it from our parents or our tutors, whether the Creator hath immediately engraven it on the mind, or whether we ourselves have formed it by a chain of principles and consequences; a question much agitated in the schools, sometimes settled, and sometimes controverted, and on which both sides affirm many clear and substantial, though opposite propositions. Of myself, I am always fully persuaded, that I have an idea of a Being supremely excellent, and one of whose perfections I am not able to omit without destroying the essence of the Supreme Being to whom it belongs. know too that there must be somewhere without me an object answering to my idea; for as I think, and as I know I am not the author of the faculty that thinks within me, I am obliged to conclude, that a foreign cause hath produced it. If this foreign cause is a being, that derives its existence from another foreign cause, I am necessarily obliged to proceed from one step to another, and to go on till I find a self-existent being, and this self-existent being is the infinite Being. I have then an idea of the infinite Being. This idea is not a phantom of my creation, it is the portrait of an original that exists independently of my reflections. This is the first way to the Creator: this is the first mirror of his perfections. O how long, how infinitely extended is this way! How impossible for the mind to pervade a distance so immense ! How obscure is this mirror! How is my soul dismayed, when I attempt to sail in this immeasurable ocean! An infamous man, who lived in the beginning of the last century, a man who conceived the most abominable design that ever was, who formed with eleven persons of his own cast a college of infidelity, from whence he might send his emissaries into all the world to raise out of every mind the opinion of the existence of God, this man took a very singular method to prove that there was no God, that was to state the general idea of God. He thought, to define was to destroy it, and that to say what God is, was the best way to disprove his existence. God, said that impious man, God is a being who exists through infinite ages, and yet is not capable of past or to come, he fills all without being in any place, he is fixed without situation, he pervades all without motion, he is good without quality, great without quantity, universal without parts, moving all things without being moved himself, his will constitutes his power, and his power is confounded with his will, without all, within all, beyond all, before all, and after all*. But though it be absurd to argue against the existence of God from the eminence of his perfections, yet it is the wisdom of man to derive from this subject inferences humbling to his proud and infatuated reason. We detest the design of the writer just now mentioned, but we approve of a part of the definition, which our athiest gives of God. Far from pretending that such a difinition degrades the object of our worship from his supreme rank in the scale of beings, it inclines us to pay him the most profound homage, of which creatures are capable, and to lay down our feeble reason before his infinite excellence. Yes, God is a being who exists through infinite agės; and yet is not capable of past or to come. The vast number of ages, which the rapidity of time hath carried away, are as present to him as this very indivisible moment, and the most distant futurity doth not conceal any remote event from his eyes. He unites in one single instant, the past, the present, and all periods to come. He is by excellence, I am that I am. He loses nothing by ages spent, he acquires nothing by succession. Yes, God fills all without being in any place. Ascend up into heaven, he is there. Make your bed * The book, from which our author quoted the above passage, is entitled Amphitheatrum æternæ providentia ... adversus atheos, &c. Lyons. 1615. 8vo. The author Vanini was a Neapolitan, born in 1585. He was educated at Rome, and ordained a priest at Padua. He travelled into many countries, and was persecuted in most. In 1614 he was imprisoned in England for forty-nine days. After his enlargement he became a monk in Guienne. From the convent he was banished for his immorality. He found, however, powerful patrons. Mareschal Bassompiere made him his chaplain, and his famous Amphitheatre was approved by four persons, a doctor of divinity, the vicar general of Lyons, the king's proctor, and the lieutenant general of Lyons, in which they affirm, "that having read the book, there was nothing in it contrary to the Roman Catholic faith," one example of the ignorance or carelessness with which licensers of the press discharge their office, and consequently one argument among thou sands for the freedom of the press. This unfortunate man was condemned at Toulouse to be burnt to death, which sentence was executed Feb. 16, 1619. The execution of this cruel sentence, cast into logical form runs thus: Vanini denied the being of a God---the parliament of Toulouse burnt Vanini--- therefore there is a God. bed in hell, behold he is there. Take the wings of the morn. ing and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall his hand lead you. Say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about you, Psal. cxxxix. 8, &c. Yet he hath no place, and the quality by which our bodies are inclosed in these walls, and adjusted with the particles of air that surround us, cannot agree with his spirituality. God pervades all without motion. The quickness of lightning, which in an instant passes from east to west, cannot equal the rapidity with which his intelligence ascends to the highest heavens, descends to the deepest abysses, and visits in a moment all parts of the universe. Yet he is immoveable, and doth not quit one place to be present in another, but abides with his disciples on earth, while he is in heaven, in the centre of felicity and glory. His will constitutes his power, and his power doth not dif fer from his will. All creatures in the universe own their existence to a single act of his will, and a thousand new worlds wait only for such an act to spring from nothing and to shine with glory. God is above all, all being subject to his power. Within all, all being an emanation of his will. Before all, after all. Stretch thine imagination, frail but haughty creature, try the utmost efforts of thy genius, ele vate thy meditations, collect thy thoughts, see whether thou canst attain to comprehend an existence without beginning, a duration without succession, a presence without circumference, an immobility without place, and agility without motion, and many other attributes, which the mind can conceive, but which language is too imperfect to express. See, weigh, calculate, It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know? Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? Job. xi. 8, 7. Let us then exclaim on the border of abyss, O the depth ! II. The second way that leads us to the Creator, and at the same time the second abyss in which our reason is lost, is the works of nature. The study of nature is easy, and all the works of nature have a bright and luminous side. In the style of a prophet, the heavens have a voice, which de clare the glory of God; and, as an apostle expresses it, creation is a visible image of the invisible things of God; yet there is also a dark obscure side. What a prodigious variety of creatures are there beyond the sphere of our sen ses! ses! How many thousands, how many ten thousand times ten thousand spirits, called angels, archangels, cherubims, seraphims, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, of all which we know not either the properties, the operations, the number, or the employment! What a prodigious multitude of stars, and suns, and revolving worlds, in comparison of which our earth is nothing but a point, and of all which we know neither the variety, the glory, nor the appointment! How many things are there on earth, plants, mineral, and animals, into the nature and use of which the industry of man could never penetrate! Why so much treasure hid in the depths of the sea? Why such vast countries, such impenetrable forests, and such uninhabitted climes as have never been surveyed, and the whole of which perhaps will never be discovered? What is the use of some insects, and some monsters; which seem to be a burden to nature, and made only to disfigure it? Why doth the Creator deprive man of many rich productions, that would be of the greatest advantage to him, while he abandons them to beasts. of the field or fishes of the sea, which derive no benefit from them? Whence came rivers, fountains, winds and tempests, the power of the loadstone, and the ebbing and flowing of the tides? Philosopher! reply, or rather avow your ignorance, and acknowledge how deep the ways of your Creator are. But it is but little to humble man, to detect his ignorance on these subjects. It is not astonishing that he should err in paths so sublime, aud it is more glorious to him to have attempted these impracticable roads, than shameful to have done so without success. There are other objects more proper to humble human reason. Objects in appearance less subject to difficulty absorb the mind of man, whenever he attempts thoroughly to investigate them. Let him consider himself, and he will lose himself in meditating on his own. essence. What is man? What is that soul, which thinks and reflects? What constitutes the union of a spirit with a portion of matter? What is that matter, to which a spirit is united? So many questions, so many abysses, so many unfathomable depths in the ways of the Creator. What is the soul of man? In what doth its essence consist? Is it the power of displaying his faculties? But then this consequence would follow, that a soul may have the essence of a soul without having ever thought, reasoned or Voi V. Ff reflected, reflected, provided it hath the power of doing so. Is it the act of thinking? But then it would follow, that a spirit, when it ceases to think, ceases to be a spirit, which seems contrary to experience. What then is a soul? Is it a collection of successive thoughts? But how can such and such thoughts, not one of which apart is essential to a soul, constitute the essence of it when they are joined together? Is it something distinct from all these? Give us, if it be possible, a clear idea of this subject. What is a soul? Is it a substance immaterial, indivisible, different from body, and which cannot be enveloped in its ruins? Certainly but when we give you this notion, we rather tell you what the soul is not than what it is. You will say, you remove false notions, but you give us no true and positive ideas; you tell us indeed that spirit is not body, but you do not explain what spirit is, and we demand an idea clear, real and adequate. As I confound myself by considering the nature of my soul, so I am perplexed again, when I examine the union of this soul with this body. Let us be informed, by what miracle a substance without extension and without parts can be united to a substance material and extended? What connection is there between willing to move and motion? What relation has a trace on the brain to an idea of the mind? How does the soul go in search of ideas before ideas present themselves? If ideas present themselves what occasion for search? To have recourse to the power of God is wise, I grant, if we avail ourselves of this answer to avoid our ig norance: but if we use it to cover that, if we pretend to explain every thing by saying God is omnipotent, and can də all these things, we certainly deceive ourselves. It is to say, I know nothing; in philosophical terms, and when, it should seem, we affect to say, I perfectly understand it. In fine I demand an explication of the human body. What am I saying? the human body! I take the smallest particle of it; I take only one atom, one little grain of dust, and I give it to be examined by all the schools, and all the universities in the world. This atom hath extent, it may be divided, it is capable of motion, it reflects light, and every one of these properties furnishes a thousand and a thousand questions, which the greatest philosophers can never an swer. My brethren, when we are in the schools, when we occupy the chair of a professor, when we make it a law to answer |