the parts of it declare the being and wisdom of a God. Without the
acknowledging God, the atheist can give no account of those things.
The multitude, elegancy, variety, and beauty of all things are steps
whereby to ascend to one fountain and original of them. Is it not a
folly to deny the being of a wise agent, who sparkles in the beauty
and motions of the heavens, rides upon the wings of the wind, and is
writ upon the flowers and fruits of plants? As the cause is known by
the effects, so the wisdom of the cause is known by the elegancy of
the work, the proportion of the parts to one another. Who can imagine
the world could be rashly made, and without consultation, which, in
every part of it, is so artificially framed? No work of art springs up
of its own accord.[67] The world is framed by an excellent art, and,
therefore, made by some skilful artist. As we hear not a melodious
instrument, but we conclude there is a musician that touches it,
as well as some skilful hand that framed and disposed it for those
lessons; and no man that hears the pleasant sound of a lute but will
fix his thoughts, not upon the instrument itself, but upon the skill
of the artist that made it, and the art of the musician that strikes
it, though he should not see the first, when he saw the lute, nor see
the other, when he hears the harmony: so a rational creature confines
not his thoughts to his sense when he sees the sun in its glory, and
the moon walking in its brightness; but riseth up in a contemplation
and admiration of that Infinite Spirit that composed, and filled them
with such sweetness. This appears,
1. In the linking contrary qualities together. All things are
compounded of the elements. Those are endued with contrary qualities,
dryness and moisture, heat and cold. These would always be contending
with and infesting one another’s rights, till the contest ended in the
destruction of one or both. Where fire is predominant, it would suck
up the water; where water is prevalent, it would quench the fire.
The heat would wholly expel the cold, or the cold overpower the heat;
yet we see them chained and linked one within another in every body
upon the earth, and rendering mutual offices for the benefit of that
body wherein they are seated, and all conspiring together in their
particular quarrels for the public interest of the body. How could
those contraries, that of themselves observe no order, that are always
preying upon one another, jointly accord together of themselves, for
one common end, if they were not linked in a common band, and reduced
to that order by some incomprehensible wisdom and power, which keeps
a hand upon them, orders their motions and directs their events, and
makes them friendly pass into one another’s natures? Confusion had
been the result of the discord and diversity of their natures; no
composition could have been of {a53} those conflicting qualities for
the frame of any body, nor any harmony arose from so many jarring
strings, if they had not been reduced into concord by one that is
supreme Lord over them, and knows how to dispose their varieties and
enmities for the public good. If a man should see a large city or
country, consisting of great multitudes of men, of different tempers,
full of frauds, and factions, and animosities in their natures against
one another, yet living together in good order and peace, without
oppressing and invading one another, and joining together for the
public good, he would presently conclude there were some excellent
governor, who tempered them by his wisdom, and preserved the public
peace, though he had never yet beheld him with his eye.[68] It is
as necessary to conclude a God, who moderates the contrarieties in
the world, as to conclude a wise prince who overrules the contrary
dispositions in a state, making every one to keep his own bounds
and confines. Things that are contrary to one another subsist in an
admirable order.
2. In the subserviency of one thing to another. All the members of
living creatures are curiously fitted for the service of one another,
destined to a particular end, and endued with a virtue to attain that
end, and so distinctly placed, that one is no hindrance to the other
in its operations.[69] Is not this more admirable than to be the
work of chance, which is incapable to settle such an order, and fix
particular and general ends, causing an exact correspondency of all
the parts with one another, and every part to conspire together for
one common end? One thing is fitted for another. The eye is fitted
for the sun, and the sun fitted for the eye. Several sorts of food are
fitted for several creatures, and those creatures fitted with organs
for the partaking that food.
(1.) Subserviency of heavenly bodies. The sun, the heart of the world,
is not for itself, but for the good of the world, as the heart of man
is for the good of the body.[70] How conveniently is the sun placed,
at a distance from the earth, and the upper heavens, to enlighten the
stars above, and enliven the earth below! If it were either higher
or lower, one part would want its influences. It is not in the higher
parts of the heavens; the earth, then, which lives and fructifies
by its influence would have been exposed to a perpetual winter and
chillness, unable to have produced anything for the sustenance of man
or beast. If seated lower, the earth had been parched up, the world
made uninhabitable, and long since had been consumed to ashes by the
strength of its heat. Consider the motion, as well as the situation of
the sun. Had it stood still, one part of the world had been cherished
by its beams, and the other left in a desolate widowhood, in a
disconsolate darkness. Besides, the earth would have had no shelter
from its perpendicular beams striking perpetually, and without any
remission, upon it. The same incommodities would have followed upon
its fixedness as upon its too great nearness. By a constant day, the
beauty of the stars had been obscured, the knowledge of their motions
been prevented, and a considerable part of the glorious wisdom of
the Creator, in those choice “works of his {a54} fingers,”[71] had
been veiled from our eyes. It moves in a fixed line, visits all parts
of the earth, scatters in the day its refreshing blessings in every
creek of the earth, and removes the mask from the other beauties of
heaven in the night, which sparkle out to the glory of the Creator.
