must be an Orderer: one that “made the earth by his power, established
the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his
discretion” (Jer. x. 12). Order being the effect, cannot be the cause
of itself: order is the disposition of things to an end, and is not
intelligent, but implies an intelligent Orderer; and, therefore, it
is as certain that there is a God, as it is certain there is order in
the world. Order is an effect of reason and counsel; this reason and
counsel must have its residence in some being before this order was
fixed: the things ordered are always distinct from that reason and
counsel whereby they are ordered, and also after it, as the effect
is after the cause. No man begins a piece of work but he hath the
model of it in his own mind: no man builds a house, or makes a watch,
but he hath the idea or copy of it in his own head. This beautiful
world bespeaks an idea of it, or a model: since there is such a
magnificent wisdom in the make of each creature, and the proportion
of one creature to another, this model must be before the world, as
the pattern is always before the thing that is wrought by it. This,
therefore, must be in some intelligent and wise agent, and this is God.
Since the reason of those things exceed the reason and all the art of
man, who can ascribe them to any inferior cause? Chance it could not
be; the motions of chance are not constant, and at set seasons, as
the motions of creatures are. That which is by chance is contingent,
this is necessary; uniformity can never be the birth of chance. Who
can imagine that all the parts of a watch can meet together and put
themselves in order and motion by chance? “Nor can it be nature only,
which indeed is a disposition of second causes. If nature hath not
an understanding, it cannot work such effects. If nature therefore
uses counsel to begin a thing, reason to dispose it, art to effect it,
virtue to complete it, and power to govern it, why should it be called
nature rather than God?”[91] Nothing so sure as that which hath an end
to which it tends, hath a cause by which it is ordered to that end.
Since therefore all things are ordered in subserviency to the good of
man, they are so ordered by Him that made both man and them; and man
must acknowledge the wisdom and goodness of his Creator, and act in
subserviency to his glory, as other creatures act in subserviency to
his good. Sensible objects were not made only to gratify the sense of
man, but to hand something to his mind as he is a rational creature:
to discover God to {a60} him as an object of love and desire to be
enjoyed. If this be not the effect of it, the order of the creature,
as to such an one, is in vain, and falls short of its true end.[92]
To conclude this: As when a man comes into a palace, built according
to the exactest rule of art, and with an unexceptionable conveniency
for the inhabitants, he would acknowledge both the being and skill
of the builder; so whosoever shall observe the disposition of all
the parts of the world, their connection, comeliness, the variety of
seasons, the swarms of different creatures, and the mutual offices
they render to one another, cannot conclude less, than that it was
contrived by an infinite skill, effected by infinite power, and
governed by infinite wisdom. None can imagine a ship to be orderly
conducted without a pilot; nor the parts of the world to perform their
several functions without a wise guide; considering the members of the
body cannot perform theirs, without the active presence of the soul.
The atheist, then, is a fool to deny that which every creature in his
constitution asserts, and thereby renders himself unable to give a
satisfactory account of that constant uniformity in the motions of
the creatures.
Thirdly, As the production and harmony, so particular creatures,
pursuing and attaining their ends, manifest that there is a God. All
particular creatures have natural instincts, which move them for some
end. The intending of an end is a property of a rational creature;
since the lower creatures cannot challenge that title, they must act
by the understanding and direction of another; and since man cannot
challenge the honor of inspiring the creatures with such instincts,
it must be ascribed to some nature infinitely above any creature in
understanding. No creature doth determine itself. Why do the fruits
and grain of the earth nourish us, when the earth which instrumentally
gives them that fitness, cannot nourish us, but because their several
ends are determined by one higher than the world?
1. Several creatures have several natures. How soon will all creatures,
as soon as they see the light, move to that whereby they must live,
and make use of the natural arms God hath given their kind, for their
defence, before they are grown to any maturity to afford them that
defence! The Scripture makes the appetite of infants to their milk a
foundation of the divine glory, (Ps. viii. 3), “Out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength;” that is, matter of
praise and acknowledgment of God, in the natural appetite they have
to their milk and their relish of it. All creatures have a natural
affection to their young ones; all young ones by a natural instinct,
move to, and receive the nourishment that is proper for them; some
are their own physicians, as well as their own caterers, and naturally
discern what preserves them in life, and what restores them when
sick. The swallow flies to its celandine, and the toad hastens to
its plantain. Can we behold the spider’s nets, or silkworm’s web,
the bee’s closets, or the ant’s granaries, without acknowledging a
higher being than a creature who hath planted that genius in them?
