May the Father of mercies and God of infinite wisdom reduce the foolish from their errors, and make them wise unto salvation; confirm the sceptical and wavering minds; and so prevent us, that stand fast, in all our doings, and further us with his continual help, that we may not be of them that draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Amen.

proved these particulars, as far as the usual brevity of such discourses will allow; I shall conclude all with one short reflection, That if Atheism or modern Deism be evinced to be folly, how great must that folly be! It must not be bare folly, but madness and distraction. Nor do we need to recur to the stoical paradox, that all fools are mad; nor to that saying of one of their own party, who (not out of derision, as some would have it, but out of compliment to the public) called it insanientem sapientiam, the mad philosophy of Atheism. For so sottishly to lose the purest pleasures and comforts of this world, and forego the expectation of immortality in another; and so desperately to run the risk of dwelling with everlasting burnings; it plainly discovers itself to be what it is; it is manifestly the most pernicious folly and deplorable madness in the world."D.]

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.

That they should seek 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 inquisitive and pragmatical city, but we find him encountered by the Epicureans and Stoics,a two sorts of people that were ill* qualified for the Christian faith: the one, by reason of their carnal affections, either believing no God at all, or that he was like unto themselves, dissolved in laziness and ease;b the other, out of† spiritual pride, presuming to assert,‡ that a wise man of their sect was equal, and in some cases superior, to the majesty of God himself. These men, corrupted

a Acts, xvii. 18.

b Αργὸν καὶ ἀμελές.

[* ill; 1st ed. "very ill.”—D.]

[t out of; 1st ed. "through their."-D.]

[t assert; 1st ed. " declare."-D.]

с

• Arriani Epictet. l. i. c. 12. Ως κατά γε τὸν λόγον οὐδὲ χείρων τῶν Θεῶν, οὐδὲ MIKρóтepos. Seneca, Ep. 53. Est aliquid quo sapiens antecedat Deum: ille naturæ beneficio, non suo sapiens est.

through philosophy and vain deceit, took our Apostle, and carried him unto Areopagus,d (a place in the city whither was the greatest resort of travellers and strangers, of the gravest citizens and magistrates, of their orators and philosophers,) to give an account of himself and the new doctrine that he spoke of: For, say they, thou bringest strange things to our ears; we would know therefore what these things mean. The Apostle, who was to speak to such a promiscuous assembly, has with most admirable prudence and art so accommodated his discourse, that every branch and member of it is directly opposed to a known error and prejudice of some 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 some other subsequent discourses.

From the inscription of an altar to the Unknown God, which is mentioned by heathen authors, Lucian, Philostratus,* and others, he takes occasion (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 concourse of atoms; and‡ Peripatetics, that supposed 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, says he, seeing 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, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.

This is opposed to the civil and vulgar religion of Athens, which

[* Lucian, Philostratus; 1st ed. "as Lucian, and Philostratus."-D.] Lucianus in Philopat. Philostrat. de Vita Apol. lib. vi. c. 2. Pausan. in

Eliacis.

[t directly both against Epicureans, that; 1st ed. "expressly against the Epicureans, who.”—D.]

[ and; 1st ed. " and to the."-D.]

[§ in the temples; 1st ed. " in temples."-D.]

* Ver. 25.

furnished and served the Deity* with temples and sacrifices, as if he had really† needed habitation and sustenance. And that the common heathen had such mean apprehensions‡ about the indigency of their gods, appears plainly, to name no more, from Aristophanes's Plutus and the Dialogues of Lucian. But the philosophers were not concerned§ in this point: all parties and sects, even the Epicureansh themselves, did maintain (Tò avтaрkès) the self-sufficiency of the Godhead; and seldom or never sacrificed at all, unless in compliance and condescension¶ to the custom of their country. There's a very remarkable passage in Tertullian's Apology, Who forces a philosopher to sacrifice ?i &c. It appears from thence, that the philosophers, no less than the Christians, neglected the pagan worship and sacrifices; though what was connived at in the one was made highly penal and capital in the other. 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[s] of their habitation. This doctrine about the beginning of human race, though agreeable enough to the Platonists and Stoics, is apparently levelled against** the Epicureans and Aristotelians: one of whom produced++ their primitive men from mere accident or mechanism; the other denied that man had any beginning at all, but had eternally continued thus by succession and propagation. Neither were the commonalty of

[* furnished and served the Deity; 1st ed. "worshipped God."-D.] [t he had really; 1st ed. "he really."-D.]

[ heathen had such mean apprehensions; 1st ed. "heathens had such a mean apprehension."—D.]

[§ concerned; 1st ed. "touched."-D.]

Lucret. ii. Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri. [v. 649.-D.] [themselves; 1st ed. "forsooth.”—D.]

[¶unless in compliance and condescension; 1st ed. "unless in condescension."-D.]

i Tertull. Apol. cap. 46. Quis enim philosophum sacrificare . . . compellit? Quinimmo et deos vestros palam destruunt, et superstitiones vestras commentariis quoque accusant. ¡ Ver. 26.

[** is apparently levelled against; 1st ed. "doth apparently thwart."-D.] [tt produced; 1st ed. " did produce."-D.]

Athens unconcerned in this point. For although, as we learn from Isocrates, Demosthenes, and others of their countrymen,k they professed themselves to be avróx@oves, aborigines, not transplanted by colonies or otherwise from any foreign nation, but born out of their own soil in Attica, and had the same earth for their parent, their nurse, and their country; and though some perhaps* might believe, that all the rest of mankind were derived from them, and so might apply and interpret the words of the Apostle to this foolish tradition; yet that conceit of deriving the whole race of men from the aborigines of Attica+ was entertained but by a few; for they generally allowed that the Egyptians and Sicilians, and some others, were aborigines also, as well as themselves.m Then follow the words of the text: That they should seek 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." And this he confirms by the authority of a writer that lived above three hundred years before as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. This indeed was no argument to the Epicurean auditors, who undervalued all argument from authority, and especially from the poets. Their master Epicurus had boasted, that in all his writings he had not cited one single authority out of any book whatsoever.P And the poets they particularly hated, because on all occasions they introduced the ministry of the gods, and taught the separate existence of human souls. But it was of great weight and

:

k Isocrates in Paneg. Demosth. in Epitaph. Cic. Orat. pro Flacco. Euripides, &c.

[* and though some perhaps; 1st ed. "and perhaps some few."-D.] Diog. Laërt. in Præf.

[t of deriving the whole race of men from the aborigines of Attica; not in 1st ed.-D.]

• Plutarch. de Aud. Poet. et contra Colot.

n Verse 27, 28.

P Laërt. in Vita Epicuri. [who undervalued all argument from authority. . . . . and taught the separate existence of human souls. But; 1st ed. “who particularly had a con

.....

tempt of and spite against the poets, because on all occasions they introduced