in man, and the real dissatisfaction he hath in everything below
himself. Man hath a boundless appetite after some sovereign good;
as his understanding is more capacious than anything below, so is his
appetite larger. This affection of desire exceeds all other affections.
Love is determined to something known; fear, to something apprehended:
but desires approach nearer to infiniteness, and pursue, not only what
we know, or what we have a glimpse of, but what we find wanting in
what we already enjoy. That which the desire of man is most naturally
carried after is _bonum_; some fully satisfying good. We desire
knowledge by the sole impulse of reason, {a74} but we desire good
before the excitement of reason; and the desire is always after
good, but not always after knowledge. Now the soul of man finds
an imperfection in everything here, and cannot scrape up a perfect
satisfaction and felicity. In the highest fruitions of worldly things
it is still pursuing something else, which speaks a defect in what it
already hath. The world may afford a felicity for our dust, the body,
but not for the inhabitant in it; it is too mean for that. Is there
any one soul among the sons of men, that can upon a due inquiry say
it was at rest and wanted no more, that hath not sometimes had desires
after an immaterial good? The soul “follows hard after” such a thing,
and hath frequent looks after it (Ps. lxiii. 8). Man desires a stable
good, but no sublunary thing is so; and he that doth not desire such
a good, wants the rational nature of a man. This is as natural as
understanding, will, and conscience. Whence should the soul of man
have those desires? how came it to understand that something is still
wanting to make its nature more perfect, if there were not in it
some notion of a more perfect being which can give it rest? Can such
a capacity be supposed to be in it without something in being able to
satisfy it? if so, the noblest creature in the world is miserablest,
and in a worse condition than any other. Other creatures obtain
their ultimate desires, “they are filled with good,” (Ps. civ. 28):
and shall man only have a vast desire without any possibility
of enjoyment? Nothing in man is in vain; he hath objects for his
affections, as well as affections for objects; every member of his
body hath its end, and doth attain it; every affection of his soul
hath an object, and that in this world; and shall there be none for
his desire, which comes nearest to infinite of any affection planted
in him? This boundless desire had not its original from man himself;
nothing would render itself restless; something above the bounds
of this world implanted those desires after a higher good, and made
him restless in everything else. And since the soul can only rest in
that which is infinite, there is something infinite for it to rest in;
since nothing in the world, though a man had the whole, can give it
a satisfaction, there is something above the world only capable to
do it, otherwise the soul would be always without it, and be more in
vain than any other creature. There is, therefore, some infinite being
that can only give a contentment to the soul, and this is God. And
that goodness which implanted such desires in the soul, would not
do it to no purpose, and mock it in giving it an infinite desire of
satisfaction, without intending it the pleasure of enjoyment, if it
doth not by its own folly deprive itself of it. The felicity of human
nature must needs exceed that which is allotted to other creatures.
_Reason IV._ As it is a folly to deny that which all nations in the
world have consented to, which the frame of the world evidenceth,
which man in his body, soul, operations of conscience, witnesseth to;
so it is a folly to deny the being of God, which is witnessed unto by
extraordinary occurrences in the world.
1. In extraordinary judgments. When a just revenge follows abominable
crimes, especially when the judgment is suited to the sin by a strange
concatenation and succession of providences, methodized {a75} to bring
such a particular punishment; when the sin of a nation or person is
made legible in the inflicted judgment, which testifies that it cannot
be a casual thing. The Scripture gives us an account of the necessity
of such judgments, to keep up the reverential thoughts of God in
the world (Ps. ix. 16): “The Lord is known by the judgment which
he executes; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hand:”
and jealousy is the name of God, (Exod. xxxiv. 14), “Whose name is
jealous.” He is distinguished from false gods by the judgments which
he sends, as men are by their names. Extraordinary prodigies in many
nations have been the heralds of extraordinary judgments, and presages
of the particular judgments which afterwards they have felt, of
which the Roman histories, and others, are full. That there are such
things is undeniable, and that the events have been answerable to
the threatening, unless we will throw away all human testimonies,
and count all the histories of the world forgeries. Such things are
evidences of some invisible power which orders those affairs. And if
there be invisible powers, there is also an efficacious cause which
moves them; a government certainly there is among them, as well as
in the world, and then we must come to some supreme governor which
presides over them. Judgments upon notorious offenders have been
evident in all ages; the Scripture gives many instances. I shall
only mention that of Herod Agrippa, which Josephus mentions.[115] He
receives the flattering applause of the people, and thought himself a
God; but by the sudden stroke upon him, was forced by his torture to
confess another. “I am God,” saith he, “in your account, but a higher
calls me away; the will of the heavenly Deity is to be endured.” The
angel of the Lord smote him. The judgment here was suited to the sin;
he that would be a god, is eaten up of worms, the vilest creatures.
