Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

Thirdly, The light, of reason is at a greater distance from God then that of Faith, and so doth not see him so clearly in the works of creation and providence as that doth. And first for creation, though it be a clear glass of the eternal power and Godhead, yet the Philosophers, as so many Babel-builders, are miserably confounded in their language about it. Thales fetches all things out of water, as if that were the universal fountain. Anaximenes out of air, ⟨p. 18⟩as if by the rarefaction and condensation thereof all were produced. Hippasus and Heraclitus held, that all things came out of a primitive fire or light, which by its death or extinction generated all. Democritus and Epicurus affirmed, that the world was made by chance, a lucky concourse of atoms framed it as it is. Pythagoras would have all things generated out of numbers, and the harmony thereof. Aristotle, the Prince of Peripatetics, asserted the world to be eternal. Plato attributed eternity only to the matter; and before him Anaxagoras was the first, who added a mind to matter, saying, Omnia simul erant, deinde accessit mens, eaque composuit. O dark and confused Labyrinth of opinions! How or which way shall a man extricate himself without faith? By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, Heb. 11.3. If Faith do but open its eyes upon the first Chapter of Genesis, the Creation, which before was dark as the Chaos, is all clear as the light. The believer sees God in every creature, not only in the great Regions of Heaven and Earth, but also in the least Atoms or particles of nature. I am, is discovered wherever there is any thing of Being: And as for Providence, reason hath not been much clearer among the Philosophers touching it, then touching creation. Aristotle holding the world to be eternally from God by emanation• as light from the Sun, must also hold its continuance to be in the same manner, and without any voluntary act, such as Providence ⟨p. 19⟩is. God (saith he) is the first Mover, he moves the heavens and those other bodies subalternately; so God is the universal cause, and all the wheels in nature move under him; only contingent things, which are not within the chain of natural causality, seem according to Aristotle not to be administered by God. Epicurus, who makes the world to consist of a fortuitous concourse of infinite petit Atoms, owns no Providence at all: