6. And therefore God. Thus, from the consideration of ourselves, and
what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads
us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth,- That there
is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being; which whether
any one will please to call God, it matters not. The thing is evident;
and from this idea duly considered, will easily be deduced all those
other attributes, which we ought to ascribe to this eternal Being. If,
nevertheless, any one should be found so senselessly arrogant, as to
suppose man alone knowing and wise, but yet the product of mere
ignorance and chance; and that all the rest of the universe acted only
by that blind haphazard; I shall leave with him that very rational and
emphatical rebuke of Tully (I. ii. De Leg.), to be considered at his
leisure: "What can be more sillily arrogant and misbecoming, than
for a man to think that he has a mind and understanding in him, but
yet in all the universe beside there is no such thing? Or that those
things, which with the utmost stretch of his reason he can scarce
comprehend, should be moved and managed without any reason at all?"
Quid est enim verius, quam neminem esse oportere tam stulte
arrogantem, ut in se mentem et rationem putet inesse, in caelo
mundoque non putet? Aut ea quae vix summa ingenii ratione
comprehendat, nulla ratione moveri putet?
From what has been said, it is plain to me we have a more certain
knowledge of the existence of a God, than of anything our senses
have not immediately discovered to us.
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