It spreads its light, warms the earth, cherisheth the seeds, excites
the spirit in the earth, and brings fruit to maturity. View also the
air, the vast extent between heaven and earth, which serves for a
water‑course, a cistern for water, to bedew the face of the sun‑burnt
earth, to satisfy the desolate ground, and to cause the “bud of the
tender herb to spring forth.”[72] Could chance appoint the clouds of
the air to interpose as fans between the scorching heat of the sun,
and the faint bodies of the creatures? Can that be the “father of the
rain, or beget the drops of dew?”[73] Could anything so blind settle
those ordinances of heaven for the preservation of creatures on the
earth? Can this either bring or stay the bottles of heaven, when the
“dust grows into hardness, and the clouds cleave fast together?”[74]
(2.) Subserviency of the lower world, the earth, and sea, which was
created to be inhabited, (Isa. xlv. 18). The sea affords water to the
rivers, the rivers, like so many veins, are spread through the whole
body of the earth, to refresh and enable it to bring forth fruit for
the sustenance of man and beast, (Ps. civ. 10, 11). “He sends the
springs into the valleys, which run among the hills; they give drink
to every beast of the field; the wild asses quench their thirst. He
causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and the herb for the service
of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth.” (ver. 14.) The
trees are provided for shades against the extremity of heat, a refuge
for the panting beasts, an “habitation for birds,” wherein to make
their nests (ver. 17), and a basket for their provision. How are
the valleys and mountains of the earth disposed for the pleasure and
profit of man! Every year are the fields covered with harvests for
the nourishing the creatures; no part is barren, but beneficial to
man. The mountains that are not clothed with grass for his food, are
set with stones to make him an habitation; they have their peculiar
services of metals and minerals, for the conveniency and comfort, and
benefit of man. Things which are not fit for his food, are medicines
for his cure, under some painful sickness. Where the earth brings not
forth corn, it brings forth roots for the service of other creatures.
Wood abounds more in those countries where the cold is stronger than
in others. Can this be the result of chance, or not rather of an
Infinite Wisdom? Consider the usefulness of the sea, for the supply
of rivers to refresh the earth: “Which go up by the mountains and down
by the valleys into the place God hath founded for them” (Ps. civ. 8):
a store‑house for fish, for the nourishment of other creatures, a
shop of medicines for cure, and pearls for ornament: the band that
ties remote nations together, by giving opportunity of passage to, and
commerce with, one another. How should that natural inclination of the
sea to cover the earth, submit to this subserviency to the creatures?
Who hath pounded in this fluid mass of water in certain limits,
and confined it to its {a55} own channel, for the accommodation of
such creatures, who, by its common law, can only be upon the earth?
Naturally the earth was covered with the deep as with a garment; the
waters stood above the mountains. “Who set a bound that they might not
pass over,”[75] that they return not again to cover the earth? Was it
blind chance or an Infinite Power, that “shut up the sea with doors,
and made thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and said, Hitherto
shall thou come and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be
stayed?”[76] All things are so ordered, that they are not _propter
se_, but _propter aliud_. What advantage accrues to the sun by its
unwearied rolling about the world? Doth it increase the perfection of
its nature by all its circuits? No; but it serves the inferior world,
it impregnates things by its heat. Not the most abject thing but hath
its end and use. There is a straight connection: the earth could not
bring forth fruit without the heavens; the heavens could not water the
earth without vapors from it.
(3.) All this subserviency of creatures centres in man. Other
creatures are served by those things, as well as ourselves, and
they are provided for their nourishment and refreshment, as well as
ours;[77] yet, both they, and all creatures meet in man, as lines in
their centres. Things that have no life or sense, are made for those
that have both life and sense; and those that have life and sense,
are made for those that are endued with reason. When the Psalmist
admiringly considers the heavens, moon and stars, he intimates man to
be the end for which they were created (Ps. viii. 3, 4): “What is man,
that thou art mindful of him?” He expresseth more particularly the
dominion that man hath “over the beasts of the field, the fowl of the
air, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the sea” (ver. 6‒8);
and concludes from thence, the “excellency of God’s name in all
the earth.” All things in the world, one way or other, centre in an
usefulness for man; some to feed him, some to clothe him, some to
delight him, others to instruct him, some to exercise his wit, and
others his strength. Since man did not make them, he did not also
order them for his own use. If they conspire to serve him who never
made them, they direct man to acknowledge another, who is the joint
Creator both of the lord and the servants under his dominion; and,
therefore, as the inferior natures are ordered by an invisible hand
for the good of man, so the nature of man is, by the same hand,
ordered to acknowledge the existence and the glory of the Creator of
him. This visible order man knows he did not constitute; he did not
settle those creatures in subserviency to himself; they were placed
in that order before he had any acquaintance with them, or existence
of himself; which is a question God puts to Job, to consider of (Job
xxxviii. 4): “Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth?