The consideration of the nature of several creatures God commended to
Job, (chap. xxxix., where he discourseth {a61} to Job of the natural
instincts of the goat, the ostrich, horse, and eagle, &c.) to persuade
him to the acknowledgment and admiration of God, and humiliation of
himself. The spider, as if it understood the art of weaving, fits its
web both for its own habitation, and a net to catch its prey. The bee
builds a cell which serves for chambers to reside in, and a repository
for its provision. Birds are observed to build their nests with a
clammy matter without, for the firmer duration of it, and with a soft
moss and down within, for the conveniency and warmth of their young.
“The stork knows his appointed time,” (Jer. viii. 7), and the swallows
observe the time of their coming; they go and return according to the
seasons of the year; this they gain not by consideration, it descends
to them with their nature; they neither gain nor increase it by
rational deductions. It is not in vain to speak of these. How little
do we improve by meditation those objects which daily offer themselves
to our view, full of instructions for us! And our Saviour sends his
disciples to spell God in the lilies.[93] It is observed also, that
the creatures offensive to man go single; if they went by troops, they
would bring destruction upon man and beast; this is the nature of them,
for the preservation of others.
2. They know not their end. They have a law in their natures, but
have no rational understanding, either of the end to which they are
appointed, or the means fit to attain it; they naturally do what they
do, and move by no counsel of their own, but by a law impressed by
some higher hand upon their natures. What plant knows why it strikes
its root into the earth? doth it understand what storms it is to
contest with? Or why it shoots up its branches towards heaven? doth it
know it needs the droppings of the clouds to preserve itself, and make
it fruitful? These are acts of understanding; the root is downward
to preserve its own standing, the branches upward to preserve other
creatures; this understanding is not in the creature itself, but
originally in another. Thunders and tempests know not why they are
sent; yet by the direction of a mighty hand, they are instruments of
justice upon a wicked world. Rational creatures that act for some end,
and know the end they aim at, yet know not the manner of the natural
motion of the members to it.[94] When we intend to look upon a thing,
we take no counsel about the natural motion of our eyes, we know
not all the principles of their operations, or how that dull matter
whereof our bodies are composed, is subject to the order of our minds.
We are not of counsel with our stomachs about the concoction of our
meat, or the distribution of the nourishing juice to the several parts
of the body.[95] Neither the mother nor the fœtus sit in council how
the formation should be made in the womb. We know no more than a plant
knows what stature it is of, and what medicinal virtue its fruit hath
for the good of man; yet all those natural operations are perfectly
directed to their proper end, by an higher wisdom than any human
understanding is able to conceive, since they exceed the ability
of an inanimate or fleshly nature, yea, and the wisdom of a man.
Do we not often {a62} see reasonable creatures acting for one end,
and perfecting a higher than what they aimed at or could suspect?
When Joseph’s brethren sold him for a slave, their end was to be
rid of an informer;[96] but the action issued in preparing him to
be the preserver of them and their families. Cyrus’s end was to be
a conqueror, but the action ended in being the Jews’ deliverer (Prov.
xvi. 9). “A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directs his
steps.”
3. Therefore there is some superior understanding and nature which so
acts them. That which acts for an end unknown to itself, depends upon
some overruling wisdom that knows that end. Who should direct them in
all those ends, but He that bestowed a being upon them for those ends;
who knows what is convenient for their life, security and propagation
of their natures?[97] An exact knowledge is necessary both of what is
agreeable to them, and the means whereby they must attain it, which,
since it is not inherent in them, is in that wise God, who puts those
instincts into them, and governs them in the exercise of them to such
ends. Any man that sees a dart flung, knows it cannot hit the mark
without the skill and strength of an archer; or he that sees the hand
of a dial pointing to the hours successively, knows that the dial
is ignorant of its own end, and is disposed and directed in that
motion by another. All creatures ignorant of their own natures, could
not universally in the whole kind, and in every climate and country,
without any difference in the whole world, tend to a certain end, if
some overruling wisdom did not preside over the world and guide them:
and if the creatures have a Conductor, they have a Creator; all things
are “turned round about by his counsel, that they may do whatsoever
he commands them, upon the face of the world in the earth.”[98] So
that in this respect the folly of atheism appears. Without the owning
a God, no account can be given of those actions of creatures, that
are an imitation of reason. To say the bees, &c. are rational, is
to equal them to man: nay, make them his superiors, since they do
more by nature than the wisest man can do by art: it is their own
counsel whereby they act, or another’s; if it be their own, they are
reasonable creatures; if by another’s, it is not mere nature that is
necessary; then other creatures would not be without the same skill,
there would be no difference among them. If nature be restrained by
another, it hath a superior; if not, it is a free agent; it is an
understanding Being that directs them; and then it is something
superior to all creatures in the world; and by this, therefore, we
may ascend to the acknowledgment of the necessity of a God.
Fourthly. Add to the production and order of the world and the
creatures acting for their end, the preservation of them. Nothing
can depend upon itself in its preservation, no more than it could
in its being. If the order of the world was not fixed by itself,
the preservation of that order cannot be continued by itself. Though
the matter of the world after creation cannot return to that nothing
whence it was fetched, without the power of God that made it, (because
the same power is as requisite to reduce a thing to nothing as to
raise a thing from nothing), yet without the actual exerting of a {a63}
power that made the creatures, they would fall into confusion. Those
contesting qualities which are in every part of it, could not have
preserved, but would have consumed, and extinguished one another, and
reduced the world to that confused chaos, wherein it was before the
Spirit moved upon the waters: as contrary parts could not have met
together in one form, unless there had been one that had conjoined
them; so they could not have kept together after their conjunction
unless the same hand had preserved them. Natural contrarieties cannot
be reconciled. It is as great power to keep discords knit, as at first
to link them. Who would doubt but that an army made up of several
nations and humors, would fall into a civil war and sheathe their
swords in one another’s bowels, if they were not under the management
of some wise general; or a ship dash against the rocks without the
skill of a pilot? As the body hath neither life nor motion without
the active presence of the soul, which distributes to every part
the virtue of acting, sets every one in the exercise of its proper
function, and resides in every part; so there is some powerful cause
which doth the like in the world, that rules and tempers it.[99] There
is need of the same power and action to preserve a thing, as there
was at first to make it. When we consider that we are preserved, and
know that we could not preserve ourselves, we must necessarily run to
some first cause which doth preserve us. All works of art depend upon
nature, and are preserved while they are kept by the force of nature,
as a statue depends upon the matter whereof it is made, whether stone
or brass; this nature, therefore, must have some superior by whose
influx it is preserved. Since, therefore, we see a stable order in
the things of the world, that they conspire together for the good and
beauty of the universe; that they depend upon one another; there must
be some principle upon which they do depend; something to which the
first link of the chain is fastened, which himself depends upon no
superior, but wholly rests in his own essence and being. It is the
title of God to be the “Preserver of man and beast.”[100] The Psalmist
elegantly describeth it, (Psalm civ. 24, &c.) “The earth is full of
his riches: all wait upon him, that he may give them their meat in
due season. When he opens his hand, he fills them with good; when
he hides his face they are troubled; if he take away their breath,
they die, and return to dust. He sends forth his Spirit, and they are
created, and renews the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall
endure forever; and the Lord shall rejoice in his works.” Upon the
consideration of all which, the Psalmist (ver. 34) takes a pleasure
in the meditation of God as the cause and manager of all those things;
which issues into a joy in God, and a praising of him. And why should
not the consideration of the power and wisdom of God in the creatures
produce the same effect in the hearts of us, if he be our God? Or, as
some render it, “My meditation shall be sweet,” or acceptable _to_ him,
whereby I find matter of praise in the things of the world, and offer
it to the Creator of it.
