Law together with inward and outward admonitions both by threats also and promises Nor doth he suffer the effects of wickedness to spread so far as they might have done whence it is that all kind of government could never yet be subverted nor the knowledge of Divine Laws utterly extinguished or abolished Neither may those delinquences which are permitted to be done amongst Men be thought altogether unprofitable Since that as before we have toucht they may be used either for the punishment of other no less lewd transgressors or for the chastisement of such as sometimes wander from the way of vertue or lastly to exact some worthy pattern of patience and constancy from such as have made good proficiency in the school of piety and vertue Lastly even they whose wickedness seems to be winked at for a time are wont to pay dearly for it at last and to be reckoned withal the more severely because they have been long forborn in so much that it is plain they suffer what God would who have done what He would not SECT XIX Insomuch that good Men are oppressed BUT and if sometimes there seem to be no punishment at all inflicted upon prophane offendors and even some good men which may occasion the weak to be offended are sore oppressed by the insolencies of the wicked who many times make them not only to lead a wearisome and miserable life but also to undergo a disgraceful death we are not presently to banish from humane affairs the Providence of God which hath been proved as we have now said by strong reasons but rather as the wisest sort of Men have thought we should conclude and argue thus SECT XX. The same Argument is retorted to prove that the Soul survives the Body FOrasmuch as God hath an eye unto all Mens actions and in himself is most just suffering such things to come to pass as we see they do therefore we must expect that there will be some future judgment after this life to the end such notorious transgressions may not remain unpunished nor well deserving vertue be unrecompenced with due comfort and reward SECT XXI Which is proved by Tradition FUrther to confirm this truth it must necessarily be admitted that the Souls of Men do survive their Bodies Which most ancient Tradition was derived from our very first Parents for from whence else could it proceed unto almost all civiliz'd People as is plain by Homer's Verses and by Philosophers not only of the Grecians but likewise the Druides in France and Brachmans in India and by those relations also which many Writers have published concerning the Aegyptians and Thracians and Germans In like manner touching God's judgment to come after this life many things we see were extant as well among the Grecians as also among the Egyptians and Indians as we learn out of Strabo Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch whereunto may be added that old tradition of the consumption of the World by fire which was anciently found in Hystaspis and the Sibyls and now also in Ovid and Lucan and the Indians of Siam of which thing the Astrologers have noted this to be a sign that the Sun draws nearer and nearer to the earth Yea when the Canaries America and other forein places were first discovered this same opinion of the immortality of Mens souls and the last Judgment was found among the Inhabitants there SECT XXII Against which no contrary reason can be brought NEITHER can there any reason in nature be given to disprove so ancient and common received tradition For every thing that in this World comes to an end perishes either through the opposition of some more forcible contrary agent as coldness in any subject by reason of the more prevalent power and intension of heat or through the substraction of that subject whereupon it depends as the quantity of the glass when the glass is broken or through the defect and want of the efficient cause as light by the Sun-setting Now none of all these can be said to happen unto the soul of Man Not the first because there is nothing that is contrary to the Soul nay it self is of such a peculiar nature that it is apt to receive such things as are contrary between themselves at the same time together after its own that is after a Spiritual and Intellectual manner Not the second for there is not any subject whereon the nature of the Soul hath any dependence if there were in all probability it should be the humane body but that this cannot be it is manifest because when the powers and abilities of the Bodies are tired in their operations the mind alone doth not by motion contract any weariness Likewise the powers of the Body are impaired and weakned by the redundancy or excess of the object as the sense of seeing by the full splendor and bright face of the Sun but the more excellent objects that the Soul is conversant about as about universals and figures abstracted from sensible matter it receives thereby the more perfection Again the powers that depend upon the Body are only busied about such things as are limited to particular time and place according to the nature and property of the Body it self but the mind hath a more noble object and ascends to the contemplation of that which is infinite and eternal Wherefore then seeing that the Soul depends not upon the Body in its operation neither doth it in its essence for we cannot discern the nature of invisible things otherwise than by their operations Neither is the third way of corruption incident to the Soul there being no efficient cause from which the Soul proceeds by a continual emanation For we cannot say our Parents are such a cause since when they are dead their Children are wont to live But if we will needs make some cause from which the Soul proceeds then we can imagine no other save the first and universal cause of all things which as in respect of its power is never deficient so in respect of its will to be defective