This paper analyzes the metaphysical system developed in Cheyne’s Philosophical Principles of Religion. Cheyne was an early proponent of Newtonianism and tackled several philosophical questions raised by Newton’s work. The most pressing of these concerned the causal origin of gravitational attraction. Cheyne rejected the occasionalist explanations offered by several of his contemporaries in favor of a model on which God delegated special causal powers to bodies. Additionally, he developed an innovative approach to divine conservation. This allowed him to argue that Newton’s findings provided evidence for God’s existence and providence without the need for continuous divine intervention in the universe.

本文分析了切恩的《宗教哲学原理》中发展起来的形而上学体系。Cheyne 是牛顿主义的早期支持者，并解决了牛顿工作提出的几个哲学问题。其中最紧迫的是万有引力的因果起源。Cheyne 拒绝了他的几位同时代人提供的偶然论解释，支持上帝赋予身体特殊的因果力量的模型。此外，他开发了一种创新的神圣保护方法。这使他能够争辩说，牛顿的发现为上帝的存在和天意提供了证据，而无需上帝对宇宙的持续干预。