The darknes of atheism dispelled by the light of nature a physico-theologicall treatise / written by Walter Charleton ...

SECT. I.

HAving thus by Apodictical and uncontrollable Reasons made it manifest, that all things in the Uni∣verse, as well Generals, as Particulars, Contingents as Necessaries, are in the means, manner, oppor∣tunity and finality of their Operations, precisely predetermined, disposed, and procured by the General Providence of God; that all Occurrences of every individual mans life, are the prescripts and consignations or allotments of his Special and Paternal Providence; and by the meer Light of Nature dis∣pelled all those clouds, which either ancient Ethnicisme, or mo∣dern Atheisme hath exha••ed from the abyss of Hell, to obscure the splendor of both those excellent truths: it remains only, that we deduce the influence of Divine Providence down to the Ca∣tastrophe, or Exit of life, or prove the extension of it to the point of Death; and endevour a compendious and plain decision of that tedious and enigmatical Controversie, An terminus Vitae humanae sit immobilis? Whether the period of every individual mans life be so immoveably fixt by the Special Providence of God, that it can be neither by any negligence, immoderate and

inordinate use of those things Physicians call the Six Nonnatu∣rals, or suddain Casualities, anticipated or abbreviated; nor by prudence, temperance, convenient Medicaments, or caution, pro∣lated or prolonged?

For the first; viz.

That God is the sole Moderator▪ though not the Author of Death (for reason will not endure that we conceive him to have created a Privation;) or, more plainly, that the hand of his Pro∣vidence guides the dart of that inevitable and victorious Enemy to life; this is a position so frequently and amply illustrated by the pens of many the most learned and judicious men of all ages, religions, and professions; and so genuinely and directly inferri∣ble from the Context and importance of those Arguments for∣merly introduced, in order to the Demonstration of the interest of Providence, even in the smallest interludes of Nature, and most apparently fortuitous effects of all subordinate Causes: that, should we run out into any profuse probation thereof, in this place, the most patient and candid Reader could not but frown at the attempt, and justly censure it, non only as unnecessa∣ry and supercrogatory, but also as scandalous and derogatory to his own Dialectical and Collective habilities. And therefore humbly referring him as well to his own easy recognition of no∣tions formerly collected from the lecture of other more mature and nervous Discourses on the same Theorem; as his fami∣liar Inductions upon many propositions inspersed upon the leaves of this our cold and dull Decembers Exercise: I shall, in avoydance of an undecent Chasme, or Vacuity, insert only two concise and obvious Arguments, as Corollaries, or an∣nexes inservient to the same perswasion.

Argument I.

The life, and consequently the Death of every man necessarily depends upon the absolute Will of the Creator, and so upon the Decrees or resolves of his Providence; or upon some other Principle extraneous, alien, and superior to the nature of man;

or upon man himself. Not upon any Third or Neutral Princi∣ple; for that must be either the Epicureans Fortune; or the Stoicks Anus Fatidica or Fate; or Homers Lottery; or Py∣thagoras his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, mentioned by Plutarch (de placit. 1.) or the Jews Angelus mortis, or their terrible she Devil Zilith described by our many-tongued Gregory (in tract. de Episcopo puerorum, out of the Glossa Talmud, in Nidda, fol. 24) and er∣roneously conceived, by Gassarel (Ʋnheard of Curiosities, pag. 317.) to be the same with Lucina of the Romans, for the one was thought propitious to parturient women, the other so hostile and malignant, that the Hebrew Wives, so soon as they fell in travel, caused this proscription to be written on the doore of their bed-chamber, Adim, Chavah, chouts Lilith; Adam, Eve, keep out Lilith; or the Astrologers Helec and Alcoco∣den, and the like 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Planets called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Fridariae, derided by Archangelus a Burgo novo (in Comment. in dogmat. Cabalist.) and Scalger (in Comment. in Manilium) or the Numbers, Ideas, or grand Revolution of Plato; or the Malus Deus of the Manachees; or Helena, aliàs Selene, of Simon Magus; or Hesiods Pandora; or the great Beldam Mylitta, aliàs Alytta, of the Ethnicks; or the Turks Nassub, aliàs Ctusura, vvhich signifies the Goddess Fortune; or Paracelsus his Anima mundi Platonica, or rather the Macro∣cosmical Harmony of the Universe, and the Microcosmical Con∣cordance with the invisible signatures of the Ascendent; or that Hermetico-magical Lamp of life and death, lately invented and cryed up by Ernestus Burchgravius, but most judiciously ex∣tinguisht by Sennertus (de Consensu Chymicorum cum Galen. cap. 18.) or that Internal man of Paracelsus, named Ens syde∣rium, Olympicum, Gabalim, &c. by that vaine admirer and promoter of Hermetical Follies, Oswaldus Crollius (in Basil. Chym. praefat. admonit. p. 6. 4. & 65.) or the implacable Strix, or Erinnys of the Gentiles; or, finally, some such fantastique Hobgoblin, that hath no more of reality, then what it borrows from the confused and obscure idea of it self, conceived in the luxuriant womb of a perturbed or deluded Imagination: but every sober man already knows, that all these are absolute Chi∣maera's,