Tully Hostilius, a Roman king, who counted it the most unroyal thing
to be religious, or own any other God but his sword, was consumed
himself, and his whole house, by lightning from heaven. Many things
are unaccountable unless we have recourse to God. The strange
revelations of murderers, that have most secretly committed their
crimes; the making good some dreadful imprecations, which some
wretches have used to confirm a lie, and immediately have been struck
with that judgment they wished; the raising often unexpected persons
to be instruments of vengeance on a sinful and perfidious nation; the
overturning the deepest and surest counsels of men, when they have had
a successful progress, and come to the very point of execution; the
whole design of men’s preservation hath been beaten in pieces by some
unforeseen circumstance, so that judgments have broken in upon them
without control, and all their subtleties been outwitted; the strange
crossing of some in their estates, though the most wise, industrious,
and frugal persons, and that by strange and unexpected ways; and it
is observable how often everything contributes to carry on a judgment
intended, as if they rationally designed it: all those loudly proclaim
a God in the world; if there were no God, there would be no sin; if no
sin, there would be no punishment.
{a76} 2. In miracles. The course of nature is uniform; and when it is
put out of its course, it must be by some superior power invisible to
the world; and by whatsoever invisible instruments they are wrought,
the efficacy of them must depend upon some first cause above nature.
(Psalm lxxii. 18): “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only doeth
wondrous things,” by himself and his sole power. That which cannot
be the result of a natural cause, must be the result of something
supernatural: what is beyond the reach of nature, is the effect of a
power superior to nature; for it is quite against the order of nature,
and is the elevation of something to such a pitch, which all nature
could not advance it to. Nature cannot go beyond its own limits; if it
be determined by another, as hath been formerly proved, it cannot lift
itself above itself, without that power that so determined it. Natural
agents act necessarily; the sun doth necessarily shine, fire doth
necessarily burn: that cannot be the result of nature, which is above
the ability of nature; that cannot be the work of nature which is
against the order of nature; nature cannot do anything against itself,
or invert its own course. We must own that such things have been, or
we must accuse all the records of former ages to be a pack of lies;
which whosoever doth, destroys the greatest and best part of human
knowledge. The miracles mentioned in the Scripture, wrought by our
Saviour, are acknowledged by the heathen, by the Jews at this day,
though his greatest enemies. There is no dispute whether such things
were wrought, “the dead raised,” the “blind restored to sight.”
The heathens have acknowledged the miraculous eclipse of the sun
at the passion of Christ, quite against the rule of nature, the moon
being then in opposition to the sun; the propagation of Christianity
contrary to the methods whereby other religions have been propagated,
that in a few years the nations of the world should be sprinkled with
this doctrine, and give in a greater catalogue of martyrs courting the
devouring flames, than all the religions of the world. To this might
be added, the strange hand that was over the Jews, the only people in
the world professing the true God, that should so often be befriended
by their conquerors, so as to rebuild their temple, though they were
looked upon as a people apt to rebel. Dion and Seneca observe, that
wherever they were transplanted, they prospered, and gave laws to
the victors; so that this proves also the authority of the Scripture,
the truth of christian religion, as well as the being of a God, and
a superior power over the world. To this might be added, the bridling
the tumultuous passions of men for the preservation of human societies,
which else would run the world into unconceivable confusions, (Psalm
lxv. 7): “Which stilleth the noise of the sea, and the tumults of
the people;” as also the miraculous deliverance of a person or nation,
when upon the very brink of ruin; the sudden answer of prayer when God
hath been sought to, and the turning away a judgment, which in reason
could not be expected to be averted, and the raising a sunk people
from a ruin which seemed inevitable, by unexpected ways.
