The Naturall Cause Of Religion, The Anxiety Of The Time To Come The
two first, make Anxiety. For being assured that there be causes of all
things that have arrived hitherto, or shall arrive hereafter; it is
impossible for a man, who continually endeavoureth to secure himselfe
against the evill he feares, and procure the good he desireth, not to
be in a perpetuall solicitude of the time to come; So that every man,
especially those that are over provident, are in an estate like to that
of Prometheus. For as Prometheus, (which interpreted, is, The Prudent
Man,) was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place of large prospect, where,
an Eagle feeding on his liver, devoured in the day, as much as was
repayred in the night: So that man, which looks too far before him, in
the care of future time, hath his heart all the day long, gnawed on by
feare of death, poverty, or other calamity; and has no repose, nor pause
of his anxiety, but in sleep.
Which Makes Them Fear The Power Of Invisible Things
This perpetuall feare, alwayes accompanying mankind in the ignorance of
causes, as it were in the Dark, must needs have for object something.
And therefore when there is nothing to be seen, there is nothing to
accuse, either of their good, or evill fortune, but some Power, or Agent
Invisible: In which sense perhaps it was, that some of the old Poets
said, that the Gods were at first created by humane Feare: which spoken
of the Gods, (that is to say, of the many Gods of the Gentiles) is
very true. But the acknowledging of one God Eternall, Infinite, and
Omnipotent, may more easily be derived, from the desire men have to
know the causes of naturall bodies, and their severall vertues, and
operations; than from the feare of what was to befall them in time to
come. For he that from any effect hee seeth come to passe, should reason
to the next and immediate cause thereof, and from thence to the cause
of that cause, and plonge himselfe profoundly in the pursuit of causes;
shall at last come to this, that there must be (as even the Heathen
Philosophers confessed) one First Mover; that is, a First, and an
Eternall cause of all things; which is that which men mean by the name
of God: And all this without thought of their fortune; the solicitude
whereof, both enclines to fear, and hinders them from the search of the
causes of other things; and thereby gives occasion of feigning of as
many Gods, as there be men that feigne them.
And Suppose Them Incorporeall