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are examples now of wounded perfons, that have roared for anguish and torment at the discharge of Ordnance, though at a very great diftance; what infupportable torture then should we be under upon a like concuffion in the Air, when all the whole Body would have the tenderness 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 ftrefs upon this Objection. For to a man that places all his Happiness in the Indolency and Pleasure of the Body, what can be more terrible than Pain or a Fit of Sicknefs? nothing but Death alone, the most dreadfull 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 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

But we answer; First, in the words of St. Paul: Nay, but, O Man, who art thou, that repliest against Rom.9.2c. 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 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 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, Difeases and Death came firft into the World. Thirdly, The Diftempers of the Body are not fo formidable to a Religious Man, as they are to an Atheist: He hath a quite different judgment and apprehenfion about them he is willing to believe, that our prefent 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 Sicknefs, as the waydex legs, the kind Chastisement and Discipline of his Hea venly Father, to wean his Affections from the World, where he is but as on a Journey; and to

fix

fix his thoughts and defires on things above, where his Country and his Dwelling is: that where he hath placed his Treasure and Concerns, there his heart may be alfo. Fourthly, Moft of the Distempers that are incident to us are of our own making, the ef fects of abused Plenty, and Luxury, and must not be charged upon our Maker; who notwithstanding out of the Riches of his Compaffion hath provided for us store of excellent Medicines, to alleviate in a great measure thofe very Evils which we bring upon our selves. And now we are come to the last objection of the Atheist, That Life is too fhort. Alas for him, what pity 'tis that he cannot wallow immortally in his fenfual Pleasures! If his Life were many whole Ages longer than it is, he would still make the fame Complaint, Brevis eft Lucret.1.3. hic fructus bomullis. For Eternity, and that's the thing he trembles at, is every whit as long after a thousand years as after fifty. But Religion gives us a better prospect and makes us look beyond the gloomy Regions of Death with Comfort and Delight: When this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. We are so far from repining at God, that he hath not extended the period of our Lives to the Longevity of the Antediluvians; that we give him thanks for contracting the Days of our Trial, and receiving us

more

1

more maturely into thofe Everlasting Habitations above, that he hath prepared for us.

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 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 o ther and with themfelves. Some of them will have Mankind to have been thus from all Eternity. But

the reft do no: approve of any infinite Succeffions, but are pofitive for a beginning; and they also are fubdivided into three Parties: the first afcribe 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 first Experiment by the action of the Sun upon duly prepared Matter: but others are rather of opinion, that after infinite blundering and miscarrying our Bodies at last happen'd and jump'd 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 thefe four Methods. I will refute

C

them

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 fubfifted thus eternally in infinite Generations already paft, will be found to be flat Nonfence and Contradiction to it self, and repugnant also to matter of Fact. First, it is contradiction to its felf. Infinite Generations of Men (they fay) are already paft 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 destroys the very suppofition: For either that One Generation must it felf have been Infinite, which is Nonfence; or it was the Finite Beginning of Infinite Generations between it self and us, which is Infinity terminated at both ends, which is nonsence as before. Again, Infinite paft Generations of Men have been once actually present: therefore there may be fome. one Man of them given, that was at infinite distance from us now: therefore that man's Son likewise, fuppofe forty years younger 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