blind hap-hazard: I shall leave with him that very rational and emphatical rebuke of Tully, II. De Legg., to be considered at his leisure. "What can be more sillily arrogant and misbecoming, than for a man to think that he has a mind and understanding in him, but yet in all the universe beside there is no such thing; or that those things, which with the utmost stretch of his reason he can scarcely comprehend, should be moved and managed without any reason at all?" Quid est enim verius, quàm neminem esse oportere tam stultè arrogantem, ut in se mentem et rationem putet inesse, in cælo mundoque non putet? Aut ea, quæ vix summâ ingenii ratione comprehendat, nullâ ratione moveri putet?

. From what has been said, it is plain to me we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of any thing our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presume I may say, that we more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is any thing else without us. When

I say 'we know,' I mean there is such a knowledge within our reach, which we cannot miss if we will but apply our minds to that, as we do to several other inquiries.

7. How far the idea of a most perfect being, which a man may frame in his mind, does or does not prove the existence of a God, I will not here examine. For, in the different make of men's tempers and application of their thoughts, some arguments prevail more on one, and some on another, for the confirmation of the same truth. But yet, I think this I may say, that it is an ill way of establishing this truth, and silencing Atheists, to lay the whole stress of so important a point as this upon that sole

foundation, and take some men's having that idea of God in their minds (for 'tis evident some men have none, and some worse than none, and the most very different) for the only proof of a Deity; and out of an over-fondness of that darling invention, cashier or at least endeavour to invalidate all other arguments, and forbid us to hearken to those proofs, as being weak or fallacious, which our own existence and the sensible parts of the universe offer so clearly and cogently to our thoughts, that I deem it impossible for a considering man to withstand them. For I judge it as certain and clear a truth, as can any where be delivered, that "the invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." Though our own being furnishes us, as I have shown, with an evident and incontestable proof of a Deity; and I believe nobody can avoid the cogency of it, who will but as carefully attend to it, as to any other demonstration of so many parts: yet this being so fundamental a truth, and of that consequence that all religion and genuine morality depend thereupon, I doubt not but I shall be forgiven by my reader, if I go over some parts of this argument again, and enlarge a little more upon them.

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8. There is no truth more evident, than that something must be from eternity. I never yet heard of any one so unreasonable, or that could suppose so manifest a contradiction, as a time wherein there was perfectly nothing: this being of all absurdities the greatest, to imagine that pure nothing, the perfect, negation and absence of all beings, should ever pro duce any real existence.

"It, then, being unavoidable for all rational creatures to conclude, that something has existed from eternity, let us next see what kind of thing that must be.

9. There are but two sorts of beings in the world, that man knows or conceives :

First, Such as are purely material, without sense, perception, or thought, as the clippings of our beards, and parings of our nails ;

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Secondly, Sensible, thinking, perceiving beings, such as we find ourselves to be, which (if you please) we will hereafter call cogitative' and 'incogitative' beings; which to our present purpose, if for nothing else, are perhaps better terms than material' and 'immaterial.'

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10. If, then, there must be something eternal, let us see, what sort of being it must be. And to that, it is very obvious to reason, that it must necessarily be a cogitative being. For it is as impossible to conceive, that ever bare incogitative matter should produce a thinking intelligent being, as that nothing should of itself produce matter. Let us suppose any parcel of matter eternal, great or small, we shall find it in itself able to produce nothing. For example; let us suppose the matter of the next pebble we meet with eternal, closely united, and the parts firmly at rest together: if there were no other being in the world, must it not eternally remain so, a dead inactive lump? Is it possible to conceive it can add motion to itself, being purely matter, or produce any thing? Matter, then, by it's own strength cannot produce in itself so much as motion: the motion it has must also be from eternity, or else be produced and added to matter by some other being more powerful than matter; matter, as is evident, having not

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power to produce motion in itself. But let us suppose motion eternal too; yet matter, incogitative matter and motion, whatever changes it might produce of figure and bulk, could never produce thought: knowledge will still be as far beyond the power of motion and matter to produce, as matter is beyond the power of nothing or non-entity to produce. And I appeal to every one's own thoughts, whether he cannot as easily conceive matter produced by nothing, as thought to be produced by pure matter, when before there was no such thing as thought or an intelligent being existing. Divide matter into as minute parts as you will (which we are apt to imagine a sort of spiritualising, or making a thinking thing of it) vary the figure and motion of it as much as you please, a globe, cube, cone, prism, cylinder, &c. whose diameters are but 1,000,000th part of a gry,* will operate no otherwise upon other bodies of proportionable bulk, than those of an inch or foot diameter; and you may as rationally produce sense, thought, and knowledge by putting together in a certain figure and motion gross particles of matter, as by those that are the very minutest that do any where exist. They knock, impel, and resist one another, just as the greater do, and that is all they can do. So that if we will suppose nothing first, or eternal, matter can never begin to be: if we suppose bare

of an inch, an inch of of a pendulum, whose

* A "gry" is of a line, a line a philosophical foot, a philosophical foot diadroms, in the latitude of 45 degrees, are each equal to one second of time, or of a minute. I have affectedly made use of this measure here, and the parts of it, under a decimal division, with names to them; because, I think, it would be of general convenience, that this should be the common measure in the commonwealth of letters.'

matter without motion eternal, motion can never begin to be: if we suppose only matter and motion first, or eternal, thought can never begin to be. For it is impossible to conceive that matter, either with or without motion, could have originally in and from itself sense, perception, and knowledge; as is evident hence, that then sense, perception, and knowledge must be a property eternally inseparable from matter and every particle of it. Not to add, that though our general or specific conception of matter makes us speak of it as one thing, yet really all matter is not one individual thing, neither is there any such thing existing as one material being or one single body that we know or can conceive. And, therefore, if matter were the eternal first cogitative being, there would not be one eternal, infinite, cogitative being, but an infinite number of eternal finite cogitative beings, independent one of another, of limited force and distinct thoughts, which could never produce that order, harmony, and beauty, which is to be found in nature. Since, therefore, whatsoever is the first eternal being must necessarily be cogitative; and whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at least, all the perfections that can ever afterward exist; nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it hath not, either actually in itself, or at least in a higher degree; it necessarily follows, that the first eternal being cannot be matter.

11. If therefore it be evident, that something necessarily must exist from eternity, 'tis also as evident, that that something must necessarily be a cogitative being; for it is as impossible that incogitative matter should produce a cogitative being, as that nothing,