, 1692.
Acts, xvii. 2 7.
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after
him, and find him; though he he not far from every one of
us : for in him we live, and move, and have our being.
In the former part of this inquiry I have examined and
refuted two atheistical notions opposed to the great* doctrine
of the text, that we owe our living and being to the power of
God : the one of the Aristotelian Atheists, who, to avoid the
difficulties of the first production of mankind without the
intervention of almighty wisdom and power, will have the
race to have thus continued without beginning, by an eternal
succession of infinite past generations ; which assertion hath
been detected to be mere nonsense, and contradictory to
itself : the other of the astrological undertakers, that would
raise men like vegetables out of some fatf and slimy soil, well
digested by the kindly heat of the sun, and impregnated with
the influence of the stars upon some remarkable and pe¬
riodical conjunctions ; which opinion hath been vamped up
[* great; 1st ed. “grand.” — D.]
[f fat; so 1st ed. and other eds. ; ed. of 1735. “ flat.” — D.]
VOL. III.
L
74
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
of late by Cardan and Cesalpinus, and other newsmongers
from the skies ; a pretence as groundless and silly, as the
dreaming oneirocritics of Artemidorus and Astrampsychus,
or the modern chiromancy and divinations of gipsies.
I proceed now to the two remaining paradoxes of such
sects of Atheists, as, laying aside astrology and the unintel¬
ligible influence of heavenly bodies, except that which pro¬
ceeds from* their gravity, and heat, and light, do either
produce mankind mechanically and necessarily from certain
connexions of natural causes; or more dully and supinely,
though altogether as reasonably, resolve the whole business
into the unaccountable shuffles and tumults of matter, which
they call chance and accident. But at present I shall only
take an account of the supposed production of human bodies
by mechanism and necessity.
The mechanical or corpuscular philosophy, though per-
adventure the oldest as well as the best in the world, had
lain buried for many ages in contempt and oblivion, till it
was happily restored and cultivated anew by some excellent
wits of the present age.-j* But it principally owes its re¬
establishment and lustre to Mr. Boyle,]; that honourable
person of ever-blessed memory, who hath not only shewn
its usefulness in physiology above the vulgar doctrines of
real qualities and substantial forms, but likewise its great ser¬
viceableness to religion itself. And I think it hath been com¬
petently proved in a former discourse, how friendly it is to
the immateriality of human souls, and consequently to the ex¬
istence of a supreme spiritual Being. And I may have occasion
hereafter to shew further, that all the powers of mechanism
are entirely dependent on the Deity, and do afford a solid
argument for the reality of his nature. So far am I from the
apprehension of any great feats that this mechanical Atheist
can do against religion. For, if we consider the phenomena
of the§ material world with a due and serious attention, we
[* except that which proceeds from ; Is/ ed. “ more than by.” — D.]
[t age ; not *» ed. — D.] [J Mr. Boyle ; not in 1st ed. — D.]
[§ the ; Is/ ed. “ that.” — D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
75
shall plainly perceive, that its present frame and system, and
all the* established laws of nature, are constituted and pre¬
served by gravitation alone. That is the powerful cement
which holds together this magnificent structure of the world,
which stretcheth the north over the empty space, and hangeth
the earth upon nothing ;a if we may transfer the words of
Job from the first and real cause to the secondary agent.
Without gravity,-)- the whole universe, if we suppose an
undetermined power of motion infused into matter, would
have been a confused chaos, without beauty or order, and
never stable and permanent in any condition. Now it may
be proved, in its due place, that this gravity, the great basis
of all mechanism, is not itself mechanical, but the immediate
fiat and finger of God, and the execution of the divine law ;
and that bodies have not the power of tending towards a
centre, either from other bodies or from themselves : which
at once, if it be proved, will undermine and ruin all the
towers and batteries that the Atheists have raised against
heaven. For, if no compound body in the visible world can
subsist and continue without gravity, and if J gravity do
immediately flow from a divine power and energy, it will
avail them nothing, though they should be able to explain
all the particular effects, even the origination of animals, by
mechanical principles. But, however, at present I will for¬
bear to urge this against the Atheist. For, though I should
allow him, that this catholic principle of gravitation is essen¬
tial to matter without introducing a God; yet I will defy
him to shew, how a human body could be at first produced
naturally, according to the present system of things, and the
mechanical affections of matter.
And because this Atheist professeth to believe as much as
we, that the first production of mankind was in a quite dif¬
ferent manner from the present and ordinary method of
nature, and yet affirms nevertheless that that was natural
[* system, and all the ; lsf ed. “ constitution and the.” — D.]
s Job, xxvi. 7. [f gravity; 1st ed. “that.” — D.]
[J if ; not in 1st ed. — D.]
76
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
too, which seems at the first sight to be little less than a
contradiction; it should lie upon him to make out, how
matter by undirected motion could at first necessarily fall,
without ever erring or miscarrying, into such a curious for¬
mation of human bodies ; a thing that, by his own confession,
it was never able to do since, or at least hath not done for
some thousands of years : he should declare* to us what
shape and contexture matter then had, which it cannot have
now ; how it came to be altered by long course of time, so
that living men can no longerf be produced out of putrefac¬
tion in the primary way ; and yet the species of mankind,
that now consists of and is nourished by matter so altered,
should continue to be the same as it was from the beginning.
He should undertake to explain to us the first steps and the
whole progress of such a formation; at least, by way of
hypothesis, how it naturally might have been, though he
affirm notj that it was actually so : whether he hath a new
notion peculiar to himself about that production, or takes up
with some old one, that is ready at hand : whether that most
witty conceit of Anaximander,b that the first men and all
animals were bred in some warm moisture, enclosed in crus-
taceous skins, as if they were§ various kinds of crabfish and
lobsters; and so continued till they arrived || at perfect age,
when their shelly prisons growing dry and breaking, made
way for their liberty : or the no less ingenious opinion of the
great Empedocles,*5 that mother earth first brought forth
vast numbers of legs, and arms, and heads, and the other
members of the body, scattered and distinct, and all at their
full growth ; which coming together and cementing, (as the
[* he should declare ; 1st ed. “ to declare.” — D.]
[f longer ; 1st ed. “ more.” — D.]
[t he affirm not ; 1st ed. “ he did not affirm.” — D.]
b Plutarch, de Plac. Phil. lib. v. c. 19. et Sympos. 1. viii. c. 8. Censorinus de
Die Natali, cap. 4.
[§ as if they were; 1st ed. “as it were.” — D.]
[|| and so continued till they arrived ; 1st ed. “ and so they continued till
they had arrived.” — D.]
c Plutarch, de Plac. Phil. lib. v. cap. 19. Censorin. ibidem.
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
77
pieces of snakes and lizards are said* to do, if one cuts them
asunder,) and so configuring themselves into human shape,
made lusty proper men of thirty years age in an instant : or,
rather, the divine doctrine of Epicurus and the Egyptians/
that there first grew up a sort of wombs, that had their roots
in the earth, and attracted thence a kind of milk for the nou¬
rishment of the enclosed foetus, which at the time of matu¬
rity broke through those membranes, and shifted for them¬
selves. I say, he ought to acquaint us which of these he is
for, or bring a new explication of his own ; and not require
us to prove the negative, that a spontaneous production of
mankind, neither warranted by example, nor defended by
reason, nevertheless may not possibly have been true. This
is a very unreasonable demand, and we might justly put him
off with such an answer as this : that there are several things
which all men in their wits do disbelieve, and yet none but
madmen will go about to disprove. But, to shew him how
much we endeavour to satisfy and oblige him, I will venture
once for his sake to incur the censure of some persons for
being elaborately trifling ; for, with respect to the most of
mankind, such wretched absurdities are more wisely con¬
temned than confuted; and to give them a serious answer
may only make them look more considerable.
First, then, I take it for granted by him, that there were
the same laws of motion, and the like general fabric of the
earth, sea, and atmosphere, at the beginning of mankind, as
there are at this day. For if any laws at first were once
settled and constituted; like those of the Medes and Persians,
they are never to be reversed. To violate and infringe them,
is the same as what we call miracle, and doth not sound
very philosophically out of the mouth of an Atheist. He
must allow, therefore, that bodies were endowed with the
same affections and tendencies then as ever since ; and that
if an axe-head e be supposed to float upon water, which is
[* are said ; 1st e.d. “ have been said.” — D.]
d Censorinus, ibid. Lucret. lib. v. Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. cap. 2.
' 2 Kings, vi. 5.
78
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
specifically much lighter than it, it had been supernatural at
that time, as well as in the days of Elisha. And this is all I*
desire him to acknowledge at present. So that he may admit
of those arguments as valid and conclusive against his hypo¬
thesis, that are fairly drawn from the present powers of
matter, and the visible constitution of the world.
Now, that we may come to the point; all matter is either
fluid or solid, in a large acceptation of the words, that they
may comprehend even all the middle degrees between ex¬
treme fixedness and coherency, and the most rapid intestine
motion of the particles of bodies. Now, the most cavilling
Atheist must allow, that a solid inanimate body, while it
remains in that state, where there is none or a very small
and inconsiderable change of texture, is wholly incapable of
a vital production. So that the first human body, without
parents and without creator,! if such an one ever was, must
have naturally been produced in and constituted by a fluid.
And because this Atheist goes mechanically to work, the uni¬
versal laws of fluids must have been rigidly observed during
the whole process of the formation. Now this is a catholic
rule of statics/ that if any body be bulk for bulk heavier than
a fluid, it will sink to the bottom of that fluid, and if lighter,
it will float upon it ; having part of itself extant, and part
immersed to such a determinate depth, as that so much of
the fluid as is equal in bulk to the immersed part be equal in
gravity to the whole : and consequently, if several portions
of one and the same fluid have a different specific gravity, the
heavier will always (in a free vessel) be gradually the lower,
unless violently shaken and blended together by external
concussion. But that cannot be in our present case. For I
am unwilling to affront this Atheist so much, as to suppose
him to believe, that the first organical body might possibly
be effected in some fluid portion of matter, while its hetero¬
geneous parts were jumbled and confounded together by a
[* all I; 1st ed. “all that I.” — D.] [f creator; 1st ed. “a creator.’’ — D.]
f Archimedes de Insidentibus Humido, lib. i. Stevin, des Elemens Hydro-
statiques.
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
79
storm, or hurricane, or earthquake. To be sure he will
rather have the primitive man to be produced by a long pro¬
cess in a kind of digesting balneum , where all the heavier lees
may have time to subside, and a due (equilibrium be main¬
tained, not disturbed by any such rude and violent shocks,*
that would ruffle and break all the little stamina of the em-
bryon, if it were a-making before. Now, because all the
parts of an undisturbed fluid are either of equal gravity, or
gradually placed and storied according to the differences of
it, any concretion that can be supposed to be naturally and
mechanically made in such a fluid, must have a like structure
of its several parts ; that is, either be all over of a similar
gravity, or have the more ponderous parts nearer to its basis.
But there need no more concessions than this to extinguish
these supposed first-born of nature in their very formation.
For, suppose a human body to be a-fo ruling in such a fluid
in any imaginable posture, it will never be reconcilable to
this hydrostatical law. There will be always something
lighter beneath, and something heavier above ; because bone,
or what is then the stuff and rudiments of bone, the heaviest
in specie , will be ever in the midst. Now, what can make the
heavier particles of bone ascend above the lighter ones of
flesh, or depress these below those, against the tendency of
their own nature ? This would be wholly as miraculous as
the swimming of iron in water at the command of Elisha ;
and as impossible to be, as that the lead of an edifice should
naturally and spontaneously mount up to the roof, while
lighter materials employ themselves beneath it; or that a
statue, like that in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, whose head was
of fine and most ponderous gold, and his feet of lighter ma¬
terials,! iron and clay, should mechanically erect itself upon
them for its basis.
Secondly, because this Atheist goes mechanically to work,
he will not offer to affirm, that all the parts of the embryon
[* shocks ; ls< ed. “ shogs.” — D.]
[f lighter materials ; not in 1st ed. — D.]
80
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
could, according to his explication, be formed at a time.
This would be a supernatural thing, and an effectual refuta¬
tion of his own principles. For, the corpuscles of matter
having no consciousness of one another’s acting (at least
before or during the formation, as will be allowed by that
very Atheist that attributes reason and perception to them
when the formation is finished), they could not consent and
make a compact together to carry on the work in several
places at once, and one party of them be forming the brain,
while another is modelling the heart, and a third delineating
the veins. No, there must be, according to mechanism, a
successive and gradual operation : some few particles must
first be united together, and so by apposition and mutual
connexion still more and more by degrees, till the whole
system be completed ; and a fermentation must be excited in
some assignable place, which may expand itself by its elas-
tical power, and break through where it meets with the
weakest resistance ; and so, by that so simple and mechanical
action, may excavate all the various ducts and ventricles of
the body. This is the only general account, as mean as it
appears to be, that this machine of an Atheist can give of that
fearful and wonderful production. Now, to confute these
pretences, first, there is that visible harmony and symmetry
in a human body, such a mutual communication of every
vessel and member of it, as gives an internal* evidence that
it was not formed successively, and patched up by piece-meal.
So uniform and orderly a system, with innumerable motions
and functions, all so placed and constituted as never to inter¬
fere and clash one with another, and disturb the economy of
the whole, must needs be ascribed to an intelligent artist;
and to such an artist, as did not begin the matter unprepared
and at a venture, and, when he was put to a stand, paused
and hesitatedf which way he should proceed ; but he had
[* internal ; Is* ed. “ intrinsic.” — D.]
[f a stand, paused and hesitated; Is* ed. “ a nonplus, pause and hesitate.”
-D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
81
first in his comprehensive intellect a complete idea and model
of the whole organical body, before he entered upon the
work. But, secondly, if they affirm that mere matter, by its
mechanical affections, without any design or direction, could
form the body by steps and degrees ; what member, then, do
they pitch upon for the foundation and cause of all the rest ?
Let them shew us the beginning of this circle, and the first
wheel of this perpetual motion. Did the blood first exist,
antecedent to the formation of the heart ? But that is to set
the effect before the cause ; because all the blood, that we
know of, is made in and by the heart, having the quite dif¬
ferent form and qualities of chyle before it comes thither.
Must the heart, then, have been formed and constituted
before the blood was in being ? But here, again, the sub¬
stance of the heart itself is most certainly made and nourished
by the blood which is conveyed to it by the coronary arteries.
And thus it is through the whole system of the body ; every
member doth mutually sustain and supply one another ; and
all are eoetaneous, because none of them can subsist alone.
But they will say, that a little ferment first making a cavity,
which became the left ventricle of the heart, did thence
farther* expand itself, and thereby delineate all the arteries
of the body.s Now, if such a slight and sorry business as
that could produce an organical body, one might reasonably
expect, that now and then a dead lump of dough might be
leavened into an animal; for there a like ferment makes
notable tumours and ventricles, besides longt and small
channels, which may pass tolerably well for arteries and
veins. But, I pray, in this supposed mechanical formation,
when the ferment was expanded to the extremities of the
arteries, if it still had any elastical force remaining, why did
it not go on and break through the receptacle, as other fer¬
ment must be allowed to have done, at the mouth and the
nostrils ? There was as yet no membranous skin formed, that
[# farther; Is# ed. “ further.” — D.]
£ Cartesius de Formatione Foetus.
[f long; 1st ed. “ sundry long.” — D.]
VOL. III. M
82
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
might stop and repel it. Or, if the force of it was spent, and
did not wheel about and return, what mechanical cause, then,
shall we assign for the veins ? for this ferment is there sup¬
posed to have proceeded from the small capillary extremities
of them to the great vein and the heart ; otherwise it made*
valves, which would have stopped its own passage. And
why did that ferment, that at first dispersed itself from the
great artery into infinite little ramifications, take a quite con¬
trary method in the making of the veins, where innumerable
little rivulets have their confluence into the great vein, the
common channel of the blood ? Are such opposite motions
both equally mechanical, when, in both cases, the matter was
under the same modification ? And again, when the first fer¬
ment is excited, and forms the left ventricle of the heart, f if
the fluid matter be uniform and of a similar texture, and
therefore on all sides equally resist the expansion, then the
cavity must continue one, dilated more and more till the
expansive force and the uniform resistance be reduced to an
equality, and so nothing at all can be formed by this ferment
but a single round bubble. And, moreover, this bubble (if
that could make a heart), by reason of its comparative levity
to the fluid that encloses it, would necessarily ascend to the
top ; and consequently we should never find the heart in the
midst of the breast. But, if the fluid be supposed to consist
of heterogeneous particles, then we cannot conceive how those
dissimilar parts should have a like situation in two several
fluids when the ferment begins. So that, upon this supposi¬
tion, there could be no species of animals, nor any similitude
between them : one would have its lungs where another hath
its liver, and all the other members preposterously placed ;
there eould not be a like configuration of parts in any two
individuals. And again, what is that which determines the
growth of all living creatures ? What principles of mecha¬
nism are sufficient to explain it ? Why do not all animals
continually increase in bigness during the whole space of
[* made; 1 steel. “ had made.” — D.]
[f of the heart ; not in 1st eel. — D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
83
their lives, as it is reported of the crocodile ? What sets a
bound to their stature and dimensions ? Or,* if we suppose
a hound and ne plus ultra to be mechanically fixed ; but,
then, why so great f a variety in the bulk of the several kinds ?
Why, also, such constancy observed in that manifold variety ?
For, as some of the largest trees have seeds no bigger or even
lessj than some diminutive plants, and yet every seed is a
perfect plant, with trunk and branches and leaves enclosed in
a shell ; so the first embryon of an ant is supposed by inqui¬
sitive naturalists to be as big as that of an elephant, and to
promise as fair, at its primitive formation, for as spacious a
body;h which, nevertheless, by an immutable decree, can
never arrive to the millionth part of the other’s bulk. And
what modification of the first liquid matter can vary so much
as to make one embryon capable of so prodigiously vast aug¬
mentation, while another is confined to the minuteness of an
insect ? Is not this manifestly a divine sanction, that hath
fixed and determined the shape, the stature, the appetites,
and the duration of all creatures in the world ? Hither must
we have recourse in that great and mysterious affair of an
organical formation ; and I profess that I cannot discern one
step in the whole, that is agreeable to the natural laws of
motion. If we consider the heart, which is supposed to be
the first principle of motion and life, and divide it by our
imagination into§ its constituent parts, its arteries, and veins,
and nerves, and tendons, and membranes, and|| innumerable
little fibres, that these secondary parts do consist of, we shall
find nothing here singular, but what is in any other muscle
of the body. JTis only the site and posture of these several
parts, and the configuration of the whole, that give it .the
form and functions of a heart. Now, why should the first
[* Or ; ls£ ed. “ and.” — D.]
[t fixed; but, then, why so great; 1st ed. “ fixed; why again so great.” — D.]
[+ or even less ; ls£ ed. “ or less.” — D.]
h Swammerdam, Histor. Insect, p. 3.
[§ and divide it hy our imagination into ; 1st ed. “and mentally divide it
into.” — D.]
[|| and ; 1st ed. “ and the.” — D.]
84
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
single fibres in the formation of the heart be peculiarly drawn
in spiral lines, when the fibres of all other muscles are made
by a transverse rectilinear motion ? What could determine
the fluid matter into that odd and singular figure, when as
yet no other member is supposed to be formed, that might
direct the course of that fluid matter ?* Let mechanism here
make an experiment of its power, and produce a spiral and
turbinated motion of the whole moved body without an
external director. When all the organs are once framed by
a supernatural and divine principle, we do willingly admit of
mechanism in many functions of the body ; but that the
organs themselves should be mechanically formed, we con¬
ceive it to be impossible and utterly inexplicable. And, if
any Atheist will give a clear and philosophical account of the
things that are here touched upon, he may then hear of many
more, and perhaps more difficult, than these ; which their
unfitness for a popular auditory, and the remaining parts of
my subject that press forward to be treated of, oblige me now
to omit.
But, as the Atheist, when he is put to it to explain how
any motion of dead matter can beget thought and perception,
will endeavour to defend his baffled impiety with the instance
of brutes, which he calls thinking machines ; so will he now
also appeal from the arbitration of reason, in the case of
animal productions, to example and matter of fact. He will
declaim to us about the admirable structure of the bodies of
insects ; that they have all the vital parts which the largest
of quadrupeds, and even man himself, can boast of ; and yet
they are the easyf and obvious products of unintelligent
nature, that spontaneously and mechanically forms them out
[* direct the course of that fluid matter. Let; 1st ed. “ design the orbit
of its course. Let.” — D.]
[f and even man himself, can boast of ; and yet they are the easy ; Isf ed.
“ and even man himself can boast of; whose fabric they the rather excel, in
his opinion, for that very minuteness that makes them contemptible : and that
one would be apt to imagine that these elegant and elaborate little engines were
all now propagated by generation, and at first produced by some divine wisdom
and power ; if we did not find by experience that they are the easy.” — D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
85
of putrefied carcasses and the warm moisture of the soil ; and
(which is mightily to his purpose) the insects* so begotten
without parents, have nevertheless fit organs of generation
and difference of sex, and can propagate their own kinds, as
if themselves had been hegottenf so too : and that if mother
earth, in this her barrenness and decrepitness of age, can
procreate such swarms of curious engines, which not only
themselves enjoy their portion of life, but by a most won¬
derful instinct impart it to many more, and continue their
species ; might she not, in the flower of her youth, while she
was succulent and fertile, have produced horses and ele¬
phants, and even mankind itself, the largest and perfectest
animals, as easily as, in this parched and sterile condition, she
can make a frog or an insect? Thus he thinks he hath
made out, from example and analogy, that at the beginning
of things every species of animals might spring mechanically
out of the soil, without an intelligent Creator. And, indeed,
there is no one thing in the world which hath given so much
countenance and shadow of possibility to the notion of Atheism
as this unfortunate mistake about the equivocal generation of
insects ; and, as the oldest remains of atheistical writings
are full of thisj comparison, so it is the main refuge of those
that in this and the last age have had the folly and impudence
to appear in so wretched a cause.
Now, to this last subterfuge of the mechanical Atheists
we can occur several ways. And at present we affirm, first, ex
abundantly that though we should allow them the spontaneous
production of some minute animals, yet a like primitive ori¬
gination of mankind could not hence§ be concluded ; because
they first tacitly suppose, that there is an universal decay of
moisture and fertility in the earth. And they cannot avoid
the necessity of so doing : for, if the soil be as fruitful now
[* and (which is mightily to his purpose) the insects; 1st ed. “and yet
(which is mightily to his purpose) that these insects.” — D.]
(f begotten; \st ed. “ born.” — D.]
IX are full of this ; 1st ed. “ are charged full with that.” — D.]
[§ hence; 1st ed. “ thence.” — D.]
86
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
as it was in the beginning, why would it not produce men,
and the nobler kind* of beasts, in our days too, if ever it did
so ? So that, if that supposition be evinced to be erroneous
and groundless, all the arguments that they build upon it
will be subverted at once. Now, what more easily refuted,
than that old vulgar assertion of an universal drought and
exsiccation of the earth ? as if the sun could evaporate the
least drop of its moisture, so that it should never descend
again, but be attracted and elevated quite out of the atmo¬
sphere. ’Tis now a matter agreed and allowed by all com¬
petent judges, that every particle of matter is endowed with
a principle of gravity, whereby it would descend to the
centre, if it were not repelled upwardf by heavier bodies.
So that the smallest corpuscle of vapour, if we suppose it to
be exhaled to the top of the atmosphere, thence it must come
down again, or at least must there remain incumbent upon
others ; for there’s either nothing, or nothing heavier, above it
to protrude it any higher; neither can it spontaneously mount
any more against the tendency of its nature. And, lest some
ignorant Atheist should suspect that peradventure there may
be no such top of the atmosphere, but that it may be con¬
tinued on to the sun, or to indefinite space ; he must vouchsafe
to be instructed, that the whole weight of any column of the
atmosphere, and likewise the specific gravity of its basis, are
certainly known by many experiments ; and that by this com¬
putation (even making allowance for its gradually larger ex¬
pansion, the higher we go), the very top of any pillar of air
is not one hundred miles distant from the surface of the
earth. So that hence it is manifest, that the whole terra¬
queous globe, with its atmosphere, cannot naturally have lost
the least particle of moisture since the foundation of the
world. But still they may insist, that, although the whole
globe cannot be deprived of any of its moisture, yet the ha¬
bitable earth may have been perpetually the drier, seeing it
is assiduously drained and exhausted by the seas. But to
[* kind; 1st ed. “ kinds.” — D.]
[f upward; ls£ ed. “ upwards." — D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
87
this we reply, that the very contrary is demonstrable ; that
the longer the world shall continue, the inoister the whole
aggregate of the land will be.* For (to take no notice of the
supply of its moisture by rains and snow and dews and con¬
densation of vapours, and perhaps by subterraneous passages),
the tops of mountains and hills will be continually washed
down by the rains, and the channels of rivers corroded by
the streams ; and the mud that is thereby conveyed into the
sea will raise its bottom the higher ; and consequently the
declivity of rivers will be so much the less ; and therefore the
continents will he the less drained, and will gradually increase
in humidity from the first period of their duration to the
final consummation of all things ; if the successive production
of plants and animals, which are all made up of and nourished
by water, and perhaps never return to water again, do not
keep things at a poise ; or if the divine powerf do not inter¬
pose and change the settled course and order of nature.
But, let us allow their supposition, that the total of the
dry land may have been robbed of some of its moisture which
it had at its first constitution ; yet still there are some parts
of the earth sufficiently soaked and watered to produce men
and animals now, if ever they did at all. ForJ do not the
Nile, and the Niger, and the Ganges, and the Menam, make
yearly inundations in our days, as they have formerly done ?
And are not the countries so overflown still situate between
the tropics, under the direct and most vigorous rays of the
sun, the very place where these mechanical Atheists lay the
scene of that great transaction ? so that, if mankind had ever
sprung naturally out of the soil, the experiment would suc¬
ceed now every year in .Ethiopia and Siam, where are all the
requisite qualifications that ever have been for such a pro-
[* the whole aggregate of the land will be ; 1st ed. “ will be the whole
aggregate of the land.” — D.]
[f to the final consummation of all things . or if the divine power ; ls<
ed. “to their [the] final consummation of all things : if a divine power.” — D.]
[J to produce men and animals now, if ever they did at all. For; 1st ed.
“ to produce, if ever, those sensitive and locomotive and intelligent plants.
For.”— D.]
88
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
duction. And again, if there hath been such a gradual di¬
minution of the generative faculty of the earth, that it hath
dwindled from nobler animals to puny mice and insects ;
why was there not the like decay in the production of vege¬
tables ? We should have lost by this time the whole species
of oaks and cedars, and the other tall and lofty sons of the
forest, and have found nothing but dwarfish shrubs, and
creeping moss, and despicable mushrooms. Or, if they deny
the present spontaneous production of larger plants, and
confine the earth to as pigmy births in the vegetable king¬
dom as they do in the other, yet surely, in such a supposed
universal decay of nature, even mankind itself, that is now
nourished (though not produced) by the earth, must have
degenerated in stature and strength in every generation.
And yet we have certain demonstration from the Egyptian*
mummies, and Roman urns and rings, and measures and
edifices, and many other antiquities, that human stature is
not diminished at all for the lastf two thousand years. Now,
if the decay hasj not been constant and gradual, there has§
been no decay at all; or at least no natural one, nor what
may be accounted for by this mechanical Atheist. I con¬
clude, therefore, that, although we should allow the spon¬
taneous production of insects, yet no argument can he de¬
duced from thence for a like origination of mankind.
But, secondly, we affirm, that no insect or animal did
ever proceed equivocally from putrefaction, unless in mira¬
culous cases, as in Egypt by the divine judgments ; but all
are generated from parents of their own kind, male and
female; a discovery of that great importance, that perhaps
few inventions of this age can pretend to equal usefulness
and merit ; and which alone is sufficient (if the vices of men
did not captivate their reason) to explode and exterminate
rank Atheism out of the world. For, if all animals be pro-
11* from the Egyptian; 1st ed. “ from Egyptian.” — D.]
[f is not diminished at all for the last ; ls< ed. “ has not diminished for
above.” — D.]
[J has ; 1st ed. “ hath.” — D.]
[§ has; 1st ed. “hath.” — D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
89
pagated by generation from parents of their own species, and
there be no instance in nature of even a gnat or a mite,
either now or in former ages, spontaneously produced ;
how* came there to be such animals in being, and whence
could they proceed ? There is no need of much study and
deliberation about it : for either they have existed eternally
by infinite successions already gone and past, which is in its
veryf notion absurd and impossible or their origin must be
ascribed to a supernatural and divine power, that formed and
created them. Now, to prove our assertion about the seminal
production of all living creatures, that we may not repeat the
reasons which we have offered before against the first me¬
chanical formation of human bodies, which are equally valid
against the spontaneous origin of the minutest insects j we
appeal to observation and experiment, which cany the
strongest conviction with them, and make the most sensible
and lasting impressions. For, whereas it hath been the
general tradition and belief, that maggots and flies breed in
putrefied carcasses, and particularly bees come from oxen,
and hornets from horses, and scorpions from crabfish,! &c.,
all this isj now found to be fable and mistake. That saga¬
cious and learned naturalist, Francisco Redi,k made innu¬
merable trials with the putrid flesh of all sorts of beasts and
fowls, and fishes and serpents, with corrupted cheese, and
herbs, and fruits, and even insects themselves ; and he con¬
stantly found, that all those kinds of putrefaction did only
afford a nest and aliment for the eggs and young of those
insects that he admitted to come there, but produced no
animal of themselves by a spontaneous formation : for, when
he suffered those things to putrefy in hermetically sealed
glasses, and vessels close covered with paper ; and not only
so, lest the exclusion of the air might be supposed to hinder
[* produced; how; 1st ed. “ produced de novo ; how.” — D.]
[f very ; 1st ed. “ own.” — D.] 1 See the former Sermon.
i "l7T7rot fiev av yeveans, ravpoi de fxeAic rcr&v. Nicander. \Ther. 741. — D.]
[J all this is ; 1st ed. “ all is.” — D.]
k Redi de Generatione Insectorum.
VOL. III. N
90
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
the experiment^ but in vessels covered with fine lawn, so as
to admit the air and keep out the insects ; no living thing was
ever produced there, though he exposed them to the action
of the sun, in the warm climate of Florence, and in the kind¬
est season of the year. Even flies crushed and corrupted,
when enclosed in such vessels, did never procreate a new fly;
though there, if in any case, one would have expected that
success. And when the vessels were open, and the insects
had free access to the aliment within them, he diligently ob¬
served that no other species were produced hut of such as
he saw go in and feed, and deposit their eggs there ; which
they would readily do in all putrefaction, even in a mucilage
of bruised spiders, where worms were soon hatched out of
such eggs, and quickly changed into flies of the same kind
with their parents. And was not that a surprising trans¬
formation indeed, if, according to the vulgar opinion, those
dead and corrupted spiders spontaneously changed into flies ?
And thus far we are obliged to the diligence of Redi : from
whence we may conclude, that no dead flesh, nor herbs, nor
other putrefied bodies, nor any thing that hath not then
actually either a vegetable or animal life, can produce any
insect. And if we should allow, as he did, that every animal
and plant doth naturally breed and nourish by its substance
some peculiar insect, yet the Atheist coidd make no advan¬
tage of this concession as to a like origination of mankind.
For surely ’tis beyond even an Atheist’s credulity and im¬
pudence, to affirm that the first men might proceed out of
the galls and tumours of leaves of trees, as some maggots and
flies are supposed to do now ; or might grow upon trees, as
the story goes about barnacles ; or perhaps might be the lice
of some vast prodigious animals, whose species is now ex¬
tinct. But, though we suppose him guilty of such an extra¬
vagant folly, he will only shift the difficulty, and not wholly
remove it ; for we shall still expect an account of the spon¬
taneous formation of those mountainous kind of animals and
men-bearing trees. And, as to the worms that are bred in
the intestines and other inward parts of living creatures, their
SERM. IV. A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM. 91
production is not material to our present inquiry, till some
Atheist do affirm, that his own ancestors had such an ori¬
ginal. I say, if we should allow this concession of Redi, it
would do no service to our adversaries : hut even here also
they are defeated by the happy curiosity of Malpighi and
others,1 who observed and discovered, that each of those
tumours and excrescences of plants, out of which generally
issues a fly or a worm, are at first made by such insects,
which wound the tender buds with a long hollow trunk, and
deposit an egg in the hole with a sharp corroding liquor,
which causeth a swelling in the leaf, and so closeth the
orifice : and within this tumour the worm is hatched, and
receives its aliment, till it hath eat its way through. Neither
need we recur to an equivocal production of vermin in the
phthiriasis and in Herod’s disease, who was crKwXy/cofipcoTO*;,
eaten of worms, m or maggots. Those horrible distempers
are always accompanied with putrefying ulcers ; and it hath
been observed by the most accurate Lewenhoeck,11 that lice
and flies, which have a most wonderful instinct and acuteness
of sense to find out convenient places for the hatching and
nourishment of their young, do mightily endeavour to lay
their eggs upon sores ; and that one will lay above a hundred
eggs, and may naturally increase to some hundreds of thou¬
sands in a quarter of a year : which gives a full and satisfac¬
tory account of the phenomena of those diseases. And
whereas it is said, Exod. xvi. ver. 20, that some of the
Israelites left of the manna until the morning, and it bred
worms and stank ; which an Atheist may make an objection,
as either against us, or against the truth of the Scriptures ;
I understand it no otherwise, than that the manna was fly¬
blown. It was then the month of October, which in that
southern climate, after the preceding autumnal rains, doth
afford a favourable season and copious nutriment for infinite
swarms of insects. Neither do I ascribe it to a miraculous
1 Malpighius de Gallis. Swammerdam de Gen. Insect. Lewenhoeck
Epistol.
m Acts, xii. 23.
Continuat. Epistol. p. 101.
92
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
power, that some of the manna should breed worms, but
that all the rest should be preserved sound and untainted.
And, if any one shall rigidly urge from that passage* the
literal expression of breeding , he must allow Moses to speak-j¬
in the language of the vulgar in common affairs of life. We
do now generally believe the Copernican system ; yet I sup¬
pose, upon ordinary occasions, we shall still use the popular
terms of sunrise and sunset, and not introduce a new pe¬
dantic description of them from the motion of the earth.
And then, as to the vulgar opinion, that frogs are made in
the clouds, and brought down by the rains, it may be thus
easily refuted : for at that very instant when they are sup¬
posed to descend, you may find by dissection not only their
stomachs full of meat, but their intestines full of excrement ;
so that they had lurked before in the day-time in holes and
bushes and grass, and were then invited abroad by the fresh¬
ness of a shower. And by this time we may understand
what credit and authority those old stories ought to have
about the monstrous J productions in Egypt after the inun¬
dation of the Nile, of mice and frogs and serpents, half flesh
and half mud ; nay, of the legs, and arms, and other limbs
of men, et quicquid Grcecia mendax ; altogether as true as
what is seriously related by Helmont,0 that foul linen, stopped
in a vessel that hath wheat in it, will in twenty-one days’
time turn the wheat into mice : which one§ may guess to
have been the philosophy and information of some house¬
wife, who had not so carefully covered her wheat hut that
the mice could come at it, and were there taken napping,
just when they had made an end of their cheer. || Corn is so
innocent from this calumny of breeding of mice, that it doth
not produce the very weevils that live in it and consume it ;
[* from that passage; not in 1st ed. — D.]
[f he must allow Moses to speak ; 1st ed. “ he must give leave to speak.’'
-D.]
[J about the monstrous ; 1st ed. “ about monstrous.” — D.]
° Helmont, Imago Ferment. &c. p. 92. edit. 1652.
[§ which one; 1st ed. “ which, without conjuring, one.” — D.]
[|| their cheer; 1st ed. “ their good cheer.”— D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
93
the whole course of whose generation and periodical changes
hath been curiously observed and described by the ingenious
Lewenhoeck. And, moreover, that we may deprive the
Atheist of all hopes and pretensions of argument from this
baffled opinion of equivocal insects, we will acquaint him,
from the most accurate observations of Swammerdam, that
even the supposed change of worms into flies is no real
transmutation ; but that most of those members, which at
last become visible to the eye, are existent at the beginning,
artificially complicated together, and covered with mem¬
branes and tunicles, which are afterwards stript off and laid
aside : and all the rest of that process is no more surprising
than the eruption of horns in some brutes, or of teeth and
beard in men at certain periods of age. And, as we have
established our assertion of the seminal production of all
kinds of animals, so likewise we affirm, that the meanest
plant cannot be raised without seed by any formative power
residing in the soil. To which assertion we are encouraged,
first, from the known seeds of all vegetables, one or two only
excepted, that are left to future discovery ; which seeds, by
the help of microscopes, are all found to be real and perfect
plants, with leaves and trunk curiously folded up and enclosed
in the cortex ; nay, one single grain of wheat, or barley, or rye,
shall contain four or five distinct plants under one common
tunicle ; a very convincing argument of the providence and
goodness of God, that those vegetables, that were appointed
to be the* chief sustenance of mankind, should have that
multiplied fecundity above any others. And, secondly, by
that famous experiment of Malpighi, who a long time en¬
closed a quantity of earth in a vessel, secured by a fine cloth
from the small imperceptible seeds of plants that are blown
about wfth the winds ; and had this success of his curiosity,
to be the first happy discoverer of this noble and important
truth, that no species of plants can be produced out of
earth withoutf a pre-existent seed ; and consequently they
[* the ; so 1st ed. and other eds. ; not in ed. 1735. — D.]
[f out of earth without ; 1st ed. “ out of earth de novo without.” — D.]
94
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. IV.
were all created and raised at the beginning of things by the
almighty gardener, God blessed for ever. And, lastly, as to
those various and elegant shells, that are dug up in conti¬
nents, and embodied in stones and rocks at a vast distance
from any sea, which this Atheist may possibly allege for an
instance of a plastic faculty of nature; *tis now generally
agreed by the most diligent inquirers about them, that they
are no sportful productions of the soil, as was formerly be¬
lieved, but that all did once belong to real and living fishes ;
since each of them exactly resembles some shell of the seas,*
both in its outward lineaments, and inward texture, and spe¬
cific gravity, and all other properties : which therefore are so
far from being subservient to Atheists in their audacious
attempts against God and religion, that they rather afford an
experimental confirmation of the universal deluge.
And thus we have competently shewn, that every species
of living creatures, every small insect, and even the herbs of
the field, give a casting vote against Atheism, and declare
the necessity of a supernatural formation. If the earth in
its first constitution had been left to itself, what horrid de¬
formity and desolation had for ever overspread its face ! Not
one living inhabitant would be foundf on all its spacious sur¬
face; not so much as a worm in the bowels of it, nor one
single fish in the vast bosom of the sea; not a mantle of
grass or moss to cover and conceal the nakedness of nature.
An eternal sterility must have possessed the world, where all
things had been fixed and fastened everlastingly with the
adamantine chains of specific gravity ; if the Almighty had .
not spoken and said. Let the earth bring forth grass , the
herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its
kind ; and it was so. ’Twas God that then created the first
seminal forms of all animals and vegetables, that coTnmanded
the waters to bring forth abundantly, and the earth to pro-
[* since each of them exactly resembles some shell of the seas ; 1st ed.
“ seeing that each of them doth exactly resemble some other shell on the sea¬
shore.” — D.]
[f inhabitant would be found; 1st ed. “ inhabitant found.” — D.]
SERM. IV.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
95
duce living creatures after their kind ; that made man in his
own image after his own likeness ; that by the efficacy of his
first blessing made him be fruitful and multiply, and replenish
the earth ; by whose alone power and conservation we all
live, and move, and have our being.
May the same most glorious God of his infinite mercy
grant, that, as we have sought the Lord, and felt after him,
and found him in these works of his creation ; so now that
we have known God, we may glorify him as God, both now
and for evermore. Amen.
A
CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM
FROM THE
STRUCTURE AND ORIGIN OF HUMAN BODIES.
THE THIRD AND LAST PART.
SERMON V.
Preached September the 5th, 1692.
Acts, xvii. 27.
That they should seek the Lord , if haply they might feel after
him, and find him ; though he he not far from every one of
us : for in him we live, and move, and have our being.
In my former discourses I have* endeavoured to prove, that
human race was neither (1.) from everlasting without begin¬
ning ; nor (2.) owes its beginning to the influence of hea¬
venly bodies ; nor (3.) to what they call nature, that is, thef
necessary and mechanical motions of dead senseless matter.
I proceed now to examine the fourth and last plea of the
enemies to religion and their own souls, that mankind came
accidentally into the world, and hath its life and motion and
being by mere chance and fortune.
We need not much wonder, that this last opinion should
obtain almost universally among the Atheists of these times.
For, whereas the other require^ some small stock of philo-
[* discourses I have ; Is* ed. “ discourses, to which I must refer you, I
have.” — D.]
[f that is, the ; ls< ed. “ or to the.” — D.]
[J require j lsi ed. “ do require.” — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
97
sophy to understand or maintain them, this account is so
easy and compendious, that it needs none at all ; and conse¬
quently is the more proper and agreeable to the great industry
and capacity of the most numerous party of them. For what
more easy to say, than that all the bodies of the first ani¬
mals and plants were shuffled into their several forms and
structures fortuitously , that is, these Atheists know not
how, nor will trouble themselves to endeavour to know ?
For that is the meaning of chance; and yet this is all that
they say, or can say, to the great matter in question. And
indeed this little is enough in all reason ; and, could they
impose on the rest of mankind, as easily as delude them¬
selves, with a notion that chance can effect a thing, it would
be the most expedite and effectual means to make their
cause victorious over virtue and religion. For if you once
allow* them such an acceptation of chance, you have pre¬
cluded yourself, they think, from any more reasoning and
objecting against them. The mechanical Atheist, though
you grant him his laws of mechanism, is nevertheless inex¬
tricably puzzled and baffled with the first formation of ani¬
mals ; for he must undertake to determine all the various
motions, and figures, and positions, and combinations of his
atoms, and to demonstrate that such a quantity of motion,
impressed upon particles so shaped and situated, will neces¬
sarily range and dispose them into the form and frame of an
organical body ; an attempt as difficult and unpromising of
success, as if he himself should make the essay to produce
some new kinds of animals out of such senseless materials,
or to rebuild the moving and living fabric out of its dust in
the grave. But the Atheist that we are now to deal with, if
you do but concede to him that fortune may be an agent,
presumesf himself safe and invulnerable, secure above the
reach of any further disputes. For, if you proceed to ask
questions, and bid him assign the proper causes and determi¬
nate manner of that fortuitous formation, you thereby deny
[* allow; 1st ed. “ do allow.” — D.]
[f presumes; 1st eel. “cloth presume.” — D.]
O
VOL. TTI.
98
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
him what you granted before, and take away the very hypo¬
thesis and the nature of chance, which supposeth that no
certain cause or manner of it can possibly be assigned. And
as the stupidity of some libertines, that demand a sight of a
spirit or human soul to convince them of its existence, hath
been frequently and deservedly exposed ; because whatsoever
may be the object of our sight must not be a soul or spirit,
but an opaque body ; so this Atheist would tax us of the like
nonsense and contradiction, if, after he hath named to us
fortune or chance, we should expect from him any particular
and distinct account of the origin of mankind ; because it is
the very essence and notion of his chance to be wholly unac¬
countable ; and if an account could be given of it, it would
then no longer be chance, but mechanism, or a necessary
production of certain effects from certain causes, according to
the universal laws of motion. Thus we are to know, that if
once we admit of fortune in the formation of mankind, there
is no further inquiry to be made, no more difficulties to be
solved, and no account to be demanded. And who then can
admire, if the inviting easiness and compendiousness of this
assertion should so dazzle the eyes of our Atheist, that he
overlooks those gross absurdities that are so conspicuous
in it?
(1.) For, first, if this Atheist would have his chance or
fortune to be a real and substantial agent ; as the vulgar
seem to have commonly apprehended, some making it a
divinity, others they do not conceive what ; he is doubly
more stupid and more supinely ignorant than those vulgar ;
in that he assumes such a notion of fortune as, besides its
being erroneous, is inconsistent with his Atheism. For since,*
according to the Atheists, the whole universe is corpus et
inane , body and nothing else, this chance, if it do really and
physically effect any thing, must itself be body also. And
what a numerous train of absurdities do attend such an
assertion ! too visible and obvious to deserve to be here
[* since ; Is/ ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM,
99
insisted on. For, indeed, it is no less than flat contradic¬
tion to itself. For, if this chance be supposed to be a body,
it must then be a part of the common mass of matter ; and
consequently be subject to the universal and necessary laws
of motion ; and therefore it cannot be chance, but true me¬
chanism and nature.
(2.) But, secondly, if he forbear to call chance a real
agent, and is content to have it only a result or event ; since*
all matter, or some portion of it, may be naturally exempt
from these supposed mechanical laws, and be endowed with
a power of spontaneous or fortuitous motion, which power,
when it is exerted, must produce an effect properly casual,
and therefore might constitute the first animate bodies acci¬
dentally, against the supposed natural tendency of the parti¬
cles of those bodies ; even this second assertion is contrary
to common sense, as well as common observation. For how
can he conceive that any parcel of dead matter can sponta¬
neously divert and decline itself from the line of its motion,
without a new impulse from external bodies ? If it can
intrinsically stir itself, and either commence its motion or
alter its course, it must have a principle of self-activity,
which is life and sense. But sense I have proved formerly*1
to be incompatible with mere bodies, even those of the most
compound and elaborate textures, much more with single
atoms or solid particles of matter, that, having no intestine
motion of parts, are destitute of the first foundation and
capacity of life. And moreover, though these particles
should be supposed to have this internal principle of sense,
it would still be repugnant to the notion of chance ; because
their motions would not then be casual, but voluntary, not
by chance, but choice and design. And again, we appeal to
observation, whether any bodies have such a power of for¬
tuitous motion. We should surely have experiment of it in
the effects of nature and art : no body would retain the same
constant and uniform weight according to its bulk and sub-
[* since; 1st cd. “ seeing that.” — D.]
a Serm. II.
100
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
stance, but would vary perpetually, as that spontaneous
power of motion should determine its present tendency. All
the various machines and utensils would now and then play
odd pranks and capricios, quite contrary to their proper
structures, and designs of the artificers. Whereas, on the
contrary, all bodies are observed to have always a certain and
determinate motion according to the degrees of their external
impulse, and their inward principle of gravitation, and the
resistance of the bodies they occur with ; which therefore is
without error exactly foreseen and computed by sagacious
artists. And if ever dead matter should deviate from this
motion, it could not proceed from itself, but a supernatural
agent ; and ought not to be called a chance, but a miracle.
For chance is but a mere name, and really nothing in
itself; a conception of our own minds, and only a com¬
pendious way of speaking, whereby we would express, that
such effects as are commonly attributed to chance were verily
produced by their true and proper causes, but without their
designing to produce them. And in any event called casual,
if you take away the real and physical causes, there remains
nothing but a simple negation of the agents intending such
an event; which negation being no real entity, but a con¬
ception only of man’s intellect wholly extrinsical to the ac¬
tion, can have no title to a share in the production. As in
that famous example, (which Plutarchb says is the only one
where fortune is related to have done a thing artificially,)
when a painter having* finished the picture of a horse, ex¬
cepting the loose froth about his mouth and his bridle, and,
after many unsuccessful essays, despairing to do that to his
satisfaction, in a great rage threw his sponge at it, all be¬
smeared, as it was, with the colours, which fortunately hit¬
ting upon the right place, by one bold stroke of chance most
exactly supplied the want of skill in the artist : even here it
is manifest, that, considering the quantity and determination
of the motion that was impressed by the painter’s hand
b Plutarch, nept Tvxv *• \_Mor. t. i. p. 268. ed. Wyttenb. — D.]
[* when a painter having; ed. “ of a painter that having.” — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
101
upon the sponge, and resistance* of the air, the sponge did
mechanically and unavoidably move in that particular line of
motion, and so necessarily hit upon that part of the picture ;
and all the paint that it left there was as certainly placed by
true natural causes, as any one stroke of the pencil in the
whole piece. So that this strange effect of the sponge was
fortuitous only with respect to the painter, becausef he did
not design nor foresee such an effect ; but in itself, as{ to its
real causes, it was necessary and natural. In a word, the
true notion of fortune (tt)? tu^?) denoteth no more than
the ignorance of such an event in some knowing agent con¬
cerned about it. So that it owes its very being to human
understanding, and without relation to that is really nothing.
How absurd then and ridiculous is the Atheist, that would
make this fortune the cause of the formation of mankind ;
whereas manifestly there could be no such thing or notion in
the world as fortune, till human nature was actually formed !
It was man that first made fortune, and not fortune that pro¬
duced man. For, since § fortune in its proper acceptation
supposeth the ignorance of something, in a subject capable
of knowledge, if you take away mankind, such a notion
hath no existence, neither with relation to inanimate bodies,
that can be conscious of nothing, nor to an omniscient God,
that can be ignorant of nothing. And so likewise the ade¬
quate meaning of chance (rod avrojidrov), (as it is distin¬
guished from fortune, in that the latter is understood to
befail only rational agents, but chance to be among inanimate
bodies,) is a|| bare negation, that signifies no more than this,
that any effect among such bodies ascribed to chance is
really^ produced by physical agents, according to the esta¬
blished laws of motion, but without their consciousness of
concurring to the production, and without their intention of
[« the sponge, and resistance ; ed. “ the sponge, compounded with the
specific gravity of the sponge, and the resistance.” — D.]
[f because ; 1st ed. “ seeing.” — D.] [J as; \st ed. “ and as.” — D.]
[§ since; 1st ed. “ seeing that.” — D.] [|| isa; 1st ed. “is really a.” — D.]
ptf really; 1st ed. “verily.” — D.]
102
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
such an effect. So that chance , in its true sense, is all one
with nature; and both words are used promiscuously by
some ancient writers,0 to express the same thing. And we
must be wary, lest we ascribe any real subsistence or per¬
sonality to this nature or chance ; for it is merely a notional
and imaginary thing ; an abstract universal, which is properly
nothing ; a conception of our own making, occasioned by
our reflecting upon the settled course of things ; denoting
only thus much, that all those bodies move and act accord¬
ing to their essential properties and qualities, without any
consciousness or intention of so doing. So that in this
genuine acceptation of chance here is nothing supposed
that can supersede the known laws of natural motion :
and thus to attribute the formation of mankind to chance,
is all one with the former atheistical assertion, that ascribes it
to nature or mechanism ; and consequently it hath received a
prolix and sufficient refutation in my preceding discourse.
(3.) But, thirdly, *tis likely that our Atheist may willingly
renounce the doctrine of chance as a thing differing from
nature, and may allow it to be the same thing, and that too
no real and substantial agent, but only an abstract intellectual
notion : but still he hath another expedient in reserve, which
is a middle and safe way between the former rigorous me¬
chanism and the extravagancies of fortuitous motion: viz.
that at the beginning, all things, ^tis true, proceeded neces¬
sarily and fatally according to the mechanical powers and
affections of matter : but nevertheless the several kinds of
animals were not formed at the first trial and effort without
one error or miscarriage, (as strict mechanism would sup¬
pose), but there was an immense variety of ferments, and
tumours, and excrescences of the soil, pregnant and big with
foetuses of all imaginable shapes and structures of body;d
c Plato, x. de Legibus. [Opp. t. viii. p. 471-2. ed. 1826. — D.] Tlvp /cal
vSa tp /cal yfjv Kal ae'pa, (pvaei irdvra eivai /cal Tu%p aAA.a & \4yop.ev (pvtrei Kal
d Bovyevrj dvSp6irpa>pa. Emped. [apud Plutarch. Adv. Colot., Mor. t. v. p. 390.
ed. Wyttenb. — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
103
millions of which were utterly uncapable of life and motion,
being the molce, as it were, and the abortions, of mother
earth : and many of those that had life and powers to pre¬
serve their own individuals, yet wanted the due means of
propagation, and therefore could not transmit their species
to the following ages : and that those few only, that we now
find in being, did happen (for he cannot express it but by
the characters of a chance) to have all the parts necessary
not only for their own lives, hut for the continuation of their
kinds. This is the favourite opinion among the Atheists, and
the most plausible of all; by which they think they may
elude that most formidable argument for the being of God,
from the admirable contrivance of organical bodies, and the
exquisite fitness of their several parts for those ends and uses
they are put to, and seem to have been designed for. For,
say they, since* those innumerable instances of blunder and
deformity were quickly removed out of knowledge and being,
it is plain that no animals ought now to be found but such
as have due organs necessary for their own nourishment and
increase of their kinds : so that this boasted usefulness of
parts, which makes men attribute their origination to an in¬
telligent and wise agent, is really no argument at all, be¬
cause it follows also from the AtheisFs assertion. For, sincef
some animals are actually preserved in being till now, they
must needs all of them have those parts that are of use and
necessity : but that at first was only a lucky hit without skill
or design, and ever since is a necessary condition of their
continuation. And so, for instance, when they are urged
with the admirable frame and structure of the eye ; which
consists of so great a variety of parts, all excellently adapted
to the uses of vision ; that (to omit mathematical considera¬
tions with relation toj optics) hath its many coats and hu¬
mours transparent and colourless, lest it should tinge and
sophisticate the light that it lets in, by a natural jaun-
[* since ; ls< ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[f since ; ls< ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[+ with relation to; ed. “ more proper for.” — D.]
104
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
dice ; that hath its pupil so constituted as to admit of con¬
traction and dilatation according to the differing degrees of
light and the exigencies of seeing; that hath eyelids so
commodiously placed, to cleanse the ball from dust, to shed
necessary moisture upon it through numerous glandules,
and to be drawn over it like a curtain for the convenience of
sleep ; that hath a thousand more beauties in its figure and
texture never studied nor admired enough : they will briskly
reply, that they willingly concede all that can be said in the
commendation of so noble a member ; yet notwithstanding
they cannot admit for good reasoning, He that formed the
eye , shall not he see?e for it was blind nature alone, or
matter mechanically moved without consciousness or direc¬
tion, that made this curious organ of vision. For the short
of the matter is this : this elegant structure of the eye is no
more than is necessary to life ; and consequently* is included
in the very suppositionsf of any animals living and continu¬
ing till now ; though those be but the very few that at the
beginning had the good fortune to have eyes, among many
millions of monsters that were destitute of them, sine vultu
caeca reperta ,f and therefore did fatally perish soon after their
birth. And thus, when we insist on other like arguments of
divine wisdom in the frame of animate bodies ; as the arti¬
ficial position of many myriads of valves, all so situate as to
give a free passage to the blood and other humours in their
due channels and courses, but not permit them to regurgi¬
tate and disturb the great circulation and economy of life ;
as the spiral, and not annulary, fibres of the intestines, for
the better exercise of their functions ; as the provident fur¬
nishing of temporary parts for the foetus during the time of
gestation, which are afterwards laid aside ; as the strange
c Psal. xciv. 9.
[* necessary to life ; and consequently ; 1 st ed. “ necessary to seeing; and
this noble faculty of seeing is no more than is necessary to life ; and conse¬
quently.” — D.]
[f suppositions ; 1st ed. “ supposition.” — D.]
1 Lucret. lib. v. [839. — D.]
105
SERM. V. A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
sagacity of little insects in choosing fit* places for the exclu¬
sion of their eggs, and for the provision of proper food, when
the young ones are hatched and need it ; as the ardent
crTopyr], or natural affection, in those animals, whose offspring
cannot at first procure their own sustenance, but must in¬
fallibly perish if not fed by the parents ; as the untaught
instincts and impresses upon every species, directing them,
without imitation or deliberation, to the ready knowledge of
proper food, to one and the best way of their preservation
and defence, and to the never-failing propagation of their
own kind : whatever considerations of this nature you pro¬
pose to this Atheist, as, indeed, such instances are innumer¬
able, all evidently setting forth the Almighty’s wisdom and
goodness to such as are able to judge, and will judge impar¬
tially ;f he hath this one subterfuge from them all, that these
things are mistaken for tokens of skill and contrivance,
though they be but necessary consequences of the present
existence of those creatures. For he that supposeth any
animals to subsist, doth by that very supposition allow them
every member and faculty that are necessary to subsistence ;
such as are those we have just now enumerated. And
therefore, unless we can prove a priori and independent of
this usefulness, now that things are once supposed to have
existed and propagated, that among ahnost infinite trials and
essays at the beginning of things, among millions of mon¬
strous shapes and imperfect formations, a few such animals
as now exist could not possibly be produced, these after¬
considerations are of very little moment; because, if such
animals could in that way possibly be formed, as might live,
and move, and propagate their beings, all this admired and
applauded usefulness of their several fabrics is but a neces¬
sary condition and consequence of their existence and pro¬
pagation.
This is the last pretence and sophistry of the Atheists
[* choosing fit ; ls£ ed. “ choosing of fit.” — D.]
[f judge impartially lit ed. “judge indifferently and impartially.” — D.]
VOL. III.
P
106
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
against the proposition in my text, that we received our life
and being from a divine wisdom and power. And, as they
cannot justly accuse me of any ways concealing or balking
their grand objection, so I believe these following considera¬
tions will give them no reason to boast that it cannot receive
a just and satisfactory answer.
(1.) First, therefore, we affirm that wre can prove, and
have done it already by arguments a priori (which is the
challenge of the Atheists), that these animals, that now
exist, could not possibly have been formed at first by mil¬
lions of trials. For, since* they allow by their very hypo¬
thesis (and, without standing to theirf courtesy, we have
proved it before), that there can be no casual or spontaneous
motion of the particles of matter, it will follow that every
single monster, among so many supposed myriads,^ must
have been mechanically and necessarily formed according
to the known laws of motion, and the temperament and
quality of the matter that it was made of. Which is suffi¬
cient to evince, that no such monsters were or could have
been formed. For, to denominate them even monsters, they
must have had some rude kind of organical bodies; some
stamina of life, though never so clumsy; some system of
parts compounded of solids and liquids, that executed,
though but bunglingly, their peculiar motions and functions.
But we have lately shewn it impossible for nature unassisted
to constitute such bodies, whose structure is against the law
of specific gravity. So that she could not make the least
endeavour towards the producing of a monster, or of any
thing that hath more vital and organical parts than we find
in a rock of marble or a fountain of water. And, again,
though we should not contend with them about their mon¬
sters and abortions, yet sincej they suppose even the per¬
fect animals, that are still in being, to have been formed
[* since ; 1st ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[f their; 1st ed. “ that.” — D.]
K Multaque turn tellus etiam portenta creare, &c. Lucret. lib. v. [835. — D.]
[+ since ; 1st ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
SERMi V. A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM. 107
mechanically among the rest, and only add some millions of
monsters to the reckonings they are liable to all the difficul¬
ties in the former explications and are expressly refuted
through the whole preceding sermon ; where it is abundantly
shewns that a spontaneous production is against the catholic
laws of motion, and against matter of fact ; a thing without
example, not only in man and the nobler animals, but in the
smallest of insects and the vilest of weeds ; though the fer¬
tility of the earth cannot be said to have been impaired since
the beginning of the world.
(2.) Secondly, we may observe that this evasion of the
Atheist is fitted only to elude such arguments of divine wis¬
dom as are taken from things necessary to the conservation
of the animal, as the faculties of sight, and motion, and
nutrition, and the like ; because such usefulness is, indeed,
included in a general supposition of the existence of that
animal : but it miserably fails him against other reasons from
such members and powers of the body as are not necessary
absolutely to living and propagating, but only much conduce
to our better subsistence and happier condition. So the*
most obvious contemplation of the frame of our bodies ; as
that we all have double sensories, two eyes, two ears, two
nostrils, is an effectual confutation of this atheistical sophism.
For a double organ of these senses is not at all compre¬
hended in the notion of bare existence ; one of them being
sufficient to have preserved life, and kept up the species ; as
common experience is a witness. Nay, even the very nails
of our fingers are an infallible token of design and contriv¬
ance; for they are useful and convenient to give strength
and firmness to those parts in the various functions they are
put to, and to defend the numerous nerves and tendons that
are under them, which have a most exquisite sense of pain,
and without that native armour would continually be exposed
to it ; and yet who will say that nails are absolutely neces¬
sary to human life, and are concluded in the supposition of
[* So the ; 1st ed. “ So that the.” — D.]
108
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
simple existence ? It is manifest, therefore, that there was a
contrivance and foresight of the usefulness of nails antece¬
dent to their formation. For the old stale pretence of the
Atheists, that things were first made fortuitously, and after¬
wards their usefulness was observed or discovered,11 can have
no place here ; unless nails were either absolutely requisite
to the existence of mankind, or were found only in some
individuals or some nations of men, and so might be ascribed
to necessity upon one account, or to fortune upon the other.
But, from the Atheist’s supposition, that, among the infinite
diversity of the first terrestrial productions, there were ani¬
mals of all imaginable shapes and structures of body, all of
which survived and multiplied, that, by reason of their make
and fabric, could possibly do so ; it necessarily follows, that
we should now have some nations without nails upon their
fingers ; others with one eye only, as the poets describe the
Cyclops in Sicily, and the Arimaspi in Scythia ; others with
one ear, or one nostril, or, indeed, without any organ of
smelling, because that sense is not necessary to man’s sub¬
sistence ; others destitute of the use of language, since*
mutes also may live : one people would have the feet of
goats, as the feigned Satyrs and Panisci ; another would
resemble the head of Jupiter Ammon, or the horned statues
of Bacchus ; the Sciapodes, and Enotoccetae,1 and other mon¬
strous nations would no longer bef fables, but real instances
in nature ; and, in a word, all the ridiculous and extravagant
shapes that can be imagined, all the fancies and whimsies of
poets, and painters, and Egyptian idolaters, if so be they are
consistent with life and propagation, would be now actually
in being, if our Atheist’s notion were true ; which, therefore,
may deservedly pass for a mere dream and an error, till they
please to make new discoveries in terra incognita , and bring
h Lucret. lib. iv. [832. — D.]
Nil ideo quoniam natum est in corpore, ut uti
Possemus : sed quod natum est, id procreat usum.
[* since ; lsf ed. “ seeing that.”— D.]
1 Plinius et Strabo. [f no longer be ; ls< ed. “ be no longer.” — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
109
along with them some savages of all these fabulous and mon¬
strous configurations.
(3.) But, thirdly, that we may proceed yet further with
the Atheist, and convince him, that not only his principle is
absurd, but his consequences also as absurdly deduced from
it, we will allow him an uncertain extravagant chance against
the natural laws of motion ; though not forgetting that that
notion hath been refuted before, and therefore this concession
is wholly ex abundanti. I say, then, that though there were
really such a thing as this chance or fortune, yet nevertheless
it would be extremely absurd* to ascribe the formation of
human bodies to a cast of this chance. For let us consider
the very bodies themselves. Here are confessedly all the
marks and ch^acters of design in their structure that can be
required, though one suppose a divine Author had made
them : here is nothing in the work itself unworthy of so
great a Master : here are no internalf arguments from the
subject against the truth of that supposition. Have we,
then, any capacity to judge and distinguish what is the effect
of chance, and what is made by art and wisdom ? When a
medalj is dug out of the ground, with some Roman empe¬
ror’s image upon it, and an inscription that agrees to his
titles and history, and an impress upon the reverse relating
to some memorable occurrence in his life ; can we be sure
that this medal was really coined by an artificer, or is but a
product of the soil from whence it was taken, that might
casually or naturally receive that texture and figure ; as many
kinds of fossils are very oddly and elegantly shaped accord¬
ing to the modification of their constituent salts, or the
cavities they were formed in ? Is it a matter of doubt and
controversy, whether the pillar of Trajan or Antoninus, the
[• nevertheless it would be extremely absurd ; Is? ed. “ notwithstanding it
is downright madness.” — D.]
[f internal ; Is? ed. “ intrinsical.” — D.]
[J what is the effect of chance, and what is made by art and wisdom? When
a medal ; Is? ed. “ what is by chance, and what by art and wisdom ? Can we
be sure, when a medal.” — D.]
110
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
ruins of Persepolis, or the late temple of Minerva, were the
designs and works of architecture ; or, perhaps, might origin¬
ally exist so, or be raised up in an earthquake by subterra¬
neous vapour ? Do not we all think ourselves infallibly cer¬
tain, that this or that very commodious house must needs
have been built by human art; though perhaps a natural
cave in a rock may have something not much unlike to
parlours or chambers ? And yet he must be a mere idiot,
that cannot discern more strokes and characters of work¬
manship in the structure of an animal (in an human
body especially) than in the most elegant medal or edifice
in the world. They will believe the first parents of man¬
kind to have been fortuitously formed without wisdom
or art; and that for this sorry* reason, because it is not
simply impossible but that they may have been formed so.
