removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground, insomuch
that it is no longer worth while to bestow a particular consideration on
the absurdities of every wretched sect of Atheists.

93. AND OF FATALISTS ALSO.--That impious and profane persons should
readily fall in with those systems which favour their inclinations,
by deriding immaterial substance, and supposing the soul to be
divisible and subject to corruption as the body; which exclude all
freedom, intelligence, and design from the formation of things,
and instead thereof make a self--existent, stupid, unthinking
substance the root and origin of all beings; that they should
hearken to those who deny a Providence, or inspection of a Superior
Mind over the affairs of the world, attributing the whole series
of events either to blind chance or fatal necessity arising from
the impulse of one body or another--all this is very natural. And,
on the other hand, when men of better principles observe the enemies
of religion lay so great a stress on unthinking Matter, and all
of them use so much industry and artifice to reduce everything to it,
methinks they should rejoice to see them deprived of their grand support,
and driven from that only fortress, without which your Epicureans,
Hobbists, and the like, have not even the shadow of a pretence, but
become the most cheap and easy triumph in the world.

94. OF IDOLATORS.--The existence of Matter, or bodies unperceived,
has not only been the main support of Atheists and Fatalists,
but on the same principle doth Idolatry likewise in all its various
forms depend. Did men but consider that the sun, moon, and stars,
and every other object of the senses are only so many sensations
in their minds, which have no other existence but barely being
perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship their