THE CONCURRENCE OF ATOMS. As the Atheist must admit those things himself which he rejects the being of God for, so he admits them upon far weaker grounds than we do attribute them to God. If anything may be made evident to man's natural reason concerning the existence of a being so infinite as God is, we doubt not but to make it appear that we have great assurance of the being of God; but how far must the Atheist go, how heartily must he beg, before his hypothesis either of the fortuitous concourse of atoms or eternity of the world will be granted to him. For if we stay till he proves either of these by evident and demonstrative reasons, the world may have an end before he proves his atoms could give it a beginning; and we may find it eternal, à parte post, before he can prove it was so à parte ante. For the proof of a Deity, we appeal to his own faculties, reason and conscience; we make use of arguments before his eyes: we bring the universal sense of mankind along with us: but for his principles, we must wholly alter the present stage of the world, and crumble the whole universe into little particles; we must grind the sun to powder, and by a new way of interment turn the earth into dust and ashes, before we can so much as imagine how the world could be framed. And when we have thus far begged leave to imagine things to be what they never were, we must then stand by in some infinite space to behold the friskings and dancings about of these little particles of matter, till by their frequent rencounters and jostlings one upon another, they at last link themselves together, and run so long in a round till they make whirlpools enough for sun, moon, and stars, and all the bodies of the universe to emerge out of it. But what was it which at first set these little particles of matter in motion? Whence came so great variety in them to produce such wonderful diversities in bodies as there are in the world? How came these casual motions to hit so luckily into such admirable contrivances as are in the universe? When once I see a thousand blind men run the point of a sword in at a key-hole without one missing; when I find them all frisking together in a spacious field, and exactly meeting all at last in the very middle of it; when I once find, as Tully speaks, the Annals of Ennius fairly written in a heap of sand, and as Kepler's wife told him, a room full of herbs moving up and down, fall down into the exact order of sallets, I may then think the atomical hypothesis probable, and not before. But what evidence of reason or demonstration have we that the great bodies of the world did result from such a motion of these small particles? It is possible to be so, saith Epicurus; what if we grant it possible? can no things in the world be, which it is possible might have been otherwise? What else thinks Epicurus of the genera 1 Mantisse loco, by way of over-weight. Mantisa or mantissa was a Tuscan word meaning an addition to the weight in the scale. Thence it took the second sense of gain or profit. A parte post, from the close of the argument; à parte ante, from the beginning. tions of things now they are such certainly as the world now is, and yet he believes it was once otherwise. Must therefore a bare possibility of the contrary make us deny our reason, silence conscience, contradict the universal sense of mankind by excluding a Deity out of the world? But whence doth it appear possible? Did we ever find anything of the same nature with the world produced in such a manner by such a concourse of atoms? Or is it because we find in natural beings, how much these particles of matter serve to solve the phenomena of nature? But doth it at all follow, because now under Divine providence which wisely orders the world, and things in it, that these particles with their several affections and motion, may give us a tolerable account of many appearances as to bodies, that therefore the universe had its original merely by a concretion of these without any Divine hand to order and direct their motion? But of this more, when we come to the creation of the world; our design now is only to compare the notion of a Deity and of the Atheist's hypothesis, in point of perspicuity and evidence of reason of which let any one who hath reason judge. Thus we see how the Atheist in denying a Deity must assert something else instead of it, which is pressed with the same, if not greater difficulties, and proved by far less reason. In 1665 Stillingfleet became Rector of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and he had risen to be Dean of St. Paul's and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty, when, in opposition to Dr. Owen, Richard Baxter, and others, he published, in 1681, a volume on "The Unreasonableness of Separation; or an Impartial Account of the History, Nature, and Pleas of the Present Separation from the Communion of the Church of England." In the long controversial preface to this book, he declared his judgment, "That a causeless breaking the peace of the Church we live in, is really a great and as dangerous a sin as murder, and in some respects aggravated beyond it." One of Stillingfleet's adversaries