hatched in the adled brains of mad men, Poets, and ido∣latrous Pagans; and so below our laughter, much more our serious Confutation. Not upon Man himself, or any domestick Con∣servatory essentially inherent to his Nature. For that absurdity once conceded, entangles our reason in two the highest Impossi∣bilities imaginable▪ (1) it confounds the Relative Maximes of Nature, breaks her chain of Dependence, and inferrs a second Self-existence beside Divinity; for, dreaming that a Principiate Entity actually existent, gave to it self existence; that a Future something derives its 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Futurition immediately and solely from it self; and that nothing can, by its own power, at∣taine to be something, i. e. that which is neither Potentia, nor Actus, can endow it self with the perfection of both Power and Act; we must be carried upon this rock, that there is in the World a second something 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Non principiate, Causeless, and Self-sufficient, besides God; which is a falshood far beyond the two Principles of all things imagi∣ned by the Manichees, and more ridiculous then the Devils pro∣mise to make our Saviour Monarch of the World. (2) It im∣ports an absolute power in man to make himself immortal; a Delusion that never found entertainement in the brain of the most desperate Hypochondriack, nor durst the Father of lies ever suggest it to his most credulous vassals. It follows there∣fore of pure necessity, that as God is the Author of life; so also can he alone dispose of the issues of Death, and that the end, as well as the beginning and mutations of all things are subject to the moderation of his Providence.

Argument 2.

A confest Verity it is, that all Natural Motion must proceed from one First Motor, which can be no other but God, untill we can find out something coequal to him in Eternity; and a position never yet disputed, that the life of man is a Natural Motion, to which the Apostle seemes to allude in his sacred axiome, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, in God we live, move and have our being (Act. 17. ver. 28.) and of parallel certainty

it is, that every motion hath its determinate beginning, durati∣on, and period, dependent on the Will of the First Mover: therefore must the end as necessarily as the beginning and con∣tinuation of mans life, his Death as well as his conception, nativity, and maturity be certainly commensurated, desined, and limited by the Special Providence of God. Frequent glimpses of this Argument have I perceived in the mounments of the most Ethnical Philosophers; nor shall our thoughts want the patronage of great probability, if we conjecture, that our Patriarch, Galen (in most other things, but weakly armed against their censure, who have assaulted his memory with the detestable Epithite, '〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, an Atheist of the highest Classis) had his mind touched with the same Magnet, at that time, when he wheeled about from his old position of a meer Naturalist, and pointed directly at the pole of Divine Providence, in these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (2. de usu part.) God hath done all things, that he had for∣merly decreed to doe.

Notes

• Article 1. The Affinity of this Theo∣rem to the pre∣cedent, intima∣ted: and the necessary divi∣sion thereof into a specifical and individual consideration.
• Article 2. The reasons of the Authors concise tracta∣tion of the first part.
• Article 3. The moderatiō of Death by Special Provi∣dence Divine, a••gued from the impossibili∣ty of the mo∣deration there∣of by any other power.
• Article 4. The same de∣monstrated, from the ne∣cessary depen∣dence of all natural motion in its begin∣ning, continua∣tion, and peri∣od, on the will of the First ••over.