PART III.

The PROGRESS of

Natural RELIGION and SCIENCE,

OR

The continual Improvement of the World in General.

Antiquity I unfeignedly honour and reverence; but why I should be bound to reverence the ruft and refufe, the drofs and dregs, the warts and wens thereof, I am yet to feek. As in the little fo in the great world, reafon will tell you, that old age, or antiquity, is to be accounted by the farther distance from the beginning, and the nearer approach to the end: and as grey beards are for wisdom and judgement to be preferred before young green heads, because they have more experience in affairs; fo likewife for the fame caufe, the prefent times are to be preferred before the infancy or youth of the world, having the history and practice of former ages to inform us, which they wanted.- In difgracing the present times therefore, you difgrace antiquity properly fo called.

HAKEWILL, Apol. Book v. p. 133.

Certainly every Medicine is an INNOVATION; and he that will not apply new Remedies must expect new Evils: for time is the greatest INNOVATOR: and if Time of course alter things for the worse, and Wifdom and Council fhall not labour to alter them for the betver, what will be the end? BACON, Eff. xxiv.

N 3

The Progress of

Natural Religion and Science,

OR

The continual Improvement of the World in general.

ECCLES. VII. 10.

Say not thou, What is the caufe that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wifely concerning this.

T

HE badness of the times, has been a com

mon topic of complaint in every age; and that they are growing worfe and worfe continually, is what fome persons think themselves obliged to infift upon, with no lefs vehemence; how hard foever they find it to account for this in any refpect. The former of these arguments, if urged only to expofe and give a check to some particular, predominant vices, (for which indeed all ages have afforded too much room) may be of constant use, and often neceffary. But when the latter is added to it, and both carried fo far as to make us difcontented, and uneafy with ourfelves,

and troublefome to one another; to fet us a quarrelling with the station, and society, in which we are placed; ; — a murmuring at, and speaking evil of the government we live under; — despising every human dominion, and even repining at the conduct of divine Providence; and mistaking the iffue of its difpenfations to fuch a degree as muft confound our judgment, and unhinge our faith in the unlimited goodness, power, and wifdom of their Author: then, 'tis high time to correct an error of this kind, and enquire into the true state, and history of the world, in the above-mentioned particular.

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In order to which, I purpose in the first place, I. To fhew the falfity of this complaint in several refpects.

II. Secondly, To point out fome of its ill confequences; which may be fufficient to justify the Preacher's obfervation in the text, viz. that this way of judging is no very wife one.

The defign of the book from which these words are taken, was to examine into the course of this world in general; to consider the nature of its enjoyments, and the ends propofed in our purfuit of them. No one faw farther into these things, or better understood their real value; none perhaps had a mind more elevated, and refined above them; or could in a more lively manner, display the vanity and emptiness thereof on fome occafions, than king Solomon; yet, where he meets with thofe perfons who treat the fubject fo very injudiciously, as both to difparage the works of God,

by

by representing them to be ever going backward, and on the decline; and to distract the minds of men, by teaching them to undervalue, and grow weary of the present benefits, through an invidious retrospect to former days: - when things are placed in fuch a light as this, we find him abfolutely difapproving of the view, and all those questions which arife from thence; intimating, that the very foundation of them is not true in fact.

To make this appear more fully, let us confider fome of the advantages of life, both natural and acquired; in order to fee, whether there be any figns that these are now dispensed in a less liberal way than formerly; or whether the reverse is not more probable.

As to the fruitfulness of the earth, and clemency of feafons; the temperature of the air, and influence of heavenly bodies; the vulgar mistake of their decay, and tendency to diffolution, has, I think, long fince been exploded *.

Whatever might have been the employment of man, had he continued innocent; (who must have been originally defigned for fome employment, fince

* A fufficient confutation of it may be seen in Hake-will, Apol. paffim. There is a little book wrote on the fame fubject by Jo. Fontonus, a Polander, and entitled de Nature Conftantia, Ed. Amftel. 1632, which contains fome valuable obfervations, though the author owns that his work is chiefly extracted from Hakewill, p. 160.

That fome climates are more mild and temperate now, than they were in former times, See Hume's Effays Mor. Polit. &c. Eff. xi. Add Phil. Tranf. V. 58. No. 9. and American P. Trans. V. i. and that this is chiefly owing to the lands being better cultivated, may be feen in Obfervations on the Statutes, p. 189, and 321. 2. Ed. though not entirely fo. See Phil. Tranf. above.