A Body of Divinity, Vol. 1 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger CatechismRidgley, Thomas
Religion
A Body of Divinity, Vol. 1 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger Catechism
“From what has been said, it is plain to me, we have a more certain
knowledge of the existence of a God, than of any thing 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 any thing
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.”
LOCKE.
Footnote 10:
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a _stone_, and
were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer,
that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for
ever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to shew the absurdity of
this answer. But suppose I had found a _watch_ upon the ground, and it
should be enquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I
should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for
any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet, why
should not this answer serve for the watch, as well as for the stone?
Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? For
this reason, and for no other, _viz._ that, when we come to inspect
the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that
its several parts are framed, and put together for a purpose, _e. g._
that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that
motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the
several parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a
different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner,
or in any other order, than that in which they are placed, either no
motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which
would have answered the use, that is now served by it. To reckon up a
few of the plainest of these parts, and of their offices, all tending
to one result: We see a cylindrical box, containing a coiled elastic
spring, which, by its endeavour to relax itself, turns round the box.
We next observe a flexible chain (artificially wrought for the sake of
flexure) communicating the action of the spring from the box to the
fusee. We then find a series of wheels, the teeth of which catch in,
and apply to, each other, conducting the motion from the fusee to the
balance, and from the balance to the pointer; and at the same time, by
the size and shape of those wheels, so regulating that motion, as to
terminate in causing an index, by an equable and measured progression,
to pass over a given space in a given time. We take notice that the
wheels are made of brass, in order to keep them from rust; the springs
of steel, no other metal being so elastic; that over the face of the
watch there is placed a glass, a material employed in no other part of
the work, but, in the room of which, if there had been any other than
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