that is for the Almighty to will the extinction and destruction of the Soul no Man can ever be able to prove SECT XXIII Many Reasons may be alledged for it NAY there are many strong Arguments for the contrary as namely the dominion given unto Man over his own actions the natural desire that is in him to be immortal the force of conscience comforting the mind for well done actions though very troublesome and supporting it with a certain hope and on the contrary the sting of a gnawing conscience at the remembrance of ungodly and wicked actions especially when the Hour of Death approacheth as if it had a sense of an imminent judgment And this gnawing worm of conscience the most prophane wretches and wicked Tyrants have not been able oftentimes to extinguish in them no not then when they most of all desired it as divers Examples do testifie SECT XXIV Whence it follows that the end of
all shall be Man's happiness after this life SEeing then the Soul is of a nature that in it self hath no ground or cause of its own corruption and seeing also that God hath given us many signs and tokens whereby we ought to understand that it is his will the soul should survive the body what more noble end can be propounded to Man than the state of eternal happiness which in effect is the same that Plato and the Pythagoreans spake of saying that it were good for man if he could become most like unto God SECT XXV Which to obtain Men must get the true Religion NOW what this happiness is and how 't is to be attained Men may search by probable conjectures but if any thing concerning this matter be revealed by God that must be held for a most certain and undoubted truth which since Christian Religion pretends to bring unto us above others it shall be examined in the next Book whether or no Men ought to give credit thereunto and assuredly build their faith thereon The Second Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. To prove the Truth of Christian Religion IT is not our purpose in this Second Book to handle all the Points of Christianity but after our hearty Prayers made to Christ the King of Heaven that he would grant us the assistance of his holy Spirit whereby we may be enabled for such a Work we shall only endeavour to make it appear that the Christian Religion it self is most true and certain Which I thus begin SECT II. Here is showen that Jesus lived THAT there was such a Person as Jesus of Nazareth who lived heretofore in Judaea when Tiberius was Emperor of Rome is not only most constantly professed by all Christians who are scattered over the face of all the Earth but acknowledged by all the Jews who now are or ever wrote since those times Nay the very Pagan Writers that is such as are neither of the Jewish nor Christian Religion namely Suetonius Tacitus Pliny the younger and many more after them do testifie the same SECT III. And was put to an ignominious Death THAT the same Jesus was nailed to a Cross by Pontius Pilate Governor of Judaea is confessed also by all Christians though it might seem very disgraceful to them to be the Worshippers of such a Lord. The Jews also do the like though they are not ignorant that upon this account they are very odious to Christians in whose Dominions they live because their Ancestors were the Men that moved Pilate and perswaded him to pass the sentence of Death upon Jesus The Pagan Writers also now named have delivered the same to Posterity Yea the Acts of Pilate were extant a long time after from whence this might have been proved to which Christians never made their Appeal For neither did Julian himself nor any other adversaries of Christianity ever make doubt hereof So that hence it appears that there was never any more certain story than this which we see may be confirmed not only by the testimonies of some few Men but also by the approbation of several Nations otherwise disagreeing and jarring among themselves SECT IV. Yet afterward was worshipped by prudent and godly Men. ALL which though it be most true yet we see how that thorowout the remotest parts of the World he is worshipped as Lord and that not in our days only or those which are lately passed but ever since the time that this was done to wit ever since the Reign of Nero the Emperor when many People that professed this worship of Christ and Christian Religion were for that cause tortured and put to death as Tacitus and others do witness SECT V. The cause whereof was for that in his life time there were Miracles done by him NOW among such as professed Christianity there were always many Persons who were both judicious and not unlearned Such as to say nothing now of the Jews Sergius Governor of Cyprus Dionysius Areopagita Polycarpus Justinus Irenaeus Athenagoras Origen Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus with divers others who almost all being brought up in other religions and having no hopes of any Wealth or Preferment by Christianity yet became worshippers of this Man that died so ignominious a death and exhibited due honour to him as God Of which no other reason can be given but this alone that they made diligent enquiry as became prudent Men in a matter of greatest moment and found that what was bruited abroad concerning the Miracles wrought by Christ was true and relied upon firm witnesses As the curing and that with his word only and before all the People divers grievous and inveterate Diseases the restoring of Sight to him that was born blind the multiplying of a few Loaves more than once for the feeding many Thousands who could testifie the truth of it the recalling of the Dead to Life again and many more of the like kind The report of which things had then such a certain and undoubted original that neither Celsus nor Julian when they wrote against Christians durst deny there were some Prodigies done by Christ and the Hebrews