And who can demonstrate (if chance be once admitted of)
but that possibly all the inscriptions and other remains of
antiquity may be mere lusus naturae , and not works of human
artifice ? If this be good reasoning, let us no longer make
any pretences to judgment, or a faculty of discerning between
things probable and improbable ; for, except flat contradic¬
tions, we may, upon equal reasons, believe all things, or
nothing at all. And do the Atheists thus argue in common
matters of life ? Would they have mankind lie idle, and lay
aside all care of provisions by agriculture or commerce, be¬
cause possibly the dissolution of the world may happen the
next moment ? Had Dinocrates really carved Mount Athos
into a statue of Alexander the Great,J and had the memory
of the fact been obliterated by some accident, who could
afterwards have proved it impossible but that it might casu¬
ally have been formed so ? For every mountain must have
some determinate figure, and why then not an human one
as possibly as another? And yet I suppose none could
[• sorry; 1 sted. “solid.” — D.]
J Lucret. lib. v. [105. — D.]
- dictis dabit ipsa fidem res
Forsitan, et graviter terrarum motibus orbis
Omnia conquassari in parvo tempore cernes.
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
m
have seriously believed so, upon this bare account of possi¬
bility. *Tis an opinion that generally obtains among philo¬
sophers, that there is but one common matter, which is
diversified by accidents ; and the same numerical quantity
of it, by variation* of texture, may constitute successively
all kinds of bodies in the world. So that ’tis not absolutely
impossible, but that, if you take any other matter of equal
weight and substance with the body of a man, you may
blend it so long till it be shuffled into human shape and an
organical structure. But who is he so abandoned to sottish
credulity, as to think, upon that principle, that a clod of
earth in a sack may ever, by eternal shaking, receive the
fabric of man’s body ? And yet this is very near akin, nay,
it is exactly parallel to the reasoning of Atheists about for¬
tuitous production. If mere possibility be a good foundation
for belief, even Lucian’s True History may be true upon
that account, and Pakephatus’s Talesk may be credible in
spite of the title.
It hath been excellently well urged in this case, both by
ancients and moderns, that to attribute such admirable struc¬
tures to blind fortune or chance, is no less thanf to suppose,
that, if innumerable figures of the twenty-four letters be cast
abroad at random, they might constitute in due order the
whole AEneis of Virgil or the Annates of Ennius.1 Now, the
Atheists may pretend to elude this comparison ; as if the
case was not fairly stated. For herein we first make an idea
of a particular poem, and then demand, if chance can pos¬
sibly describe that ; and so we conceive man’s body thus
actually formed, and then affirm that it exceeds the power of
chance to constitute a being like that : which, they may say,
is to expect imitation from chance, and not simple produc¬
tion. But at the first beginning of things there was no copy
to be followed, nor any pre-existent form of human bodies to
[* variation j 1st ed. “ variations.” — D.]
k Palaeph. Vlepl 'Anlcrraiy, De Incredibilibus.
[f less than; ls< ed. “ less absurd than.” — D.]
1 Cicero de Natura Deorum, lib. ii. cap. 37.
112
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
be imitated : so that, to put the case fairly, we should strip
our minds and fancies from any particular notion and idea of
a living body or a poem ; and then we shall understand, that
what shape and structure soever should be at first casually
formed, so that it could live and propagate, might be man ;
and whatsoever should result from the strewing of those
loose letters, that made any sense and measures, might be
the poem we seek for.
To which we reply, that if we should allow them, that
there was no pre-existent idea of human nature till it was
actually formed, (for the idea of man in the divine intellect
must not now be considered,) yet, because they declare that
great multitudes of each species of animals did fortuitously
emerge out of the soilm in distant countries and climates,
what could that be less than imitation in blind chance to
make many individuals of one species so exactly alike ?
Nay, though they should now, to cross us and evade the
force of the argument, desert their ancient doctrine, and
derive all sorts of animals from single originals of each kind,
which should be the common parents of all the race ; yet
surely, even in this account, they must necessarily allow*
two at least, male and female, in every species : which chance
could neither make so very nearly alike, without copying and
imitation ; nor so usefully differing, without contrivance and
wisdom. So that, let them take whether they will, if they
deduce all animals from single pairs of a sort, even to make
the second of a pair is to write after a copy; it is, in the
former comparison, by the casting of loose letters to compose
the pre-existent particular poem of Ennius. But, if they
make numerous sons and daughters of earth among every
species of creatures, as all their authors have supposed, this
m Lucret. lib. v. [805. — D.]
Hinc ubi quaeque loci regio opportuna dabatur,
Crescebant uteri, &c.
Et ibidem, [789. — D.]
• - - inde loci mortalia saecla creavit,
Multa modis multis varia ratione coorta.
[* allow; 1st ed. “constitute.” — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
113
is not only, as was said before, to believe a monkey may once
scribble the Leviathan of Hobbes, but may do the same fre¬
quently by an habitual kind of chance.*
Let us consider how next to impossible it is, that chance
(if there were such a thing) should, in such an immense
variety of parts in an animal, twice hit upon the same struc¬
ture, so as to make a male andf female. Let us resume the
former instance of the twenty-four letters thrown at random
upon the ground. ^Tis a mathematical demonstration, that
these twenty-four do admit of so many changes in then-
order, that they may makej such a long roll of differently
ranged alphabets, not two of which are alike, that they could
not all be exhausted, though a million million§ of writers
should each write above a thousand alphabets a-day for the
space of a million million || of years.11 What strength of ima¬
gination can extend itself to embrace and comprehend such
a prodigious diversity ? And it is as infallibly certain, that
suppose any particular order of the alphabet be^[ assigned,
and the twenty-four letters be** cast at a venture, so as to
fall in a line ; it is so many million of millions odds to one
against any single throw, that the assigned order will not be
cast. Let us now suppose there be only a thousand consti¬
tuent members in the body of a man (that we may take few
enough), it is plain that the different position and situation
of these thousand parts would make so many differing com¬
pounds and distinct species of animals. And if only twenty-
four parts, as before, may be so multifariously placed and
ordered as to make many millions of millions of differing
rows, in the supposition of a thousand parts, how immense
[* by an habitual kind of chance ; 1st ed. “ by an habitual kind of chance,
even above the number of all the impression.” — D.]
[f and; 1st ed. “ and a." — D.]
[+ order, that they may make ; 1st ed. “ order, may make.” — D.]
[§ million ; 1st ed. “ millions.” — D.]
[|| million ; 1st ed. “ millions.” — D.]
“ Tacquetti Arithmet. cap. de Progressione.
[If be ; 1st ed. “ to be.”— D.]
[*# be ; 1st ed. “ to be.” — D.]
VOL. III. Q
114
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
must that capacity of variation be ! even beyond all thought
and denomination, to be expressed only in mute figures,
whose multiplied powers are beyond the narrowness of lan¬
guage, and drown the imagination in astonishment and con¬
fusion ! especially if we observe that the variety of the alpha¬
bet considered above was in mere longitude only, hut the
thousand parts of our bodies may be diversified by situation
in all the dimensions of solid bodies ; which multiplies all
over and over again, and overwhelms the fancy in a new
abyss of unfathomable number. Now, it is demonstratively
certain, that it is all this odds to one, against any particular
trial, that no one man could, by casual production, be framed
like another (as the Atheists suppose thousands to be in
several regions of the earth) ; and I think ’tis rather more odds
than less, that no one female could be added to a male, inas¬
much as that most necessary difference of sex is a higher token
of divine wisdom and skill, above all the power of fortuitous
hits, than the very similitude of both sexes in the other parts
of the body. And again , we must consider that the vast
imparity of this odds against the accidental likeness of two
casual formations is never lessened and diminished by trying
and casting. ’Tis above a hundred to one against any parti¬
cular throw, that you do not cast any given set of faces with
four cubical dice, because there are so many several combina¬
tions of the six faces of four dice. Now, after you have cast
all the hundred trials* but one, ’tis still as much odds at the
last remaining time as it was at the first ; for blind insensible
chance cannot grow cunning by many experiments, neither
have the preceding casts any influence upon those that come
after. So that if this chance of the Atheists should have
essayed in vain to make a species for a million milliont of
ages, Tis still as many millions odds against that formation
as it was at the first moment in the beginning of things.
How incredible is it, therefore, that it should hit upon two
productions alike, within so short duration of the world, ac-
[* all the hundred trials; Isted. “all the trials.” — D.]
[f million; lsi ed. “ millions.” — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
115
cording to the doctrine of our Atheists ! 0 How much more,
that it should do so within the compass of a hundred years,
and of a small tract of ground, so that this male and female
might come together ! If any Atheist can be induced to
stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible dis¬
proportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of easiness
and credulity.
(4.) But, fourthly, we will still make more ample conces¬
sions, and suppose, with the Atheist, that his chance has
actually formed all animals in their terrestrial wombs. Let
us see now how he will preserve them to maturity of birth.
What climate will he cherish them in, that they be not
inevitably destroyed by moisture or cold ? Where is that
equability of nine months’ warmth to be found ? that uniform
warmth, which is so necessary even in the incubation of
birds, much more in the time of gestation of viviparous ani¬
mals ? I know his party have placed this great scene in
Egypt, or somewhere between the two tropics.P Now, not to
mention the cool of the nights, which alone would destroy
the conceptions; ’tis known that all those countries have
either incessant rains every year for whole months together,
or are quite laid under water by floods from the higher
grounds ; which would certainly corrupt and putrefy all the
teeming wombs of the earth, and extinguish the whole brood
of embryons by untimely abortions.
(5.) But, fifthly, we will still be more obliging to this
Atheist, and grant him his petition, that nature may bring
forth the young infants vitally into the world. Let us see
now what sustenance, what nurses, he hath provided for
them. If we consider the present constitution of nature, we
must affirm, that most species must have been lost for want
of fostering and feeding. ’Tis a great mistake, that* man
0 Lucret. v. [331. — D.]
Verum, ut opinor, liabet novitatem summa, recensquc
. Natura est imindi neque pridem exordia cepit.
i' Cesalpin. Berigard.
[* mistake, that ; b# ed. “ mistake that, that.” — D.]
116
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
only comes weak and helpless into the world ; whereas ’tis
apparent that, excepting fish and insects (and not all of them
neither), there are very few or no creatures that can provide
for themselves at first without the assistance of parents. So
that, unless they suppose mother earth to be a great animal,
and to have nurtured up her young offspring with a conscious
tenderness and providential care, there is no possible help
for it but they must have been doubly starved both with
hunger and cold.
(6.) But, sixthly, we will be yet more civil to this Atheist,
and forgive him this difficulty also. Let us suppose the first
animals maintained themselves with food, though we cannot
tell how. But then, what security hath he made for the pre¬
servation of human race from the jaws of ravenous beasts ?
The divine writers* have acquainted us, that God at the be¬
ginning gave mankind dominion (an impressed awe and au¬
thority) over every living thing that moveth upon the earths
But in the Atheist’s hypothesis there are no imaginable
means of defence ; for ’tis manifest, that so many beasts of
prey, lions, tigers, wolves, and the like, being of the same
age with man, and arriving at the top of their strength in one
year or two, must needs have worried and devoured those
forlorn brats of our Atheist’s, even before they were weaned
from the foramina terra, T or at least in a short time after ;
sincef all the carnivorous animals shouldj have multiplied
exceedingly, by several generations, before those children
that escaped at first could come to the age of puberty. So
that men would always lessen, and their enemies always
increase.
But some of them will here pretend, that Epicurus was
out in this matter ; and that they were not born mere infants
out of those wombs of the earth, but men at their full growth,
and in the prime of their strength. But, I pray, what should
[* writers; 1st ed. “writings.” — D.]
q Gen. i. 28. r Lucret. lib. v. [809. — D.]
[f since ; ls< ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[t should; 1st ed. “would.” — D.]
SERM. V.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
117
hinder those grown lusty infants from breaking sooner those
membranes that involved them ; as the shell of the egg is
broken by the bird, and the amnion * by the foetus? Were
the membranes so thick and tough, that the foetus must stay
there till he had teeth to eat through them, as young mag¬
gots do through a gall ? But let us answer these fools accord¬
ing to their folly. Let us grant, that they were born with
beards, and in the full time of manhood. They are not yet
in af better condition ; here are still many enemies against
few, many species against one ; and those enemies speedily
multiplying in the second and third and much lower genera¬
tions ; whereas the sons of the first men must have a tedious
time of childhood and adolescence, before they can either
themselves assist their parents, or encourage them with new
hopes of posterity. And we must consider withal, that (in
the notion of Atheism) those savages were not then what
civilised mankind is now, but mutum et turpe pecus, without
language, without mutual society, without arms of offence,
without houses or fortifications, an obvious and exposed
prey to the ravage of devouring beasts ; a most sorry and
miserable plantation towards the peopling of a world.
And now that I have followed the Atheists through so
many dark mazes of error and extravagance, having, to my
knowledge, omitted nothing on their side that looks like a dif¬
ficulty, nor proposed any thing in reply but what I myself
really believe to be a just and solid answer ; I shall here
close up the apostle’s argument of the existence of God
from the consideration of human nature. And I appeal to
all sober and impartial judges of what hath been delivered,
whether those noble faculties of our souls may be only a
mere sound and echo from the clashing of senseless atoms,
or rather indubitably must proceed from a spiritual substance
of a heavenly and divine extraction ? whether these admir¬
able fabrics of our bodies shall he ascribed to the fatal mo-
[* amnion; 1st ed. “ amnios.” — D.]
[f a; 1st ed. “ any.” — D.]
118
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. V.
tions or fortuitous shufflings of blind matter; or rather,
beyond controversy, to the wisdom and contrivance of the
almighty Author of all things, who is wonderful in counsel ,
and excellent in working ?a To whom, &c.
s Isaiah, xxviii. 29.
A
CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM
FROM THE
ORIGIN AND FRAME OF THE WORLD.
PART I.
SERMON VI.
Preached October the 3d, 1692.
Acts, xiv. 15, &c.
That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God ,
who made heaven , and earth , and the sea, and all things
that are therein : who in times past suffered all nations to
walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he left not himself
without witness , in that he did good, and gave us rain
from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with
food and gladness.
All the arguments that can be brought, or can be demanded,
for the existence of God, may, perhaps not absurdly, be re¬
duced to three general heads ; the first of which will include
all the proofs from the vital and intelligent portions of the
universe, the organical bodies of the various animals, and the
immaterial souls of men. Which living and understanding
substances, as they make incomparably the most considerable
and noble part of the naturally known and visible creation,
so they do the most clearly and cogently demonstrate to
philosophical inquirers the necessary self-existence, and om¬
nipotent power, and unsearchable wisdom, and boundless be¬
neficence of their Maker. This first topic, therefore, was very
120
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
fitly and divinely made use of by our apostle in his confer¬
ence with philosophers and that inquisitive people of Athens;
the latter spending their time in nothing else, but either to
tell or hear * some new thing;*- and the other in nothing
butf to call in question the most evident truths that were
delivered and received of old. And these arguments we have
hitherto pursued in their utmost latitude and extent. So
that now we shall proceed to the second head; or the proofs
of a Deity from the inanimate part of the world ; sincej even
natural reason, as well as§ holy Scripture, assures us, that
the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
shewetli his handy -work ; b that he made the earth by his
power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath
stretched out the heaven by his understanding ;c that he com¬
manded, and they were created ; he hath also established them
for ever and ever ;d he covereth the heavens\\ with clouds, he
prepareth rain for the earth,* he crownetli the year with his
goodness J
These reasons for God’s existence, from the frame and
system of the world, as they are equally time with the for¬
mer, so they have always been more popular and plausible
to the illiterate part of mankind ; insomuch as the Epi¬
cureans/ and some others, have observed, that men’s con-
[* or hear ; 1*2 ed. “ or to hear." — D.] a Chap. xvii. ver. 21.
[f in nothing hut ; not in ls£ ed. — D.]
[| since; 1st ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[§ as; ed. “ as the.” — D.]
b Psal. xix. 1. c Jer. li. 15. d Psal. cxlviii. 5.
[|| heavens; 1st ed. “ heaven .” — D.] e Psal. cxlvii. 8. f Psal. Ixv. 11.
e Lucret. lib. v. [1182. — D.]
Praeterea, coeli rationes ordine certo,
Et varia annorum cernebant tempora verti.
and lib. vi. [57. — D.]
Nam bene qui didicere Deos securum agere sevum,
Si tamen interea mirantur, & c.
Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. [cap. 38. ed. Dav. — D.] Quis hunc hominem dixerit,
qui cum tam certos cceli motus, tarn ratos astrorum ordines, &c. Plutarch, de
Plac. Phil. i. 6. \_Mor. t. iv. p. 361. ed. Wyttenb. — D.] 0eoD yap ivvoiav ecrxov
dirb ran' cpaivopevaiv affrepuv, Spdn/res tovtovs peyd\y]s avpeptav'ias out as alrlovs,
Ka\ Terayp.il/as Tjpepav re xat vvKTtt, x*1 pdiva re /ca! Oepos, avaro\ds re nal Suer pas.
SERM. VI. A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM. 121
templating the most ample arch of the firmament, the innu¬
merable multitude of the stars, the regular rising and setting
of the sun, the periodical and constant vicissitudes of day
and night, and seasons of the year, and the other affections
of meteors and heavenly bodies, was the principal and almost
only ground and occasion that the notion of a God came
first into the world ; making no mention of the former proof
from the frame of human nature, that in God we live , and
move, and have our being . Which argument being so natural
and internal* to mankind, doth nevertheless (I know not
how) seem more remote and obscure to the generality of
men, who are readier to fetch a reason from the immense
distance of the starry heavens and the outmost walls of the
world, than seek one at home, within themselves, in their
own faculties and constitutions. So that hence we may per¬
ceive how prudently that was waved, and the second here
insisted on by St. Paul to the rude and simple semi-barba¬
rians of Lycaonia : he left not himself without witness , in that
he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful sea¬
sons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. Which words
we shall now interpret in a large and free acceptation; so
that this second theme may comprehend all the brute inani¬
mate matter of the universe, as the former comprised all
visible creatures in the world, that have understanding, or
sense, or vegetable life. These two arguments are the voices
of nature, the unanimous suffrages of all real beings and sub¬
stances created, that are naturally knowable without revela¬
tion. And if, lastly, in the third place, we can evince the
divine existence from the adjuncts and circumstances of
human life ; if we find in all ages, in all civilised nations, an
universal belief and worship of a divinity ; if we find many
unquestionable records of supernatural and miraculous effects ;
if we find many faithful relations of prophecies punctually
accomplished ; of prophecies so well attested, above the sus¬
picion of falsehood ; so remote, and particular, and unlikely
[* internal; Is* ed. “ intrinsical.”— D.]
R
VOL. III.
122
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
to come to pass, beyond the possibility of good guessing, or
the mere foresight of human wisdom ; if we find a most war¬
rantable tradition, that at sundry times and in divers manners
God spake unto mankind by his prophets, and by his Son , and
his apostles, who have delivered to us in sacred writings a
clearer revelation of his divine nature and will; if, I say,
this third topic from human testimony be found agreeable to
the standing vote and attestation of nature, what further
proofs can be demanded or desired ? What fuller evidence
can our adversaries require, since* all the classes of known
beings are summoned to appear? Would they have us bring
more witnesses than the all of the world ? and will they not
stand to the grand verdict and determination of the universe?
They are incurable infidels that persist to deny a Deity;
when all creatures in the world, as well spiritual as cor¬
poreal, all from human race to the lowest of insects, from the
cedar of Libanus to the moss upon the wall, from the vast
globes of the sun and planets to the smallest particles of dust,
do declare their absolute dependence upon the first author
and fountain of all being, and motion, and life, the only
eternal and self-existent God ; with whom inhabit all majesty,
and wisdom, and goodness, for ever and ever.
But, before I enter upon this argument from the origin
and frame of the world, it will not be amiss to premise some
particulars that may serve for an illustration of the text, and
be a proper introduction to the following discourses, f
As the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, were preaching the
Gospel at Lystra,h a city of Lycaonia in Asia the Less,
among the rest of their auditors there was a lame cripple
from his birth, whom Paul commanded, with a loud voice, to
stand upright on his feet ; and immediately, by a miraculous
energy, he leaped and walked. Let us compare the present
circumstances with those of my former text, and observe
the remarkable difference in the apostle’s proceedings. No
[* since; Is* ed. “ seeing.” — D.]
[t to the following discourses; Isi ed. “ to our discourse thereupon.” — D.]
h [Acts, xiv.] ver. 8. •
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
123
question but there were several cripples at Athens, so very-
large and populous a city ; and, if that could be dubious, I
might add, that the very climate disposed the inhabitants to
impotency in the feet : Atthide tentantur gressus, oculique in
Achceis Finibus 1 — are the words of Lucretius ; which ’tis pro¬
bable he transcribed from Epicurus, a Gargettian and native
of Athens, and therefore an unquestionable evidence in a
matter of this nature. Neither is it likely that all the Athe¬
nian cripples should escape the sight of St. Paul, since* he
disputed there in the market daily with them that met him .k
How comes it to pass, then, that we do not hear of a like
miracle in that city; which, one would think, might have
greatly conduced to the apostle’s design, and have converted,
or at least confuted and put to silence, the Epicureans and
Stoics ? But it is not difficult to give an account of this
seeming disparity, if we attend to the qualifications of the
lame person at Lystra, whom Paul stedfastly beholding, and
perceiving that he had Faith to be healed, said, with a loud
voice, Stand upright on thy feet -1 This is the necessary con¬
dition that was always required by our Saviour and his
apostles : And Jesus said unto the blind man, Receive thy
sight, thy Faith hath saved thee ;m and to the woman that
had the issue of blood, Daughter, be of good comfort ; thy
Faith hath made thee whole: go in peaces ’Twas want of
Faith in our Saviour’s countrymen, which hindered him
from shedding among them the salutary emanations of his
divine virtue : And he did not many mighty works there ,
because of their unbelief.0 There were many diseased per¬
sons in his own country, but very few that were rightly dis¬
posed for a supernatural cure. St. Mark hath a very obser¬
vable expression upon the same occasion : And he could do
no mighty works f there, save that he laid his hands upon a
few sick folk, and healed thpmJ Kal ov/c HATNATO e’/cet
* Lucret. lib. vi. [1114. — D.]
k [Acts, xvii.] ver. 17.
” [Luke,] viii. 48.
[4 works; 1st ed. 11 work.” — D.]
[* since ; ed. “ seeing.” — D.]
1 Ver. 9. ra Luke, xviii. 42.
0 Matt. xiii. 58.
p Mark, vi. 5.
124
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
ovheplav Svvafuv iroigaai. We read in St. Luke, v. 17 :
And the power ( Bvvafus ?) of the^Lord was present to heal
them. And chap. vi. ver. 19: And the whole multitude
sought to touch him ; for there went virtue ( Svva/ju $) out of
him , and healed them all. Now, since hvva/M^ and rjhvvaro
are* words of the same root and signification, shall we so
interpret the evangelist, as if our Saviour had not power to
work miracles among his unbelieving countrymen ? This is
the passage which that impious and impure Atheist Lucilio
Vanino^ singled out for his text, in his pretended and mock
apology for the Christian religion ; wickedly insinuating as
if the prodigies of Christ were mere impostures, and acted by
confederacy ; and therefore, where the spectators were incre¬
dulous, and consequently watchful and suspicious, and not
easily imposed on, he could do no mighty work there ;
there his arm was shortened, and his power and virtue too
feeble for such supernatural effects. But the gross absurdity
of this suggestion is no less conspicuous than the villanous
blasphemy of it. For,f can it be credible to any rational
person, that St. Mark could have that meaning? that he
should tax his Lord and Saviour, whom he knew to be God
Almighty, with deficiency of power ? He could do no mighty
works ; that is, he would do none, because of their unbelief.
There’s a frequent change of those words in all languages
of the world. And we may appeal with St. Chrysostom1" to
the common custom of speech, whatever country we live in.
This, therefore, is the genuine sense of that expression : Christ
would not heal their infirmities, because of the hardness and
slowness of their hearts, in that they believed him not. And
[* Now, since hvvapis and ijSvvaro are; ls£ ed. “Seeing then that rjSvvaro
and 5iWju.cs are.” — D.]
Vanini Dial. p. 439.
[f But the gross absurdity of this suggestion is no less conspicuous than
the villanous blasphemy of it. For; ls£ ed. “ But the gross absurdity is no
less conspicuous than the villanous blasphemy of this suggestion. For.” — D.]
r Chrys. ad locum : tovto 5e /cal iv icoivrj (Tvvrjdtia. v is ttA.tjo’Ioi' &\\ov. [Horn. II. ii. 271. — D.]
[* silently; ls£ ed. “ tacitly.” — D.] [f noised; ls£ ed. “ noise.” — D.]
[X were; ls£ ed. “ are.” — D.] [§ ran; ls< ed. “ run.” — D.]
[|| expostulated; lif ed. “ expostulate.” — D.]
“ [Acts, xiv.] ver. 15.
0 Mortales sumus similes vobis homines. So ef rt naOu, if I die ; a common
expression in Greek writers.
p - - - - at yap iywv &s
E2V adavaros Ka\ ayfipaos tf/Aara irdvTa. Horn. [/£. viii. 538. — D.J
[^[ and we preach; 1st ed. “ and preach." — D.]
VOL. III. S
130
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
edvrj), all the Gentiles, 9 distinguished from the Jews; as the
same words are translated Rom. xv. 11, and 2 Tim. iv. 17 ;
and ought to have been so, Rom. i. 5, and xvi. 26; but much
more in our text, which according to the present version
seems to carry a very obscure, if not erroneous meaning;
but by a true interpretation is very easy and intelligible :
that hitherto God had suffered all the Gentiles to walk in
their own ways ; and excepting the Jews only, whom he
chose for his own people, and prescribed them a law, he
permitted the rest of mankind to walk by the mere light of
nature, without the assistance of revelation : but that now, in
the fulness of time, he had even to the Gentiles also sent sal¬
vation, and opened the door of faith, and granted repentance
unto life. So that these words of our apostle are exactly
coincident with that remarkable passage* in his discourse to
the Athenians : And the (past) times of this ignorance (of the
Gentile world) God winked at (or overlooked1-) ; hut now com-
mandeth all men every where to repent .s And nevertheless,
says our text,f even in that gloomy state of heathenism,
he left not himself without witness , in that he did good, dya-
doTTOLMV ef ovpavov, always doing good from heaven, (which
seems to be the genuine punctuation, and is authorised by
the Syriac interpreters,1) and gave us rain and% fruitful sea¬
sons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. Even the
very Gentiles§ might feel after him and find him; since the||
admirable frame of heaven, and earth, and sea, and the muni¬
ficent provision of food and sustenance for his creatures, did
competently set forth his eternal power and Godhead; so
'i See Acts, iv. 27 ; xiv. 5; xxvi. 17. Gal. ii. 14.
[* that remarkable passage ; Is* ed. “ that so much controverted passage.”
~D'3
1 xnrep&div. s Acts, xvii. 30. [f says our text; not in ls£ ed. — D.]
* N222 win] nrrai p «nnta ■pnb win 1237 12 so
that they read ay ad oiroicbv e| ovpavov, Kal verbv S. Horat. [^at. i. 5. 102. — D.]
Nec, si quid miri faciat natura, Deos id
Tristes ex alto cceli demittere tecto.
[J rain and ; \st ed. “ rain from heaven and." — D.]
[§ the very Gentiles ; l$f ed. “ the Gentiles.” — D.] ,
[|| since the ; la/ ed. “ seeing that the.” — D.]
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
131
that stupid idolaters and profane Atheists were then and
always without excuse.*
Our adversaries have used the same methods to elude the
present argument from the frame of the world, as they have
done to evade the former from the origin of mankind. Some
have maintained, that this world hath thus existed from all
eternity in its present form and condition ; but others say,
thatf the forms of particular worlds are generable and cor¬
ruptible ; so that our present system cannot have sustained
an infinite duration already gone and expired : but however,
say they, bodyj in general, the common basis and matter of
all worlds and beings, is self-existent and eternal ; which,
being naturally divided into innumerable little particles or
atoms, eternally endued with an ingenite and inseparable
power of motion, by their omnifarious concursions, and com¬
binations, and coalitions, produce§ successively (or at once, if
matter be infinite) an infinite number of worlds ; and amongst
the rest there arose|| this visible complex system of heaven
and earth. And thus far they do agree ; but then they differ
about the cause and mode of the production of worlds, some
ascribing it* to fortune, and others to mechanism or nature.
5Tis true, the astrological Atheists will^[ give us no trouble
in the present dispute ; because they cannot form a peculiar
hypothesis here, as they have done before about the origina¬
tion of animals. For though some of them are so vain and
senseless, as to pretend to a thema mundi, a calculated
scheme of the nativity of our world; yet it exceeds even
their absurdity, to suppose the zodiac and planets to be effi¬
cient of, and antecedent to, themselves; or to exert any
influences before they were in being. So that, to refute all
[* without excuse; 1st ed. “without excuse: which is the scope of these
discourses.” — D.]
[| say, that; 1st ed. “do as stiffly affirm that.” — D.]
[J however, say they, body ; Is* ed. “ however, that body.” — D.]
[§ produce; Is* ed. “there emergeth.” — D.]
[|| amongst the rest there arose ; 1 st ed. “ among the rest arose.” — D.]
[^[ ’Tis true, the astrological Atheists will ; ls< ed. “ Indeed, as for the as¬
trological Atheists, they will.’' — D.]
132
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
possible explications that the Atheists have or can propose, I
shall proceed in this following method :
I. First, I will prove it impossible that the primary parts
of our world, the sun and the planets, with their regular
motions and revolutions, should have subsisted eternally in
the present or a like frame and condition.
II. Secondly, I will shew, that matter abstractly and
absolutely considered, cannot have subsisted eternally ; or,
if it has, yet motion cannot have coexisted eternally with it,
as* an inherent property and essential attribute of the Atheist’s
god. Matter.
III. Thirdly, though universal matter should have enduredf
from everlasting, divided into infinite particles in the Epicu¬
rean way ; and though motion should have been J coeval and
coeternal with it ; yet those§ particles or atoms could never
of themselves, by omnifarious kinds of motion, whether for¬
tuitous or mechanical, have fallen or been disposed into this
or a like visible system. ||
IV. And, fourthly, a posteriori, that the order and beauty
of the inanimate parts of the world, the discernible ends and
final causes of them, the to /3e\rLov, or a meliority above
what was necessary to be, do evince, by a reflex argument,
that it is the product and workmanship, not of blind mecha¬
nism or blinder chance, but of an intelligent and benign Agent,
who by his excellent wisdom made the heavens and earth , and
gives rain% and fruitful seasons for the service of man*
[* cannot have subsisted eternally ; or, if it has, yet motion cannot have
coexisted eternally with it, as ; ls£ ed. “ cannot have borne an infinite duration
now past and expired; as also that motion cannot have coexisted eternally,
as.” — D.]
[f Thirdly, though universal matter should have endured ; ls< ed. “ Thirdly,
that though we allow them, that universal matter hath endured.” — D.]
[t and though motion should have been ; 1st ed. “ and that motion hath
been.” — D.]
[§ those ; lstf ed. “ these.” — D.]
[|| system ; ls< ed. “ system ; though a supposed infinite duration of the
atoms and their motions should already be expired and gone.” — D.]
[^[ rain; 1st ed. “ rains.” — D.]
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
133
I shall speak to the two first propositions in my present
discourse ; reserving the latter for other opportunities.*
I. First, therefore :f that the present or a like frame of
the world hath not subsisted from everlasting. We will
readily concede, that a thing may be truly eternal, though
its duration be terminated at one end. For so we affirm
human souls to be immortal and eternal, though rjv ore ovtc
riaav, there was a time when they were nothing ; and
therefore their infinite duration will always be bounded at
one extreme by that first beginning of existence. So that,
for ought appears as yet, the revolutions of the earth and
other planets about the sun, though they be limited at one
end by the present revolution, may nevertheless have been
infinite and eternal without any beginning. But then we
must consider, that this duration of human souls is only
. potentially infinite. For their eternity consists only in an
endless capacity of continuance without ever ceasing to be,
in a boundless futurity that can never be exhausted, or all
of it be past and present. But their duration can never be
positively and actually eternal; because it is most manifest,
that no moment can ever be assigned, wherein it shall be
true, that such a soul hath then actually sustained an infinite
duration. For that supposed infinite duration will, by the
very supposition, be limited at two extremes, though never
so remote asunder, and consequently must needs be finite.
Wherefore the true nature and notion of a soul’s eternity is
this : that the future moments of its duration can never be
all past and present , but still there will be a futurity and
potentiality of more for ever and ever. So that we evidently
perceive from this instance, that! whatever successive dura¬
tion shall be bounded at one end, and be all past and present ,
for that reason must be finite. § Which necessarily evinceth,
[* I shall speak to the two first propositions in my present discourse; re¬
serving the latter for other opportunities ; not in lsf ed. — D.]
[f First, therefore ; lsf ed. “ And first.” — D.]
[J instance, that; lsf ed. “ instance of a soul, that.” — D.]
[§ for that reason must be finite; 1st ed. “must come infinitely short of
infinity.” — D.]
134
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
that the present or a like world can never have been eternal,
or that there cannot have been infinite past revolutions of a
planet about a sun. For this supposed infinity is terminate*
at one extreme by the present revolution, and all the other
revolutions are confessedly past ; so that the whole duration
is bounded at one end, and all past and present ; and there¬
fore cannot have been infinite, by what was proved before.
And this will shew us the vast difference between the false
successive eternity backwards, and the real one to come.
For, consider the present revolution of the earth as the
bound and confine of them both. God Almighty, if he so
pleaseth, may continue this motion to perpetuity in infinite
revolutions to come ; because futurity is inexhaustible, and
can never be all spent orf run out by past and present
moments. But then, if we look backwards from this present
revolution, we mayj apprehend the impossibility of infinite
revolutions on that side; because all are already past, and so
were once actually present , and consequently are finite, by
the argument before. For surely we cannot conceive a pre-
teriteness (if I may say so) still backwards in infinitum,
that never was present, as we can an endless futurity that
never will be present. So that though one is potentially
infinite, yet nevertheless the other is actually§ finite. And
this|| reasoning doth necessarily conclude against the past
infinite duration of all successive motion and mutable beings :
but it doth not at all^[ affect the eternal existence of God,**
in whose invariable nature there is no past orff future ; who
is omnipresent not only as to space, but as to duration ; and
with respect to such omnipresence, it is certain and manifest,
that succession and motion are mere impossibilities, and re¬
pugnant in the very terms.
[* terminate ; 1st ed. “ terminated.” — D.]
[f or; 1st ed. “ and.” — D.] [J may; Is* ed. “ do.”- — D.]
[§ actually; 1st ed. “positively.” — D.]
[|| And this ; 1 st ed. “ And though this.” — D.]
[^j hut it doth not at all ; 1st ed. “ yet it doth not all.” — D.]
[** God ; 1st ed. “ the adorable Divinity.” — D.]
[ft or; 1st ed. “ nor.” — D.]
\
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
135
And, secondly, though what hath been now said hath
given us so clear a view of the nature of successive duration,
as to make more arguments needless ; yet I shall here briefly
shew how our adversaries’ hypothesis, without any outward
opposition, destroys and confutes* itself. For let us suppose
infinite revolutions of the earth about the sun to be already
gone and expired ; I take it to be self-evident, that, if none
of those past revolutions has been infinite ages ago, all the
revolutions put together cannot makef the duration of infinite
ages : it follows, therefore, from this supposition, that there
may be some one assignable revolution among them, that
was | at an infinite distance from the present. But it is self-
evident likewise, that no one past revolution could§ be in¬
finitely distant from the present; for then an infinite or
unbounded duration may be bounded at two extremes by
two annual revolutions; which is absurd and a contradiction.
And again, upon the same supposition of an eternal past
duration of the world, and of infinite annual revolutions of
the earth about the sun ; I would ask concerning the monthly
revolutions of the moon about the earth, or the diurnal ones
of the earth upon its own axis, both which, by the very hypo¬
thesis, are coeval with the former, whether these also have
been finite or infinite ? Not finite to be sure ; because then
a finite number would be greater than an infinite, as 12 or
365 are more than an unit. Nor infinite neither ; for then
two or three infinites would exceed one another, as a year
exceeds a month, or both exceed a day. So that both ways
the supposition is repugnant and impossible.
And thirdly, the arguments already used,u from the
gradual increase of mankind, from the known plantations
of most countries, from the recent invention of letters and
arts, &c. do conclude as forcibly against the eternity of the
world as against infinite generations of human race. For if
[* without any outward opposition destroy^ and confutes; 1st ed. “doth
without any outward opposition destroy and confute.”— D.]
[f make; Is* ed. “ make up.”— D.] [+ was; ls£ ed. “ is.” — D.]
[§ could; 1st ed. “ can.” — D.] " Serm. iii.
136
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
the present frame of the earth be supposed eternal, by the
same notion they make mankind to have been coeternal with
it. For otherwise this eternal earth, after she had been
eternally barren and desolate, must at last have sponta¬
neously produced mankind, without new cause from without,
or any alteration in her own texture ; which is so gross an
absurdity, that even no Atheist hath yet affirmed it. So that
it evidently follows, since mankind had a beginning, that
the* present form of the earth, and therefore the whole
system of the world, had a beginning also.
Which being proved and established, we are now enabled
to give answers to some bold queries and objections of
Atheists; that sincef God is described as a being infinitely
powerful and perfectly good ; and that these attributes were
essential to him from all eternity; why did he notj by his
power, for the more ample communication of his goodness,
create the world from eternity, § if he created it at all ? or at
least many millions of ages ago, before this short span of
duration of five or six thousand years ? To the first we
reply, that since we have discovered an internal|| and natural
impossibility that a successive duration should be actually
eternal; ’tis to us a flat contradiction, that the world should
have been^j created from everlasting. And therefore it is
no affront to the divine omnipotence, if by reason of the
formal incapacity and repugnancy of the thing we conceive,**
that the world could not possibly have been made from all
eternity, even by God himself. Which gives an answer to
the second question. Why created so lately ? For, if it could
[* since mankind had a beginning, that the ; Is* ed. “ that if mankind had
a beginning, the.” — D.]
[f since; ls< ed. “seeing.” — D.]
[J he not; 1st ed. “ not he.” — D.]
[§ from eternity ; lsf ed. “ eternally.” — D.]
[|| since we have discovered an internal ; lsJ ed. “ seeing we have discovered
an intrinsical.” — D.]
[H ’tis to us a flat contradiction, that the world should have been; 1st ed.
“ it is no less than a contradiction to itself, that the world should be.” — D.]
[** conceive ; ls< cd. “ aver.” — D.]
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
137
not be created from eternity,* there can no instant be as¬
signed for its creation in time, though never so many
myriads and millions of years since, but the same query
mayf be put, Why but now, and Why so late ? for even
before that remoter period God was eternally existent, and
might have made the world as many myriads of ages still
backwards before that: and consequently this objection is
absurd and unreasonable. For else, if it was good and
allowable, it would eternally hinder God from exerting his
creative power, because he could never make a world so
early, at any given moment, but it mayj truly be said, he
could have created it sooner. Or if they think there§ may
be a soonest instant of possible creation, yet, since|| all in¬
stants have an equal pretence to it in human apprehension,
why may not this recent production of the world, according
to sacred authority, be supposed to be that soonest ? At
least it may make that claim to it that cannot be baffled by
their arguments, which^[ equally conclude against all claims,
against any conceivable beginning of the world.
And so, when they profanely ask. Why did not this sup¬
posed Deity, if he really made the heavens, make them
boundless and immense, a fit and honourable mansion for an
infinite and incomprehensible being ; or at least vastly more
ample and magnificent than this narrow cottage of a world ?
we may make them this answer : First, it seems** impos¬
sible, and a contradiction, that a created world should be
infinite ;f f because it is the nature of quantity! £ and motion,
that they can never be actually and positively infinite : they
have a power indeed §§ and a capacity of being increased
[* it could not be created from eternity ; ls£ ed. il it be impossible to have
been created eternally.” — D.]
[f may; ls£ ed. “ might.” — D.] [J may; 1st ed. “might.” — D.]
[§ there ; ls2 ed. “that there.” — D.]
[|| since ; 1st ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[^f their arguments, which ; Is# ed. “ such arguments as.” — D.]
[** it seems ; ls£ ed. “ that it is.” — D.]
[ft infinite; Is* ed. “ immense.” — D.]
[JJ quantity; 1st ed. “ space.” — D.] [§§ indeed; 1st ed. “ only,”— D.]
VOL. III. T
138
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
without end; so as no quantity* can be assigned so vast,
but still a larger may be imagined ; no motion so swift or
languid, but a greater velocity or slowness may still be con¬
ceived; no positive duration of it so long, than which a
longerf may not be supposed: but even that very power
hinders them from being actually infinite. | From whence,
secondly, it follows, that though the world was a million of
times more spacious and ample than even astronomy sup¬
poses it, or yet another million bigger than that, and so on
in infinite progression, yet still they might make the same
exception world without end. For since§ God Almighty
can do all that is possible, and quantity|| hath always a possi¬
bility of being enlarged more and more,^[ he could never
create so ample a world, but still it would be true, that he
could have made a bigger; the fecundity of his creative
power never growing barren, nor ever to be** exhausted.
Now what mayft always be an exception against all possible
worlds, can never be a just one against any whatsoever.
And when they scoffingly demand, Why would this imagi¬
nary Omnipotence make such mean pieces of workmanship ?
what an indigent and impotent thing is his principal crea¬
ture man ! would not boundless beneficence have communi¬
cated his divine perfections in the most eminent degrees ?
they may receive this reply ; that we are far from such
arrogance, as to pretend to the highest dignity, and be the
chief of the whole creation : we believe an invisible world,
and a scale of spiritual beings all nobler than ourselves : nor
yet are we so low and base as their Atheism would depress
us ; not walking statues of clay, not the sons of brute earth,
[* as no quantity; ls£ ed. “ that no space.” — D.]
[f longer ; ls< ed. “ more lasting.” — D.]
[X but even that very power hinders them from being actually infinite ; not
in ls£ ed. — D.]
[§ since ; ls2 ed. “ seeing that.” — D.]
[|| quantity ; ls< ed. “ space.” — D.]
[^f more and more ; 1st ed. “ indefinitely.” — D.]
[** nor ever to be ; lsi ed. “ nor being.” — D.]
[If may; 1st ed. “ might.” — D.]
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
139
whose final inheritance is death and corruption : we carry
the image of God in us, a rational and immortal soul ; and,
though we be now indigent* and feeble, yet we aspire after
eternal happiness, and firmly expect a great exaltation of all
our natural powers. But whatsoeverf was or can be made,
whether angels or archangels , cherubims or seraphimS, whether
thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers, all the glo¬
rious host of heaven, must needs be finite, and imperfect,
and dependent creatures : and God, out of the exceeding
greatness of his power, is still able, without end, to create
higher classes of beings. For where can we put a stop to
the efficacy of the Almighty ? or what can we assign for the
highest of all possible finite perfections ? There can be no
such thing as| an almost infinite ; there can be nothing next
or second to an omnipotent God : Nec viget quicquam simile
aut secundum, v as the heathen poet said excellently well of
the supposed father of gods and men. The infinite distance
between the Creator and the noblest of all creatures can
never be measured nor exhausted by endless addition of
finite degrees. So that no actual creature can ever be the
most perfect of all possible creation. Which shews the folly
of this query, that might always be demanded, let things be
as they will ; that would impiously and absurdly attempt to
tie the arm of Omnipotence from doing any thing at all,
because it can never do its utmost.
II. I proceed now to the second proposition, that neither
matter universally and abstractly considered, nor motion, as
its attribute and property, can have existed from all eternity. §
And to this I shall speak the more briefly, not only because
it is an abstruse and metaphysical speculation, but because
it is of|| far less moment and consequence than the rest:
[* indigent; ls< ed. “miserable.” — D.]
[f But whatsoever ; 1st ed. “ But farther we affirm, that whatsoever.” — D.]
[J thing as ; Is* ed. “ thing or notion as.” — D.] v Horat. Car. i. 12.
[§ nor motion, as its attribute and property, can have existed from all eter¬
nity ; 1st ed. “ nor motion can have endured a past eternity.” — D.]
[|| but because it is of; 1st ed. “but also of.”— I).]
140
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
since* without this we can evince the existence of God from
the origin and frame of the universe. For if the present or a
like system of the world cannot possibly have been eternal ;f
and if without Godw it could neither naturally nor fortuit¬
ously emerge out of a chaos ;X we must necessarily have
recourse to a Deity,x as the contriver and maker of heaven
and earth ; whether we suppose he created them out of
nothing, or had the materials ready eternally to his hand.
But nevertheless, because we are verily persuaded of the
truth of this article, we shall briefly assign some reasons of
our belief, in these following particulars.
First, It is a thing possible , that matter may have been§
produced out of nothing. It is urged as an universal maxim,
that nothing can proceed from nothing . Now this we readily
allow ; and yet it will prove nothing against the possibility
of creation. For, when they say, nothing from nothing,
they must so understand it, as excluding all causes, both
material and efficient. In which sense it is most evidently
and infallibly true ; being equivalent to this proposition, that
nothing can make itself ; or, nothing cannot bring its no¬
self out of nonentity into something. Which only expresses||
thus much, that matter did not produce itself, or, that all
substances did not emerge out of an universal nothing.
Now, who ever talked at that rate ? We do not say, the
world was created from^[ nothing and by nothing ; we assert
an eternal God to have been the efficient cause of it. So
that a creation of the world out of nothing by something,
and by that something that includes in its nature a necessary
existence and perfection of power, is certainly no contradic-
[* than the rest: since ; 1st ed. “ to us than the others: seeing that.” — D.]
[f eternal; lsf ed. “ eternal, by the first proposition.” — D.]
w By the first proposition.
[J chaos ; lsf ed. “ chaos, by the third proposition.” — D.]
x By the third proposition.
[§ a thing possible, that matter may have been; lsf ed. “no contradiction,
that matter should be.” — D.]
[|| expresses; lsi ed. “ proves.” — D.]
cm say, the world was created from; Is* ed. “create the world from.” — D.]
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
141
tion, nor opposes that common maxim. Whence it mani¬
festly follows, that since* God may do any thing that
implies not a contradiction ; if there be such an essence as
God, he may have created matter out of nothing, that is,
have given an existence to matter, whichf had no being
before.
And, secondly, It is very probable, that matter has been%
actually created out of nothing. In a former discourse we
have proved sufficiently/ that human souls are not mere
modification of matter, but real and spiritual substances, that
have as true an existence as our very bodies themselves.
Now, no man, as I conceive, can seriously think that his
own soul hath existed from all eternity. He cannot believe
the stuff or materials of his soul to have been eternal, and
the soul to have been made up of them at the time of his
conception. For a human soul is no compound being; ’tis
not made of particles, as our bodies are, but his one simple
homogeneous essence : neither can he think that the person¬
ality of his soul, with its faculties inherent in it, has existed
eternally; this is against common sense, and it needs no
refutation. Nay, though a man could be so extravagant as
to hold this assertion, that his soul, his personal self, has
been from everlasting, yet even this in the issue would be
destructive to Atheism, since it supposes an eternal Being,
endued with understanding and wisdom. We will take it
then as a thing confessed, that the immaterial souls of men
have been produced out of nothing. § But if God hath
[* since; Is# ed. “ seeing.” — D.]
[f that is, have given an existence to matter, which ; 1 st ed. “ or given that
an existence, that.” — D.]
[+ And, secondly, It is very probable, that matter has been ; lsf ed. “ Secondly,
some things have been.” — D.]
y Serm. ii.
[§ Now, no man, as I conceive, . that the immaterial souls of men
have been produced out of nothing ; Isi ed. “ Now, no man in his wits can seri¬
ously think, that his own soul hath existed from all eternity ; not the stuff or
matter of it, for it is no compound being; not the personality of it, as I appeal
to common sense : and if a man could believe that his personal soul hath been
142
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
actually created those intelligent substances that have such
nobility and excellency of being above* brute senseless
matter, ’tis pervicaciousness to deny that he created matter
also : unless they’ll say, necessary existence is includedf in
the very essence and idea of matter.
But! matter doth not include in its nature a necessity of
existence. For human§ souls, as is proved before, have been
actually created, and consequently have not necessary exist¬
ence included in their essence. Now can any man|| believe,
that his^[ spiritual soul, that understands, and judges, and
invents, endowed with those divine faculties of sense,
memory, and reason, hath a dependent and precarious being
created and preserved by another ; while** the particles of
this dead ink and paper haveff been necessarily eternal and
uncreated?!! ^Tis against natural reason; and no one,
while he contemplates an individual body, can discern that
necessity of its existence. §§ But men have been taught to
believe that extension or space, and body, are both the||||
selfsame thing. So that because they cannot imagine, how
space can either begin or cease to exist, they presently con¬
clude, that extended infinite matter must needs be eternal.
But I shall fully prove hereafter,2 that body and space or dis-
from everlasting, such an opinion would be as destructive to atheism, as to
concede the contrary now. So that the spiritual souls of men have confessedly
been produced out of nothing.” — D.]
[* excellency of being above ; 1st ed. “ excellency above.” — D.]
[f unless they’ll say, necessary existence is included; lit ed. “ unless neces¬
sary existence be included.” — D.]
[J But; lit ed. “ Thirdly.” — D.]
[§ For human; lit ed. “ Human.” — D.]
[|| any man ; lit ed. “ I.” — D.] [^[ his ; 1st ed. “ my.” — D.]
[** and invents ; endowed with those divine faculties of sense, memory,
and reason; hath a dependent and precarious being created and preserved by
another ; while ; lit ed. “ and invents, &c. ; hath notwithstanding a dependent
and precarious being ; while.” — D.]
[ft have; so other eds. ; ed. 1735. “hath.” — D.]
[IJ uncreated ; 1st ed. “ uncreate.” — D.]
[§§ that necessity of its existence. But; 1st ed. “such a necessity. But.” — D.j
[|||| are bpth the ; 1st ed. “ are the.” — D.j
[1f*|f be eternal; 1st ed. “ eternally have a being.” — D.] z Scrm. vii.
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
143
tance are quite different things, and that a vacuity is inter¬
spersed among the particles of matter, and such a one as
hath a vastly larger extension than all the matter of the
universe. Which now being supposed, they ought to* abstract
their imagination from that false infinite extension, and con¬
ceive one particle of matter surrounded on all sides with
vacuity, and contiguous to no other body. And whereasf
formerly they fancied an immense boundless space, as an
homogeneous one, which great individual they believed
might deserve the attribute of necessary existence ; let them
now please to imagine one| solitary atom that hath no
dependence on the rest of the world, and is no more sus¬
tained in being by other matter, than it could be created by
it; and then I would ask the question,§ whether this poor
atom, sluggish and unactive as it is, doth involve necessity
of existence, the first and highest of all perfections, in its
particular nature and notion ? I dare presume for the nega¬
tive in the judgments of all serious men. And I observe
the Epicureans take much pains to convince us,a that in
natural corruptions and dissolutions, atoms are not reduced
to nothing ; which surely would be needless, if the very idea
of atoms imported self-existence. And yet if one atom do
not include so much in its notion and essence, all atoms
put together, that is, all the matter of the universe, cannot||
include it. So that, upon the whole matter, since^f creation
is no contradiction; since** God hath certainly created
nobler substances than matter ; and sincett matter is not
necessarily eternal; it is most reasonable to believe, that
[* ought to ; 1st ed. “ must.” — D.]
[f body. And whereas ; 1st ed. “ body. So that all other matter is divided
and distinct from it by the very supposition. And hence it appears, that
whereas.” — D.]
[+ let them now please to imagine one ; 1st ed. “ now the whole question is
about one.” — D.]
[§ and then I would ask the question ; not in 1st ed. — D.]
» Lucret. lib. i. [II cannot; 1st ed. “ does not.” — D.]
[^[ since; 1st ed. “ seeing that.”— D.]
[** since; 1st ed. “ that.” — D.] [ft since; 1st ed. “that.” — D.]
144
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VI.
the eternal and self-existent God created the material world,*
and produced it out of nothing. f
And then, as to the last proposition, that motion, as an
attribute or property of matter, cannot have been from eter¬
nity. That we may wave! some metaphysical arguments,
which demonstrate that local motion cannot be positively
eternal ; we shall only observe, in two words, that if matter
be not essentially eternal, as we have shewed before, much
less can motion be, that is but the adjunct and accident of
it. Nay, though we should concede an eternity to matter;
yet why must motion be coeval with it ? which is not only
not inherent and essential to matter, but may be produced
and destroyed at the pleasure of free agents ; both which are
flatly repugnant to an eternal and necessary duration. I am
aware how some have asserted, that the same quantity of
motion is always kept up in the world ; which may seem to
favour the opinion of its infinite duration : but that asser¬
tion § doth solely depend upon an absolute plenum ; which
being refuted in my next discourse, || it will then appear how
absurd and false that conceit is, about the same quantity of
motion; how easily disproved from that power in human souls
to excite motion when they please, and from the gradual^
[* world; 1st ed. “ world also.” — D.]
[f nothing; after this word the 1st ed. has the following paragraph :
“ And fourthly, it will be allowed as true by all those that can reach these
speculations, That whatsoever hath not necessarily an eternal self-existence
included in its very nature and definition (which we have proved matter hath
not), cannot have been actually self-existent from eternity: so that finally
there is not only a great inducement from its probability and reasonableness,
but a downright necessity of admitting the creation of the world.” — D.]
[I And then, as to the last proposition, that motion, as an attribute or pro¬
perty of matter, cannot have been from eternity. That we may wave ; 1st ed.
“ And then fifthly, as to motion, that we may wave.” — D.]
[§ assertion; 1st ed. “ fancy.” — D.]
[|| next discourse ; 1st ed. “ next.” — D.]
[^[ that conceit is, about the same quantity of motion ; how easily disproved
from that power in human souls to excite motion when they please, and from
the gradual ; 1st ed. “ that conceit is, how easily disproved from the motive
power of souls embodied, and the gradual.” — D.]
SERM. VI.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
145
increase of men and other animals, and many arguments
besides. Therefore let this also be concluded, that motion
has not been eternal* in an infinite past duration : which
was the last thingf to he proved.
[# lias not been eternal ; 1st ed. “cannot have subsisted.” — D.]
[f the last thing ; ls£ ed. “ the thing.” — D.]
vol,. in-
u
CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM
FROM THE
ORIGIN AND FRAME OF THE WORLD.
PART II.
SERMON VII.
Preached November the 7th, 1692.
Acts, xiv. 15, &c.
That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God,
who made heaven and earth , and the sea, and all things
that are therein : who in times past suffered all nations to
walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he left not himself
without witness , in that he did good, and gave us rain
from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with
food and gladness.
When we first entered upon this topic, the demonstration
of God’s existence from the origin and frame of the world,
we offered to prove four propositions.
I. That this present system of heaven and earth cannot
possibly have subsisted from all eternity.
II. That matter considered generally, and abstractly from
any particular form and concretion, cannot possibly have
been eternal; or, if matter could be so, yet motion cannot
have coexisted with it eternally, as an inherent property and
essential attribute of matter. These two we have already
established in the preceding discourse ; we shall now shew,
in the third place,
III. That, though we should allow the Atheists, that
SERM. VII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
147
matter and motion may have been from everlasting ; yet if
(as they now suppose) there were once no sun, nor stars,
nor earthy nor planets, but the particles that now constitute
them were diffused in the mundane space in manner of a
chaos, without any concretion or* coalition ; those dispersed
particles could never of themselves, by any kind of natural
motion, whether called fortuitous or mechanical, have con¬
vened into this present or any other like frame of heaven
and earth.
1. And first, as to that ordinary cant of illiterate and
puny Atheists, the fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms,
that compendious and easy despatch of the most important
and difficult affair, the formation of a world (besides that
in our next undertaking it will be refuted all along) ; I shall
now briefly despatch it, from what hath been formerly said
concerning the true notions of fortune and chance.b Whereby
it is evident, that in the atheistical hypothesis of the world’s
production, fortuitous and mechanical must be the self-same
thing. Because fortune is no real entity nor physical essence,
but a mere relative signification, denoting only this ; that
such a thing said to fall out by fortune was really effected
by material and necessary causes, but the person, with
regard to whom it is called fortuitous, was ignorant of those
causes or their tendencies, and did not design orf foresee
such an effect. This is the only allowable and genuine
notion of the word fortune. But thus to affirm, that the
world was made fortuitously , is as much as to say, that
before the world was made, there was some intelligent agent
or spectator, who, designing to do something else, or expect¬
ing that something else would be done with the materials of
the world, there were some occult and unknown motions
and tendencies in matter, which mechanically formed the
world beside his design or expectation. Now the Atheists,
we may presume, will be loath to assert a fortuitous formation
in this proper sense and meaning, whereby they will make
[# or; 1st ed. “ and.” — D.] b Serm. v.
[f or; 1st ed. “nor.” — D.]
148
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VII.
understanding to be older than heaven and earth. Or if
they should so assert it, yet, unless they will affirm that the
intelligent agent did dispose and direct the inanimate matter
(which is what we would bring them to), they must still
leave their atoms to their mechanical affections ; not able to
make one step toward the production of a world beyond the
necessary laws of motion. It is plain, then, that fortune , as to
the matter before us, is but a synonymous word with nature and
necessity. It remains that we examine the adequate mean¬
ing of chance ;c which properly signifies, that all events called
casual, among inanimate bodies, are mechanically and natu¬
rally produced according to the determinate figures, and
textures, and motions of those bodies ; with this negation
only, that those inanimate bodies are not conscious of their
own operations, nor contrive and cast about how to bring
such events to pass. So that thus to say, that the world
was made casually by the concourse of atoms, is no more
than to affirm, that the atoms composed the world mechani¬
cally and fatally; only they were not sensible of it, nor
studied and considered about so noble an undertaking. For
if atoms formed the world according to the essential proper¬
ties of bulk, figure, and motion, they formed it mechanically ;
and if they formed it mechanically without perception and
design, they formed it casually. So that this negation of
consciousness being all that the notion of chance can add to
that of mechanism, we, that do not dispute this matter with
the Atheists, nor believe that atoms ever acted by counsel
and thought, may have leave to consider the several names
of fortune , and chance , and nature , and mechanism , as one
and the same hypothesis. Wherefore, once for all to over¬
throw all possible explications which Atheists have or may
assign for the formation of the world, we will undertake to
evince this following proposition :
2. That the atoms or particles which now constitute
heaven and earth, being once separate and diffused in the
mundane space, like the supposed chaos , could never, without
c Serm. v.
SERM. VII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
149
a God, by their mechanical affections, have convened into this
present frame of things, or any other like it.
Which that we may perform with the greater clearness
and conviction, it will be necessary, in a discourse about the
formation of the world, to give you a brief account of some
of the most principal and systematical phenomena that occur
in the world now that it is formed.
(1.) The most considerable phenomenon belonging to ter*
restrial bodies is the general action of gravitation, whereby
all known bodies in the vicinity of the earth do tend and
press towards its centre ; not only such as are sensibly and
evidently heavy, but even those that are comparatively the
lightest, and even in their proper place and natural ele¬
ments (as they usually speak) ; as air gravitates even in air,
and water in water. This hath been demonstrated and
experimentally proved beyond contradiction, by several in¬
genious persons of the present age ; but by none so perspicu¬
ously, and copiously, and accurately, as by the honourable
founder of this Lecture, d in his incomparable Treatises of
the Air and Hydrostatics.
(2.) Now this is the constant property of gravitation,
that the weight of all bodies around the earth is ever pro¬
portional to the quantity of their matter : as, for instance, a
pound weight (examined hydrostatically) of all kinds of
bodies, though of the most different forms and textures,
doth always contain an equal quantity of solid mass or cor¬
poreal substance. This is the ancient doctrine of the Epicu¬
rean physiology,6 then and since very probably indeed, but
yet precariously asserted : but it is lately demonstrated and
put beyond controversy by that very excellent and divine
theorist, Mr. Isaac Newton/ to whose most admirable saga¬
city and industry we shall frequently be obliged in this and
the following discourse.
I will not entertain this auditory with an account of the
d Mr. Boyle’s Physicom. Exp. of Air, Hydrostat. Paradoxes.
e Lucret. lib. i.
1 Newton. Philos. Natur. Princ, Math. lib. iii. prop. 6.
150
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VII.
demonstration ; but referring the curious to the hook itself
for full satisfaction, I shall now proceed and build upon it as
a truth solidly established, that all bodies weigh according to
their matter ; provided only that the compared bodies be at
equal distances from the centre toward which they weigh.
Because the further they are removed from the centre, the
lighter they are ; decreasing gradually and uniformly in
weight, in a duplicate proportion to the increase of the dis¬
tance.
(3.) Now since gravity is found proportional to the quan¬
tity of matter, there is a manifest necessity of admitting a va¬
cuum, another principal doctrine of the atomical philosophy.
Because if there were every where an absolute plenitude and
density, without any empty pores and interstices between
the particles of bodies, then all bodies of equal dimensions
would contain an equal quantity of matter, and conse¬
quently, as we have shewed before, would be equally pon¬
derous ; so that gold, copper, stone, wood, &c., would have
all the same specific weight, which experience assures us
they have not : neither would any of them descend in the
air, as we all see they do ; because, if all space was full,
even the air would be as dense and specifically as heavy as
they. If it be said, that, though the difference of specific
gravity may proceed from variety of texture, the lighter
bodies being of a more loose and porous composition, and
the heavier more dense and compact ; yet an ethereal subtile
matter, which is in a perpetual motion, may penetrate and
pervade the minutest and inmost cavities of the closest
bodies, and adapting itself to the figure of every pore, may
adequately fill them, and so prevent all vacuity, without
increasing the weight : to this we answer, that that subtile
matter itself must be of the same substance and nature with
all other matter, and therefore it also must weigh propor¬
tionally to its bulk; and as much of it as at any time is
comprehended within the pores of a particular body must
gravitate jointly with that body ; so that if the presence of
this ethereal matter made an absolute fulness, all bodies of
SERM. vn.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
151
equal dimensions would be equally heavy : which being re¬
futed by experience, it necessarily follows, that there is a
vacuity ; and that (notwithstanding some little objections,
full of cavil and sophistry) mere and simple extension or
space hath a quite different nature and notion from real
body and impenetrable substance.
(4.) This, therefore, being established ; in the next place,
it’s of great consequence to our present inquiry, if we can
make a computation, how great is the whole sum of the
void spaces in our system, and what proportion it bears to
the corporeal substance. By many and accurate trials^ it
manifestly appears, that refined gold, the most ponderous of
known bodies (though even that must be allowed to be
porous too, because it’s* dissoluble in mercury, and aqua
regis, and other chymical liquors, and because it’st natu¬
rally a thing impossible that the figures and sizes of its con¬
stituent particles should be so justly adapted as to touch
one another in every point), I say, gold is in specific weight
to common water as 19 to 1 ; and water to common air as
850 to 1 : so that gold is to air as 16,150 to 1. Whence it
clearly appears, seeing matter and gravity are always com¬
mensurate, that (though we should allow the texture of gold
to be entirely close, without any vacuity) the ordinary air in
which we live and respire is of so thin a composition, that
16,149 parts of its dimensions are mere emptiness and
nothing, and the remaining one only material and real sub¬
stance. But if gold itself be admitted, as it must be, for
a porous concrete, the proportion of void to body in the
texture of common air will be so much the greater. And
thus it is in the lowest and densest region of the air near the
surface of the earth, where the whole mass of air is in a state
of violent compression, the inferior being pressed and consti¬
pated by the weight of all the incumbent. But, since the
air is now certainly known to consist of elastic or springy
s Mr. Boyle, of Air and Porosity of Bodies.
[* because it’s ; 1st ed. “ being.” — D.]
[f because it’s ; 1st ed. “ being.” — D.]
152
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VII.
particles,11 that have a continual tendency and endeavour to
expand and display themselves ; and the dimensions, to
which they expand themselves, to be reciprocally as the
compression ; it follows, that the higher you ascend in it,
where it is less and less compressed by the superior air, the
more and more it is rarefied. So that at the height of a few
miles from the surface of the earth, it is computed to have
some million parts of empty space in its texture for one of
solid matter. And at the height of one terrestrial semi¬
diameter (not above four thousand miles), the ether is of
that wonderful tenuity, that, by an exact calculation,1 if a
small sphere of common air of one inch diameter (already
16,149 parts nothing) should be further expanded to the
thinness of that ether, it would more than take up the vast
orb of Saturn, which is many million million times bigger
than the whole globe of the earth. And yet, the higher you
ascend above that region, the rarefaction still gradually in¬
creases without stop or limit : so that, in a word, the whole
concave of the firmament, except the sun and planets and
their atmospheres, may be considered as a mere void. Let us
allow, then, that all the matter of the system of our sun may
be 50,000 times as much as the whole mass of the earth ;
and we appeal to astronomy, if we are not liberal enough
and even prodigal in this concession. And let us suppose
further, that the whole globe of the earth is entirely solid
and compact, without any void interstices ; notwithstanding
what hath been shewed before, as to the texture of gold
itself. Now, though we have made such ample allowances,
we shall find, notwithstanding, that the void space of our
system is immensely bigger than all its corporeal mass.
