Reason, the Only Oracle of Man; Or, A Compendius System of Natural ReligionAllen, Ethan
Religion
Reason, the Only Oracle of Man; Or, A Compendius System of Natural Religion
Allen, Ethan
Rationalism
It may be objected that a man cannot subsist in the sun; but does it
follow from thence, that God cannot or has not constituted a nature
peculiar to that fiery region, and caused it to be as natural and
necessary for it to suck in and breathe out flames of fire, as it is for
us to do the like in air. Numerous are the kinds of fishy animals which
can no other way subsist but in the water, in which other animals would
perish, (amphibious ones excepted,) while other animals, in a variety
of forms, either swifter or slower move on the surface of the earth, or
wing the air. Of these there are sundry kinds, which during the season
of winter live without food; and many of the insects which are really
possessed of animal life, remain frozen, and as soon as they are let
loose by the kind influence of the sun, they again assume their wonted
animal life; and if animal life may differ so much in the same world,
what inconceivable variety may be possible in worlds innumerable, as
applicable to mental, cogitative, and organized beings. Certain it is,
that any supposed obstructions, concerning the quality or temperature of
any or every one of those worlds, could not have been any bar in the way
of God Almighty, with regard to his replenishing his universal creation
with moral agents. The unlimited perfection of God could perfectly
well adapt every part of his creation to the design of whatever rank or
species of constituted beings, his Godlike wisdom and goodness saw fit?
to impart existence to; so that as there is no deficiency of absolute
perfection in God, it is rationally demonstrative that the immense
creation is replenished with rational agents, and that it has been
eternally so, and that the display of divine goodness must have been as
perfect and complete, in the antecedent, as it is possible to be in the
subsequent eternity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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