derness of a Wound? In a word, all the Changes and Emendations 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 fuccess 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 dreadfull thing in the world. When an Atheist reflects upon Death, his very Hope is Defpair; and 'tis the crown and top of his Wishes, that it may prove his utter Diffolution and Destruction. No queftion if an Atheist had had the making of himself, he would have framed a Conftitution that could have kept pace with his infatiable Luft, 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: Rom. 9. Nay, but, 0 Man, who art thou, that repliest against God? fhall the thing formed fay to him that formed it, Why haft thou made me thus? We adore and magnifie his most holy Name for his undeserved Mercy 20. towards towards us, that he made us the Chief of the vifible 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 Veffel of Honour, when he came firft out of the Hands of the Potter ; endued with all imaginable Perfections of the Animal Nature; till by Difobedience and Sin, Diseases and Death came firft into the World. Thirdly, The Distempers of the Body are not fo 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 Iffue, than that uninterrupted Health and Security, that the Atheist defires; which would ftrongly tempt us to forget God and the concerns of a better Life. Whereas now he receives a Fit of Sickness, as the dela т legs, the kind Chastisement and Discipline of his Heavenly Father, to wean his Affections from the World, where he is but as on a Journey; and to fix his thoughts and defires on things above, where his Country and his Dwelling is: that where he hath placed his Treafure and Concerns, there his heart may be alfo. Fourthly, Most of the Distempers that are incident to us are of our own making, the effects Lucret.l.3. of abused Plenty, and Luxury, and must not be And now that I have answer'd all the Atheist's Exceptions against Our account of the Production of Mankind, I come in the next place to examine all all the Reasons and Explications they can give of their own. The Atheists upon this occafion are divided into Sects, and (which is the mark and character of Error) are at variance and repugnancy with each other and with themselves. Some of them will have Mankind to have been thus from all Eternity. But the reft do not approve of infinite Succeffions, but are pofitive for a Beginning; and they also are subdivided into three Parties: the first ascribe the Origin of Men to the Influence of the Stars upon fome extraordinary Conjunction or Afpect: Others again reject all Aftrology; and fome of these mechanically produce Mankind, at the very firft Experiment, by the action of the Sun upon duly prepared Matter: but others are of opinion, that af ter infinite blundering and mifcarrying, our Bodies at laft came into this Figure by meer Chance and Accident. There's no Atheift in the World, that reasons about his Infidelity (which God knows most of them never do) but he takes one of these four Methods. I will refute them every one in the fame order that I have named them: the two former in the present Discourse, referving the others for another occafion. 1. And Firft, the Opinion of those Atheists that will have Mankind and other Animals to have fubM 2 fifted fifted eternally in infinite Generations already paft, will be found to be flat Non-fence and Contradiction to it self, and repugnant also to matter of Fact. First, it is contradiction to it self. Infinite Generations of Men (they fay) are already past and gone: but whatsoever is now past, was once actually prefent; so that each of those Infinite Generations was once in its turn actually present: therefore all except One Generation were once future and not in being, which deftroys the very suppofition: For either that One Generation must it felf have been Infinite, which is Nonsence; or it was the Finite Beginning of Infinite Generations between it self and us, that is Infinity terminated at both ends, which is Nonfence as before. Again, Infinite paft Generations of Men have been once actually prefent: there may be some one Man fuppofe then, that was at infinite distance from Us now therefore that man's Son likewise, forty years younger fuppofe than his Father, was either at infinite diftance from Us or at finite: if that Son too was at infinite diftance from Us, then one Infinite is longer by forty years than another; which is abfurd: if at finite, then forty years added to finite makes it infinite, which is as abfurd as the other. And again, The number of Men that are already dead and gone is infinite, as they say: but the |