For, to proceed upon our supposition, that all the matter
within the firmament is 50,000 times bigger than the solid
globe of the earth; if we assume the diameter of the orbis
magnus (wherein the earth moves about the sun) to be only
7,000 times as big as the diameter of the earth, (though the
h Mr. Boyle, ibid.
‘ Newton. Philos. Nat. Principia Math. p. 503.
SERM. VII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
153
latest and most accurate observations make it thrice 7>000),
and the diameter of the firmament to be only 100,000 times
as long as the diameter of the orbis magnus (though it can¬
not possibly be less than that, but may be vastly and un¬
speakably bigger), we must pronounce, after such large
concessions on that side, and such great abatements on
ours, that the sum of empty spaces within the concave of
the firmament is 6,860 million million million times bigger
than all the matter contained in it.
Now, from hence we are enabled to form a right concep¬
tion and imagination of the supposed chaos, and then
we may proceed to determine the controversy with more
certainty and satisfaction, whether a world like the present
could possibly without a divine influence be formed in it,
or no ?
1. And first, because every fixed star is supposed by
astronomers to be of the same nature with our sun, and
each may very possibly have planets about them, though,
by reason of their vast distance, they be invisible to us ; we
will assume this reasonable supposition, that the same pro¬
portion of void space to matter, which is found in our sun’s
region within the sphere of the fixed stars, may competently
well hold in the whole mundane space. I am aware that in
this computation we must not assign the whole capacity of
that sphere for the region of our sun, but allow half of its
diameter for the radii of the several regions of the next
fixed stars ; so that, diminishing our former number, as this
last consideration requires, we may safely affirm, from certain
and demonstrated principles, that the empty space of our
solar region (comprehending half of the diameter of the
firmament) is 8,575 hundred thousand million million times
more ample than all the corporeal substance in it. And we
may fairly suppose, that the same proportion may hold
through the whole extent of the universe.
2. And secondly, as to the state or condition of matter
before the world was a-making, which is compendiously
expressed by the word chaos ; they must either suppose, that
VOL. in. x
154
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VII.
the matter of our solar system* was evenly , or well-nigh
evenly, diffused through the region of the sun, whichf would
represent a particular chaos ; or that all matter universally
was so spreadj through the whole mundane .space, which
would truly exhibit a general chaos ; no part of the universe
being rarer or denser than another. And this is agreeable
to the ancient description of chaos,§ that the heavens and
earth had jilav ISeav, yblav /xopcprjv, one form , one texture
and constitution ;J which could not be, unless all the mun¬
dane matter were uniformly and evenly diffused. ’Tis in¬
different to our dispute, whether they suppose it to have
continued a long time or very little in the state of diffusion.
For, if there were|| but one single moment in all past eter¬
nity, when matter was so diffused, we shall plainly and fully
prove, that it could never have convened afterwards into the
present frame and order of things.
3. It is evident from what we have newly proved, that in
the supposition of such a chaos, or such an even diffusion
either of the whole mundane matter, or that of our system
(for it matters not which they assume), every single particle
would have a sphere of void space around it 8,575 hundred
thousand million million times bigger than the dimensions of
that particle. Nay, further, though the proportion already
appear so immense, yet every single particle would really be
surrounded with a void sphere eight times as capacious as
that newly mentioned, its diameter being compounded of
the diameter of the proper sphere, and the semi-diameters
of the contiguous spheres of the neighbouring particles.
[* they must either suppose, that the matter of our solar system ; 1st ed.
“ they must suppose, that either all the matter of our system.” — D.]
[f which ; lit ed. “ this.” — D.]
[+ or that all matter universally was so spread ; lit ed. “ or all matter uni¬
versally so spread.” — D.]
[§ And this is agreeable to the ancient description of chaos ; lit ed. “ Which
is agreeable to the ancient description of it.” — D.]
i Diod. Sicul. lib. i. [t. i. p. 10. ed. Wessel. — D.] Karci apxys ruv S\a>v
ffvtTTaffiv p.'iav exeiv ‘SeW ovpaviv re Kal yr\v, p.ep.iyp.evr)s avrCbv rrjs (pvffews. Apoll.
Rhodius, lib. i. [496. — D.] “'HetSev 8’ ws yata Kal ovpavbs rjSe 6d\affcra, T8 trplv eV
a\\4\\oi Lucret. [v. 204. — D.] Et mare, quod late terrarum distinct oras.
192
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VIII.
incredible at first hearing/ that all the blood in our bodies
should circulate in a trice, in a very few minutes ; but I
believe it would be more surprising, if we knew the short and
swift periods of the great circulation of water, that vital blood
of tbe earth, which composeth and nourisheth all things. If
we could but compute that prodigious mass of it that is daily
thrown into the channel of the sea from all the rivers of the
world, we should then know and admire how much is per¬
petually evaporated and cast again upon the continents,
to supply those innumerable streams. And, indeed, hence
we may discover, not only the use and necessity, but the
cause too of the vastness of the ocean. I never yet heard
of any nation that complained they had too broad, or too
deep, or too many rivers ; or wished they were either smaller
or fewer; they understand better than so, how to value
and esteem those inestimable gifts of nature. Now, sup¬
posing that the multitude and largeness of rivers ought to
continue as great as now, we can easily prove that the extent
of the ocean could be no less than it is. For itJs evident
and necessary, (if we follow the most fair and probable hypo¬
thesis, that the origin of fountains is from vapours and rain)
that the receptacle of waters, into which the mouths of all
those rivers must empty themselves, ought to have so spa¬
cious a surface, that as much water may be continually brushed
off by the winds, and exhaled by the sun, as (besides what
falls again in showers upon its own surface) is brought into it
by all the rivers. Now the surface of the ocean is just so wide,
and no wider ; for, if more was evaporated than returns into
it again, the sea would become less ; if less was evaporated, it
would grow bigger. So that, because since the memory of
all ages it hath continued at a stand, without considerable
variation, and if it hath gained ground upon one country,
hath lost as much in another ; it must consequently be exactly
proportioned to the present constitution of rivers. How rash,
therefore, and vain are those busy projectors in speculation,
that imagine they could recover to the world many new and
noble countries, in the most happy and temperate climates,
without any damage to the old ones, could this same mass of
SERM. VIII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
193
the ocean be lodged and circumscribed in a much deeper
channel, and within narrower shores ! For, by how much they
would diminish the present extent of the sea, so much they
would impair the fertility, and fountains, and rivers of the
earth ; because the quantity of vapours, that must be exhaled
to supply all these, would be lessened proportionally to the
bounds of the ocean ; for the vapours are not to be measured
from the bulk of the water, but from the space of the surface.
So that this also doth infer the superlative wisdom and good¬
ness of God, that he hath treasured up the waters in so deep
and spacious a storehouse, the place that he hath founded and
appointed for them.0
X. But some mend are out of love with the features and
mien of our earth ; they do not like this rugged and irregular
surface, these precipices and valleys, and the gaping channel
of the ocean. This with them is deformity, and rather car¬
ries the face of a ruin, or a rude and indigested lump of atoms
that casually convened so, than a work of divine artifice.
They would have the vast body of a planet to be as elegant
and round as a factitious globe represents it; to be every
where smooth and equable, and as plain as the Elysian fields.
Let us examine what weighty reasons they have to disparage
the present constitution of nature in so injurious a manner.
Why, if we suppose the ocean to be dry, and that we look
down upon the empty channel from some higher region of the
air, how horrid, and ghastly, and unnatural would it look !
Now, admitting this supposition, let us suppose too that the
soil of this dry channel were* covered with grass and trees in
c Psal. civ.
d Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatam
Naturam rerum, tanta stat praedita culpa.
Principio, quantum cceli tegit impetus ingens,
Inde avidam partem montes sylvaeque ferarum
Possedere ; tenent rupes, vastaeque paludes,
Et mare, quod late terrarum distinet oras. — Lucret. lib. v.
[199. — In the first line of this passage the vulgar reading is ... , “esse para-
lam.” Bentley gives “ creatam ” from lib. ii. 180. where the line occurs with that
variation. — D.j
(_* were ; ls< ed. “ is.” — D.]
VOL. III. 2 c
194
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VIII.
manner of the continent, and then see what would follow.
If a man could be carried asleep and placed in the very mid¬
dle of this dry ocean, it must be allowed that he could not
distinguish it from the inhabited earth. For if the bottom
should be unequal, with shelves, and rocks, and precipices,
and gulfs ; these, being now apparelled with a vesture of
plants, would only resemble the mountains and valleys that
he was accustomed to before. But very probably he would
wake in a large and smooth plain : for though the bottom of the
sea were gradually inclined and sloping from the shore to the
middle, yet the additional acclivity, above what a level would
seem to have, would be imperceptible in so short a prospect as
he could take of it : so that, to make this man sensible what
a deep cavity he was placed in, he must be carried so high in
the air till he could see at one view the whole breadth of the
channel, and so compare the depression of the middle with
the elevation of the banks. But then a very small skill in
mathematics is enough to instruct us, that before he could
arrive to that distance from the earth, all the inequality of
surface would be lost to his view; the wide ocean would appear
to him like an even and uniform plane, (uniform as to its
level, though not as to light and shade,) though every rock
of the sea was as high as the Pico of Teneriff. But, though
we should grant that the dry gulf of the ocean would appear
vastly hollow and horrible from the top of a high cloud, yet
what a way of reasoning is this, from the freaks of imagination
and impossible suppositions ! Is the sea ever likely to be eva¬
porated by the sun, or to be emptied with buckets ? Why then
must we fancy this impossible dryness, and then upon that
fictitious account calumniate nature as deformed and ruinous,
and unworthy of a divine Author ? Is there then any physical
deformity in the fabric of a human body, because our ima¬
gination can strip it of its muscles and skin, and shew us the
scragged and knotty backbone, the gaping and ghastly jaws,
and all the skeleton underneath ? We have shewed before,
that the sea could not be much narrower than it is, without
a great loss to the world : and must we now have an ocean
SERM. VIII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
195
of mere flats and shallows, to the utter ruin of navigation,
for fear our heads should turn giddy at the imagination of
gaping abysses and unfathomable gulfs ? But however, they
may say, the sea-shores at least might* have been even and
uniform, not crooked and broken, as they are, into innu¬
merable angles, and creeks, and inlets, and bays, without
beauty or order, which carry the marks more of chance and
confusion than of the production of a wise Creator. And
would not this bef a fine bargain indeed ? to part with all our
commodious ports and harbours, which, the greater the inlet
is, are so much the better, for the imaginary pleasure of an
open and straight shore, without any retreat or shelter from
the winds ; which would make the sea of no use at all as to
navigation and commerce. But what apology can we make
for the horrid deformity of rocks and crags, of naked and
broken cliffs, of long ridges of barren mountains, in the con-
venientest latitudes for habitation and fertility, could but
those;]; rude heaps of rubbish and ruins be removed out of the
way? We have one general and sufficient answer for all
seeming defects or disorders in the constitution of land or
sea ; that we do not contend to have the earth pass for a
paradise, or to make a vei'y heaven of our globe ; we reckon
it only as the land of our 'peregrination , and aspire after a
better and a celestial country. e *Tis enough, if it be so framed
and constituted, that by a careful contemplation of it we have
great reason to acknowledge and adore the divine wisdom
and benignity of its Author. But, to wave this general reply,
let the objectors consider, that these supposed irregularities
must necessarily§ come to pass from the established laws of
mechanism and the ordinary course of nature. For, suppos¬
ing the existence of sea and mountains, if the banks of that
[* But however, they may say, the sea-shores at least might ; 1st ed. “ But,
however, the sea-shores at least should.” — D.]
[f Creator. And would not this be ; Is* ed. “ Creator. This would
be.” — D.]
[ X could but those ; Is* ed. “could those.” — D.] * Heb. xi.
[§ must necessarily ; Is* ed. “ must have necessarily.” — D.]
196
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VIII.
sea must never be jagged and torn by the impetuous assaults
or the silent underminings of waves ; if violent rains and
tempests must not wash down the earth and gravel from the
tops of some of those mountains, and expose their naked ribs
to the face of the sun ; if the seeds of subterraneous minerals
must not ferment, and sometimes cause earthquakes and furi¬
ous eruptions of volcanos, and tumble down broken rocks,
and lay them in confusion ; then either all things must have
been overruled miraculously by the immediate interposition
of God, without any mechanical affections or settled laws
of nature, or else the body of the earth must have been as
fixed as gold, or as hard as adamant, and wholly unfit for
human* habitation. So that if it was good in the sight of
God,f that the present plants and animals, and human souls
united to flesh and blood, should be upon this earth under a
settled constitution of nature ; these supposed inconveniences,
as they were foreseen and permitted by the Author of that
nature, as necessary consequences of such a constitution, so
they cannot infer the least imperfection in his wisdom and
goodness : and to murmur at them is as unreasonable as to
complain that he hath made us men, and not angels ; that he
hath placed us upon this planet, and not upon some other,
in this or another system, which may be thought better than
ours. Let them also consider, that this objected deformity is
in our imaginations only, and not really in thingsf them¬
selves. There is no universal reason (I mean such as is not
confined to human fancy, but will reach through the whole
intellectual universe,) that a figure by us called regular, which
hath equal sides and angles, is absolutely more beautiful than
any irregular one. All pulchritude is relative ; and all bodies
are truly and physically beautiful under all possible shapes
and proportions, that are good in their kind, that are fit for
their proper uses and ends of their natures. We ought not
then to believe that the hanks of the ocean are really deformed,
because they have not the form of a regular bulwark ; nor
[* human ; 1st ed. “ our.” — D.] 1 Gen. i.
[t in things; Is* ed . “in the things.” — D.]
SERM. VIII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
197
that the mountains are out of shape,* because they are not
exact pyramids or cones ; nor that the stars are unskilfully
placed^ because they are not all situated at uniform distance. t
These are not natural irregularities, but with respect to our
fancies only ; nor are they incommodious to the true uses of
life and the designs of man’s being on the earth. And let
them further consider,! that these ranges of barren moun¬
tains, by condensing the vapours, and producing rains, and
fountains, and rivers, give the very plains and valleys them¬
selves that fertility they boast of ; that those hills§ and moun¬
tains supply us and the stock of nature with a great variety
of excellent plants. If there were no inequalities in the sur¬
face of the earth, nor in the seasons of the year, we should
lose a considerable share of the vegetable kingdom : for all
plants will not grow in an uniform level and the same temper
of soil, nor with the same degree of heat. Nay, let them
lastly consider, || that to those hills and mountains we are ob¬
liged for all our metals, and with them for all the conveniences
and comforts of life. To deprive us of metals is to make us
mere savages ; to change our corn or rice for the old Arca¬
dian diet, our houses and cities for dens and caves, and our
clothing for skins of beasts ; ’tis to bereave us of all arts and
sciences, of history and letters ; nay, of revealed religion too,
that inestimable favour of heaven : for, without the benefit of
letters, the whole Gospel would be a mere^[ tradition and
old cabbala, without certainty, without authority. Who
would part with these solid and substantial blessings for the
little fantastical pleasantness of a smooth uniform convexity
[* out of shape ; 1st ed. “ mishapen.” — D.]
[f distance; 1st ed. “ distances.” — D.]
[J earth. And let them further consider; 1st ed. “earth. Let them con- ,
sider.” — D.]
[§ boast of; that those hills; 1st ed. “boast of. Let them consider that
those hills.” — D.J
[|| heat. Nay, let them lastly consider; 1st ed. “ heat. Let them con¬
sider.” — D.]
[^| heaven ; for, without the benefit of letters, the whole Gospel would be a
mere; 1st ed. “by making the whole Gospel a mere.” — D.]
198
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VIII.
and rotundity of a globe ? And yet the misfortune of it is,
that the pleasant view of their* imaginary globe, as well as
the deformed spectacle of ourf true one, is founded upon im¬
possible suppositions. For thatj equal convexity could never
be seen and enjoyed by any man living. The inhabitants of
such an earth could have only the short prospect of a little
circular plane about three miles around them ; though neither
woods, nor hedges, nor artificial banks, should intercept it ;
which little, too, would appear to have an acclivity on all
sides from the spectators j so that every man would have the
displeasure§ of fancying himself the lowest, and that he always
dwelt and moved in a bottom. Nay, considering that in such
a constitution of the earth they could have no means nor in¬
struments of mathematical knowledge, there is great reason
to believe, that the period of the final dissolution might over¬
take them, ere they would have known or had any suspicion
that they walked upon a round ball. Must we, therefore, to
make this convexity of the earth discernible to the eye, sup¬
pose a man to be lifted up a great height in the air, that he
may have a very spacious horizon under one view ? But then,
again, because of the distance, the convexity and gibbousness
would vanish away ; he would only see below him a great cir¬
cular flat, as level, to his thinking, as the face of the moon.
Are there then such ravishing charms in a dull, unvaried
flat, to make a sufficient compensation for the chief things of
the ancient mountains , and for the precious things of the last¬
ing hills Nay, we appeal to the sentence of mankind, if
a land of hills and valleys has not more pleasure too, and
beauty, than an uniform flat ? which flat, if ever|| it may be
said to be very delightful, is then only, when ’tis viewed from
[* their; lit ed. “ this.” — D.] [f our; lit ed. “ the.” — D.]
[J that; lit ed. “ this.” — D.]
[§ displeasure; lit ed. “ satisfaction.” — D.]
e Deut. xxxiii. 15.
[|| valleys has not more pleasure too, and heauty, than an uniform flat ? which
flat, if ever; lit ed. “valleys, with an infinite variety of scenes and prospects,
besides the profit that accrues from it, have not more of heauty too, and plea¬
santness, than a wide uniform plain ; which if ever.” — D.]
SERM. VIII.
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
199
the top of a hill. What were the Tempe of Thessaly,11 so
celebrated in ancient story for their unparalleled pleasantness,
but a vale divided with a river and terminated with hills ?
Are not all the descriptions of poets embellished with such
ideas, when they would represent any places of superlative
delight, any* blissful seats of the Muses or the Nymphs, any
sacred habitations of gods or goddesses ? They will never
admit that a wide flat can be pleasant, no, not in the very
Elysian fields but these, f too, must be diversified with de¬
pressed valleys and swelling ascents. They cannot imagine
even Paradise to be a place of pleasure, k nor heaven itself to
be heaven without them.1 Let this, therefore, be another
argument of the divine wisdom and goodness, that the sur¬
face of the earth is not uniformly convex, (as many think it
would naturally have been, if mechanically formed by a
chaos,) but distinguished with mountains and valleys, and fur¬
rowed from pole to pole with the deep channel of the sea ;
and that, because of the to /3eA/rtW, it is better that it should
be so.
Give me leave to make one short inference from what has
been said, which shall finish this present discourse, and with
it our task for the year. We have clearly discovered many
final causes and characters of wisdom and contrivance in the
frame of the inanimate world ; as well as in the organical
fabric of the bodies of animals. Now, from hence ariseth a
new and invincible argument, that the present frame of the
h Vide A21ian. Var. Hist. lib. iii. [cap. i. — D.] [* any ; lit ed. “ and.” — D.]
* At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti. Virg. A2n. vi. [679. — D.]
Et ibid. [676. — D.] Hoc superate jugum.
Et ibid. [754. — D.] Et tumulum capit.
[f these ; lstf ed. “ those.” — D.]
k Flowers worthy of paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
Pour’d forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.
Paradise Lost, lib. iv. [241, — D.]
1 For earth hath this variety from heaven
Of pleasure situate in hill and dale. Ibid. lib. vi. [640. — D.]
200
A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM.
SERM. VIII.
world hath not existed from all eternity. For such an use¬
fulness of things, or a fitness of means to ends, as neither
proceeds from the necessity of their beings, nor can happen
to them by chance, doth necessarily infer that there was an
intelligent Being, which was the author and contriver of that
usefulness. We have formerly demonstrated,111 that the body
of a man, which consists of an incomprehensible variety of
parts, all admirably fitted to their peculiar functions and the
conservation of the whole, could no more be formed fortui¬
tously than the JEneis of Virgil, or any other long poem with
good sense and just measures, could be composed by the
casual combinations of letters. Now, to pursue this compa¬
rison ; as it is utterly impossible to be believed, that such a
poem may have been eternal, transcribed from copy to copy
without any first author and original ; so it is equally incre¬
dible and impossible, that the fabric of human bodies, which
hath such excellent and divine artifice, and, if I may so say,
such good sense, and true syntax, and harmonious measures
in its constitution, should be propagated and transcribed
from father to son without a first parent and creator of it.
An eternal usefulness of things, an eternal good sense, cannot
possibly be conceived without an eternal wisdom and under¬
standing. But that can be no other than that eternal and
omnipotent God, that by wisdom hath founded the earth , and
by understanding hath established the heavens :n to whom be
all honour, and glory, and praise, and adoration, from hence¬
forth and for evermore. Amen.
Serm. v.
n Prov. iii.
FOUR LETTERS
FROM
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
TO
DOCTOR BENTLEY:
CONTAINING SOME ARGUMENTS IN PROOF OF A DEITY.
{First printed, 1756.)
D
VOL. HI,
9
■
>
*
.
»
LETTERS, &c.
LETTER I.
To the Reverend Dr. Richard Bentley, at the Bishop of Wor¬
cester's house, in Park-street, Westminster.
SIR,
When I wrote my treatise about our system, I had
an eye upon such principles as might work with considering
men for the belief of a Deity ; and nothing can rejoice me
more than to find it useful for that purpose. But if I have
done the public any service this way, it is due to nothing but
industry and patient thought.
As to your first query, it seems to me that if the matter
of our sun and planets, and all the matter of the universe, were
evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every par¬
ticle had an innate gravity towards all the rest, and the whole
space throughout which this matter was scattered was but
finite ; the matter on the outside of this space would, by its
gravity, tend towards all the matter on the inside, and, by
consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space,
and there compose one great spherical mass. But if the
matter was evenly disposed throughout an infinite space, it
could never convene into one mass ; but some of it would con¬
vene into one mass, and some into another, so as to make an
infinite number of great masses, scattered at great distances
from one to another throughout all that infinite space. And
thus might the sun and fixed stars be formed, supposing the
matter were of a lucid nature. But how the matter should
204
LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON
divide itself into two sorts, and that part of it which is fit to
compose a shining body should fall down into one mass and
make a sun, and the rest which is fit to compose an opaque
body should coalesce, not into one great body, like the shining
matter, but into many little ones ; or if the sun at first were an
opaque body like the planets, or the planets lucid bodies like
the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body,
whilst all they continue opaque, or all they be changed into
opaque ones, whilst he remains unchanged ; I do not think
explicable by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe
it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary Agent.
The same Power, whether natural or supernatural, which
placed the sun in the centre of the six primary planets, placed
Saturn in the centre of the orbs of his five secondary planets,
and Jupiter in the centre of his four secondary planets, and
the earth in the centre of the moon’s orb ; and therefore, had
this cause been a blind one, without contrivance or design,
the sun would have been a body of the same kind with Sa¬
turn, Jupiter, and the earth, thak is, without light and heat.
Why there is one body in our system qualified to give light
and heat to all the rest, I know no reason, but because the
Author of the system thought it convenient ; and why there is
hut one body of this kind, I know no reason, but because one
was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest. For the
Cartesian hypothesis of suns losing their light, and then turn¬
ing into comets, and comets into planets, can have no place
in my system, and is plainly erroneous ; because it is certain,
that as often as they appear to us, they descend into the
system of our planets, lower than the orb of Jupiter, and
sometimes lower than the orbs of Venus and Mercury, and
yet never stay here, but always return from the sun with the
same degrees of motion by which they approached him.
To your second query, I answer, that the motions which
the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause
alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent. For
since comets descend into the region of our planets, and here
move all manner of ways, going sometimes the same way
TO DR. BENTLEY.
205
with the planets, sometimes the contrary way, and sometimes
in cross ways, in planes inclined to the plane of the ecliptic,
and at all kinds of angles, Jtis plain that there is no natural
cause which could determine all the planets, both primary
and secondary, to move the same way and in the same plane,
without any considerable variation : this must have been the
effect of counsel. Nor is there any natural cause which could
give the planets those just degrees of velocity, in proportion to
their distances from the sun and other central bodies, which
were requisite to make them move in such concentric orbs
about those bodies. Had the planets been as swift as comets,
in proportion to their distances from the sun, (as they would
have been, had their motion been caused by their gravity,
whereby the matter, at the first formation of the planets,
might fall from the remotest regions towards the sun,) they
would not move in concentric orbs, but in such eccentric ones
as the comets move in. Were all the planets as swift as
Mercury, or as slow as Saturn or his satellites ; or were their
* several velocities otherwise much greater or less than they
are, as they might have been, had they arose from any other
cause than their gravities ; or had the distances from the
centres about which they move been greater or less than they
are, with the same velocities ; or had the quantity of matter
in the sun, or in Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, and, by con¬
sequence, their gravitating power, been greater or less than it
is ; the primary planets could not have revolved about the sun,
nor the secondary ones about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in
concentric circles, as they do, but would have moved in hyper¬
bolas, or parabolas, or in ellipses very eccentric. To make
this system, therefore, with all its motions, required a cause
which understood and compared together the quantities of
matter in the several bodies of the sun and planets, and the
gravitating powers resulting from thence; the several dis¬
tances of the primary planets from the sun, and of the second¬
ary ones from Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth; and the velo¬
cities with which these planets could revolve about those
quantities of matter in the central bodies ; and to compare
206
LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON
and adjust all these things together, in so great a variety of
bodies, argues that cause to be, not blind and fortuitous, but
very well skilled in mechanics and geometry.
To your third query, I answer, that it may be represented
that the sun may, by heating those planets most which are
nearest to him, cause them to be better concocted, and more
condensed by that concoction. But, when I consider that
our earth is much more heated in its bowels below the upper
crust by subterraneous fermentations of mineral bodies than
by the sun, I see not why the interior parts of Jupiter and
Saturn might not be as much heated, concocted, and coagu¬
lated by those fermentations as our earth is ; and therefore
this various density should have some other cause than the
various distances of the planets from the sun. And I am
confirmed in this opinion by considering, that the planets of
Jupiter and Saturn, as they are rarer than the rest, so they
are vastly greater, and contain a far greater quantity of mat¬
ter, and have many satellites about them; which qualifications
surely arose not from their being placed at so great a distance
from the sun, but were rather the cause why the Creator
placed them at great distance. For, by their gravitating
powers they disturb one another’s motions very sensibly, as
I find by some late observations of Mr. Flamsteed; and had
they been placed much nearer to the sun and to one another,
they would, by the same powers, have caused a considerable
disturbance in the whole system.
To your fourth query, I answer, that, in the hypothesis of
vortices, the inclination of the axis of the earth might, in my
opinion, be ascribed to the situation of the earth’s vortex
before it was absorbed by the neighbouring vortices, and the
earth turned from a sun to a comet; but this inclination
ought to decrease constantly in compliance with the motion
of the earth’s vortex, whose axis is much less inclined to the
ecliptic, as appears by the motion of the moon carried about
therein. If the sun by his rays could carry about the planets,
yet I do not see how he could thereby effect their diurnal
motions.
TO DR. BENTLEY.
207
Lastly, I see nothing extraordinary in the inclination of
the e art It's axis for proving a Deity, unless you will urge it
as a contrivance for winter and summer, and for making the
earth habitable towards the poles ; and that the diurnal rota¬
tions of the sun and planets, as they could hardly arise from
any cause purely mechanical, so by being determined all the
same way with the annual and menstrual motions, they seem
to make up that harmony in the system, which, as I explained
above, was the effect of choice rather than chance.
There is yet another argument for a Deity, which I take
to be a very strong one ; but till the principles on which it is
grounded are better received, I think it more advisable to let
it sleep.
I am your most humble servant to command,
IS. NEWTON.
Cambridge, Decemb. 10, 1692.
LETTER II.
For Mr. Bentley , at the Palace at Worcester.
SIR,
I agree with you, that if matter evenly diffused
through a finite space, not spherical, should fall into a solid
mass, this mass would affect the figure of the whole space,
provided it were not soft, like the old chaos, but so hard and
solid from the beginning, that the weight of its protuberant
parts could not make it yield to their pressure : yet, by earth¬
quakes loosening the parts of this solid, the protuberances
might sometimes sink a little by their weight, and thereby
the mass might by degrees approach a spherical figure.
The reason why matter evenly scattered through a finite
space would convene in the midst, you conceive the same
with me ; but that there should be a central particle, so accu¬
rately placed in the middle as to be always equally attracted
on all sides, and thereby continue without motion, seems to
208
LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON
me a supposition fully as hard as to make the sharpest needle
stand upright on its point upon a looking-glass. For if the
very mathematical centre of the central particle be not accu¬
rately in the very mathematical centre of the attractive power
of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted equally
on all sides. And much harder it is to suppose all the par¬
ticles in an infinite space should be so accurately poised one
among another, as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium. For
I reckon this as hard as to make, not one needle only, but an
infinite number of them (so many as there are particles in an
infinite space) stand accurately poised upon their points.
Yet I grant it possible, at least by a divine power; and if
they were once to be placed, I agree with you that they would
continue in that posture without motion for ever, unless put
into new motion by the same power. When, therefore, I
said that matter evenly spread through all space would con¬
vene by its gravity into one or more great masses, I under¬
stand it of matter not resting in an accurate poise.
But you argue, in the next paragraph of your letter, that
every particle of matter in an infinite space has an infinite
quantity of matter on all sides, and, by consequence, an in¬
finite attraction every way, and therefore must rest in equili-
brio, because all infinites are equal. Yet you suspect a para¬
logism in this argument ; and I conceive the paralogism lies
in the position, that all infinites are equal. The generality
of mankind consider infinites no other ways than indefinitely ;
and in this sense they say all infinites are equal; though
they would speak more truly if they should say, they are nei¬
ther equal nor unequal, nor have any certain difference or
proportion one to another. In this sense, therefore, no con¬
clusions can be drawn from them about the equality, propor¬
tions, or differences of things ; and they that attempt to do it
usually fall into paralogisms. So, when men argue against
the infinite divisibility of magnitude, by saying, that if an
inch may be divided into an infinite number of parts, the
sum of those parts will be an inch ; and if a foot may be di¬
vided into an infinite number of parts, the sum of those parts
TO DR. BENTLEY.
209
must be a foot ; and therefore, since all infinites are equal,
those sums must be equal, that is, an inch equal to a foot.
The falseness of the conclusion shews an error in the pre¬
mises ; and the error lies in the position, that all infinites are
equal. There is, therefore, another way of considering infi¬
nites used by mathematicians, and that is, under certain defi¬
nite restrictions and limitations, whereby infinites are deter¬
mined to have certain differences or proportions to one
another. Thus Dr. Wallis considers them in his Arithmetica
Infinitorum , where, by the various proportions of infinite
sums, he gathers the various proportions of infinite magni¬
tudes : which way of arguing is generally allowed by mathe¬
maticians, and yet would not be good were all infinites equal.
According to the same way of considering infinites, a mathe¬
matician would tell you, that though there be an infinite num¬
ber of infinite little parts in an inch, yet there is twelve times
that number of such parts in a foot ; that is, the infinite num¬
ber of those parts in a foot is not equal to, but twelve times
bigger than the infinite number of them in an inch. And so a
mathematician will tell you, that if a body stood in equilibrio
between any two equal and contrary attracting infinite forces,
and if to either of these forces you add any new finite attract¬
ing force, that new force, how little soever, will destroy their
equilibrium, and put the body into the same motion into
which it would put it were those two contrary equal forces
but finite, or even none at all : so that in this case the two
equal infinites, by the addition of a finite to either of them,
become unequal in our ways of reckoning ; and after these
ways we must reckon, if from the considerations of infinites
we would always draw true conclusions.
To the last part of your letter, I answer, first, that if the
earth (without the moon) were placed any where with its
centre in the orbis magnus , and stood still there without any
gravitation or projection, and there at once were infused into
it both a gravitating energy towards the sun, and a trans¬
verse impulse of a just quantity moving it directly in a tan¬
gent to the orbis magnus ; the compounds of this attraction
VOL. in. 2 E
210
LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON
and projection would, according to ray notion, cause a circu¬
lar revolution of the earth about the sun. But the transverse
impulse must he a just quantity ; for if it be too big or too
little, it will cause the earth to move in some other line.
Secondly, I do not know any power in nature which would
cause this transverse motion without the divine arm. Blon-
del tells us somewhere in his book of Bombs, that Plato
affirms, that the motion of the planets is such, as if they had
all of them been created by God in some region very remote
from our system, and let fall from thence towards the sun,
and so soon as they arrived at their several orbs, their motion
of falling turned aside into a transverse one. And this is
true, supposing the gravitating power of the sun was double
at that moment of time in which they all arrive at their seve¬
ral orbs ; but then the divine power is here required in a
double respect, namely, to turn the descending motions of the
falling planets into a side motion, and, at the same time, to
double the attractive power of the sun. So, then, gravity
may put the planets into motion, but, without the divine
power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion
as they have about the sun ; and therefore, for this, as well
as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this
system to an intelligent Agent.
You sometimes speak of gravity as essential and inherent
to matter. Pray, do not ascribe that notion to me ; for the
cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know, and
therefore would take more time to consider of it.
I fear what I have said of infinites will seem obscure to
you ; but it is enough if you understand, that infinites, when
considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation,
are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain propor¬
tion one to another ; and therefore the principle, that all infi-*
nites are equal, is a precarious one.
Sir, I am your most humble servant,
IS. NEWTON.
Trinity College, Jan. 17, 1692-3.
TO DR. BENTLEY.
211
LETTER III.
For Mr. Bentley, at the Palace at Worcester .
SIR,
Because you desire speed, I will answer your let¬
ter with what brevity I can. In the six positions you lay
down in the beginning of your letter, I agree with you. Your
assuming the orbis magnus 7000 diameters of the earth wide,
implies the sun’s horizontal parallax to be half a minute.
Flamsteed and Cassini have of late observed it to be about
10", and thus the orbis magnus must be 21,000, or, in a
rounder number, 20,000 diameters of the earth wide. Either
computation, I think, will do well ; and I think it not worth
while to alter your numbers.
In the next part of your letter you lay down four other
positions, founded upon the six first. The first of these four
seems very evident, supposing you take attraction so generally
as by it to understand any force by which distant bodies en¬
deavour to come together without mechanical impulse. The
second seems not so clear; for it may be said, that there
might be other systems of worlds before the present ones,
and others before those, and so on to all past eternity, and,
by consequence, that gravity maybe coeternal to matter, and
have the same effect from all eternity as at present, unless you
have somewhere proved that old systems cannot gradually
pass into new ones ; or that this system had not its original
from the exhaling matter of former decaying systems, but
from a chaos of matter evenly dispersed throughout all space ;
for something of this kind, I think you say, was the subject
of your Sixth Sermon ; and the growth of new systems out
of old ones, without the mediation of a divine power, seems
to me apparently absurd.
The last clause of the second position I like very well.
It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should, with¬
out the mediation of something else, which is not material,
operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact,
212
LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON
as it must be, if gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be es¬
sential and inherent in it. And this is one reason why I
desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That
gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter,
so that one body may act upon another at a distance through
a vacuum , without the mediation of any thing else, by and
through which their action and force may be conveyed from
one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe
. no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty
of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by
an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but
whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left to
the consideration of my readers.
Your fourth assertion, that the world could not be formed
by innate gravity alone, you confirm by three arguments.
But, in your first argument you seem to make a petitio prin-
cipii ; for whereas many ancient philosophers and others, as
well theists as atheists, have all allowed that there may be
worlds and parcels of matter innumerable or infinite, you
deny this, by representing it as absurd as that there should
be positively an infinite arithmetical sum or number, which is
a contradiction in terminis ; but you do not prove it as absurd.
Neither do you prove, that what men mean by an infinite
sum or number is a contradiction in nature ; for a contra¬
diction in terminis implies no more than an impropriety of
speech. Those things which men understand by improper and
contradictious phrases may be sometimes really in nature
without any contradiction at all : a silver inkhorn, a paper
lantern, an iron whetstone, are absurd phrases, yet the
things signified thereby are really in nature. If any man
should say, that a number and a sum, to speak properly, is
that which may be numbered and summed, but things infinite
are numberless, or, as we usually speak, innumerable and sum¬
less, or insummable, and therefore ought not to be called a
number or sum; he will speak properly enough, and your
argument against him will, I fear, lose its force. And yet,
if any man shall take the words number and sum in a larger
TO DR. BENTLEY.
213
sense, so as to understand thereby things which, in the proper
way of speaking, are numberless and sumless, (as you seem
to do, when you allow an infinite number of points in a line)
I could readily allow him the use of the contradictious phrases
of innumerable number or sumless sum, without inferring
from thence any absurdity in the thing he means by those
phrases. However, if by this or any other argument you
have proved the finiteness of the universe, it follows that all
matter would fall down from the outsides, and convene in
the middle. Yet the matter in falling might concrete into
many round masses, like the bodies of the planets, and these,
by attracting one another, might acquire an obliquity of de¬
scent, by means of which they might fall, not upon the great
central body, but upon the side of it, and fetch a compass
about, and then ascend again by the same steps and degrees
of motion and velocity with which they descended before,
much after the manner that the comets revolve about the
sun ; but a circular motion in concentric orbs about the sun
they could never acquire by gravity alone.
And though all the matter were divided at first into seve¬
ral systems, and every system by a divine power constituted
like ours, yet would the outside systems descend towards the
middlemost; so that this frame of things could not always
subsist without a divine power to conserve it; which is the
second argument : and to your third I fully assent.
As for the passage of Plato, there is no common place
from whence all the planets being let fall, and descending
with uniform and equal gravities (as Galileo supposes), would,
at their arrival to their several orbs, acquire their several ve¬
locities with which they now revolve in them. If we suppose
the gravity of all the planets towards the sun to be of such a
quantity as it really is, and that the motions of the planets
are turned upwards, every planet will ascend to twice its
height from the sun. Saturn will ascend till he be twice as
high from the sun as he is at present, and no higher; Jupiter
will ascend as high again as at present, that is, a little above
the orb of Saturn ; Mercury will ascend to twice his present
214 LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON
height, that is, to the orb of Venus; and so of the rest; and
then by falling down again from the places to which they as¬
cended, they will arrive again at their several orbs with the
same velocities they had at first, and with which they now
revolve.
But if, so soon as their motions by which they revolve
are turned upwards, the gravitating power of the sun, by
which their ascent is perpetually retarded, be diminished by
one half, they will now ascend perpetually, and all of them
at all equal- distances from the sun will be equally swift.
Mercury, when he arrives at the orb of Venus, will be as
swift as Venus ; and he and Venus, when they arrive at the
orb of the earth, will be as swift as the earth ; and so of the
rest. If they begin all of them to ascend at once, and ascend
in the same line, they will constantly, in ascending, become
nearer and nearer together, and their motions will constantly
approach to an equality, and become at length slower than
any motion assignable. Suppose, therefore, that they as¬
cended till they were almost contiguous, and their motions
inconsiderably little, and that all their motions were at the
same moment of time turned back again ; or, which comes
almost to the same thing, that they were only deprived of
their motions and let fall at that time ; they would all at once
arrive at their several orbs, each with the velocity it had at
first ; and if their motions were then turned sideways, and, at
the same time, the gravitating power of the sun doubled,
that it might be strong enough to retain them in their orbs,
they would revolve in them as before their ascent. But if
the gravitating power of the sun was not doubled, they would
go away from their orbs into the highest heavens in paraboli¬
cal lines. These things follow from my Princ. Math. lib. i.
prop. 33, 34, 36, 37.
I thank you very kindly for your designed present, and
rest
Your most humble servant to command,
IS. NEWTON.
Cambridge, Feb. 25, 1(392-3.
I
TO DR. BENTLEY. 215
LETTER IV.
To Mr. Bentley , at the Palace at Worcester.
SIR,
The hypothesis of deriving the frame of the world
by mechanical principles from matter evenly spread through
the heavens, being inconsistent with my system, I had con¬
sidered it very little before your letters put me upon it ; and
therefore trouble you with a line or two more about it, if this
comes not too late for your use.
In my former I represented that the diurnal rotations of
the planets could not be derived from gravity, but required a
divine arm to impress them. And though gravity might give
the planets a motion of descent towards the sun, either di¬
rectly or with some little obliquity, yet the transverse motions
by which they revolve in their several orbs required the
divine arm to impress them according to the tangents of their
orbs. I would now add, that the hypothesis of matter’s being
at first evenly spread through the heavens, is, in my opinion,
inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity, without a
supernatural power to reconcile them ; and therefore it infers
a Deity. For if there be innate gravity, it is impossible now
for the matter of the earth and all the planets and stars to fly
up from them, and become evenly spread throughout all the
heavens, without a supernatural power ; and certainly that
which can never be hereafter without a supernatural power,
could never be heretofore without the same power.
You queried, whether matter evenly spread throughout a
finite space, of some other figure than spherical, would not,
in falling down towards a central body, cause that body to be
of the same figure with the whole space ; and I answered, yes.
But in my answer it is to be supposed that the matter de¬
scends directly downwards to that body, and that that body
has no diurnal rotation.
This, sir, is all I would add to my former letters.
I am your most humble servant,
IS. NEWTON.
Cambridge, Feb. II, 1093.
'
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■ '
■ '
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■
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.
, ■ - : . .,,(g
. _ '• .
• • • • ■■ ' •
SERMONS
ON
VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
{From ed. 1735.)
,
.
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS :
A
SERMON
PREACHED AT THE PUBLIC COMMENCEMENT AT CAMBRIDGE,
July 5th, 1696.
1 Pet. iii. 15.
Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh
you a reason of the hope that is in you.
By the hope that is in us, we do understand here, as in other
places of Scripture, not only the bare hope strictly so called,
but the faith too of a Christian. Whence it is that in the
Syriac version of the text, and in some ancient Latin copies,
the word faith is added to the other ; the hope and the faith
that is in you. And indeed, if we consider hope as a natu¬
ral passion, we shall find it to be always attended and ushered
in by faith. For, *tis certain there is no hope without some
antecedent belief that the thing hoped for may come to pass ;
and the strength and steadiness of our hope is ever propor¬
tional to the measure of our faith. It appears, therefore, why
the word hope in the text may, with sufficient propriety of
speech, comprehend the whole faith of a Christian ; and that,
when the apostle exhorts us to be ready always to answer
every man that asks the reason of our hope, "tis the same as if
he enjoined us to be never unprepared nor unwilling to reply
to any doubts or questions about the grounds of the Christian
faith.
At the date of this epistle the whole world (with relation
220
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
to the text) might be considered under one general division,
Jews and Gentiles. First, the Jews, to whom, the oracles of
God were committed ,a and who from thence had the informa¬
tion and expectation of the Messias. These, when they asked
a Christian the reason of his hope, were themselves already
persuaded that the Messias would come ; and the only con¬
troversy between them was. Whether Jesus was he ? ac¬
cording to the message of John the Baptist, Was Jesus he
that should come, or must they look for another Secondly,
the Gentiles, who having no means of knowledge besides mere
natural reason, could have no notions nor notices of this ex¬
pected Messias : these, therefore, when they demanded the
reason of a Christian’s hope, were first to be acquainted with
the purpose and promise of God to send the Messias ; were
to be instructed about the reasons and designs of that great
embassy; about his quality and office, and all the circum¬
stances of his person : and then was the proper time to shew
that Jesus was he ; that the description of the Messias was
truly exhibited and represented in his character, and the
ancient prophecies all accomplished in his actions and events.
’Tis not for nothing that the apostle so presseth this ad¬
vice in the text. Be ready always to give a reason of the hope
that is in you : as if he had foretold, that there would be no
age of the Christian world wherein this preparation would be
superfluous. It hath pleased the divine wisdom never yet to
leave Christianity wholly at leisure from opposers; but to
give its professors that perpetual exercise of their industry
and zeal. And who can tell, if, without such adversaries to
rouse and quicken them, they might not in long tract of time
have grown remiss in the duties, and ignorant in the doctrines of
religion ? Perhaps before this time even some of the records
of it might have perished by men’s negligence ; as the Jews
had like to have lost their Law, if divine Providence had not
preserved one copy of it in the Temple. It is while men sleep, c
while they live in peace and security, and have no enemies to
contest with, that the great enemy comes and sows tares among
* Rom. iii. 2. b Luke, vii. 19. c Matth. xiii. 25.
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
221
the wheat. But, of all the ages since the coming of Christ, I
suppose this present has least reason to complain for want of
'work and employment in defence of religion. Here are not
only the two parties in the text, Jews and Gentiles, still in
the world to engage with ; but even in the midst of Chris¬
tianity are the most dangerous designs formed against it ; as
if our Saviour’s prediction of particular families were to be
verified too of the whole Church, that its worst enemies should
be they of its own household .d
There are a sort of persons baptised indeed into the Chris¬
tian faith, and educated in the profession of it ; but in secret,
I wish I might say so, nay, even openly, they oppose and
blaspheme it, repudiating at once the whole authority of
revelation, and debasing the sacred volumes to the rank of
ordinary books of history and ethics. The being of God and
a providence they profess to believe ; to acknowledge a dif¬
ference between good and evil; to be verily persuaded of
another life to come ; and to have their expectations of that
state as their behaviour is in this. Nay, even the whole system
of Christian morals they can willingly embrace ; but not as a
collection of divine statutes and ordinances sent us by an ex¬
press from heaven, but only as useful rules of life, discover¬
able by plain reason, and agreeable to natural religion. So
that they cannot see the mighty occasion that should invite
even the eternal Son of God from the bosom of the Father
to act so mean and calamitous a part upon the stage of this
sorry world. What need of so great a master to read man¬
kind lectures of morals, which they might easily learn without
any teacher ? ’Tis true, they are often told of some sublime
mysterious doctrines delivered by him, which they own would
ne’er have been thought of by natural reason. But then,
that is so far from recommending to them the importance of
his errand from heaven, that for that very reason they deny
the truth of his message. For whatever comes imperiously
in the name of divine mystery, and soars above the pitch of
human knowledge; whatsoever things they cannot fathom
d Matth. x. 36.
222
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
and grasp through all the causes* designs* modes* and rela¬
tions of them* as the notion of the Messias* his incarnation*
mediation* satisfaction ; all these they reject and explode* as
incomprehensible to pure reason* which they set up as the
only principle and measure of belief.
In all this* these persons act the part and place them¬
selves in the condition of Gentiles* whom we may imagine*
in the text* to ask the reason of a Christian’s hope ; since the
whole body of these men’s religion is no more than what even
heathens attained to ; the modern Deism being the very same
with old philosophical Paganism* only aggravated and damned
with the additional crime of apostasy from the faith. But,
besides this* these very persons will* on other occasions* per¬
sonate the Jews too, those other inquirers supposed in the
text* and dispute with Jewish objections against the Christian
religion ; though they no more believe the matter of those
objections than the thing they object against; like Celsus
and Julian of old* that gathered arguments against the Chris¬
tians from all the different sects and hypotheses of philosophy*
though inconsistent one argument with another ; and brought
objections too from the Old Testament* which they did not
believe* against the New one, which they were engaged by all
methods to oppose.
In our present discourse* therefore, we shall endeavour to
refute these modern adversaries under their double shape and
character : First* as they are mere Deists or Pagans* renoun¬
cing all revelation, and the very notion of the Messias : and*
secondly, as they fight under Jewish colours ; so as* admitting
there be a promised Messias* the Saviour of the world* yet
men ought to reject the person of Jesus, and still to wait for
another.
I. And* first* we shall consider them in the quality of
Deists and disciples of mere natural reason. We profess our¬
selves as much concerned* and as truly as themselves are* for
the use and authority of reason in controversies of faith. We
look upon right reason as the native lamp of the soul, placed
and kindled there by our Creator* to conduct us in the whole
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
223
course of our judgments and actions. True reason, like its
divine Author, never is itself deceived, nor ever deceives any
man. Even revelation itself is not shy nor unwilling to as¬
cribe its own first credit and fundamental authority to the
test and testimony of reason. Sound reason is the touch¬
stone to distinguish that pure and genuine gold from baser
metals, revelation truly divine from imposture and enthu¬
siasm : so that the Christian religion is so far from declining
or fearing the strictest trials of reason, that it every where
appeals to it, is defended and supported by it, and indeed
cannot continue, in the apostle’s description, pure and unde-
filede without it. 5Tis the benefit of reason alone, under the
providence and Spirit of God, that we ourselves are at this
day a reformed orthodox church ; that we departed from the
errors of popery, and that we knew too where to stop, neither
running into the extravagancies of fanaticism, nor sliding into
the indifferency of libertinism. Whatsoever, therefore, is in¬
consistent with natural reason, can never be justly imposed
as an article of faith. That the same body is in many places
at once, that plain bread is not bread ; such things, though
they be said with never so much pomp and claim to infalli¬
bility, we have still greater authority to reject them, as being
contrary to common sense and our natural faculties ; as sub¬
verting the foundations of all faith, even the grounds of their
own credit, and all the principles of civil life.
So far are we from contending with our adversaries about
the dignity and authority of reason ; but then we differ with
them about the exercise of it, and the extent of its province.
For the Deists there stop, and set bounds to their faith, where
reason, their only guide, does not lead the way further, and
walk along before them. We, on the contrary, as Moses
was shewn by divine power a true sight of the promised land,
though himself could not pass over to it so we think reason
may receive from revelation some further discoveries and new
prospects of things, and be fully convinced of the reality of
them, though itself cannot pass on, nor travel those regions,
e James, i. 27. f Deut. xxxiv.
224
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
cannot penetrate the fund of those truths, nor advance to the
utmost bounds of them. For there is certainly a wide differ¬
ence between what is contrary to reason, and what is superior
to it and out of its reach. To give an instance in created
nature : how many things are there whose being we cannot
doubt of, though unable to comprehend the manner of their
being so ? That the human soul is vitally united to the body
by a reciprocal commerce of action and passion, this we all
consciously feel and know, and our adversaries will affirm it ;
let them tell us, then, what is the chain, the cement, the mag¬
netism, what they will call it, the invisible tie of that union,
whereby matter and an incorporeal mind, things that have
no similitude nor alliance to each other, can so sympathise
by a mutual league of motion and sensation ? No, they will
not pretend to that ; for they can frame no conceptions of it.
They are sure there is such an union, from the operations and
effects, but the cause and the manner of it are too subtle and
secret to be discovered by the eye of reason ; *tis mystery,
?tis divine magic, ’tis natural miracle. If, then, in created
beings they are content with us to confess their ignorance of
the modes of existence, without doubting of things them¬
selves ; have not we much more reason to be humble and
modest in speculations about the essence of God, about the
reasons of his counsels, and the ways of his actions ? Yes,
certainly; under those circumstances we may believe with
reason even things above and beyond reason.
For example : If we have sure ground to believe that such
a book is the revelation of God ; and we find in it proposi¬
tions expressed in plain words, of a determinate sense with¬
out ambiguity, so as they cannot be otherwise interpreted,
by any just metaphor or fair construction allowed in coirpnon
language ; we say we have sufficient reason to assent to those
propositions, as divine doctrines and infallible truths, so far
as they are declared there, though perhaps we cannot our¬
selves comprehend, nor demonstrate to others, the reasons
and the manner of them. Neither is this an easy credulity,
or unworthy of the most cautious and morose searcher of
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
225
truth. For, observe, we do not say, any thing incomprehen¬
sible to reason is, separate and alone, a proper object of belief ;
but as it is supported and established by some other known
and comprehensible truth : as, if Abraham had been told by
some ordinary man, that in his and Sarah’s decrepit age he
should be blessed with a son ; this promise, so alone, without
its basis to stand on, could not have challenged his assent,
because the thing was impossible in the way of nature ; but
since it was God Almighty, with whom all things are possible, e
that was the author of that promise, by the mediation of that
certain truth, the veracity and omnipotence of God, without
hesitation he believed, and so obtained the glory to be father
of the faithful .f And upon the same grounds the blessed
Virgin gave credit to the salutation of the angel, though the
message in itself seemed impossible to reason. So true it is,
that reason itself warrants us to proceed and advance by
faith even beyond the sphere and regions of reason. We
agree, then, with our adversaries about the authority of rea¬
son ; but we dissent about the exercise of it, and the bounds
of its jurisdiction. We believe even the abstrusest mysteries
of the Christian religion ; of which mysteries, perhaps, we can
assign no reasons ; but for our belief we assign a good one,
because they are plainly taught in the word of God, who can
neither err nor deceive. And this we affirm to be a reason¬
able conclusion, though it carry us even to the confines of
heaven, beyond the limits of reason. But, if the Deists
think to oblige us to give a natural account of those mys¬
teries, -Cvithout the authority of Scripture, for that we must
beg their excuse. We will argue from strict reason, as much
as they can pretend to ; but we must not submit that our ad¬
versaries shall confine us to improper topics and impossible
ways of proof.
It appears, therefore, that though we should decline and
despair to give any account at all of the reasons and methods
of God’s counsel in the mission of his Son, and only appeal
to the sentence of Scripture, yet the Deists ought to be satis-
e Matt. xix. 26. f Rom. iv. 11.
2 G
VOL. III.
226
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
fied with that proof, since the doctrine is so expressly taught
in the oracles of God. But, besides this, what if even natu¬
ral light shall discover to us some faint, but yet certain views
of that mysterious instance of divine wisdom and goodness,
and exhibit to us a rational account why the Son of God
should condescend to be our Mediator and Redeemer ? But,
before we engage in this attempt, let it be lawful to implore
the candour of our friends ; if, while we endeavour to win
over our enemies, we may seem to some to do too little; or,
perhaps, to others, to venture too far, and to advance beyond
our lines. To discern, then, some reason* of this wonderful
mystery, we must take our prospect from the highest moun¬
tain of nature, from the first creation and origin of human
race.
God, who at the beginning viewed all the works of his
hands, and behold, all things were very good,s made man also
upright and complete, without any defect in his whole com¬
position ; without any original perverseness of soul, or false
bias of will or judgment ; without any natural obliquity or
enormity of inclinations. He made him an intelligent being,
to know God and himself; to understand and feel present
happiness, and to secure it by consideration and contrivance
for the future. He endowed him with liberty of mind, that
he might act, not of necessity, nor blind instinct, like the
brutes, but with consciousness and voluntary choice. He
implanted in him diverse appetites and affections, all useful
instruments of his happiness, if fitly employed; and none
vicious and culpable radically, and in their whole nature, but
then only, when they are applied to wrong objects, or in
right ones are raised or sunk beside their due temper and
measure. I say it again, for the justification of our Creator,
that not one of the simple affections of the soul, no, not con¬
cupiscence, hatred, anger, revenge, are in themselves criminal
and sinful. Some of the affections, Jtis true, have very bad
names ; but those are either mere excesses of simple passions,
or else mixed and compound ones, which have no proper real
[* reason; ls< cd. “ reasons.” — D.j
« Gen. i. 31.
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
227
essence, but are only notional terms ; as envy, for example, a
very bad thing indeed, but ’tis an evil of our own product,
and not of God’s creating. For the real constituent parts of
it are hatred and grief, very useful and lawful affections ; but
the evil of it is our own, when we entertain that hatred and
grief at the good that befals others ; which is what we express
by the complex name of envy.
God, therefore, having so created man, in every capacity
pure and perfect, might justly require of him that he should
maintain and preserve this original rectitude ; that in all his
desires, designs, and actions, he should constantly adhere to
the dictates of reason and nature ; so as the least deviation
would make him obnoxious to God’s displeasure, and nothing
less than complete obedience recommend him to his favour ;
according to the terms proposed to Cain, If thou dost well,
shalt thou not he accepted ? and if thou dost not well, sin lies
at the door.h God, I say, might expect and require of man
such a perfect obedience to the law of nature, because it was
both reasonable and possible for man to perform it. Reason¬
able it was, because every statute of that law promotes the true
interest and felicity of mankind even in the very performance.
’Tis true, in the present posture of human affairs, a man’s duty
is frequently inconsistent with his temporal interest. But from
the beginning it was not so ; neither would it be now, if the
whole world at once could be just and innocent. For ’tis
not my keeping the law, but another’s transgressing it, that
involves me in any misery. The scope and tendency of the
law itself is always mine and every man’s advantage. For
’tis not a thing foreign and alien to our nature, imposed on
us purely to try our obedience ; but it all results from our
very frame and constitution. The general preservation of
man’s natural good is the sole root and fountain of the moral :
the universal profit and pleasure, the public happiness of
human life, gives being and denomination to every virtue and
vice ; and the true rules and directions to preserve and secure
that happiness make up the whole volume, the code and pan-
h Gen. iv. 7.
228
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
dect of the law of nature. Without doubt, then, it was rea¬
sonable to obey, where nothing was commanded us but to
pursue our own interest ; nothing forbidden us hut not to do
ourselves harm. And, secondly, it was possible for man to
perform that entire obedience. For since, as we have proved
before, all his natural faculties are right and good, and the
law itself accommodated and proportioned to those faculties,
there appears no necessary intrinsic impediment why he may
not adequately observe it. If every particular precept be
possible to be done, Jtis not absolutely impossible to fulfil the
universal. And, methinks, they that, on other accounts, ac¬
knowledge that God requires such perfect obedience upon the
terms of the law of nature, should be very averse from believ¬
ing that there is a natural and fundamental insufficiency in
man to perform it. For certainly the just God cannot be so
importune and unreasonable a master as to enjoin us what is
physically impossible ; to expect to reap where he has not
sown , to require bricks without allowance of straw.
But then, though there was no such original and natural
disability in man, yet there arose a moral and circumstantial
one ; an accidental incapacity supervening to his nature, an
impossibility from event, that ever any person from the be¬
ginning of the world to the last period of it (always excepting
the man Christ Jesus) should be wholly pure and free from
the contagion of sin. For, our first parents having fallen
from their native state of innocence, the tincture of evil, like
an hereditary disease, infected all their posterity: and the
leaven of sin having once corrupted the whole mass of man¬
kind, all the species ever after would be soured and tainted
with it, the vicious ferment perpetually diffusing and propa¬
gating itself through all generations. For, let us but con¬
sider the state of human life ; first, a perpetual conversation
among evil examples, and the strongest principle of our na¬
ture, imitation ; and then, the ignorance and prejudices of
childhood, the fervour and temerity of youth, the force and
the frequency of temptations, and the narrow dubious con¬
fines between virtue and vice ; and we may pronounce it im-
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
229
possible that any man should so govern his steps through all
the lubricous paths of life, as never once to slip and fall from
his duty. Agreeably to the testimony of Scripture, which
hath concluded all under sin, Gal. iii. 22. ; and again, If we say
ice have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us }
and again. Both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin ; all have
sinned , and come short of the glory of God.k Every mouth
then he stopped; and all the world must plead guilty before
the tribunal of God ; for by the deeds of the law (the law of
nature, as well as of Moses) no flesh can be justified in his
sight} It is evident, then, from the principles of pure reason,
beside the authority of Scripture, that upon the Deist’s hypo¬
thesis, upon the terms of natural religion, no salvation can be
obtained; no life and immortality can be expected; for, that
being the free offer and favour of God, he might justly set
what price he pleased upon it, even the greatest that we can
possibly pay ; nothing less than entire obedience, than un¬
spotted innocence, than consummate virtue.
Tlius far, then, even reason evinceth, and holds the lamp
to revelation. Some means of reconciliation between God
and man, the judge and the offender, must be contrived ; some
vicarious satisfaction to justice, and model of a new covenant ;
or else the whole bulk of mankind are for ever unhappy. And
surely to prevent that, to retrieve a perishing world, was a
weighty concern ; even of greater importance than the very
creating it, and more worthy of the care and consult of Hea¬
ven. I say, the care of Heaven ; for, alas ! here on earth
what expedient could man find out ? How could dust and
ashes take upon him to speak unto the Lord ? Could any of the
sons of Adam presume to be advocate for the rest, himself
one of the criminals, himself in want of another advocate ?
And what friend knew we at the court of heaven, of that high
power and favour with God as to offer his intercession ? or
so wonderfully kind to us as to pay our satisfaction ? We
must freely own to the Deist, that here reason was at a stand ;
even nature herself languished between hope and despair;
■ 1 John, i. 8. k Rom. iii. 9, 23. 1 Rom. iii. 19.
230
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
and, in the style of the apostle, the whole creation groaned
and travailed in pain together ;m when behold, (what revelation
hath informed and assured us of,) the eternal Son of the Al¬
mighty, the brightness of the paternal glory , and the express
image of his substance, n even he vouchsafed to be our patron
and mediator; to take our nature upon him, and to dwell
among men ; to fulfil that law of righteousness wherein we
were deficient ; to bear our guilt and our burden upon him¬
self, and to offer his most precious blood as an expiation for
our offences, as the seal of a new covenant, better than the
law of nature ; a covenant of more gracious terms, terms of
repentance and remission of sins ; so that if we truly believe
in him, and sincerely endeavour to observe his commands,
our imperfect righteousness, through the merits of his suffer¬
ings, shall be imputed, accepted, and rewarded, as if it were
an entire obedience to the strict law of works and of natural
perfection .
And now I dare presume to ask even our adversaries
themselves, what flaws or fallacies they can shew in all this.
If it be true, then, that reason itself discovers such absolute
necessity of some way of reconciliation between God and
man ; and if it was necessary for man, as being the party
concerned, to know the particular way that God did approve
and accept of ; and if mere reason could never find that out,
but revelation alone must and ought to inform us; and, lastly,
if such revelation be actually made, attested, and promulgated
to the world ; what pretence is there left, why we should not
believe and acquiesce in it ? if, upon examination, it bear all
the marks of true revelation, if it contain nothing unworthy
of itself, and of the wisdom and goodness of its Author.
And is not the economy of man’s salvation, as it is set
forth in holy Scriptures, every way agreeable to that divine
character ? No, if we ask our adversaries, ’tis an improper
and unequal method ; ’tis inconsistent with the justice and
impartiality of God. Rex Jupiter omnibus idem.* God, say
they, if he had designed such an universal benefit for man-
m Rom. viii. 22. 11 Heb. i. 3. [* Virg. iEn. x. 112. — D.]
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
231
kind, would have exhibited it equally and indifferently to
every age and nation alike : but the conditions of salvation
proposed in the Gospel are incompetent and much too nar¬
row, being restrained to those times and countries alone
that can hear of the fame of Jesus, and believe in his person.
And what becomes, then, of all the former ages of men, before
he was horn ? what of those remote nations ever since, that
could have no intelligence of him, nor hear the least tidings
of Judea and Jerusalem? Must all those myriads of souls
perish for invincible ignorance, for want of impossible faith ?
For how could they believe on him of whom they had not heard?
and how could they hear without a preacher ?° And why
should the God of the whole earth , the God that is no respecter
of persons, no, nor of nations, be so unaccountably kind, so
unjustly fond and partial, to any single country, much less to
a little obscure people, the Jews, scarce heard of in the rest
of the world till they were captives and slaves in it ; and
withdraw his paternal love from so many other nations, much
more considerable, and more worthy of his providence ? Is
he God of the Jews only ? is he not also of the Gentiles ??
This way of discourse we may expect from the Deists ;
and I hope, according to the advice of the text, we are both
able and ready to give a reply. For, first, as to that imagined
partiality of God, in preferring any one country before the
rest of the world to be the land of Christ’s nativity ; what a
poor and contemptible cavil ! for, upon supposition that the
Messias of God was to take human nature upon him, and he
born of a woman, must he not of necessity be born in some
one particular country, exclusively to all the rest ? And is
not that, then, a ridiculous objection against any single coun¬
try, that may equally be urged against all whatsoever ?
Neither was it mere fondness in the Deity, that he chose
the obscure land of Palestine for the birthplace of his Son,
rather than Greece, or Italy, or Asia, the theatres of art and
learning, and the seats of empire : for, not to mention Abra¬
ham and the patriarchs, whose singular faith and piety justly
p Rom. iii. 29.
0 Rom. x. 14.
232
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
obtained of God that their posterity should have the adoption ,
and the glory, and the covenants, and the promises, and the con¬
sanguinity of Christ it appears also from event, that the
circumstances of that nation were of all others the most suit¬
able to the design of the Messias. For, since it was fit and
necessary that prophecies should foretel of him long before
his coming; that his pedigree and extraction should be ac¬
curately deduced through a long series of ancestors, and other
such marks be assigned of him, that men might know this
was he ; what more proper to those purposes than the state
of the Jews, that peculiar people, secluded and distinguished
one tribe from another, and the whole from all the rest of
mankind, by the very frame of their polity ? so that the genea¬
logies were less confused, the histories and prophecies more
faithfully recorded, and the accomplishment of all more cer¬
tain and illustrious, than they could have been in any other
nation upon earth ; all of which, within that long compass of
time, were blended together by mutual commerce and mutual
conquest, and other omnifarious causes of mixture and con¬
fusion.