in the Talmudical Books do openly confess it SECT VI. Which Miracles were not wrought either by the help of Nature or assistance of the Devil but meerly by the Divine Power of GOD. THAT these wondrous Works were not wrought by any Natural Power it is manifest by this very thing that they are called wonders and miracles Nor is it possible by the force of nature that any grievous Diseases and Infirmities should be cured meerly by a Man's voice or by the vertue of a Touch and that even upon a suddain And if such Works could have any way been ascribed to a Natural efficacy it would have been said before now either by those that were professed enemies of Christ while he lived upon Earth or by those that have been Adversaries of his Gospel since his death By the like Argument we may prove that they were not jugling delusions because they were done openly in the sight of all the People amongst whom divers of the Learned sort did malign and bear ill will unto Christ not without envy observing all that he did Add further that the like Works were often iterated and the effects thereof were not transitory but permanent and durable All which being duly pondered it must needs follow as the Jews have confessed that these Works proceeded from a more than Natural or Humane Power that is from some Spirit either good or evil That they proceeded not from any evil Spirit may be proved because that the Doctrine of Christ for the confirmation whereof these Works were wrought was quite opposite and contrary to bad Spirits For it prohibits the worshipping of evil Angels and disswades Men from all uncleanness of affections and manners wherein such Spirits are much delighted And this is also plain for that wheresoever the Doctrine of the Gospel was received and established there followed
thing that was accompanied with perils troubles torment and death unless we have a mind to follow the sound of words without the sense of things Wherefore they placed Man's chiefest happiness and end in such things as were delightful and pleasing to sense But yet this opinion also was disproved and sufficiently confuted by many as being prejudicial to all honesty the seeds whereof are rooted in our hearts by nature as also because it debases Man who is advanced to a higher pitch and throws him down into the rank of Beasts which stoop down and pore upon nothing but what is on the Earth With these and such like uncertainties and doubtings was Mankind distracted at that time when Christ brought in the true knowledge of the right end who promised unto his followers after their departure hence a life not only without death without sorrow and trouble but attended with the highest joy and happiness and that not of one part of Man alone to wit of his Soul the felicity whereof after this life partly by probable conjecture and partly from tradition was hoped for before but also of his Body and Soul together And this most justly that the Body which for the Divine Law must often suffer grievances torments and death may not be without a recompence of reward Now the reward and promised joys are not vile and base as good chear and dainty fare wherewith the more carnal sort of Jews feed their hopes or the embraces of beautiful Women which the Turks expect to enjoy after death for both these sensualities are proper to this frail life at the best being but helps or remedies of mortality the former of them conducing to the preservation of every particular Man or Beast and the latter for the continuation of the same creatures by succession in their kind But by the happiness aforesaid our Bodies shall be indued with constant vigour agility strength and more than a starlike beauty In the Soul there shall be an understanding without errour even of God himself and his Divine Providence or whatsoever is now hid from us And a will freed from all turbulency of passions busied chiefly about the sight the admiring and praising of the Almighty In a word all things much greater and better than can be conceived by comparison with the best and greatest things in this World SECT XII Answer to an Objection that Bodies once Dead cannot be revived again BESIDES the doubt but lately answered there is another difficulty objected against this Doctrine of the Resurrection nakely how can it be possible for humane bodies once dissolved into dust and corruption ever to be united and set together again But this relies upon no reason For since it is agreed among most Philosophers that howsoever things be changed there remains still the same matter capable of divers Species or forms who dare say that either God doth not know in what places though never so distant the parts of that matter are which belong to a humane Body or that He wants power to reduce them and set them together again and do that in his Universe which we see Chymists do in their Fornaces and Vessels gather together and unite things of the same nature though scattered and dispersed And that a thing also may return to the form of its original though the species be never so much altered we see an example in the nature of things as in the Seeds of Plants and living Creatures Neither is that knot impossible to be unloosed which is tyed by many concerning those humane bodies which pass into the nourishment of wild Beasts or Cattle who being fed with them become again the food of Man For we must know that the greatest portion of such things as we eat is not converted into integral parts of our bodies but either turned into excrements or humours of the body as Fleam and Choler yea much of that which becomes our nourishment is wasted away either by diseases or by inward natural heat or by the Air about us All which being so he that so carefully regards all kinds of bruit Beasts that none of them perish the same God with a more special providence can also provide for humane