6. And therefore God.
Thus, from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own
constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth,--That there is an eternal,
most powerful, and most knowing Being; which whether any one will please to call God, it matters not. The thing
is evident; and from this idea duly considered, will easily be deduced all those other attributes, which we ought to
ascribe to this eternal Being. If, nevertheless, any one should be found so senselessly arrogant, as to suppose man
alone knowing and wise, but yet the product of mere ignorance and chance; and that all the rest of the universe
acted only by that blind haphazard; I shall leave with him that very rational and emphatical rebuke of Tully (I. ii.
De Leg.), to be considered at his leisure: "What can be more sillily arrogant and misbecoming, than for a man to
think that he has a mind and understanding in him, but yet in all the universe beside there is no such thing? Or that
those things, which with the utmost stretch of his reason he can scarce comprehend, should be moved and
managed without any reason at all?" Quid est enim verius, quam neminem esse oportere tam stulte arrogantem, ut
in se mentem et rationem putet inesse, in caelo mundoque non putet? Aut ea quae vix summa ingenii ratione
comprehendat, nulla ratione moveri putet?
From what has been said, it is plain to me we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of
anything our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presume I may say, that we more certainly
know that there is a God, than that there is anything else without us. When I say we know, I mean there is such a
knowledge within our reach which we cannot miss, if we will but apply our minds to that, as we do to several
other inquiries.