declare, if thou hast understanding.” All is ordered for man’s use;
the heavens answer to the earth, as a roof to a floor, both composing
a delightful habitation for man; vapors ascend from the earth, and
the heaven concocts them, and returns them back in welcome showers for
the supplying of the earth.[78] The light {a56} of the sun descends
to beautify the earth, and employs its heat to midwife its fruits,
and this for the good of the community, whereof man is the head;
and though all creatures have distinct natures, and must act for
particular ends, according to the law of their creation, yet there
is a joint combination for the good of the whole, as the common end;
just as all the rivers in the world, from what part soever they come,
whether north or south, fall into the sea, for the supply of that mass
of waters, which loudly proclaims some infinitely wise nature, who
made those things in so exact an harmony. “As in a clock, the hammer
which strikes the bell leads us to the next wheel, that to another,
the little wheel to a greater, whence it derives its motion, this
at last to the spring, which acquaints us that there was some artist
that framed them in this subordination to one another for this orderly
motion.”[79]
(4.) This order or subserviency is regular and uniform; everything is
determined to its particular nature.[80] The sun and moon make day and
night, months and years, determine the seasons, never are defective
in coming back to their station and place; they wander not from their
roads, shock not against one another, nor hinder one another in the
functions assigned them. From a small grain or seed, a tree springs,
with body, root, bark, leaves, fruit of the same shape, figure, smell,
taste; that there should be as many parts in one, as in all of the
same kind, and no more; and that in the womb of a sensitive creature
should be formed one of the same kind, with all the due members,
and no more; and the creature that produceth it knows not how it is
formed, or how it is perfected. If we say this is nature, this nature
is an intelligent being; if not, how can it direct all causes to
such uniform ends? if it be intelligent, this nature must be the same
we call God, “who ordered every herb to yield seed, and every fruit
tree to yield fruit after its kind, and also every beast, and every
creeping thing after its kind.” (Gen. i. 11, 12, 24.) And everything
is determined to its particular season; the sap riseth from the root
at its appointed time, enlivening and clothing the branches with a
new garment at such a time of the sun’s returning, not wholly hindered
by any accidental coldness of the weather, it being often colder at
its return, than it was at the sun’s departure. All things have their
seasons of flourishing, budding, blossoming, bringing forth fruit;
they ripen in their seasons, cast their leaves at the same time, throw
off their old clothes, and in the spring appear with new garments, but
still in the same fashion. The winds and the rain have their seasons,
and seem to be administered by laws for the profit of man.[81] No
satisfactory cause of those things can be ascribed to the earth,
the sea, or the air, or stars. “Can any understand the spreading
of his clouds, or the noise of his tabernacle?” (Job xxxviii. 29).
The natural reason of those things cannot be demonstrated, without
recourse to an infinite and intelligent being; nothing can be rendered
capable of the direction of those things but a God.
This regularity in plants and animals is in all nations. The heavens
have the same motion in all parts of the world; all men have the same
law of nature in their mind; all creatures are stamped {a57} with the
same law of creation. In all parts the same creatures serve for the
same use; and though there be different creatures in India and Europe,
yet they have the same subordination, the same subserviency to one
another, and ultimately to man; which shows that there is a God, and
but one God, who tunes all those different strings to the same notes
in all places. Is it nature merely conducts these natural causes in
due measure to their proper effects, without interfering with one
another? Can mere nature be the cause of those musical proportions of
time? You may as well conceive a lute to sound its own strings without
the hand of an artist; a city well governed without a governor; an
army keep its stations without a general, as imagine so exact an order
without an orderer. Would any man, when he hears a clock strike, by
fit intervals, the hour of the day, imagine this regularity in it
without the direction of one that had understanding to manage it?
He would not only regard the motion of the clock, but commend the
diligence of the clock‑keeper.
(5.) This order and subserviency is constant. Children change the
customs and manners of their fathers; magistrates change the laws
they have received from their ancestors, and enact new ones in their
room: but in the world all things consist as they were created at the
beginning; the law of nature in the creatures hath met with no change.
