To the Assumption I answer, That the Manichees God, if he could exist at all, would so do necessarily; and my reason is, because God would never create so foul a Monster.
2. But if you still urge that the Idea of this Evil God of the Manichees includes necessary Existence in it, it being the Notion of a God, and yet he is not existent; and that therefore the true God cannot be proved to exist, because necessary Existence is involved in his Idea: I further answer, That the Notion of the Manichees God does not naturally include necessary Existence in it, because it is not the Notion of a Being absolutely Perfect; and that the Notion of an Evil God is a mere forced or fortuitous Figment, and no better sense then a Wooden God, whose Idea implies not necessary Existence, but an impossibility thereof.
3. But the Objector proceeds, and we must attend his motions; onely before he comes to the second posture of our Argument, Antidote, Book 1. chap. 8. sect. 3.he takes notice of my charging of all those with self-contradiction that acknowledge that necessary Existence is contained in the Idea of God, or a Being absolutely Perfect, and that thereby is signified that necessary Existence belongs unto him, and yet unsay it again, by adding, If he do at all exist. But I answer, my charge is true: For to say, necessary Existence belongs to a Being, which we notwithstanding profess may not be for all that, is to admit a contradiction; for thus the same thing by our Faculties is acknowledged both necessary and contingent, that is, that it cannot but be, and yet that it may not be; which if it be not a Contradiction in this case, I know not what is: for no less then absolutely necessary Existence must be comprized in the Idea of a Being absolutely perfect.
4. Antidote, Book 1. chap. 8. sect. 4.But the Argument will still appear more plain in the second posture. For if there be any fraud or fallacy, it lies in this term, Necessary, which I have truly explain'd (and it is not denied) to signifie nothing else but an inseparable connexion betwixt the Subject and the Prædicate, Wherefore Existence having an inseparable connexion with God, it must needs follow that this Axiom, God does Exist, is eternally and immutably true. But here to reply, If he did exist, is to insinuate that for all this he may not exist, which is to say, that what is immutably true is not immutably true; which is a palpable contradiction.
But the Objector here flyes for aid to the God of the Manichees, desiring me to put the Manichean God in stead of the God whose Existence I would prove, whereby I may discern my own Sophisme. Well, if it be not Idolatry, let us place him there; but how shrimpish he is and unfit to fill this place, you may understand out of what I said before. That the Manichean God does no more imply in the Notion thereof necessary Existence then a Wooden God does, nay it rather implyes impossibility of Existence. For the Notion of God is the same, that is, of a Being absolutely Perfect, which must involve in it the most absolute Goodnesse that may be. Now bring the Manichean God into sight, and let us view his inscription: He is an evil absolutely good, which, as I said before, is far worse sense in my conceit then a Wooden God, and therefore Impossibility, and not Necessity of Existence, is contained in his Idea.
5. Antidote, Book 1. ch. 8. sect. 5.The third posture of my Argument is formidable even to the Ob-
