nature, which is the instrument* of God, yet we affirm that the first production of mankind wast by the immediate power of the almighty Author of nature; and that all succeeding generations of men are the progeny of one primitive couple. This is a religious man's account of the frame and origination of himself. Now, the Atheists agree with us, as to the fitness of man's body and its several parts to their various operations and functions (for that is visible and past all contradiction); but they vehemently oppose,‡ and horribly dread the thought, that this usefulness of the parts and the whole should first arise from wisdom and design. So that here will be the point in debate, and the subject of our present undertaking; whether this acknowledged fitness of human bodies must be attributed, as we say, to a wise and good God; or, as the Atheists aver, to dead senseless matter. They have contrived several tricks and methods of deceit,b one repugnant to another, to evade, if possible, this most cogent proof of a Deity; all which I will propose and refute : and I hope to make it appear, that here, as indeed every where, but here certainly, in the great dramatic poem of Nature, is dignus Deo vindice nodus, a necessity of introducing a God. And first, I will answer what exceptions they can have against our account: and secondly, I will confute all the reasons and explications they can give of their own. 1. First, I will answer what exceptions they can have against our account of the production of mankind. And they may object, that the body itself, though pretty good in its kind and upon their hypothesis, nevertheless doth not look like the workmanship of so great a Master as is pretended by us that infinite Wisdom, and Goodness, and Power, would have bestowed upon us more senses than five, [* nature, which is the instrument; 1st ed. "nature, the instrument."-D.] [t the first production of mankind was; 1st ed. " its first production was." -D.] [ oppose; 1st ed. "impugn."-D.] • Μεθοδείας τῆς πλάνης, Eph. iv. 14. or at least these five in a much higher perfection; that we could never have come out of the hands of the Almighty so subject to numerous diseases, so obnoxious to violent deaths; and, at best, of such a short and transitory life. They can no more ascribe so sorry an effect to an omniscient cause, than some ordinary piece of clock-work, with a very few motions and uses, and those continually out of order, and quickly at an end, to the best artist of the age. But to this we reply: first, as to the five senses, it would be rash indeed to affirm, that God, if* he had pleased, could not have endued us with more. But thus much we may aver, that though the power of God be infinite and perfect, yet the capacities of matter are within limits and bounds. Why then doth the Atheist suspect that there may possibly be any more ways of sensation than what we have already? Hath he ant idea, or notion, or discovery of any more? So far from that, that he cannot make any addition or progress in those very senses he hath, further than they themselves have informed him. He cannot imagine one new colour, or taste, or smell, beside those that have actually fallen under his senses. Much less can he that is destitute of an entire sense have any idea or representation of it; as one that is born deaf hath no notion of sounds; or blind, of colours and light. If then the Atheist can have no imagination of more senses than five, why doth he suppose that a body is capable of more? If we had double or triple as many, there might still be the same suspicion for a greater number without end; and the objection therefore in both cases is§ equally unreasonable and groundless. Secondly, we affirm, that our senses have that degree of perfection which is most fit and suitable to our estate and condition. For, though the eye were so piercing as to descry even opake and little objects some hundreds of leagues off, even that improvement of our sight [* if; 1st ed. " though."-D.] [t an; 1st ed. " [this senses; 1st ed. "his respective senses."-D.] any."-D.] [§ and the objection therefore in both cases is; 1st ed. " and therefore iu both cases 'tis."-D.] would do us little service ;* it would be terminated by neighbouring hills and woods; or, in the largest and evenest plain, by the very convexity of the earth; unless we could always inhabit the tops of mountains and cliffs, or had wings too to fly aloft, when we had a mind to take a prospect. And if mankind had had wings (as perhaps some extravagant Atheist may think us deficient in that), all the world must have consented to clip them; or else human race had been extinct before this time, nothing, upon that supposition, being safe from murder and rapine. Or, if the eyet were so acute as to rival the finest microscopes, and to discern the smallest hair upon the leg of a gnat, it would be a curse, and not a blessing to us; it would make all things appear rugged and deformed; the most finely polished crystal would be uneven [* For, though the eye. . . . . do us little service; 1st ed. "If the eye were so piercing, as to descry even opake and little objects a hundred leagues off, it would do us little service."