comparing their distant Ideas by intermediate Ones, and Thence of
deducing, or infering one thing from another; whereby our Knowledge
immediately received from _Sense_, or _Reflection_, is inlarg'd to a
view of Truths remote, or future, in an Application of which Faculty
of the mind to a consideration of our own Existence and Nature,
together with the beauty and order of the Universe, so far as it falls
under our view, we may come to the knowledge of a _First Cause_; and
that this must be an _Intelligent Being, Wise_ and _Powerful_, beyond
what we are able to conceive. And as we delight in our selves, and
receive pleasure from the objects which surround us, sufficient to
indear to us the possession and injoyment of Life, we cannot from
thence but infer, that this _Wise_ and _Powerful Being_ is also most
_Good_, since he has made us out of nothing to give us a Being wherein
we find such Happiness, as makes us very unwilling to part therewith.

And thus, by a consideration of the Attributes of God, visible in the
Works of the Creation, we come to a knowledge of his Existence, who is
an Invisible Being: For since _Power, Wisdom_ and _Goodness,_ which we
manifestly discern in the production and conservation of our selves,
and the Universe, could not subsist independently on some substance
for them to inhere in, we are assur'd that there is a substance where
unto they do belong, or of which they are the Attributes.

Which Attributes of God would not be discoverable by us, did we not
discern a difference in Things; as between _Power_ and _Weakness,
Benevolence_ and _no Benevolence_, or its contrary; and betwixt
directing means to an End, and acting at hap-hazard without any
design, or choice: A knowledge, which, by whatever steps convey'd into
the mind, is no other than a seeing things to be what they are, and
that they cannot but be what they are.