had been tempted by this spirit in a sermon of his to recall his more tolerant writing in earlier days, and compare the Rector of Sutton with the Dean of St. Paul's. One of the fears he now expressed as a check upon altering the laws against Dissent, was "the danger of breaking all in pieces by toleration." In 1689 Edward Stillingfleet was made Bishop of Worcester. He died in 1699, and the last incident in his literary life was a controversy with John Locke, whom he accused of undermining Christian faith. John Wilkins was a divine with a strong interest in scientific studies. He was born in 1614, the son of a goldsmith at Oxford, graduated in the University of Oxford, sided with the Parliament in the Civil War, and signed the Covenant. He was made warden of Wadham College at the end of the reign of Charles I., and in 1656 married a sister of Oliver Cromwell. He became master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1659. From this office he was ejected at the Restoration, and he was the appointed preacher to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and minister of St. Lawrence Jewry. He was one of the first fellows of the Royal Society and member of the Council. He had written, at the age of twenty-four, an argument to show that the moon was probably inhabited, and he did not hold it impossible that the inhabitants of this earth might discover a way of getting to the moon. John Wilkins also wrote to maintain the Copernican system, and prove the earth a planet. In 1641 he had published an ingenious system of cipher-writing, and his house was crowded as a museum with scientific curiosities. The Duke of Buckingham having become his friend at court, Dr. Wilkins was made Dean of Ripon, and in 1668 Bishop of Chester. In the same year he published the most ingenious of his books-an attempt to apply philosophy to the establishment of a language common to all nations-" An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. Bishop Wilkins died in 1672, the year after the publication of "Paradise Regained." A volume of sermons by him was collected and published in 1682. He sought to reconcile the contending parties in the Church, and devised a plan for the reception of Presbyterian ministers into the Church of England by a form of ordination to which they might be willing to assent. In the same spirit he preached peace. This passage is from a sermon by Bishop Wilkins, on the text, Let your moderation be known unto all men, the Lord is at hand," Philippians iv. 5. THE DUTY OF MODERATION. 'Tis the duty of Christians to give signal testimony of their equity and moderation upon all occasions of difference and contest with one another: not to insist upon the utmost rigour of things, but to be ready to comply with all such gentle and prudent expedients as may help to heal and accommodate the differences amongst them. Though this word moderation do but seldom occur in Scripture, being scarce anywhere else used but here: yet that which is the substance and meaning of it is frequently commanded, and the contrary thereunto prohibited, under different expressions in other places of Scripture. This some conceive to be the sense of that place, Eccles. vii. 16, "Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise, why shouldst thou destroy thyself" (i.e.,) insist not upon the utmost extremity of things, as if it were wisdom to take all the advantages you could from the strict letter of the law. This were the readiest way to destroy yourself by teaching other men to do the like against you; there being no safety for any one, if every one must use another according to the utmost rigour. Prov. xix. 11, "It is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression." Men may think to get the repute of strictness and zeal by being rigid and severe towards the failings of others: but 'tis a much more glorious thing to show gentleness and forbearance towards them; it argues a man to have a noble and generous mind, and a real sense of humanity. There are several other expressions to this purpose in the New Testament. As Ephes. iv. 1, 2, "I beseech you that ye walk worthy of that vocation wherewith ye are called, in all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love." Verse 32, "And be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Phil. ii. 3, "Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves." Ver. 14. Gentleness is reckoned as "the fruit of the Spirit," Gal. v. 22. A mark of that "wisdom which is from above," Jam. iii. 17, an inseparable property of "the servant of the Lord, who must not strive, but be gentle, shewing all meekness to all men," 2 Tim. ii. 24. "Finally, brethren, having compassion one of another, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing," 1 Pet. iii. 8, 9. It were easy to back these precepts by several examples out of Scripture. That of Abraham's carriage in the contest betwixt him and his nephew Lot, who for peace' sake was willing to recede from his own right, and give him his choice, that "there might be no strife betwixt them, because they were brethren," Gen. xiii. 8. That of our Saviour in his yielding to pay tribute for the avoiding of offence, to which in strictness he was not obliged, Mat. xvii. 27. He was the Great Exemplar, as of all others so particularly of this Christian grace. "I beseech you, brethren, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ," 2 Cor. x. 1. St. Paul himself was as eminent for the practice of this duty as for the pressing of it upon others: in his "becoming all things to all men," 1 Cor. ix. 22, and in “pleasing all men in all things, not seeking his own profit, but the profit of many, that they might be saved," 1 Cor. x. 33. Suitable to this was that carriage of the council of the Apostles, Act. xv., in their not insisting upon the strict right of things, but accommodating those controversies of the Primitive times about the Jewish rites, by such a moderate expedient as might most effectually heal and compose those differences. Among the friends of John Wilkins, and also of John Milton, was Robert Boyle, born in 1626, the year of Bacon's death, and a leader among those who in the next generations applied to the advance of science Bacon's method of experimental search into nature. Robert Boyle was the seventh son of Richard Boyle, who died Earl of Cork, having founded the fortune of the family by acquiring enormous wealth in Ireland. Richard Boyle had seven sons and eight daughters, and was able to leave a handsome estate to each of them. Robert remained unmarried; lived with his eldest sister, Lady Ranelagh, for companion and housekeeper; withdrew from the strife of parties; and pursued the study of chemistry so energetically, that he made for himself a distinguished place in the history of its progress. He published many scientific treatises, and was the honoured friend of the chief men of science of his day, who would have made him president of the Royal Society if he had not refused to bind himself by the test and oaths required on taking office. He refused also to take orders, though profoundly religious, and assured of rapid promotion in the Church. He never named God without reverent pause, he was active in societies formed for diffusion of the Gospel, enabled Burnet to write his " History of the Reformation," blended a living religion with his scientific writing, and in his "Sceptical Chemist” reasoned with those men of science who "are wont to endeavour to evince their salt, sulphur, and mercury as the true principles of things." Of some of Robert his books religion only was the theme. Boyle lived until 1691. This passage is from a volume on "the Style of the Holy Scriptures," published in 1663 :— PROFANE WIT. Nor will Here I thought to pass on to another argument, but (to express myself in David's words) while I was musing, the fire burned, and my zeal for the Scripture, together with the charity it has taught me to exercise even towards its opposers, suffers me not, with either silent or languid resentments, to see how much that incomparable book loses of the opinion of less discerning men, upon the account of their disrespects who are (whether deservedly or not) looked upon as wits. And therefore, to what I have represented to invalidate the authority of those few persons, otherwise truly witty, that undervalue the Scripture, I am obliged to add, that besides them, there is a number of those that slight the Scripture, who are but looked upon as wits, without being such indeed: nay, who many of them would not be so much as mistaken for such, but for the boldness they take to own slighting of the Scripture, and to abuse the words of it to irreligious senses, and perhaps, passing to the impudence of perverting inspired expressions, to deliver obscene thought. But to knowing and serious men, this prevaricating with the Scripture will neither discredit it, nor much recommend the profane prevaricator; for a book being capable of being so misused, is too unavoidable to be a disparagement to it. any intelligent reader undervalue the charming poems of Virgil or of Ovid, because by shuffling and disguising the expressions some French writers have of late been pleased out of rare pieces to compose whole books of what they call, Vers Burlesques,' designed by their ridiculousness to make their readers sport. And on the other side, to abuse dismembered words and passages of any author to meanings he never dreamed of, is a thing so easy, that almost any man may have the wit to talk at that profane rate, that will but allow himself the sauciness to do so. And indeed experience shows, that if this vice itself do not make its practisers suspected of the being necessitous of the quality they put it on to be thought masters of, yet at least persons intelligent and pious will not be apt to value any discourse as truly witty that cannot please the fancy without offending the conscience, and will never admire his plenty that cannot make an entertainment, without furnishing out the table with unclean meats: and considering persons will scarce think it a demonstration of a man's being a wit, that he will venture to be damned to be thought one. And that which aggravates these men's profaneness, and leaves them excuseless in it, is, that there are few of these fools (for so the wise man calls them that "make a mock of sin") that "have said in their hearts that there is no God," or that the Scripture is not His word; their disrespect to the Scripture springing from their vanity, not their incredulity. They affect singularity, for want of 1 Virgil was travestied by Paul Scarron, who died in 1660. Scarron was imitated in England by Charles Cotton, who published in 1664 the first book, and in 1672 the first and fourth books of "Virgile Travestie." There is not much to be said for its wit. Thus Charles Cotton travestied, in the fourth book, Dido's pledge to Eneas "Dixit, et in mensam laticum libavit honorem," &c. "With that she set it to her nose, And all the rest did bless themselves anything else that is singular; and finding in themselves strong desires of conspicuousness, with small abilities to attain it, they are resolved with Erostratus, that fired Diana's temple, to be talked of for having done so, to acquire that considerableness by their sacrilege, which they must despair of from their parts. And indeed there want not many who have so little wit as to cry up all this sort of people for great wits. And as withes, whilst they are sound grow unregarded trees; but when they once are rotten, shine in the night so many of these pretenders, whilst they were not very profane, were (and that justly) esteemed very dull; but now that their parts are absolutely polluted and perverted, they grow conspicuous, only because they are grown depraved: and I shall make bold to continue the comparison a little further, and observe, that as this rotten wood shines but in the night, so many of these pretenders pass for wits but amongst them that are not truly so. For persons really knowing can easily distinguish betwixt that which exacts the title of wit from our judgments, and that which but appears such to our corruptions. And how often the discourse we censure is of the latter sort, they need not be informed that have observed, how many will talk very acceptably in derogation of religion, whom upon other subjects their partiallest friends acknowledge very dull; and who are taken notice of for persons that seldom say anything well, but what 'tis ill to say. Gilbert Sheldon, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1663, and died, nearly eighty years old, in 1677, published nothing but one sermon. He spent sixty-six thousand pounds in beneficence and charity. One monument of his liberality is the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, in which the University now holds annual commemoration of its benefactors. Archbishop Sheldon was of the mind of those who believed that Church unity should be enforced, and he had two successive chaplains, who published extreme opinions in that direction. was Thomas Tomkyns, who hesitated over the licensing of Milton's "Paradise Lost" when he came to these lines in the first book, describing Satan : "His form hath not yet lost All her original brightness, nor appear'd One Mr. Tomkyns, as Archbishop's chaplain and licenser, was in some loyal perplexity about these lines. As his contribution to the Church controversy, Thomas Tomkyns wrote a tract entitled "The Inconveniences of Toleration," and was succeeded in his office of chaplain to Archbishop Sheldon by Samuel Parker, who published in 1670 a "Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity," designed, as he said, to defend "the authority of the Civil Magistrate over the consciences of his subjects in matters of religion,” and to show "the mischief and inconveniences of 2 Withe (First-English" withie "), willow, twisted rod. to toleration." This and a preface by Parker Archbishop Bramhall's "Vindication of the Bishops from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery," were the writings answered on behalf of liberty of conscience by Andrew Marvell in a prose satire, with a title taken from the popular new play of its time, the Duke of Buckingham's "Rehearsal." When threatened for this-it was called "The Rehearsal Transprosed"-Marvell published a second part, with the threat printed on his title-page. The courtiers whom Marvell wished to influence were only to be reached by satire, and were more likely to read a book if it were named after a play than if it had a more serious title. On the other hand, when advocates of supreme authority desired to get a hearing from the other side, they found use in a title derived from the Bible. In 1675 Dr. Turner, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, attacked Dr. Herbert Croft, Bishop of Hereford, for having written a tract called "The Naked Truth, or the True State of the Primitive Church," in which he urged that the attempts to compel uniformity in details had failed, that as a confession of faith the Apostles' Creed had sufficed for the Primitive Church, and that we ought to ask no more. Dr. Fell, also, Bishop of Oxford, wrote against Bishop Croft, comparing him to Judas. Marvell satirised Dr. Turner's attack upon "The Naked Truth" in a piece named after a character in what then was the new play," "Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode," and it is noticeable that although master of satire, and using it as the weapon for truth most effective against his antagonists in a frivolous time, Marvell ended each of his two satires with earnest expression of his sense of its unworthiness. At the close of the second part of "The Rehearsal Transprosed," he quoted, with warm approbation, Bacon's protest against the intermixture of Scripture and scurrility in the Marprelate controversies; and at the close of "Mr. Smirke," he quoted from the Preface to the "Ecclesiastical Polity," Hooker's saying that "the time will come when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive a far more blessed reward than three thousand volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit." The Thus men were debating while the House of Commons, not wholly on patriotic grounds, forced the king to withdraw his Declaration of Indulgence. House also passed, in March, 1673, a Test Act, requiring all persons who bore any office, civil or military, to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and to receive the Sacrament according to the usages of the Church of England, within three months after their admittance, in some public church, upon Sunday, immediately after divine service and sermon. This act deprived the king's brother, the Duke of York, of his office of Lord High Admiral. In 1677 the pretended discovery of a Popish Plot by the infamous Titus Oates led to increased severity 1 Andrew Marvell. See Shorter English Poems, pages 319, 320. 2 Sir George Etherege's "Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter," in which there is a very small part for Mr. Smirk, a subservient chaplain. against the Roman Catholics. In spite of the efforts made for his exclusion, the king's brother, the Duke of York, succeeded him in February, 1685, as James II.; and by his endeavours to override the law, brought on, in about three years, the final expulsion of the Stuarts, and settlement of the limitation of the English crown. Richard Baxter, who, in 1672, was free for a time to preach, settled in London, and built a meetinghouse in Oxendon Street, but after the Indulgence was withdrawn, the preaching was forbidden. In 1682, he says, newly risen from extremity of pain, he was suddenly seized in his house by a poor violent informer and many constables and officers, who rushed in and apprehended him, and served on him one warrant to seize on his person for coming within five miles of a corporation, and five more warrants to distrain for a hundred and ninety pounds, for five sermons. His physician, Dr. Cox, then saved him from imprisonment by representing the infirmity of his health. In 1685, after a trial before Judge Jeffreys, who addressed him brutally from the bench, Baxter was condemned to two years' imprisonment for sedition, but, by the interference of Lord Powis, was discharged after six months' confinement. He died in 1691, aged seventy-six. In 1676 Robert Barclay, then twenty-eight years old, was confined as a Quaker in a prison so dark that he and his fellow-prisoners could not see the food given to them, unless a door were set open or a candle brought. In the same year appeared in Latin at Amsterdam, and afterwards in English, Robert Barclay's "Apology for the True Christian Divinity, as the same is held forth and preached by the People called in scorn Quakers, being a full Explanation and Vindication of their Principles and Doctrines." which office he was succeeded by Isaac Newton. In 1672 Barrow was made Master of his College, Trinity, and he was Vice-Chancellor of the University at the time of his death. He was mathematician as well as divine. "Several Sermons against EvilSpeaking," by Isaac Barrow, D.D., were published in 1678, the year after his death. The sermons are ten in number, and full of true wisdom. Their texts tell their subjects. (1) "If any man offend not in word, he is a perfect man," James iii. 2. (2) "Nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient," Ephes. v. 4. This is a discrimination of the fit and unfit forms of the "facetiousness" much aimed at in Charles II.'s time. (3) "But above all things, my brethren, swear not," James v. 12. (4) "To speak evil of no man," Titus iii. 2. (5 and 6) "He that uttereth slander is a fool," Prov. x. 18. (7) "Speak not evil of one another, brethren,' James iv. 11. (8) "Judge not," Matthew vii. 1. (9 and 10) "And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business," 1 Thess. iv. 11. The following passage is from the fourth sermon :— THE STYLE OF CONTROVERSY. In defence of truth, and maintenance of a good cause, we may observe, that commonly the fairest language is most proper and advantageous, and that reproachful or foul terms are most improper and prejudicial. A calm and meek way of discoursing doth much advantage a good cause, as arguing the patron thereof to have confidence in the cause itself, and to rely upon its strength; that he is in a temper fit to apprehend it himself, and to maintain it; that he propoundeth it as a friend, wishing the hearer for his own good to follow it, leaving him the liberty to judge, and choose for himself. But rude speech, and contemptuous reflections on persons, as they do signify nothing to the question, so they commonly