Who can behold the sun rising in the morning, the moon shining in
the night, increasing and decreasing in its due spaces, the stars in
their regular motions night after night, for all ages, and yet deny a
President over them?[82] And this motion of the heavenly bodies, being
contrary to the nature of other creatures, who move in order to rest,
must be from some higher cause. But those, ever since the settling in
their places, have been perpetually rounding the world. What nature,
but one powerful and intelligent, could give that perpetual motion
to the sun,[83] which being bigger than the earth a hundred sixty‑six
times, runs many thousand miles with a mighty swiftness in the space
of an hour, with an unwearied diligence performing its daily task, and,
as a strong man, rejoicing to run its race, for above five thousand
years together, without intermission, but in the time of Joshua?[84]
It is not nature’s sun, but God’s sun, which he “makes to rise upon
the just and unjust.”[85] So a plant receives its nourishment from
the earth, sends forth the juice to every branch, forms a bud which
spreads it into a blossom and flower; the leaves of this drop off,
and leave a fruit of the same color and taste, every year, which,
being ripened by the sun, leaves seeds behind it for the propagation
of its like, which contains in the nature of it the same kind of buds,
blossoms, fruit, which were before; and being nourished in the womb
of the earth, and quickened by the power of the sun, discovers itself
at length, in all the progresses and motions which its predecessor
did. Thus in all ages, in all places, every year it performs the same
task, spins out fruit of the same color, taste, virtue, to refresh
the several creatures for which they are provided. {a58} This settled
state of things comes from that God who laid the “foundations of
the earth,” that it should “not be removed” forever;[86] and set
“ordinances for them” to act by a stated law;[87] according to which
they move as if they understood themselves to have made a covenant
with their Creator.[88]
3. Add to this union of contrary qualities, and the subserviency of
one thing to another, the admirable variety and diversity of things
in the world. What variety of metals, living creatures, plants! what
variety and distinction in the shape of their leaves, flowers, smell,
resulting from them! Who can number up the several sorts of beasts
on the earth, birds in the air, fish in the sea? How various are
their motions! Some creep, some go, some fly, some swim; and in all
this variety each creature hath organs or members, fitted for their
peculiar motion. If you consider the multitude of stars, which shine
like jewels in the heavens, their different magnitudes, or the variety
of colors in the flowers and tapestry of the earth, you could no more
conclude they made themselves, or were made by chance, than you can
imagine a piece of arras, with a diversity of figures and colors,
either wove itself, or were knit together by hazard.
How delicious is the sap of the vine, when turned into wine, above
that of a crab! Both have the same womb of earth to conceive them,
both agree in the nature of wood and twigs, as channels to convey it
into fruit. What is that which makes the one so sweet, the other so
sour, or makes that sweet which was a few weeks before unpleasantly
sharp? Is it the earth? No: they both have the same soil; the branches
may touch each other; the strings of their roots may, under ground,
entwine about one another. Is it the sun? both have the same beams.
Why is not the taste and color of the one as gratifying as the other?
Is it the root? the taste of that is far different from that of
the fruit it bears. Why do they not, when they have the same soil,
the same sun, and stand near one another, borrow something from one
another’s natures? No reason can be rendered, but that there is a
God of infinite wisdom hath determined this variety, and bound up the
nature of each creature within itself. “Everything follows the law
of its creation; and it is worthy observation, that the Creator of
them hath not given that power to animals, which arise from different
species, to propagate the like to themselves; as mules, that arise
from different species. No reason can be rendered of this, but the
fixed determination of the Creator, that those species which were
created by him should not be lost in those mixtures which are contrary
to the law of the creation?”[89] This cannot possibly be ascribed to
that which is commonly called nature, but unto the God of nature, who
will not have his creatures exceed their bounds or come short of them.
Now since among those varieties there are some things better than
other, yet all are good in their kind, and partake of goodness,[90]
there must be something better and more excellent than all those, from
whom they derive that goodness, which inheres in their nature and is
communicated by them to others: and this excellent Being must {a59}
inherit, in an eminent way in his own nature, the goodness of all
those varieties, since they made not themselves, but were made by
another. All that goodness which is scattered in those varieties must
be infinitely concentered in that nature, which distributed those
various perfections to them (Ps. xciv. 9): “He that planted the ear,
shall not he hear; he that formed the eye, shall not he see; he that
teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?” The Creator is greater
than the creature, and whatsoever is in his effects, is but an
impression of some excellency in himself: there is, therefore, some
chief fountain of goodness whence all those various goodnesses in the
world do flow.