-D.] [t "There is another part of these Sermons remarkable, as apparently containing the germ of two well-known passages in the works of Bentley's most bitter satirists. If the eye were so acute as to rival the finest microscopes, the tenderness of a wound.' Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics given, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonize at every pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? If nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres ; How would he wish that heaven had left him still [POPE, Essay on Man, Ep. i. v. 193.] How exquisitely has the poet wrought out the coarse and strong material of the divine into his own fine and diaphanous texture! And in one sentence of the above quotation, do we not find the thought, and almost the expressions, of the humorous, but not over-cleanly, passage in Gulliver's Travels, which describes the effect of the persons of the Brobdignagian maids of honour on the acute eyesight of Grildrig?"—Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. p. 128, 9. But both Bentley and Pope were indebted to Locke: see Essay concerning Hum. Understand. b. ii. ch. 23. sect. 12: vol. i. p. 255. ed. 1760.—D.] and rough; the sight of our own selves would affright us; the smoothest skin would be beset all over with ragged scales and bristly hairs; and besides,* we could not see at one view above what is now the space of an inch, and it would take a considerable time to survey the then mountainous bulk of our own bodies. Such a faculty of sight, so disproportioned to our other senses and to the objects about us, would be very little better than blindness itself. And again, God hath furnished us with invention and industry, so that by optical glasses we can more than supply that imaginary defect of our own eyes, and discover more remote and minute bodies with that assistance, than perhaps the most whimsical Atheist would desire to do without it. So likewise if our sense of hearing were exalted proportionallyt to the former, what a miserable condition would mankind be in! What whisper could be low enough, but many would overhear it? What affairs, that most require it, could be transacted with secrecy? And whither could we retire from perpetual humming and buzzing? Every breath of wind would incommode and disturb us: we should have no quiet or sleep in the silentest nights and most solitary places; and we must inevitably be struck‡ deaf or dead with the noise of a clap of thunder. And the like inconveniences would follow if the sense of feeling was advanced to such a degree as the Atheist requires. How could we sustain the pressure of our very clothes in such a condition; much less carry burdens, and provide for conveniences of life? We could not bear the assault of an insect, or a feather, or a puff of air, without pain. There are examples now of wounded persons, that have roared for anguish and torment at the discharge of ordnance, though at a very great distance: what insupportable torture then should we be under upon a like concussion in the air, when all the whole body would have the tenderness of a wound! In a word, all the changes and emenda [* besides; 1st ed. " beside."-D.] [ proportionally; 1st ed. "proportionably.”—D.] tions that the Atheists would make in our senses are so far from being improvements, that they would prove the utter ruin and extirpation of mankind. But perhaps they may have better success in their complaints about the distempers of the body, and the shortness of life. We do not wonder indeed that the Atheist should lay a mighty stress upon this objection; for to a man, that places all his happiness in the indolency and pleasure of body,* what can be more terrible than pain, or a fit of sickness? nothing but death alone, the most dreadful thing in the world. When an Atheist reflects upon death, his very hope is despair; and 'tis the crown and top of his wishes, that it may prove his utter dissolution and destruction. No question, if an Atheist had had the making of himself, he would have framed a constitution that could have kept pace with his insatiable lust, been invincible by gluttony and intemperance, and have held out vigorous a thousand years in a perpetual debauch. But we answer: first, in the words of St. Paul; Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ?z We do adoret and magnify his most holy name for his undeserved mercy towards us, that he made us the chief of the visible creation; and freely acquit his goodness from any imputation of unkindness, that he has placed us no higher. Secondly, religion gives us a very good account of the present infirmity of our bodies. Man at his first origin was a vessel of honour, when he came first out of the hands of the potter, endued with all imaginable perfections of the animal nature, till by disobedience and sin diseases and death came first into the world. Thirdly, the distempers of the body are not so formidable to a religious man as they are to an Atheist: he hath a quite different judgment and apprehension about them; he is willing to believe, that our present condition is better for us in the [* of body; 1st ed. " of the body."-D.] Rom. ix. 20. [† We do adore; 1st ed. "We adore."-D.] |