Page:The true intellectual system of the universe - the first part; wherein, all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted; and its impossibility demonstrated (IA trueintellectual1678cudw).pdf/27

  it self; This is not done by us, out of any fond Addictedness to Pythagorick Whimseys, nor indeed out of a meer Partiall Regard to that Cause of Theism neither, which we were engaged in, (though we had great reason to be tender of that too;) but because we were enforced thereunto, by Dry Mathematicall Reason; it being as certain to us, as any thing in all Geometry, That Cogitation and Understanding, can never possibly Result out of Magnitudes, Figures, Sites, and Locall Motions, (which is all that ourselves can allow to Body) however Compounded together. Nor indeed in that other way of Qualities, is it better Conceiveable, how they should emerge out of Hot and Cold, Moist and Dry, Thick and Thin; according to the Anaximandrian Atheism. And they who can persuade themselves of the Contrary, may Believe, That any thing may be Caused by any thing; upon which Supposition, we confess, it Impossible to us, to prove the Existence of a God, from the Phænomena.

In the Close of this Fifth Chapter; Because the Atheists do in the Last place Pretend, Theism and Religion to be Inconsistent with Civil Sovereignty; we were necessitated, briefly to Unravel and Confute, all the Atheistick Ethicks and Politicks, (Though this more properly belong to our Second Book Intended:) Where we make it plainly to appear, That the Atheists Artificiall and Factitious Justice, is Nothing but Will and Words; and That they give to Civil Sovereigns, no Right nor Authority at all, but onely Belluine Liberty, and Brutish Force. But on the contrary, as we Assert Justice and Obligation, not Made by Law and Commands, but in Nature; and Prove This, together with Conscience and Religion, to be the onely Basis of Civil Authority; so do we also maintain, all the Rights of Civil Sovereigns; giving both to Caesar, the things that are Cæsar's; and to God, the things that are God's.

And now, having made all our Apologies and Reflexions, we have no more to adde, but onely the Retractation or Retraction of one Passage, Page 761. Where mentioning that Opinion of a Modern Atheistick Writer, That Cogitation is nothing else but Local Motion, we could not think Epicurus and Democritus to have sunk to such a Degree, either of Sottishness or Impudence, as this; whereas we found Cause afterwards, upon further Consideration, to Change our Opinion herein, Page 846. For asmuch as when Epicurus Derived Liberty of Will in men, meerly from that Motion of Sensless Atoms Declining Uncertainly from the Perpendicular; it is Evident, that according to him, Volition it self must be really Local Motion. As indeed in the Democritick Fate, and Material Necessity of all things, it is Implied, That Humane Cogitations are but Mechanism and Motion. Notwithstanding which, both Democritus and Epicurus supposed, That the World was made without Cogitation, though by Local Motion. So that