334 ANT I EN T METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



ample in Nature or Art, in this refped, that it continues to be 

 moved after the imoving power has ceafed to a£t, and goes on of it- 

 felf, and forever too, without the agency of either Body or Mind, 

 is a Machine very imperfe£l and defedive, and altogether unworthy 

 of its Great Author. — But, fuppofe the reader fhould differ from me 

 in this, and believe that Sir Ifaac's Machine is perfedly well contri- 

 ved, I would have him ferioufly confider whether a man, who can 

 behold 



Hunc Soktn et Stellas^ et decedentia certis 

 7'empora monientis Ho RAT. 



and can obferve all the wonderful Motions of the Celeftial Bodies, 

 fo conftant and regular, and yet fo various, and believe them all to 

 be carried on by mere Matter and Mechanifm, ought to be account- 

 ed a perfedt Theift, as he does not believe in what I hold to be the 

 better part of Theifm, that which maintains the Providence of God 

 over all his works. For my own part, I cannot think that man truly 

 religious, who has not a fenfe of a prefent Deity in the works of 

 Nature, as well as in the affairs of men *. 



The foundation, not only of Sir Ifaac's Mechanical Syftem of the 

 Heavens, but of Des Cartes's Mechanical Syftem both of Heaven 

 and Earth, and, in general, of the whole Mechanical Philofophy, 

 is Sir Ifaac's Firft Law of Motion, which ought therefore to be 

 moft fcrupuloufly examined by every genuine Theift, who, though 

 he may have ever fo great a regard for Sir Ifaac as an Aftronomer 

 and Geometer, yet, if Sir Ifaac has thought proper, in complai- 

 fance, as I have faid, to the prejudices of the times, to put his A- 

 ftronomy upon Pilnciples inconfiftent with the dodlrine of Theifm, 

 he ought not, for that reafon, to adopt thefe principles, more efpeci- 

 ally if I can fhow, as I hope I fliall do in the fequel, that Sir Ifaac's 

 Aftronomy can be fupported without the aid of them. 



The 



* See further upon this fubjecl, Vol. i p. 498. 