bodies that so much of them as becomes the food of other Men shall no more be converted into the substance of those that eat them than are poisons or physical potions and the rather because it is in a manner naturally apparent that humane flesh was not intended for Man's food Or suppose it were not so but something which hath made an accession to the latter body must be taken from it again this will not make it not to be the same body for even in this life there happen greater changes of particles than this comes to Yea we see that a Butterfly is in a Worm and the substance of Herbs or Wine in some very small thing from whence they may be restored to their former just magnitude Surely since both these and many other things may without any inconvenience be supposed there is no reason that the restitution of a Body dissolved should be reckoned among impossible things which learned Men Zoroaster among the Chaldaeans almost all the Stoicks and Theopompus among the Peripateticks believed not only might but should be SECT XIII The excellency of holy Precepts given for the worship of God THE second thing wherein Christian Religion excels all others that are or ever were or can be imagined is the great holiness of Laws and Precepts both in those things that appertain to the Worship of God and in those that concern other matters The holy Offices of the Pagans throughout almost the whole World as Porphyry shows at large and the Navigations of our times have discovered were full of cruelty For it was the usage in a manner every where to appease the Gods even with the Sacrifice of Humane Blood Which custome neither the Greek learning nor the Roman Laws took away as appears by what we read concerning the Victims made to Bacchus Omestes among the Greeks and of a Greek Man and Woman and a Man and Woman of Gaul which were sacrificed to Jupiter Latiaris at Rome Those most holy Mysteries also whether of Ceres or of Liber Pater were as full as ever they could hold of filthiness and obscenity as appeared when the secrets of this Religion were once laid open and began to be divulged of which Clemens Alexandrinus and others have given us a large account Those Festival days also which were consecrated to the honour of the Gods were celebrated with such spectacles that grave Cato was ashamed to be present at them But in the Jewish Religion there was nothing unseemly nothing dishonest or unlawful Howbeit lest the People that were prone to Idolatry should decline or fall back from the true Religion it was loaded and burdened with many precepts concerning such things as in themselves were neither good nor evil such were the sacrificing of Beasts the
and Apparel we ought to content our selves with so much as will suffice nature and the like Or if happily there be some points in Christianity hard to be believed yet the like also is found amongst the wisest of the Heathen themselves as before we have shewn concerning the immortality of Souls and of the Resurrection of Bodies Thus Plato as he learned from the Chaldeans distinguished the Divine nature into the Father and the mind of the Father which he calls also the branch of God the Maker of the World and the Soul or Spirit which keeps together and preserveth all things Julian as great an enemy as he was of Christians thought that the Divine Nature might be joyned to the humane and gave instance in Aesculapius whom he imagined to have descended from Heaven to the end he might teach Men the Art of Physick The Cross of Christ offendeth many But what do not the Pagan Writers tell of their Gods that some of them waited upon Kings and Princes others were Thunder-struck others cut in sunder And the wisest of them say that the more it costs us to be honest the more joy and delight it affords us To conclude Plato in the second Book of his Common-wealth as if he had been a Prophet saith for a Man to appear truly just and upright it is requisite that his vertue be bereaved of all outward ornaments so that he be by others accounted a wicked wretch and scoffed at and last of all hanged And indeed that Christ might be the Pattern of greatest Patience could no otherwise be obtained The Fifth Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. A refutation of the Jews beginning with a speech unto them or prayer for them JUST like that glimmering between light and darkness which appears to those who by little and little are endeavouring to get out of a dark Cave or Dungeon such doth Judaism present it self to us who are stepping out of the thick mist of Paganism of which we have been discoursing as a part and beginning of Truth I request the Jews therefore not to be averse to hear us We are not ignorant that they are the off-spring of holy Men whom God was wont to visit both by his Prophets and by his Angels Of this Nation sprang our Messias and the first Doctors of Christianity It is their Tree whereinto we are ingraffed they are the keepers of God's Oracles which we do reverence as much as they and with St. Paul sigh unto God for them and pray that the day may quickly come when the Vail being taken away which hangs over their Faces they with us shall see the fulfilling of the Law And when as it is in their Prophecies every one of us that are strangers shall lay hold on the Cloak of him that is an Hebrew desiring that we may together with a pious consent worship the only true God who is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. SECT II. The Jews ought to account the Miracles of Christ sufficiently proved FIRST of all then we must intreat them not to think that to be unjust in another Man's case which they judge to be just and equitable in their own If any Pagan demand of them why they believe that Miracles were wrought by Moses they can give no other answer save that there was always so constant a report thereof among their Nation that it could not but proceed from the testimony of such as had seen the same Thus that the Widows Oyl was increased by Elisha that Naaman the Syrian was suddenly cured of the Leprosie that the Womans Son in whose House he lodged was restored to life and other such like are believed by the Jews for no other reason than because witnesses of good credit have recorded to posterity that such things were done And they believe Elias his taking up into heaven only for the single testimony of Elisha as a Man beyond all exception But we produce twelve witnesses of unblameable life to testifie that Christ ascended up into Heaven And many more that saw him upon the Earth after his death Which things if they be true then necessarily Christs doctrine is true also and indeed nothing at all can be alledged by the Jews for themselves which by equal right or more just title may not be applyed to us also But to omit further testimonies it is the confession of the Authors of the Talmud and other Jews themselves that strange wonders were wrought by Christ which ought to suffice for this particular For God cannot any way more effectually gain authority unto a doctrine published by Man than by the working of miracles SECT III. And not believe that they were done by the help of Devils THESE Miracles of Christ some said were done by the help of Devils But this calumny hath been confuted before when we shewed that wheresoever the doctrine of Christ was taught and known there all power of the Devils was broken in pieces Others reply that Jesus learned Magick arts in Egypt but this slander hath no more nay not so much colour of truth than the like accusation by the Pagans framed against Moses whereof we read in Pliny and Apuleius For that ever Jesus was in Egypt doth not appear save only out of the Writings of his Disciples who add further that he was an Infant when he returned thence But it is certain by his own and others report that Moses lived a great part of his time after he was grown to Mans estate in Aegypt Howbeit the Law as well of Moses as of Christ frees them both from this crime plainly forbidding such arts as abominable in the sight of God And without all question if in the time of Christ and his Disciples there had been either in Egypt or any where else any such Magical art whereby Men might have been enabled to do the like marvels as are related of Christ to wit giving speech to the Dumb on a suddain making the Lame to walk and the Blind to see then would Tyberius Nero and other Emperors have found it out who spared no costs and charges in the inquiry after such like things Nay if it were true which the Jews relate how that the Senators of the great Council were skill'd in Magick arts that they might convince them that were guilty of that iniquity then surely they being so mightily incensed against Jesus as they were and envying the honour and respect which he obtained chiefly by his miracles would either themselves have done the like works by the same art or by sufficient reasons would have made it appear that the works of Christ proceeded from no other cause SECT IV. Or by the Power of Words and Syllables MOreover that is not only a meer fable but impudent lye which some of the Jews have invented concerning the Miracles done by Christ which they ascribe to a certain secret name which as they say being placed in the Temple by Solomon was preserved safe by two Lions
nature that doth communicate any thing of its own unto God neither is he capable of ought that any other thing can impart being as before we said altogether absolute and necessary of himself SECT V. That God is eternal omnipotent omniscient and absolutely good AGain forasmuch as all things that have life are said to be more perfect than those without life and those which have power of acting than those which want it and those endued with understanding superiour to such creatures as lack it and those which are good better than those that come short in goodness it followeth from that which hath been spoken that all those attributes are in God and that after an infinite manner Therefore is he infinite in life that is eternal infinite power that is omnipotent So likewise is he omniscient and altogether good without any exception SECT VI. That God is the Author and cause of all things FUrther more it follows from that which hath been spoken that what things soever subsist the same have the original of their being from God for we have proved that that which is necessary of it self can be but one whence we collect that all other things besides this had their original from somewhat different from themselves Now such things as have their beginning from another we have seen before how that either in themselves or in their causes they proceeded from him which had no beginning that is from God Neither is this manifest by reason only but also after some sort by very sense for if we consider the wonderful frame and fashion of Man's body both within and without and how that each part and parcel thereof hath its proper use without the study or industry of his Parents and yet with such art that the most accomplished Philosophers and Physitians could never sufficiently admire it this verily shows the Author of Nature to be a most excellent Mind concerning which matter Galen hath written well especially where he speaks of the use of the eye and of the hand Yea more the very bodies of mute beasts do testifie the same for their parts are not framed and composed by the power and vertue of the matter whereof they consist but by some superiour and higher cause destinating them to a certain end Neither is this plain by man and beasts alone but also by plants and herbs as hath accurately been observed by some Philosophers This further is excellently noted by Strabo concerning the scituation of the waters which