And then, as to that other surmise, that God would have
proposed fair and equal means of general salvation, and not
upon such narrow and insufficient terms as an actual faith in
the person of Jesus, a condition impossible to the much greater
part of mankind; we acknowledge it to be true, infallibly
true; faith in Christ Jesus, the only way to salvation since
the preaching of the Gospel; so as whosoever rejects that,
when it is duly declared to him, and refuses his assent and
obedience to it, can have no portion in the kingdom of hea¬
ven. But, for those that never once heard of the Lord of life,
that’s, an undecided case, which we do not determine. For
who has authority to give sentence, where God and Scripture
are silent ? Thus far we are assured there, that let the future
condition of those be as God pleases, at least he will not
condemn them for invincible ignorance : for there is no re¬
spect of persons with him ; but as many as have sinned without
(i Rom. ix. 4.
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS. 233
law shall perish without law.r The meaning whereof is, that
the Gentile world shall not be judged and condemned for the
breach of the law of Moses, which never was given them ;
but for sins against the law of nature, and the common light
of conscience. We may infer, then, by parity of argument,
that as many as shall sin without the Gospel shall perish with¬
out the Gospel; that is, not because they believed not in
Jesus, whom they had not the least notice of; but they will
be tried and sentenced for sins against natural reason, for
things within their power and capacity ; because when they
knew God , they glorified him not as God; because they held
the truth in unrighteousness, so that they are without excuse .s
But if the Deist shall still insist, that, though we have
justified God from the calumny, as if he would condemn the
Gentiles for want of impossible faith, yet still he maintains it
to be unjust and incredible, that while one small part of man¬
kind enjoys the favour of the Gospel, all under the state of
nature shall have the hard measure of summumjus, must be
all damned by rigid inflexible justice, without equity or mercy,
without any act of pardon, or the least room for repentance :
if he will rather obstinately believe, or hope, or wish, that
the God of tender compassions, who loveth all things that he
hath made, who will not require much where little has been
given, cannot be so extreme with the Gentile world as to mark
all that is done amiss, and yet to slight and overlook those
shining examples of virtue not unfrequent among them : if
this be all he sticks at, God forbid that on this single account
he should exclude himself from the communion of faith. We
can allow him this opinion, as at worst a charitable error ; as
some indication of a large heart, and a generous love of man¬
kind. But then he must always remember, that even those
virtuous heathens, whom he would so gladly place in some
part of heaven, can be saved on no other account than by
the merits and mediation of Jesus their Saviour. For with¬
out his satisfaction there is no remission of sins nor accepta-
r Rom. ii. 11, s Rom. i. 18, 20, 21.
2 H
VOL. III.
234
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
tion of repentance ; and without remission of sins, by the
deeds of the law and natural righteousness no flesh can be
justified in the sight of God.t They are saved, therefore, if
they be saved at all, by the sole benefit of Christ, though in
this life they could not know nor thank their benefactor.
For though they lived in the earliest ages of time, long before
his incarnation, yet even then they might he purified by the
blood of the Lamb , manifested indeed in latter times , but pre¬
ordained before the foundation of the world :u so that from
the first origin of it he might extend and impart, to all that
were worthy, the efficacy of his merits, and the privileges of
faith and grace, and a share in the inheritance of glory and
immortality.
II. And now we may expect that our adversaries will put
off the garb and character of Deists, and make a new attempt
for the fortune of the day, under the arms and conduct of
the Jews.
It must be granted on all hands, that the Messias, when¬
soever he is manifested to the world, must appear in that
very manner as the Jewish prophets describe him. All the
characters must hit and correspond one to another ; the same
features, the same lineaments visible in both ; the one the
shadow and picture, and the other the substance. Now, say
they, it is evident from the prophets, that the Messias is to
be a temporal prince, to sit on the throne of David his royal
ancestor, and to make Jerusalem the seat of an universal and
perpetual empire. But the character of Jesus is as different
from this description as a stable from a palace. JTis true,
we Christians endeavour to shew a similitude between them
by figurative interpretations of Scripture, which we call the
spiritual and mystical sense ; but they call arbitrary and pre¬
carious, as having no foundation in the native and naked
letter, which is not to be racked and wrested from its obvious
meaning, little credit being to be given to such extorted
confessions.
' Rom. iii. 20.
“ 1 Pet. i. 20.
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
235
Thus far our objectors. But I suppose the prophetic lan¬
guage and character is better understood than that this sur¬
mise should pass without a just answer. Indeed, if it were
in this case alone that the expressions of the prophets need a
figurative interpretation, the exception might appear fair and
plausible : but it cannot be denied, that on many other occa¬
sions, besides the matter of the Messias, their discourse (after
the genius of the eastern nations) is thick set with metaphor
and allegory : the same bold comparisons and dithyrambic
liberty of style every where occur. Which is an easy and
natural account (besides the more secret reasons that the
Holy Spirit might have) why the kingdom of the Messias,*
though really spiritual and not of this world, is so often
dressed and painted by them with the glories of secular em¬
pire. For when the Spirit of God came upon them , and
breathed a new warmth and vigour through all the powers of
the bodyf and soul ; when by the influx of divine light the
whole scene of Christ’s heavenly kingdom was represented to
their view, so that their hearts were ravished with joy, and
their imaginations turgid and pregnant with the glorious
ideas ; then surely, if ever, their style would be strong and
lofty, full of allusions to all that is great and magnificent in
the kingdoms of this world. But then, in other passages of
the same prophets, as it were on purpose to hint to us the
true meaning of the former, the Messias is described plainly,
without poetical colours, to be a person of low condition ; to
have no form nor comeliness in him; a man acquainted with
sorrows , and numbered among transgressors ; and by other
characters so clear and express, that some of the Jewish
rabbies, to elude so strong a conviction, have maintained and
propagated an absurd opinion, as if two Messiahs were fore¬
told by the prophets ; the one a triumphant monarch, the J
other an unfortunate and afflicted person. What will not
[* of the Messias ; ls< ed. “ of Messias,” — D.]
[f of the body ; ed. “ of body.” — D.]
[} the ; Is* ed. “ and the.” — D.j
236
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
perverse and refractory minds take hold of, rather than
submit to an unwelcome truth ?
It is evident, then, that the kingdom of Christ, so magni¬
fied in the prophetic style, is a spiritual kingdom. And yet,
to be free and ingenuous, we must own that the whole nation
of the Jews mistook the meaning of those passages. Even
our Saviour’s own disciples were not exempted from the
common error. And the whole posterity of that people are
pertinacious in it to this day ; which to many is a mighty
prejudice against the credit of the Gospel. What ! as if it
were such a matter of astonishment, that they obstinately
adhere to the literal sense, which promises them a temporal
kingdom, with worldly honours and pleasures ! an interpre¬
tation both specious in itself, and agreeable to their proud
hopes and carnal apprehensions, which are miserably de¬
feated and disappointed in Jesus. There seems to be nothing
so very unnatural and unaccountable in this. But then that
very disappointment, so far is it* from being an objection,
that, to a sagacious mind and uncorrupt judgment, itself is a
convincing proof that he was truly the Messias. For let us
reflect upon the state of those times. ’Tis certain, in fact,
that the whole nation was possessed with an inveterate per¬
suasion that the Messias was then a-coming ; and Jtis as cer¬
tain, that Jesus the son of Mary professed himself that
Messias. Let us argue now upon human reasons, and the
common principles of action. If he was not the true Mes¬
sias, we are then to consider him as an ordinary Jew, of
mean quality and education. Now, to give any tolerable
account why such a one should pretend himself to be the
Messias, there are but two ways possible : either he was
acted by ambitious designs, which he hoped to compass by
that imposture ; or by a complexional and natural enthusiasm,
verily imagining himself to be the Messias. I suppose I
scarce need to say, that both these suppositions are fully
confuted by every word and action of his life. But what I
now observe is this, that upon either of those principles,
[* is it ; ed. “it is.” — D.]
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
237
whether ambition or enthusiasm, he would certainly have
acted the part of the Messias in such a character as men
then ascribed to him ; according to the popular expec¬
tation, and the received notion of those times. Now the
whole nation expected that the Messias was to be a great
general, to rescue them from the Roman power, and to re¬
store the kingdom to Israel. *Tis certain, then, that upon
either of these two motives* he would have blown the
trumpet to rebellion, and attempted their deliverance. Am¬
bition would have animated him to it, as the only way to his
hopes and wishes. Or, if enthusiasm had inspired him, what
would he not have promised and assumed to himself? To
fight the battles of the Lord ; to execute vengeance upon the
heathen ; to bind their kings with chains , and their nobles with
fetters of iron. Such were the designs of Barcocab and
some other impostors of old : setting up to be the Messias,
they put their followers in arms, and proclaimed liberty to
the people. Not so the blessed Jesus : but, when the multi¬
tude would have made him their king, he withdrew himself
even by miracle to avoid it. He did not summon to arms,
but to repentance and newness of life. He had a kingdom
indeed ; but not of this earthly Jerusalem , but of that which
is”above. He was truly their deliverer ; but not from the
Roman yoke, but from the more slavish yoke of the law, from
the more wretched bondage to sin and death. Was this the
air and language of ambition ? Was this the mien and spirit
of enthusiasm ? Nay rather, does not nature herself cry out
and declare, that for one of his low condition and vulgar
education to profess himself the Messias in so surprising a
manner, in a character so unthought of, by an interpretation
of prophecies so spiritual and divine, so infinitely better than
the literal meaning, against the universal prejudice of the
nation, and the hopes and solicitations of his very followers,
was certainly a thing more than human ; an invincible testi¬
mony that he was really the Christ, and his doctrine from
God , and not of men.
[* these two motives ; ls< ed. “ those motives.” — D.}
238
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
But our adversaries have another objection still behind ;
and our answer thereto will put an end both to it and to the
present discourse. And this objection is borrowed from the
law of Moses ; which, say they, having a promise of eternity
annexed to it, to be an everlasting covenant , a perpetual sta¬
tute, a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, ought of neces-
. sity to be continued and confirmed by the true Messias :
whereas Jesus endeavoured to abolish it, and thereby wholly
subverted the credit of his own pretensions. But we answer
in our Saviour’s declaration, that he came not to destroy the
law, but to fulfil it.v We are to distinguish, then, between
the moral part of the Mosaic law, and the political and cere¬
monial. As to the rites and ceremonies, ’tis apparent they
had no intrinsic nor moral holiness in them, no natural tend¬
ency to promote the happiness of men ; nay rather, they
were inconvenient and grievous, a yoke of bondage and servile
discipline, which none were able to bear. Even the rewards
and penalties, which enforced their observation, did not natu¬
rally flow and result from them, as effects from proper
causes j but they were miraculously added to them by the
sole virtue of the divine promise. ’Tis true, they were fit
and proper for the ends of their institution ; to be types and
shadows of better things to come ; to preserve the people
from idolatry, by allowing no intercourse nor commerce with
other nations. But ’tis evident, for that very reason, as well
as many more, that those ceremonies were neither calculated
for eternity, nor modelled for mankind in common : so that
when the reasons of their sanction no longer continued;
when the things they typically represented were come to
pass ; when the wall of partition was to be removed, and, ac¬
cording to the prophecies, all nations to be called to Christ,
and the ends of the earth to be his possession ; they must
needs be antiquated and abolished, like scaffolds that are re¬
moved when the buildings are finished ; since under that
new state none of them had any further use, and several of
them became impossible to be observed. And so for the
v Matth. v. 17.
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
239
political institutions of Moses, Jtis plain they were accommo¬
dated to the circumstances of affairs, and the necessities of
time and place ; not absolutely the very best, hut the best
that those ages of the world and the genius of that people
would bear. As, for instance, the toleration of polygamy and
causeless divorces ; these were indulged them, not as most
pleasing to their lawgiver, but because of the hardness of their
hearts ,w in the words of our Saviour ; because they were too
stiff-necked and headstrong to admit of a shorter bridle.
These civil ordinances, therefore, when better precepts were
once proposed and accepted in their place, must of necessity
drop and die of themselves, and become obsolete without any
repeal : just as the temporary edicts in war, and the agree¬
ments of the cartel, do expire of their own accord when the
peace is concluded. But then the moral part of the law of
Moses, which is the sap and marrow, the soul and substance
of the whole, that indeed is of eternal and universal obli¬
gation. But then who can say that this is abrogated and
cancelled by Jesus ? So far from that, that every branch of
it is ingrafted and incorporated into his Gospel. In this best
of senses, therefore, the Mosaic law is confirmed and fulfilled
by our Saviour. For morality is a thing immutable; and,
unless human nature itself should be new-moulded by our
Maker, vice and virtue must be always what they have been.
So foolish was the cavil of the Deists against our Saviour’s
descent from heaven, because he gave no other lectures of
morals than what nature and reason had taught before.
Nay, if he had taught us the reverse of those morals, this had
been an objection indeed. But in that even the divinity of
his doctrine most eminently appears ; that the finger of God
upon the tables of our hearts, and the pens of the inspired
writers in the volume of the Gospel, have prescribed us one
and the same lesson. As for us, whose employment it is to
teach that lesson to others, let us but express it also in our
own lives and conversations ; let us but add that credit to
w Matth. xix. 8.
240
OF REVELATION AND THE MESSIAS.
our doctrine, that reputation to our profession : so may we
expect to bring over all our adversaries to the truth and
power of religion ; so may we expect, when we give the
account of our talents, to be received with that blessed ap¬
probation, Well done , thou good and faithful servant, enter
thou into the joy of thy Master.
A SERMON UPON POPERY,*
PREACHED AT CAMBRIDGE,
November the fifth, 1715.
2 Corinthians, ii. 17-
For we are not as many , which corrupt the word of God : but
as of sincerity, but as of God , in the sight of God speak we
in Christ.
Our text, as it exhibits to us two contrary characters, of
many that corrupt the word of God , and of some that handle
it in sincerity , may fitly represent the two different views of
the Church under Popery and the Reformation ; and may
furnish a proper discourse for the solemnity of this day, when
we are met to commemorate the public deliverance from one
of the most impious and bloody attempts that even popish
pravity and corruption either contrived or favoured.
[* This admirable discourse, well suited to the peculiar circumstances of
those times, was attacked by a Calvinistic dissenter named Cummins (or
Commins) in Remarks on Dr. Bentley’s Sermon upon Popery : Preach’d before the
University of Cambridge, November the 5th, 1715.
Quid dignum tanto feret hie Promissor Hiatu ?
Parturiunt Montes. Hor.
1716, 8vo, pp. 24. Cummins was answered in Reflections on the Scandalous As¬
persions cast on the Clergy, By the Author of the Remarks upon a Sermon on Popery,
Preach’d by the Revd. Dr. Bentley, November the Fifth, 1715. With a particular
Vindication of the Doctrine of Universal Redemption. Anseribus cibaria publice
locantur et canes aluntur in Capitolio ut significent si fures venerint, at fares inter-
noscere non possunt, significant tamen si qui noctu in Capitolium venerint. — Quod si
luce quoque canes latrent cum deos salutatum aliqui venerint, opinor Us crura suf-
fringantur, quod acres sint etiam turn cum suspicio nulla est. Tull. Orat. pro Rose.
Amerino. — Obpevovv rrj dA^Oei'a - Svuatrai avnSeyeiv eVel S,uicpaT? iroWol, but ax?
ol 7 roWol, as the many, as the multitude. These two senses
are very different : as many may still be the lesser part ;
as the many must always be the majority: as many must
mean here Christians only ; as the many may include the
heathens too : c t> oi n roWol, as the world does, as the gene-
[* Apud Cic. De Off. i. 12. — Vulgo, “Nec cauponantes bellum, sed bellige -
r ante a.” — D.] [f the; 1st ed. “a.’‘ — D.]
244
SERMON UPON POPERY.
rality does. 01 ttoWoI, the multitude, the community, is a
known expression in profane authors, opposed sometimes
T0Z9 cro which no body else
was to know.
No sooner had Christianity spread itself over the world,
but superstition mixed and grew up along with it ; a weed
natural to human soil, complexionally inherent in the weaker
sex, and adventitious to most of our own. Vast multitudes
SERMON UPON POPERY.
249
of all nations withdrew from the world ; renounced human
society, and all commerce with their own species ; abandoned
the cities and villages for the solitude of woods, deserts, and
caves ; under a false notion of pleasing God better by such
devotion and mortification. But all this was at first pure
and simple superstition ; no mixture of avarice and craft in
it, no tincture of politic and worldly advantage ; their known
poverty and perpetual austerities wholly quit them of that
suspicion. But how did Popery manage this foible of man¬
kind to its lucre and interest ? Under a pretence of a like
retirement from the world in a life of prayer and contem¬
plation, they began their monasteries, abbeys, nunneries, &c. ;
which by degrees so vastly multiplied, that, instead of their
first pretence of retreating from the world, the very world
was filled with them : instead of the old hermitical poverty,
they had drained the riches of kingdoms, had engrossed the
fattest of the lands ; nay, had appropriated and devoured the
very ministerial wages, the bread and sustenance of the pa¬
rochial clergy, who were impoverished, made vile and con¬
temptible, to feed these vassals of the popes in their laziness
and luxury.
In the early ages of the Gospel there was a high and just
veneration for the sepulchres and remains of holy men, for
the memorials of them in statue or picture, for the places of
their abode ; and especially for the land of Palestine, which
the patriarchs, the Son of God* and his apostles, had made
sacred by their birth and habitation. This at first was within
due bounds ; but superstition was soon engrafted on it, and
grew to excess : the remains and relics were supposed to
work miracles ; the images had not value only, but worship
and adoration ; long journeys were taken, to the great detri¬
ment of families, to visit holy places, and kiss the footsteps
of saints and martyrs. These bigotries, though even then
reprehended by the best Fathers of those ages, were yet
without any mixture of craft and knavery. But Popery soon
[* the patriarchs, the Son of God ; 1st ed. “ the patriarchs, the prophets,
the Son of God.” — D.]
2 K
VOL. III.
250
SERMON UPON POPERY.
saw that here was a proper fund, to be improved and managed
to great advantage. Instead of coercion and restraint, they
advised, encouraged, commanded those superstitions, with
such scandalous KaTrrjXela , such abominable traffic, as even
paganism would blush at. All the graves and catacombs
were exhausted to furnish relics ; not a bone, not the least
scrap of raiment of any saint, that was not removed into the
holy wardrobe, to raise money to the shewers. Where the
monuments were dubious and blended, the names and bodies
of pagan slaves were taken into the church-calendar and
treasury : disputes and quarrels arose among the numerous
pretenders to one and the same relic, which could never be
decided ; but the victory was various and alternate, according
to the fruitful inventions and ingenious lies of the contending
impostors. Even statues and pictures of the same saint were
made to rival each other; and the blessed Virgin, like Juno
Lucina and Juno Sospita, had as many numina and specific
powers as she had pictures and statues ; one celebrated for
one virtue, another for another. No piety was thought ac¬
ceptable, no life religiously spent, without a pilgrimage to
some foreign saint, where vows and rich offerings must be
paid at the shrine. But, above all, the endeavour to gain the
Holy Land, by driving out the Saracens, was the most pro¬
mising project, the very masterpiece of Popery. What arts
were used, and* what not used, to inveigle the princes and
nobility of Europe into that romantic expedition ! Every
hour of grief or sickness, every hour of mirth and wine, were
a snare and trepan to them. If, in any of those softer mo¬
ments, they once rashly took the cross on their garments,
the vow was irrevocable ; to break it was thought attended
with all misfortunes in this world, and damnation in the
other. In the mean time, salvation, like soldier’s pay, was
promised and insured to all that embarked; the heavenly
Jerusalem to be their certain acquisition, though they failed
and perished in fighting for the earthly. Now while the
world by these artifices was made mad and infatuate ; while
[* and ; lsi ed. “ or.” — D.]
SERMON UPON POPERY.
251
princes abandoned their own realms, and left the regency in
weak or treacherous hands ; while for several generations all
Europe was exhausted of its strength and its wealth, and the
remainder overrun with superstition and leprosy; the con¬
trivers of all this were not wanting to their own interest.
’Twas then, in the absence of so many kings, and the dis¬
tracted condition at home, that Popery made its most plentiful
harvest ; then cities, with their large territories, were extorted
out of the owners’ hands, and made the patrimony of the
church ; then investitures, faculties, dispensations, bulls, the
whole shop and warehouse of profit and power, were ex¬
tended and exerted over all persons and employments ; then,
in a word, was mankind enslaved, and Popery trod upon the
necks of princes. And well was it for Palestine that the
Saracens kept possession of it. If Popery had succeeded in
its attempt on that country, what a new revenue from pil¬
grimages ! what an inexhaustible store of religious merchan¬
dise ! every stone there would have been a sacred relic. If
we may guess from some histories, the very soil would have
been dug up and exported by this time, and customers in¬
vited to the purchase by a new legend of miracles. Not a
church in Europe would have been counted holy, not a
palace or seat lucky or prosperous, not an estate, not a field
or close, fertile to the owner, that had not some of the holy
earth to bless and to sanctify it.
When the empire was first Christian, though the bishops
of Rome had no more under their inspection than the sub-
urbicarian regions, yet the great city imperial, the metro¬
polis of the western world, gave them a just preeminence
above those of inferior and municipal towns. And so those
of Constantinople had a due deference paid them by the other
bishops of the east, as fiacrLXevTepoi aWcov, presiding* over a
diocese the most numerous and the most potent. A fit re¬
gard always was and ought to be had to their advice, concur¬
rence, and assistance ; since their example must needs have
the greatest influence on the peace of the whole church.
[* presiding; ls< ed. “as presiding.” — D.]
252
SERMON UPON POPERY.
Now, how did Popery make use of this advantage of situa¬
tion, to make spiritual Rome as much the empress of the
church as ever civil Rome had been of the state ? In long
tract of time they reduced all under their power ; not by our
Saviour’s declaration, ’Eiri ravTjj t fj Trirpa, Upon this rock I
will build my church, as if that was the Tarpeian rock, and
the cliff of the Roman Capitol ; but by the subtlest arts of
politic, continued from age to age with indefatigable address ;
by sowing factions among all other bishops, and* promoting
appeals to the arbitration of popes, who always decided for
those that owned their authority : by creating new bishops
against those in possession; the event whereof was both
ways the certain increase of papal power; for either the
pope’s new title prevailed, or the former bishop, after long
charge and vexation, was content, for quietness’ sake, to keep
his own, as the gift of the pope by an after act of confirm¬
ation. And as they then managed with the bishops, so in
time they dealt with princes ; fomented rebellions of their
subjects ; set brother up against brother in pretence to the
crown ; who was to own it, when obtained, as a donation
from Rome ; and the contract for it, that all the ecclesiastical
dignities should be in the pope’s collation. By these methods,
continued through many successions, the result at last was,
that he was the spiritual monarch of the universe, the ac¬
knowledged patron of all church preferments ; that all bishops
held their jurisdiction not from Christ, but from him ; that
kings themselves were no kings, till accepted and confirmed
by him ; that they might be resisted, deposed, or murdered,
if they did not govern by his dictates and directions ; that he,
as visible head of the church, was superior to general coun¬
cils ; that he, perhaps at first some ignorant monk, after he
was once chosen pope, though without the suffrage either of
clergy or people, by a mercenary conclave and nocturnal
cabal of cardinals, a new order contrived by Popery to de¬
press and subdue the bishops, was immediately gifted with
infallibility. O horrible profanation of a divine attribute !
[* and ; Is/ ed. “ and then.” — D.]
SERMON UPON POPERY.
253
O audacious and ridiculous claim ! which, though no pope
can ever believe of himself, and the cardinals his electors,
like the haruspices of old, may laugh at when they see each
other ; yet it’s an useful pretence in the way of politic, and
of great moment among the adoring crowds, to support and
establish his usurped spiritual empire.
As the Christians in the first ages were all educated in
the midst of paganism, and the most of them made converts
out of it ; so it could not be avoided, but that many must
assume or transfer some pagan notions into the system of
Christianity. Besides the one supreme God, the pagans had
vast numbers of inferior deities, who had every one shares of
the common devotion. This begot in many Christians a like
worship of angels and saints, as mediators and intercessors
between them and the heavenly Father. The dii manes of
the pagans, and the parentations to their dead ancestors,
produced a near resemblance to them among some Christians,
that offered solemn prayers and expiations for the souls of
their deceased relations. The Platonic notion, that the
laa-L/xa d/iapTij/xara, the curable sins, the delible stains of
departed souls, were scoured and purged off by propor¬
tionate punishments ;
- alia panduntur inanes
Suspenses ad ventos ; aliis sub gurgite vasto
Infectum eluitur scelus, aut eocuritur igni ;*
must naturally raise among some Christians a like persuasion
about a future purgatory. These notions and practices,
though quite repugnant to the holy Scriptures, were not
discouraged nor forbid by Popery ; but propagated, enjoined,
and enacted, being a most sure and ample fund to increase
the church’s treasure. In course of time the whole calendar
was crowded with saints ; not a day in the year without its
red letter : every trade and profession had its saint tutelar
and peculiar, who must be retained and engaged with pre¬
sents and oblations. Horses, cows, and sheep, every animal
[* Virg. En . vi. 740. — D.]
♦
254
SERMON UPON POPERY.
domestic, the fields and the vineyards, the very furniture of
houses, must be annually blessed and sanctified, at a set
price for the blessing : and if the old set of saints should by
long time grow cheap and vulgar, there still was a reserve in
Popery to enhance and quicken the low market, by making
new and fresh ones in acts of canonization. And then, by
their prayers and the masses for the dead, to ease and shorten
the pains of purgatory, what a spacious door was opened for
a perpetual flow of money ! What family was not daily pil¬
laged of some part of its substance ? What heart could bear
that his dead father should fry in the flames of purgatory,
when a moderate sum might buy him out of them ? Or who
would not secure himself by a timely legacy for masses for
his soul, without leaving it to the conscience and courtesy of
his heir ?
But what do we speak of this popish traffic for the sins
of the dead, when the very sins of the living, the wages of
damnation, were negotiated and trucked, indulged or par¬
doned, by the wicked politic of Popery ! As in common life
we daily see, that an officer shall permit and license those
very frauds for money, which his office itself constitutes him
and commands him to prevent; so has Popery done in that
great affair of a Christian life, and the duties of the Gospel.
To engross which profitable trade, it was first necessary that
Rome should challenge the sole custody of the keys of heaven
and hell, should claim the sole power of loosing and binding,
should possess the sole mint of all spiritual licenses and par¬
dons. When this was once arrogated and obtained, what an
impious fca7rri\eia, what an extensive traffic was opened !
As the other schemes drew in the superstitious and the bigots,
so this was to wheedle and pillage the profane, the impure,
the villains of the world. The common sale was soon pro¬
claimed for indulgences and pardons for all crimes past or
to come, already committed, or hereafter designed ; the price
raised and enhanced according to the deeper dye and black¬
ness of the guilt. The stated market at Rome was not suffi¬
cient for the commerce : the princes only and the nobles
SERMON UPON POPERY.
255
could afford to send thither for them ; so that, for the ease
and benefit of trade, blank instruments were issued out for
all the countries of Europe, and retailed by the spiritual
pedlars at the public markets and at the private doors : such
a cheap pardon cried aloud for the more common sins of
lying, swearing, drunkenness, or fornication ; a higher price
in private for robbery or murder ; a higher still for sodomy
or incest. Thus were the grace of God, the remission of
sins, all the privileges of the Gospel, trucked and cauponated
by Popery, for sordid and detestable lucre, upon the open
scheme and the bare foot of Atheism.
^Tis true, indeed, that when the light of the Reformation
broke out, and good letters revived and spread around, even
the popish provinces grew too wise and sagacious for this
gross imposture ; such wretched wares were thenceforth
chiefly vended among the poor ignorants of America. But
there soon arose a new set of loose and profligate casuists,
who, to engage on their side the libertine part of mankind,
since impunity in sins would no longer be bought with
money, should distribute it gratis, and instruct them to be
wicked without remorse and with assurance. These are they
who (contrary to St. Paul, Rom. iii. 8) are not slanderously
reported to say, Let us do evil, that good may come ; who ex¬
cuse and patronise the vilest corruptions, the foulest cheats,
forgeries, and extortions in common dealing ; who teach that
no faith promised or sworn to heretics or enemies is of any
obligation; who defend common perjury and perfidiousness
by the scandalous shifts of equivocals and mental restric¬
tions ; who have glossed and warped all the severe rules of
the Gospel about chastity, charity, and forgiveness, to the
worldly and wicked notions of gallantry and point of honour;
who sanctify the horridest villanies, murders, plots, assassi¬
nations, massacres (like the intended one of this day), if de¬
signed for the service of the church ; who, in a word, have
given such vicious systems of moral, such a license to corrupt
nature, as a heathen Stoic, Platonic, or Academic, nay, an
Epicurean, though in himself never so wicked, durst not have
polluted his pages with, out of reverence to his sect.
256
SERMON UPON POPERY.
I might proceed, would the time permit me, to discover
all the rest of their politic arts, the mysteries of their spi¬
ritual trade ; for such are all their peculiar tenets, that were
discarded at the Reformation. What availed it to the clergy,
that the Scriptures expressly said, marriage is honourable in
all : let a bishop, let a presbyter , be the husband of one wife :
one that ruleth well in his own house, having faithful children ,
kept in subjection with all gravity ? This did not suit with
popish politic; this tied* and attached the clergy to the
common interest of mankind; their affection to their own
children made their country also dear to ’em, made them
love and pity the abused laity ; they were not vassals devoted
enough to the service of a foreign master ; the riches of the
church did not flow in one channel, nor all revert at last to
that one fountain and receptacle. And for these pious rea¬
sons, in spite of plain Scripture, of the authority of ages
before, of all the lusts and impurities that must necessarily
follow, a chaste legitimate marriage shall be forbidden to
the clergy, and an adulterous celibacy shall be enjoined
universal.
But what can plain Scripture avail against the avarice and
pride of Popery, when both common sense internal, and the
joint testimony of all our outward senses, must submit to its
decrees, when ’tis to advance its profit or power ? That due
respect ever paid to ra ayia, the consecrated bread and wine
at the holy communion, was easily raised by superstition and
ignorance to the highest excess, to notions improbable and
impossible. This fair handle was not neglected by Popery :
by slow degrees transubstantiation was enacted into an article
of faith ; and a very beneficial one to the priests, since it made
them the makers of god, and a sort of gods among the
people. But we must think better and juster of the con¬
trivers of it, than that they themselves believed it ; they did
or could believe it no more, than a proposition made up of the
most disparate ideas, that sound may be turned into colour, a
syllogism into a stone. *Twas not ignorance nor stupidity,
but the most subtle and crafty politic, that produced tran-
[* tied; so 1st ed. : ed. 173 5, “tried.” — D.]
SERMON UPON POPERY.
257
substantiation. Thence the awful pomp,, the august caval¬
cades, in the procession* of the hostie ; as if they would outdo
the pagan ones of Cyhele ;
Ingratos animos atque impia pectora vulgi
Conterrere metu qua> possint numine Diva : f
thence the presence of God continually resident corporeal at
the high altar : thence, to exhibit it perpetually there, the
wafer, panis a&gos, unleavened unfermented bread, was
taken into the solemnity, both against ancient practice and
the perpetual custom of the Greek church ; because common
bread would soon have grown mouldy, and not pass with the
palate of the multitude for the body of God : thence, at last,
in the xiiith century, was the cup denied to the laity;
not for not seeing the plain words of the Scripture, Drink ye
all of this ; not for the dearness or scarcity of wine, which
is cheap and common in those climates; not for the then
pretended reason, that the mustaches or whiskers in the
mode of that age used to dip into the holy cup ; but because
it was inconsistent with the rest of the show. So small a
quantity of wine, even after consecration, would soon grow
dead and vapid ; would discover its true nature, if tasted after
long standing. The wine, therefore, because it interferes
with the standing ceremony and continued pageantry of tran-
substantiation, has not the honour to be reposited with the
wafer on the altar, nor to accompany it in the solemn pro¬
cessions.
I might now go on to shew you a more dismal scene of
impostures, their judicia Dei , the judgments of God, as they
blasphemously called ’em, when no human evidence could
be found : their trials by ordeal ; by taking a red-hot iron in
the hand ; by putting the naked arm into hot boiling water ;
by sinking or swimming in pools and rivers when bound fast
hand and foot : all of them borrowed or copied from pagan
knavery and superstition, and so manageable by arts and
slights, that the party could be found guilty or innocent just
[* procession; 1st ed. “ processions.”— D.] [f Lucret. ii. 622.— D.]
VOL. III. 2 L
258
SERMON UPON POPERY.
as the priests pleased, who were always the triers. What
bribes were hereby procured ! what false legacies extorted !
what malice and revenge executed ! on all which if we should
fully dilate and expatiate, the intended tragedy of this day,
which now calls for our consideration, would scarce appear
extraordinary. Dreadful indeed it was, astonishing to the
imagination ; all the ideas assembled in it of terror and
horror. Yet, when I look on it with a philosophical eye, I
am apt to felicitate those appointed for that sudden blast of
rapid destruction ; and to pity those miserables that were out
of it, the designed victims to slow cruelty, the intended ob¬
jects of lingering persecution. For, since the whole plot
(which will ever be the plot of Popery) was to subdue and
enslave the nation, who would not choose and prefer a short
and despatching death, quick as that by thunder and light¬
ning, which prevents pain and perception, before the anguish
of mock trials, before the legal accommodations of gaols and
dungeons, before the peaceful executions by fire and faggot ?
Who would not rather be placed direct above the infernal
mine than pass through the pitiless mercies, the salutary
torments of a popish inquisition, that last accursed contriv¬
ance of atheistical and devilish politic ? If the other schemes
have appeared to be the shop, the warehouse of Popery, this
may be justly called its slaughter-house and its shambles.
Hither are haled poor creatures (I should have said rich, for
that gives the frequentest suspicion of heresy), without any
accuser, without allegation of any fault. They must inform
against themselves, and make confession of something here¬
tical ; or else undergo the discipline of the various tortures ;
a regular system of ingenious cruelty, composed by the united
skill and long successive experience of the best engineers
and artificers of torment. That savage saying of Caligula’s,*
horrible to speak or hear, and fit only to be writ in blood,
Ita feri, ut se mori sentiat, is here heightened and improved :
Ita se mori sentiat, ut ne moriatur, say these merciful inqui¬
sitors. The force, the effect of every rack, every agony, are
[* Suet. Calig. 30.— D.]
SERMON UPON POPERY.
259
exactly understood : this stretch, that strangulation, is the
utmost nature can bear, the least addition will overpower it ;
this posture keeps the weary soul hanging upon the lip, ready
to leave the carcass, and yet not suffered to take its wing ;*
this extends and prolongs the very moment of expiration,
continues the pangs of dying without the ease and benefit of
death. O pious and proper methods for the propagation of
faith ! O true and genuine vicar of Christ, the God of mercy,
and the Lord of peace !
And now, after this short, but true sketch and faithful
landscape of Popery, I presume there’s but little want of
advice or application. If this first character in the text be¬
longs to Popery, let us secure the other to ourselves, that we
handle the word in sincerity , as of God, as in the sight of God
in Christ. The Reformation without this must forfeit its
name, and the Church of England must lose its nature. Let
every one, therefore, that thinks he stands, take heed lest he
fall. Our very text informs us, that in the apostle^s own
days, when the church was in its greatest purity and sim¬
plicity, there were even then many /cdwryXoi, fraudulent deal¬
ers, among its members ; though the traffic must needs run
low when the whole community was so poor. But when the
emperors became Christian, and the immense revenues of the
pagan priesthood were (as indeed they ought to be) all con¬
fiscated and distributed, without doubt the spoil and the
[* This powerful passage has been borrowed by Sterne. Part of the cele¬
brated “ sermon” introduced into Tristram Shandy is as follows : — “ Go with
me for a moment into the prisons of the Inquisition . Hark! hark!
what a piteous groan ! See the melancholy wretch who uttered it just brought
forth to undergo the anguish of a mock trial, and endure the utmost pains
that a studied system of cruelty has been able to invent. Behold this helpless
victim delivered up to his tormentors, — his body so wasted with sorrow
and confinement, you will see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. Observe
the last movement of that horrid engine ; see what convulsions it has thrown
him into ! Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched, —
what exquisite tortures he endures by it. ’Tis all nature can hear! Good
God! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips, — willing
to take its leave , hut not suffered to depart." — Sterne’s Works, vol. i. pp. 247-250,
ed. 1788.— D.]
260
SERMON UPON POPERY.
plunder attracted crowds of new converts, and the courtiers
found it useful to declare themselves good Christians. Even
the Reformation itself did not make the slower progress for
the vast riches of the monasteries that were to be dissolved ;
nor had it been less honour to it, if, as the lands and manors
of the abbeys were justly restored to the laity, so their im¬
propriations had reverted to the parochial clergy, from whom
they had been robbed. To say the truth, the spirit of Popery
is near as old as human race ; ?tis in all ages and places,
and even then exerts itself when it demolishes Popery. The
generality of men, ol n roWol, were always tcd'K'rffioi , traders
in a profession. The Epicureans of old, though they denied
and derided the heathen gods, would yet gladly accept of a
fat benefice, optimum sacerdotium, and, to gain an ample
revenue, would officiate at those altars which they silently
laughed at. Think not, therefore, that all the priests were
the vilest of men, but that some of the vilest of men got in
to be priests. They saw the opportunity of enslaving and
pillaging mankind, if they could but manage the priesthood
upon atheistical principles. This was the temptation, this
gave the original to Popery 5 and nothing to be accused for it
but human nature in common. What profession, what con¬
junction of laymen, if not continually watched, if not curbed
and regulated by authority, have not abused the like advan¬
tage and ascendant in their several ways, to their private
emolument, and the oppression of the public ? Let us watch,
therefore, against this fatal degeneration, incident to all
things. He that aims malis artibus to arrive at church pre¬
ferment, by sinful or servile compliance, by turbulency and
faction, what is he but KaTnjXos, a trafficker for sordid lucre ?
He that zealously vends his novelties, or revives dead and
buried heresies to the disturbance of the community, what is
he but a trader for the fame of singularity ? He that labours
to dig up all the fences of the church ; to throw down her
articles and canons, her liturgy and ceremonies ; to extin¬
guish her nurseries of learning ; and when he has made her
a mere waste and a common, shall call that a comprehension ;
SERMON UPON POPERY.
261
what is he but a vile factor to libertinism and sacrilege ? He
that propagates suspected doctrines, such as praying for the
dead, auricular confession, and the like, whose sole tendency
is the gain and power of the priest, what is he but a negoti¬
ator for his partisans abroad ? what does he hut sow the
seeds of Popery in the very soil of the Reformation ?
But if we are to watch against the silent tide of Popery
in the small rivulets at home, much more against its inun¬
dation and deluge from abroad, which always meditates, and
now threatens, to overwhelm us. If foreign Popery once
return, and regain all the provinces that it lost at the Re¬
formation, O the terrible storm of persecution at its first
regress ! O the dark prospect of slavery and ignorance for
the ages behind ! In tract of time it will rise again to as full
a measure of usurped hierarchy as when the hero Luther first
proclaimed war against it. For then was Popery in its meri¬
dian height : it was not raised up all at once, but by the
slow work of many centuries. In all the steps and advances
of its progress, the good men of the several ages opposed it,
but in vain ; they were overborne by a majority, were si¬
lenced by the strong arguments of processes and prisons ; for
it first subdued its own priests, before it brought the laity
under its yoke. Good letters became a crime even in the
clergy : or heresy or magic, according to the different turn
of men’s studies, was a certain imputation upon all that dared
to excel. And though Popery, since the Reformation, has
even in its own quarters permitted learning and humanity,
and prudently withdrawn some of its most scandalous trum¬
pery ; yet if once again it sees itself universal, the whole
warehouse, now kept under key, will again be set wide open ;
the old tyranny will ride triumphant upon the necks of en¬
slaved mankind, with certain provision against a future re¬
volt. The two instruments, the two parents of the Reforma¬
tion, ancient learning and the art of printing, both coming
providentially at one juncture of time, will be made the first
martyrs, the earliest sacrifice to popish politic. The dead
languages, as they are now called, will then die in good
262
SERMON UPON POPERY.
earnest. All the old authors of Greece and Italy, as the
conveyers of hurtful knowledge, as inspirers of dangerous
liberty, will he condemned to the flames ; an enterprise of no
difficulty, when the pope shall once again be the general dic¬
tator. All these writings must then perish together ; no old
records shall survive to bear witness against Popery, nor any
new be permitted to give it disturbance. The press will then
he kept under custody in a citadel, like the mint and the
coinage nothing but mass-books and rosaries, nothing but
dry postils and fabulous legends, shall then be the staple
commodities, even in an university.
For the double festivity, therefore, of this candid and joy¬
ful day ; for the double deliverance obtained in it, the one
from the conspiracy of Popery, the other from its tyranny ;
for the happy preservation of our religion, laws, and liberties,
under the protection of pious and gracious princes ; for the
flourishing estate of learning, and the prosperity of our
nursing mother, — be all thanks, praise, and glory to God, for
ever and ever. Amen.
A SERMON
PREACHED BEFORE KING GEORGE I.*
On February the third, 1716-7.
Rom. xiv. 7*
For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.
Our apostle having in this chapter and before discoursed of
the mutual duties and obligations in human life, concludes
the whole with the words above, sententiously in way of
aphorism. That no one liveth to himself, and no one dieth to
himself. Which without doubt must seem a harsh paradox
to a narrow-minded person, that is wholly involved and con¬
tracted within his own little self, and makes his private plea¬
sure or profit the sole centre of his designs, and the circum¬
ference of all his actions. Indeed, the heathen poet in the
epigram, a man of that very stamp, as sitting in pagan dark¬
ness and the shadow of death, teaches the downright reverse
to our text : Vive tihi, says he, nam moriere tibi. f He took
it as self-evident, That every one dies to himself; and there¬
fore infers it as a consequence both plain and profitable, That
every one ought to live to himself. But our inspired writer
has here taught us a new and Christian lesson, a doctrine
which is the source and spring of all true piety to God, of
justice and beneficence to men, of public spirit, and all the
other ingredients of heroic and godlike virtue ; a doctrine, too,
so pregnant of sense and truth, that it may be considered in
various views, all different from each other, and all worthy
[* The 1st ed. adds, “ at his Royal Chapel of St. James’s:” it was delivered
by Bentley in the capacity of chaplain to his Majesty. — D.]
[f “ Uni vive tibi, nam moriere tibi,” — the last line of an epigram by an
unknown author: see it in Anth. Vet. Lat. Epig. et Poem. t. i. p. 510. ed.
Burmann. — D.]
264
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
of our serious speculation. I cannot now undertake to ex¬
haust them all; in so short a discourse as is prescribed by the
occasion ; but I shall place before you some of the principal,
at least some of the most general and obvious, which may
furnish a proper hint and rise to your own further medi¬
tations.
I. None of us, says the apostle, liveth to himself. To live
to a man’s self, when considered at large, is to do all the
actions of life with regard to himself alone ; as a true free¬
born son of earth, not accountable to any other being for his
behaviour and conduct, but carving out his own satisfaction
in every object of desire, without any obligation or relation
to a higher power. Now, in this sense, I conceive it’s suffi¬
ciently plain, that none of us liveth, ought to live, or can live,
to himself. ’Tis the thoughtless atheist alone that can be
guilty of such absurdity, to imagine the first parents of
human race sprung naturally out of the mud, without the
foresight and efficiency of an intelligent cause. Every one,
I say, but an atheist, (if an atheist can now possibly be, under
the powerful light of the Gospel, and the late advances in
natural knowledge, which directly lead and guide to the dis¬
covery of the Deity,) every one else must needs see and
acknowledge that an almighty and all-wise God was our
Creator; and consequently, that we live to him, the sole
author of life, and not to ourselves. All our powers and
faculties, all the properties and perfections of our nature,
were gratuitously given us by the good will of our Maker,
without our own asking or knowing. We neither produced
our own being, nor can we annihilate it; we can neither
raise it above, nor depress it below, the original standard of
its essence, derived to the whole species. Which of you, says
our Saviour, Luke, xii. 25, which of you by taking thought can
add one cubit to his stature ? And so also may we say, which
of us creatures, by all our thought and industry, can add one
specific power to our beings more than God has bestowed
upon them ? ’Tis true, indeed, we may either exert or clog
our native faculties in different degrees ; we may either in-
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
265
vigorate them by exercise and habit, or damp and stifle them
by sloth and neglect ; so that the same person under one
education and tour of life would extremely differ from him¬
self had he fallen under another. But with all our endea¬
vours we can exalt none of our faculties above their original
pitch ; we can never raise the aqueduct above the level of the
fountain-head ; we cannot advance our species, or change
our human nature to a superior class of being ; we must all
continue in our settled rank and degree, as God was pleased
to place mankind in the great scale of the creation : Tis the
will and decree of God that we are what we are ; and as we
are all his creatures, the work of his hands, his servants of
such particular station, we do all live to him, and not to
ourselves.
II. But then, secondly , besides the title of creation, even
on the account of our conservation, we so entirely subsist
upon the power and will of God, that in this view also we
must needs confess that none of us liveth to himself but to
him. For as God at first by his almighty power produced
the world and all creatures out of nothing, so by a perpetual
efficacy and emanation of the same power he sustains them
all from relapsing into nothing. ’Tis concluded, I think,
among all those that have well considered these matters, that
the same divine energy which gave a being to any creature
must be constantly and incessantly exerted to continue it in
being. Could we suppose the great Creator but for one
single moment to suspend and interrupt the communication
of that power, the whole frame and system of nature must
immediately drop and vanish into its primitive nullity. Every
essence therefore, except his own eternal and immutable
essence, is solely supported by him, and owes to him not
only the first production, but the continuance of its being.
From him alone depend not only the breath of our nostrils ,
the operations and instruments of mortal life, but the very
existence of our souls and bodies : upon his invariable will,
upon his inviolable promise, rest all our hopes of future
glory, and all the prospect of happy immortality. This the
VOL. HI. 2 M
266
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
voice of reason dictates to us, and the authority of holy
Scripture puts it out of question ; for in him, says our apos¬
tle, Acts, xvii. 28, we live , and move , and have our being.
And if we all live and exist in him, much more do we live to
him, and none of us to himself.
III. But again, thirdly, the proposition, now our text,
may be considered in another view, not only with respect to
God, our creator and preserver, but with reference to the
several parts of the creation itself. If we survey the whole
system of it, as far as human understanding and industry
have yet advanced, we shall not find one single thing made
absolutely for itself, but to bear likewise some office, some
subservience to the uses of its fellow- creatures ; the all-wise
Author of the universe having so contrived every part of his
work, that they are all coherent and contributive to each
other, and, by their mutual operations, conduce every one its
share to the economy and beauty of the whole. Thus, astro¬
nomy informs us that the moon, not barely made to govern
our night, though so very useful to our earth by reflecting
the sun’s rays to it, receives again the like benefit from our
earth in a greater measure than she gives it. ’Twere very
easy, if this occasion was proper for it, to shew the like re¬
lation in all known instances of nature ; how every thing
conspires to the general good, and was made for each other,
as well as each for itself, and all for the glory of their Maker.
JTis enough to say, once for all, what true philosophy assures
us, that every least particle of body, every atom of the world,
has its operation and passion perpetual and reciprocal with
all the rest of the world besides it ; such an alliance being
established between all the matter of the universe, that the
whole is linked together by mutual attraction or gravitation,
working regularly and uniformly according to quantity and
distance ; which is the great instrument in the hand of God
to support the permanent frame of things in the same pos¬
ture as at first it was constituted. Now, if all the visible
world be thus made for each other, how dare we entertain
the thought that we alone should be made to live to our-
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
267
selves ? Some, indeed, have had the vanity to assert, that all
the world was made for the use of man, and man for his own
enjoyment : a very insolent presumption ; a composition of
self-love, partiality, and natural pride ; when we have neither
a due knowledge of ourselves, nor of the things about us.
By the late improvements of science and art, there are
discovered such new regions in the universe, new to us,
though as old as our own ; such immense tracts of sky,
and innumerable stars, each equal to our sun and his spa¬
cious system, which never before entered into man’s ima¬
gination ; that it’s scarce possible to think in earnest that all
those were created for our sakes only, seeing our world was
grown old before we had the least tidings of their very exist¬
ence. And this may teach us both the modesty and the
judgment to think, that even in the intellectual world there
may be numerous ranks and classes of rational creatures,
some inferior and many superior to us in the perfections of
their several natures. What arrogance, therefore, for us, for
us that probably make so small a figure in the great sum of
the creation, to think we only were made exempt from the
universal law of service and dependence ! Has not God
himself told us, in the apostle’s words, Heb. i. 14, that even
the angels themselves are all ministering spirits ? But if
those glorious beings live to subserve and minister to others,
how can we, so far below in* natural powers, station, and
dignity ; how can we presume we owe service to nothing, but
are made to live only to ourselves ?
IV. But, fourthly, let us now proceed from the natural
world to the moral ; and in that view we shall still more
clearly discover the truth of our text. That none of us liveth
to himself. Our Creator has implanted in mankind such
appetites and inclinations, such natural wants and exigencies,
that they lead him spontaneously to the love of society and
friendship, to the desire of government and community.
Without society and government, man would be found in a
worse condition than the very beasts of the field. That di-
[* below in ; 1st ed. “ below them in.” — D.]
268
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
vine ray of reason, which is his privilege above the brutes,
would only serve in that case to make him more sensible of
his wants, and more uneasy and melancholic under them.
Now, if society and mutual friendship be so essential and
necessary to the happiness of mankind, Tis a clear conse¬
quence, that all such obligations as are necessary to maintain
society and friendship are incumbent on every man. No one,
therefore, that lives in society, and expects his share in the
benefits of it, can be said to live to himself. No, he lives to
his prince and his country ; he lives to his parents and his
family; he lives to his friends and to all under his trust; he
lives even to foreigners, under the mutual sanctions and sti¬
pulations of alliance and commerce ; nay, he lives to the
whole race of mankind : whatsoever has the character of
man, and wears the same image of God that he does, is truly
his brother, and, on account of that natural consanguinity,
has a just claim to his kindness and benevolence. Not that
private offenders are not to be punished with loss of goods,
of liberty, of life itself, in proportion to the offence ; nor just
wars not to be undertaken for the security of national happi¬
ness : wars and offences will come (such is the imperfection
of human state), and woe be to them by whom they come. But
then those very severities, the necessary effects of penal laws
at home, and of wars and ruptures abroad, do all arise and
flow from a principle of love and kindness. ’Tis a superior
love for the good of the whole community, which makes it
necessary to cut off those noxious members of it; as mortified
limbs are freely parted with to preserve the rest of the natural
body. Certainly the nearer one can arrive to this universal
charity, this benevolence to all human race, the more he has
of the divine character imprinted on his soul ; for God is love ,
says the apostle ; he delights in the happiness of all his crea¬
tures. To this public principle we owe our thanks for the
inventors of sciences and arts ; for the founders of kingdoms,
and first institutors of laws ; for the heroes that hazard or
abandon their own lives for the dearer love of their country ;
for the statesmen that generously sacrifice their private profit
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
269
and ease to establish the public peace and prosperity for ages
to come. And if nature’s still voice be listened to, this is
really not only the noblest, but the pleasantest employment.
For though gratitude, and a due acknowledgment and return
of kindness received, is a desirable good, and implanted in
our nature by God himself, as a spur to mutual beneficence,
yet, in the whole, ’tis certainly much more pleasant to love
than to be beloved again. For the sweetness and felicity of
life consists in duly exerting and employing those sociable
passions of the soul, those natural inclinations to charity and
compassion. And he that has given his mind a contrary
turn and bias, that has made it the seat of selfishness and of
unconcernment for all about him, has deprived himself of the
greatest comfort and relish of life. Whilst he foolishly de¬
signs to live to himself alone, he loses that very thing which
makes life itself desirable. So that, in a word, if we are
created by our Maker to enjoy happiness and contentment
in our being ; if we are born for society, and friendship, and
mutual assistance ; if we are designed to live as men, and
not as wild beasts of the desert; we must truly say, in the
words of our text. That none of us liveth to himself.
V. But again, fifthly, besides this moral view of the
world, if we consider the state of human life as it’s influ¬
enced by religion and the Gospel of Christ, we shall yet have
a clearer discovery of the truth of our text. For a man truly
religious cannot be said to live to himself, but to God, to
whom he has dedicated his worship and service. The service
of God is the first principle and ultimate end of all his
thoughts and actions. Even in the smallest affairs of life,
whether he eats or drinks, or whatsoever he does, he does all
to the glory of God, 1 Cor. x. 31. In this he is elevated and
engaged to a higher pitch of duty above the rules and obli¬
gations of mere morality; that in things seemingly indiffer¬
ent he has still his eye fixed on heaven, how every thing may
conduce to God’s honour, and to peace and righteousness
among men. And in this stricter acceptation the words are
270
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
used* by our apostle ; ovSeU ggwv,none of us, of us Christians,
liveth to himself, teal ovSels, and none (not no man, as in our
English version, but none of us Christians) dieth to himself.
Christianity excludes all selfishness, not only in the total and
complex of living, but in the minutest particulars and cir¬
cumstances of life. For ’twas a controversy of the+ smaller
size that gave occasion to our text : ’twas neither about
essential duties of moral, nor important articles of faith ; but
about matters of free choice and indifference, of scruples only
and infirmities ; about observation of days, and distinction of
meats ; things of lawful use or neglect to those that knew
their own liberty. And yet even in this case our apostle de¬
clares that both sides had the glory of God in their view, and
not an indulgence to their own appetites or opinions. For
he, says he, that observes the day, observes it to the Lord ;
and he that observes not the day, to the Lord observes it not :
and he that either eats or abstains, to the Lord he doth either ,
and giveth God thanks. For none of us, then adds he, liveth
to himself, and none (of us) dieth to himself. For whether we
live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto
the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the
Lord’s. And the truth is, such a general resignation of one’s
self to God is the first contract, the express covenant of our
religious profession. When we first take the badge of
Christianity, our very souls and bodies are made an offering
to Christ ; we have nothing left us that we may call our own,
as separate from his interest and service ; we are dead unto
the world and to sin, and live to God and to righteousness ;
we live no longer to ourselves. Christ, says the apostle, died
for all; that they which live should not thenceforth live to
themselves, but to him that died for them, and rose again.
VI. And then, sixthly, while a good Christian is per¬
suaded that we ought to live unto Christ, in subordination to
that duty he lives to all his fellow-members in Christ, to all
[* are used ; 1 st cd. “are here used.” — D.]
[f the; 1st cd. “this.” — D.]
A SERMON BEFORE KING GEORGE I.
271
those for whom our common Saviour suffered. He considers
both his natural abilities, and the external blessings of Provi¬
dence, as a talent committed to his care to be employed for
the public good, for promoting piety, and virtue, and pro¬
sperity among men ; expecting at the great day to be called to
his account by an all-knowing and impartial Judge. For he
sees there is no station or condition of life, no office or re¬
lation, or circumstance, but there arises from it such special
obligation, that he may truly be said to live to others rather
than to himself.
If any persons can be conceived to enjoy the prerogative
of living to themselves, some perhaps may imagine that the
monarchs and princes of the world, with the chief ministers
under them, have the fairest claim to that privilege, as pos¬
sessing and commanding in the largest measure all the power,
and splendour, and voluptuousness of life. But if things are
weighed in the just balance of reason and truth, they perhaps
of all others have the least pretence to self -living. For
though God himself has described them, that they are gods
among men , as bearing the character and image of divine
power and authority, yet all that superiority is solely derived
and delegated from him ; *tis a mere trust put into their
hands ; they are only commissioners under him, and account¬
able to him for the discharge of their great office. So that
they can the less be said to live to themselves, inasmuch as
the extent and sphere of their duty is wider than that of
others. For if the ancient remark be always found most
true, That the master of the house is the veriest servant of all
his family ,a because he has the care and concern for all ; so,
if the boldness of the comparison may be allowed, the su¬
preme magistrate himself, and those that are next below
him, are the veriest subjects in all his dominions. An in¬
ferior magistrate or a private subject hath his service confined
within narrower limits ; the princess and the prime officer’s
duty extends over the whole ; so that by being the masters
and protectors of all, they really become the servants of all.
» Eft i Pag. 10, 11.
REMARKS.
305
necessary ; for to understand the matter of this book, and to
be master of the whole, a man must be able to think justly in
every science and art. Very true ! and yet all he has here
said of his sciences, is requisite were your English Bible
supposed to he the very original. Add therefore to all the
requisites here enumerated a sufficient skill in the Hebrew
and Greek languages. Now pass your verdict on the man
from his own evidence and confession. To understand the
Bible, says he, requires all sciences ; and two languages be¬
sides, say I. But it’s plain from his book that he has already
condemned the whole Bible for a forgery and imposture.
Did he do it without understanding the matter of it ? That’s
too scandalous for him to own. We must take it, then, that
he professes himself accomplished in all sciences and arts,
according to his own rule. .1 <
Quid tulit hie tanto dignum promissor hiatu ?*
Where has he or any of his sect shewn any tolerable skill in
science ? What dark passages of Scripture have they cleared,
or of any book whatever ? Nay, to remit to him his sciences
and arts, what have they done in the languages, the shell and
surface, of Scripture ? A great master of the whole Bible in¬
deed, that can scarce step three lines in the easiest classic
author produced by himself without a notorious blunder !
IX.
Among the absurdities that follow from not thinking freely ,
he mentions that of the pagans, who, he says, suppose God
to be like an ox, or a cat, or a plant.1 Our author means the
Egyptians ; and it’s plain here, from the next clause, that he
puts God under the present idea and known attributes of
that name, as Christians now conceive it. A rare judge in
antiquity, and fit to decide about Scripture ! The matter is
no more than this. The Egyptians, who chiefly lived upon
[* “ Quid dignum tanto feret hie promissor hiatu ?” Hor. Ar. P. 138. — D.]
r Pag. 13.
VOL. III. 2 R
306
REMARKS.
husbandry, declared by law that all those animals which
were useful to agriculture, or destroyers of vermin, should be
holy, sacred, and inviolable ; so that it was death to kill any
of them, either designedly or by chance.3 These they con¬
sidered as instruments of Divine Providence towards the
support of human life ; and without that view they conse¬
crated none.* So that it was only a civil and political wor¬
ship in the legislators, and had very little of sacred even
among the vulgar. This is plain from what Diodorus11 says,
that they paid the same honours to them when dead as when
alive.* But our author’s conception here is really so absurd
and so monstrous, that the silliest pagan in all Egypt would
have been ashamed of him. For, according to his notion
and the present meaning of the word God, they declared it
death by law to kill an immortal and omnipotent cat; and
decreed divine honours to it after its immortality and deity
was dead. When thinking is by longer time come to some
perfection in the sect, they will learn, perhaps, that the ob¬
jects of worship in paganism and polytheism had not all the
attributes, nay generally not one of them, that we now by
advances in science and thought justly ascribe to God ; and
they may have the pleasure of insulting several of the clergy
that have wrong stated the notion of heathen idolatry. In
the mean time I’ll recommend to him one thought, when
he’s disposed to think de quolibet ente ; what divine attributes
s Herodotus in Euterpe, [c. 65. — D.]
* Cicero de Nat. Dear. I. [c. 36. ed. Dav. — D.] AEgyptii nullam belluam,
nisi ob aliquam utilitatem quam ex ea caperent, consecraverunt.
u Diod. lib. I. [t. i. p. 93. ed. Wessel. — D.] 2ej8 ovtcu cvlol twv Aiyvir-
rtoi, . ... ou C divra pivov, aXAa teal re\evT7](TavTa.
\* “ II est bien vrai que les autres nations ont accuse les Egyptiens d’avoir
ador6 comme dieux les animaux, les plantes, &c. Quand il n’y en aurojf
d’autres preuves que la Satire xv. de Juvenal, dans les 10 ou 12 premiers vers,
e’en seroit assez pour n’en pouvoir douter. Mais les Egyptiens ne convenoient
pas du fait, et leur idee etoit celle qu’exprime ici Mr. Bentley, selon l’ob-
servation qu’en a faite J. Ger. Vossius, de Theol. Gentil. et Physiol. Christiana,
lib. ix. cap. 14.” Ar. de la Chapelle, La Frip. La'ique, p. 39. — D.]
REMARKS.
307
the Egyptians thought of, when they worshipped, as good
authors* assure us, crepitum ventris.
X.
But the most ancient fathers of the church were as bad
as his Egyptians ; for they , says he, no less absurdly sup¬
posed God to be material .v And you are to suppose he’s a
droll here when he says, no less absurdly ; for, if I wholly
mistake not the cabbala of his sect, he himself supposes either
God to be material , or not to be at all. With a few of the
fathersf the matter stands thus : they believed the attributes
of God, his infinite power, wisdom, justice, and goodness, in
the same extent as we do ; but his essence, no more than we
can now, they could not discover. The Scriptures, they saw,
called him spiritus , spirit ; and the human soul anima ,
breath .- both which in their primitive sense mean aerial
matter; and all the words that the Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin of old, or any tongue now or hereafter can supply, to
denote the substance of God or soul , must either be thus
metaphorical, or else merely negative, as incorporeal or im¬
material. This, when he is in a mood for thinking , he will
[* “Ces bons auteurs sont des pfires. Minucius Felix, par exemple, qui dit,
cap. 28, pag. 167, ed. Cantab. 1707. Iidem JEgyptii . . . non . . . Serapidem magis
quam strepitus per pudenda corporis expressos contremiscunt." Ar. de la Cha-
pelle, La Frip. La'ique ,‘ p. 40. — See the notes of the commentators on this
passage of M. Felix. — D.]
v Pag. 13. [The later 8vo ed. of the Discourse, ibid, (see note, p. 291) and
the 12mo ed. p. 9, have “some of the most ancient fathers;” and so the French
translation, “ quelques-uns,’’ p. 18. — D.]
[f “ Je me contenterai d’en citer, pour l’exemple, ce seul passage si beau
de St. Theophile d’Antioche, dans son i. livre ad Autolyc. ch. v. ’E pe?s oZv pot'
av 6 fi\£iruv, bc^yycra'i pot rb eTSos too 6eou. &Kove, S> dvdpwTre' t b pku eTSos rov
0eov d^r/roy, nal avtKp.a io’Tiu, disoient-ils . Ainsi la voix etoit elle-meme un
REMARKS.
309
is, that in these brighter days of knowledge, when matter and
motion have been thoroughly considered, and all the powers
of mechanism discussed and stated, our author and his sect
should still contend, both in discourse and in print, that their
souls are material .* This they do with such zeal, as if they
should be great gainers by the victory. And, by my consent,
let’s close with them upon the debate. Let them put a pre¬
vious question, whether there are in mankind different spe¬
cies of souls ? Let this once pass in the affirmative ; and then-
souls shall be allowed as corporeal and brutal as their
opinions, writings, and lives seem to represent them.
XI.
His next effort is a retail of some popish doctrines and
rites, infallibility , image-worship , and relics, x which our
church and yours have along ago rejected. What’s this then
to the purpose ? or what plea to the present free-thinkers in
England ? Nay, he owns we are now rid of these absurdities,
and by whose labour and cost. They obtained, says he,
almost universally, till the thinking of a few, some whereof
sacrificed their lives by so doing , gave a new turn to the
Christian world J This is manifestly meant of the first re-
corps, et par consequent tout ce qui etoit opere par la voix etoit aussi corporel,
sans en excepter les syllogismes et les barbarismes. § 59. Menage, dans ses
notes sur le chapitre 55, cite divers auteurs qui attribuent aux Stoiciens le
sentiment que tout est corporel, en y comprenant Dieu lui-meme. Orig&ne est
formel sur ce dernier article, ad Cels. lib. i. p. 17. ed. Cant. 1677. O i pa
ehrivres t bv debv 'S.Tai'iKor. sur quoi l’on peut consulter Spencer. Leur sentiment
ne differoit done que pour la forme, de celui des Epicuriens, que Lucrece
exprime en ces mots, [i.] vers 420 et suivans:
Omnis, ut est, igitur, per se natura, duabus
Consistit rebus : nam corpora sunt, et inane, &c.”
Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 45. — D.]
[* “ Ceci regarde singulidrement Jean Toland, grand ami et meme com me
le precepteur en Deisme de Mr. Collins. On sait que la 2. de ses Lettres a
Serena a pour but d’etablir la materialite de l’ame.” Ar. de La Chapelle,
La Frip. Laique, p. 46. — D.]
x Pag. 13.
y Pag. 14.
