wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, and

Chap. II.EJfe7ttially Atheijlkal.hie, that fuch infinite negotiofity would be abfoltitely inconftjlent with happinefs.1 9. Several bold but flight queries of Atheifts, why the world wasnot made fooner ? and what God did before ? why it was made at all, finceit was fo long unmade ? and, how the architect of the world could rear upfo huge a fabrick? 20. The Atheifts pretence, that it is the great interefiof mankind, that there fhould be no God ; and that it was a rlohleand heroical exploit of the Democriticks, to chafe away that affrightfidfpeSlre out of the world, and to free men from the continual fear of aDeity and punifhment after death, imhittering all the pleafures of life.2 1 . Another pretence of theirs, that Theifm is inconfiftent with civil fovereignty,it introducing a fear greater than the fear of the Leviathan ; and thatany other confcience allowed of hefides the civil law {being private judgment) is,ipfo fadlo, a diffolution of the body politick, and a return to the ftate of nature.2 2 . The Atheifts conclufion from the former premiffes, as Jet down inPlato and Lucretius, that all things fprung originally from nature andchance, without any Mind or God, that is, proceeded from the necejfity of materialmotions, undirectedfor ends; that infinite atoms devoid of life and fenfe,moving in infinite fpace from eternity, by theirfortuitous rencounters and intanglements,produced the fyftem of the whole univerfe, and as well animateas inanimate things.^g!.»" "W'Aving in the former chapter given an account of the genuine andI 1 primitive atomical philofophy, which may be called the Mofchical ;X. JL we are in the next place to confider the Democritical, that is, theatheized and adulterated atomoiogy ; which had its origin from nothingelfe but the joining of this heterogeneous and contradii5lioiis principle to theatomical phyfiology, that there is no other fiibftance in the world befidesbody. Now we fay, that that philofophy, which is thus compounded andmade up of thefe two things, atomicifm and corporeahfm complicated together,is effentially atheifticaJ, though neither of them alone be fuch. Forthe atomical phyfiology, as we have declared already, is in its own nature fufficientlyrepugnant to atheifm. And it is poffible for one, who holds, thatthere is nothing in the world befides body, to be perfuaded notv/ithftandingof a corporeal Deity, and that the world was at firft framed and is ftill governedby an underkanding nature lodged in the matter. For thus fonie ofthefe Corporealifts have fancied the whole univerfe itfelf to be a God, thatis, an underftanding and wife animal, that ordered all things within it felf,after the bell manner pofTible, and providently governed the fame. Indeedit cannot be denied, but that this is a very great infirmity of mind, thatfuch perfons lie under, who are not able to conceive any other fubftance befidesbody, by which is underftood that, which is impenetrably extended,or eife, in Plato's language, which hath -sTpoT/SoAJiv xj i-nx,pAv, that thrufts a-gainfi- other bodies and refijls their impulfe ; o\; as others exprcfs it, which isT07r» ttAjijutixod, that fo fills up place, as to exclude any other body or fubftancefrom coexifting with it therein ; and fuch mull needs have not onlyvery imperfed:, but alfo fpurious and falfe conceptions of the Deity, fo lo;gas they apprehend it to be thus corporeal ; but yet it does not therefore follow,that they mult needs be accounted Atheifts. But whofoever holds thefe twoI 2 principles