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

ut64 The Athcijls Argument agalnfl Creation^ Book I. ,tencc to wit, after this manner ; 'They that venture to difpute philofophically^or reafon of God's nature^ from thefe attributes of honour, lofing their underftandingin the very firH attempt, fall from one inconvenience into another^without end, and without number ; in the fame manner as when one, ignO'rant of the ceremonies of court, coming into the prefence of a greater perfonthan he is ufed to fpeak to, and fiumbling at his entrance, to fave himfelffrom falling, lets flip his cloak, to recover his cloak lets fall his hat,and with one diforder after another difcovers his afionifhment and ruflicity.The meaning of which, and other like paflages of the fame writer,feems to be this; that the attributes of God (by which his nature is fuppofedto be expreflcd) having no philofophick truth or reality in them, had theironly original from a certain ruftick aftonifliment of mind, proceeding fromexcefs of fear, raifing up the phantafm of a Deity, as a bug-bear for an objeiflto it felf, and affrighting men into all manner of confounded non-fenfe,and abfurdity of exprelTions concerning it, fuch as have no fignification,nor any conception of the mind anfwering to them. This is the firft argument,ufed efpecially by our modem Democriticks, againfb a Deity,that becaufe they can have no phantaftick idea of it, nor fully comprehendall that is concluded in the notion thereof, that tlierefore it is but an incomprehenfiblenothing.VI. Secondly, another argument much infilled on by the old DcmocritickAtheifts, is direfted againil the divine omnipotence and creative power,after this manner. By God is always underftood a creator of fomcthing orother out of nothing. For however the Thcifts be here divided amongftthemfelves, fome of them believing, that there was once nothing at allexifting in this whole fpace, which is now occupied by the world, befides theDeity, and that he was then a folitary being, fo that the fubftance of thewhole corporeal univerfe had a temporary beginning, and novity of exiftence,and the duration of it hath now continued but for fo manyyears only. Others perfuading themfelves, that though the matter andfubftance at leaft, (if not the form alfo) of the corporeal world, didexift from eternity, yet neverthelefs, they both alike proceeded from theDeity by way of emanation, and do continually depend upon it, in thefame manner as light, though coeval with the fun, yet proceeded fromthe fun, and depends upon it, being always, as it were, made a-new byit ; wherefore, according to this hypothefis, though things had no antecedentnon-entity in time, yet they were as little of themfelves, andowed all their being as much to the Deity, as if they had been once aftuallynothing, they being, as it were, perpetually created out of nothingby it. Laltly, others of thofe Thcifts refolving, that the matter of thecorporeal univerfe was not only from eternity, but alfo felf-exiftent anduncreated, or independent upon any Deity as to its being -, yet theforms and qualities of all inanimate bodies, together with the fouls of allAnimals in the fucceffive generations of them, (being taken for entitiesdiifind from the matter) were created by the Deity out of nothing.We fay, though there be f.ich difference among the Theifts themfelves,Iyet