310
REMARKS.
formers, and particularly those of England, who for freedom
of thinking laid down their lives ;
Atque animas pulchra pro libertate dederunt .*
’Twas by the price and purchase of their blood that this
author and his sect have at this day, not only the liberty, but
the power, means, and method of thinking ; for, together
with religion, all arts and sciences then raised up their heads,
and both were brought about by the same persons. And yet
this very honest and grateful sect involves those very priests,
to whom they are indebted for all things, in the common
crime with those that murdered them ; nay, with Talapoins,
Bonzes, Pawawers, and who not ;
For priests of all religions are the same .+
But some of the fathers again displease him ; for they
were too severe and rigorous for men of his genius ; they
disallowed2 self-defence, % second marriages, § and usury. ||
An error sure on the right hand, which shews they had not
the priestcraft of Pope Pius the Fifth.8 And yet here, with
[* Is this line formed for the occasion ? See Virg. JEn. vi. 822, — D.]
[f Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, part i. 99. — D.]
z Pag. 14.
[J “ Grotius a rassemble quelques-uns des passages des peres qui condam-
nent la defense de soi-meme. Dr. de la G. et de la Paix, liv. i. ch. 3. On y
trouve St. Ambroise, St. Augustin, et St. Basile.” Ar. de La Chapelle,
La Frip. Laique, p. 49. — D.]
[§ “ Voyez parmi les canons attribues aux apotres, celui qui est le xii. des
Grecs, ou le xvii. des Latins, et la note de Cotelier D-dessus.” Ar. de La
Chapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 49. — D.]
[|| “ Gratien, dans son Decret, caus. xiv. quest. 3. et 4. a recueilli les passages
de divers peres ou conciles qui ont interdit l’usure. Voy. aussi Mr. Barbeyrac,
dans ses notes sur Grotius du Dr. de la G. et de la Paix, liv. ii. ch. xii. 20.”
Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 49. — D.]
a Pag. 117. [“ Pope Pius V.” says Collins, (quoting in a note Confes. Cath.
de Sancy, liv. i. c. 1.) “confessed this secret of supporting a church, when, upon
hearing that the Protestants were in earnest against adultery and fornication, he
said, If they will not alloiv of such kind of sport in their religion, it will never be of
any long duration.” The 12mo ed. (see note, p. 291) has, “Pope Pius V. shewed
that he well understood this secret,” &c. p. 96. The French translation gives,
“Le Pape Sixte V fit bien connoitre qu’il n’ignoroit pas,” &c. p. 173. — D.]
REMARKS.
311
his usual accuracy, he lays those things wide and in common,
which were pressed upon the clergy only,* but in the laity
connived at. It is a crime too in the fathers, that antipodes
were not sooner demonstrated, nor the earth’s motion about
the sun .b Very well; but pray who were the persons that
gave new light intof these matters All hearty professors
and practisers of religion, and among them several priests. §
All these things were discovered and perfected before this
new club had its rise ; nor is there the least branch of science
that any of their members either invented or improved.
XII.
But now we have him for ten pages0 together with image
and allegory; free-seeing is substituted for fr ee- thinking , and
a confession of eye- sight faith for a Christian creed ; and then
[* “ II me paroit que ceci ne se peut dire, a toute rigueur, de tous les peres
et de tous les conciles qui interdirent autrefois ces trois choses. Les autorites
recueillies par Grotius ubi supr. contre la defense de soi-meme, sont absolues, et
regardent en commun tous les Chretiens. Quant aux secondes noces, tout le
monde sait que Tertullien les a condamnees, comme autant d’adulteres ; mais
comme St. Augustin a rejette cette rigueur sur son Montanisme, il est bon
d’observer qu’il y a d’autres peres qui ne se sont pas exprimes avec beaucoup plus
de douceur. Je ne citerai qu’Athenagoras Leg. pro Christ, c. 28. p. 130. ed. Ox.
1706. 1) of os r\s P-tvei v, 1) evl yapw, 6 yap Sebrepos evTrpeir-f)s iffri
fxoixeia . . Voy. les Comment, in loc. II en est de meme par rapport it
l’usure.” Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. La'ique, p. 50. — D.]
b Pag. 14. [“ To maintain there were antipodes was heresy ; and Galileus,
even in the last age, was imprisoned for asserting the motion of the earth.” — D.]
[f into ; ls£ ed. “ in.” — D.]
[| “ II y eut autrefois des pliilosophes qui crurent qu’il y a des antipodes, et
que la terre tourne autour du soleil. Sur le lr de ces deux articles on peut con-
suiter Pline, dans son Hist. Nat. liv. ii. c. 65 ; et quant au 2d on n’ignore pas
qu’au rapporte d’Aristote, De Ccelo, lib. ii. c. 13, Pythagore croyoit que notre
terre n’est qu’une des planetes qui se meuvent autour du soleil. Mais bien que
ces sentiments ne soient pas nouveaux, il n’en est pas moins vrai que les demon¬
strations sont nouvelles.” Ar. de La Chapeele, La Frip. La'ique, p. 51. — D.]
[§ “ L’Angleterre seule a fourni un grand nornbre d’ecclesiastiques qui se
sont digtingues dans 1’etude de l’astronomie. Parmi ceux-H je ne- saurois
presque douter que Mr. Bentley n’ait eu singuli^rement en vue l’illustre Wilkins,
mort Eveque de Chester en 1672,” &c. Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. Laique,
p. 52. — D.] c Pag. 15 to 25.
312
REMARKS.
iii a tedious parallel the several juggles of Hocus Pocus make
the emblem of priestcraft. Argument in all this you are to
expect none, there’s no occasion for that : for illustration,
similitude, comparison, especially when turned to ridicule
and distorted into farce, do the business much better ; and,
as I have been told, work wonders for the growing sect , and
make converts to admiration.
Suppose, says he, a set of men should fancy it was abso¬
lutely necessary to the peace of society, or to some other
great purpose, to hinder and prevent free-seeing , and to im¬
pose a creed, and confession, and standard of eye- sight faith.
These men, says he, must either he madmen or designing
knaves ; and what methods would they take ? They would
draw articles in flat contradiction to plain sight; require
subscription, and forbid opposition to them ; explain, para¬
phrase, and comment upon them ; settle pensions and salaries
for those that preach and propagate them ; traduce, punish,
and persecute to the utmost all that disagree to them.
Now under this image you are to understand Christianity ,
and all religion whatever ; for our author is playing Hocus
Pocus in the very similitude he takes from that juggler, and
would slip upon you, as he phrases it, a counter for a groat.*
The true meaning of it is this : suppose that religion was
first contrived , either by the priesthood for lucre , or by the
magistrate for easy government. Why truly, if we suppose
it to be a sham, we do suppose it a sham. A wonderful
[* “ So that I will suppose among the various and contradictory forms of
confession \_of eye-sight faith ] , which men of different whims, or of different
interests and designs, will make at different times, one to consist of these follow¬
ing articles :
That a hall can go through a table:
That two halls may he made out of one little one :
That a stone can he made to vanish out of sight :
That a knot can be undone with words :
That a thread may he burnt to pieces, and made whole with the ashes :
That one face may he a hundred or a thousand :
And lastly, That a counter may he turned into a groat.”
Discourse, p. 17, where a note on these articles refers the reader to “Hocus
Pocus Jun. p. 13, 15, 36, 43, 45, 47.” — D.]
REMARKS.
313
argument, and a mighty advance. Does he detain us in so
many nauseating pages, and all along beg the question ? A
most formidable man this for thought and demonstration !
XIII.
Well, but he’ll shew instances of religious juggle in the
oracular temples or churches of the pagans. d Pray mind the
emphatic words, or churches, and admire the author’s pene¬
tration and discretion. For without that prudent explication,
temples perhaps in your language might have been misunder¬
stood, and mistaken for inns of court. These temples, he
says, were contrived with many caverns and holes to produce
fearful noises, and furnished with machines for the priests to
act their parts in. And pray who taught him all this ? is
it not chiefly, and almost solely, to be learnt from the
Christian fathers ? Does not he own that the Christians, as
well as Epicureans, were chased away by those priests, before
they would pronounce any oracles ?e And yet thorough this
whole book, by a worse trick than Hocus Pocus,* the
Christians are charged with the very frauds that they either
only or chiefly have discovered.
But now for af specimen of his learning again, which he
sprinkles by the way. It was universally believed, says he,
among ordinary people, that the gods themselves came down
from heaven, and eat of the repasts which the priests prepared
for them at the people’ s expense :f and again in the next page,
d Pag. 19. [The later editions of the Discourse in English (see note, p. 291)
shew no alteration in this passage. The French translation has “ les temples
consacres a ces oracles etoient batis,” &c. p. 28, without a corresponding
word to “ churches.” — D.]
c Pag. 20. He had it out of Lucian’s Alexander. vE£a> 'Eiuuovpeioi,
Xpurnavol. [Opp. t. ii. p. 245. ed. Hemst. — D.]
[* See note, p. 312. — D.]
[f now for a j ls£ ed. “ now a.” — D.]
f Pag. 19. [In the 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291), immediately
before this passage we find the following addition: “ In some places the priests
made the people believe they saw heaven just over their heads; and that when it
rained hard, the gods opened the windows of heaven, and poured the rain down upon
‘ 2 s
VOL. III.
314
REMARKS.
that the gods came down to eat upon earth. Now did not I
guess right that, for all his fine panegyric upon the Ilias of
Homer, & he was little or not at all acquainted with that poem ?
For if he were, he would have learnt from thence, that in the
heathen notion the gods could not eat upon earth, nor devour
human repasts :
Ov yap ctltov eSova , ov ttivovg’ a'c^oira olvov,
Tovvetc dvaipoves elcn, Kal addvaroi KaXiovrai .h
Whence, therefore, had our learned author this bold assertion
of universal belief? Even from Bel and the Dragon :* and
what his mother once taught him there, he ascribes to
paganism in common. The real matter is no more than
this : when a heathen priest slew a victim, he had no more
of it for his share than law and custom allowed ; scarce worth
the labour of butchering : the entrails and most useless parts
were burnt on the altar ; and the best of the victim was car¬
ried home to the sacrificed house, to be feasted on by his
family and friends ; and if the priest was invited too as a
guest, it was a work of supererogation. Nor did the most
credulous believe that gods came down and devoured flesh ;
nor was any such repast set apart for them. If any victuals
was so set, either in temples or the open streets, it was w'ell
known that the sweepers of the fanes got the first, and the
poor of the town the latter. All they believed in relation to
the gods, besides the piety and the prayers, was only, that
the steam of the burnt sacrifice ascended up to heaven, and
delighted, or, if you will, fed the gods. This Homer would
have told him too, that libation and steam weref the only
share the gods had in any offering :
them; and that the smoke of burnt sacrifices ascended thither, fed the gods, and ivas
a sweet savour in their nostrils. In other places, agreeably to the same supposition
of the nearness of heaven, they persuaded them that the gods themselves came
down,” &c. p. 14. And so the French translation, p. 29. — D.]
s Pag. 9. h Iliad, e. v. 341.
[* “ About all these matters the people were to have a faith, which free-
seeing would have destroyed ; and that would have rendered the priests as con¬
temptible as Daniel did the priests of Bel,” &c. Discourse, p. 20. — D.]
[f were; ls< ed. “ was.” — D.]
REMARKS.
315
Aoiftrjs re tcvtcrcrys re, to ycip Xd^ogev yepas rjpets.1
Whence Aristophanes, in his play called The Birds, makes a
city to be built in the air, on purpose to stop all intercourse
between heaven and earth, that no smoke from sacrifices
should ascend to the gods ; and presently Prometheus is in¬
troduced bringing the news, that the gods were almost starved,
having not had one particle of steam since Nephelococcygia
was built. 7Tis true, indeed, there was another notion, that
the gods often came down from heaven in human shape,! to
inquire into the actions of men ; and so, like strangers and
pilgrims, were unawares entertained, and (seemingly) eat
and drank with their hosts. But this is nothing to the
priests, nor to the assertion of the author ; who no doubt will
anon be found a most subtle interpreter of Solomon and the
prophets, after he has been so miserably imposed on by that
silly and spurious book, Bel and the Dragon.
XIV.
After a few threadbare narratives about the Armenian,
Greek, and popish priests, the miraculous flame at Jerusalem,
and the melting blood at Naples, he has his fling at us
Lutherans. The Lutheran priests, says he, contrary to the
testimony of men’s senses, make their followers believe that the
body and blood of Christ are superadded to the bread and
wine :k which he parallels with an old story as lewd as it is
vulgar. Now, though I am move concerned in this remark
than many others, for the particular honour of our church, I
design not to launch out in a vindication of our doctrine,
which this scribbler understands no more than he did that of
1 Iliad. 5. v. 19. 1 Odyss. p. v. 485.
k Pag. 25. [In the 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291), Collins has
added, “ Nor are those priests who pretend that men eat and drink the body and
blood of Christ verily and indeed by faith in the Lord's supper, less absurd or less
guilty of imposing on the senses of the people.” p. 19. The same addition is
found in the French translation, where the latter part of the passage quoted by
Bentley is rendered, “que le corps et le sang de Christ sont caches sous le pain
et le vin.” p. 38. — D.]
316
REMARKS.
the Egyptians.* You know something of the university of
Leipsic ; we are reputed the greatest latitudinarians and
free-thinkers of our sect, not near so stiff and rigid as those
of Wittenberg or Jene ; and yet I5 11 tell this author, if he had
published his wretched libel with us, without any instigation
from the priests, the magistrate would soon have taken care
of him, either in a prison or a dark room. What his re¬
ception will be in England, I pretend not to guess. You
have a glorious liberty there, the parent of many noble books,
which under a less freedom of thought would never have
been wrote. And it’s that novelty of notions that makes the
product of the English press so inquired after here. But I
fear the outrageous license of this author and others of his
stamp will in time have an unexpected effect, and oblige
your government to abridge all of that good freedom which
these have so much abused. And then we foreigners of
curiosity, when we shall see nothing come from Britain but
stanch and staple postils, must curse the impious memory of
this writer and his whole tribe.
XV.
Tantamne rem tam negligenter ? The question he pro¬
poses to consider is no less than this, Whether the Christian
religion is founded on divine revelation ? 1 This he resolves to
examine and determine by himself. And we may easily fore¬
see what the sentence will be under so ignorant and corrupt
a judge. Nay, his book sufficiently shews he has given his
verdict already,, and resolved that darkness is brighter and
more desirable than light. Let us bestow a few reflections
on his conduct ; for, for all his noise about speculation in
general , this question is the whole affair and business, the
whole compass anfl sphere of modern free-thinking.
What in common life would denote a man rash, fool¬
hardy, hair-brained, opiniatre, crazed, is recommended in
this scheme as the true method in specidation. Are you
dangerously sick ? you will call an able physician. Is your
[* See p. 305. — D.] 1 Pag. 26.
REMARKS.
317
estate threatened and attacked ? you’ll consult the best law¬
yer. But have you an affair upon your hands, wherein your
very soul and being and all eternity lie at stake ? ( — Neque
enim . . . ludicra petuntur Prcemia *) why there you are to
seek no help, but confide in your own abilities. That is, if
you have a very deep and broad river to pass, scorn to ask
for cork or bladders ; flounce in and hazard all, though you
have never learnt to swim.
This rational author (p. 107) puts the same objection to
himself : and he notably answers it thus ; A man , says he, of
no profession may have as much law, physic, and divinity as
any sergeant or doctor of them all : and then with a Quaker’s
story out of his friend Mr. Le Clerc, he declares that to be a
happy country, a very paradise, where none of those three
professions is admitted. t And who doubts but in this reply
there’s as much sense as good manners ?
But for all this author’s great skill in physic and law,
he’ll hardly make himself sick on purpose, or bring on a trial
against his own estate, to shew his great abilities. Why
then will he needlessly and voluntarily run a risk for his
soul and salvation ? and fool-hardily put his head under a
weight that may crush him to death ? The strange difference
in this conduct, when examined to the bottom, will open the
whole mystery of free-thinking and atheism.
’Tis plain, a man that is born in a Christian country, if he
is a just and good man, has no interest to wish that religion
false. The moral precepts fall in with his own opinion and
choice ; no restraints are laid upon him but what out of
paternal affection he wonld forbid his own son. No foreign
religion, much less the atheistic scheme, threaten him with
[* Virg. Mn. xii. 764. — D.]
[■j- “ And this puts me in mind of a passage of Mr. Le Clerc’s late Biblio-
thdque Choisie, tom. 25, p. 130. A gentleman asked a proprietor of New Jersey
in America (where there are few inhabitants besides Quakers), whether they
had any lawyers among them ? then, whether they had any physicians ? and
lastly, whether they had any priests? To all which the proprietor answered in
order, no. O happy country ! replies the gentleman, that must be a paradise.”
Discourse, p. 108. — D.]
318
REMARKS.
any danger, should he be here in an error. He’s as safe as
those that differ from him, were he really in the wrong. But
then if it be true, what glorious promises and rewards ! not
superior only to other schemes, but beyond all human wishes.
The speculative doctrines in it (which affect the main chance)
are very few and easy. If his education has enabled him
for’t, he’ll examine them and the whole grounds of faith, and
find them true to his satisfaction and comfort. If he’s en¬
gaged in active and busy life, he will acquiesce in the judg¬
ments of those who have better means and leisure to know
them.
Thus it is, will be, and must be, while men lead such
virtuous lives as entitle them to the promises of religion.
And were there not equal threats in it on the other hand,
were it all heaven without any hell, there would not he one
atheist, unless crack-brained , in Christendom. I positively
affirm, that no man in his senses, educated in our holy
religion, ever did or could fall from it to atheism, till, by
considering his own actions and designs, he despaired of the
promises of Christianity, and looked upon it with fear and
terror.
In that case indeed, and in that alone, out of uneasiness
of mind, they wish all religion was false ; and that’s the
original of modern free-thinking . Then they ransack all im¬
pious books for objections against it; they are biased in their
favour ; a single ounce in that scale buoys up a hundred in
the other. Pagans, Mahometans, Pawawers, and Talapoins,
are all good vouchers against Christianity. All that’s said
by Christians (and who else must speak for them) is suspected
for craft and design. And the very ignorance of these free¬
thinkers does them more service than knowledge. For wrho
can deal with an ignoramus, that is wai*pt by his inclination,
fixt there by his conceitedness, jealous of all contrary in¬
struction, and uncapable of seeing the force of it ?
That this is the very case of our author and those of his
club, is pretty notorious. Inquire closely into their lives,
and there you will find the true reason why they clamour
REMARKS.
319
against religion. For, when they have settled themselves in
atheism, they are then elevated with joy and mirth, as if they
had obtained a great conquest. Now this is wholly un¬
natural, unless religion is viewed by them as the greatest of
terrors. What ! rejoice that we have lost immortality, and
must die like the beasts ? Utterly impossible ! all the springs
of human passions resist and refute it. Misery at that rate
may excite laughter, and prosperity tears ; indignation may
raise love, and complacency revenge. But if once heaven is
desponded of, and hell opens its horrible mouth, then indeed
mountains are desired to cover us, and the thoughts of
destruction or annihilation may really produce joy.
This, I say again, is the true origin of free-thinking , and
not the force of any objections against the truth of Christi¬
anity : and, as a proof, I appeal to this very book. For no
tloubt the writer has couched in it the strongest objections he
was master of. And yet those are so old and stale, that if
they could have any operation, Christianity would have been
extinct above a thousand years ago. Well ! hut they had
influence upon him, and would have so upon others, if fear
and force were removed, and men left at free liberty. So far
from that ; so far is our author from seeing deeper into those
objections than others before him, that, as- I’ll presently
prove, he understands not the mere grammatical sense, much
less the application and import of any old passage he cites.
XVI.
It’s the great benefit, says he, oi free- thinking , that the
supposed power of the devil in possessions and witchcraft has
visibly declined in England since a liberty to think freely has
been given and taken there .m A quaint conceit indeed, and
very far-fetched. So that you in Great Britain owe it to this
rising sect, that you have not so many prosecutions oi witches
as formerly. This is Thraso again exactly :
m pa'30. — See the passage given in the words of Collins, note, p. 302.
-D.]
320
REMARKS.
Lahore alieno magno partam gloriam
Verbis in sese transmovet, qui habet salem.*
I do not think any English priest will or need affirm in
general, that there are now no real instances of sorcery or
witchcraft ; especially while you have a public law, which
they neither enacted nor procured, declaring those practices
to he felony. But I must needs say, that while I sojourned
among you, I observed fewer of the clergy give in to par¬
ticular stories of that kind than of the commonalty or
gentry.t In the dark times before the Reformation (not
because they were popish, but because unlearned), any ex¬
traordinary disease attended with odd symptoms, strange
ravings or convulsions, absurd eating or egestion, was out of
ignorance of natural powers ascribed to diabolical. This
superstition was universal, from the cottages to the very
courts : nor was it ingrafted by priestcraft, but is implanted
in human nature : no nation is exempted from it ; not our
author’s paradise of New Jersey, J where no priests have yet
footing : if § the next ages become unlearned, that super¬
stition will, I will not say return, but spring up anew. What
then has lessened in England your stories of sorceries ? Not
the growing sect , but the growth of philosophy and medicine.
No thanks to atheists, but to the Royal Society and College
of Physicians, to the Boyles and Newtons, the Sydenhams
and Ratcliffs. When the people saw the diseases they had
imputed to witchcraft quite cured by a course of physic, they
too were cured of their former error : they learned truth by
the event , not by a false position a priori , that there was
[* Ter. Eun. iii. 1, 9. Vulgo “ Verbis scepe in se tr.” — D.]
[f In the 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291) is the following
additional note : “ I desire I may not be so far mistaken in what I here say, as
to he supposed to charge either the clergy of England in gsneral, or even the
reverend actors and under-actors at the late Hertford trial, with the belief of
sorcery or witchcraft. On the contrary, I agree with Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,
one of my answerers, who says that fewer of the clergy (in conversation with one
another) give in to particular stories of that land than of the commonalty or gentry.”
p. 24. The same note is found in the French translation, p. 49.— D.]
[t See note, p. 317.— D.] [§ if; 1st ed. “and if.”— D.]
REMARKS.
321
neither witch, devil, nor God. And then as to the frauds
and impostures in this way, they have most of them been
detected by the clergy, whom our writer here wickedly libels
as complices and parties in them. The two strongest books
I have read on this subject were both written by priests : the
one by Dr. Becker in Holland,* and the other by a doctor
of your own, whose name Fve forgot, that was afterwards
Archbishop of York.t
XVII.
We are now come to his IId section, where he brings
several arguments to prove the duty and necessity of free-
thinking upon religious questions. Now take free-thinking in
that open sense that himself takes it in when he ascribes it
to Chillingworth, Taylor, and Tillotson, and you may grant
all his arguments, and yet quite disappoint him. But if you
take it in that interior meaning that the members of his club
do, as a modish and decent word for atheism , then all his
arguments are mere trumpery; and his consequences from
them are as short as his occasional learning in them is
shallow.
One of his capital arguments is from the evil o/’super-
[* De Betover Wereld, 1691-1693, by Balthasar Bekker ; of which there
is a French translation, Le Monde Enchante, and an English one, The World
Bewitched. — D.]
[f Samuel Harsnet, successively Bishop of Chichester and Norwich, was
translated to the archbishopric of York in 1628. He wrote the two following
works ; to the first of which, I presume, Bentley alludes.
A Discovery of the Fravdulent practises of John Darrel Bacheler of Artes, in
his proceedings concerning The Pretended Possession and dispossession of William
Somers at Nottingham: of Thomas Darling, the boy of Burton at Caldwall : and of
Katherine Wright at Mansfield, and Whittington: and of his dealings with one
Mary Couper at Nottingham, delecting in some sort the deceitfull trade in these latter
dayes of casting out Deuils. 1599, 4to.
A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, to with-draw the harts of her
Male sties Subiects from their allegeance, and from the truth of Christian Religion
professed in England, vnder the pretence of casting out deuils. Practised by
Edmvnds, alias Weston a Jesuit, and diuers Romish Priests his wicked associates.
Wherevnto are annexed the Copies of the Confessions, and Examinations of the parties
themselues, which were pretended to be possessed, and dispossessed, taken vpon oath
before her Maiesties Commissioners, for causes Ecclesiastical l. 1603, 4to. — D.]
VOL. III. 2 T
322
REMARKS.
stition;11 which terrible evil and great vice can never be
avoided but by turning free-thinker ; that is (in plainer
English) abandoning all religion. Strange ! that superstition
and religion , which have been distinguished and divided this
two thousand years,* should yet stick so fast together that our
author cannot separate them : so that to ease himself of the
one, he must abdicate both. His dismal description of it is in
the words of Cicero, which chiefly relate to little bigotries in
civil life, not to fabulous conceptions about the Supreme
Being. And his inference from thence is exactly as if I
should now say to you : Sir, you must renounce your baptism
and faith, or else you can never be rid of those terrible super¬
stitions about the death-watch , thirteen at one table , spilling
of salt , and Childermas- day.
XVIII.
But you’ll know the man better, as alsof his great reading
and penetration, when you see how he manages and trans¬
lates that passage of Cicero : I’ll give you it here both in the
original and our author’s version.
Instat enim (superstitio) et urget, et quo te cumque ver-
teris, persequitur : sive tu vatem, sive tu omen audieris ; sive
” Pag. 33.
[* “ Ceci regarde les Caracttres de Theophraste. Mr. de la Bruyere re-
marque, dans son Discours sur ce philosophe, page 23, edit. d’Amst. 1731, que
‘ce livre a pu etre ecrit la derni£re annee de la 115 olympiade, trois-cens qua-
torze ans avant l’ere Chretienne, et qu’ainsi il y a deux-mille ans accomplis.’
Dans Particle 16 de ses Caracteres, Theophraste definit la superstition, en
disant : 'ApeA et 7) 8eurida.iiJ.ovla 86%eiev efoai deiA'ia it pbs rb daipSviov .
Theophraste n’est pas le seul payen qui l’ait dit et reconnu. Isaac Casaubon,
dans ses notes sur cet endroit, cite Varron et Sen&que, qui s’en sont exprimes
aussi claircment qu’aucun Chretien le put faire. Le premier, cite par St.
Augustin, a dit, Deum a religioso vereri, a superstitioso timeri ; et l’autre ajoute,
Religio deos colit, superstitio violat. Casauhon cite aussi Maxime de Tyr, qui dit,
dans son 4 Discours, 6 pev evaeffis cplAos 6e$, 6 de deundaipwv u6Aa£ [fleoD] ....
. ... II me seroit aise de multiplier ces temoignages ; et si je l’entreprenois, je
n’oublierois pas la reflexion par laquelle Plutarque commence son traite de la
Superstition ; c’est que I’ignorance de Dieu jette les hommes, selon leurs dispositions,
dans Vatheisme, ou dans la superstition.’1' Ar. de La Chapelt, e, La Frip. La’ique,
p. 86. — D.] [f as also: notin 1st ed. — D.]
REMARKS.
323
immolaris, sive avem aspexeris ; si Chaldaeum, si haruspicem
videris; si fulserit, si tonuerit; si tactum aliquid erit de
coelo ; si ostenti simile natum factumve quippiani : quorum
necesse est plerumque aliquid eveniat; ut numquam liceat
quieta mente consistere. Perfugium yidetur omnium laborum
et sollicitudinum esse somnus : at ex eo ipso plurimse curse
metusque nascuntur. Cic. de Div. II. 7'2.
If you give way to superstition, it will ever haunt and
plague you. If you go to a prophet, or regard omens ; if you
sacrifice, or observe the flight of birds ; if you consult an
astrologer or haruspex ; if it thunders or lightens, or any
place is consumed with lightning, or such-like prodigy happens
{as it is necessary some such often should), all the tranquillity
of the mind is destroyed. And sleep itself, which seems to be
an asylum and refuge from all trouble and uneasiness, does,
by the aid of superstition, increase your troubles and fears.0
Now if it shall appear that our author has misconstrued
almost every part and comma of this passage ; that he has
made the first parts contradict the last, and so has put his
own nonsense upon the great original ; that he has weakened
his own design, and made the place speak with less strength
against superstition than it really does ; what apprehensions
are we to have of so formidable a writer ?
The whole tour of the passage is this : a man given- •to
superstition can have no security, day or night, waking or
sleeping; for occasions of it will force themselves upon him,
against his will, do what he can to prevent them : and so all
the particulars here specified are involuntary and unsought.
Sive tu vatem, sive tu omen audieris : if you go to a
prophet, says our translator, or regard omens. Pray,
where’s the Latin to answer go and regard? or where is
common sense, thus plainly to beg the question ? For if one
0 Pag. 35. — [The 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291) exhibits the
following alterations in the version of this passage. “ If you hear a prophet or
an ominous word .... if you see an astrologer .... or any place is blasted with
lightning, or any thing like a prodigy happens (of which some or other must often
happen).'' p. 28. And so nearly the French translation, p. 55. — D.]
324
REMARKS.
goes upon superstitious errands, no doubt he’s troubled with
superstition. The true sense is this: If you hear a lunatic
or frantic in the streets foretelling some mischiefs ; if a word
is spoken accidentally in your hearing , which may be interpreted
ominous. The vates or divini were mad-fellows bawling in
the streets and roads ; and their predictions might be con¬
temned, but must necessarily be heard if you came that way.
Sive immolaris, sive avem aspexeris : a man was obliged
often to sacrifice , even by his office ? and birds must needs be
seen, if one stept but out of Rome. These occurrences, there¬
fore, were unavoidable, and so Cicero meant them. Si Chal-
deeum, si haruspicem videris ; if you ■ see them ; and that
could not be prevented, all public places being haunted with
them. But what does our translator make of these ? If you
sacrifice, says he, or observe the flight of birds ; if you
consult an astrologer or haruspex. Pure nonsense again,
and point blank against Cicero’s meaning : one makes that
done by design, which* the other makes by accident. If by
accident, then it’s true that superstition instat et urget, haunts
and plagues one, and there’s no escaping it : but if by
design, ’tis labouring in a fairy circle ; ’tis begging and
supposing the thing in debate.
To pass in silence his false version of de ccelo tactum ,
consumed with lightning, instead of blasted ; the next instance
of his dulness surpasses all belief. Si ostenti simile natum
factumve quippiam ; that is, if any monster is born, or some¬
thing like a prodigy happens ; as, raining of blood or wheat,
or the like. You see Cicero says ostenti simile, like a
prodigy ; for his part in that discourse was to deny there
were trite prodigies. A monster writh two heads was no
prodigy, but was occasioned by natural causes : the blood or
wheat was either a mistake, or was carried up by a whirl¬
wind. But behold now how our translator has managed it :
if any such-like prodigy happens. This version, I am sure,
is a greater prodigy than any of them all. What, ostenti
simile, a such-like prodigy ? ’Tis manifest by his construction
[* which ; 1st ed. “what.” — D.]
REMARKS.
325
v he joined them in the same case, as adjective and substantive.
Stupidity incredible ! I’ll leave every man to his own asto¬
nishment, and say no more of the matter. I’ll only ask him,
not where his grammar , but where his brains were, when,
by owning and confessing such-like prodigies , he frustrated
both Cicero’s and his own argument ?
To go on once more: quorum necesse est plerumque ali-
quid eveniat ; that is, of which things (all that were enume¬
rated before) some or other must frequently happen. Ob¬
serve that must, necesse est, must happen of necessity. And
now you see, what I said before, that our translator has
made the first parts of the passage contradict the last. If he
had had* the least grain of sagacity, this last comma might
have guided him to the true meaning of the former ; that the
instances must all be accidental, and not voluntary and with
design. Take the several instances reckoned up, and it’s hardly
possible to pass one day in common life but some objects of
superstition will necessarily present themselves : but is it
necessary to go to prophets, to regard omens, to observe
birds, to consult astrologers ? Surely these four verbs have
the signification of choice, not of necessity. And now, gen¬
tlemen of the English clergy, what think you of your free¬
thinker ? Did I not promise for him that he would manage
his old passages with great ability and dexterity ?
Dixin’ ego in hoc esse vobis Atticam elegantiam ?\
XIX.
He’s so pleased with this subject of superstition , that he
holds us in it still with two most common citations ; for what
can there be that is not so in Horace and Virgil ? Horace,
it seems, despises dreams, witches, spectres, and prodigies ;
and Virgil goes something further. And what then ? Both
these were bred young in the Epicurean school, and so speak
here the language of their sect. They prove nothing, they
[* If he had had ; Is< ed. “ And if he’d had.” — D.]
[f Ter. Eun. v. 9. 63.— D.]
326
REMARKS.
only affirm. And so the argument is no more than this 5
miracles, religion, the pains of hell, are false, because Epi¬
curus’s doctrine was against them. A notable proof indeed,
were the passages never so well handled ; but, as ill luck and
worse ignorance would have it, he has maimed and murdered
them both. Take that of Horace, with the author’s version :
Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas ,
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides ?*
Are you so much above superstition, as to laugh at all dreams,
panic fears , miracles, witches, ghosts, and prodigies ?
Magicos terrores, panic fears in the translation ; so very
unhappily, that both the words are wrong. For terrores are
not fears here, the internal passion of the mind ; but external
terrors, the tricks and artifices of wizards to fright, scare,
and terrify. And then by substituting panic for magic, he
has just served Horace as he did Cicero, and made him talk
complete nonsense. A general fright falling upon an army
or city, as if the enemy was at the camp or the gates, when
the alarm was found to be false and groundless, the Greeks
called a panic ; as if the god Pan was the author of it. Now
it’s plain that these frights (when there’s probability in the
alarm, and the enemy lies within due distance) can never be
known to be panic and vain till the business is over. In the
mean timewise and foolish are both under the panic: (fievy ovtl
koI 7raiSevov SvffKoXiuv Xvo’eis leal airaWayat • aAA a /cat trepl rrjs
reAevrris tjSLovs ex*w ras iAnlSas us &p.ei vov 8id£ovras, /cat owe eV ct/cotijd re /cat
fiopfiigu Keiaop-evovs, & Sr) tovs dfj.vr)rovs a vapeveiv. — D.]
REMARKS.
331
as the happiest of men both alive and dead;, makes answer,
that he had rather alive be a poor day-labourer to the meanest
peasant than be emperor of all the dead :
* H irdaiv ve/cvecrcri KaTacpdigevoicriv dvdarcreiv.r
’Tis so false, then, what our author lays down here, that the
pagan religion gave less uneasiness in life, because they
thought they hazarded less after death than we Christians
think we do, that it’s certain they thought bad men hazarded
as much , and good men obtained infinitely less.
XXII.
He comes now to a IVth argument for the absolute
necessity of free-thinking on religious questions, and that is
from the infinite number of pretenders to revelation ;s which
he afterwards dully repeats under another head, in the
Bramins, Parsees, Bonzes, Talapoins, and Dervizes,* to
which he might have added several more. Now here is his
perpetual juggle about his term of art, free-thinking . Take
it in the common sense, and we agree with him. Think
freely on all the various pretences to revelation ; compare
the counterfeit scriptures with the true, and see the divine
lustre of the one, to which all the others serve as a foil. It
was upon this very account that Christians took the pains to
translate and publish them ; not to confound religion, but to
confirm it. And yet the occult meaning of our author is,
from the variety of scriptures to insinuate none is true. An
argument as weak as it is stale, and baffled over and over.
Could this reasoning have any effect, Christianity had never
begun. For besides the true living oracles of the Jews, was
not the whole world then full of false ones, written and
divulged ? and oracular temples {or churches ,* if he will) then
in being to deliver out more ? Even suppose Christianity to
be true, yet those impostures must necessarily be, while
human nature is what it is : and our Scriptures have foretold
5 Pag. 40.
[* See p. 313.— D.]
r Oilyss. A. v. 490.
1 Pag. 52.
332
REMARKS.
it. Is that, then, a good argument backwards against the
truth of any thing, which a priori is plain must happen so,
though that thing be allowed to be true ?
But a very extraordinary line has slipped from our author
here ; If a man , says he, be under any \an\ obligation to listen
to any revelation at all. This thought, it seems, was a little
too free, and so a dele corrects it in the list of errata .* ’Tis
very easy to sift and toss this fine thought, which would afford
good diversion ; for besides its own silliness, it contradicts all
the rest, and spoils the whole grimace of the book. But
we’ll spare it, since the author himself has chastised it ; at
the hint (I suppose) of a graver member of the club, wrho
was not for discovering the whole farce at once, and shewing
the actors to be mere puppets.
XXIII.
We have heard here of the much-applauded foundation
of your Society for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
which this despicable scribbler, though he owns it is sup¬
ported and encouraged by her most excellent majesty and the
chief persons of the kingdom,11 dares openly ridicule. This
is much such a saucy and slovenly freedom as the rest of the
Greeks laughed at in the islanders of Corfu :
’ E\ev6epa Keptcvpa, yelf ottov
Corcyra certe libera est ; ubi vis, caca.
[* Hare, in The Clergyman’s Thanks to Phileleutliertis (see note on the Dedi¬
catory Epistle to the second part of these Remarks), has the following ob¬
servation : “ You seem to have mistaken the design of our free-thinkers, when
you fancy, by putting the most extraordinary words of their whole book into
the errata, they have thereby disowned them : on the contrary, I take it to be
their favourite line, and put into the errata because it is so, as the best way to
have it seen with the greatest ease and most advantage ; whereas as it stands in
the body of the book, a careless reader might either pass it, or not attend to it”
p. 32. — But the words in question are struck out from the later 8vo ed. of the
Discourse (see note, p. 291), the 12mo ed., and the French translation. — D.]
u Pag. 41.
[f Ar. de La Chapelle ( La Frip. Laique, p. 121) cites Eustathius on
Dionys. Per. v. 494.' — See also Strabo (lib. vii. Epit.), t. i. p. 478, ed. Falc. and
Erasmi Adagia, p. 1153. ed. 1606. — D.]
REMARKS.
333
For our cleanly author here assumes the like or worse
license, to lay his filth and ordure even upon the throne and
the altar.
We envy not your due liberty , the most valuable blessing
of good government; but if such insults even upon majesty
itself and all that’s accounted sacred are allowed among you
with impunity, it gives no great presage of your lasting
prosperity ;
- nimia illcec licentia
Profecto evadet in aliquod magnum malum.*
But to leave unpleasing thoughts, and for once to answer a
fool according to his folly. Are the Talapoins of Siam then
to be put here upon a level with the whole clergy of England ,
the light and glory (if they are not changed all on a sudden)
of present Christianity ? and this done by a sorry retailer of
atheistical scraps, which he understands not three lines of,
but at the first offer of a translation betrays his stupidity ?
Is he to draw out your divines , whose names we know not
here because he has mangled them,f but conclude them to
be men of worth and distinction, from the very credit of his
abusing them ? If he is once for drawing out , and reviving
the old trade of dvS pair 0S0 tcaTrrfkia, selling and exporting of
[* Ter. Adelph. iii. 4, 63. — D.]
[f The names are given entire in the 12mo ed. of the Discourse, p. 34 (see
note, p. 291), and in the French translation, p. 67. — “ Should the King of Siam
(or any other infidel prince), in return for the favour of our endeavours to
convert him and his kingdom to our religion, desire to send us a parcel of
[later 8vo, some of; \1mo, a pack of] his Talapoins (so the priests of Siam
are called) to convert us to the religion by law established in Siam, I cannot
see but that our Society for propagating the Gospel, and all the contributors
and well-wishers to it, must acknowledge the king’s request to be highly
reasonable, and perfectly of a piece with their own project [later eds. design] ;
and particularly must allow to the King of Siam, that it is as much the duty of
the members of the church of England to think freely on what the missionary
Talapoins shall propose to them, as it is the duty of the members of the church
of Siam to think freely on what shall be proposed by the missionary priests of
England : and therefore no doubt all they who sincerely desired the conviction
of the Siamese would give their missionaries the same encouragement here
which we expect for ours in Siam. The institution, therefore, of this society
supposes free-thinking in matters of religion to be the duty of all men on the face
334
REMARKS.
men, it may perhaps be found more serviceable to your
government to oblige your East India Company to take on
board the whole growing sect, and lodge them at Madagascar
among their confessed and claimed kindred (since they make
themselves but a higher species of brutes), the monkeys and
the drills; or to order your new South Sea Company to
deliver them to the Spaniards as part of the assiento, to be
free-diggers in the mines there; and after a decent time in
that purgatory, to convey them to their happy country, their
paradise of New Jersey, where neither priest, nor physician ,
nor lawyer can molest them.v
XXIY.
Well, but VFy, the gospel itself, and our Saviour and
his apostles by their own example, recommend free-thinking . w
Grant the scribbler this argument, if free-thinking is taken
in its legitimate sense, as Chillingworth, Hooker, and Wil¬
kins made use of that freedom. But if he juggles as usually
in the term of art, what greater nonsense, than that Christ
and his disciples should recommend atheism ? But our
author’s learning is here again admirably displayed. St.
Paul, says he, when he went into the synagogues of the Jews,
of the earth. And upon that account I cannot sufficiently commend the project
[later 8 vo, design]. And oh ! that the proper persons were but employed for
the execution of so glorious a design [later eds. work] ! That such zealous -
divines as our Sacheverels, our Atterburys, our Smalridges, our Stubs’s, our
Higgins’s, our Milburns, and our Swifts, were drawn out annually, as our
'military missionaries are, to be sent into foreign parts to propagate the gospel!
(a service in which such conscientious men must rejoice, since preaching the
gospel to infidel nations is no doubt contained in Christ’s commission, whatever
haranguing upon a text among Christians, falsely called [ later eds. Christians, by
some called] preaching the gospel, may be) ; we might then hope to see blessed
days, the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England triumph throughout
the world, and faction cease at home ; as by the means of the others our arms
triumph abroad, and we securely take our rest at night, and travel by day
unmolested. And no doubt, likewise, but it would be as beneficial to the king¬
dom of Siam to have a select number annually taken out of their vast body of
Talapoins.” Discourse, fyc. p. 42-3. — D.]
T Pag. 108. [See p. 317 and note. — D.]
W
Pag. 44.
REMARKS.
335
and reasoned with them,* took a very extraordinary step , as
now it would be looked on; and so he compares it to Penn
the Quaker going into St. Paul’s, or Mr. Whiston into the
House of Convocation, to reason there against the established
church. Penn’s name has been long known among us in
Germany, and the latter we have lately heard of in the
journals and bibliothbques . But how ignorant and stupid is
this writer with his foolish comparison ! The fact he speaks
of and quotes (Acts, xvii. 2, 3) was done at Thessalonica, a
pagan city in Macedonia : and was the Jewish synagogue the
established church there ? or rather allowed upon toleration ?
But to pardon him this, and suppose the thing done in Judea
itself, where our Saviour often did the same, was it any thing
like to interrupting divine service , or disturbing the proceed¬
ings of a synod ?t Our author knows not one tittle of the
manner and custom of a synagogue. After reading a few
* sections out of the Law and the Prophets, the ablest men of
the assembly used to stand up and expound the passages
read ; and if any stranger or person of note chanced to be
there, he was asked by them if he had any discourse to
impart to the congregation. This is expressly affirmed by
Philo the Jew, and others, and appears clearly from Acts,
xiii. 15, where at Antioch in Pisidia, the rulers of the syna¬
gogue seeing Paul and Barnabas strangers there, sent unto
[* The 12mo ed. (see note, p. 291) adds — “ and into the market-places at
Athens, where he disputed with the devout people he met with.” p. 35. And so
the French translation, p. 69. — D.]
[f “ For should William Penn the Quaker, or other religious person differing
from the established church, come to St. Paul’s during the time of divine service
to reason with the court of aldermen, preacher, and singing-men [ the 12 mo adds,
or go into the markets of London to dispute with the devout butchers and
herb-women] ; or Mr. Whiston into the Lower House of Convocation, to reason
with them [12 mo, with the members] ; it is certain, that, pursuant to the false
notions which now universally prevail, the one would be treated as a madman
and fanatic, and the other as a disturber of the proceedings of the holy synod, which
assumes a right to determine without reasoning with the person whose opinions
they condemn.” Discourse, p. 45. — The French translation (p. 70) agrees with
the 12mo ed. (see note, p. 291) in this passage.— D.]
336
REMARKS.
them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of
exhortation for the people, say on. So that if even Penn and
Whiston should do no more, but speak when desired by
authority, it would be no extraordinary step at all. The
only step here that appears very extraordinary is our author’s
bold leaping in* the dark, and blundering about matters
where he’s quite blind and ignorant.
XXV.
But he proceeds in his argument from our Saviour’s
gospel and example, and declares it impossible that Christ
should give so partial a command, as to contain a reserve in
behalf of any set of priests, in prejudice of the general rules
of free-thinking .x Our author is very oftenf orthodox, when
he opposes what nobody affirms, or affirms what nobody
opposes. And yet that very orthodoxy is all artifice and
craft, to insinuate as if the clergy did really maintain the
one, or deny the other. Pray who is it that challenges such
a reserve ? He has named a reverend doctor% here of his
side : name another, if he can, that’s against him. The
thing he seems to contend for is true and allowed him ; but
he has given such an awkward reason for it, as would spoil
his own inference, if better hands than his did not support
it. All the priests upon earth, says he, being (in our Saviour’s
life-time) enemies to him and his gospel, and he giving the
privilege of infallibility to nobody besides his apostles, he
[* in; 1st ed. “into." — D.] * Pag. 46.
[j- very often ; 1st ed. “ often very.” — D.]
[J “And he commanded his own disciples not to be called rabbi nor masters ;
by which last words our learned commentator, the Reverend Dr. Whitby, under¬
stands, that we should call no man guide or master upon earth, no fathers, no church,
no council.” Discourse, p. 46. — The words of Whitby on Matt, xxiii. 8, are these :
“ That we should call no man guide or master upon earth, no fathers, no church,
no councils, so as absolutely to submit ourselves in the concernment of our eternal
interests to the conduct of their judgments, or give them dominion over our
faith and conscience ; Christ being the sole guide and teacher of his church,” &c.
Par. and Com. v. i. p. 200. ed. 1727. — D.j
REMARKS.
337
could not be secure that any priests could {would ] ever be
otherwise .x Is the stupidity of this greater, or the im¬
piety ? Was not he secure of that, who declared he ivould be
with his church to the end of the world , and that the gates of
hell should never prevail against it ? But to let this pass (for
if I mistake not our authors principles, he had rather be
proved an impious or knavish writer ten times than a silly
one once), I affirm further, that this assertion of his is abso¬
lute nonsense, though Jesus Christ were supposed to be an
impostor. For his argument lies thus : because the Jewish
and pagan priests were once enemies to Christ and his gospel,
he could not be secure that any of his own priests would
ever be otherwise. A most powerful syllogism ! At this
rate no sect of philosophy, no heresy, nor false religion,
would ever have been set up or thought of. Because all
other sects opposed Zeno when he first founded Stoicism, he
could not be secure that the Stoics his own followers would
ever do otherwise. Because Socinus found all people at first
against him and his notions, he could not be secure but that
the very Socinians would always be as much against them.
Because all priests abhorred Mahomet’s Alcoran when first it
was broached, he could not be secure that his own mufties
and dervizes would not always abhor it. This, you’ll say, is
very strange : but I’ll concede our author one thing, which
looks a little parallel to it; that though he’s the chief of the
rising and growing sect, and has published their neiv gospel,
he cannot be secure that his own fraternity and members of
the club may not soon be ashamed both of him and it.
XXVI.
And now we come to a new argument, from the conduct
of the priests ; which by a tedious induction is branched out
into ten instances, and takes up half a hundred pages. And
what will be the grand result ?
x Ibid. — [The 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291) has — “ any priests
except his own dozen.” p. 36. — D.]
VOL. III. 2 x
338
REMARKS.
Na iste hercle magnojam conatu magncis nugas dixerit .*
The sum of it is no more than this : the priests cannot agree
among themselves about several points of doctrine , the attri¬
butes of God, the canon of Scripture, fyc. ; and therefore I’ll
be of no religion at all. This threadbare obsolete stuff, the
most obvious surmise that any wavering fool catches at when
he first warps towards atheism, is dressed up here as if it was
some new and formidable business.
What great feats can our author now promise himself from
this ; which, after it has been tried age after age, never had
influence on mankind either in religious concerns or common
life ? Till all agree, Til stand neuter. Very well ; and till all
the world speaks one language, pray be you mute and say
nothing. It were much the wriser way, than to talk as you
have done. By this rule, the Roman gentry were to learn
no philosophy at all, till the Greeks could unite into one
sect; nor make use of any physician, till the Empirics and
Methodists concurred in their way of practice. How came
Christianity to begin, since the objection now brought to pull
it down was as visible and potent then as now ? or how has
it subsisted so long, since all the present discord in opinions
does not near amount to the sum of what Epiphanius alone
collected above a thousand years ago ?t Nay, how came our
author’s new sect to be rising and growing, since the atheists
are as much at variance among themselves, and can settle
[* Ter. Heaut. iv. 1, 8. “Nae ista,” & c. — D.]
[f “ Le catalogue des heresies, dresse par St. Epiphane, en contient 80.
Encore marque-t-il dans la conclusion de son recueil, qu’il y en avoit ajoute 5,
pour faire un nombre egal a celui des concubines dont il est parle dans le Can-
tique des Cantiques, vi. 8. Le catalogue de St. Augustin est de 90. Encore
ce pere n’assure-t-il pas de n’avoir rien oublie. Qua hareses ortee sint, dit-il,
quomodo commemorare omnes potui, qui omnes nosse non potui ? Quod ideo existimo,
quia nullus eorum, quorum de haresi scripta legi, omnes posuit. Quandoquidem
invent apud alium, quas apud alium non invent, et rursus apud istum, quas ille non
posuit. Ego aulem propterea plures quam ipsi posui, quia collegi ex omnibus quas
omnes apud singulos non invent, additis etiam his quas ipse recolens apud ullum
illorum invenire non potui. Unde merito credo nee me posuisse omnes, quia nec omnes
qui de hue re scripserant legere potui, fyc.” Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip.
La'ique, p. 138. — D.]
REMARKS.
339
and centre in nothing ? Or, if they should resolve to con¬
spire in one certain system, they would be atheists indeed
still, but they would lose the title of free-thinkers.
This is the total of his long induction ; but let us see his
conduct in the parts of it. Some fathers thought God to be
material; this he has said, and I have answered before in
Remark the Xth. Several ancient Christian priests of Egypt
ivere so gross as to conceive God to be in the shape of a mans
If they did so, they were no more gross than his master
Epicurus, who was of the very same opinion. But it’s fatal
to our author ever to blunder when he talks of Egypt. These
priests of Egypt were all illiterate laymen ; the monks or
hermits of those days, that retired into the desert, the fittest
place for their stupidity.* But several of your English di¬
vines tax each other with atheism, either positively or conse¬
quently .z Wonderful ! and so because three or four divines
in your island are too fierce in their disputes, all we on the
great continent must abandon religion. Yes ; but the Bra-
mins, the Mahometans , Sec. pretend to scriptures as well as
weS This, too, has come once already, and is considered in
Remark the XXIId ; but, being so great a piece of news, de¬
served to be told twice. And who, without his telling, would
have known that the Romish church received the Apocrypha
as canonical ?b Be that as it will, I am sure it is unheard-of
news, that your church receives them as half -canonicals- I
find no such word in your Articles, nor ever saw a such-like
prodigy f before. Half-canonical ? what idea, what sense has
it? ’tis exactly the same as half-divine , half -infinite, half-
y Pag. 47.
[* “ Voyez Socrate, Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 7, oil il dit que ces moines etoient
air\oiico\, ISiurat, aypdp.fxct.Toi.” Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. La'ique,
p. 141.— D.]
1 Pag. 48. — [“ The Reverend Mr. William Carrol has wrote several hooks
to prove the Reverend Dr. Clark and the Reverend Mr. Samuel Bold atheists
in that sense. The Reverend Mr. Turner charges the Reverend Dr. Cudworth
with atheism for his Intellectual System of the Universe," & c. — D.]
R Pag. 52. b Pag. 53. c Ibid.
[f See p. 324. — D.j
340
REMARKS.
omnipotent. But away with his Apocrypha ; he’ll like it the
worse while he lives, for the sake of Bel and the Dragon .*
XXVII.
But now to make room for his learning again : for the
rabbis, says he, among the Samaritans, who now live at
Sichem in Palestine, receive the five books of Moses for their
Scripture, the copy whereof is very different from ours.A
What shall I admire most, his ignorance or his impudence ?
Why the rabbis at Sichem, exclusive and by way of dis¬
tinction ? Does not the whole Samaritan nation receive the
Pentateuch as well as their rabbis? ’Tis just as if he had
said, among the English the reverend divines receive the
Bible. But is not their copy of the five books of Moses
very different from ours ? No question he has often
affirmed this with great sufficiency at his club, though he
does not know one letter of the language. The Samaritan
Pentateuch has now been printed above half a century; and
the various readings wherein it differs from the Jewish have
been twice collected and published, even to the minutest
letter ; first by Morinus at Paris, t and afterwards anew by
your Walton at London, X both of them priests. I have pe¬
rused those various lections ; and do affirm here on my own
knowledge, that those two copies differ no more from each
other than the same book (Terence, Tully, Ovid, or the like)
differs from itself in the several manuscripts that I myself
have examined. So that it’s a plain demonstration that the
copies were originally the same ; nor can better evidence be
desired, that the Jewish Bibles have not been corrupted or
interpolated, than this very book of the Samaritans, which,
[* See p. 314.— D.]
d Ibid. — [In the 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291), the words,
“ who now live at Sichem in Palestine,” are omitted, p. 42 ; and so in the
French translation, p. 82. — D.]
[f In the Paris Polyglot, 1645. — D.]
[J In the London Polyglot, 1657. — D.]
REMARKS.
341
after above 2000 years’ discord between the two nations,
varies as little from the other as any classic author in less
tract of time has disagreed from itself, by the unavoidable
slips and mistakes of so many transcribers. And now does
not our author come off victoriously with his rabbis of
Sichem ?
Well, but the Samaritans have a chronicon , or history of
themselves from Moses’s time, which is lodged in the public
library at Leyden, and has never been printed ; and this is
quite different from that contained in the historical books of
the Old Testaments Here’s now a sly insinuation of some
great discoveries to be made out of this book ; and yet the
mighty matter is no more than this : Joseph Scaliger above
a hundred years ago procured this book from Sichem, and
left it among others by his will to the library at Leyden.
There it’s name has long appeared in the printed catalogue ;
it has been transcribed more than once ; and one copy,
formerly Professor Golius’s, has fallen into the hands of my
learned friend Mr. Reland at Utrecht ; whereof take his own
account.* ;Tis called The Book of Joshua, but its author is
not named : ’tis written in Arabic ; since Mahomet’s time
most certainly, but how much since is not known : it pre¬
tends to be a translation from the Hebrew, but it’s only
its own voucher, there being no fame now remaining of any
such original. It consists of about l. chapters ; xxxix. of
which make the sole story of Joshua; six chapters more
reach as low as Nebuchadnezzar; the very next comes to
Alexander the Great, and his travels thorow the air; the
next makes a long stride to the Emperor Hadrian ; and two
more to the time of Alexander Severus. This is the noble
chronicle that our judicious free-thinker would place above
the Bible, when the very Sichemites do not place it so high
as his own jargon half-canonical. ’Tis pity a man of so fine
a taste, and the Maecenas of the new club (since he hints
r- Pag. 53.
[# “ Reland. Dissertat. t. ii. ou vii. Piss. de Samarit. p. 14." Ar. de La
Chai'ELLE, La Frip. Ldique, p. 146. — P.]
342
REMARKS.
with such concern that it is not yet published ), should not be
obliged at his own charge to get it translated and printed.
XXVIII.
The very view of the following pages fills me with dis¬
dain, to see such common stuff brought in with an air of
importance. Hebrew and Septuagint ; Gospels according to
the Hebrews and Egyptians ; the Traditions of Matthias, and
the Secrets of Peter ; Apostolic Constitutions, and Gospel of
Janies ; and the different notions of priests concerning in¬
spiration. f And w7hat of all these, or half a hundred more,
that my learned and Lutheran friend Dr. Fabricius* has
amassed together ? Has our author a mind to read and
think of them ? Think freely and welcome ; for I suppose
that was the design my friend had in the publication. Or is
he rather at his old play, that he’ll regard no Scripture at all
till all Christians among themselves, and Talapoins with
them, can agree ? Jubeas stultum esse libenter :f let him
have license to play the fool, since he answers his own argu¬
ment in the very words where he puts it. For all, says he,
who build their religion on books, must from the nature of
things vary about the books themselves, their copies, and their
inspiration .£ Here’s now both the poison and the antidote
in one. For if it’s necessary from the nature of things that
men shall so differ in their opinions, that difference is no
{ Pag. 54.
[* “ Le savant et l’infatigable Mr. Jean- Albert Fabricius fit imprinter en
1703, a Hambourg, le Code Apocryphe du N. Testament, en 2 tomes, auxquels il
en ajouta un troisieme en 1719,aussi gros que les 2 precedens ensemble. C’est
un recueil de toutes les pieces supposees que Ton a attributes ou a J. C., ou a
ses ennemis contemporains, ou aux apotres, ou aux hommes qui vecurent avec
les apotres. Dans les 2 premiers tomes il y a plus de cinquante titres princi-
paux; et dans le troisieme il s’en trouve pres d’une trentaine. Ajoutez a cela
le Spicilegium de Grabe, en 2 vol. Oxf. 1698, qui est a peu pres dans le meme
gout; et l’on verra que Mr. Collins n’avoit pas grandes recherches a faire pour
citer quatre ou cinq apocryphes.” Ak. de La Chafelle, La Frip. Laique,
p. 148.— D.]
[f Hor. Sal. 1. 1. 63. “Jubeas miserum,” & c. — D.] s Pag. 56.
REMARKS.
343
argument backwards to prove tlie falseness of all those books.
Unless the man will prove a 'priori , that revelation ought not,
cannot be communicated and conveyed to us in books.
Which when he performs, or finds out a better method, it
shall be allowed to be the first instance of science or art that
the growing sect has invented.
XXIX.
But notwithstanding he has fore-answered from the na¬
ture of things all that he can say about different interpre¬
tations , yet he proceeds in xx. tedious pages to enumerate
those differences, which he ranges under xn. heads, and
before them puts a long preamble out of your learned Bishop
Taylor.* That prelate, it seems, has with great acuteness
and eloquence displayed the difficulties in acquiring a full
and perfect knowledge of all the abstruse places of Scripture ;
affirming at the same time, that all the necessaries to sal¬
vation and moral duties are delivered there most clearly and
openly. Well, and what does our wise author gain from
the bishop’s confession ? Has not he himself gone a great
deal further, and made all the sciences and arts , every ima¬
ginable part of knowledge, to be requisite towards having a
just notion of that miscellaneous book, the Bible If it be so,
what wonder is it (nay what miracle were it otherwise) that,
in an allowed freedom of thinking and printing, your English
divines should have different opinions ? nay that the self¬
same man by advances in age, and by progress in study,
should differ from himself ? I have run over the citations
here out of Taylor, and find scarce one of those difficulties so
peculiar to Scripture as not to be common to other authors :
to know which with exactness, as becomes every writer
(especially a declared adversary to a whole order professing
[* Collins quotes from the 3d and 4th sections of The Liberty of Prophesy¬
ing, in Taylor’s collection of Polemical Discourses, ed. 1674, pp. 965, 966, 967,
969, 970, 972, 973, 974.— D.]
h Pag. 11. — [See Remark viii. p. 304. — D.]
344
REMARKS.
learning), is no easy and perfunctory matter, as our author
to his shame and sorrow may hereafter find and feel.
His xii. heads of difference he has disposed in this
order : the nature and essence of the divine Trinity , the im¬
portance of that article of faith , the specific body at the
resurrection , predestination, eternal torments , sabbath or
Lord’s day, episcopacy, original sin, our Saviour’s human
sold, lay-baptism , usury , and the power of the civil magistrate
in matters ecclesiastical. About all these points, and several
others he could name, some of your English divines, it
seems, for want of good conduct, have had contests and dis¬
putes : a most surprising piece of news ! to you, as if none
had heard of those books till this discovery ; and to us, as if
we were entirely free from the like disputations.
Now what would our author have here ? Is he angry
that all cannot agree ? or will he make himself the arbi¬
trator ? If he’ll be umpire in all these questions, he has full
liberty of thinking ; the path is beaten before him ; he may
choose what side he inclines to, or coin new notions of his
own. As your church has not yet anathematised nor
censured any of these divines, so he needs not turn atheist
on these accounts, to purchase the right of free-thinking .
But if he’s angry that all agree not, and thinks it a dis¬
grace to religion, or resolves to meddle with none of them
till all are unanimous, he must be put in mind of what he
lately mentioned, the nature of things. For if he forbids
thinking on abstruse questions, he contradicts his whole
book, which asserts men’s right and title to think de quolibet
ente ; but if he allows them to think on them, diversity of
opinions will necessarily follow from the nature of the things.
For how can men keep the same tract where all walk in the
dark ? or how can they agree in one story where all tell
their own dreams ? If men needs will be prying into the
hidden mysteries of heaven, they’ll certainly court a cloud
instead of a goddess : yet such discoverers and projectors
there ever will be ; and in divinity, as well as geometry, we
have squarers of the circle.
REMARKS.
345
XXX.
A second instance of your English clergy’s bad conduct,
is their owning the doctrines of the church to he contradictory
to one another and to reason ;l a IIId, their owning abuses,
defects , and false doctrines in the church ;i a IVth, their pro¬
fessing that they will not tell the truth ;k a Vtl1, their charging
the most judicious men of their own order with atheism , deism,
or socinianism 4 Now as these accusations reach no further
than some particulars among you, our church here is not in
the least, and yours (I think) is not much concerned in
them. If the author really has not wronged them (as his
usual unfairness gives cause for suspicion), it will be pru¬
dence in them to learn even from an enemy, and to speak
hereafter with more caution and discretion. All that a
stranger can do here, is to leave the persons to their own
proper defence ; and the supposed abuses and false doctrines
in your church, to your own either refuting the charge, or
remedying the defect. For what would our Lutherans here
say of me, if I should pretend to maintain that your church
has no blemish at all ? Though we justly esteem and honour
it next to our own.
XXXI.
But a VIth instance of their ill conduct is their rendering
the canon of the Scripture uncertain .m This is a heavy
charge indeed ; and if they do not clear and vindicate them¬
selves, we, as well as this author, must call them to account.
But what’s the ground of the indictment ? Why, Dr. Grabe,
Dr. Mill, with some others, affirm that no canon was made till
above lx. years after the death of Christ. If this be all, he
has verified the sentence in the comedy ;
Homine imperito numquam quicquam injustiu’ st.*
For pray, what’s the notion of the word canon ? An entire
i Pag. 76. j Pag. 79. k Pag. 82.
i pag. 85. _ [The 12mo ed. (see note, p. 291) has — 1 “atheism, deism, ariamsm,
or socinianism,” p. 68 ; and so the French translation, p. 126.— D.]
rn Pag. 86. [* Ter. Adelph. 1. 2. 18.-D.]
-vr
VOL. HI. ^ ^
34 G
REMARKS.
collection of the sacred writings, to be a rule, standard , and
system to Christianity. Now according to those doctors,
and the plain matter of fact, all the books of the New Tes¬
tament were not written till the year of Christ xcvn. ; and
that is above lx. years after the death of Christ. What
sense is there in this complaint then ? that the books were
not collected before they were made ? All the books we now
receive for canonical were written* occasionally between the
years lii. and xcvn. And during that interval of xlv.
years, every book, in the places whither it was sent, or
where it was known, was immediately as sacred and canonical
as ever it Avas after. Nor did the church loiter and delay in
making a canon or collection of them ; for within tvATo years
after the writing of St. John’s gospel the evangelical canon
was fixed. And within x. after that, an epistolical canon
was made : quick enough, if it he considered that they
were to be gathered (whither they had been directed) from
so many and so distant parts of the world. So that it’s
plain to me this collector of scraps did not knoAV what a
canon or collection meant. I’ll borrow his argument for one
minute, and try it upon some classic authors. It’s very
plain that Martial published every single book of epigrams
by itself ; one generally every year ; only sometimes he de¬
layed two or three. And so Horace (as your Bentleius has
lately shewnf) set out his several books occasionally, from
the xxvi. to the li. year of his life. Now in the reasoning
of our acute writer, I’ll pro\re several books of those two
authors to be uncertain and of dubious authority. For what
do you tell me of the first book of the one’s Epigrams , and of
the other’s Satires ? How do I know that those are genuine,
when the canon of Martial and Horace was not fixed and
settled till above xx. years after those are pretended to be
written ? Is not this argument most strong, cogent, and irre¬
fragable ? So very valuable and precious, that, bear witness,
I now return it safe and sound to its possessor and author.
[* Written ; 1st ed. “ writ.” — D.]
[f Bentley’s ed. of Horace appeared in 1711. — D.]
REMARKS.
347
XXXII.