_Reason III._ It is a folly to deny that which a man’s own nature
witnesseth to him. The whole frame of bodies and souls bears the {a64}
impress of the infinite power and wisdom of the Creator: a body framed
with an admirable architecture, a soul endowed with understanding,
will, judgment, memory, imagination. Man is the epitome of the world,
contains in himself the substance of all natures, and the fulness of
the whole universe; not only in regard of the universalness of his
knowledge, whereby he comprehends the reasons of many things; but as
all the perfections of the several natures of the world are gathered
and united in man, for the perfection of his own, in a smaller volume.
In his soul he partakes of heaven; in his body of the earth. There is
the life of plants, the sense of beasts, and the intellectual nature
of angels. “The Lord breathed into his nostril the breath of life, and
man,”[101] &c.: חיים, _of lives_. Not one sort of _lives_, but several;
not only an _animal_, but a _rational_ life; a soul of a nobler
extract and nature, than what was given to other creatures. So that
we need not step out of doors, or cast our eyes any further than
ourselves, to behold a God. He shines in the capacity of our souls,
and the vigor of our members. We must fly from ourselves, and be
stripped of our own humanity, before we can put off the notion of a
Deity. He that is ignorant of the existence of God, must be possessed
of so much folly, as to be ignorant of his own make and frame.
1. In the parts whereof he doth consist, body and soul.
First, Take a prospect of the body. The Psalmist counts it a matter
of praise and admiration (Psalm cxxxix. 15, 16): “I will praise thee,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. When I was made in secret,
and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, in thy book
all my members were written.” The scheme of man and every member was
drawn in his book. All the sinews, veins, arteries, bones, like a
piece of embroidery or tapestry, were wrought by God, as it were, with
deliberation; like an artificer, that draws out the model of what he
is to do in writing, and sets it before him when he begins his work.
And, indeed, the fabric of man’s body, as well as his soul, is an
argument for a Divinity. The artificial structure of it, the elegancy
of every part, the proper situation of them, their proportion one to
another, the fitness for their several functions, drew from Galen[102]
(a heathen, and one that had no raised sentiments of a Deity) a
confession of the admirable wisdom and power of the Creator, and that
none but God could frame it.
1. In the order, fitness, and usefulness of every part. The whole
model of the body is grounded upon reason. Every member hath its
exact proportion, distinct office, regular motion. Every part hath a
particular comeliness, and convenient temperament bestowed upon it,
according to its place in the body. The heart is hot, to enliven the
whole; the eye clear, to take in objects to present them to the soul.
Every member is presented for its peculiar service and action. Some
are for sense, some for motion, some for preparing, and others for
dispensing nourishment to the several parts: they mutually depend
upon and serve one another. What small strings fasten the particular
members together, “as the earth, that hangs {a65} upon nothing!”[103]
Take but one part away, and you either destroy the whole, or stamp
upon it some mark of deformity. All are knit together by an admirable
symmetry; all orderly perform their functions, as acting by a settled
law; none swerving from their rule, but in case of some predominant
humor. And none of them, in so great a multitude of parts, stifled
in so little a room, or jostling against one another, to hinder their
mutual actions; none can be better disposed. And the greatest wisdom
of man could not imagine it, till his eyes present them with the sight
and connection of one part and member with another.
(1.) The heart.[104] How strongly it is guarded with ribs like a
wall, that it might not be easily hurt! It draws blood from the liver,
through a channel made for that purpose; rarefies it, and makes it
fit to pass through the arteries and veins, and to carry heat and
life to every part of the body: and by a perpetual motion, it sucks
in the blood, and spouts it out again; which motion depends not upon
the command of the soul, but is pure natural.
(2.) The mouth takes in the meat, the teeth grind it for the stomach,
the stomach prepares it, nature strains it through the milky veins,
the liver refines it, and mints it into blood, separates the purer
from the drossy parts, which go to the heart, circuits through the
whole body, running through the veins, like rivers through so many
channels of the world, for the watering of the several parts; which
are framed of a thin skin for the straining the blood through, for the
supply of the members of the body, and framed with several valves or
doors, for the thrusting the blood forwards to perform its circular
motion.
(3.) The brain, fortified by a strong skull, to hinder outward
accidents, a tough membrane or skin, to hinder any oppression by the
skull; the seat of sense, that which coins the animal spirits, by
purifying and refining those which are sent to it, and seems like a
curious piece of needlework.
