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

''156 That Nature liB'ook I..nor communicate itfelf to it, but with a great deal of tumult and hurliburiy,noife and clatter, it ufing hands and axes, laws and hammers, and after thismanner with much ado, by knockings and thruftings, (lowly introducingits form or idea (as for example of a fliip or houfe) intothe materials-,,nature in the mean time is another kind of art, which infinuating itfelfimmediately into things themfelves, and there afting more commandinglyupon the matter as an inward principle, does its work eafily, cleaverly, andfilently. Nature is art as it were incorporated and embodied in matter,which doth not aft upon it from without mechanically, but from within vi-P/.£n. 3./. 8. tally a.nd magically ; fJT£ XsiVf,- EvrauSa, ojte Trohc, o'jTi Ti ooyxvov iTrxxlov >iy ' ovu.'P'jIov, uA»r? ii $iT sfp' ?? TToirKra, x^ >ii' iv tSu ttoiiT, trx-tli'^i iriXc},. ^t7ii>^ to ij.o-'"^^y>^!-j(fj aCptAfiv Ik rri? (|Ju(ri>t»if woniofu?. ^Toi; yoic u^ktixoi;, ri ti? i/.o-xXilci, &C. Hereare no hands, nor feet, nor any injirttment, connate, or adventitious, there beingonlyneed of matter to work upon, and to be brought into a certain form, and nothingelfe. For it is manifefi that the operation of nature is different front'mechanifm^ it doing not its work by trufion or pulfion, by knockings or thrujlings^.as if it were without that which it wrought upon. But as God is inward toevery thing, fo nature afts immediately upon the matter, as an inward andliviog foul, or law in it;.10. Another preeminence of nature above Human art^ is this, thatwhereas human artifts are often to feek and at a lofs, and therefore confultand deliberate, as alfo upon fecond thoughts mend their former worknature,on the contrary, is neverto feek what to do, nor at a ftand ; and forthat reafon alfo (befides another that will be fuggefted afterwards) it dothneverconfult nor deliberate. Indeed Ai-iflotle intimates, as if this hadbeen the grand objeftion of th* old atheiftick philofophers againft the plafticknature. That becaufe we do not fee natural bodies to confult or deliberate,therefore there could be nothing of art. counfel or contrivance in them, but allP7j\/,l.z.c.S:came to pafs fortuitoujly. But he confutes it after this manner: "Aro-n-ovHfP. ^77. TO (/.r, oilSxi 'iviiiX TS yniQxi, tav y.ri 'iSuTom. I.^f^^iisTxi' It is abfurd for men to think nothing to be done for ends, if they-^^"ido not fee that which moves to confult^ altho* art itfelf doth not confult."Whence he concludes, that nature may aft artificially, orderly and methodically,for the fake of ends, though it never confult or deliberate. Indeedhuman artifts themfelves do not confult properly as they are artiftsjbut when ever they do it, it is for want of art, and becauffe they are tofeek, their art being imperfeft and adventitious : but art itfelf or perfeftart is never to feek, and therefore doth never confult or deliberate. Andnature is this art, which never hefitates nor ftudies, as unrefolved what todo, but is always readily prompted ; nor does it ever repent afterwards ofwhat it hath formerly done, or go about, as it were upon fecond thoughts,to alter and mend its former courfe, but it goes on in one conftant unrepentingtenor, from generation to generation, becaufe it is the ftainp orjmprefs of that infallibly omnifcient art, of the divine underftanding,'which is the very law and rule of what is fimply thi bcft in every thing.•;-And