bestow them upon Non-entities as well as Entities, as I have discovered elswhere more at large.
6. But if this will not satisfie, 'tis no detriment to our cause: For if after the removal of corporeal Matter out of the world, there will be still Space and Distance in which this very Matter, while it was there, was also conceived to lye, and this distant Space cannot but be something, and yet not corporeal, because neither impenetrable nor tangible, it must of necessity be a Substance Incorporeal necessarily and eternally existent of it self: which the clearer Idea of a Being absolutely perfect will more fully and punctually inform us to be the Self-subsisting God.
7. But that we may omit nothing that may seem at all worth the answering, There are that endeavour to decline the stroke of our Argument in the third and fourth posture thereof, by saying that Contingency is not incompetible to God or any thing else: for all things that exist in the world, happen so to do, though they might have done otherwise. But no man would answer thus, if he attended to what he answered, or to the light of his own reason, that would instruct him better. For, for example, if Matter did exist of it self, it is evident that it does necessarily exist, and could not have done otherwise: for Self-Existence prevents all impediments whatsoever, whereby a thing may seem to have been in danger possibly to have fallen short of actually existing.
And as for God, it is as evident, that it is either impossible for him to be, or else that he is of himself, and if of himself, his Existence is unpreventable and necessary; as any man must needs acknowledge that understands the terms he ventures to pronounce.
Chap. VIII.
1. That the idea of God is a natural and indeleble Notion in the Soul of Man. 2. That if there were some small obscurity in the Notion, it hinders not but that it may be natural. 3. That the Politician's abuse of the notion of God and Religion argues them no more to be his Contrivance, then natural Affection, love of Honour and Liberty are; which he in like manner abuses. 4. A twofold Answer to an Objection touching God's implanting his Idea in us upon counsel or design.
1. That the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect is a Notion natural to the Soul, and such as she cannot deny but it is exactly representative of such a Being, without any clashing of one part against another, all the Attributes thereof being homogeneal to the general Title of Perfection to which they belong, is a thing so plain, that I dare appeal to any man that has the use of his Faculties, whether it be not undoubtedly and immutably true.
Nor can what is objected make it at all suspected of falsity: for whereas it is supposed, that the Atheist will pretend that the thousandth