bring much disadvantage and damage to the cause, creating mighty prejudices against it. They argue much impotency in the advocate, and consequently little strength in what he maintains; that he is little able to judge well, and altogether unapt to teach others. They intimate a diffidence in himself concerning his cause, and that, despairing to maintain it by reason, he seeks to uphold it by passion; that, not being able to convince by fair means, he would bear down by noise and clamour; that, not skilling to get his suit quietly, he would extort it by force, obtruding his conceits violently as an enemy, or imposing them arbitrarily as a tyrant. Thus doth he really disparage and slur his cause, however good and defensible in itself. A modest and friendly style doth suit truth; it, like its author, doth usually reside (not in the rumbling wind, nor in the, shaking earthquake, nor in the raging fire, but) in the small still voice: sounding in this, it is most audible, most penetrant, and most effectual: thus propounded, it is willingly hearkened to; for men have no aversation from hearing those who seem to love them, and wish them well. It is easily conceived; no prejudice or passion clouding the apprehensive faculties: it is readily embraced; no animosity withstanding or obstructing it. It is the sweetness of the lips, which (as the wise man telleth us) increaseth learning; disposing a man to hear lessons of good doctrine, rendering him capable to understand them, insinuating and impressing them upon the mind. The affections being thereby unlocked, the passage becomes open to the Reason. But it is plainly a very preposterous method of instructing, of deciding controversies, of begetting peace, to vex and anger those concerned by ill language. Nothing surely doth more hinder the efficacy of discourse, and prevent conviction, than doth this course, upon many obvious accounts. It doth first put in a strong bar to attention: for no man willingly doth afford an ear to him whom he conceiveth disaffected toward him; which opinion harsh words infallibly will produce. No man can expect to hear truth from him whom he apprehendeth disordered in his own mind, whom he seeth rude in his proceedings, whom he taketh to be unjust in his dealing; as men certainly will take those to be who presume to revile others for using their own judgment freely and dissenting from them in opinion. Again, this course doth blind the hearer's mind, so that he cannot discern what he that pretends to instruct him doth mean, or how he doth assert his doctrine. Truth will not be discerned through the smoke of wrathful expressions; right being defaced by foul language will not appear; passion being excited will not suffer a man to perceive the sense, or the force of an argument. The will also thereby is hardened, and hindered from submitting to truth. In such a case, non persuadebis, etiamsi persuaseris; although you stop his mouth, you cannot subdue his heart; although he can no longer fight, yet he never will yield: animosity raised by such usage rendereth him invincibly obstinate in his conceits and courses. Briefly, from this proceeding men become unwilling to mark, unfit to apprehend, indisposed to embrace any good instruction or advice: it maketh them indocile and intractable, averse from better instruction, pertinacious in their opinions, and refractory in their ways. Every man (saith the wise man) shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer: but no man surely will be ready to kiss those lips which are embittered with reproach, or defiled with dirty language. It is said of Pericles, that with thundering and lightning he put Greece into confusion: such discourse may serve to confound things, it seldom tendeth to compose them. If Reason will not pierce, Rage will scarce avail to drive it in. Satirical virulency may vex men sorely, but it hardly ever soundly converts them. Few become wiser or better by ill words. Children may be frighted into compliance by loud and severe increpations; but men are to be allured by rational persuasion backed with courteous usage: they may be sweetly drawn, they cannot be violently driven to change their judgment and practice. Whence that advice of the Apostle, With meekness instruct those that oppose themselves, doth no less savour of wisdom than of goodness. He Ralph Cudworth, who was two years younger than Baxter, was in 1644 Master of Clare Hall, and in 1654 Master of Christ's College, Cambridge. published in 1678 a folio of more than 900 pages, containing the first part-there were to have been three parts of "The Intellectual System of the Universe." In this first part the title-page set forth that "All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is confuted, and its Impossibility demonstrated." The root of the whole book was a desire to reason against "the Fatal Necessity of all actions and events, which upon whatever grounds or principles maintained, will serve the design of Atheism, and undermine Christianity and all religion; as taking away all 1 "You will not persuade, even though you may have persuaded" -will not persuade to a duty of which you may have persuaded him. |