Matter and Motion cannot think:

OR,

A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM

FROM

THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL,

SERMON II,

Preached April the 4th, 1692.

ACTS xvii. 27, 28.

That they should feek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him; though he be not far from every one of us for in him we live, and move, and have our being,

THESE words are a part of that discourse which St. Paul had at Athens. He had not been long in that inquifitive and pragmatical city, but we find him a encountered by the Epicureans and Stoics, two forts of people that were ill qualified for the Christian faith: the one, by reason of their carnal affections,

d

either believing no God at all; or that he was like unto themselves, diffolved in blaziness and ease: the other, out of spiritual pride, prefuming to affert, that a wife man of their fect was equal, and in fome cafes fuperior to the majesty of God himself. These men, corrupted through philofophy and vain deceit, took our Apoftle, and carried him unto Areopagus, (a place in the city, whither was the greatest refort of travellers and ftrangers, of the gravelt citizens and magistrates, of their orators and philofophers,) to give an account of himself and the new doctrine that he spoke of: e For, fay they, thou bringeft ftrange things to our ears; we would know therefore what these things mean. The Apostle, who was to speak to fuch a promifcuous affembly, has with most admirable prudence and art fo accommodated his discourse, that every branch and member of it is directly oppofed to a known error and prejudice of fome party of his hearers. I will beg leave to be the more prolix in explaining the whole; because it will be a ground and introduction not only to this present, but fome other fubfequent discourses.

b ̓Αργὸν καὶ ἀμελές.

• Arriani Epiâtet. l. i. c. 12. Ὡς κατάγε τὸν λόγον ἐδὲ χείρων Twv ☺ewv, ovde μixpóτepos. Seneca, Ep. 53. Eft aliquid quo fapiens antecedat Deum: ille naturæ beneficio, non fuo fapiens eft.

d Ver. 19.

e Ver. 20.

From

From the infcription of an altar. to the Unknown God, which is mentioned by Heathen authors, f Lucian, Philoftratus, and others, he takes occafion (v. 24.) to declare unto them, that God, that made the world, and all things therein. This first doctrine, though admitted by many of his auditors, is directly both against Epicureans, that ascribed the origin and frame of the world not to the power of God, but the fortuitous concourfe of atoms; and Peripatetics, that fuppofed all things to have been eternally, as they now are, and never to have been made at all, either by the Deity or without him. Which God, fays he, feeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in the temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, feeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. This is opposed to the civil and vulgar religion of Athens, which furnished and ferved the Deity with temples and facrifices, as if he had really needed habitation and fuftenance. And that the common Heathen had fuch mean apprehenfions about the indigency of their gods, appears plainly, to name no more, from Ariftophanes's Plutus, and the dialogues of Lucian. But the philofo

g

f Lucianus in Philopat. Philoftrat. de vita Apol. lib. vi. c. 2. Paufan, in Eliacis.

≤ Verse 25.

phers

phers were not concerned in this point: all parties and fects, even the h Epicureans themselves, did maintain (rò auraguès) the self-sufficiency of the Godhead; and seldom or never facrificed at all, unlefs in compliance and condefcenfion to the custom of their country. There is a very remarkable paffage in Tertullian's Apology, Who forces a philofopher to facrifice? &c. It appears from thence, that the philosophers, no less than the Chriftians, neglected the Pagan worship and facrifices; though what was connived at in the one was made highly penal and capital in the other. k And hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bound of their habitation. This doctrine about the beginning of human race, though agreeable enough to the Platonifts and Stoics, is apparently levelled against the Epicureans and Ariftotelians: one of whom produced their primitive men from mere accident or mechanifm; the other denied that man had any beginning at all, but had eternally continued thus by fucceffion and propagation, Neither

Lucret. ii. Ipfa fuis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri.

i Tertull. Apol. cap. 46. Quis enim philofophum facrificare compellit? Quinimmo et deos veftros palam deftruunt, et superfitiones veftras commentariis quoque accufant.

* Ver. 26.

were