Today we will be looking at Charnock's second reason why a universal consent to the existence of God is natural (p38-41). His reasoning here is that the existence of a god is not something that could have been contrived by governors. He gives two reasons why this is so. First of all it is unaccountable how such a thing would come to pass. Charnock gives numerous questions that really have no answer. For instance, "What mutual correspondence could such have, whose interests are for the most part different, and their designs contrary to one another?" Or again, "How could they who were divided by such vast seas, have this mutual converse"?

Charnock's argument here rests upon his earlier argument that this belief in the existence of god is universal in its consent. If we were to counter argue Charnock we would say that the original rulers contrived of this god and took it with them wherever they went. As they travelled around the globe they took their belief in a god or gods. But again Charnock would take us back to the original man. Where did this belief even come from? Or again we can see that "the being of a God is owned by some nations that have scarce any form of policy among them". And perhaps an even more fitting argument is to ask, why would a ruler (or group of rulers) want to contrive a being which detested their unjust practices? As Charnock says, "No man satisfying his pleasures would impose such a deceit upon himself to render and make himself more miserable than the creatures he [has] dominion over."

Then we must ask another question; which transitions to our second point. How could such a deceit endure so long? If men in their natural state would be so desirous to cast of this restraint why would it endure for so long? How could these rulers have kept this for so long? Why would some of them not have desired to cast off this restraint? If we would permit for a moment that this notion of a god was made up and is indeed a lie, and then compare it to other lies we must ask why has this lie prevailed? Or as Charnock asks, "If a cheat [imposes] upon some towns and countries, he will be found out by the more piercing inquires of other places; and it is not easy to name any imposture that hath walked so long in its disguise in the world, without being unmasked and whipped out by some nation or other". Why then has this "lie" not been whipped out?

Again, we could probably point to a few exceptions, and perhaps this argument would not bode well in the 21st century. What would atheistic nations do to Charnock's argument? How does North Korea fit into this? (Perhaps you could say that a nation making itself a god would further prove the point...I am not sure). But all in all I think Charnock makes a good point. It is quite ludicrous to think that a group of rulers got together and made up a notion of a god. Especially gods that had more power than they, or gods who required something of them, or gods that would keep their injustice at bay.

Next time we will see that fear is not a reason for this universal consent, and then we will move to the second reason why atheism is sheer folly: by reason of that which all creatures manifest.