3. Accomplishments of prophecies. Those things which are purely
contingent, and cannot be known by natural signs and in their causes,
as eclipses and changes in nations, which may be discerned {a77}
by an observation of the signs of the times; such things that fall
not within this compass, if they be foretold and come to pass, are
solely from some higher hand, and above the cause of nature. This in
Scripture is asserted to be a notice of the true God (Isa. xli. 23):
“Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you
are God,” and (Isa. xlvi. 10), “I am God declaring the end from the
beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,
saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” And
prophecy was consented to by all the philosophers to be from divine
illumination: that power which discovers things future, which all
the foresight of men cannot ken and conjecture, is above nature. And
to foretell them so certainly as if they did already exist, or had
existed long ago, must be the result of a mind infinitely intelligent;
because it is the highest way of knowing, and a higher cannot be
imagined: and he that knows things future in such a manner, must
needs know things present and past. Cyrus was prophesied of by Isaiah
(xliv. 28, and xlv. 1) long before he was born; his victories, spoils,
all that should happen in Babylon, his bounty to the Jews came to pass,
according to that prophecy; and the sight of that prophecy which the
Jews shewed him, as other historians report, was that which moved him
to be favorable to the Jews.
Alexander’s sight of Daniel’s prophecy concerning his victories
moved him to spare Jerusalem. And are not the four monarchies plainly
deciphered in that book, before the fourth rose up in the world?
That power which foretells things beyond the reach of the wit of man,
and orders all causes to bring about those predictions, must be an
infinite power, the same that made the world, sustains it and governs
all things in it according to his pleasure, and to bring about his own
ends; and this being is God.
_Use I._ If atheism be a folly, it is then pernicious to the world
and to the atheist himself. Wisdom is the band of human societies, the
glory of man. Folly is the disturber of families, cities, nations; the
disgrace of human nature.
First, It is pernicious to the world.
1. It would root out the foundations of government. It demolisheth all
order in nations. The being of a God is the guard of the world: the
sense of a God is the foundation of civil order: without this there
is no tie upon the consciences of men. What force would there be in
oaths for the decisions of controversies, what right could there be
in appeals made to one that had no being? A city of atheists would
be a heap of confusion; there could be no ground of any commerce,
when all the sacred bands of it in the consciences of men were snapt
asunder, which are torn to pieces and utterly destroyed by denying
the existence of God. What magistrate could be secure in his standing?
What private person could be secure in his right? Can that then be
a truth that is destructive of all public good? If the atheist’s
sentiment, that there were no God, were a truth, and the contrary that
there were a God, were a falsity, it would then follow, that falsity
made men good and serviceable to one another; that error were the
foundation of all the beauty, and order, and outward {a78} felicity of
the world, the fountain of all good to man.[116] If there were no God,
to believe there is one, would be an error; and to believe there is
none, would be the greatest wisdom, because it would be the greatest
truth. And then as it is the greatest wisdom to fear God, upon the
apprehension of his existence, so it would be the greatest error to
fear him if there were none.[117] It would unquestionably follow, that
error is the support of the world, the spring of all human advantages;
and that every part of the world were obliged to a falsity for being
a quiet habitation, which is the most absurd thing to imagine. It is a
thing impossible to be tolerated by any prince, without laying an axe
to the root of the government.
2. It would introduce all evil into the world. If you take away God,
you take away conscience, and thereby all measures and rules of good
and evil. And how could any laws be made when the measure and standard
of them were removed? All good laws are founded upon the dictates of
conscience and reason, upon common sentiments in human nature, which
spring from a sense of God; so that if the foundation be demolished,
the whole superstructure must tumble down: a man might be a thief, a
murderer, an adulterer, and could not in a strict sense be an offender.
The worst of actions could not be evil, if a man were a god to himself,
a law to himself. Nothing but evil deserves a censure, and nothing
would be evil if there were no God, the Rector of the world against
whom evil is properly committed. No man can make that morally evil
that is not so in itself: as where there is a faint sense of God,
the heart is more strongly inclined to wickedness; so where there is
no sense of God, the bars are removed, the flood‑gates set open for
all wickedness to rush in upon mankind. Religion pinions men from
abominable practices, and restrains them from being slaves to their
own passions: an atheist’s arms would be loose to do anything.[118]
Nothing so villanous and unjust but would be acted if the natural fear
of a Deity were extinguished. The first consequence issuing from the
apprehension of the existence of God, is his government of the world.
