Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

Fourthly, IV. Proposition. From hence it follows, that there is a first cause of things which we call God. There must be something supreme in the order of nature, something which is greater than all, which hath nothing beyond it or above it; otherwise we must run in infinitum. We see not a River but we conclude a Fountain; a Watch but we conclude an Artificer. As all number begins from unity, so all the multitude of things in the world begins from some unity, Oneness as the principle of it. Tis natural to arise from a view of those things, to the conception of a nature more perfect than any. As from heat mixed with cold, and light mixed with darkness, men conceive and arise in their understandings to an intense heat and a pure light: And from a Corporeal or bodily substance joined with an incorporeal, (as man is an earthly body, and a Spiritual Soul,) we ascend to a conception of a substance purely incorporeal ⟨p. 21⟩and Spiritual. So from a multitude of things in the world, Reason leads us to one choice being above all. And since in all natures in the World, we still find a superior nature; the nature of one beast, above the nature of another; the nature of man above the nature of beasts; and some invisible nature, the worker of strange effects in the Air and Earth, which cannot be ascribed to any visible cause, we must suppose some nature above all those of unconceivable perfection.

Fourthly, IV. Proposition. From hence it follows, that there is a first cause of things which we call God. There must be somthing supreme in the order of nature, somthing which is greater than all, which hath nothing beyond it or above it; otherwise we must run in infinitum. We see not a River but we conclude a Fountain; a Watch but we conclude an Artificer. As all number begins from unity, so all the multitude of things in the world begins from some unity, Oneness as the principle of it. Tis natural to arise from a view of those things, to the conception of a nature more perfect than any. As from heat mixed with cold, and light mixed with darkness, men conceive and arise in their understandings to an intense heat and a pure light: And from a Corporeal or bodily substance joyned with an incorporeal, (as man is an earthly body, and a Spiritual Soul,) we ascend to a conception of a substance purely incorporeal ⟨p. 21⟩and Spiritual. So from a multitude of things in the world, Reason leads us to one choice being above all. And since in all natures in the World, we still find a superior nature; the nature of one beast, above the nature of another; the nature of man above the nature of beasts; and some invisible nature, the worker of strange effects in the Air and Earth, which cannot be ascribed to any visible cause, we must suppose some nature above all those of unconceivable perfection.