Yes 1 but poor Dr. Mill has still more to answer for;
and meets with a sorry recompense for his long labour of
xxx. years. For, if we are to believe not only this wise
author, but a wiser doctor* of your own, he was labouring
all that while to prove the text of the Scripture precarious ;n
having scraped together such an immense collection of
various readings , as amount in the whole, by a late author’s
computation,! to above thirty thousand. Now this is a
[* Wliitby, — whose Examen Var. Lect. Millii, p. 3, 4, is cited by Collins. —
In the 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291), the author appends to the
quotation from Whitby a long note on the question, “ whether the numerous
various readings do affect the text of Scripture or no,” the 4lh head of which
is as follows : “ Though the text of Scripture be, like the text of all other ancient
books, rendered uncertain through the ignorance and negligence of transcribers,
and more uncertain than all others through the wilful corruptions of tran¬
scribers ; yet it is evident, that the more ancient manuscripts there are which
remain to us, and the more collations are made of them, the better are critical
Christians qualified to fix a true text of Scripture for themselves. And by con¬
sequence such critics as Father Simon and Dr. Bentley ought to be better
believers, and in a more direct road to salvation, than others who are inferior to
them in criticism." p. 73. — In the French translation we find the same addition,
p. 131 ; on which Ar. de La Chapelle has bestowed a much longer examination
than it deserved, La Frip. La'ique, p. 213 : “ La section,” says he, “ que T’on
vient de lire au sujet des variantes, auroit du ramener au bon-sens un homme
raisonnable et sincere. Mais comme l’auteur du Discours, &c. n’etoit ni l’un
ni l’autre sur Particle de la religion, il mit dans son Francois cette addition, oh
l’on voit un homme outre de depit, et qui voulant faire mine de raisonner, ne
paye que de colhre et d’injures.” — D.] n Pag. 88.
[f “ Praf. Nov. Test. Wetstenii” is the reference given by Collins. He
means the ed. published by H. Wetstein in 1711, the editor of which was
Gerard von Maestricht. — On the subject of various readings in the Gr. Test.
see Michaelis’s Introd. (by Marsh), vol. i. chap. vi. pp. 246-341. ed. 1793.
Hare, in The Clergyman’s Thanks to P hileleutherus (se,e note on the Dedi¬
catory Epistle to the Second Part of the Remarks), has the following just ob¬
servations on the present section: “You have, in the small compass of seven
leaves, done the work of large volumes, and have set the whole question of
various lections in so clear and full a light, that nothing more need be said in
defence of the text on this account, nothing can be said against it. You have
pulled up this panic by the very roots ; and a man must be afraid of his own
shadow, who can hereafter be in pain about a various reading, or think the
number of them any prejudice to the integrity or authority of the sacred books.”
p. 34. — D.]
348
REMARKS.
matter of some consequence, and will well deserve a few
reflections.
I am forced to confess with grief, that several well-
meaning priests, of greater zeal than knowledge, have often
by their own false alarms and panic both frighted others of
their own side, and given advantage to their enemies. What
an uproar once was there, as if all were ruined and undone,
when Capellus wrote one book* against the antiquity of the
Hebrew points, and another + for various lections in the
Hebrew text itself! And yet time and experience has cured
them of those imaginary fears ; and the great author in his
grave has now that honour universally, which the few only
of his own age paid him when alive.
The case is and will be the same with your learned
countryman Dr. Mill ; whose friendship (while I staid at
Oxford) and memory will be ever! dear to me.§ For what is
it that your Whitbyus|| so inveighs and exclaims at ? The
doctor’s labours, says he, make the whole text precarious,
and expose both the reformation to the papists, and religion
itself to the atheists. God forbid ! we’ll still hope better
things. For surely those various readings existed before in
the several exemplars; Dr. Mill did not make and coin
them, he only exhibited them to our view. If religion, there¬
fore, was true before, though such various readings were in
[* Arcanum Punctationis revelatum, fyc. 4to, 1624. — D.]
[t Critica sacra, sive de variis quce in sacris Veteris Testamenti libris occurrunt
lectionibus. Fol. 1650. — D.] [J be ever; 1 st ed. “ ever be.” — D.]
[§ “ At the beginning of 1689 Bentley attended his pupil [James Stilling-
fleet] to Wadham College, of which he became himself a member, and in the
course of that year was incorporated Master of Arts, as holding the same degree
in the sister university.” Monk’s Life of B., vol. i. p. 19. — During his residence
at Oxford he was introduced to Dr. Mill, and their acquaintance soon ripened
into a warm friendship. See Preface to the present ed. of Bentley’s Works,
vol. i. p. xviii., and the Epist. ad Millium in vol. ii. p. 239. Mill died in 1707,
about a fortnight after the appearance of his edition of the Greek Test. — D.]
[|| See note, p. 347. — Michaelis observes, that Whitby, though a good com¬
mentator, was a bad critic ; that he betrays a total ignorance of manuscripts,
and had never read with proper attention even Mill’s Prolegomena : see
Introd. (by Marsh), vol. ii. p. 461. ed. 1793. — D.]
REMARKS.
349
being, it will be as true, and consequently as safe still,
though every body sees them. Depend onT, no truth, no
matter of fact fairly laid open, can ever subvert true religion.
The 30,000 various lections are allowed, then, and con¬
fessed : and, if more copies yet are collated, the sum will
still mount higher. And what’s the inference from this ?
why, one Gregory, here quoted, infers that no profane author
whatever has suffered so much by the hand of time as the New
Testament has done.0 Now if this shall be found utterly
false ; and if the scriptural text has no more variations than
what must necessarily have happened from the nature of
things, and what are common and in equal proportion in all
classics whatever ; I hope this panic will be removed, and
the text be thought as firm as before.
If there had been but one manuscript of the Greek Tes¬
tament at the restoration of learning about two centuries ago,
then we had had no various readings at all. And would the
text be in a better condition then than now we have 30,000 ?
So far from that, that in the best single copy extant we
should have had hundreds of faults, and some omissions irre¬
parable. Besides that the suspicions of fraud and foul play
would have been increased immensely.
It is good, therefore, you’ll allow, to have more anchors
than one ; and another MS. to join with the first would give
more authority, as well as security. Now choose that second
where you will, there shall be a thousand variations from the
first ; and yet half or more of the faults shall still remain in
them both.
A third therefore, and so a fourth, and still on, are de-
0 Pag. 88. — [“ The Reverend Mr. Gregory, of Christ Church, Oxford, says,”
&c. “Preface to his Posthumous Works.” — Dr. John Gregory, author of vari¬
ous learned works, died in 1646. His MS. Animadversiones on Malelas, which
the curators of the Oxford press originally intended should accompany the ed.
of that author in 1691, were afterwards rejected for the Prolegomena of Hody,
who terms him “ omnigena eruditione instructissimus.” The expression “ one
Gregory” does not, I apprehend, imply contempt: Bentley writes in the cha¬
racter of a foreigner, who has no extensive acquaintance with the works of
Englishmen. — D.]
350
REMARKS.
sirable, that by a joint and mutual help all the faults may
be mended; some copy preserving the true reading in one
place, and some in another. And yet the more copies you
call to assistance, the more do the various readings multiply
upon you ; every copy having its peculiar slips, though in a
principal passage or two it do singular service. And this is
fact, not only in the New Testament, but in all ancient
books whatever.
’Tis a good providence and a great blessing, that so many
manuscripts of the New Testament are still amongst us;
some procured from Egypt, others from Asia, others found
in the Western churches. For the very distances of places as
well as numbers of the hooks demonstrate, that there cordd
be no collusion, no altering nor interpolating one copy by
another, nor all by any of them.
In profane authors (as they are called), whereof one
manuscript only had the luck to be preserved, as Velleius
Paterculus among the Latins, and Hesychius among the
Greeks, the faults of the scribes are found so numerous, and
the defects so beyond all redress, that, notwithstanding the
pains of the learnedest and acutest critics for two whole
centuries, those books still are,* and are like to continue, a
mere heap of errors. On the contrary, where the copies of
any author are numerous, though the various readings always
increase in proportion, there the text, by an accurate col¬
lation of them made by skilful and judicious hands, is ever
the more correct, and comes nearer to the true words of the
author.
Were the very originals of ancient books still in being,
those alone would supersede the use of all other copies ; but
since that was impossible from the nature of things, since
time and casualties must consume and devour all, the sub¬
sidiary help is from the various transcripts conveyed down
to us, when examined and comparedt together.
Terence is now in one of the best conditions of any of
[* still are ; ls< ed. “ are still.” — D.]
[f examined and compared; 1st ed. “compared and examined.” — D.]
REMARKS.
351
the classic writers ; the oldest and best copy of him is now
in the Vatican Library, which comes nearest to the poet’s
own hand; but even that has hundreds of errors, most of
which may be mended out of other exemplars, that are
otherwise more recent and of inferior value. I myself have
collated several ;* and do affirm that I have seen 20,000 vari¬
ous lections in that little author, not near so big as the whole
New Testament ; and am morally sure, that if half the number
of manuscripts were collated for Terence with that niceness
and minuteness which has been used in twice as many for
the New Testament , the number of the variations would
amount to above 50,000.
In the manuscripts of the New Testament the variations
have been noted with a religious, not to say superstitious ex¬
actness. Every difference, in spelling, in the smallest par¬
ticle or article of speech, in the very order or collocation of
words without real change, has been studiously registered.
Nor has the text only been ransacked, but all the ancient
versions, the Latin Vulgate, Italic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic,
Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, and Saxon ; nor these only, but
all the dispersed citations of the Greek and Latin fathers in
a course of 500 years. What wonder then, if, with all this
scrupulous search in every hole and corner, the varieties rise
to 30,000? when in all ancient books of the same bulk,
whereof the MSS. are numerous, the variations are as many
or more, and yet no versions to swell the reckoning.
The editors of profane authors do not use to trouble
their readers, or risk their own reputation, by an useless list
of every small slip committed by a lazy or ignorant scribe.
What is thought commendable in an edition of Scripture,
and has the name of fairness and fidelity, would in them be
deemed impertinence and trifling. Hence the reader not
versed in ancient MSS. is deceived into an opinion, that
[* Bentley was at this time engaged on liis ed. of Terence, which circum¬
stances obliged him soon after to lay aside: on the appearance of Hare’s ed.
in 1724, he earnestly resumed the work; and it was given to the public in
172(1 : see Monk’s Life, of B., vol. i. p. 3G0 ; vol. ii. p. 217, sqq.— D.]
352
REMARKS.
there were no more variations in the copies than what the
editor has communicated. Whereas, if the like scrupulous¬
ness was observed in registering the smallest changes in pro¬
fane authors, as is allowed, nay required, in sacred, the now
formidable number of 30,000 would appear a very trifle.
'Tis manifest that books in verse are not near so obnoxious
to variations as those in prose ;* the transcriber, if he is not
wholly ignorant and stupid, being guided by the measures,
and hindered from such alterations as do not fall in with the
laws of numbers. And yet even in poets the variations are
so very many as can hardly he conceived without use and
experience. In the late edition of Tibullus+ by the learned
Mr. Broukliuise you have a register of various lections in
the close of that book, where you may see, at the first view,
that they are as many as the lines. The same is visible in
Plautus set out by Pareus. I myself, during my travels,
have had the opportunity to examine several MSS. of the
poet Manilius ;% and can assure you that the variations I
have met with are twice as many as all the lines of the book.
Our Discourser here has quoted nine verses out of it, §
p. 151 ; in which, though one of the easiest places, I can
shew him xiv. various lections. Add likewise, that the MSS.
here used wrere few in comparison : and then do you imagine
what the lections would amount to, if ten times as many
(the case of Dr. Mill) were accurately examined. And yet
in these and all other books the text is not made more pre¬
carious on that account, but more certain and authentic.
So that if I may advise you, when you hear more of this
scarecrow of 30,000, be neither astonished at the sum, nor
in any pain for the text.
’Tis plain to me that your learned Whitbyus, in his in¬
vective against my dead friend, was suddenly surprised with
[_* as those in prose ; 1st ed. “ as prose.” — D.] [f 1708. — D.]
[J As early as 1691 Bentley was preparing an ed. of Manilius : see Monk’s
Life of B., \ ol. i. p. 34; and the author’s preface to the Dissert, on Phalaris,
vol. i. p. xxvii. sqq. of the present ed. of his Works. It was not published till
1739.— D.]
[§ Lib. i. 522. “ Omnia mortali mutantur,” &c. — D.]
REMARKS.
353
a panic ; and, under his deep concern for the text, did not
reflect at all what that word really means. The present text
was first settled almost 200 years ago out of several MSS.
by Robert Stephens, a printer and bookseller at Paris ; whose
beautiful and (generally speaking) accurate edition* has been
ever since counted the standard, and followed by all the rest.
Now this specific text in your doctor’s notion seems taken
for the sacred original in every word and syllable; and if
the conceit is but spread and propagated, within a few years
that printer's infallibility will be as zealously maintained as
an evangelist’s or apostle’s.
Dr. Mill, were he alive, would confess to your doctor,
that this text fixed by a printer is sometimes by the various
readings rendered uncertain , nay is proved certainly wrong.
But then he would subjoin, that the real text of the sacred
writersf does not now (since the originals have been so long
lost) lie in any single MS. or edition, but is dispersed in
them all. ’Tis competently exact indeed even in the worst
MS. now extant ; nor is one article of faith or moi*al precept
either perverted or lost in them ; choose as awkwardly as
you can, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump
of readings. But the lesser matters of diction, and among
several synonymous expressions the very words of the writer,
must be found out by the same industry and sagacity that is
used in other books ; must not be risked upon the credit of
any particular MS. or edition, but be sought, acknowledged,
and challenged, wherever they are met with.
Stephens followed what he found in the King of France’s
copies, Acts, xxvii. 14. ave/io? tv^xovikos, 6 icaXov/xevo
ETPOKATAflN ; and he is followed by your translators,
there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called EUROCLY-
DON. This reading, perhaps, your learned doctor would
not have now be made precarious but if that printer had
[* Stephens’ first ed. appeared in 1546, 12mo: his fol. ed. in 1550. — D.]
[f writers; so 1st ed. ; ed. 1743, “writer.” — D.]
[+ “Mr. Bentley,” says Ar. de la Chapelle, “ ne rend pas ici une justice
parfaite <4 Mr. Whitby.” La Frip. La'ique, p. 195. — See Whitby ad 1. — D.]
VOL. III. 2 z
354
REMARKS.
had the use of your Alexandrian MS., which exhibits here
ETPAKTAI2N, it’s very likely he would have given it the
preference in his text; and then the doctor, upon his own
principle, must have stickled for this.
The wind euroclydon was never heard of but here : it’s
compounded of eupo?,and /cXvScov, the wind and the waves ;
and it seems plain a priori from the disparity of those two
ideas, that they could not be joined in one compound ; nor
is there any other example of the like composition.
But evpa/cv\(ov, or as the vulgar Latin here has it,
euroaquilo (approved by Grotius and others), is so apposite
to the context, and to all the circumstances of the place,
that it may fairly challenge admittance as the word of St.
Luke.* ’Tis true, according to Vitruvius, Seneca, and Pliny,
who make eurus to blow from the winter solstice, and aquilo
between the summer solstice and the north point, there can
be no such wind nor word as euroaquilo , because the solanus
or apheliotes from the cardinal point of east comes between
them. But eurus is here to be taken, as Gellius, ii. 22, and
the Latin poets use it, for the middle equinoctial east, the
same as solanus ; and then in the table of the xn.f winds
according to the ancients, between the two cardinal winds
septentrio and eurus there are two at stated distances,
aquilo and /cat/c/a?. The Latins had no known name for
Kaaclas : Quem ab oriente solstitiali excitatum Greed Kauclav
vocant, apud nos sine nomine est, says Seneca, Nat. Qucest. v.
16. | Kaacia avrov &> 6 /ccu/cla 9 ve(f>r 7.*
So that, with submission, I think our Luther’s and the Danish
version have done more right than your English to the
sacred text, by translating it nord-ost, north-east ; though,
according to the present compass divided into xxxn., euro¬
aquilo answers nearest to ost-nord-ost, east-north-east ;
which is the very wind that would directly drive the ship
from Crete to the African Syrtis, according to the pilot’s
fears, in the 17th verse.
The Alexandrian copy, then, though it has vastly increased
the number of readings, as you see in your Polyglot and
Dr. Mill’s edition, has been of excellent use here ; and so in
many other places ; retrieving to us the true original, where
other copies failed. And what damage if all the other copies
of near the same antiquity, which Mr. Montfaucon has dis¬
covered, and Dr. Mill never saw, were sometime collated as
exactly, and all the varieties published, let the thousands
grow never so many ?
When the doctor is so alarmed at the vast sum of 30,000,
he seems to take it for granted, that within that number the
very original is every where found ; and the only complaint
is, that true are so blended with false, that they can hardly
be discovered. If that were the only difficulty, some abler
heads than ours would soon find a remedy : in the mean time
I can assure him, that if that be the case, the New Testament
has suffered less injury by the hand of time than any profane
[* This verse, which Bentley has slightly corrected, occurs in the Schol. on
Aristoph. Equit. 43.5, in Plutarch, &c. &c. See Wyttenbach’s note on Plut.
De Cap. ex inirn. util.—Mor. t. vi. p. 304, ed. 4to. — D.]
356
REMARKS.
author , there being not one ancient book besides it in the
world, that, with all the help of various lections (be they
50,000 if you will) does not stand in further want of emenda¬
tion by true critic ; nor is there one good edition of any
that has not inserted into the text (though every reader
knows it not) what no manuscript vouches.*
5Tis plain indeed, that if emendations are true, they must
have once been in some manuscripts, at least in the author’s
original ; but it does not follow, that because no manuscript
now exhibits them, none more ancient ever did. Slips and
errors (while the art of printing was unknown) grew pre¬
sently and apace, even while the author was alive. Martial
tells us himself, how one of his admirers was so curious,
that he sent a copy of his poems, which he had bought, to be
emended p by his own hand. And we certainly know from
Gellius,^ that even so early as Hadrian’s time and before,
the common copies of Virgil had several mistakes.
Not frighted, therefore, with the present 30,000, I for my
part, and (as I believe) many others, would not lament, if
out of the old manuscripts yet untouched 10,000 more were
faithfully collected : some of which without question would
render the text more beautiful, just, and exact, though of no
[* Hare, in The Clergyman' s Thanks to Phileleutherus (see note on the Dedi¬
catory Epistle to the Second Part of the Remarks), has the following passage:
“ That the present text wants the help of more manuscripts than have yet been
examined, or the assistance of critic to supply the want of them, is not only a
priori evident from the reason and nature of the thing; those who have read the
New Testament with a critical care and exactness know it to be so in fact:
yourself have given us a small specimen of this in your happy conjectures upon
three passages [see pp. 357, 8], which, as far as I can find by my own con¬
versation and my friends, are universally liked by the men of learning, who
would be very glad so great a master would turn his labours to the Scriptures ;
and if not a new edition of the Testament, that he would give us at least a critice
sacra on it, which, from so able a hand, would on many accounts be infinitely
valuable. Many of us are sensible this wants to be done, though none of us
can do it; the province is yours without dispute, ’twill be our part to judge
and to applaud.” p. 38. — Hare’s pamphlet is dated March 1713. In a letter
to Archbishop Wake, April 1716, Bentley announced his design of publishing
an edition of the Greek Test. — D.]
p Martial, vii. 11.
t Gellius, i.-21 ; ix. 14.
REMARKS.
357
consequence to the main of religion, nay perhaps wholly
synonymous in the view of common readers, and quite
insensible in any modern version.
If all those remaining manuscripts were diligently per¬
used, perhaps ofie might find in some or one of them a new
various lection in 1 Tim. vi. 3. el Tt? erepoSifiacr/caXei, /cal
IIP02EPXETAI vyiaivovai \ov itpiwv, ot>s avyovpas ' Poo pah i KaXovai. Plut. in Cic. [Opp.
t. iv. p. 816. ed. Reisk. — D.] v See Remark the 5th.
[* than that of the; 1st ed. “ than the.” — D.]
REMARKS.
389
orders. While I resided at Oxford, and saw such a conflux
of youth to their annual admissions, I have often studied and
admired why their parents would, under such mean encou¬
ragements, design their sons for the church ; and those the
most towardly and capable and select geniuses among their
children, who must needs have emerged in a secular life. I
congratulated, indeed, the felicity of your establishment,
which attracted the choice youth of your nation for such very
low pay ; but my wonder was at the parents, who generally
have interest, maintenance, and wealth, the first thing in their
view : till at last one of your state lotteries ceased my asto¬
nishment. For as in that a few glittering prizes, 1000, 5000,
10,000 pounds, among an infinity of blanks, drew troops of
adventurers, who, if the whole fund had been equally ticketed,
would never have come in ; so a few shining dignities in your
church, prebends, deaneries, bishopricks, are the pious fraud
that induces and decoys the parents to risk their child’s for¬
tune in it. Every one hopes his own will get some great
prize in the church, and never reflects on the thousands of
blanks in poor country livings. And if a foreigner may tell
you his mind, from what he sees at home, ’tis this part of
your establishment that makes your clergy excel ours. Do
but once level all your preferments, and you’ll soon be as
level in your learning. For, instead of the flower of the
English youth, you’ll have only the refuse sent to your aca¬
demies, and those, too, cramped and crippled in their studies,
for want of aim and emulation. So that, if your free-thinkers
had any politics, instead of suppressing your whole order,
they should make you all alike ; or, if that cannot be done,
make your preferments a very lottery in the whole similitude.
Let your church dignities be pure chance prizes, without re¬
gard to abilities, or morals, or letters : as a journeyman (I
think) in that state lottery was the favourite child of fortune.
XLI.
But again, before I come to the inviting passage of Zosimus,
I shall gather some of his scattered flowers, and comprise
390
REMARKS.
them under one remark. If any good Christian , says lie,
happens to reason better than ordinary , the priests presently
charge him with atheism .w He means only your English
priests, as I see by his instances : and naughty men they, if
any of them do so. But I’ll give him a word of comfort,
and offer myself as sponsor for them, that none of them will
call him atheist, for reasoning better than ordinary. Good
man, to avoid that odious name, he has sprinkled all his
pages with mere nonsense, out of pure consideration and
forecast.
To shew his good taste and his virtuous turn of mind,* he
praises two abuses upon James I. -, that he was a doctor more
than a king, and was priest-ridden by his archbishop ;x as the
most valuable passages in Father Paul’s Letters ; and yet,
as I have been told, those passages are spurious and forged.
Well, hut were they genuine and true, are those the things
he most values ? O, the vast love and honour he bears to
the crown and the mitre ! But his palate is truly constant
and uniform to itself : he drudges in all his other authors,
ancient and modern, not to find their beauties, but their
spots ; not to gather the roses, but the thorns ; not to suck
good nutriment, but poison. A thousand bright pages in
Plutarch and Tully pass heavy with him, and withoutf relish ;
but if he chances to meet with a suspicious or sore place,
then he’s feasted and regaled, like a fly upon an ulcer, or a
beetle in dung : and with those delicious scraps put together,
he has dressed out this hook of Free-thinking.
But have a care of provoking him too much, for he has
still in reserve more instances of your conduct ; your declama¬
tions against reason A such false reason, I suppose, as he and
his tribe would put off for good sterling : your arts and method
of discouraging examination into the truths of religion ; such
truths, forsooth, of religion as this, that religion itself is all
w Pag. 85.
[* his virtuous turn of mind ; ls< cd. “ the virtuous turn of liis mind.” — D.]
x Pag. 94, 95. [f him, and without; ls< cd. “ him without.” — D.]
y Pag. 97.
REMARKS.
391
false : and again, your encouraging examination when either
authority is against you (the authority, he means, of your late
king James, when one* of his free- thinking doctors thought
himself into popery), or when you think that truth is certainly
on your side ; he will not say that truth is certainly on yo in¬
side, hut only that you think so : however, he allows here
you are sometimes sincere; a favour he would not grant you
in some of his former instances.
But the last and most cutting instance is, your instilliny
'principles into youth :z no doubt he means those pernicious
principles of fearing God ; honouring the king ; loving your
neighbour as yourselves ; living soberly, righteously, and
godly in this present world. O, the glorious nation you
would be, if your stiff parsons were once displaced, and free¬
thinkers appointed tutors to your young nobility and gentry !
How would arts, learning, manners, and all humanity flourish
in an academy under such preceptors ! who, instead of
your Bible, should read Hobbes’s Leviathan ; should instil
early the sound doctrines of the mortality of the soul, and
the sole good of a voluptuous life. No doubt such an esta¬
blishment would make you a happy people, and even a rich ;
for our youth would all desert us in Germany, and presently
pass the sea for such noble education.
The beginning of his IIId section, where (as I remarked
before) free-thinking stands for no more than thinking , may
pass in general for truth, though wholly an impertinence.
For who in England forbids thinking ? or who ever made
such objections as he first raises, and then refutes ? He dare
not, sure, insinuate as if none of your clergy thought , nor
examined any points of doctrine, but took a system of
opinions by force and constraint, under the terror of an in¬
quisition, or the dread of fire and faggot. So that we have
xx. pages of mere amusement, under the ambiguity of a
word. Let your clergy once profess that they are the true
[# See note, p. 361. — D.]
* Pag. 97. — [The French translation of the Discourse (see note, p. 291) has
“ lews principes.” p. 145. — D.]
392
REMARKS.
free-thinkers, and you’ll soon see the unbelieving tribe re¬
nounce their new name.
However, in these sapless pages he has scattered a mark
of his great learning. He says, the infinite variety of opinions,
religions, and worships among the ancient heathens, never pro¬
duced any disorder or confusion .a What! was it no disorder
when Socrates suffered death for his opinions ; when Aristotle
was impeached, and fled ; when Stilpo was banished ; and
when Diogoras was proscribed? Were not the Epicureans
driven out from several cities, for the debaucheries and
tumults they caused there ? Did not Antiochus banish all
philosophers out of his whole kingdom ;b and for any one
to learn of them, made it death to the youth himself, and loss
of goods to his parents ? Did not Domitian expel all the
philosophers out of Rome and whole Italy ? Did the Galli,
the vagabond priests of Cybele, make no disturbances in
town and country ? Did not the Romans frequently forbid
strange religions and external rites that had crept into the
city, and banish the authors of them ? Did the Bacchanals
create no disorders in Rome, when they endangered the
whole state, and thousands were put to death for having
been initiated in them ? In a word, was that no disturbance
in Egypt, which Juvenal tells of his own knowledge (and
which frequently used to happen), when in two neighbouring
cities their religious feuds ran so high, that, at the annual
festival of one, the other, out of zeal, went to disturb the
solemnity ; and after thousands were fighting on both sides,
and many eyes and noses lost, the scene ended in slaughter,
a Pag. 101. — [The later 8vo ed. of the Discourse, ibid, (see note, p. 290, 1)
has “ any great disorder.” The 12mo ed. gives the passage thus: “ And yet
no confusion ever arose in Greece on account of this diversity of opinions.
Nay, so far were the differences among philosophers from being supposed to have any
tendency towards confusion in society, that the Epicureans ( Gassendi de Vita et
Moribus Epicuri, cap. 5. 1. 2.), as well as other philosophers, had salaries settled on
them by the government. Nor did the great variety of religions and worships,
which in old Rome were of six hundred different kinds, ( Lipsius de Magnitud. Rom.
1. 4. c. 5.) ever produce any great disorder or confusion among the ancients,”
p. 84. ; and so the French translation, p. 150. — D.]
b Athenaeus, lib. xii. p. 547. [=t. iv. p. 532. ed. Schw. — D.]
REMARKS.
393
and the body slain was cut* into bits, and eaten up raw by
the enemies ? And all this barbarity committed, because the
one side worshipped crocodiles, and the other killed and eat
them.
- summus utrinque
Inde furor vulgo, quod numina vicinorum
Odit uterque locus ; cum solos credat habendos
Esse deos, quos ipse colit. f
Let him go now and talk facetiously at his club, that among
the pagans there was no polemic divinity.
XLII.
We are now come to a grand secret of your priestcraft,
the toleration of vice , by which all the rogues and fools are
engaged in your party. c This, he says, was put in practice
with success as early as Constantine the Great, who (as
Zozimus tells us) after he had committed such horrible vil-
lanies, which the pagan priests told him were not expiable in
their religion, being assured by an Egyptian bishop that there
was no villany so great but was to be expiated by the sacra¬
ments of the Christian religion, he quitted the religion of his
ancestors, and embraced the new impiety ; so Zozimus im¬
piously calls the Christian religion.% Now, the business
itself, laid to Constantine’s charge here by a bigoted pagan,
is too stale and trivial to deserve a new answer, having been
fully refuted both by the ecclesiastic historians of old and
several of the moderns. But what I here animadvert on is
[* slain was cut; 1st ed. “ slain cut.” — I).]
[f Juv. XV. 35.— D.] Pag. 117, 118.
[J In the 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291) the words “ so Zozi~
mus impiously calls the Christian religion ” are wanting, p. 97 ; and so in the
French translation, p. 174.
The “ mauvaise-foi” of Collins, in his version of this passage of Zosimus —
his using terms unwarranted by the Greek text, — “ an Egyptian bishop ,” and
“ the sacraments of the Christian religion ,” has drawn forth a very long note from
Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. Ldique, p. 319, &c. ; but it relates to particulars
on which Bentley has not touched. — D.]
VOL. III. 3 E
394
REMARKS.
the prodigious awkwardness of our writer both in his version
and application of this passage.
Zosimus, a poor superstitious creature (and consequently,
as one would guess, an improper witness for our free-thinker) ,
who has filled his little history not more with malice against
the Christians than with bigotry for the pagans ; who treats
his reader with oracles of the Palmyrenes and Sibyls ; with
annual miracles done by Venus, where gold and silver swum
upon water ; with presages and dreams of old women ; with
thunders and earthquakes, as if they were prodigies ; with a
dead body vanishing in the middle of an army ; with omens,
and with predictions from the entrails* of beasts ; with an ap¬
parition of Pallas and her Gorgon, and with the spectre of
Achilles ; with wooden idols that fire could not burn ; with
a necklace of the goddess Rhea, that executed divine venge¬
ance ; who imputes the taking of Rome by Alaric to the
omission of pagan sacrifices, and the decay of the Roman
empire to Constantine’s neglecting the ludi sceculares : this
wise and judicious author is brought in for a good evidence ;
and our avowed enemy to superstition connives at all this
trumpery, for the sake of one stab at the reputation of Con¬
stantine and the honour of Christianity.
But how has he managed and represented it ? The story,
as Zosimus himself tells it,d is thus : c Constantine, being
troubled in conscience for some crimes he had committed,
applied to the heathen priests for expiation. They answer¬
ing, that they had no way of expiation for crimes of so deep
a die, a certain Egyptian told him, that if he would turn
Christian, all his sins would be immediately forgiven him.
Constantine liking this well, and, after a renunciation of
paganism, partaking of the Christian rites, t% acre/3eia? ryv
apxfjv €7rnLrjaaT0, rrjv /aavriKrjv e%etv iv viro-^ria, for his
first instance of irreligion, he began to suspect and cry
down the art of foretelling things from the entrails of beasts ;
for having had many events truly predicted to him by that
[* from the entrails ; Is/ ed. “ from entrails.” — D.]
J Pag. 104. [Lib. ii. cap. 29. p. 150. ed. Reit.— D.]
REMARKS.
395
art, he was afraid others would make use of it against him¬
self.’ This is a faithful version ; for that /xavTucr) here means
haruspicina, the art of divination by entrails, appears from
p. 157,'* and other places of that author.
How amazing, now, is the ignorance of our free-thinker !
unless, perhaps, he will plead impudence ; for with such
men excusatius est voluntate peccare quam casu, it’s counted
a smaller fault to prevaricate on purpose than err by mistake.
He stops his citation and version in the very middle of the
sentence, and interprets rys dae^eta<; rrjv dp^yv the new
impiety ; and then subjoins, with a sneer, so Zozimus impi¬
ously calls the Christian religion. If Zosimus speakf not impi¬
ously, somebody else does. For with him d(re@eia, irreligion,
neglect of worship, has only reference to the pagan rites, and
particularly to sacrifices and haruspices. These Constantine
had abandoned ; and for that reason deserved, as well as Cato
the Censor, e to be put into our writer’s list of free-thinkers.
But see the partiality ! Constantine has lost his favour, be¬
cause he first made the government Christian : and an author
must be mangled, sense and grammar distorted, all rules of
syntax perverted, to bring out a little blasphemy. ’ Apxyv
t?5 acrefielas liroiyaaTo, embraced the new impiety ? and the
Christian religion meant by it? Intolerable construction,
and monstrous ! there’s scarce a such-like prodigy% in his
former version of Cicero.
XLIII.
The next witness that he summons from the shades is
Julian the Apostate; and I wonder he did not call along
with him Judas Iscariot. But what does Julian depose ?
Why, the foresaid conversion of Constantine gave occasion
to him to satirise thus our holy religion :f Whosoever is a
ravisher, a murderer, guilty of sacrilege, or any other abomi¬
nation, let him come boldly ; for, when I have washed him with
[* i. e. ed. Oxon. 1679=p. 223. ed. Reit.— D.]
[f speak; 1st ed. “speaks.” — D.] c Pag. 135.
[X See p. 324.— D.] f Pag. 118.
396
REMARKS.
this water , I’ll immediately make him clean and innocent : and
if he commits the same crimes again , I’ll make him, after he
has thumped his breast and beat his head, as clean as before .s
And what can our writer make of this satire, though I’ve
mended his version for him ? A ridiculous and stale banter,
used by Celsus and others before Julian, upon the Christian
doctrines, baptism, repentance, and remission of sins. Bap¬
tism is rallied as mere washing, and repentance as thumping
the breast * and other outward grimace. The inward grace,
the intrinsic change of mind, are left out of the character.
And whom are we to believe, these pagans or our own selves ?
Are we to fetch our notions of the sacraments from scraps of
Julian and Celsus ? or from the Scripture, the pure fountain ;
from what we read, know, and profess ? And yet the banter
came more decently out of Celsus an Epicurean’s mouth,
than out of Julian’s, the most bigoted creature in the world.
He to laugh at expiation by baptism, whose whole life after
his apostacy was a continued course of tcadappol, washings,
purgations, expiations, with the most absurd ceremonies ?
addicted to the whole train of superstitions ; omens, presages,
prodigies, spectres, dreams, visions, auguries, oracles,
magic, theurgic, psychomantic ? whose whole court in a
manner consisted of haruspices and sacrificuli, and philo¬
sophers as silly as they ? who was always poring in the
entrails of cattle, to find futurities there ? who, if he had
returned victor out of Persia (as his very pagan friends
jested on him), would have extinguished the whole species of
hulls and cows by the number of his sacrifices ?f I have
drawn this character of him from his own writings, and the
heathens his contemporaries ; that I might not bring sus¬
pected testimonies from Christian authors. Though even
these allow him to have been egregice indolis,X an extraordi-
s Juliani Caesares, in fine. [* breast ; is* ed. “head.” — D.]
[f Ar. de La Chapelle (La Frip. Laique, p. 333) refers to Am. Marcel.
1. xxv. p. 427. ed. 1681. =t. ii. p. 46. ed. Bip. — D.]
[J “ C’est St. Augustin qui l’a dit, dans sa Cite de Dieu, liv. v. chap, xxi.”
Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 336. — D.]
REMARKS.
397
nary genius , if he had not been spoilt by the philosophers
his masters. The truth is, those persons, for their profes¬
sorial interest, and to keep the pagan system in some coun¬
tenance against the objections of Christians, had quite altered
the old schemes of philosophy, and pretended to more im¬
pulses, inspirations, revelations, and commerce with the
Deity than Christians could truly do. Not one of those
sanctified philosophers but had dreams, visions, and ecstatic
colloquies with demons every night : and with this trumpery
they drew Julian off from Christianity, and made him think
himself as great an adept as any of his teachers. He saw
the sun in a vision speaking to him in verse, and foretelling
the death of Constantius besides other innumerable commu¬
nications with his favourite god Mithras. This was the sly
way they took ; clavum clavo, to surfeit him with revelations
enough for a St. Brigit : nor could they ever have made him
apostatise, but by infatuating him with superstitions. How¬
ever, though Christianity suffered by losing one of his great
abilities and moral virtues, our modern atheists can never
reckon him on their side, among the list of free-thinkers .
XLIV.
Our writer raises an objection, which, unless he had
better answered, he had better have let alone; that free¬
thinkers themselves are the most infamous , wicked , and sense¬
less of all mankind .h He pretends not yet to refute this from
fact and experience, by telling who he is, or who are mem¬
bers of his growing sect, that we might bring their characters
to the touchstone ; but he argues forsooth a priori.
The reproach of senseless he confutes with ease, by a
self-evident proposition ; for men that use their understand¬
ings must have more sense than they that use them not J Very
compendious truly ! but out of too much precipitation he
leaves his syllogism in the lurch. He forgets to prove, that
e Zosim. pag. 155. [=p. 220. ed. Reit. — D.]
h Pag. 118. 1 Pag. 120.
398
REMARKS.
every man that uses his understanding is (in the meaning of
his book) a free-thinker . Without this, that same senseless
will still stick close upon him, and the closer for this very
syllogism. ’Tis mere chicanery in the word : a free-thinker ,
in this self-evident proposition, is any man that uses his under¬
standing) that is, that thinks at all: a very comprehensive
definition. And yet presently in the next paragraph, & free¬
thinker is but one of a thousand ; one that departs from the
sentiments of the herd of mankind ; that is (for he could
scarce have told it us in a plainer description), a mere atheist,
or at least no Christian. Are not these two acceptations of
the same word wonderfully consistent ? Either let him pro¬
fess plainly, that no Christian, no man but an atheist, this
one of a thousand, uses his understanding ; or let him own
that himself has used none here, and that he and his syllo¬
gism too have much of the senseless.
Infamy and wickedness, the second reproach, he thus re¬
pels from his party : a free-thinker, who incurs the whole
malice of the priests, and is sure to have 999 of a thousand
for his enemies , is obliged for his own sake in this world to
be virtuous and honest .k So that here, as far as this argu¬
ment goes, if the free-thinkers are not wicked, it’s only out
of fear and restraint. A good hint how virtuous they would
he, if the growing sect should grow so numerous as to pro¬
mise themselves impunity, and face it out against infamy
and scandal. If their honesty, by their own confession, is
owing to their paucity, it is high time indeed to inquire into
their numbers.
But (2 dly) to commence a free-thinker requires great
diligence and application of mind ; and he expels all vicious
dispositions and passions by being never out of action •} and
so we have another egregious demonstration. But is this
too to pass upon us for self-evident ? Are all busy men vir¬
tuous ? And are all free-thinkers busy ? 131 be responsible
for neither of the propositions. But the poor writer seems
J Pag. 120.
k Ibid.
1 Pag. 121.
REMARKS.
39.9
to hint here tacitly for himself, what great diligence, what
application of mind, he has used, to work himself into athe¬
ism : how much more to compose such an elaborate book !
how many merry meetings and kind assignations has he
balked, while he was gleaning his bundle of scraps ! how
many watchful nights and abstemious days has he passed in
painful and dry drudgery ; while you lazy ecclesiastics, he
says, were employed in the most innocent manner you can be,
in mere eating and drinking /m And yet methinks you have
done something else besides making good cheer ; or else
Germany would not be so full of your praises, and our
libraries full of your books; where such puny performances
as his, for all his diligence and application , will never deserve
admission.
Well, but (3 dly) by much thinking (here again we are
tricked for free-thinking ) men comprehend the ivhole compass
of human life ; are convinced, that in this life misery at¬
tends the practice of vice, and happiness that of virtue ; and
that to live pleasantly, they must live virtuously.11 A won¬
derful discovery indeed ! and can nobody comprehend this
but free-thinkers and atheists ? Why, this is the most beaten
topic in all the books and sermons of your clergy ; that even
in this life a virtuous man, a good Christian, is the most
happy of men ; that God has forbid nothing beneficial and
useful to us ; that besides the future promises and threats,
virtue carries here its own reward, and vice its own punish¬
ment. So that if this notion is sufficient to make a free¬
thinker virtuous, much more will it operate upon Christians,
when supported and enforced with a firm belief of another
life.
The result, then, of his arguments for a free-thinker’s
virtue is this, that he fears evil in this world, that he’s a man
m Pag. 114.
u Pag. 121. — [In this passage of the Discourse (which Bentley has not
given verbatim) the 12mo ed. (see note, p. 291) omits the words, “ in this life;
and that to live pleasantly, they must live virtuously.” p. 100. And so the French
translation, p. 179. — D.]
400
REMARKS.
of business and application, and loves pleasure in this life.
This is all the security he offers for his honesty and good
behaviour. By which he declares himself and his clan to be
mere atheists, as much as if he had spoke it out. For, as
you see, immortality is quite out of their scheme ; and the
saying used here, to live pleasantly, they must live virtuously,
is the very axiom of Epicurus, ov/c eanv ySews %rjv, avev tov
<})povL/Mo<{ /cal acoAco? /cal Si/catco?,0 ’ tis not possible to live
pleasantly, without living wisely , honestly, and justly ; and so
vice versa. This is said indeed ; but said by him with so ill
a grace, as to set folks a-laughing. And our author might
have seen how all the other sects ridiculed this magnilo¬
quence of Epicurus, as inconsistent with his whole system ;
and proved by set and legitimate treatises,* that a true Epi¬
curean could not live a pleasant life, much less a virtuous.
And I dare say, were this writer’s soul known, and if he
speaks true of his application of mind, he finds no great
pleasure in tliisf gloomy doctrine of utter extinction.
But to leave that to his own conscience ; he is very odd
and diverting, when, to prove this Epicurean notion, he
draws in two passages of Cicero : for who, says he, lives
pleasantly, except him who delights in his duty ? &e.P This is
quoted out of the fifth Paradox, where he argues in the
Stoical manner, that the wise man alone is free, and every fool
a slave : quis enim \igitur\ vivit, ut vult ,for who lives freely,
as he list (this our writer translates pleasantly) , but he who
delights in his duty, &c., that is, in short, but the wise man of
the Stoics ? Now, what a fetch and strain is here to draw
this character to the Epicurean ! How decently it sits upon
him ! He might as justly apply to him all the beatitudes in
our Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount.
But he has a second passage. Offices, i. 2. Whoever places
0 K vgiai 56£ai, num. v. et epistola ad Mencecea. — [Diog. Laert. x. 140. p. 662.
ed. Meib. — D.]
[* “ Entre autres, Plutarque a fait une Dissertation . . . ’in ouSe (t}v iirrtv
■tfiews tear’ ' Eir'iKovpov &c. Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 346. —
D.] [f this; 1st ed. “his.” — D.] p Pag. 121.
REMARKS.
401
happiness in any thing besides virtue , &c.i Another sagacious
application ! Is this the man that for four pages together
insults the clergy for misapplying passages of Tully ?r This
in the Offices stands really thus : that great author having
determined to write a book to his son (whom he had then
placed under a Peripatetic master) About the duties of civil
life, declares in the proem what philosophers he would fol¬
low. Because there are some sects, says he, that by wrong
stating the ends of good and evil pervert all civil duty , friend¬
ship? justice, liberality, fortitude, temperance. For he that
separates the chief good from virtue and honesty , and measures
it by his own profit (if he is constant to his principle, and is
not sometimes overcome by good nature), can neither be
friendly, just, nor liberal; neither can he be courageous, who
declares pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who maintains
pleasure to be the greatest good. These sects, subjoins he, if
they are consistent with themselves, can have nothing to say
de officio, about civil duty. That subject solely belongs to
Stoics, Academics, and Peripatetics. Where it is manifest, the
sects he reflects on are the Epicureans and Cyrenaics : and
we have his plain declaration, that upon those principles no
man can live honestly and virtuously. And yet this inau¬
spicious gleaner, this new reviser forsooth of Cicero, will
needs wrest this very passage to a commendation of Epi¬
curuses and his own rules of morality. And pray observe
how gingerly he translates temperans ,* moderate in the enjoy¬
ment of pleasure. Whereas temperance, according to Tully,
in prcetermittendis et aspernandis voluptatibus cernitur,\ con¬
sists in the neglecting and despising of pleasure. If our
writer should be found a popish priest at last, I dare say he’s
a very easy and moderate confessor.
<1 Pag. 122. r Pag> 137j &c<
[* - - “ aut temperans, voluptatem summum bonum statuens.” — D.]
ft De Fin. v. 23.— D.]
3
VOL. III.
402
REMARKS.
XLV.
But he now leaves arguments a priori, and proceeds to
historical accounts ; wherein he will shew, that they who
have been distinguished in all ages for their understanding and
virtue have been free-thinkers.* Such free-thinkers as his
party are, or else all his labour is lost: and yet we shall
find, that among his whole list there’s scarce a pair that will
come under that character.
Socrates, his first instance, the divinest man of the
heathen world , was, as he says, a very great free-thinker. By
what mark or token ? Why, he disbelieved the gods of his
country , and the common creeds about them .* Allow that;
though just before his death he made a hymn to Apollo, and
left a sacrifice to iEsculapius ; yet why is this character so
peculiar to Socrates ? Pll help our author to a million of
free-thinkers , upon the very same reason. For Constantine
himself, whom he abused before, and all the pagan converts
to Christianity before him and after, disbelieved the (same)
gods of their country , and the common creeds about them.
Nay, they far excelled Socrates in their free-thinking quality;
for he timorously fell in with the reigning superstition of his
country , and suffered it quietly to take its course :u but they
heroically professed their true sentiments ; in spite of terrors
and tortures, contemned, routed, and trampled down the
gods of their country ; till pagan superstition was quite ex -
tinct, and washed away with the blood of so many martyrs.
And why, pray, could not these deserve from our writer the
honourable name of free-thinkers ? The reason is manifest :
the Christians were free-thinkers at first, while they contra¬
dicted the herd of mankind ; but now Christianity is esta¬
blished, they themselves are become the herd, and conse-
s Pag. 123. — [In the French translation of the Discourse (see note, p. 291)
we find “ distingues . . . par la solidite de leur jugement,” p. 181, without
any corresponding words to “ and virtue there, too, in the passage next
cited by Bentley, “ the divinest ntan” is rendered “ l’homme le plus sage.”
ibid.— D.]
* Ibid.
u Pag. 123.
REMARKS.
403
quently free-thinking now consists in contradicting them.
Dare he deny this is his notion ? And that his characteristic
of free-thinking is to oppose a great majority ? No matter
whether right or wrong ; whether the herd is in truth or
in error, •free-thinking must he singularity. Unthinking,
shallow fellow !y for at this rate, if the growing sect should
so spread, as to attain the name of the herd, the only
title then to free-thinking would be to oppose the free¬
thinkers.
Well, but Socrates declared his dislike, when he heard
men attribute repentance, anger, and other passions to the
gods, and talk of wars and battles in heaven, and of the
gods getting women with child, and such-like fabulous and
blasphemous stories .w This is quoted by him out of Plato in
Euthgphrone,'* as if they were that author’s own words.
And what a fine scene am I entering upon ! He to complain
of mangling, forging, and corrupting passages ! And himself
here to forge so openly, on purpose to hook in some bold
and saucy blasphemy ! Repentance and anger attributed to the
gods : this glances aside at those frequent expressions of our
Bible, the wrath of the Lord, and the Lord repented. As if the
whole herd of Christians did not know that these are not to be
taken literally, but are spoken dvQpw'rro'jraOws, in a human
manner, accommodated to our capacities and affections ; the
nature of God being infinitely above all ruffles of passion.
And then wars and battles in heaven : this is pointed against
Revelations, xii. 7- And there was war in heaven ; "Michael
v Pag. 104. — [“ If there is any such rare monster as an atheist, David has
given us his character in these words : The fool hath said in his heart , There is no
God; that is, no one denies the existence of a God but some idle, unthinking,
shallow fellow .” — D.]
w pag. 123. — [The French translation of the Discourse (see note, p. 291)
has, “ou que les dieux dehauchoient les femmes.” p. 182. — “ Ce qui,” says Ar.
de La Chapelle, “ est plus fort, et meme tout autre que ce que Mr. Collins dit
dans son Anglois.” La Trip. Laique, p. 356. — 1).]
[* The reference “ Platonis Euthyphro. p. 6. vol. i. ed. Serrani,” which is
found in all the editions of the Discourse in English (see note, p. 290, 1),
is omitted in the French translation.— D.]
404
REMARKS.
and his angels fought against the dragon , and the dragon
fought and his angels. Now where has this writer lived, or
what idiot evangelist * was he bred under, not to know that
this is all vision and allegory, and not proposed as literal
truth ? But his mother perhaps, that gave hilti his first
notions about Bel and the Dragon, f might frighten too the
naughty boy with Michael and the Dragon. His last ex¬
pression, of the gods getting women with child, without doubt
was designed by him as a flout upon our Saviour’s in¬
carnation.
But when we come to consult Plato himself in the pas¬
sage alleged here, how do all this writer’s insinuations
vanish, and how does his own impudence and prevarication
appear ! The whole passage is no more than this : Socrates,
discoursing with Euthyphron an haruspex, who was bringing
an indictment for murder against his own father, asked him
if he thought it just and pious to do so: ‘Yes, says the
other, it is right and pious to bring an offender to justice,
though he be my father ; for so J ove bound his father Saturn
in chains, for devouring his children ; and Saturn before had
castrated his father for some other crime. I confess, replies
Socrates, when I hear such things said of the gods, I assent
ivith some difficulty :x but do you think these things true ?
and that there are really wars, and enmities, and battles
among the gods ; and many other such matters, as poets and
painters represent ? These are all true, says the other, and
stranger things than these, which I could tell you.’ This is
all that is there said on this head : and then Socrates pro¬
ceeds in his disputation, upon the very concession that these
accounts of the gods are true.
And hence, first, we may observe, that Socrates was not
so free a thinker as our writer represents him. For, accord¬
ing to V arrows division^ of religions into poetical, civil, and
philosophical, it is the first here that Socrates with some diffi-
[* See p. 363.— D.] [f See p. 314.— D.]
x Avffxtp&s ttujs anofiexopcu. — [Plat. Opp. t. ii, p. 121. ed. 1826. — D.]
In St. Augustin, Be Civ. Dei ; see Remark Li. — D.]
REMARKS.
405
culty assents to, or very tenderly denies : whereas the Stoics,
that came after him, treated openly that whole poetic system
as Impious and superstitious ; and these very stories of Saturn
and Jupiter, and of the wars with Titans and giants, and of
gods against gods, as wicked fables , anile superstitions, foolish
and pernicious errors J But as to the civil religion, Socrates
never opposed it, but always countenanced it both by dis¬
course and example. His precept to his scholars about
matters of worship, was to govern themselves vogw 7roXe&>9,*
by the custom of the country . He himself sacrificed regularly
and openly both at home and at the public altars ; he sent
his friends to consult the oracle at Delphi upon all affairs of
importance. How, therefore, will our writer make out, that
he disbelieved the gods of his country ? That, indeed, was
the indictment against him ; ahucel ZwKpaTys, on? . . y 7ro\i<;
vogl^ei 6eov 9 ov vogl^mv :z but he did not plead guilty to it.
And though our writer should now convict him, yet I am
sure his celebrated dcemonium , by whose admonition and
impulse he guided all his affairs, sufficiently secures him
from being listed and consociated with our modern free¬
thinkers.
Another thing we may observe from this passage of Plato
is, the unfairness and malignity of our writer; who, without
the least hint from his author, has foisted in two scoffs and
contumelies upon the Scripture. There’s nothing said there
of God’s repentance and anger ; not a word of gods getting
women with child : why then does he suborn Plato to speak
what he never said ? Why so great a name to cover his own
impiety ? Mala mens, malus animus ; and from this instance
take the measure of our writer’s veracity.
But he will still press Socrates into the service, and force
him into his regiment of free-thinkers ; because he did vtot
make notions, or speculations, or mysteries, any parts of his
y Cicero de Nat. Deor. ii. 24, 28.
[* Xen. Mem. lib. i. cap. 3. — “ Tout ce que Mr. Bentley dit ici de Socrate
est tire de Xenophon." Ar. de La Ciiapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 364. — D.]
7- Xenophon. Memorab. lib. i. — [cap. 1. — D.]
406
REMARKS.
religion .a No mysteries ? a wager with our writer, that he
was initiated in the mysteries of Ceres Eleusina ; and conse¬
quently, had he lived in the present age, would never have
flouted Christianity for being mysterious. But where is our
author’s proof for this character of Socrates ? Why, he
demonstrated all men to be fools who troubled themselves with
inquiries into heavenly things and asked such inquirers ,
whether they had attained a perfect knowledge of human
things , since they searched into heavenly. This the shrewd
author gives as a translation from Xenophon ;b and he pro¬
poses here heavenly things in the Christian sense used by
our Saviour and his apostles. What shall I say, or what
shall I not say ? But I have spent already all my wonder
and words too uponf this writer’s stupidity. Can any thing
be plainer, than that the rd ovpavia, the heavenly things, in
that passage of Xenophon mean celestial bodies and appear¬
ances, their causes, magnitudes, and motions ? These phy¬
siological inquiries, which had employed the former philoso¬
phers, Socrates let alone, and first turned his speculations to
morality and human life. This is it, that Xenophon says
there express ; and it is echoed over and over in all ancient
authors.® Let us take now our writer’s argument, and see
how it concludes : Because Socrates did not cultivate astro¬
nomy, but ethics, therefore he had no mysteries in his religion.
Because our writer has cultivated no science at all, therefore
he makes such silly syllogisms and blunders abominable.
XLYI.
To bring Plato in among his free-thinkers, our writer is
put hard to his shifts, and forced to make several doubles.
He was not so free, he owns, as Socrates; but, alarmed at
a Pag. 125.
[* The French translation of the Discourse (see note, p. 291), has “ mysteres
celestes.” p. 185. — D.]
b Memor. lib. i. — [cap. 1. — D.] [f upon; 1st ed. “ for.” — D.]
c See Cicer. Acad. i. 4 ; Tus. iii. 4, and v. 4 ; Diogenes Laert. in Soc. ; and
many more.
REMARKS.
407
his fate, kept himself more upon his guard, and never talked
'publicly against the religion of his country. d This is arguing
backwards, and gives him one remove out of the list. But
he brings him back with a fetch ; for he thought himself into
notions so contrary to those known in Greece, and so resem¬
bling Christianity , that , as some Christians suspected he had
read the Old Testament, so Celsus charges our Saviour with
reading and borrowing from him. Allow this, and admire the
consistency of our writer’s language and sentiments. The
free-thinking of Plato, by his present account of it, consisted
solely in approaching to Christianity ; but our modern free-
thinking lies wholly in receding from it, in a course retro¬
grade to that of Plato. This free-thinking is a mere empusa ;
it changes shapes as fast as Vertumnus :
Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo ?*■
But he goes on, and remarks, that Origen indeed very
well defends our blessed Lord from Celsus' s charge .e When
you see the words very ivell, and the compliment of blessed
Lord, you are to expect from our writer some smart piece of
burlesque. And here you have it ; for Origen, says he, well
replies, that Celsus deserves to be laughed at, when he affirms
Jesus had read Plato: who was bred and born among the
Jews ; and was so far from having been taught Greek letters,
that he was not taught Hebrew letters, as the Scriptures tes¬
tify. You see, Origen’s answer here is commended as very
good ; to insinuate, with a sneer, that our Saviour was illite¬
rate. Contemptible buffoon ! Origenf did not mean he had
d Pag. 126. [* Hor. Epist. i. 1. 90.— D.]
e Pag. 127. — [In the French translation of the Discourse (see note, p. 291)
the passage is rendered, “ Origene en le refutant, dit,” &c. p. 186. — D.]
[f “ Voici les propres paroles d’Orig&ne, que Collins a rapportees, Ad. Cels,
lih. vi. pag. 286. edit. Cant. 1677. & rrapd ’I ovbalots yeyevvppevos, Kal avareOpap-
ptvos, Kal ’lws ne pouvoit s’entendre que d’une
instruction prise dans les ecoles humaines. II est raeme certain que la bonne-
foi ne lui permettoit pas de le dissimuler, puisqu’ayant pris sa citation dans
l’edition de Cambrige, il ne peut qu’y avoir lu cette note de Spencer. ‘ Matt.
xiii. 25 [54]. Marc. vi. 2, 3. Clariss. Grotius in Annot. ad Marc. Causa ad-
mirationis, ut collatio Luces et Johannis nos docet, htec erat, quod Jesus, nullo humano
magisterio institutus, summa cum perspicuitate prophetarum verba explicaret.’ ” Ar.
de La Chapeele, La Frip. Ldique, p. 375. — D.]
f Matt. xiii. 54. « Pag. 127. [* See p. 363. — D.]
h Euseb. Praep. p. 540; Theod. Graec. Affect, p. 33; Cyrill. c. Julian. p. 283.
REMARKS.
409
took the form of man ; though even then he gave proof of the
majesty of his nature : nay , and after his dissolution was
deified again ; and is God, the same he was before he descended
into body, and flesh, and man. Is there any air in all this of
banter or contempt ? Has it not, the very contrary, an air of*
the most serious assent and approbation ? Has he not para¬
phrased the Evangelist’s words in the best style and manner?
TirepayaraL teal redav/xa^e, says Theodorit; Amelias vene¬
rates and admires the proem of St. John’s Gospel ; and per¬
haps it was he (though no worse, if it was another Platonist,)
who said it deserved to be writ in letters of gold, and set in
the most conspicuous place in every church A And who liow
is the barbarian but our writer himself ? The Platonist he
brought to affront the Evangelist is found an adorer of him.
I hope he’ll learn, in his next performance, not to depend
too much on second or fifth-hand citations. f
Our author seems sensible that he drags Plato per force
into the club of free-thinkers, as Cacus did his oxen into his
cave by the tails. For which hanging back and reluctancy
Plato shall have a dash ; and since he cannot make a good
free-thinker of him, he’ll make him a creed-maker : for
several of his notions became fundamental articles of the
Christian faith J It really may be so ; for the first article of
my faith is, I believe in God, and that he that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek himJ And I persuade myself that Plato and
his master, and many other good men before our Saviour’s
manifestation, had the very same article. And I had rather
[* Has it not, the very contrary, an air of; 1st ed. “ Is it not the very con¬
trary, of.” — D.]
1 Augustin de Civ. Dei, x. 29. Quod initium S, Evangelii, cui nomen est
secundum Joannem, quidam Platonicus . aureis literis conscribendum, et
per omnes ecclesias in locis eminentissimis proponendum esse dicebat.
[f Collins’s reference at the bottom of the page is, “ Per Jovem, barbarus
iste cum nostro Platone sentit. Apud Reeve’s Apologies in his Dissert, upon
Justin Martyr.” — D.]
i Pag. 128. — [The 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291) has, “ were
afterwards esteemed fundamental,” Sic. p. 105; and so the French translation,
p. 187. — D.] k Heb. xi. 6.
VOL. III. 3 G
410
REMARKS.
have my soul he with those,* though they had not the light of
the Gospel, than with such of our moderns as trample pearls
under their feet, and rend those that lay them before them.
But I do not owe this article to Plato, but to God, the com¬
mon author of nature, and father of rational light. When
our writer specifies more articles as borrowed from Plato,
your own divines will take care of him, and do justice to
revelation.
♦
Yes, but zealous Christians forged several things under
Plato’s name, with which they had great success in the conver¬
sion of the heathen world.1 He’s at his old charge of for¬
gery,! though it never succeeds in his hands. And what,
pray you, did they forge ? Why, the thirteenth letter to Diony¬
sius, printed in his works. But is this our author’s own
criticism ? is it supported by any reasons hammered on his
own anvil ? Not the least pretence to those ; but he refers
to Dr. Cudworth, and the business is done. O wretched
gleaner of weeds ! Has he read that noble work. The Intel¬
lectual System, to no better purpose ? One oversight, one
error, he culls out for his use ; and passes over a thousand
noble truths, that might have made him a better man, and
no writer.
The doctor there says, It is supposititious, and counterfeit
by some zealous and ignorant Christian ; as there is accord¬
ingly a vodevercu, or brand of bastardy, prefixed to it in all
the editions of Plato’s works. m ThaPs true indeed of the
brand ; but he was a bold ignorant that put it there. That
letter is as genuine as any of the rest, and was received in the
list before the Christian name began. Laertius, an Epicu¬
rean,11 who lived in Antoninus Pius’s time, gives a catalogue of
them all ; emo-roXa! rpiaicaiheKd, says he, epistles thirteen :
and so Suidas in EowparTeiv : but take this branded one away,
[* An allusion, observes Ar. de La Chapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 383, to a
reported saying of Averroes, “ moriatur animamea morte philosophorum” —
“ malle se animam suam esse cum philosophis,” &c. See Bayle in Aver,
note H. — D.]
1 Pag. 128. [f See p. 383.— D.]
Cudworth, p. 403. [ed. 1078. — D.] 11 In Platone, iii, 61.
REMARKS.
411
and there are but twelve. Among these are 777309 Alovixtlov
TerrapeSifour, says he, to Dionysius : remove this suspected
one,, and there remain hut three. In a word, all the present
thirteen answer exactly to his list, both in names and in
number ; except a small various lection, To Aristodorus the
Xth letter, whom he calls Aristodemus. And this alone is suf¬
ficient to clear the Christians of the pretended forgery. For
surely Laertius could come at copies of Plato 200 years old,
since we now have them of 700 or more : and if the present
XIIIth was there, it must be writ before Christ was born.
But to go farther still : this recension of Plato’s works he gives
not from himself, but from Thrasyllus, who, flourishing in the
time of Augustus, must needs be older than Christ. Nay,
he cites, without the least hint of diversity in the number,
another recension by Aristophanes Grammaticus, who- was a
writer 200 years before the Christian era. And now, if we
look into the internal character of the letter itself, it w ill
have all the marks of genuineness. ’Tis not some staple
commonplace, as most of those forged by the Sophists
are, but a letter of business, circumstantiated with great
variety of things and persons, all apt and proper to the
writer and to the date. It was forged, therefore, by nobody,
much less by any Christian ; who certainly would never have
put idolatry into a letter made (as our writer says) for the
conversion of the heathens. I have got you, says Plato there,
a statue of Apollo, and Leptines conveys it to you : it’s made
by a young and good workman, whose name is Leochares : this
was that Leochares, afterwards a most famous statuary, cele¬
brated by Pliny and Pausanias ; and the time hits exactly,
for then he was young. Which is as great a mark that the
letter is genuine, as it is a demonstration that no Christian
forged it. And lastly, the ground of this suspicion, a pas¬
sage yet extant in it, and quoted by Eusebius and Theodorit,0
is a weak and poor pretence. As for the symbol, says he, or
private mark you desire, to know my serious letters and which
~ contain my real sentiments from those that do not so , know
0 Euseb. Prap. p. 530. Theod. Affect, p. 27.
412
REMARKS.
and remember that Tys gev airovhaias e7TLaTo\g^ ©eo9 ap^ei,
Geot 8e rr}<; t)ttov , God begins a serious letter, and Gods one
that’s otherwise. This the Fathers (and not unjustly) made
use of as some indication that Plato really believed but one
God.
Which notion your learned doctor not approving, as con¬
trary (in his opinion) to the Platonic system, he decries the
letter as spurious. But this is no consequence at all, what¬
soever becomes of Platons true thoughts. The symbol he
here speaks of made no part of the letters, nor began the
first paragraph of them ; for here’s neither 6eo 9 nor deol in
that manner in any one of the thirteen. ’Twas extrinsic (if
I mistake not) to the letter, and was a mark at the top of it
in these words, avv dew, if it was a serious one ; otherwise,
avv deois. These two were the common forms in the begin¬
ning of writings or any discourse of importance : and in their
usage were equivalent and indifferent; philosophers, as Xeno¬
phon and others, having it sometimes avv deol<;; and poets,
as Euripides and Aristophanes, avv dew. So that Plato
could not have chosen a symbol fitter for his turn, being in
neither way liable to any suspicion, nor any inference to be
drawn from it to discover his real opinion. And yet I am
so much a friend to Eusebius’s remark, that I would not
wish Plato had made the other choice, to put avv deois in
his solemn letters, and avv dew in his slight ones.
Had our writer carried his point in this instance of
forgery, could he have done any great feats with it? Yes, a
mighty one indeed ! he could have added one pious fraud
more to a hundred others that are detected ready to his
hand. But, pray, who are the discoverers of them ? The
Christian priests themselves : so far are they from concealing
or propagating them, or thinking their cause needs them.
And I challenge him and the whole fraternity to shew one
single one that they discovered, and owe not to the clergy.
Even this mistaken one is picked from your Cudworth.
Most able masters of stratagem, ever to hope to vanquish
religion by arms borrowed from the . priests ! They may be
REMARKS.
413
sure there’s no danger of the strong town’s being taken,
while the garrison within can afford to lend the besiegers
powder.
