Let it be so, it equally still
follows that there is a God. For if there be an eternal, omniscient,
omnipotent Being, it is certain that there is a God, whether you
imagine that Being to be material or no. But herein, I suppose, lies
the danger and deceit of that supposition:- there being no way to
avoid the demonstration, that there is an eternal knowing Being,
men, devoted to matter, would willingly have it granted, that this
knowing Being is material; and then, letting slide out of their minds,
or the discourse, the demonstration whereby an eternal knowing Being
was proved necessarily to exist, would argue all to be matter, and
so deny a God, that is, an eternal cogitative Being: whereby they
are so far from establishing, that they destroy their own
hypothesis. For, if there can be, in their opinion, eternal matter,
without any eternal cogitative Being, they manifestly separate
matter and thinking, and suppose no necessary connexion of the one
with the other, and so establish the necessity of an eternal Spirit,
but not of matter; since it has been proved already, that an eternal
cogitative Being is unavoidably to be granted. Now, if thinking and
matter may be separated, the eternal existence of matter will not
follow from the eternal existence of a cogitative Being, and they
suppose it to no purpose.
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