Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

In Pauls account, the Testimony of the Creatures was without contradiction; God himself justifies this way of proceeding by his own example, and remits Job to the consideration of the Creatures, to spell out something of his Divine Perfections.^* And this is so convincing an argument of the Existence of God, that God never vouchsafed any Miracle, or put forth any act of Omnipotency, besides what was evident in the Creatures for the satisfaction of the Curiosity of any Atheist, or the evincing of his Being, as he hath done for the Evidencing those Truths which were not written in the book of nature, or for the restoring a decayed worship, or the protection or deliverance of his people: Those Miracles in publishing the Gospel, indeed did demonstrate the existence of some supreme Power; but they were not seals designedly affixed for that, but for the confirmation of that truth, which was above the ken of purblind Reason, and purely the birth of Divine Revelation: Yet what proves the Truth of any Spiritual Doctrine, proves also in that act the Existence of the Divine Author of it: The Revelation always implies a Revealer, and that which manifests it to be a Revelation, manifests also the supreme Revealer of it. By the same light the Sun manifests other things to us, it also manifests it self. But what Miracles could rationally be supposed to work upon an Atheist, who is not drawn to a sense of the Truth proclaimed aloud by so many wonders of the Creation?

In Pauls account, the Testimony of the Creatures was without contradiction; God himself justifies this way of proceeding by his own example, and remits Job to the consideration of the Creatures, to spell out something of his Divine Perfections.^* And this is so convincing an argument of the Existence of God, that God never vouchsafed any Miracle, or put forth any act of Omnipotency, besides what was evident in the Creatures for the satisfaction of the Curiosity of any Atheist, or the evincing of his Being, as he hath done for the Evidencing those Truths which were not written in the book of nature, or for the restoring a decayed worship, or the protection or deliverance of his people: Those Miracles in publishing the Gospel, indeed did demonstrate the existence of some supream Power; but they were not seals designedly affixt for that, but for the confirmation of that truth, which was above the ken of purblind Reason, and purely the birth of Divine Revelation: Yet what proves the Truth of any Spiritual Doctrine, proves also in that act the Existence of the Divine Author of it: The Revelation alwayes implies a Revealer, and that which manifests it to be a Revelation, manifests also the supream Revealer of it. By the same light the Sun manifests other things to us, it also manifests it self. But what Miracles could rationally be supposed to work upon an Atheist, who is not drawn to a sence of the Truth proclaimed aloud by so many wonders of the Creation?