'VeR. 6.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XT. 129
is a hidden fear in their heart, and they are haunted with these pangs of conscience, and are sensible of an avenger and a judge. And this proves pUiinly that there is a God ; as they say things written with the juice of a lemon appear not till the paper he brought to the fire, then all is legible ; so such characters of a God are there engraven upon the hearts of men, that when they are sick and ready to die, when they are upon the confines of eternity, as they begin to have a sense of the tor- ments of hell for sin, their notions of a God revive, and fear seizeth upon them, and the most sturdy atheists then have been forced to acknowledge a God. Thus you have the testimony of conscience to prove it.
[2.] As conscience shows it, so the consent of all nations. There are none so barbarous, but they worship some God. Aristotle saith, in his book cle Ccelo, * That all men, how brutish soever they were, yet have a notion of a deity impressed upon them, which they cannot wear out.' All nations rather than they would have no God, will have a false god : some worship the stars, some the stones, some the beasts, or a piece of wood, — anything they met first in the morning. Though they differed concerning the number and nature of their gods, and the manner and rites of worship, yet they all agreed in this, that there was a God, who ought to be worshipped and respected by men. Certainly there is somewhat in this ; for either this must come from some in- stinct of nature, or from tradition ; both prove the truth we have in hand. If you refer it to the instinct of nature, that doth not carry us to falsehood, but truth ; if to tradition, it must have a beginning, and therefore the very idolatry of the heathens is, saith Calvin, ' A pregnant instance and apparent evidence of this natural truth, that there is a God.' There were none so barbarous but they worshipped some god, as the pagan mariners : Jonah i. .5, 'They cried every one to his god ; ' yea, those that are most estranged from human society, that have lived in deserts without law or government, yet have been touched with the sense of a deity, which must needs arise from a natural instinct ; they would rather worship anything, yea, the very devil, than have no god, — a piece of wood or stone ; as the prophet takes notice of such brutishness in those that would burn one piece, and make an idol of the other, and worship it, I'^a. xliv. 15-17. Now this general consent of nations cannot be any deceit or imposition of fancy, by virtue of long custom or tradition, because it is found in people most barbarous and free from all traffic and commerce, and because falsehood cannot be so universal and so long-lived as the conceit of a deity. Besides, though they do what they can to blot out these notions and instincts of con- science, yet still they remain with them ; an invention so contrary to nature would long ere this have been worn out of the minds of men, therefore this general consent of nations proves that 'there is a God.'
[3.] It may be evident also by the book of the creatures. Surely there is a God, because these things are made in such exactness and order. There is a description of" God, Zech. xii. 1, ' Thus saith the Lord, that stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundations of the earth, and formeth the spirit of a man within him.' Should we take this method, the heavens, the earth, the souls of men, which are the work of God, they all proclaim that there is a God ! Man could never raise such a roof as heaven, nor lay such a floor as earth, nor
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130 SERMO:!sS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XXX.
form himseK. The world and all those thino^s that are made, must be from some cause; for nothing could make itself, nor can be its own cause ; and these things, they could not come together by chance, because of the perfection that is in all things in themselves, and their mutual subserviency and relation to one another, and their inclination to certain ends. There is an order in everything for the beauty and conservation of the whole ; all things are under a law and course — ' He appointeth the moon for seasons, the sun Icnows his going down,' Ps. civ. 19. The sun and moon keep at a due distance for the use of the world, and still observe the just points of the compass, and set and rise at such an hour ; therefore certainly this was not done by chance, and it could not be made by man. He could not make great things, for he cannot make the least ; he cannot make a lily, or a pile of grass, and therefore certainly he cannot produce such a beautiful fabric as this is. And, as Tully makes the comparison, a man coming into a house where there are no living creatures but weasels, rats and mice, and seeth a fair structure, he could not conceive the house could make itself, or had no other maker but the creatures he finds there — ' Every house is builded by some man,' as the apostle reasons, Heb. iii. 4 ; ' but he that built all things is God.' Now when a man considers all things are managed with, wisdom, he must needs conclude there must be some cause of all these things — some wise creator of them. Man could not make the world ; man cannot form himself ; he doth not know the number of his muscles and bones ; he cannot restore any one of his joints which are lost ; and therefore it must be made by God.