To this Consideration, I shall for Affinities sake subjoin another, which I leave to your Liberty to look upon as a distinct one, or as an Enlargement and Application of the former.
I consider then, that there is a great difference between a Doctrines being repugnant to the general and well-weigh’d Rules or Dictates of Reason, in the forming of which Rules it may be suppos’d to have been duly consider’d; and its disagreeing with Axioms, at the Establishment whereof the Doctrine in Question was probably never thought on. There are several Rules that pass current ev’n among the most Learned Men, and which are indeed of very great use when restrain’d to those things whence they took their Rise, and others of the like nature; which yet ought not to overthrow those Divine Doctrines that seem not consonant to them. For the Framers of these Rules having generally built them upon the Observations they had made of Natural and Moral things, since (as we lately argued) Reason it self cannot but acknowledge, there are some things out of its Sphere, we must not think it impossible, that there may be Rules, which will hold in all inferior Beings for which they were made; and yet not reach to that infinite and most singular Being call’d God, and to some Divine matters which were not taken into Consideration when those Rules were fram’d. And indeed, if we consider God as the Author of the Universe, and the free Establisher of the Laws of Motion, whose general Concourse is necessary to the Conservation and Efficacy of every particular Physical Agent, we cannot but acknowledge, that by with-holding his Concourse or changing these Laws of Motion, which depend perfectly upon his Will, he may invalidate most, if not all, the Axioms and Theorems of Natural Philosophy: These supposing the Course of Nature, and especially the Establish’d Laws of Motion among the parts of the Universal Matter, as those upon which all the Phaenomena of Nature depend. ‘Tis a Rule in Natural Philosophy, that Causae necessariae semper agunt quantum possunt; But it will not follow from thence, that the Fire must necessarily burn Daniel’s three Companions or their Cloaths, that were cast by the Babylonian King’s Command into the midst of a Burning fiery Furnace, when the Author of Nature was pleas’d to withdraw his Concourse to the Operation of the flames, or supernaturally to defend against them the Bodies that were exposed to them. That Men once truly dead cannot be brought to life again, hath been in all Ages the Doctrine of meer Philosophers; but though this be true according to the Course of Nature, yet it will not follow but that the contrary may be true, if God interpose either to recall the departed Soul and reconjoin it to the Body, if the Organization of this be not too much vitiated, or by so altering the Fabrick of the matter whereof the Carkass consists, as to restore it to a fitness for the Exercise of the Functions of Life. Agreably to this let me observe to you, that, though it be unreasonable to believe a Miraculous Effect when attributed onely to a meer Physical Agent; yet the same thing may reasonably be believ’d, when ascrib’d to God, or to Agents assisted with his absolute or supernatural Power. That a Man born blind should in a trice recover his sight upon the Application of Clay and Spittle, would justly appear incredible, if the Cure were ascrib’d to one that acted as a meer Man; but it will not follow, that it ought to be incredible, that the Son of God should work it. And the like may be said of all the Miracles perform’d by Christ, and those Apostles and other Disciples of his, that acted by virtue of a Divine Power and Commission. For in all these and the like Cases it suffices not to make ones Belief irrational, that the things believ’d are impossible to be true according to the course of Nature; but it must be shewn, either that they are impossible even to the Power of God to which they are ascrib’d, or that the Records, we have of them, are not sufficient to beget Belief in the nature of a Testimony; which latter Objection against these Relations is Forreign to our present Discourse. And as the Rules about the power of Agents will not all of them hold in God; so I might shew the like, if I had time, concerning some of his other Attributes: Insomuch that ev’n in point of Justice, wherein we think we may freeliest make Estimates of what may or may not be done, there may be some cases, wherein God’s supreme Dominion, as Maker and Governor of the World, places him above some of those Rules; I say, some, for I say not above all those Rules of Justice which oblige all inferior Beings, without excepting the greatest and most absolute Monarchs themselves. I will not give Examples of his Power of Pardoning or Remitting Penalties, which is but a relaxing of his own Right; but will rather give an instance in his Power of afflicting and exterminating Men, without any Provocation given him by them. I will not here enter upon the Controversie de Jure Dei in Creaturas, upon what it is founded, and how far it reaches. For, without making my self a party in that Quarrel, I think, I may safely say, that God by his right of Dominion, might, without any violation of the Laws of Justice, have destroy’d and ev’n annihilated Adam and Eve before they had eaten of the forbidden Fruit, or had been commanded to abstain from it. For Man being as much and as intirely God’s Workmanship as any of the other Creatures; unless