(1627, 1630, 1635).] He and his pedantic book, which breathes the atmosphere of the sixteenth century, are completely forgotten; and though it ran to three editions, it can hardly have attracted the attention of many except theologians.
The writer's object is to prove that the power and providence of God in the government of the world are not consistent with the current view that the physical universe, the heavens and the elements, are undergoing a process of decay, and that man is degenerating physically, mentally, and morally.

His arguments in general are futile as well as tedious.
But he has profited by reading Bodin and Bacon, whose ideas, it would appear, were already agitating theological minds.
A comparison between the ancients and the moderns arises in a general refutation of the doctrine of decay, as naturally as the question of the stability of the powers of nature arises in a comparison between the ancients and moderns.

Hakewill protests against excessive admiration of antiquity, just because it encourages the opinion of the world's decay.

He gives his argument a much wider scope than the French controversialists.

For him the field of debate includes not only science, arts, and literature, but physical qualities and morals.