Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/65

Rh understand, if we compare Necessity and Contingency together. For as Contingency signifies not onely the Manner of Existence in that which is Contingent according to its Idea, but does intimate also a Possibility of Actual Existence; so (to make up the true and easie Analogy) Necessity does not onely signifie the Manner of Exigence in that which is Necessary, but also that it does actually Exist, and could never possibly do otherwise. For ἁναγκαῖον εἶναι and ἀδύνατον μή εἶναι, Necessity of being and Impossibility of Not being, are all one with Arisiotle and the rest of the Logicians. But the Atheist and the Enthusiast are usually such profess'd Enemies against Logick; the one merely out of Dotage upon outward gross Sense, the other in a dear regard to his stiffe and untamed Phansy, that shop of Mysteries and fine things.

5. Thirdly, we may further adde, That whereas we must needs attribute to the Idea of God either Contingency, Impossibility, or Necessity of Actuall Existence, (some one of these belonging to every Idea imaginable) and that Contingency is incompetible to an Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect, much more Imposibility, the Idea of God being compiled of no Notions but such as are possible according to the Light of Nature, to which we now appeal; it remains therefore that Necessity of Actuall Existence be unavoidably cast upon the Idea of God, and that therefore God does actually Exist.

6. But fourthly and lastly, If this seem more subtile, though it be no lesse true for it, I shall now propound that which is so palpable, that it is impossible for any one that has the use of his wits for to deny it. I say therefore, that either God, or this corporeall and sensible World must of it self necessarily exist. Or thus, Either God, or Matter, or both, do of themselves necessarily exist: If both we have what we would drive at, the Existency of God.

7. But yet to acknowledge the necessary Existence of the Matter of it self, is not so congruous and suteable to the Light of Nature. For if any thing can exist independently of God, all things may: so that not onely the Omnipotency of God might be in vain, but beside, there would be a letting in from hence of all confusion and disorder imaginable; nay, of some grand Devil of equal Power and of as large Command as God himself; or, if you will, of six thousand Millions of such monstrous Gigantick Spirits, fraught with various and mischievous Passions, as well as armed with immense power, who in anger or humour appearing in huge shapes, might take the Planets up in their prodigious Clutches, and pelt one another with them as Boyes are wont to doe with snow-balls. And that this has not yet happened, will be resolved onely into this, that the humour has not yet taken them: but the frame of Nature and the generation of things would be still liable to this ruine and disorder. So dangerous a thing it is to slight the natural dependencies and correspondencies of our Innate Ideas and Conceptions.

8. Nor is there any Refuge in such a Reply as this. That the full and perfect Infinitude of the Power of God is able easily to overmaster these six thousand Millions of Monsters, and to stay their hands. For I say that six or fewer may equalize the Infinite Power of God. For if any thing Rh