God had oblig’d himself by some promise or pact to limit the Exercise of his absolute dominion over him, God was no more bound to preserve Adam and Eve long alive, than he was to preserve a Lamb, or a Pigeon; and therefore, as we allow, that he might justly recall the Lives he had given those innocent Creatures when he pleas’d, (as actually he often order’d them to be kill’d and burn’d in Sacrifice to him:) so he might, for the declaration of his Power to the Angels, or for other Reasons, have suddenly taken away the Lives of Adam and Eve, though they had never offended him. And upon the same grounds he might without Injustice have annihilated, I say not, damn’d their Souls; he being no more bound to continue Existence to a Nobler, than a less noble Creature: As he is no more bound to keep an Eagle than an Oyster always alive. I know, there is a difference betwixt Gods resuming a Being he lent Adam, and his doing the same to inferior Creatures: But that disparity if it concern any of his Attributes, will concern some other than his Justice; which allow’d him to resume at pleasure the Being he had only lent them, or lay any Affliction on them that were lesser than that Good could countervail. But mentioning this instance only occasionally, I shall not prosecute it any further, but rather mind you of the Result of this and the foregoing Consideration; which is, That Divinely reveal’d Truths may seem to be repugnant to the dictates of Reason, when they do but seem to be so: Nor does Christianity oblige us to question such Rules as to the cases they were fram’d for, but the application of them to the Nature of God, who has already been truly said to be Ens singularissimum, and to his absolute Power and Will; so that we do not reject the Rules we speak of, but rather limit them; and when we have restrain’d them to their due bounds, we may safely admit them.
From Mens not taking notice of, or not pondering this necessary limitation of many Axioms deliver’d in general terms, seems to have proceeded a great Error, which has made so many Learned Men presume to say, That this or that thing is true in Philosophy, but false in Divinity, or on the contrary: As for instance, that a Virgin, continuing such, may have a Child, is look’d upon as an Article which Theology asserts to be true, and Philosophy pronounces impossible. But the Objection is grounded upon a mistake, which might have been prevented by wording the Propositions more warily and fully. For though we grant, that, Physically speaking, ‘tis false, that a Virgin can bring forth a Child; yet that signifies no more, than that, according to the course of Nature, such a thing cannot come to pass; but speaking absolutely and indefinitely, without confining the Effect to meer Physical Agents, it may safely be deny’d that Philosophy pronounces it impossible that a Virgin should be a Mother. For why should the Author of Nature be confin’d to the ways of working of dependent and finite Agents? And to apply the Answer to the Divines that hold the Opinion I oppose; I shall demand, why God may not out of the substance of a Woman form a Man, without the help of a Man, as well as at the beginning of the substance of a Man he form’d a Woman without the concurrence of a Woman? And so, that Iron being a Body far heavier, (in specie, as they speak,) will, if upheld by no other Body, sink in water, is a Truth in Natural Philosophy; but since Physicks themselves lead Men to the acknowledgment of a God, ‘tis not repugnant to Reason, that, if God please to interpose his Power, he may (as in Elisha’s case) make Iron swim, either by withholding his concourse to the Agents, whatever they be that cause Gravity in Bodies, or perhaps by other ways unknown to us; since a vigorous Loadstone may, as I have more than once try’d, keep a piece of Iron, which it touches not, swimming in the Air, though this thin Body must contribute far less, than water would, to the sustaining it aloft.
That strict Philosopher Des Cartes, who has with great Wit and no less Applause attempted to carry the Mechanical Powers of matters higher than any of the Modern Philosophers; this Naturalist, I say, that ascribes so great a power to Matter and Motion, was so far from thinking, that what was impossible to them, must be so to God too, that, though he were urg’d by a learned Adversary with an Argument as likely as any to give him a strong Temptation to limit the Omnipotence of God; yet ev’n on this occasion he scruples not to make this ingenious and wary Acknowledgment, and that in a private Letter; For my part, says he, I think we ought never to say of any thing that ‘tis impossible to God. For all that is true and good being dependent on his Almightiness, I dare not so much as say, that God cannot make a Mountain without a Valley, or cannot make it true,1 that one and two shall not make three; but I say only, that he has given me a Soul of such a nature, that I cannot conceive a Mountain without a Valley, nor that the Aggregate of one and of two shall not make three, &c. and I say only, that such things imply a Contradiction in my Conception. And consonantly to this in his Principles of Philosophy he gives on a certain occasion this useful Caution,—Quod ut satis tutò & sine errandi periculo aggrediamur,2 eâ nobis cautelâ est utendum, ut semper quàm maxime recordemur, & Deum Autorem rerum esse infinitum, & Nos omnina finitos.
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