So far are the modern Christians from protecting old
forgeries, that they are ready* to cry spurious without ground
or occasion. As not only this XIIIth by Dr. Cudworth, and
before him by Aldobrandinus, but another letter of Plato’s is
called in question by Menagius. There are thirteen letters
extant , says he ; among which , one to Erastus and Coriscus,
quoted by Clemens and Origen, is now wanting : but it seems
to have been spurious, and forged by the Christians, p Now
all this is mere dream and delusion. That very letter is
expressly named by Laertius, 7 rpo? 'Epgeiav kcll 'Epaarov
kcll KopLa-Kov gia, one, says he, to Hermias and Erastus and
Coriscus ; and it’s the VIth of the present set of thirteen ; and
the passages thence cited by Origen, Clemens, and Theodorit
too, are extant there exactly ; and there’s nothing in it for
the Christian cause but what may be proved as strongly from
several other places of Plato’s undoubted works. But what
mischief have I been doing ? I have prevented our free¬
thinker ; who, after he had dabbled by chance in Menagius,
might have flourished with a new forgery, and magisterially
preached it to his credulous crew.
XLVII.
Aristotle, the next in the free-thinking row, makes a
very short appearance there, and goes quickly off the stage.
His title hangs by two slender threads ; first, that he fur¬
nished articles of faith to the popish church , as Plato did to
the primitives Now I had thought that creed-making and
free-thinking (even allowing the charge to be true) had been
words of a disparate sense, that looked askew at each other :
and how both of them come to sit so amicably upon Aristotle
[* are ready ; I st ed. “ are too ready.” — D.]
>' Aldobrand. ct Menag. ad Laertium, iii. HI.
•i Pag. 128.
414
REMARKS.
surpasses my comprehension. But the matter is no more
than this : as the primitive Christians, in their disputes with
the pagans, made great use of the Platonic philosophy ; not
to coin articles, but to explain them, and refell* the adver¬
saries’ objections ; so the schoolmen, in the popish times,
had recourse to the Peripatetic, the sole system then in
vogue. And yet these did not make articles from it : our
author’s weak if he thinks so : neither did Palavicinof so
mean it. The peculiar doctrines of that church came from
politics, not metaphysics ; not from the chairs of professors,
but from the offices of the Roman court. And the school¬
men were their drudges, in racking Aristotle and their own
brains to gild and palliate such gainful fictions, and to
reconcile them, if possible, to common sense, which ever
hated and spurned them.
The second title Aristotle holds by is a charge of im¬
piety ;v which I must own promises well, if it could be made
good ; for that word and free-thinking are very closely com¬
bined, both by affinity and old acquaintance. He was forced,
says he, to steal privately out of Athens to Chalcis, because
Eurymedon , a priest , accused him of impiety, for introducing
some philosophical assertions contrary to the religion of the
Athenians. The voucher he brings for this is Diogenes
Laertius ; but, under his old fatality of blundering, he sum¬
mons a wrong witness. Origen,| indeed, says something to
his purpose, that he was impeached 8id r iva Soygara rg ov tptXo?, he that has friends
has no friend : but Christian friendship or charity, in the
same degree of affection, is extended to the whole household
*» Plutarch contra Coloten, p. 2037, 2041, 2058. [= Mor. t. v. pp. 359, 366,
389. ed. Wyttenb. 4to. — D,]
y Idem, p. 2018. [In the tract, "Ot< oi/Se £rjv icrrtv rjStoos, k. t. A. Mor'. t. v.
p. 327. ed. Wyttenb. 4to. — D.]
7 Pag. 129. — [The later 8vo ed. p. 130, and the L2mo ed. of the Discourse,
p. 108, (see note, p. 290, 1) have — “ require of us that virtue.” — D.]
11 Cicero de Amic. cap. v.
REMARKS.
419
of faith, and in true good-will and beneficence to all the race
of mankind. Not that particular friendships, arising from
familiarity and similitude of humours, studies, and interests,
are forbid or discouraged in the gospel ; but there needed no
precept to appoint and require what nature itself, and human
life, and mutual utility, sufficiently prompt us to. A bridle
was more necessary than a spur for these partial friendships ;
where the straight rule of moral is often bent and warped
awry, to comply with interest and injustice under a specious
name ; as many of the most magnified instances sufficiently
shew. But I’m insensibly here become a preacher, and in¬
vade a province which you clergymen, and the English of
all others, can much better adorn.
XLIX.
Before I proceed to the next in his row, I shall make a
general remark on our writer’s judgment and conduct. He
has brought the authors of three sects, Plato, Aristotle, and,
with the greatest mark of approbation, Epicurus. Pray, how
came he to drop the others ? Aristippus the Cyrenaic cried
up pleasure as much as that Gargettian did ; had strumpets
for his mistresses and she-disciples, as well as he ; and well
deserved the honour of being in the list. Even Diogenes the
Cynic would have made a laudable free-thinker, for that single
assertion, that marriage was nothiny but an empty name ; and
he that could persuade might lie with any woman that could be
persuaded .b Nay, even Zeno himself, the father of Stoicism,
as gruff as he looked, might have enlarged our writer’s cata¬
logue, for some very free thoughts about the indifferency of
things : that all women ought to be common ; that no words
are to be reckoned obscene; that the secret parts need no
covering ; that incest and sodomy have no real crime nor tur-
j)itude.c Where was our author’s reading when he omitted
such illustrious examples, that might have graced and dig¬
nified his list full as much as Epicurus ?
b Tbv irelffavra ttj TreifffleiVp awelvat. Laert. [vi. 72. p.348, eel. Meib. — D.]
e Sextus Enipir.
420
REMARKS.
The remainder of his roll are not founders, but followers
of the several sects. But be they one or the other, masters
or scholars, what shallowness, what want of thought in our
writer, to impose and press these upon us for our imitation
in free-thinking? Many of his blunders are special, and
reach no further than a paragraph ; but here his stupidity is
total ; and in the wThole compass and last tendency of his
passages he’s as blind as a mole. The great outcry against
the church, which is always in his mouth, is its imposing* a
system of opinions to be swallowed in the gross, without
liberty of examining or dissenting. Allow it : though even
this is false, the imposed opinions being few, and true, and
plain ; and a large field left open for freedom and latitude of
thought ; as his own book attests, which is mostly spent in
collecting the various notions of your clergy. But how
would our writer mend this ? by recommending the freedom
of the leaders and followers of the sects of philosophy ?
Ridiculous direction ! Bid us copy free government from
France, and free toleration from Spain. Those very sects,
all, without exception, prescribed more imperiously than
Christianity itself does ; and not in a few generals, some
easy articles of a short creed, but in the whole extent of
reasoning, both natural and moral, and even in logical t in¬
quiries. Any scholar of a particular sect, though commonly
entered in it young, and by his parent’s choice, not his own,
was to be led shackled and hoodwinked all the rest of his
life. He assented and consented to his philosophical creed
in the lump, and before he knew the particulars. It was
made the highest point of honour never to desert nor flinch :
Scelus erat dogma prodere , it ivas flagitious to betray a
maxim : they were all to be defended , sicut moenia, sicut caput
et fama , like his castle, as dear as his life and reputation.%
And there were fewer instances then of leaving one sect
for another, than now we have of defection to popery, or of
apostacy to Mahometism. And I’ll give our writer one
[* is its imposing; lsi ed. “is imposing.” — D.]
[+ even in logical ; \st ed. “ even logical.” — D.]
[2 Cic. Acad. ii. 43, 44. — D.]
REMARKS.
421
observation upon Cicero, better worth than all he has told
us : that in all the disputes he introduces between the various
sects, after the speeches are ended every man sticks where
he was before ; not one convert is made (as is common in
modern dialogue), nor brought over in the smallest article.
For he avoided that violation of decorum ; he had observed,
in common life, that all persevered in their sects, and main¬
tained every nostrum without reserve. But of all sects what¬
ever, the most superstitiously addicted and bigoted to their
master were our writer’s beloved Epicureans. In others,
some free-thinking or ambitious successor might make a
small innovation, and thenceforwards there was some scanty
room for domestic disputation ; but the Epicureans, those
patterns of friendship, never disagreed in the least point ;d
all their master’s dreams and reveries were held as sacred as
the laws of Solon or the twelve tables. ’Twas daeftypa, 7 ra-
pavoggpa, unlawful , irreligious, to start one free or new
notion ; and so the stupid succession persisted to the last in
maintaining that the sun, moon, and stars, were no bigger
than they appear to the eye, and other such idiotic stuff,
against mathematical demonstration. O fine libei'ty ! 0 dili¬
gence and application of mind ! This is our writer’s admired
sect ; these his saints and his heroes. Could it be revived
again at Athens, he deserves for his superior dulness to be
chosen /cyTroTvpavvos, the prince of the garden ,e
L.
We are advanced now to Plutarch, whom, though a
heathen priest, he will dub a free-thinkei'. This is very
obliging ; but in the close of his catalogue he’ll extend the
same favour even to the Jewish prophets and the Christian
priests. I perceive his politics, totum orbem civitate donare,
to make all religions in the world free of his growing sect.
It will grow the better for it ; especially if he aggregates to
it his Talapoins and his Bonzes. But wherein has Plutarch
d Laertius, Numcnius, &c.
* Laert. in Epicuro. [p. 614. ed. Meib. — D.]
422
REMARKS.
so obliged the fraternity ? In his treatise of Superstition ; a
long passage out of which fills two of our writer’s pages :f
and yet the whole is pure impertinence, and contributes no¬
thing to any free-thinking purpose whatever.
The design of Plutarch is to shew the deplorable misery
of superstition when it is in extremity ; when a man imagines
the gods under the same idea we now do the devils ; when
he fancies them efnrXrjKTOw 7, dirta-rovs, evperafioXovs, Ttgw-
prjTLKovs, dgovq, putcpoXvTrov ?, mad, faithless, fickle, re¬
vengeful, cruel, and disgusted at the smallest things ; when he
figures Diana, Apollo, Juno, Venus, as acting under the most
frantic and raving distractions ; when he approaches trembling
to the temples, as if they were the dens of bears, dragons, or
sea -monsters A When superstition, says he, is arrived to this
pitch, it’s more intolerable than atheism itself; nay, it pro¬
duces atheism, both in others that see them, and in themselves,
if they can emerge to it. For when fools fly from superstition,
they run into atheism, the other extreme, inrepTrr/hyaavTes iv
pecrM Keigevyv ttjv evcre{3eiav,h skipping over right religion,
that lies in the middle. This is the sum of Plutarch’s book :
and what’s all this to our writer’s design ? Superstition,
under this character, is not possible to be found in Chris-
f Pag. 132, 133. — [where a note refers us to Plutarch’s “Morals in English,
vol. i. p. 162, &c.” — ed. 1704. That version is “ by several hands,” and the
treatise in question is “ made English by William Baxter, Gent.” Collins (as
Bentley shews) has mangled the passage, and occasionally altered the words
of Baxter.
In the French translation of the Discourse (see note, p. 291,) the following
note is added to the passage from Plutarch : “ Plutarque ajoute quelque chose
ici, qui depeint bien le trouble du superstitieux. Ainsi, dit-il, on peut dire que
le dormir du superstilieux est pour lui tin enfer, ou il est en proie a mille imagina¬
tions horribles, et a mille visions monstreuses et effrayantes de diables et de furies,
qui tourmentent sa miserable dme, et lui dtent tout son repos, par des songes dont
elle se tourmente elle-meme avec autant de soin que si elle y etoit contrainte par quel¬
que autre. Plutarque d’Amiot, p. 324. in 8. R. ajoutee.” p. 194. — Ar. de La
Chapelle {La Frip. La'ique, p.429) is mistaken in saying that the French
translator “ a saute une periode” of the quotation from Plutarch, as exhibited
in the editions of the Discourse in English. — D.]
e Pint. p. 295, 296. [= Mor. t. i. pp. 469, 470, 471, 472. ed. Wyttenb.
4to. — D.]
h Ibid. p. 299. [= Mor. t. i. pp. 474, 473. ed. Wyttenb. 4to. — D.]
REMARKS.
423
tianity; it can be no where but under pagan and poetical
theology. In other places1 the same author scourges atheism
as severely as superstition here ; nay, he prefers a moderate
superstition infinitely before it. But those passages are to
be dropped ; and this, out of so many volumes, is singled out
as a flower ; which yet serves to no better end than to shew
our writer understands neither the language nor the sense.
Superstition , says he (by way of insertion1*), by which the
Greeks meant the fear of God, and which Theophrastus in his
Characters expressly defines so. Not a syllable of this true.
The Greeks meant not absolutely fear, but an erroneous and
vicious fear ; and Theophrastus defines it, not 8eoo/3o<; 6 rr)? SeiaiSaigo-
vlas* the fear arising from superstition. He will fix a calumny
on religion and the fear of God, in spite of his author.
His justness of thought is conspicuous in his version of
this period : Even slaves forget their masters in their sleep ;
sleep lightens the irons of the fettered ; their angry sores ,
mortified gangrenes, and pinching pains allow them some inter¬
mission at night : hut superstition will give no truce at night. n
If Plutarch had writ no better in the original, he would
scarce have been now the most known of all the ancients, \
but long ago had been forgot. Mind the absurdity : their
angry sores, that is, of the fettered ; as if all captives, or
criminals, or slaves in chains, must needs be full of sores
and ulcers. And then mortified gangrenes allow some inter¬
mission of pain. If he had consulted physicians, he might
have known that mortified parts can give no pain at all, and
consequently have no intermission. And lastly, sores and
pains allow intermission at night : false ; for night is the
periodical time of aggravation of pains. But superstition will
give no truce at night. Is that such a wonder? even less
truce than in the day; for darkness and solitude increase
the fears. What a series of nonsense has he fathered upon
Plutarch ! Of which nothing appears in the Greek ; neither
their sores, nor mortified gangrenes, nor at night. Pll trans¬
late the passage^ word for word : Sleep lightens the irons of
the fettered; inflammations of wounds, cancerous corrosions
of the flesh, and all the most raging pains, dismiss men while
they sleep : superstition alone gives no truce nor cessation even
in sleep. If this is not unworthy of Plutarch, the other cer¬
tainly becomes none but our writer and his company.
m Pag. 132. — [The French translation of the Discourse (see note, p. 291)
has “ comme celle que la religion superstitieuse lui inspire,” p. 193. — D.]
[* Plut. Mor. t. i. p. 457. ed. Wyttenb. 4to. — D.]
11 Pag. 133. — [In this passage Collins has only transcribed Baxter’s ver¬
sion : see note, p. 422. — D.]
[f Discourse, p. 131. — D.]
[J Plut. Mor. t. i. p. 458. ed. Wyttenb. 4to. — D.]
REMARKS.
425
But now comes a signal instance of the lightness of his
hand, and the heaviness of his head. In the middle of his
long citation, page 133, after the words at noon-day •,* he
drops the period which immediately follows in the original,
and transfers it into his 134th page, as if it was quoted from
another place, and belonged to another head. Why this
legerdemain ? Why this mangling and luxation of passages ?
The reason is apparent ; for Plutarch’s own words, as they
were represented in the last English version, not serving his
turn, he quotes the place as it is translated forsooth in the
Characteristics, t a book writ by an anonymous, but whoever
he is, a very whimsical and conceited author.
O wretched Grecians (so that author renders Plutarch),
who bring into religion that frightful mien of sordid and villi-
fying devotion , ill-favoured humiliation% and contrition , abject
looks and countenances , consternations , prostrations , disfigu¬
rations ; and , in the act of worship, distortions, constrained
and painful postures of the body, wry faces, beggarly tones,
mumpings, grimaces, cringings, and the rest of this kind.0
Thus far that nameless opiniatre : and our worthy writer in¬
troduces it with a grave air, that Plutarch thus satirises the
public forms of devotion ; which yet are such as in almost all
countries pass for the true worship of God. p This would
partly be true if those were really the words of Plutarch ;
but as not one syllable of them is found there, what must
we think of this couple of corruptors and forgers ? There is
nothing in all this but their own disfigurations and distor-
[* At the corresponding place in the French translation of the Discourse
(see note, p. 291) an omission is marked thus . . . . p. 195; but the reader is
not informed that the passage there omitted is the one quoted in the next
page.— D.]
[f “ as it is translated in the CharacteristicJcs, vol. iii. p. 126 ” — -a reference
which is not found in the French translation of the Discourse, p. 196 (see note,
p. 291). Bentley, writing in the character of a foreigner, affects here to be
ignorant that Shaftesbury was the author of the Characteristics ; as afterwards
(sect, liv.) that Rowe was the translator of Lucan. — D.]
[+ The French translation of the Discourse (see note p. 291) has “ des hu¬
miliations indecentes, un visage contrefait, des yeux baisses,” &c. p. 196. — D.]
o Pag. 134. P Ibid.
VOL. III. 3 I
426
REMARKS.
tions of the original; their own mumping s and beggarly tones,
while they pretend to speak in Plutarch’s voice.
Plutarch having observed, that superstition alone allows no
ease nor intermission even in sleep; e for their dreams, adds
he, do as much torment them then as their waking thoughts
did before. And then they seek for expiations of those
visions nocturnal ; charms, sulphurations, dippings in the
sea, sittings all day on the ground/
O Greeks, inventors of barbarian ills !
whose superstition has devised rollings in the mire and in the
kennels, dippings in the sea, gravellings and throwings upon the
face , deformed sittings on the earth, absurd and uncouth adora¬
tions, .9 This is a verbal interpretation of that place ; except
that for aa/3(3aTia/£ov$, sabbatisms, I have emended it fiair-
Ticryovs, dippings : and this, if I mistake not, for very good
reasons. Neither o-a/3/3aTicryb 9 nor p.bv ' PiQiaroreK-qs ivtSpocraro rdvSe Tlxdruuos,
we ought to read, for the sake of the measure, lUpvaaTo : vide Anth. Gr. ex
rec. Br. (ed. Jacobs.) t. iv. p. 233. — D.]
f Pag. 140.
[f M Leztus sum laudari me, inquit Hector, opinor apud Naevium, abs te,
pater, a laudato viro." Cic. Epist. Earn. xv. 6. — D.]
£ Remark xxvii.
h Ornnem antiquitatem. Consensus nationum omnium.
446
REMARKS.
not only transmit the doctrine, but produced reasons and
arguments to establish it : Sed rationes etiam attulisse ; quas,
nisi quid dicis, prcetermittamus, et hanc totarn spent immortali-
tatis relinquamus ; which arguments , unless you say other¬
wise, let us pass over, and lay aside this whole hope of immor¬
tality} The meaning of which is most plain, if we reflect,
that the question here to be debated was only this, It seems
to me that death is an evil : which Cicero had already refuted,
even upon the scheme of the soul’s extinction ; without need
of engaging deeper in the proofs of immortality. So that
here, in the Socratic way of dialogue, with elpwvela, dissimu¬
lation and urbanity, he seems willing to drop the cause, on
purpose to raise the interlocutor’s appetite. Who well
knowing this was but a feint, and that Cicero wanted a little
courting to proceed. What, says he, do you now leave me,
after you have drawn me into the highest expectation ? Pray
proceed with Plato’s arguments : quocum errare mehercule
malo, quam cum istis vera sentire, with whom (in this affair)
I had rather choose to be mistaken than be in the right with
those mean souls that are content with extinction. Upon
which, says the orator to him, Macte virtute, God bless you
with that brave spirit : I myself too should willingly mistake
ivith him : and so he enters upon and exhausts the whole
Platonic reasoning for the soul’s immortality. Now what
oddness, what perverseness of mind in our scribbler, to infer
from this paragraph that the interlocutor thought Cicero
denied the immortality of the soul! Is it not just the re¬
verse ? But what need I wonder ; when none but such a
crooked and cross-grained block could ever be shaped into
an atheist?
And now we are come to his general character of Cicero,
and the new key to his works, which our bungler has made
for the use of your clergy. He professed, he says, the Aca¬
demic or Sceptic philosophy ; and the only true method of
discovering his sentiments is to see ivhat he says himself, or
under the person of an Academic. To quote any thing else
' Tuscul. i. 17.
REMARKS.
447
from him as his own is an imposition on the world, begun by
some men of learning, and continued by others of little or
none. This is the sum of our author’s observations ; * in
which there is part vulgar and impertinent, and part false
and his own.
The Academic or Sceptic philosophy ! He might as well
say, the Popish or Lutheran religion ; the difference between
those being as wide as between these. A common imposition
on the world ! Where, or by whom ? Has not Cicero in
his disputations represented the systems of the several sects
with more clearness and beauty than they themselves could
do ? Such passages have been, and will be, quoted out of
Cicero indeed, for the elegancy of them ; not as his own
doctrines, but as those of the respective t sects that there
speak them. And what harm is this ? The reasoning is
the same, from what quarter soever it comes ; and the au¬
thority not the less, though transferred from Cicero to a
Stoic. But the men of learning have blundered, and not
nicely distinguished Cicero from the Stoic. When he pleases
to name those, FJ1 produce him a man of none, who has
stupidly confounded Cicero with the Epicurean.! And then
his sagacious hint, that Cicero’s true sentiments are to be
seen in the person of the Academic ! This he thought he
was safe in ; and yet it is as true as it will appear strange,
that his sentiments are least, or not at all, to be seen there :
of which as briefly as I can.
The Platonic Academy dogmatised, or delivered their
doctrines for fixed and certain, as the Peripatetics and Stoics
did. But in the tract of succession, one Carneades, a man
of great wit and eloquence, on purpose to shew both, made
an innovation in the Academy. By the notion of fixed and
certain ( fixa , certa, rata, decreta) he was pinned down to
one system ; and his great parts wanted more room to expa-
[* Discourse , p. 135, &c. — D.]
[f not as his own doctrines, but as those of the respective ; lsf ed. “ but
not as his own doctrines, but of the respective.”— D.]
j Remark XLVIII. p. 417.
448
REMARKS.
tiate and flourish in : he contrived, therefore, a way to get
it : he denied the certainty of things , and admitted of no
higher a knowledge than probability and verisimilitude. Not
that he did not as much believe and govern himself in com¬
mon life upon what he called highly probables, as the others
did upon their certains ; but by this pretty fetch he obtained
his end, and became disputant universal, pro omnibus sectis
et contra omnes dicebat. Did the Stoics assert a thing for
certain ? He would demolish that certainty from Epicurean
topics. Again, did these last pretend to any certainty ? He
would unsay what he spoke for them before ; and attack
them with Stoical arguments, which just now he had endea¬
voured to baffle. This method gave name to the New Aca¬
demy: but it had few professors while it lasted, and lasted
but a little time ; requiring such wit and eloquence, such
laborious study in all sects whatever, and carrying in it’s
very face such an air of pride and ostentation, that very few
either could or cared to espouse it.
However, this very sect, then deserted and almost forgot,
did best agree with the vast genius and ambitious spirit of
young Cicero. He was possessed of oratory in it’s perfec¬
tion ; and he had added philosophy under the best masters
of all sects, Diodotus, Antiochus, Philo, Posidonius, and
others : he would not confine himself to one system, but
range through them all ; so the New Academy was chosen,
as the largest field to shew his learning and eloquence.
Which turn when he had once taken, he was always to
maintain : he was to rise no higher than probability, the
characteristic of the sect. For this was their badge of ser¬
vitude, though they boasted of more freedom than the others.
Did a Stoic assert the certainty of Divine Providence ? You
are tied down, says an Academic ; itJs only a probable. You
are tied as much, replies the Stoic ; for though you believe
it as firmly as I, you dare not say it’s certain, for fear of
clashing with your sect.
If we take Cicero under this view, we shall then truly be
qualified to interpret all his writings. And first we shall
REMARKS.
449
find, what I said before, and which at once breaks to pieces
our writer’s new key, that the Academic objections, which
in his philosophical conferences are ever brought against the
other sects, is the most unlikely place where to find his real
sentiments. For that being the privilege of the sect, to speak
pro or con as they pleased, contra omnia did oportere et pro
omnibus ,k contra omnes philosophos , et pro omnibus dicer e ; 1
they very frequently opposed non ex animo , sed simulate , not
heartily , but feignedly ; m not what they really believed, but
what served the present turn. In De Natura Deorum, when
Balbus the Stoic had spoken admirably for the existence of
the gods and providence. Cotta the Academic (though he
was a priest, one of the pontifices ) undertakes the opposite
side, non tarn refellere ejus orationem, quam ea quce minus
intellexit requirere ; not so much to refute his discourse as to
discuss some points he did not fully understand ;n and after he
had finished his attack with great copiousness and subtilty,
yet in the close he owns to Balbus, that what he had said
was for dispute's sake , not his own judgment ; that he both
desired that Balbus would confute him , and knew certainly
that he could do it.0 And Cicero himself, who was then an
auditor * at the dispute, though of the same sect with Cotta,
declares his own opinion, that the Stoic? s discourse for pro¬
vidence seemed to him more probable than Cotta’s against
it ; which he repeats again in De Divinatione, i. 5. And
what now becomes of our writer’s true method and rule ?
Whatsoever is spoken under the person of an Academic, is
that to be taken for Cicero’s sentiment ? Why Cicero de¬
clares here, that he sided with the Stoic against the Aca¬
demic ; and whom are we to believe, himself or our silly
writer ?
When Cicero says above, that the stoical doctrine of
providence seemed to him more probable, if we take it
aright, it carries the same importance as when a Stoic says
k Acad. ii. 18. 1 Nat. Deor. i. 5. m Nat. Deor. ii. fine.
" Nat. Deor. iii. 1. ° Nat. Deor. m.fine.
[* then an auditor ; Is/ ed. “ then auditor.” — D.]
3 M
VOL. III.
450
REMARKS.
it’s certain and demonstrable. For, as I remarked
before, the law, the badge, the characteristic of his sect
allowed him to affirm no stronger than that : he durst not
have spoken more peremptorily about a proposition of Euclid,
or what he saw with his own eyes. His 'probable had the
same influence on his belief, the same force on his life and
conduct, as the others* certain had on theirs. Nay, within
his own breast he thought it as much certain as they ; hut
he was to keep to the Academic style, which solely consisted
in that point, that nothing was allowed certum, comprehension,
perceptum, ratum, firmum, fixum; but our highest attainment
was probabile et verisimile. He that reads his works with
penetration, judgment, and diligence, will find this to be
true, that probable in his sect is equivalent to certain. For
what he says of Socrates exactly fits himself ; where report¬
ing his last words. Whether it’s better to live or die , the
gods alone know ; of men I believe no one* knows : as to what
Socrates speaks, says he, that none but the gods know
whether is better, he himself knows it; for he had said it
before : sed suum illud, nihil ut affirmet, tenet ad extremum ;
but he keeps his manner to the last , to affirm nothing for
CERTAIN. p
If we seek, therefore, for Cicero’s true sentiments, it
must not be in his disputes against others, where he had
license to say any thing for opposition sake; but in the books
where he dogmatises himself ; where, allowing for the word
probable , you have all the spirit and marrow of the Platonic,
Peripatetic, and Stoic systems ; I mean his books De Officiis ,
Tusculance , De Amicitia, De Senectute, De Legibus ; in which,
and in the remains of others now lost, he declares for the
being and providence of God, for the immortality of the
soul, for every point that approaches to Christianity. Those
three sects he esteems as the sole ornaments of philosophy ;
the others he contemns ; and the Epicureans he lashes
throughout, not only for their base and abject principles,
but for their neglect of all letters, eloquence, and science.
[* No one ; 1st ed. “none.” — D.]
p Tuscul. i. 42.
REMARKS.
451
And I must do him this justice, that as his sect allowed him
to choose what he liked best, and what he valued as most
probable, out of all the various systems, he always chooses
like a knowing and honest man. If in any point of moral,
one author had spoken nobler and loftier than another, he
is sure to adopt the worthiest notion for his own, and to
clothe it in a finer dress with new beauties of style.*
[* 1 may here observe, that to the note, at p. 139 of the first ed. of the
Discourse, which commences, “And yet sometimes his [Cicero’s] zeal against
what he took to be superstition made him so far forget himself, as to speak that
in his orations which he could only do with safety in an assembly of philoso¬
phers,” Collins in the later 8vo ed. ibid, (see note, p. 291), added another
“ instance” from Cicero’s works ; and that in the 12mo ed. p. 115, he threw the
whole note into the text, altering the beginning thus : “ And yet sometimes
his zeal against what he took to be superstition made him so far forget a maxim
of his own, as to speak,” &c. ; and citing at the foot of the page : “ Queritur
sintne dei, nec ne sint. Difficile est negare. Credo, si in concione quaeratur :
sed in ejuscemodi sermone et consessu, facillimum. De Nat. Deor. lib. i.” The
French translation of the Discourse, p. 204, agrees with the 12mo ed. — The
dishonesty of Collins in the above quotation from Cicero is exposed by Ar. de
La Chapelle, La Frip. Laique, p. 544. — D.]
TAlVTUM.
.
• •
ti >
• . , . .1
■
*
*
REMARKS
UPON A LATE
DISCOURSE OF FREE-THINKING
BY
PHILELEUTHERUS LIPSIENSIS.
PART THE THIRD.
(From ed. 1743.)
.
'
-
.
'
REMARKS.
LIV.
Our author, very discreetly silent about the living members
of his sect, has laboured strenuously to incorporate into it
some great names from the dead, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Plutarch, Yarro, Cato the elder, and Cicero ; with what suc¬
cess my former Remarks have sufficiently shewn ; where the
reader, as he is variously affected, now with our writer’s
ignorance, now with his prevarication, is tossed between the
alternate passions of pity and contempt.
We now again overtake him, endeavouring to draw over
to his honourable party the very picture of virtue ,* Cato
the younger j not from Cato’s own declaration, but from a
famous passage of the poet Lucan, who, he says, has raised
a noble monument , not only to Cato’s wisdom and virtue , but
to his free-thinking ;( i and he expects our thanks for giving
us that passage, not in the original only, but in the trans¬
lation of an ingenious author. t And here I find myself under
some difficulty and uneasiness ; our writer slinks away, and
leaves me to engage with a nameless author , whose cha¬
racter and station at home, a foreigner, and at such a dis¬
tance from Britain, cannot be supposed to know :
- 67 Tetrj pa\a 7 roWd gera^v
Ovped re a/aoevra, ddXaaad tc r/^yeaaa.X
So that I must throw out censures at random, not knowing
on whom they fall. Perhaps he may be a person of worth,
[* Discourse, p. 141, where Collins cites, “Homo virtuti simillimus,” &c.
Veil. Paterc. 1. ii. c. 35. — D.] ** Pag. 141.
[f The later 8vo ed. of the Discourse, ibid., and the 12ino ed. p. 117 (see
note, p. 291), have “ in the excellent translation of a most ingenious author.” —
The version of Lucan, with which, writing in the character of Phil. Lip., Bentley
affects to be unacquainted (see notes, p. 349 and p. 425), is the well-known one
of Rowe, who died (1718) long before this portion of the Remarks appeared.
In the French translation of the Discourse the Lucan of Brebeuf is cited. — D.]
[t Horn. 11. i. 150.— D.]
456
REMARKS.
as little allied to this free-thinker’ s society as many others
of the English nation whom he has the impudence to list
in it. Hooker, Chillingworth, Wilkins, Cudworth, Tillotson.
If so, I must plead in my behalf both the innocence of my
intention, and the necessity of the work, because justice
cannot be done to the present subject without some severity
upon that version. But it’s possible that the ingenious
translator may be our writer himself, who would try his
faculty in poetry under this mask and disguise ; and in that
view I desire that all the infamy of that faulty translation
may fall on him and no other ; since, be he the author or
not, he is certainly to answer for it, having so applauded
the performance, and so warped it to a vile and impious
abuse.
But, before we come to Lucan, we have a small specimen
of our writer’s usual penetration and ability in the classics.
Paterculus,* in a fine character of our Cato, among other
expressions says, He was, per omnia ingenio diis quam homi-
nibus propior , in his whole temper (tranquillity, constancy,
justice, &c.) nearer to the gods than to men. Who does not
know that ingenium is temper, disposition, turn of mind ?
But our writer has rendered it, that in every thing by his
knowledge he approached more to the gods than to men.r
Absurdly translated ! not only against common language,
but common sense. For wherein was Cato so distinguished
for knoivledge ? and universal too, per omnia? As a Stoic he
was inferior in that knowledge to the Greek professors of
the sect who were his preceptors ; and for general know¬
ledge, what vast extent could he attain to, whose life was
short of fifty years, in a continued course of employments,
and hurry of public business ? he was so far in that regard
from approaching the gods, that he was below many mortals
his contemporaries, Cicero, Nigidius Figulus, Varro, and
[* Lib. ii. c. 35. — D.]
r Pag. 141. [The 12mo ed. of the Discourse (see note, p. 291) has “ by his
wisdom approaching,” &c. p. 117: and the French translation “par la sagesse
de ses actions il ressembloit plus,” &c. p. 207. — D.]
REMARKS.
457
others. But let Cato be divine both in temper and know¬
ledge too ; our writer himself is certainly in knowledge no
more than human , and in temper it’s well if so much.
Surely so awkward, so perverse a turn was never given
to poet, as this writer and translator (if they are two) have
given to Lucan ; who, on occasion of Cato’s march through
the deserts of Afric, near the Temple of Ammon, introduces
an officer of his army requesting him, in a set speech, to
consult that celebrated oracle; and Cato refusing it, in as
set a reply. This refusal Our writer takes as a proof of
Cato’s free-thinking ; that he took oracles for impostures,
for the knavery of juggling priests, and the credulity of super¬
stitious crowds. But to his great shame and disappointment,
the scene in the original has quite contrary actors : there
were really some free-thinkers , Epicureans, in Cato’s retinue,
that had a mind to try to puzzle, to baffle the oracle ; but
Cato, by his very sect a friend to all oracles, in an artful as
well as magnanimous speech eludes their inquiry, denies
to consult, and so screens and protects the reputation of the
temple. So that Cato here is really the patron of super¬
stition ; and the supposed monument of his free-thinking is a
true and lasting monument of our writer’s stupidity. But
this cannot fully appear without the reader’s patience in
going along with me through the whole passage in the
original, and through the double length of the tedious
translation.
[ 1 1
- comitesque Catonem
Orant, exploret Libycum memorata per orbem
Numina, de fama tarn longi judicet sevi.s
His host , (as crowds are superstitious still,)
Curious of fate, of future good and ill.
And fond to prove prophetic Ammon's skill,
VOL. in.
s Lucan, lib. ix. vers. 54 (>.
3 N
458
REMARKS.
Entreat their leader to the gods * would go,
And from this oracle Rome’s fortune Jcnow.t
Two verses, you see, and a half in the Latin are exactly
doubled and become five in the English ; which we might
take for just payment and exchange, in the known allowance
of one for sense , and one for rhyme , were it not that no
tittle of the original sense appears in the version. The poet
himself tells us, that Cato’s companions entreat him to ex¬
plore {try, sift) the deity so famous through the Libyan
world, and to judge of a reputation possessed through so
many ages. Here, indeed, are plain footsteps of free-thinking,
a doubting about the oracle’s veracity; a trial demanded
and a judgment , not of an upstart puny oracle, but. (in the
heathen account) much older than Solomon’s Temple, and
adored by the third part of mankind. Now, why are these
just and proper sentiments dropt in the version ? not a word
there of exploring ; nothing of the wide authority, the vast
antiquity of the oracle ; but empty trash with false ideas
foisted in their place. These inquirers do not desire to
know Rome’s fortune , but to criticise the oracle itself, as
Croesus did that at Delphi, and Lucian that in Paphla-
gonia.f r Nay, allowing that they secretly wished to know
their fortunes, yet it was injudicious in the translator to an¬
ticipate here what he knew was to come anon in Labienus’s
speech. But I desire not to be too severe; I’ll admit the
propriety of that diction, curious of future good and ill ; nor
shall it be tautology to onerate three poor lines with pro¬
phetic Ammon , then the gods, and then this oracle ; when in
[* In the complete translation of Lucan by Rowe, published after his
death, we find “ the god,” and in the next line “Ms oracle but (with the ex¬
ception of “fortunes” instead of “fortune”) the passage stands as above
given, in the vith vol. of what is called Dry den's Miscellanies, where Rowe’s
version of the 9th book of Lucan was originally printed. — D.]
* Pag. 141.
[t Ar. de La Chapelle (La Frip. Laique, p. 555) refers to Alexander, seu
Pseudomantis : see Luciani Opp. t. ii. p. 217. ed. Hemst. — D.]
REMARKS.
459
truth it’s but one god and but once. But I am astonished
that any person could presume to translate Lucan who was
capable of mistaking comites for an host, or a whole army.
Comites or cohors amicorum were persons of quality, com¬
monly youths, recommended by their parents or friends to
the familiarity of the general, to diet and lodge with him
through the course of his expedition, to learn from his con¬
versation the skill and discipline of war. You can scarce
dip in any Roman historian, or even poet, but this you are
taught there. I’ll but quote one place of Floras,11 because
it relates to our Cato, who, in his apartment after supper ,v
postquam filium coMiTEsque ab amplexu dimisit, when he
had embraced and dismissed his son and companions, read
Plato’s treatise of the soul’s immortality , and then fell asleep.
These comites , companions at Utica in Cato’s last hours, are
the very same that here speak to him about the oracle of
Ammon. If the whole army is meant in one place, it must
be meant too in the other. But can our writer imagine that
Cato entertained the whole army in one room ? and embraced
them all at parting ? How unfortunate, then, is his very
first line !
His host, as crowds are superstitious still.
Sad omen for our translator ! and no superstition to think
so. This mighty host and these crowds are only a few young
noblemen ; and so far from superstition (as he here calum¬
niates ’em), that he may henceforth value them as hopeful
free-thinkers. And why that spiteful character given to all
crowds ? mere fillings of his own, without warrant from his
original. It carries in it an air of libertinism ; and its just
and immediate punishment was blunder.
[ 2 3.
Maximus hortator scrutandi voce deorum
Eventus Labienus erat : sors obtulit, inquit,
u L. Florus, iv. 2.
v Plutarch in Catone: Svvetie'un/ovv naures oi 'ETAIPOI (comites). [ Opj> .
t. iv. p. 485. ed. Reisk.— D.]
460
REMARKS.
Et fortuna viae tam magni nurainis ora
Consiliumque dei : tanto duce possumus uti
Per Syrtes, bellique datos cognoscere casus.
But Labienus chief the thought approv’d,
And thus the common suit to Cato mov’d :
Chance and the fortune of the way, he said,
Have brought Jove’s sacred counsels to our aid.
This greatest of the gods, this mighty chief
In each distress shall be a sure relief ;
Shall point the distant dangers from afar,
And teach the future fortunes of the war.
The Latin poet has observed a decent economy in the con¬
duct of this passage : the young sceptics in the former para¬
graph are despatched in two lines ; their request is not put
in form ; and Cato’s refusal is not expressed, but understood ;
as if given without words, by a look. But now here comes
a person of another character, Titus Labienus, lieutenant-
general under Caesar through all the Gallic wars j* then a
deserter to Pompey ; in Afric here with Cato ; with Pompey
the son in Spain, where he perished at the battle of Munda.
He (as his speech demonstrates) proceeds upon a different
principle ; not of waggery and scepticism, but full assurance
in the oracle. He was paullo infirmior, prone to bigotry and
superstition, and for that reason (if it is not true in fact) was
judiciously chosen by the poet to be the author of this
speech. This character, which I have given of him, though
in Lucan’s time W’ell known, is now only to be learned from
a passage of Plutarch ;w where Aafiiyvov, says he, pavrelais
Tialv la^vpL^ogevov, Labienus relying on some prophecies,
and affirming that Pompey must be conqueror; Ay, says
Cicero, and while we trust to that stratagem, we have lost our
[* wars; lsi ed. “ war.” — D.]
w Plut. in Cicer. p. 1612. where for irapayeveadai nopirpiov read TTipiyevlaQai.
[ = Opp. t. iv. p. 822. ed. Reisk. (who gives Trepiyeveadai from two MSS.):
A afSipvov Se pavreiais Turin IcrxvgiCopevou, teal \4yovros, Sis Set irepiytvtrrOat
Xlopirtjiov’ ovkovv, 4
Rather than see a tyrant crowrid in Rome ? J
Or wouldst thou know, if, what we value here,
Life, be a trifle hardly worth our care ?
What by old age and length of days we gain,
More than to lengthen out the sense of pain ?
We come at last to Cato’s answer, which, if you’ll take our
writer’s word for it, denominates him a free-thinker . It is
time for us then to look sharp, to observe every period ; the
battle advances and grows hot ; nunc specimen specitur, nunc
certamen cernitur .* And 1*11 renounce my name Phile-
leutherus, if the success of the day does not so frustrate
his hopes, that he’ll hate both Cato and Lucan for’t, as long
as he lives.
[* Plaut. Cas. iii. 1. 2. — D.]
ADVERTISEMENT.
Lest the reader should perhaps wonder why this Third Part,
after so long an interval, is published thus imperfect, it is
thought proper to inform him, that Dr. Bentley began it
many years ago, at the desire of her late Majesty when
princess, had actually printed two half-sheets of it, and in¬
tended to have finished the whole. But a dispute then
unhappily arising about his fees as professor,* in which he
thought himself extremely ill used, he threw the book by
with indignation ; nor could he, after having excused himself
to her royal highness, be ever prevailed upon to resume it
again. These two half-sheets, however, still remaining with
the printer, the publisher of the last edition, in 1737, got
leave of Dr. Bentley to reprint them at the end ; which is
the reason why that edition breaks off so abruptly, master t
being the catch-word to the next intended half-sheet. It
was imagined by some, that the remaining part of the copy
would be found after Dr. Bentley’s death ; but he having
often told me that he wrote it only sheet by sheet, just as
they could print it off, I had, I must own, no great expec¬
tations. I examined his papers, however, very carefully, and
found at length a few pages more, which are now first added
[* L e. Regius Professor of Divinity : for the particulars of this dispute,
which took place in 1717, see Monk’s Life of B. vol. ii. p. 37 sqq.
To the request contained in the following University grace, voted 1715,
Bentley had turned a deaf ear : “ Whereas the Reverend Dr. Bentley, Master
of Trinity College, besides his other labours published from our press, to the
great advancement of learning and honour of this University, has lately, under
the borrowed name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, done eminent service to the
Christian religion and the clergy of England, by refuting the objections and
exposing the ignorance of an impious set of writers that call themselves Free¬
thinkers — May it please you that the said Dr. Bentley, for his good services
already done, have the public thanks of the University; and be desired by Mr.
Vice-Chancellor, in the name of the whole body, to finish what remains of so
useful a work.” Monk’s Life of B. vol. i. p. 373. — D.]
[f See p. 4(>9. 1. 5. from foot. — D.]
VOL. III. 3 P
474
ADVERTISEMENT.
in this edition. And as the manuscript ends, agreeably to
his former declarations, in the middle of a page, I think I
may venture to assure the public, that this is the whole of it
that Dr. Bentley ever wrote.
R. B*
Mar. 25, 1743.
[* i. e. Richard Bentley, the nephew and sole executor ot' the author. — D.]
DR. BENTLEY’S
\
PROPOSALS
FOE PRINTING A NEW EDITION OF THE
GREEK TESTAMENT
AND
ST. HIEROM’S LATIN VERSION.
WITH A
FULL ANSWER TO ALL THE REMARKS OF A LATE PAMPHLETEER.
BY A
MEMBER OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE.
Cunarum labor est angnes superare mearurn.
Tollentemque minus et sibila colla tumentem
Dejice -
Ovid.
Virgil.
(From ed. 4to, 1721.)
t-
i ‘•jt 1 V • !
... . ;
••
; ■ .
f
... .' , . : ! ;:*>***
■ ,
*
-
? ■
'
■ -
■
. .
--
’
■
■
477
[Bentley’s intention of editing the Greek Testament, (an undertaking which
he had for some time meditated, and which had been publicly suggested to him
by Hare ; see note, p. 356,) was thus announced in a letter to Archbishop
Wake :* —
“ May it please your Grace ;
“ ’Tis not only your Grace’s station and general character, but the par¬
ticular knowledge I have of you, which encourages me to give you a long letter
about those unfashionable topics, religion and learning. Your Grace knows,
as well as any, what an alarm has been made of late years with the vast heap
of various lections found in MSS. of the Greek Testament. The Papists have
made a great use of them against the Protestants, and the Atheists against
them both. This was one of Collins’ topics in his Discourse on Free-thinking,
which I took off in my short answer; and I have heard since, from several
hands, that that short view I gave of the causes, and necessity, and use of
various lections, made several good men more easy in that matter than they
were before. But, since that time, I have fallen into a course of studies that
led me to peruse many of the oldest MSS. of Gr. Test, and of the Latin too of
St. Jerom; of which there are several in England a full 1000 years old. The
result of which has been, that I find I am able (what some thought impos¬
sible) to give an edition of the Gr. Test, exactly as it was in the best ex¬
amples at the time of the Council of Nice. So that there shall not be 20
words, nor even particles’ difference ; and this shall carry its own demonstra¬
tion in every verse ; which I affirm cannot be so done of any other ancient
book, Greek or Latin. So that that book, which, by the present management,
is thought the most uncertain, shall have a testimony of certainty above all
other books whatever ; and an end be put at once to all var. lectt. now or
hereafter. I’ll give your Grace the progress which brought me, by degrees,
into the present view and scheme that I have of a new edition.
“ Upon some points of curiosity, I collated one or two of St. Paul’s epistles
with the Alexandrian MS., the oldest and best now in the world. I was sur¬
prised to find several transpositions of words, that Mill and the other collators
took no notice of; but I soon found their way was to mark nothing but change
of words ; the collocation and order they entirely neglected : and yet at sight
I discerned what a new force and beauty this new order (I found in the MS.)
added to the sentence. This encouraged me to collate the whole book over, to
a letter, with my own hands.
“There is another MS. at Paris of the same age and character with this ;
but, meeting with worse usage, it was so decayed by age, that 500 years ago it
served the Greeks for old vellum ; and they writ over the old brown capitals a
book of Ephraim Syrus, but so, that even now, by a good eye and a skilful
person, the old writing may be read under the new. One page of this, for a
specimen, is printed in a copper cut in Lamie’s Harmony of the Evangelists.
* First printed by Burney in Rich. Bentleii et Doct. Virorum Epistola, &c.
1807. 4to. p. 228.
478
“ Out of this, by an able band,* I have bad above 200 lections given me from
the present printed Greek ; and I was surprised to find that almost all agreed,
both in word and order, with our noble Alexandrian. Some more experiments
in other old copies have discovered the same agreement : so that I dare say,
take all the Greek Testaments surviving, (that are not occidental with Latin,
too like our Beza’s at Cambridge) and that are 1000 years old, and they’ll
so agree together, that of the 30,000 present var. lectt. there are not there
found 200.
“ The western Latin copies, by variety of translations, without public ap¬
pointment, and a jumble and heap of all of them, were grown so uncertain,
that scarce two copies were alike ; which obliged Damasus, then Bishop of
Rome, to employ St. Jerom to regulate the best received translation of each
part of the New Testament to the original Greek, and so set out a new edition
so castigated and corrected. This he declares in his preface he did, ad Grcecam
veritatem, ad exemplaria Grceca, sed vetera ; and his learning, great name, and
just authority, extinguished all the other Latin versions, and has been con¬
veyed down to us, under the name of the Vulgate. ’Twas plain to me, that
when that copy came first from that great Father’s hands, it must agree ex¬
actly with the most authentic Greek exemplars ; and if now it could be retrieved,
it would be the best test and voucher for the true reading out of several pre¬
tending ones. But when I came to try Pope Clement's Vulgate, I soon found
the Greek of the Alexandrian and that would by no means pary. This set me
to examine the Pope’s Latin by some MSS. of 1000 years old ; and the success
is, that the old Greek copies and the old Latin so exactly agree, (when an able
hand discerns the rasures, and the old lections laying under them), that the
pleasure and satisfaction it gives me is beyond expression.
“ The New Testament has been under a hard fate since the invention of
printing.
“ After the Complutenses and Erasmus, who had but very ordinary MSS.,
it has become the property of booksellers. Rob. Stephens’ edition, set out and
regulated by himself alone, is now become the standard. That text stands, as
if an apostle was his compositor.
“No heathen author has had such ill fortune. Terence, Ovid, &c. for the
first century after printing, went about with 20,000 errors in them. But when
learned men undertook them, and from the oldest MSS. set out correct edi¬
tions, those errors fell and vanished. But if they had kept to the first pub¬
lished text, and set the var. lections only in the margin, those classic authors
would be as clogged with variations as Dr. Mill’s Testament is.
“ Sixtus and Clemens, at a vast expense, had an assembly of learned divines
to recense and adjust the Latin Vulgate, and then enacted their new edition
authentic : but I find, though I have not discovered any thing done dolo malo,
they were quite unequal to the affair. They were mere theologi, had no ex¬
perience in MSS. nor made use of good Greek copies, and followed books of
500 years before those of double that age. Nay, I believe they took these new
ones for the older of the two ; for it is not every body that knows the age of
a MS.
* Wetstein: see p. 480.
479
“ I am already tedious, and the post is a-going. So that, to conclude — in a
word, I find that by taking 2000 errors out of the Pope’s Vulgate, and as many
out of the Protestant Pope Stephens’, I can set out an edition of each in
columns, without using any book under 900 years old, that shall so exactly
agree, word for word, and, what at first amazed me, order for order, that no
two tallies, nor two indentures, can agree better.
“ I affirm that these so placed will prove each other to a demonstration ; for
I alter not a letter of my own head without the authority of these old witnesses.
And the beauty of the composition (barbarous, God knows, at present,) is so
improved, as makes it more worthy of a revelation, and yet no one text of
consequence injured or weakened.
“ My Lord, if a casual fire should take either his Majesty’s library, or the
King’s of France, all the world could not do this. As I have, therefore, great
impulse, and I hope not adeel, to set about this work immediately, and leave
it as a neifiriAiov to posterity against atheists and infidels, I thought it my duty
and my honour to first acquaint your Grace with it; and know if the extrinsic
expense to do such a work completely (for my labour I reckon nothing) may
obtain any encouragement, either from the crown or public.
“ I am, with all duty and obedience,
“ Your Grace’s most humble servant,
“ Trin. Coll., April the 15th, 1716. “ Ri. Bentley.”
From the following letter* it appears that the Archbishop heartily encou¬
raged the design : —
“ May it please your Grace ; Trin. Coll., Sunday evening.
“ This minute I had the honour of your Grace’s letter : indeed, when I saw
by the prints that your Grace was in full convocation, and had addressed his
Majesty upon so just an occasion, and consequently was immersed in business of
the highest importance, I condemned myself that I should be so immersed here
in books and privacy as not to know a more proper occasion of address to your
Grace. On a due consideration of all which, I gave over expecting any answer,
and designed to wait on you in person when I came to London, where already
my family is. But I see your Grace’s goodness and public spirit is superior to
all fatigues ; and therefore I thank you particularly for this present favour, as
what was (justly) above my expectation. The thought of printing the Latin in
a column against the Greek (which your Grace puts to the common), I doubt
not is your own. My Lord, it is necessary to do so ; and without that all my
scheme would be nothing. It was the very view that possessed me with this
thought, which has now so engaged me, and in a manner enslaved me, that va
mild unless I do it. Nothing but sickness (by the blessing of God) shall hinder
me from prosecuting it to the end. I leave the rest to the time of the West¬
minster election : with my hearty prayers and thanks, being
“ Your Grace’s most obedient and obliged humble servant,
“ III. Bentley.
* Id. p. 235.
480
“ I was told, a month ago, that your Grace (when you was at Paris) had
made a whole transcript of the Clermont copy, Greek and Latin, which J hope
is true.”
On this great work, though soon after its commencement his duties at
Cambridge, and the strange feuds in which he was involved, occasionally sus¬
pended it, Bentley continued to employ himself, regardless of labour or expense.
For a detailed account of bis progress, I refer the reader to Monk’s Life of B.
vol. ii. p. 118 sqq. : it will be sufficient to mention here that MSS. were collated
for him at Paris by Wetstein ; and afterwards by John Walker, Fellow of Trinity
College, whom he had sent over to the French capital in 1719 for that purpose.
On the return of Walker to England in 1720, Bentley put forth two folio
leaves of Proposals, (“ drawn up,” as he himself tells us, “ in haste, in one
evening by candle-light, and printed the next day from that first and sole
draught”) ; the first containing an account of the intended edition, the second
a specimen of its execution — the last chapter of the Revelation.*
The Proposals soon reached a second edition ; and Conyers Middleton (over
whom was then hanging a prosecution for his pamphletf against Bentley’s
government) lost no time in attacking their weaker points with equal skill
and malice in
Remarks, Paragraph by Paragraph, upon the Proposals lately published by
Richard Bentley, for a new edition of the Greek Testament and Latin Version. —
Doctus criticus et adsuetus urere, secare, inclementer omnis generis libros tractare,
apices, syllabas, voces, dictiones confodere, et stilo exigere, continebitne ille ab in-
legro et intaminato Divince Sapientice monumento crudeles ungues ? Petri Burmanni
Orat. Lugd. Bat. 1720. — By a Member of the University of Cambridge. London,
1721. 4to, pp. 24: of which there was a third edition (with the author’s name)
during the same year.
This tract was speedily known to be Middleton’s, by his own avowal. J
* “ The reader cannot help seeing through the shallow artifice of his
taking the last chapter of the Revelations for the specimen of his edition; to per¬
suade us that the whole work is already done, and nothing wanting but the
encouragement of contributions -for the sending of it to the press.” Middleton’s
Farther Remarks, &c. p. 69. — But the whole work was really in an equal state
of readiness.
t “ A True Account of the Present State of Trinity College in Cambridge, under
the Oppressive Government of their Master, Richard Bentley, late D.D.” fyc. Lon¬
don, 1720. 8vo, pp. 43.
J “ But what was the most surprising in this extraordinary piece of his was
to find it to be in fact a most virulent and malicious libel upon Dr. Colbatch,
a reverend and learned member of his college, on pretence of his being the
author of the Remarks, though he could not possibly be ignorant, long before his
book was published, that this worthy gentleman was perfectly unconcerned in
the controversy ; wholly out of the question ; and had not any share or part at
all in advising or assisting me on the occasion. For I no sooner heard that
481
Bentley, however, suspected that the materials for it had been supplied by
Dr. Colbatch, Professor of Casuistry, and one of the Fellows of Trinity,
against whom the Master had long been waging war ; a suspicion grounded
on his knowledge that Colbatch had assisted Middleton with papers for the
pamphlet already mentioned against his college government, and on the
coincidence of some passages in the Remarks with certain expressions used by
Colbatch in conversation. Accordingly, in a third* edition of his Proposals,
with a full Answer to all the Remarks of a late Pamphleteer. By a Member of
Trinity College. London, 1721. 4to, pp. 44. (the piece now reprinted), he chose
to consider Colbatch as the sole author of the Remarks, and assailed him with
the coarsest personal abuse. That the full Answer, & c. was from Bentley’s pen
is manifest in every page : the signature at the end, I. E., are the two first
vowels in the names Richard Bentley. f
Indignant at such libellous invectives, Colbatch immediately endeavoured
to obtain redress by every means within his reach : see a minute account of
his proceedings in Monk’s Life of B., vol. ii. p. 138 sqq. In a note below I
insert the paper which Colbatch printed at the time, and the censure which
was passed by the heads of colleges on the full Answer, &c.J
some of my friends were suspected by him, but to prevent any inconvenience
which might befal such of them as were more immediately under his power, I
freely owned myself the sole author, gave commission to my acquaintance to
make no secret of it any where ; and was informed at different times by several
of them that they had assured some of his principal friends and confidants of the
truth and certainty of it to their own knowledge. Dr. Colbatch, on the other
hand, did from the beginning (as he afterwards thought fit to declare by a printed
advertisement) constantly disclaim the imputation in such a public and open
manner as must of necessity come to the knowledge of our editor .” Preface to
Middleton’s Farther Remarks, fyc.
* That this is the third ed. of the Proposals I learn from Middleton’s
Farther Remarks, & c. p. 23 : of the earlier eds. I have seen only the first
folio.
f “ I must honestly and frankly tell you, Master, that every body I have
yet met with, both friends and foes, affirm you to be that very champion or
bully, in masquerade. A person well versed in Porta’s Art of Occult Ciphers
has proved it by the very letters I. E., the first vowels of Richard Bentley .”
A Letter to the Reverend Master of Trinity College, fyc., p. 10.
\ “ Cambridge, Jan. 20.
“ Finding myself to be treated after a most barbarous manner in a virulent
libel, which bears the title of Dr. Bentley' s Proposals, with a full Answer, fyc.,
upon pretence of my being the author of The Remarks upon the Proposals lately
published by Richard Bentley, Sfc., I think it necessary upon several accounts to
declare as follows, viz. :
“ That I am not the author of those Remarks, nor any part of them, and that
they were undertaken and written without my assistance or knowledge.
“ That It. B. certainly knew, or easily might have known, that they were
VOL. III. 3 Q
482
Middleton soon after rejoined in a pamphlet, much longer and more ela¬
borate than his first, and entitled
Some Farther Remarks, Paragraph by Paragraph, upon Proposals lately pub¬
lished for A New Edition of A Greek and Latin Testament by Richard Bentley.
Containing A full Answer to the Editor’s late Defence of his said Proposals, as
well as to all his objections there made against my former Remarks. — Imperitiam
tuam nemo potest fortius accusare, quam tu ipse dum scribis. Hieron. - Occu-
patus ille eruditione secularium literarum scripturas omnino sanctas ignoraverit ;
et nemo possit, quamvis eloquens, de eo bene disputare, quod nesciat. Ibid. — By Con¬
yers Middleton, D.D. London, 1721. 4to, pp. 74.
It has been generally supposed that Bentley’s project was frustrated by the
powerful attacks of Middleton ; and Wetstein tells us ( Prolegom . p. 156) that it
was abandoned because the Board of Treasury rejected Bentley’s application
to import duty-free the paper for the work — a supposition and a statement
which Dr. Monk has clearly shewn to be erroneous ; Life of B., vol. ii. p. 146,
written by the Reverend and learned Dr. Middleton, who had owned them to
several of his friends, by whose means he verily believes that R. B. was in¬
formed that he alone was the author. For my own part, presently after the
Remarks were published, I took all occasions to declare as above, being obliged
in justice so to do, lest my silence might in some measure contribute to deprive
my worthy friend of the honour due for so excellent a pei'formance ; nor do 1
question but that R. B., before he began to write his libel, had been acquainted
with what I said on those occasions.
“ That those foul aspersions which are cast upon me in almost every page
are as false in fact as they are apparently malicious ; which is notorious to all
who know me, and to none more than R. B. himself.
“ That I never wrote any libels against the government, the College, or the
Master, as he falsely asserts.
“ I never wrote any thing at all relating to the government, or published any
thing concerning the College or the Master, except a commemoration sermon
in Dec. 1717, which the Master pretended to approve of, giving it under his
hand that he would subscribe to every word of it. As to other matters relating
to either, I have hitherto thought them fit only for the cognizance of a Visitor.
“ John Colbatcli, D.D., Senior Fellow of Trinity College, and Casuistical
Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge.”
“ Cambridge.
“At a meeting of the Vice-Chancellor and Heads, Feb. 27, 1720-21.
“ Whereas the Reverend John Colbatch, D.D. and Casuistical Professor of
this University, hath made complaint to us of a book lately published, annexed
to Proposals for Printing a New Edition of the Greek Testament, 8fc., and called
A Full Answer to all the Remarks of a late Pamphleteer, by a Member of Trinity
College, subscribed I. E., wherein the said John Colbatch conceives himself to
be highly injured, as being represented under the most reproachful and infa-
483
sqq. Bentley at intervals continued his labours on the edition as zealously
as ever till about the middle of 1729 : after that period we cannot discover
that he pursued them ; the little leisure w^ch perplexing law-suits allowed
him was devoted to other literary undertakings ; and his troubles only ceased
when age had unfitted him for the completion of his grand design.
On his decease in 1742, the money which had been subscribed for the
Greek Testament, amounting, it is said, to 2000 guineas, was returned by his
nephew Richard, his sole executor ; to whom he had bequeathed, with the ex¬
ception of some Greek manuscripts left to the college, his library and papers ;
and by whom (see Wetstein’s Proleg. p. 156) he seems to have expected that at
least the far-famed edition would be given to the public. This nephew died
in 1786 ; and, according to his bequest, the whole apparatus criticus* for the
mous characters, and hath therefore applied to us for redress : We the Vice-
Chancellor and Heads of Colleges, whose names are underwritten, having
perused the said book, do find that the said Dr. Colbatcli hath just ground of
complaint, it appearing to us that he is therein described under very odious
and ignominious characters, and do declare and pronounce the said book to
be a most virulent and scandalous libel; highly injurious to the said Dr. Col-
batch, contrary to good manners, and a notorious violation of the statutes and
discipline of this University. And as soon as the author of the said libel can
be discovered, we resolve to do justice to the said Dr. Colbatcli, by inflicting
such censure upon the offender as the statutes of this University in that case
do appoint.
“Tho. Crosse, Vice-Chancellor. Bardsey Fisher. Wm. Grigg.
John Covel. Edw. Lany. D. AVaterland.
C. Ashton. R. Jenkin. Wm. Savage.”
Preface to Middleton’s Farther Remarks, &c.
* A distinguished member of Trinity College has obligingly furnished me
with the following information concerning it :
“ These collections are principally composed of thirteen printed copies
of the Greek Testament, interlined with Bentley’s notes, and with collations of
a vast multitude of ancient MSS., copied by Bentley himself, except two or
three, the collations of which are in the hand-writing of John James Wetstein.
I subjoin a list of these editions :
Argentorati, 1524. 12mo.
Lutetiae, Roberti Stephani, 1549. 12mo.
Genevae, cum notis J. Scaligeri, 1620. Small quarto.
Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1628. Folio. Two copies.
Roterodami, 1654. 12mo.
Oxon. 1675. 12mo. Two copies.
Cantabrigiae, 1700. 12mo.
Joannis Gregorii, Oxon. 1703. Folio.
Millii, Oxon. 1707. Folio.
Wetsteinii, Amstelaedami, 1711. Small 8vo.
Wetsteinii, Amstelaedami, 1735. Small 8vo,
484
Greek Testament, together witli some other hooks and MSS. of Bentley,
were deposited in Trinity College.
For farther particulars, beside^ the excellent work of Dr. Monk, the reader
may consult Thes. Epist. Lacroz. 1742. t. i. p. 63 ; Wetstein’s remarks, “ De
Editione proposita Bentleii,” in his Prolegomena to Test. Gr. 1751, p. 153 sqq. ;
and Krigliout’s Memoria Wetsteniana Vindicata, 1755, p. 34 sqq., Appendix,
p. 11 sqq.
As connected with the present subject, the following publications require
to be noticed : —
1. Two Letters to the Reverend Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity-College in
Cambridge, concerning his Intended Edition of the Greek Testament. Together
with the Doctor's Answer, and Some Account of what may be Expected from that
Edition. With a Particular Enquiry into Two Texts of St. Matth. xix. 17. and
srxvii. 9. And that Famous one of St. John, 1 Epist. v. 7. There are Three that
bear Record, Sfc. London, 1717. 8vo, pp. 38.
This tract, by an unknown writer, is only valuable because it has preserved
the subjoined letter of Bentley : —
“Sir, Trin. Col., Jan. 1, I74f.
“ Yours of December the 20tli came safely to my hands, wherein you tell me,
from common fame, that in my designed edition of the New Testament I pur¬
pose to leave out the verse of John’s Epistle i. chap. 5. ver. 7.
“ About a year ago, reflecting upon some passages of St. Hierom, that he
had adjusted and castigated the then Latin Yulgate to the best Greek exemplars,
and had kept the very order of the words of the original, I formed a thought a
priori, that if St. Jerom’s true Latin exemplar could now be come at, it would
be found to agree exactly with the Greek text of the same age ; and so the
old copies of each language (if so agreeing) would give mutual proof and even
demonstration to each other. Whereupon rejecting the printed editions of
each, and the several manuscripts of seven centuries and under, I made use
of none but those of a thousand years ago, or above (of which sort I have 20
In several of these editions, especially those of the folio size, the notes of
Bentley are extremely copious, and closely written both in the margins and
between the lines of the text ; and the whole collection is a wonderful monu¬
ment of his industry, and presents such a vast accumulation of materials, that
one may fairly conjecture that his own voluminous annotations were the main
obstacle to the execution of his intended edition of the Greek Testament.
“ In addition to the printed copies above mentioned, there are also two
MSS. of the Epistles of St. Paul of the ninth or tenth century, one of which
is of great value ; — a copy of ‘ Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Divina Bibliotheca.
Folio. Parisiis, 1693 the third part of which, containing the Latin transla¬
tion of the Greek Testament, is replete with Bentley’s notes. And a consider¬
able quantity of letters and miscellaneous papers relating to the edition under¬
taken by him.”
485
now in my study, that one with another make 20,000 years). I had the
pleasure to find, as I presaged, that they agreed exactly like two tallies, or
two indentures ; and I am able from thence, to lead men out of the labyrinth
of 60,000 various lections (for St. Jerom’s Latin has as many varieties as the
Greek), and to give the text as it stood in the best copies in the time of the
Council of Nice, without the error of 50 words.
