BOOK VIII. Practical Inferences From the foregoing SURVEY N the foregoing feven of the greatest grandeur, a Work well contrived, admirably adapted, was to one52 andi sata mu ve asili,nofluleno✪ & doul and every way full of Magnificence; all that now remains is, to endeavour to make thefe Views and Confiderations useful to our felves. Which I fhall do in the following Chapters. CHAP. I. aniogazol The Existence of GOD, collected by the Heathens from the Works of the Heavens. T HE first and most ready and natural Deduction we can make from fuch a glorious Scene of Workmanship, as is before reprefented, is to confider, Who the Great Workman was ? Tat the Author of all this glorious Scene of things was .GOD, is fuch a Conclufion, that even the most igno P 2 ignorant and barbarous part of mankind have been able to make, from the manifeft fignals vifible therein; Signals fo plain and conclufive, that Tully's Stoick. (1) cites it as Ariftotle's opinion, That if there were such a fort of people, that had always lived under the Earth, in good and fplendid Habitations, adorned with Imagery and Pictures, and furnished with all things that thofe accounted happy abound with and fuppofing that thefe People had never at any time gone out upon the earth, but only by report had heard there was fuch a thing as Deity, and a Power of the Gods; and that at a certain time afterwards, the earth fhould open, and this people get out from their hidden manfions into the places we inhabit when on the fudden they fhould fee the Earth, the Seas, and the Heavens, perceive the magnitude of the (1) De Nat. Deor. L. 2. C. 37. A Clouds, Clouds, and the force of the Winds, behold the Sun, and its grandeur and beauty; and know its power. in making the Day, h diffusing his light throughout the whole Heavens and when the Night had overSpread the earth with darkness, they should difcern the whole Heavens befpread and adorned with Stars, and fee the variety of the Moon's Phafes in hen Increafe and Decrease, together with the Rifings and Settings, and the stated and immutable Courfes of all these throughout all eterni ty this people, when they should fee all thefe things, would infallibly imagine that there are Gods, and that thofe grand Works were the Works of the Gods. Thus have we the opinion and conclufions of two eminent Heathens together, Ariftotle and Tully's Stoick Se AND if the Heavens fo plainly de clare the Glory of God; and the Firmide ment fheweth his handy work (2); if thofe Characters, thofe Impreffes of the Divine Hand are fo legible, that their line is gone out through all the earth; and their words to the end of the World, fo that there is no Language, Tongue, or Speech where their voice is not beard; nay if thefe things are fuch, that even a fubterraneous People would,at first fight, conclude them to be GOD's Work; how daring and impudent, how unworthy of a rational Being is it, to deny these works to GOD, and afcribe them to any thing, yea a meer Nothing, as Chance is, rather than GOD? Tully's Stoick laft mentioned denieth him to be a Man, who fhould do this. His words (3) are, Who would fay be is a man,ho ·when he should behold the Motions of the Heavens to be fo certain, and the Orders of the Stars fo eftablished, and all things gur daidar AMINIO (3) Cicero ibid. cap. 38 ad nors br |