If there be no God, then the natural consequence is that there is
no supreme government of the world: such a notion would cashier all
sentiments of good, and be like a Trojan horse, whence all impurity,
tyranny, and all sorts of mischiefs would break out upon mankind:
corruption and abominable works in the text are the fruit of the
fool’s persuasion that there is no God. The perverting the ways of
men, oppression and extortion, owe their rise to a forgetfulness of
God (Jer. iii. 21): “They have perverted their way, and they have
forgotten the Lord their God.” (Ezek. xxii. 12): “Thou hast greedily
gained by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord.” The whole
earth would be filled with violence, all flesh would corrupt their
way, as it was before the deluge, when probably atheism did abound
more than idolatry; and if not a disowning the being, yet denying the
providence of God by the posterity of Cain: those of the family of
Seth only “calling upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. vi. 11, 12,
compared with Gen. iv. 26).
The greatest sense of a Deity in any, hath been attended with the
{a79} greatest innocence of life and usefulness to others; and a
weaker sense hath been attended with a baser impurity. If there were
no God, blasphemy would be praiseworthy; as the reproach of idols
is praiseworthy, because we testify that there is no divinity in
them.[119] What can be more contemptible than that which hath no
being? Sin would be only a false opinion of a violated law, and an
offended deity. If such apprehensions prevail, what a wide door is
opened to the worst of villanies! If there be no God, no respect is
due to him; all the religion in the world is a trifle, and error;
and thus the pillars of all human society, and that which hath made
commonwealths to flourish, are blown away.
Secondly, It is pernicious to the atheist himself. If he fear no
future punishment, he can never expect any future reward: all his
hopes must be confined to a swinish and despicable manner of life,
without any imaginations of so much as a drachm of reserved happiness.
He is in a worse condition than the silliest animal, which hath
something to please it in its life: whereas an atheist can have
nothing here to give him a full content, no more than any other man
in the world, and can have less satisfaction hereafter. He deposeth
the noble end of his own being, which was to serve a God and have a
satisfaction in him, to seek a God and be rewarded by him; and he that
departs from his end, recedes from his own nature. All the content
any creature finds, is in performing its end, moving according to its
natural instinct; as it is a joy to the sun to run its race.[120] In
the same manner it is a satisfaction to every other creature, and its
delight to observe the law of its creation. What content can any man
have that runs from his end, opposeth his own nature, denies a God by
whom and for whom he was created, whose image he bears, which is the
glory of his nature, and sinks into the very dregs of brutishness? How
elegantly it is described by Bildad,[121] “His own counsel shall cast
him down, terrors shall make him afraid on every side, destruction
shall be ready at his side, the first‑born of death shall devour
his strength, his confidence shall be rooted out, and it shall bring
him to the king of terrors. Brimstone shall be scattered upon his
habitation; he shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased
out of the world. They that come after him shall be astonished at his
day, as they that went before were affrighted. And this is the place
of him that knows not God.”[122] If there be a future reckoning (as
his own conscience cannot but sometimes inform him of), his condition
is desperate, and his misery dreadful and unavoidable. It is not
righteous a hell should entertain any else, if it refuse him.
_Use II._ How lamentable is it, that in our times this folly of
atheism should be so rife! That there should be found such monsters in
human nature, in the midst of the improvements of reason, and shinings
of the gospel, who not only make the Scripture the matter of their
jeers, but scoff at the judgments and providences of God in the world,
and envy their Creator a being, without whose goodness they had none
themselves; who contradict in their carriage what they assert to be
their sentiment, when they dreadfully imprecate {a80} damnation to
themselves! Whence should that damnation they so rashly wish be poured
forth upon them, if there were not a revenging God? Formerly atheism
was as rare as prodigious, scarce two or three known in an age; and
those that are reported to be so in former ages, are rather thought to
be counted so for mocking at the senseless deities the common people
adored, and laying open their impurities. A mere natural strength
would easily discover that those they adored for gods, could not
deserve that title, since their original was known, their uncleanness
manifest and acknowledged by their worshippers. And probably it was so;
since the Christians were termed ἄθεοι, because they acknowledged not
their vain idols.[123]
I question whether there ever was, or can be in the world, an
uninterrupted and internal denial of the being of God, or that men
(unless we can suppose conscience utterly dead) can arrive to such
a degree of impiety; for before they can stifle such sentiments in
them (whatsoever they may assert), they must be utter strangers to
the common conceptions of reason, and despoil themselves of their
own humanity. He that dares to deny a God with his lips, yet sets up
something or other as a God in his heart. Is it not lamentable that
this sacred truth, consented to by all nations, which is the band
of civil societies, the source of all order in the world, should
be denied with a bare face, and disputed against in companies, and
the glory of a wise Creator ascribed to an unintelligent nature, to
blind chance? Are not such worse than heathens? They worshipped many
gods, these none; they preserved a notion of God in the world under a
disguise of images, these would banish him both from earth and heaven,
and demolish the statutes of him in their own consciences; they
degraded him, these would destroy him; they coupled creatures with
him――(Rom. i. 25), “Who worshipped the creature with the Creator,” as
it may most properly be rendered――and these would make him worse than
the creature, a mere nothing. Earth is hereby become worse than hell.