(4.) The ear, framed with windings and turnings, to keep any thing
from entering to offend the brain; so disposed as to admit sounds with
the greatest safety and delight; filled with an air within, by the
motion whereof the sound is transmitted to the brain:[105] as sounds
are made in the air by diffusing themselves, as you see circles made
in the water by the flinging in a stone. This is the gate of knowledge,
whereby we hear the oracles of God, and the instruction of men for
arts. It is by this they are exposed to the mind, and the mind of
another man framed in our understandings.
(5.) What a curious workmanship is that of the eye, which is in the
body, as the sun in the world; set in the head as in a watchtower,
having the softest nerves for the receiving the greater multitude
of spirits necessary for the act of vision! How is it provided with
defence, by the variety of coats to secure and accommodate the little
humor and part whereby the vision is made! Made of a round figure, and
convex, as most commodious to receive the species of objects; shaded
by the eyebrows and eyelids; secured by the eyelids, which are its
ornament and safety, which refresh it when it is {a66} too much dried
by heat, hinder too much light from insinuating itself into it to
offend it, cleanse it from impurities, by their quick motion preserve
it from any invasion, and by contraction confer to the more evident
discerning of things. Both the eyes seated in the hollow of the bone
for security, yet standing out, that things may be perceived more
easily on both sides. And this little member can behold the earth,
and in a moment view things as high as heaven.
(6.) The tongue for speech framed like a musical instrument; the
teeth serving for variety of sounds; the lungs serving for bellows to
blow the organs as it were, to cool the heart, by a continual motion
transmitting a pure air to the heart, expelling that which was smoky
and superfluous.[106] It is by the tongue that communication of truth
hath a passage among men; it opens the sense of the mind; there would
be no converse and commerce without it. Speech among all nations hath
an elegancy and attractive force, mastering the affections of men.
Not to speak of other parts, or of the multitude of spirits that act
every part; the quick flight of them where there is a necessity of
their presence. Solomon (Eccles. xii.) makes an elegant description
of them, in his speech of old age; and Job speaks of this formation of
the body (Job x. 9‒11), &c. Not the least part of the body is made in
vain. The hairs of the head have their use, as well as are an ornament.
The whole symmetry of the body is a ravishing object. Every member
hath a signature and mark of God and his wisdom. He is visible in the
formation of the members, the beauty of the parts, and the vigor of
the body. This structure could not be from the body; that only hath a
passive power, and cannot act in the absence of the soul. Nor can it
be from the soul. How comes it then to be so ignorant of the manner of
its formation? The soul knows not the internal parts of its own body,
but by information from others, or inspection into other bodies. It
knows less of the inward frame of the body than it doth of itself; but
he that makes the clock can tell the number and motions of the wheels
within, as well as what figures are without.
This short discourse is _useful_ to raise our admirations of the
wisdom of God, as well as to demonstrate that there is an infinite
wise Creator; and the consideration of ourselves every day, and
the wisdom of God in our frame, would maintain religion much in the
world; since all are so framed that no man can tell any error in the
constitution of him. If thus the body of man is fitted for the service
of his soul by an infinite God, the body ought to be ordered for the
service of this God, and in obedience to him.
2. In the admirable difference of the features of men; which is a
great argument that the world was made by a wise Being. This could
not be wrought by chance, or be the work of mere nature, since we find
never, or very rarely, two persons exactly alike. This distinction
is a part of infinite wisdom; otherwise what confusion would be
introduced into the world? Without this, parents could not know their
children, nor children their parents, nor a brother his sister, nor
a subject his magistrate. Without it there had been no comfort of
relations, no government, no commerce. Debtors {a67} would not have
been known from strangers, nor good men from bad. Propriety could
not have been preserved, nor justice executed; the innocent might
have been apprehended for the nocent; wickedness could not have been
stopped by any law. The faces of men are the same for parts, not for
features, a dissimilitude in a likeness. Man, like to all the rest in
the world, yet unlike to any, and differenced by some mark from all,
which is not to be observed in any other species of creatures. This
speaks some wise agent which framed man; since, for the preservation
of human society and order in the world, this distinction was
necessary.