fused agitation of the parts of the Matter might make a round hard heap like the Earth, and more thin and liquid bodies like the Æther and Sun, and that the Earth may swim in this liquid Æther, like a rosted Apple in a great bowl of Wine, and be carried about like straws or grass cast upon a Whirlpool; yet that its Motion and Posture would be so directed and attemper'd, as we our selves that have reason upon due consideration would have it to be, and yet not to be from that which is Knowing, and in some sense Reasonable, is to our Faculties, if they discern any thing at all, as absonous and absurd as any thing can be. For when it had been easier to have been otherwise, why should it be thus, if some Superintendent Cause did not oversee and direct the Motions of the Matter, allowing nothing therein but what our reason will confess to be to very good purpose?
7. And that the foregoing Phænomena are not by chance or luck, but directed and effected by the abovesaid Superintendency, will be more evincingly confirmed, if we adde the consideration of two other Phænomena in Nature, which are very plain and simple, but even violently cross to the mere Mechanical powers of Matter. The one is that of Gravity, or the Descent of heavy bodies toward the Earth; the other what they ordinarily call Fuga Vacui: wherein I shall bring such an Instance out of that noble and ingenious Gentleman's Experiments of his Aire-pump, as will plainly demonstrate there must be some Immaterial Being that exercises its directive Activity on the Matter of the World. But first I shall recurre, and give a touch upon the nature of Gravity.
That, upon supposition the Earth runs round in four and twenty hours, it will violently fling off such things as lye upon it, (unless there be some other Substance distinct from Matter that Resists the Mechanical powers thereof,) I have clearly and copiously demonstrated in my Treatise of the Immortality of the Soul.Book 3. ch. 13. And if we consider more particularly what a strong tug a massie Bullet, suppose of lead or brass, must needs give (according to that prime Mechanical law of Motion persisting in a right Line) to recede from the superficies of the Earth, the Bullet being in so swift a motion as would dispatch some fifteen miles in one minute of an hour; it must needs appear that a wonderfull power is required to curb it, regulate it, or remand it back to the Earth, and keep it there notwithstanding the strong reluctancy of that first Mechanical Law of Matter that would urge it to recede. Whereby is manifested not onely the marvellous power of Unity and Indiscernibility in the Spirit of Nature, but that there is a peremptory, and even forcible, execution of an All-comprehensive and Eternal Counsel for the ordering and the guiding of the Motion of the Matter in the Universe to what is for the best. And this Phænomenon of Gravity is of so good and necessary consequence, that there could be neither Earth nor Inhabitants without it, in this state that things are.
For the Aire, whether a man will be so delirous as to phancy it all endued with perception and liberty of will to Resist as it pleases, or to be interspersed with some subtiler Matter so qualified, which they must ridiculously make either a disjoyned or else spongy and perforated Deity; all
