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paragr. 4.

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lett. ii.

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murder, stealing, &c. and austerities, celibate, retirement CHAP. from the world, and great liberalities to the Tapoins and I. Bonzes. Wherein Bertoli, Marini, and the rest agree. But there was a secret under all this, viz. That this was but an external doctrine for the people, but the internal doctrine was another thing; that the supreme felicity lay in eternal nothing; or, as they rather called it, an eternal quiet; and that souls are to pass from body to body, saith Martinius, till they are fit for it. F. Couplet, who hath given Martin. Atthe fullest account of this matter, saith, That when Xaca las, p. 8. Couplet came to die, he sent for some of his choicest disciples, and Prooem. told them, that the doctrine he had hitherto declared to them Declar. ad was only a shew, and not the truth; and that all things Confuc. came out of nothing, and would end in nothing, as the late author Le Compte expresses it; and that is the abyss Le Compte, where all our hopes must end. But Couplet saith, That Memoires," his disciples take great care that this come not among the par. ii. people; and only those, he saith, even among the Bonzes and others are admitted to it, who are thought capable of such a secret. The eternal doctrine they look on, as he saith, as the wooden account which is raised to support the other; but they are by all means for keeping that up among the people. But it is not clear what they understand by returning to nothing; for Mons. de la Loubere saith, They do not understand proper annihilation by it, but in a Loubere du mystical sense; and two things are implied by it. 1. That Royaume such souls as arrive to it, are past all fears of returning to the desiam, t.i. body. 2. That they live in perfect ease and quiet, without c. 22. any kind of action. And so Couplet explains it by acting, understanding, and desiring nothing; so that this is the highest degree of quietism; and so Mons. Gervaise, who Hist. Nat. was among those of Siam, and endeavoured to under- et Polit. du Siam, part. stand their doctrine, saith, That annihilation is to be mys- iii. p. 161. tically understood, and not in a physical sense. As appears by what Couplet saith, That one of Xaca's posterity spent nine years with his face to the wall thinking of nothing, and so became perfect. But from hence he sadly laments the spreading of atheism among the Chinese, who were willing to understand it in the grossest sense.

And suppose it to be so taken, what imaginable ground can it be for men of sense (as the Chinese would be thought above others) to take this for granted, because such an impostor said it; concerning whom so many incredible things are said by them, that some have questioned whether there ever were such a person or not and Loubere seems to think this story a fiction of the Chinese,

part. iii.

1.

BOOK for he can find nothing of him among the Talapoins of Siam, with whose traditions he was very conversant. But what reason or demonstration did he offer? What ground could they have to believe one, who had been an impostor all his days, should speak truth at last?

But all this signifies nothing to the consent of mankind. For this was to be kept up as a secret, and only to be communicated to such as were thought capable of it. If they thought this to be the truth, why was it not to be discovered? Was it because the people were still to be kept up in the common persuasion about religion? And was this for the sake of the Bonzes? of whom the wise people of China had a very mean opinion, as they all agree. Therefore it could not be for their sakes. But the people might grow more unruly, if this were known, If the Bonzes were so bad as they make them, they might rather think the people would be better without them; and the best service they could do, was to lay open the fraud and imposture of these men, as those who preached Christianity in China and Japan, after they understood their languages, did very freely. And yet they did assert God and Providence, and the rewards and punishments of another life, against all the doctrines of Xaca, both as to the external and internal part. Matth. Riccius, having attained to good skill in the language of China, published an account of the Christian doctrine at Pekin A. D. 1603, wherein he asserted the being of God, not only from natural reason, but from their own most ancient books; of which Couplet gives a large account, and how the interpreters of latter times had perverted the sense of them. We have in Kircher a summary of the Christian faith, as it was published in China; and trata, par. therein we find on what grounds they asserted the being of God, against the atheistical sense of Xaca's doctrine, that all things came out of nothing; for, if nothing were first, how came things into being? Therefore to bring them into being, there must be a Creator before them; and this Creator is he whom we call God. This was plain and true reasoning, and impossible to be answered by the subtilest of those atheistical wits of China. For nothing can produce nothing. So that if Xaca's interior doctrine were true, that all things came out of nothing, it must necessarily follow, that there must be nothing before any thing; and what possible imagination can any man of sense have, how any thing should by itself come out of nothing? There is no repugnancy at all in conceiving

Couplet
Declar.
Prooem.

Kircher

China ilus

ii. c. 10.