“ Now in this work I indulge nothing to any conjecture, not even in a letter,
but proceed solely upon authority of copies and Fathers of that age. And what
will be the event about the said verse of John, I myself know not yet, having
not used all the old copies that I have information of.
“ But by this you see that in my proposed work the fate of that verse will
be a mere question of fact. You endeavour to prove (and that’s all you aspire
to) that it may have been writ by the apostle, being consonant to his other
doctrine. This I concede to you ; and if the fourth century knew that text, let
it come in, in God’s name : but if that age did not know it, then Arianism, in
its height, was beat down without the help of that verse ; and let the fact prove
as it will, the doctrine is unshaken.
“ Yours,
“ Ric. Bentley.”
On the 1st of May following, Bentley delivered at Cambridge his probationary
lecture as candidate for the Regius Professorship of Divinity, to which he was
next day appointed. He chose for his subject the above-mentioned text of
St. John, and concluded by decidedly rejecting it. This praelection (which
was in Latin) has unfortunately disappeared ; but it is mentioned by Porson as
“ still extant” in his Letters to Travis, Pref. p. viii., and had been seen by him,
Monk’s Life of B., vol. ii. p. 19; and was once in possession of the late Dean
Vincent, who had borrowed it, with other papers of Bentley, from a relative of
the great scholar : ibid. There is reason to believe that an examination of the
disputed verse was to have formed part of the Prolegomena to Bentley’s ed. of
the Testament : id. ii. p. 287.
2. A Letter to the Reverend Master of Trinity College in Cambridge, Editor of
a New Greek and Latin Testament.
Tollentemque minas 8f sibila colla tumentem
Dejice -
Ah Timon, Timon, quee te dementia cepit ?
Ah, qua te mala mens, miselle Timon ?
Tune TUis telis moriere !
Ne scevi, magne sacerdos.
Nihil est, Zoile, quin male E den do possit depravarier.
AOs pen iiriarcero TroWa, KaKcios S' yirlffTaro iravra.
Et si non aliqua nocuisset, mortuus esset.
- cestuat ingens
Uno in corde odium mixtoque insania fastu,
Etfuriis agitatus amor sceleratus habendi.
Answer to the Remarks by I. E., p. 1, 12, 16, 24, 26, 28, 39.
486
London, 1721. 4to, pp. 23. A second edition appeared during the same year.
This clever and ill-natured attack on Bentley is signed “ Philalethes.”
3. Epistolcs Duo: ad Celeberrimum Doctissimumque Virum F - V - Pro-
fessorem Amstelodamensem Scripts. Quarum in alterd agitur de Editions Novi
Testamenti a Clarissimo Bentleio suscepld, omnesque ejus, adhuc in lucern emissce.
Conjectures de sacro Textu examinantur. In alterd vero multcs de corruptis ( uti
videntur ) Epistolarum Novi Testamenti locis conjectures, jam primum editee, propo-
nuntur. Londini, 1721. 4to, pp. 31.
By Zachary Pearce, who writes under the name of Phileleutherus Londinensis.
4. An Enquiry into the Authority of the Primitive Complutensian Edition of the
New Testament, as principally founded on the most Ancient Vatican Manuscript ;
together with some Research after that Manuscript. In order to decide the Dispute
about 1 John, v. 7. In a Letter to the Reverend Mr. Archdeacon Bentley, Master
of Trinity-College in Cambridge. London, 1722. 8vo, pp. 54.
Has been attributed to Dr. Richard Smalbroke. D.]
H KAINH AIA0HKH
GREECE.
NOVUM TESTAMENTUM
VERSIONIS VULGATE
PER Stum HIERONYMUM AD VETUSTA EXEMPLARIA GR.ECA
CASTIGATE ET EXACTS.
XITRUMQUE EX ANTIQUISSIMIS CODD. MSS., CUM GRJECIS TUM
LATINIS, EDIDIT
RICHARDUS BENTLEIUS.
PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING.
I. The author of this edition, observing that the printed
copies of the New Testament, both of the original Greek and
ancient vulgar Latin, were taken from manuscripts of no
great antiquity, such as the first editors could then procure ;
and that now by God’s providence there are MSS. in Europe
(accessible, though with great charge) above a thousand
years old in both languages ; believes he may do good service
to common Christianity if he publishes a new edition of the
Greek and Latin, not according to the recent and interpo¬
lated copies, but as represented in the most ancient and
venerable MSS. in Greek and Roman capital letters.
II. The author, revolving in his mind some passages of
St. Hierom ; where he declares, that (without making a new
version) he adjusted and reformed the whole Latin Vulgate
to the best Greek exemplars, that is, to those of the famous
Origen ; and another passage, where he says, that a verbal
or literal interpretation out of Greek into Latin is not neces¬
sary, except in the Holy Scriptures, ubi ipse verborum ordo
488
PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING
mysterium est, where the very order of the words is* mystery ;
took thence the hint, that if the oldest copies of the original
Greek and Hierom’s Latin were examined and compared
together, perhaps they would be still found to agree both in
words and order of words. And upon making the essay, he
has succeeded in his conjecture beyond his expectation or
even his hopes.
III. The author believes that he has retrieved (except in
very few places) the true exemplar of Origen, which was the
standard to the most learned of the Fathers , at the time of
the Council of Nice and two centuries after. And he is sure
that the Greek and Latin MSS., by their mutual assistance,
do so settle the original text to the smallest nicety, as cannot
be performed now in any classic author whatever : and that
out of a labyrinth of thirty thousand various readings, that
crowd the pages of our present best editions, all put upon
equal credit, to the offence of many good persons, this clue
so leads and extricates us, that there will scarce be two
hundred out of so many thousands that can deserve the least
consideration.
IV. To confirm the lections which the author places in
the text, he makes use of the old versions, Syriac, Coptic,
Gothic, and /Ethiopic, and of all the Fathers, Greeks and
Latins, within the first five centuries; and he gives in his
notes all the various readings (now known) within the said
five centuries. So that the reader has under one view what
the first ages of the church knew of the text ; and what has
crept into any copies since is of no value or authority.
V. The author is very sensible, that in the sacred writings
there’s no place for conjectures or emendations. Diligence
and fidelity, with some judgment and experience, are the
characters here requisite. He declares, therefore, that he
does not alter one letter in the text without the authorities
subjoined in the notes. And to leave the free choice to every
reader, he places under each column the smallest variations
of this edition, either in words or order, from the received
[* is; 1st ed. “is a.” — D.]
THE GREEK TESTAMENT, ETC.
489
Greek of Stephanus, and the Latin of the two popes Sixtus Y.
and Clemens VIII. So that this edition exhibits both itself
and the common ones.
VI. If the author has any thing to suggest towards a
change of the text, not supported by any copies now extant,
he will offer it separate in his Prolegomena ; in which will he
a large account of the several MSS. here used, and of the
other matters which contribute to make this edition useful.
In this work he is of no sect or party; his design is to serve
the whole Christian name. He draws no consequences in
his notes ; makes no oblique glances upon any disputed
points, old or new. He consecrates this work, as a KeiggXiov,
a KTrgia iaael, a charter , a magna charta , to the whole
Christian church ; to last when all the ancient MSS. here
quoted may be lost and extinguished.
VII. To publish this work, according to its use and im¬
portance, a great expense is requisite : it’s designed to be
printed, not on the paper or with the letter of this Specimen ,
but with the best letter, paper, and ink that Europe affords.
It must therefore be done by subscription or contribution.
As it will make two tomes in folio, the lowest subscription
for smaller paper must be three guineas, one advanced in
present; and for the great paper five guineas, two advanced.
VIII. The work will be put to the press as soon as
money is contributed to support the charge of the impres¬
sion ; and no more copies will be printed than are subscribed
for. The overseer and corrector of the press wrill be the
learned Mr. John Walker, of Trinity College in Cam¬
bridge; who, with great accurateness, has collated many
MSS. at Paris for the present edition. And the issue of it,
whether gain or loss, is equally to fall on him and the
author.
O R
VOL. lit.
490
AnOKAATVEnX
Kecf). k/3' .
AnOKAAWEfiS Kef/>. k/3'.
1 KAI cBet^ev ptot 7 rora-
ptov vbaros ^(orj<;, \aptrrpbv co
KpvaraWov, £ Krropevoptevov
CK TOV dpovov TOV 0COV Kul
rov apviov.
2 'Eptpteaw rrj<; rr\areia<;
avr rjs, Kal rov rroraptov cv-
rcvdcv Kal CKCtdev, £v\ov
£&)?}? 7 rotovv Kapirovs ScbBcKa,
Kara ptrjva cva CKaarov ctrro-
BtBovv top Kapnrov avrov, Kal
ra (f)vXX,a rov £v\ov els depa-
rretav rbov cOvoov.
3 Kal 7 rav KardOepta ovk
carat ert, Kal 6 Qpovos rov
0eov Kal rov apvtov iv avrf)
carat, Kal 01 8ov\ot avrov
\arpevaovatv avrco.
4 Kal oyfrovrat ro 7 rpoaco-
7 rov avrov , Kal ro ovopta av¬
rov crrl rwv pterd'rrwv avrbov.
5 Kal vv£ ovk carat ert,
1 fxoi Kadapbv nora/xbv. 2 evrevdev
Kal ivrevdev. 3 wav Karavade/xa. 5 ovk
tcrrai e’/ceT. Kal xpela v °'JK faovcrc ^X~
vov Kal £
[* Omittunt] “ Deest Speciminis ed. pr. — D.]
[f Syriac.] om. Spec. ed. pr. — D.]
Keep. reft'.
AnOKAATVEnZ.
491
teal o v% e^ovenv yjptlav (f)o)Tos
Xv%vov real ((kotos rfxiov, ore
Kvpios 6 @609 (fxoTLaei i.7r
avrovs, /cal fiacriXevcrovo-Lv
6t9 tov 9 aloovas tcov alcovcov.
6 Kal ehrev p,oi, Ovtoi ol
Xoyot TTKTTol Kal dXljdlVOl’
Kal 6 KVpiOS 0 0 60 9 TG)V
TTvenpidrcov twv 7 rpo(f)r]Td)V d-
7recrT6iXev tov ayyeXov av-
tov, Beitjat, tols BovXols av-
tov d Bel yeveadai ev Ta^ei.
7 Kal IBov epyopiai Ta^v.
puaKapios o Trjpcov tovs Xoyovs
Tr/s irpocjirjTelas tov ftifiXtov
TOVTOV.
8 Kayo) Acodvvrjs o aKOvcov
Kal fiXei ro)v TavTa. Kal ore
rjKovaa Kal efiXen tov, eirecra
7rpoaKVvr]crai irpo ttoBwv tov
dyyeXov tov BeiKVVOVTOS pcoi
TavTa.
6 /cal Kvpios, deest <5. 6 0e8s t Siv aylwv
irpocot1>s ijA loo] Alex. <^ws r)Alov. ^cori :£ei
auroi/y] Latini plerique illuminat. Sed
Alex. Greg. Palamas, cpwriau eV av-
tous. VI. Kal Kvptos~\ Alex. Kal 6 kv-
£ios. 'O 0e8s r £>v ay'ioov Sic
non egebunt lumine lucernae
neque lumine solis, quoniam
dominus Deus inluminabit il-
los, et regnabunt in ssecula
saeculorum.
6 Et dixit mihi, Haec verba
fidelissima et vera sunt: et
dominus Deus spirituum pro-
phetarum misit angelum su-
um, ostendere servis suis quae
oportet fieri cito.
7 Et ecce venio velociter.
beatus qui eustodit verba pro-
phetiae libri hujus.
8 Et ego Johannes, qui au-
divi et vidi haec. Et post-
quam audissem et vidissem,
cecidi ut adorarem ante pe¬
des angeli qui mihi haee os-
ten debat.
6 fidelissima sunt et vera.
edidit Erasmus. Sed Complut. Alex,
Aretlias, Graeci Codd. fere omnes,
Latini omnes, Syr. Copt. .Ethiop.
twv irvevp.aTwv twv irpo(j>. Fidelissima
sunt et vera] Codd. veteres, fid. et vera
sunt. VII. ’iSov] Kal iSou. Alex. An¬
dreas, Aretlias, Syrus, Codd. Graeci
plerique omnes, Latini ad unum
omnes. VIII. Kal iyw ’Iw. 6 /dAeirwv
raura Kal aKova iv] Alex. Andreas, Com¬
plut. Syrus, Latinus, Codd. Graeci
f* Andreas et] om. Speeiminis ed. pr. — D.]
492
ATIOKAATWEflX
Keep. k(3' .
9 Kal \eyec pcoc,"Opa per).
avvhovXos aov etpcl, Kal tmv
u8e\(f)a)V aov twv 7rpo(j)T]Th)V,
Kal TCOV TTjpOVVTCOV TOU? \o-
0ev 7ro8&)j'] Alex.
npb iroduv. IX. Et dixit mihi] Codd.
* veteres constanter, dicit ; ut Gr. A.e-
yei. y.wdovKis aov yap dpi. et Vulg.
Conservus enirn tuus sum] Atqui Alex.
Arethas, Andreas, Athanasius, Copt.
Syr. Graeci Codd. omnes tollunt yap;
et Latini itidem omnes et Cyprianus
tollunt enim. Verba prophetiee libri]
Latini veteres omnes tollunt prophetiee.
X. aOri b Kaipbs iyyvs iariv] Sic An¬
dreas, et Cyprianus bis, Quia jam tern-
pus in proximo est. Sed Alex. Codices
Gr. plures, Syr. Copt. Latini omnes,
'O Kaigbs yap iyyvs iariv. Graeci
cgteri, 6 Kaipbs iyyvs iariv. desunt Sn
9 Et dicit mihi, Vide ne
feceris : conservus tuus sum,
et fratrum tuorum prophet-
arum, et eorum qui servant
verba libri lmjus : Deum
adora.
10 Et dicit mihi, Ne signa-
veris verba prophetite libri
hujus : tempus enim prope
est.
1 1 Qui nocet noceat adhuc,
et qui in sordibus est sordes-
cat adhuc, et justus justitiam
faciat adhuc, et sanctus sanc-
tificetur adhuc.
12 Ecce venio cito : et
9 Et dixit mihi. conservus enim
tuus, verba prophetice libri. 11 et qui
justus est justificetur adhuc.
et yap. XI. Kal 6 pviruv pviruaano
cTi] Deest hoc comma in Alex, et
duobus Gallicis errore librariorum ob
repetitionem toD Sri. At ceteri fere
omnes, Andreas, Arethas, Complut. 6
(>vwapbs pvirapevdrira) Sri. Origenes ad
Johannem bis, 6 (ixmapbs pvnavdr]rui
Sri. Idem ibid, aliud membrum addit,
‘fly <3 'loiavvps (pTjal, Kal 6 Kadagbs Ka-
Sapiadrirw Sn (MS. Oxon. KadagOpru)
Kal 6 ay. ayiaaOrirtv. Kal 6 dinaios di-
Kataifl^Tw] Alex, et Codd. ceteri omnes,
Andreas, Arethas, Complut. Latin.
Syr. Copt. diKaioavvr] v irongaarw. Cy¬
prianus bis ; Justus justiora faciat ad¬
huc. Et qui justus est justificetur
adhuc] Veteres Codd. fere omnes, Et
justus justitiam faciat adhuc. XII.
Kal <5ov] Delent «al Alex. Codd.
[* Sn, Kal 6 Sue.] Sn. 6 din. ; Speciminis ed. pr. — D.]
‘{t ’IwawT/s] om. Spec. ed. pr. — D.]
Ke<£. /c/3' .
ALLOKAATWEnZ .
493
6 fucrOos fiov peer ep,ov, arro-
hovvcu e/caarcp cos to ep.
14 Ma/cdpLOL oi 'irXvvovres
ras aroXds avrcov, lya earau
rj i^ovala avrcov eVl to %vXov
rrjs &rjs, /cat Tot? TrvXdoaiv
elaeXdcoaiv els rrjv ttoXlv.
15 ''E%co ol kv yes /cal oi
13 ’Etco el/jLL rb A /cal t!> fl, apxi?
/cal reXos, 6 irpccros /cal o etr^aTos. 14
M anapioi oi ■noiovvres ras ivroXas av¬
rov, iva. 15 ',E|a> 5e oi Kvves. iras 6
(piAwv.
plerique omnes, Arethas, Complut.
Syr. Copt. Latini Codd. omnes. Cy-
prianus bis. VE pyov avrov earai]
Alex. Gallicus unus, Syr. earlv avrov.
XIII. 'Eyd e. K&.
(frapfJLaicol /cal ol iropvoL /cal
oi 'Irjaovs eirepv^ra
rov dyyeXov ptov, p,apTvpr)craL
vpiiv ravra iv rac<; i/c/cXij-
c tlcus . iLycD etfii rj pt^a Kai
to v. XVI. ’E7rt ra?s eKKXT]crlais~\
'Ev rats Alex. Codd. 2 Gallici. Athana¬
sius. Deest praepositio in Codd. multis.
ToO AafilS ] Omittunt * rov Alex. Codd.
multi, Athanasius, Andreas, Arethas.
Porro omnes Graeci AavlS, vel coin-
pendiose SaS. Nusquam invenitur Aa-
018. Aapirpos Kal 6 opdpivbs ] Alex. Kal
6 irpoivos. sed ceteri Codd. cum Atha-
nasio, Andrea, Aretha, Complut. ngw-
< vos. XVII. ’EA0e — iXOe — iXdereo]
et inpudici et homicides et
idolis servientes, et omnis qui
amat et facit mendacium.
16 Ego Jesus misi angelum
meum, testificari vobis hsec in
ecclesiis. ego sum radix et
genus Davids stella splendida
et matutina.
17 Et spiritus et sponsa
dicunt, Yeni : et qui audit
dicat; Veni : et qui sitit ve-
niat : qui vult accipiat aquam
vitee gratis.
18 Contestor ego omni au-
dienti verba prophetiae libri
hujuS; Siquis adposuerit ad
haec; adponet Deus super
17 et qui vult. 18 Contestor enim
omni.
Alex, et ceteri omnes, Athanas. And.
Arethas, Complut. epxov — *PX0V — 6V~
X^erdu. Kal 6 OeXarv Xafifiaveroo rb C5a>p]
Omittunt Kal, et postea liabent <3 6e-
Xcov f Xafieroo vSc up, Alex. Codd. fere
omnes, Athanasius, Andreas, Com¬
plut. Et qui vult] Codd. Latini ve-
teres tollunt et.\ XVIII. 2 v/xpiaprvp-
ovp.ai 7ap] Alex, et alii Codd. plerique
et Complut. et Andreas fxaprvgcb eycb:
pauci cum Aretha paprvpopai eyw :
[* Omittunt] “ Deest Speciminis ed. pr.— D.]
[f Omittunt Kal, et postea liabent 6 0eA.] “ Deest Kal, et postea 6 6e A.
Spec. ed. pr. — D.]
[+ Et qui vult] Codd. Latini veteres tollunt et\ om. Spec. ed. pr. — D.]
Keep. k/3'.
AnOKAATWEnH.
495
^TriOrjcreL 6 Geos €7r avfov *
t«9 rrXrjyds rds yeypappuevas
iv to) fiifiXiw Touray
19 Kcd idv ns dcfreXr) diro
rcov Xorycov tov /3i/3Xlov rr/s
7rpocfi7)T€La<; tuvtt) 9, acfteXei 6
@609 TO p,ipOS dVTOV aTTO TOV
tjvXoy TTjS ^Cofjs, /cai e/e tt)s
rroXecos ttjs ay Ids, tmv . tc/3r.
21 'H x^Pl Pag. 9. ' 1 Paf?- 9-
512
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
must certainly be looked for in the Old Testament : •> but pre¬
sently he revokes that, and declares, that neither our Master
nor any man else knows where to find them.k Give honest
Timon his due : he has spoke one true thing in his pamphlet.
As to places, indeed, where mystery is, a man cannot miss ;
but for particular places of Scripture where order of words
is, exclusive to others where (it seems) there’s no order of
words, I would challenge Argus himself or Lynceus to spy
them.
No one writer , continues our censor, that I have yet heard
of, has ever affirmed that the order of words in the New Tes¬
tament is mysterious : and I could shew from twenty places of
St. Hierom, that he never in the least dreamt of confining him¬
self to the order of words in any of his versions.
To his noise and bounce of twenty passages in St. Hierom,
I return again (for he deserves no other) the blunt answer of
Father Valerian. But since he never heard of one writer
(wonderful in the onmiscious Timon), I’ll endeavour to help
his hearing. St. Hierom himself, in his Commentary on the
Ephesians, cap. iii., says thus : I know the adding of the pre¬
position CON in the words coheredes, concorporales, and
comparticipes, makes but an odd figure in the Latin tongue;
yet because that preposition is in the Greek, and because in
the divine writings every WORD, SYLLABLE, TITTLE,
and POINT, ARE FULL OF SENSES, we choose there¬
fore rather to forego the composition and structure of the
words than to weaken the meaning What says our censor
now ? Are not syllables, tittles, points, as small things as
the order of words ; or can those subsist without this ? Is
not plena sunt sensibus, full of senses, deep, latent, recondite
j Pag. 9. k Pag. 10.
1 Scio appositionem conjunctionis ejus, per quam dicitur, coheredes et con¬
corporales, et comparticipes, indecoram facere in Latino sermone sententiam : sed
quia ita habetur in Graeco, et singuli SERMONES, SYLLABLE, APICES,
PUNCTA, in divinis Scripturis plena sunt SENSIBUS, . . magis volumus in
compositione structuraque verborum, quam intelligentia periclitari. [Hieron.
Opp. t. iv. p. i. p. 350. ed. 1693. — D.]
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
513
senses, as strong an expression as mystery ? Is not this
spoke of the New Testament , and of the Greek ? To quote
more to the same purpose would be running into common¬
place ; but this alone is sufficient to let our censor see that
there are more things in the Fathers than every casuistic
drudge* can find in the pious and polite volumes of Diana
and Escobar.
That the Latin interpreters of Scripture confined them¬
selves in their versions to the order of words (except in cases
of necessity, where, though the original was clear, the version
by its ambiguity might create an absurd or impious sense), is
both plain in fact at this day, and affirmed by the Fathers
themselves. And though every body perhaps did not know
this, yet nobody but a hard-faced Timon would have the
confidence to deny it. St. Hilary, in his Commentary on the
lxviith Psalm: Laboriosius autem, says he, et obscurius,
dum COLLOCATIONES VERBORUM non demutat, trans¬
late Latina declarat : ceterum absolutius totum hoc sermo e
Graeco enuntiatus eloquitur. And again on the same Psalm :
Id . . his verbis, quae Latine minus expresse atque absolute
translata sunt, continetur : admonui enim superius, plerumque
interpretes cunctos, dum COLLOCATIONEM ORDINEM-
QUE VERBORUM demutare ac temperare non audent,
minus dilucide proprietatem declarasse dictorumf Here it’s
expressly said twice, that while ALL the (Latin) inter¬
preters DARED not to CHANGE the COLLOCATION
and ORDER of Words (in the Greek), they frequently ex¬
pressed that obscurely which in the original was clear. Pray,
how came they not to dare to change the order, even to the
detriment of the sense, unless they thought there was mys¬
tery inJt ? And if they were so scrupulous in translating the
Greek Septuagint, can they be supposed to make more bold
and free with the Evangelists and Apostles ?
The matter of fact verifies this : there are four or five
[* An allusion to Colbatch’s professorship: see p. 481. — D.]
[f Hilar. Opp. pp. 197, 203. ed. 1693. — D.]
VOL. III. 3 u
514
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
very old MSS. extant with the Greek on one hand and a
Latin version on the other ; the Beza’s MS. at Cambridge
containing the Gospels and Acts, another of the Acts at
Oxford, three more of St. Paul’s epistles at Paris and else¬
where. In all these line answers to line, and word to word
in order. Such books as these gave the model to the Latin
versions that had no Greek joined with them. Order of
words is preserved in all, allowing for the negligence of
copiers. Even the passages cited by the Latin Fathers as
carefully pursue the order as those in the Greek Fathers
cited from the original : and our Master makes that use of
both of them in his edition. Old Timon now will go puzzle
himself, and try this by experience. But what criterion
has he to try by ? He’ll find hundreds of variations in the
printed books, which in our Master’s manuscripts will be all
found to agree.
Methinks I have breathed in clear air while I was writing
this last page ; I must now return to fog and dulness, and
follow Timon where he carries me. He brings111 a long cita¬
tion out of HieronPs letter to Austin ; but his usual fate
attends him, that it makes directly against him. The case
is this : St. Austin, in a prior letter, had expostulated with
Hierom, why in his former translation of Job out of the
LXX. he had added marks, obels and asterisks, to deter¬
mine every word to the greatest niceness ; but in his new
translation of Job from the Hebrew, non eadem verborum
fides occurrit,* the same vouching for the words was not found ?
This shews what St. Austin expected in a translator of Scrip¬
ture. To this St. Hierom replies, that there was no need of
such marks in a version where nothing was added or left
out ; he having translated it exactly from the Hebrew, but
sensuum potius veritatem, quam VERBORUM ORDINEM
INTERDUM conserv antes, t SOMETIMES preserving the
trueness of the sense rather than the ORDER OF WORDS.
m Pag. 9, 10. [* Hieron. Opp. t. iv. r. n. p. (jlO. ed. 1093. — D.]
[f Hieron. Opp. t. iv. r. ii. p. 626. ed. 1693. — D.]
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
515
Is not this demonstration, that Hierom (and other inter¬
preters) strove as much as possible to adhere to the order ?
Sometimes , he says, he was forced to vary from it, and that
in J ob, the difficultest book of the whole Scripture ; the
sense of which, as he says in another place, is so slippery ,
that like an eel or a lamprey , the more you think to hold it,
the sooner it slides out of your hand.
But for all this our censor still persists, that the notion is
absurd and impossible, a silly fancy of our Master’s.11 Ne
scevi, magne sacerdos : * rude words will not do the busi¬
ness. He’ll prove too, from Erasmus, Arias Montanus,
and Beza, that the vulgar Latin often deserts the Greek.0 If
our Master begs subscriptions, as Timon reproaches him,
sagacious Timon will be even with him in begging the question.
Why, what Greek, what Vidgate? those that they saw and
used. But each of those will differ from our Master’s Greek
and Vulgate in thousands of places. If theirs had agreed
two centuries ago, then indeed our Master’s edition would
now be as useless and needless as Timon would gladly make
it. But we need go no farther, continues he, than our
author’s own Specimen, where in the Latin text, as it stands
dressed up by himself, we see MANY considerable variations
in the order of words from the Greek, viz. verse ii. v. viii. ix.
xii. xiv. tyc. p
And I say, we need go no farther than this paragraph
for a specimen of the greatest malice and impudence that
ever scribbler out of the dark committed to paper. Why,
courteous Timon, if our Master’s own Specimen had so con¬
futed his Proposals, he might have been begged (which you
may be in danger of) for a lunatic ; there needed no pam¬
phlet to quash the edition : your spleen and envy might have
been reserved for another occasion. Of the six variations
that our censor brings, four are no variations of order.
Verse ii. rov 7 rora/iov evrevOev /cal e/ceide v, you cannot
translate word for word without a barbarism, fluvii liinc et
» pag. 10. [* Virg. JEn. vi. 544. “ magna sac.” — D.]
0 Ibid. . >' Pag. 10.
516 ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
hide : so that this is no breach of order, but an equivalent
expression, which the translator was forced to. So verse xii.
ce 9 to epyov e err Iv avrov, ’twould have been most awkward in
Latin, sicut opus est ejus ; he judiciously therefore changed
the whole, reddere unicuique SECUNDUM OPERA SUA.
Verse ix. there’s no change, 6 pa p.rj, vide ne feceris, but a
necessary addition of a word ; use and custom among the
Latins not allowing the Greek aposiopesis. Verse xiv.
Father Valerian again ; for there’s not the least change
either in word or order. And then for his etcetera , O truth,
O sincerity, O conscientious director of conscience ! ’Twas
to insinuate there were many more behind : I do affirm,
any one may see, and he well knew, there’s not one more.
So that all his MANY CONSIDERABLES are dwindled
to two ; and those we shall see of what great consideration.
Ver. v. ouk ear at ext, ultra non erit instead of non erit ultra.
Verse viii. rov Bei/cvvovros poi ravra, qui mihi hcec osten-
debat for qui ostendebat mihi hcec.
And now are not these variations of the highest import¬
ance both for number and sense ? In the next page the
wretch can insinuate, that our Master will wrest and force
both texts, to make them answer as well as he can, to his
hypothesis : ^ and his native stupidity could not let him see
that the one of these accusations contradicts and confutes
the other. For if our Master was disposed to warp and
force his texts, how easily could he have set those two places
in the right order, and have kept his own counsel ! Can we
desire a greater instance of his fidelity and sincerity in the
promised edition ? He left those places as he found them,
not yet having seen any MSS. that represent them other¬
wise. He feared not but that all men of common sense
and common candour would look on the ccclx. hits that
are in that chapter, and not from two small slips imagine
that all those agreements came by chance, without the
translator’s design or thought ; would look more on the
xxx. variations that appeared, before his Specimen, between
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
517
the two texts, and are now reconciled from the hest copies,
than on two trifling variations that still remain. And, pray,
has our Master undertook or promised that not one variation
shall remain in the whole New Testament? To accomplish
that, after xm. centuries, though he had all the copies in
the world, would be a sort of miracle. All he declares is
only this, that he succeeds in his essay beyond his expectation
or even his hopes. And we may venture it upon this very
Specimen, if he has not exceeded other men’s expectations
and hopes as much as his own.
But to return to our censor ; he tells us for news, that
Robert Stephens and Monsieur Toinard reckoned the Latin
Vulgate as good as one Greek exemplar. r And so do
others : and not that only, but the Syriac and Coptic. The
Greek LXX. served Cappellus and others for an exemplar of
the Hebrew. But what this is to our Master’s edition I
cannot conjecture. While our censor was hunting for mate¬
rials, he lit upon these two scraps, and resolved not to lose
them. But Dr. Mill has retrieved the true readings of the
OLD Vulgate with the very Greek from whence they were
taken, which was probably that of the age next to the apostles. s
Our censor does not know one tittle of what he says here,
nor what the Old Vulgate means. Before St. Ilierom’s time
there were innumerable Latin translations (as St. Austin tes¬
tifies), that went about in the western churches, all differing
from each other (as both he and St. Hierom say), and con¬
sequently most if not all of them faulty, being translated
from faulty Greek ones. And by that occasion there are
at this day more variations from the present Greek than by
all the other copies in the world. And Dr. Mill, who took
all that heap of those vitious copies for one, under the name
of Vetus Italica, superstitiously and ignorantly made it his
idol; and has quite spoiled, not his edition, but his Prolego¬
mena by it ; which, though he gives us as his last thoughts,
to over-rule every thing that he had wrote before on the
r Pag. 11.
* Pag. 11.
518
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
text, is a piece of the most unfortunate and erroneous critic
that ever saw the light. Amicus Millius, sed magis arnica
veritas. I shall say more of it by and by.
Our censor concludes his Remarks on this second para¬
graph with a smart push ad hominem, out of our Master’s
sermon upon popery. In that, it seems, he had blamed
the papists for exalting the authority of the Latin trans¬
lation above the Greek original; and now Zoilus, with his
great penetration, discovers that our Master by his promised
edition is doing much the same thing :*• and then he runs to
his fusty common-place out of the Council of Trent and Bel-
larmine. I must reply with honest Geta in the comedy,*
- Nihil est, Zoile ,
Quin male narrando possit depravarier.
The case is entirely different : the Popes have authorised
and authenticated a particular edition, which is frequently
faulty; our Master, before he uses the Vulgate , corrects it
from better MSS. than they either had or knew how to use,
in thousands of places : he takes it only as an assistant,
directing us to discover the genuine Greek ; he never once
makes the genuine Greek bend and yield to the Latin, nor
deserts that to comply with this. Neither does he print the
Latin with any other view than as a good voucher of xm.
hundred years’ age, that the Greek, which out of many
varieties our Master selects for his text, is that genuine text
that was in public use in the in. and iv. centuries. And
here indeed comes the use and service of that judgment and
experience which our Master speaks of as characters requi¬
sites Here are xxx. thousand variations already published
of the Greek ; and I have heard him say, that he has met
with as many in the copies of the Vulgate itself. Find me
now the clue (which Zoi'lusv grins at) to extricate us out of
1 Pag. 11, 12.
[* Ter. Phorm. iv. 4. 15. “ Nihil est, Antipho, Quin,” &c. — D.]
u Proposals, parag. 5.
v Pag. 7. [See note, p. 505. — D.]
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
519
this double labyrinth. I dare say, were our Master’s talents
to be exchanged for Zo'ilus’s, the labyrinths might continue
oil; a perpetual puzzle and maze,
- Qua signa sequendi
Falleret indeprensus et inremeabilis error.*
Our Master, so far from raising the Vulgate above the ori¬
ginal, is very sure that the author of it has translated the
Greek wrong in hundreds of places. But he’s as useful to
our Master’s purpose when lie’s wrong as when lie’s right.
If he translates 7rapatca\u> by exhortor, when he should do
it by consolor, he still shews he read 7rapaKa\do in his Greek
copy, which is all our Master wants of him.
But our censor cannot take one step but ignorance and
mistake follow him. Our Master there t tells the Papists,
that more ancient manuscripts are preserved of the Greek than
they can shew of the Latin. This is thus varied by our
censor , that there are FEWER ancient MSS. preserved of the
Latin than of the Greek.™ What our Master says more ancient ,
a comparative, ancienter, antiquiores, our censor understood
more in number, plures antiqui codices. A thing false, and
worthy only of him. Four or five extant copies of the
Greek are older than any Latin one yet known ; but in the
whole, for copies of a thousand years’ age, there are twenty
Latin ones preserved for one Greek. And now at last we
have travelled through dirty roads and dull prospects to
Paragraph the Third.
Our Master had said in this paragraph, that the exemplar
of Origen was the standard to the most learned of the Fathers,
and he believed for the most part he had retrieved it. Upon
this, our snarling censor, like a dog biting at the stone that’s
thrown at him, out of his scanty and beggarly common-place,
[* Virg. JEn. v. 590.— D.]
[f i.e. in the Sermon on Popery: see p. 247. — H.]
w Pag. 11.
520
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
for a whole page together* falls foul on the great Origen.
In which attempt, too, he has shewn himself inferior to
Homer’s Margites, with whose name I at first honoured
him. For of the poet’s Margites it is said or sung,
''O 9 gev hricTTaro rrroWci, /ca/coos S' rjTrlaTaro 7rdvra :*
but of our censor wre may truly say,
'O? fxev eTTLararo rravpa, kcikco 9 S' yirlaraTo Ka\ rd.
The old hero knew many things, but every thing wrong;
the modern one knows but few things, and even those wrong.
Origen, we grant, was heterodox, and warped the Christian
doctrines to the systems of Pagan philosophy. But what’s
this to his exemplar of the New Testament? which was fol¬
lowed even by those who declaimed most fiercely against his
peculiar opinions.
But our censor cannot find any high character of Origen’ s
copy in any author he has yet consulted on this occasion J
Emphatically spoken ! ’Twas on this occasion only he
dipped into these inquiries; and so without spleen or envy
resolved to search for materials against our Master’s Pro¬
posals, before he knew what would be the issue of that
search ;
Et si non aligua nocuisset , mortuus esset. t
But it seems he had not leisure enough from his drudging
office J in the cloudy cases of Escobar and Caramuel to
search to any purpose.
To help him out at a pinch, I’ll supply him with two
passages out of the author he would seem most acquainted
with, St. Hierom himself : Comment, on Matthew , cap. xxiv.
De die autem ilia et hora nemo scit, neque angeli ccelorum , nisi
Pater solus. In quibusdam Latinis codicibus additum est,
Neque Filius ; cum in Greeds et maxime Adamantii et Pierii
x Pag. 13.
[* See note, vol. ii. p. 14 of the present ed. of Bentley’s Works. — D.]
y Pag. 12. [f Virg. Eel. iii. 15. — “ nocuisses, mortuus esses.” — D.]
[t Sec note, p. 513. — D.J
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
521
exemplaribus hoc non liaheatur ads crip turn.* And on Galatians ,
cap. iii. 0 insensati Galatee, quis vos fascinavit ? . . . Legitur
in quibusdam codicibus, Quis vos fascinavit NON CREDERE
VERITATI ? Sed hoc quia in exepiplaribus Adamantii non
habetur, omisimus.f Is not this the utmost deference to
OrigeiTs copy ? Some copies, says he, add gg vreideaQai rfj
aXgOeta: but because Origen’ s copies own not those words, we
leave them out. He declares in another place, that he got
a collation from Origen^s own original in the library at
Caesarea. And so Euthalius, a learned Greek Father, did,
about the same time. What shall we say now to the plod¬
ding pupil of Escobar? Either he was very hasty in his
consulting on this occasion ; or else he did not know that
Adamantius was Origen, and so in his hunting lost the
scent.
But he found something in his hunting (if, instead of a
hare, he sprung not a cat), that St. Hierom says in a letter to
St. Austin, that the text (of the New Testament) was rather
corrupted than mended by Origen .z This is the letter men¬
tioned here above about the obels and asterisks. a St.
Hierom, being piqued a little at St. Austin for preferring his
old version of Job out of Origew’s Hexapla before his new
out of the Hebrew; Et miror, says he, quod LXX. interpre-
tum libros legas, non puros ut ab eis editi sunt, sed ab Origene
EMENDATOS sive CORRUPTOS per obelos et asteriscos ;
et Christiani hominis interpret at iunculam non sequaris :% that
is, I wonder you’ll read the Books of the Septuagint, not
pure and neat as the LXX. published them, but as they are
MENDED or MARRED by Origen with his obels and as¬
terisks ; and not read my book, that am a Christian. Pray
observe, mended or marred; which refers to the Hexapla,
where Origen had put marks, obels to denote what was not
in the Hebrew, and asterisks to shew what was not in the
[* Hieron. Opp. t. iv. r. i. p. 118. ed. 1693. — D.]
[f Hieron. Opp. t. iv. r. i. p. 249. ed. 1693. — D.] 7 Pag. 13.
a Pag. 514 [i. e. of the present Answer. — D.]
[J Hieron. Opp. t. iv. r. ir. p. 626. where, “ Et miror quomodo &c. — 1).]
VOL. III. 3 X
522
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
LXX., but supplied out of Theodotion’s version. This inter¬
polation of the LXX. out of Theodotion our learned Father in
a little pet calls mending or marring , though he himself had
translated the LXX. so marred. Now, let any man find out
how this belongs to the copies of the New Testament, and
thence let him judge of Suffenus’s judgment, and confess
that his intellect is as dark as his countenance.
Our censor brings Huetius and Dr. Mill to vouch that
Origen in his writings makes use of several copies of the New
Testament .b As if this was any thing to the purpose. Why,
for that very reason, he was so useful then to the church,
and now to our Master’s edition. He may be called the first
Christian critic ; he gathered from all parts the exemplars of
the best note, examined and collated them, and by those
helps, as good critics do now, settled the genuine text of
Scripture ; which was received afterwards by both eastern
and western churches as a standard. Had he used hut one
copy, he had done then no more service than any other
Father ; and, considering how few of his writings have been
preserved, had done less at this day than many other.
Ay, but St. Ambrose tells us, that Origen’s authority was
not near so great in the New as in the Old Testament : cum
ipse Origenes longe minor sit in Novo, quam in Veteri Testa-
mento.c The meaning is no more than this. St. Ambrose
had allegorically interpreted a passage of the New Testament
very speciously and plausibly. Whereupon his friend de¬
sires him to try the like upon another place proposed. I’ll
endeavour it, replies the Father, though in the New Testa¬
ment it’s difficult ; since even Origen himself (that incom¬
parable allegorist) got less reputation in his essays on the New
Testament than he had got on the Old. This is all the matter ;
and the reason is plain. For in the Old Testament all his
allegories referred to the New ; but in the New he could
refer to nothing but either common notions or visionary
schemes of his own. Now, what’s this to the Greek Testa-
b Pag. 13.
c Pag. 20, 21. [Ambr. Opp. Lt. ii. p. 1083. ed. 1686. — D.]
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
523
ment ? And yet our censor filched this passage from Hue-
tius, out of the same page he had just quoted ;d and, like an
ignorant thief, offers it to sale without knowing the value
of it.
But our Master pretends to retrieve the true exemplar of
Origen ; and yet our censor finds, upon examining his notes in
the Specimen, that he gives but three various readings from
Origen , and instead of retrieving rejects them all as falser A
spiteful examiner indeed ! He has caught our Master, as he
thinks, and has him fast in a cleft stick. But here again
we have occasion for his characters requisite , judgment and
experience. Every reading that now appears in the edition
of any Father is not certainly the reading of that Father.
The copyists made as many or more blunders in transcribing
the Fathers as in transcribing the Scriptures. Dr. Mill, who
meddled with no MSS. but those of the Testament, seems to
have thought, at least acts as if he thought, that no other
book was faulty but it. Thence, through all his Prolegomena
he passes his censure upon the copy that each Father used,
these places in it were corrupt : when all the while it’s much
more probable the corruption lies not in the Father’s copy,
but in the copyists of the Father. This is known to our
Master in many instances, where the doctor’s corrupt read¬
ings out of a printed Father are corrected by the MSS. of
that very Father. Though our Master, therefore, gives these
three readings out of Origen as they now stand, he has
reason to be satisfied they were not the true readings of
Origen. If that were all the business, to take the present
readings out of Origen’s works, and clap them all into the
text, even our censor's low talents and vicious taste would be
sufficient for a new edition.
Our Master had said, that 30,000 various readings now
crowd the pages of our best editions , all put upon equal credit ,
to the offence of many good persons .f Here our pious calum¬
niator first mangles the sentence, and knowingly puts a false
rt Huetius, pag. 239. c Pa8- 14.
f Parag. 3.
524
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
sense upon it, and then cries out, A piece of grimace , in±
sincerity, imposing on the senses of mankind. & A piece of
grimace indeed, so habitual to our Timon, that he acts it
every day ; first wilfully mistakes the words that are said to
him, and then bawls and bellows against a phantom of his
own making.
Well, in spite of the plainest words, our Master must
needs mean, that the number of readings gives the offence :
and then Timon exults, as if he had taken him in a contra¬
diction to himself and to common sense ; for, says he, in his
Remarks on the Free-thinkers, he rallies and exposes as weak
and ridiculous, that offence at the great number of various
readings)1 You see, sir, how some theologues would reward
our Master for that piece of service against the free-thinkers.
But why, forsooth, in contradiction to common sense ? Had
the learned Dr. Whitby, and the greater part of the clergy,
that from his alarum took that offence, no common sense at
that time ? Did not atheists and sceptics lay hold on the
advantage, to the perverting of many laymen, and to the
great terror of the churchmen ? If our Master at that time
by a seasonable book delivered them from the panic, and
restored them (as it now seems) to common sense , pray let
not our Master be now treated as if he alone is without it.
The short of it is this : number of various readings in the
Holy Scriptures is not a desirable good, but a necessary
evil : in tract of time it was unavoidable, from human nature
and circumstances of things. And though our Master is not
frightened at that number, or even a greater, and may have
recovered others from their fright, yet he believes and is
sure, that he that out of that heap of confusion can cull out
the genuine readings by a fair touchstone, and restore the
text to truth, certainty, and order, will do eminent service,
if not to some present party men, yet to posterity and com¬
mon Christianity .
But our censor, having got (as he thought) by his paltry
calumny a fair blow at our Master, is now willing to see the
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
525
true meaning, that perhaps it is not the number of the read¬
ings, but their being all put upon equal credit, that gives the
off ence : the contrary of which, says he, is directly and evi¬
dently true.1 O patience, the queen of virtues ! how salu¬
tary is thy aid, when one is yoked with such a wretch ! But
resentment apart ; the repute of craziness and madness* is
to some men an useful privilege, and covers a multitude of
faults. That the readings in Dr. Mill’s edition, which ac¬
company the text, are put upon equal credit, without rejec¬
tion or preference, except in some places that make the
present points of controversy, is certain and notorious.
But he gives, says our censor, in his Prolegomena a par¬
ticular and distinct account of the different antiquity, author¬
ity, and correctness of the several manuscripts : and how can
the readings be put upon the same degree of credit, and the
copies upon different ones ? Of any other writer, I should be
tempted to say, he had never looked into those Prolegomena ;
but of swarthy Timon I dare not affirm it, for his stupidity
is so substantial, that though he really read them all over,
he may know nothing of the matter.
Dr. Mill, in his xxx. years’ incredible labour, fancied
he had found above two thousand places (as Mr. Markius
counts them) where the present text of Stephens ought to be
altered. All these he has particularised in his Prolegomena,
not in order and sequel of book, chapter, and verse, to make
them visible, obvious, and easy for use, but has sown them
and thrown them about at random, giving every Father,
every edition, every manuscript a snack ; so that the most
recent, most vile and contemptible of all, may have some
share in the honour of his genuine readings. Pag- clxiv.
he gives the character of a manuscript that it is cliartaceum,
manu recenti, not vellum, but paper, and of a recent hand ;
and yet this worthy one has xi. of his true readings against
‘ Pag. 14.
[* But Colbatch certainly was never “ reputed” either crazy or mad :
Bentley seems to have grounded this cruel insinuation on the eccentricities of
his brother: see p. 53 3 and note. — I).]
526
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
the present text. And so he deals with the rest of them.
And if this is not, tell what is, to put all copies upon equal
credit ? Why impute to a scrub manuscript, which our
Master would scorn to look into, the readings that appear
in others nine hundred years older ? For assure yourself,
in that and such other recent copies, not one good reading
is found that is not found in the old ones. But the doctor’s
design was, to distribute his genuine readings so, that every
one of his manuscripts might look considerable. And pray,
what is his criterion of genuine readings ? He has two
characteristics to judge by (as any one that will peruse his
Prolegomena will see), omissions and solecisms. If a word or
words are omitted in any copies, out they must go as inter¬
polations : these make 1500 at least out of his 2000. And
what is very extraordinary, the more signilicancy, the more
importance the omitted words have, the more confident he
is that they are spurious and interpolated ; and for this
specious reason, Quis sanus tarn insigne verbum omiserit ,
preeterierit, expunxerit ? Wliat copyist in his wits would
leave out so considerable a word , if he found it in the exemplar
that he transcribed ? This argument and expression comes
fifty times at least in those Prolegomena. One may say,
Quis sanus could argue at this rate ? Is a word, so con¬
ducing to the clearness, grace, and beauty of the sentence
(as the Dr. often allows), and confirmed by the oldest copies
and versions, to be cast out of the text because one drunken
or drowsy stationer’s boy happened to omit it ? God forbid :
and yet this is his perpetual manner. The other is solecism ;
which decides the remainder of his genuine readings. If in
a few or in one manuscript there’s a reading that makes an
avarco\ov6ov, an absurdity, a barbarism, he seldom fails to
warrant it for true. In short, in his scheme, whatever ap¬
pears bright and elegant (if one copy does but fail in’t) is an
emendation of some copyist ; whatever appears impolite,
idiotic, absurd, (if the most scoundrel copy countenances it)
is manus apostoli. I am sensible this free dealing of mine
will not be grateful to our Master ; but his adversaries must
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
527
answer for it, who, by their malice and impudence, have
made it necessary.
But our censor quarrels with our Master for his slovenly
and suspicious way of quoting manuscripts, Gallici quatuor,
Anglici tres, &cJ There’s no dealing on the square either
with a fool or a knave. In our Master’s edition all the
tnanuscripts he uses will be specified, not in the lump, as in
Stephenses and Mill’s, but before every book of the New
Testament. For there are very few good manuscripts that
contain the whole ; and the neglect of this indication very
often makes great mistakes. They will be distinguished by
letters, for brevity’s sake. A, B, C, &c. a, ft, 7, &c. But
how could this be done in the Specimen ? All sensible men
perceived this ; but dulness leavened with malice allows no
favour nor quarter.
Our censor presages, that, from the proportion of this
Specimen, the pages of our Master’s edition are still like to be
crowded with the old round number of xxx. thousand vari¬
ations A Pray let them be 30,000 ; and if more, the merrier ;
provided they subside to the bottom of the pages, and pre¬
tend not to rise into the text itself. Fll assure him our
Master will not set out a text, and decide against it himself
in 2000 places. And so we are arrived at
Paragraph the Fourth,
in which our merciful censor will not give us much trouble.
He first predicts that our Master’s edition will fall much
below the former ones, and especially Dr. Mill’s r1 and to
this, since you know by this time our censor’s size and
abilities, we leave the edition itself to answer.
But he says, it is certain that our Master does not under¬
stand a tittle of any one of the versions he pretends to make
use o/.m So certain, does old conscience say ? He can make,
you see, a good affidavit man ; and ’twas ungenerous in him
to balk his friend Conyers, and leave him under peril of
i Pag. 15.
1 Pag. 15.
k Pag. 15.
m Pag. lfi.
528
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
the pillory.* I would ask dear misanthrope a couple of
short questions. Has not he read Mill’s Prolegomena, where
the doctor fairly professes he knew nothing of the Oriental
tongues, nor Gothic, nor Saxon, but made use in the two
last of his friend Dr. Marshall, and in the others of the
Latin translations in the Polyglot Bible ? Whence is it then
that Dr. Mill with these defects has merited the character
of incredible pains and industry, and our Master under the
same defects can have no grain of allowance ? But how
knows the veracious Timon what he affirms to be so certain?
I have had the honour to see a sort of hexapla, a thick
volume in quarto, made and writ by our Master with his
own hand before he was xxiv. years old ; in the first column
of which is every word of the Hebrew Bible alphabetical ;
in five other columns all the various interpretations of those
words in the Chaldee, Syriac, Vulgate Latin, Septuagint, and
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, that occur in the whole
Bible. This he made for his private use, to know the
Hebrew, not from the late Rabbins, but the ancient versions ;
when, bating Arabic, Persic, Ethiopic, he read over the whole
Polyglot. And I saw, too, another volume in quarto, of
various lections and emendations of the Hebrew text, drawn
out of these ancient versions, which, though done in those
green years, would make a second part to the famous Cap-
pellus’s Critica Sacra. In
Paragraph the Fifth
our censor assures us, with the same confidence, that our
Master’s whole life has been spent in critical niceties and
observations on classic authors.n The fitter, for that, as I
think, to give an edition of the Greek Testament. The
[* See note, p. 499. — “ But though he flies to the law himself, as an injured,
libelled person, yet he makes no scruple, we see, to libel me and others too as
much as he pleases ; and, with a modesty peculiar to himself, prejudges the very
cause now depending, and condemns me even to the pillory.” Middleton’s Farther
Remarks, &c. p. 3. — D.]
" Pag. 16.
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
529
world has seen what poor work is made in this kind by
mere theologues without classical letters. But how came
Timon to forget that our Master, while he was only deacon ,
had the honour to be the first preacher of Mr. Boyle’s lec¬
ture ; and gave the world a volume of sermons that have
been translated abroad into several languages ? Do those con¬
sist of nothing but critical niceties? But this is the venom
of such vermin as our Timon. If a man is distinguished
in one part of learning, he’s not allowed to know any thing
else ; for why, say they, does he not publish that too ? By
this rule, what must Timon’s life and studies be supposed to
have been spent in ? In libelling and defaming. For as soon
as he came from Portugal (where he stayed not long, but
much longer than the Factory wished), he libelled that court
and country too,* with such paltry stuff as Dr. Edwards
told him in print was below any kitchen wench. Since that
time the world has seen nothing of his but libels and pam¬
phlets to the same tune ; one of which appears in his own
name, but most lie under the cover of the musicalf Conyers.
Our Master has declared in this paragraph, that he'll not
alter one letter in the text without the authorities subjoined in
the notes. This must not pass without a fling ; for Timon
says, that the Dutch orator and our Master's old friend Peter
Burman, whom he has quoted in the title-page , has told us
already what we are to expect: the substance of which is,
that a critic long used to cut and slash profane writings will
hardly keep his cruel fingers from the Scripture itself.0 I
thank our dear English casuist% for quoting the Dutch orator.
Here’s an instance of his stupor and insensibility beyond
any of the famous Tom Coryat. Mr. Burman’ s oration,
made last year, when he laid down his office of rector mag-
nificus, a very fine one in its way, is all writ in Lucian’s
manner, a thorough irony and jeer. He tells the audience,
that to make a complete finished divine there’s no need of
[* Colbatch, who had been for several years chaplain to the Factory at
Lisbon, published an Account of the Court of Portugal, &c. 8vo, 1700. — D.]
[f A sneer at Middleton’s love of music. — D.]
o pag. 17. [t See note, p. 513.— D ]
VOL. III. 3 Y
530
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
any skill at all, either in languages , or history, or eloquence,
or critic. These four topics he agreeably pursues ; and in
the last of them has that passage which our Escobar has
chosen for his motto.* The Dutch orator supposed that all
men of common sense would read his meaning backwards ;
but he met with an English cabbage-head that takes him to
be in good earnest ; as being indeed of that opinion before,
and believing himself a profound theologue without any of
those four ill qualities.
We have one feeble fling more, and this paragraph is
done. Our Master, he says, has made some literal alterations
in the Greek text, and one verbal one in the Latin, without
authority subjoined .p The reason of those literal alterations
could not be made appear in this short Specimen, but will be
given in the edition itself ; and the verbal one, erit for erunt
(though our Master has yet no manuscript for it), is founded
upon such plain and cogent reason as is equal to authority.
Paragraph the Sixth.
Even Timon’s dulness is sunk in this paragraph below
its natural depression, and he seems to be jaded with his
past laborious fatigue. Here were plausible topics ready
for him, emendations and mere conjectures, not supported by
any copies now extant ; of no sect nor party ; no regard to
any disputed points. How comes the zealous and orthodox
Timon to be mute where he should have been loudest ? In¬
stead of which he contents himself to aim at an awkward
ridicule upon Keigrfkiov and magna charta.
But he thinks he is very sharp upon the word extin¬
guished. What, says he, shall our Master’s edition needs
last when all the ancient manuscripts are not only lost, but
{in a phrase as barbarous as the thought) extinguished too
1$ not this smart and pungent ? But a fool never shews
himself more than when he affects and labours to be witty.
He first leaves out the words, here quoted ; and by that slight
of hand, for a few MSS. of the New Testament he substitutes
[* See p. 480. — D.] p Pag. 17. '* Pag. 17.
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
531
all the MSS. of all books whatever. But pray, is that a
wonder, if an edition, dispersed over Europe in a thousand
exemplars, should outlast half a score manuscripts, half
perished already, and their letters scarce legible but vanish¬
ing with long age ? And is it so barbarous to suppose that
MSS. may be extinguished? What became of the famous
library of Alexandria, when there were no other books but
MSS. ? was it not extinguished , and all destroyed in a sedi¬
tion of that city ? Were not all the MSS. of the then famous
library at Ghent destroyed on purpose by the Anabaptists
of those times ? Whence have we the famous MS. of the
Gospels and Acts, that Beza gave to our University? Was
it not from Lyons in France, when in the civil wars the
monasteries and libraries in that city were all burnt or plun¬
dered, and this hook chanced to fall into a learned man’s
hands ? Did the Turks extinguish no manuscripts when
they spread their empire over Greece ? What has formerly
been may be again ; and our Master’s thought is not so bar¬
barous as our censor’s cavil is ignorant and silly.
Paragraphs the Seventh and Eighth.
In these our Master proposes to print the book by sub¬
scription ; and without that indeed, what sense, what use in
PROPOSALS ? But our censor, as if subscriptions had
never been known in Great Britain before, falls into one of
his raving fits j gain and flthy lucre ; sordid insinuations ,■
higgling to squeeze our money from us ; mendicants in the
streets ; charitable contribution to a poor young critic ; scheme
and bubble borrowed from Change- Alley ; and other such wild
reveries.17 Now, besides the influence of the moon, there
r Pag. 18, pag. 19. [“ In a design like this, pretended to be undertaken for
the service of the Christian world, any other man would have contrived Ss well as
he could to have kept out of sight all selfish views and motives, all regards to gain
and filthy lucre : but we find in these two paragraphs such sordid insinuations,
such low and paltry higgling to squeeze our money from us, viz. great expense
requisite ; shall he put to the press as soon as money is contributed ; no more printed
than subscribed for ; the best letter, paper, and ink in Europe ; the lowest price
must be, #c., that it puts me in mind of those mendicants in the streets, who beg
our charity with an half-sheet of Proposals pinned upon their breasts: to what
532
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
seem to me to be two causes of this sudden extravagance ;
one, the strong idea he took of his money being squeezed
from him. For you are to know, to a great many other
virtues he had before, old Timon has of late added a new
one, the most tenacious and sordid avarice ; and renews
among us the memory of old Raslileigh.* So that he has
now a whole set of most amiable qualities :
- cestuat ingens
Uno in corde odium, mixtoque insania fastu,
Et furiis agitatus amor sceleratus habendi.f
The other cause was personal spleen and envy ; 8 though, with
his usual conscience , he professes the contrary. At the first
purpose is it to tell us that Mr. John Walker is to go halves with him in the
gain or loss of this work, except to move the compassion of good Christian
people, and to beg of us, however unkind we may be to himself, yet not to see
a poor young critic undone for want of charitable contributions ? But indeed
most people are agreed in opinion, that he has borrowed his scheme from
Change-Alley, and in this age of bubbles took the hint to set up one of his own:”
&c. &c. — D.]
[* In The Present State of Trinity College in Cambridge, in a Letter from Dr.
Bentley, Master of the said College, to the Right Reverend John, Lord Bishop
of Ely, &c. 8vo, 1710, Rashleigh is thus described: “Now a senior fellow,
who when your lordship inquires his character, will be found a sordid miser
and every way worthless ; is never without a curse in his mouth ; keeps com¬
pany with the very bedmakers and sculls ; lets his own chamber out at rent,
and lies skulking without one; has absented from chapel for some years on
all Sundays and festivals, because he will not be at charge for surplice and
hood,” p. 26. Against this attack Rashleigh is defended in several pamphlets
which were called forth by the piece just quoted: in one by Miller, entitled
Some Remarks upon a Letter, 8fc. 8vo, 1710, we are told, that as to “his not having
a surplice and hood, being asked whether it was true, he answered, he might
have borrowed the Master’s, for he never used it himself,” p. 74. — D.]
[f Virg. AEm. xii. 666.
. . . “sestuat ingens
Uno in corde pudor, mixtoque insania luctu,
Et furiis agitatus amor, et conscia virtus.” — D.]
8 Pag. 1. [“I shall not trouble myself with making any apology for the
following Remarks; but shall only desire the reader to believe, that (whatever
prejudices may lie against them) they were not drawn from me by personal
spleen or envy to the author of the Proposals, but by a serious conviction that he
has neither talents nor materials proper for the work he has undertaken, and
that religion is much more likely to receive detriment than service from it,” &c.
-D.]
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
533
view of the Specimen , he pronounced it was a sham; no such
thing designed \ no such thing possible : but when he heard
that the Proposals met with great encouragement from the
best quality at London^ notwithstanding the difficulty of
the times, he raged, he stormed, he resolved to take his
deadly pen in hand, and extirpate the edition from the very
root. And, in truth, all his friends (if he has any) should
come in to his assistance; for if the edition goes prosper¬
ously on, old Timon’s either a dead man, or in a dark
room. Both his constitution and his schemes have long
looked towards that latter place. He has a brother* here
in the neighbourhood, a harmless, quiet clergyman, and
much the better of the two ; who has taken a fancy from a
vow or a vision, to wear in the flower of his age a beard to
his girdle, sufficient for a Greek patriarch. And though ours
has the much better title to that badge upon his chin, yet
out of tru e fraternum odium (for they cannot so much as see
each other) he refuses to wear that hieroglyphic , because the
other has taken it up first. However, he seems to be under
[* See note, p. 525. — According to Dr. Monk, Life of B. vol. ii. p. 136, this
person was the Rev. George Colbatch; and in Cantabrig. Graduati we find “ Col-
batch, Geo., Christ’s, A. B. 1691.” The following notice by Cole, in which he
is called Thomas, has never been printed. “ Thomas Colbatch was vicar of both
the Abingtons in 1695. He was a very worthy, conscientious, good man, but
somewhat particular. He dreamed that an angel appeared to him, and ordered
him to let his beard grow ; and from that time he never shaved. 1 remem¬
ber him in his white hair and beard, a thin old man, at my mother’s funeral,
which he attended to St. Clement’s Church in Cambridge, where she desired to
be buried. He was brother to the late Rev. Dr. Colbatch, rector of Orwell,
and senior fellow of Trinity College, who died this year 1748, and lies buried at
Orwell. Our vicar left an only daughter, who lived with Dr. Colbatch after the
death of her father, and is heiress from her uncle of 10,000 pds. Mr. Col¬
batch got a fall from his horse on Gogmagog Hills, in his way to Cambridge,
and broke his leg, which occasioned his death. He printed an Exposition of the
Catechism, which is in few people’s hands but of those to whom he presented
it; and indeed that was the end he proposed in publishing of it. He died
March 14, 1735, aged 75 years, and lies buried, according to his direction,
under a neat altar-tomb on the S. side of chancel in the churchyard of Little
Abington ; for he was of opinion that it was not proper to inter in churches, as
is evident from a note of his in the parish register.” MS. Collections (in the
Brit. Museum), vol. xxii. p. 257 — D.]
534
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
a vow too, not to speak one word of truth or sense till he
has demolished our Master. This great design lies upon his
heart , he says ; and, in all probability, may hold him tug so
long, that he’ll die before he finishes it. For he finds his
party dwindle ; he walks melancholy and lonely,
Ipse suum cor edens, hominum vestigia vitans ;*
he stoops already, and decays apace, and lies sleepless whole
nights, out of mere anguish to see all things quiet and flou¬
rishing about him. In time of yore he had now and then
some consolation, some squabble in the college to keep up his
spirits ; on which occasions he would look something gay
among us, smile horrible , like Satan in Milton, and extend
his wide jaws with an agreeable yawn. But now every
thing about him, peace, plenty, and a hopeful prospect of
the future, conspire to his uneasiness : and if this edition,
too, comes on the back of them, poor Timon is quite heart¬
broken. But our censor having despatched his remarks
upon all the paragraphs of the Proposals , he now advances
to make his observations upon the
Specimen.
And here he first takes a view, with great satisfaction
and applause to himself, of what he has already done : he
has shewn, that our Master, even upon his own scheme, can¬
not give us any thing , or any at least considerable, any thing
equal to the pomp and magnificence of his Proposals : all is to
be copied and transcribed, and robbed and stolen from Dr.
Mill.1 Can one yet bear with patience this Suffenus ? But
weJll let him go off without any farther drubbing :
Quamquam est scelestus, non committet, hodie umquam
iterum ut vapulet.\
[* Cicero (from Horn. II. vi. 202), Tuscul. iii. 26. — D.]
1 Pag. 23. [Middleton’s language here is not quite so strong: “ — yet with
all his hints and conjectures, his old manuscripts and versions, he has not been
able to produce one single reading which we do not find long ago exhibited in
Dr. Mill’s edition,” &c. : afterwards, p. 24. “ he will be found, I am apt to
think, at last to have acted the plagiary rather than the critic.” — D.]
[f Ter. Adelph. ii. 1. 5.— D.J
ANSWER TO THE REMARKS.
535
Our Master’s design and proposal in this edition is to
give an accurate and authentic Greek TEXT ; and in the
Specimen here offered there are more than threescore changes
in it in the compass of xxi. verses. And I have had the op¬
portunity to hear one of the best judges in England say,
after he had carefully read it over, that of those lx. changes
in the text there was not one hut what should be there ; as
every knowing man would allow. Now if their numbers in
the whole New Testament bear equal proportion to this
pattern, will that be inconsiderable ? will that be nothing ?
In truth, if our Master’s edition goes on at this rate through
the whole, the alterations will appear too many, and at first
put us into some fright. And I dare say our Master is
better pleased when he finds the present text right, than
when it’s wrong.
But because Dr. Mill is cast in our teeth so often by our
censor , I’ll examine and compare (though it’s dry work for a
letter) what the doctor and our Master have each done upon
the text of this chapter. In his Prolegomena the doctor has
given all his desired reformations of the text ; and in this
xxii. of the Apocalypse he would introduce verse iii. /card-
Qepa, verse ix. dele yap, verse xvii. dele /cal, verse xx. dele
Koi. These four are all that even malice itself can say were
borrowed from him by our Master in all the threescore. But
let candour look on our Master’s notes on each, and speak
whether those four changes would not have been made
though the doctor’s edition had never existed. Three
places our Master has changed which the doctor would
have stand as they now are. Verse v. %pe Lav <£&>to :
our Master added <£