Atheism is a persuasion which finds no footing anywhere else. Hell,
that receives such persons, in this point reforms them: they can never
deny or doubt of his being, while they feel his strokes. The devil,
that rejoices at their wickedness, knows them to be in an error; for
he “believes, and trembles at the belief.”[124] This is a forerunner
of judgment. Boldness in sin is a presage of vengeance, especially
when the honor of God is more particularly concerned therein; it
tends to the overturning human society, taking off the bridle from
the wicked inclinations of men: and God appears not in such visible
judgments against sin immediately committed against himself, as in
the case of those sins that are destructive to human society. Besides,
God, as Governor of the world, will uphold that, without which
all his ordinances in the world would be useless. Atheism is point
blank against all the glory of God in creation, and against all the
glory of God in redemption, and pronounceth at one breath, both the
Creator, and all acts of religion and divine institutions, useless and
insignificant. Since most have had, one time or other, some risings of
doubt, whether there be a God, though few do in expressions deny his
being, it may not be {a81} unnecessary to propose some things for the
further impressing this truth, and guarding themselves against such
temptations.
1. It is utterly impossible to demonstrate there is no God. He
can choose no medium, but will fall in as a proof for his existence,
and a manifestation of his excellency, rather than against it. The
pretences of the atheist are so ridiculous, that they are not worth
the mentioning. They never saw God, and therefore know not how to
believe such a being; they cannot comprehend him. He would not be a
God, if he could fall within the narrow model of a human understanding;
he would not be infinite, if he were comprehensible, or to be
terminated by our sight. How small a thing must that be which is
seen by a bodily eye, or grasped by a weak mind! If God were visible
or comprehensible, he would be limited. Shall it be a sufficient
demonstration from a blind man, that there is no fire in the room,
because he sees it not, though he feel the warmth of it? The knowledge
of the effect is sufficient to conclude the existence of the cause.
Who ever saw his own life? Is it sufficient to deny a man lives,
because he beholds not his life, and only knows it by his motion? He
never saw his own soul, but knows he hath one by his thinking power.
The air renders itself sensible to men in its operations, yet was
never seen by the eye. If God should render himself visible, they
might question as well as now, whether that which was so visible were
God, or some delusion. If he should appear glorious, we can as little
behold him in his majestic glory, as an owl can behold the sun in its
brightness: we should still but see him in his effects, as we do the
sun by his beams. If he should show a new miracle, we should still
see him but by his works; so we see him in his creatures, every one of
which would be as great a miracle as any can be wrought, to one that
had the first prospect of them. To require to see God, is to require
that which is impossible (1 Tim. vi. 16): “He dwells in the light
which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see.”
It is visible that he is, “for he covers himself with light as with
a garment” (Psalm civ. 2); it is visible what he is, “for he makes
darkness his secret place” (Psalm xviii. 11). Nothing more clear to
the eye than light, and nothing more difficult to the understanding
than the nature of it: as light is the first object obvious to the eye,
so is God the first object obvious to the understanding. The arguments
from nature do, with greater strength, evince his existence, than any
pretences can manifest there is no God. No man can assure himself by
any good reason there is none; for as for the likeness of events to
him that is righteous, and him that is wicked; to him that sacrificeth,
and to him that sacrificeth not (Eccles. ix. 2): it is an argument for
a reserve of judgment in another state, which every man’s conscience
dictates to him, when the justice of God shall be glorified in another
world, as much as his patience is in this.