I.

that an infinite Power should give a being to that which CHAP. had it not before; for although the difference between not being and being be so great, yet where we suppose a Power infinite in the cause, that may command the terms of that distance, by giving a being to that which had it not before. To say that nothing can be produced out of nothing, implies that nothing can of itself result out of nothing, where there is no superior Cause; but to say that by no cause whatsoever any thing can be put into being which had it not before, is to take away all possibility of an infinite Power without any reason, when the very being of things is an impregnable reason for it. For since we are certain things are, we must be certain that they came into being; and that must be either out of nothing by themselves, which is impossible, or it must be from such a Power which can give being where it was not, which must be infinite.

Thus far I have considered the general prejudices against religion, and the atheistical pretences of this age; and have shewed how very little they signify to any persons that will take the pains to examine them.

I.

DISCOURSE II.

The modern atheistical Hypotheses examined, and the Unreasonableness of them shewed.

BOOK I NOW Come to consider the atheistical hypotheses of this age; which I shall rank under these two heads: 1. Such as have a tendency towards atheism.

I.

2.

Des Cartes
Medit. iv.
Phil. par. i.

Princip.

2. Such as are plainly atheistical.

As to the former, I shall insist upon these two:

Such as weaken the known and generally received proofs of God and Providence.

Such as attribute too much to the mechanical powers of matter and motion.

I begin with those who have gone about to weaken the known and generally received arguments for God and Providence; which I have at large shewed were those taken from the manifest effects of wisdom and design in the parts of animals, and in the frame of the world. I am far from intending to lay the charge of atheism on any who have weakened some arguments to prove a God, when they have industriously set themselves to do it from any other, although not so firm, nor so generally received. For I consider the fondness men have for their own inventions, and how apt therefore they are to slight other arguments in comparison with them. And this I take to have been the case of a modern philosopher of great and deserved reputation: for he, designing to do something beyond other men, thought he did nothing, unless he produced arguments which he thought had not been pursued by others. To this end he set aside the argument from final causes, for two reasons. 1. Because in 5. Object. physical enquiries we ought to make use of none but the strongest reasons. 2. Because all God's ends are unsearchable by us, being kept close in the abyss of his infinite wisdom. But when he was smartly urged by his learned adversary, that although upon another occasion he might set aside final causes, yet he ought not when the honour of God, as the maker of the soul, is concerned; for by these means the argument from the light of nature, as to the wisdom, providence, power, and existence of God, would be cast off; which he looks on as the chief argument, (which is taken from the parts of the visible world, the heavens, earth, plants, animals, and especially man

P. 22.

Resp. ad

II.

kind;) he had no other answer to make, but that what CHAP. was brought for a final cause, ought to be referred to the efficient, i. e. that from those things we ought to know and honour God as the Maker, but not to guess for what end he made them. Which is a strange answer to be made by one of so much sagacity. For, as Gassendus well urges, how can we honour God for the excellent use of these things, and not know for what end they were made? Wherein lies the difference between the use and the end in this case? For he that adores God for the use, must do it for the end he designed those things for.

But, saith Des Cartes, in moral considerations, wherein it is a pious thing to make use of conjectures, we may consider God's end; but not in physical speculations, wherein we must only make use of the strongest reasons.

To which Gassendus very well answers, That if he takes away the final cause, he weakens the argument for the efficient: for that leads us to him. And it is not the bare sight of the visible world, which makes us own God to be the maker of it; because it is possible for men to think that these things were so from eternity, or came by chance: but when we observe the wisdom of God in the design and contrivance, then we come upon good grounds to own the efficient cause, and to adore him for the workmanship of his hands. As, saith he, if a man sees a passage for water between stones on each side with an arch over, that doth not presently convince him that it is a bridge; because pieces of rocks might happen so as to afford such a passage: but when he comes to consider the order in which they are framed and hold together, and the conveniency of mankind for passing over, he cannot then but acknowledge there was a skilful artificer who managed it, and that it could not be done by chance.

To the other argument, that God's ends are unsearchable, he answers, That it is not to be denied that God may have ends above our reach: but, on the other side, there are ends which lie open to our view; as, saith he, particularly in the body of man, as the frame of the mouth for respiration and nourishment, and all other passages so exactly fitted for those ends; and so the bones, muscles, nerves, and other parts of the body: but there are three especially which strike him with admiration. 1. The umbilical vessels, the fitness of them for distribution of nourishment to the embryo, and the alteration after the child is born. 2. The valves of the heart, and the several vessels for receiving and distributing the

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