if we consider the quality of their matter ought to be placed in the middle between the earth and the ayr whereas they are now included and dispersed within the earth to the end they might be no hinderance either to the fruitfulness of the ground or to the life of Man Now to propose that or any other end to any action is the peculiar property of an understanding nature Neither are all things only ordained for their peculiar ends but also for the good and benefit of the whole Vniverse as appears particularly in the water but now mentioned which against its own proper nature is moved upward lest by the interposition of a vacuity there should be a gap in the Universe which is so framed that by the continued cohesion of its parts it sustains and upholds it self Now it cannot possibly be that this common end should be thus intended together with an inclination in things thereunto but by the power and purpose of some intelligent nature whereunto the whole Vniverse is in subjection Moreover amongst the beasts there are certain actions observed to be so regular and orderly done that it is manifest enough they proceed from some kind of reason as is plain in Pismires and especially in Bees and likewise in other creatures which before they make any trial do naturally eschew such things as are hurtful and seek after such things as are profitable for them Now that this instinct or inclination of finding and judging things is not in them by their own power it is clear for that they do always operate after the same manner neither have they any vertue or efficacy at all to the doing other things which are no more weighty wherefore they must needs receive their power from some reasonable external Agent which directs them or imprints in them such efficacy as they have and this reasonable and intelligent Agent is no other than God himself In the next place consider we the Stars of Heaven and amongst the rest as most eminent the Sun and the Moon both which for the making the earth fruitful and preserving living Creatures in their health and vigour do so seasonably perform their course of motion that a better cannot be devised For when otherwise their motion through the Aequator had been much more simple we see that they have another motion by an oblique Circle to the end the benefit of their favourable aspects might be communicated to more parts of the earth Now as the earth is ordained for the use and benefit of living Creatures so are all terrestrial things appointed chiefly for the service of man who by his wit and reason can subdue the most furious creature among them whence the very Stoicks did collect that the World was made for Man's sake Howbeit since it exceeds the sphere of humane power to bring the heavenly bodies in subjection to him neither is it to be imagined that they will ever submit themselves to man of their own accord it follows therefore that there is some superior mind or spirit by whole sole appointment those fair and glorious bodies do perpetual service unto man though he be placed far below them which same mind is no other than the framer of the stars even the Maker of the whole World Also the motions of these stars which are said to be Excentrical and Epicyclical i. e. in a Circle within the Orb of another Star do plainly shew not the power of matter but the appointment of a free Agent The same do the Positions of the Stars testifie some in this part others in the other part of Heaven together with the so unequal form of the Earth and of the Seas Nor can we refer it to any thing else that the Stars move this rather than another way The most perfect form also and figure of the World viz. roundness as also the parts thereof shut up as it were in the bosom of the Heavens and disposed with a marvellous order do all expresly declare that they were not tumbled together or conjoyned as they are by chance but wisely ordained by such an understanding as is endued with super-eminent excellency For what Ninny is there so sottish as to expect any thing so accurate and exact from chance He might as well believe that Stones and Timber got casually together and put themselves into the form of a House or that out of Letters shuffled carelesly as it hapned there came forth an excellent Poem A thing so unlikely that
hand I now take into my hands to present unto thy Majesty under the form of Bread and Wine Him thou canst not reject nor me his Priest who offer Him unto Thee c. Or some such like words more befitting their present notions than desiring an Angel may carry what the Priest offers and present it unto GOD. But we find quite contrary which is the last thing I shall observe that in conclusion the Priest acknowledges that by Christ Jesus God always creates and sanctifies and quickens and blesses making a cross upon the Host and the Chalice at every one of those three last words all these good things Which can be meant of nothing but the Bread and Wine consecrated to the commemoration and representation of Christ's body and bloud sacrificed for us For Christ's own very natural body and bloud cannot in any tolerable sense be said to be continually created and quickned or made alive unless you will suppose him to have been dead before nay not to have been at all For creation implies the thing not to have been and vivification not to have been then alive when it was quickned Yet this fancy of Christs real presence in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation against which there are such numerous Testimonies in their own Communion Service is now become the main Article of their Religion For we all know to our great grief and astonishment that when the publick Authority of this Realm was on their side subscription was not urged to any Article of their Religion upon such violent and bloudy terms as unto this of the Real Presence The Mystery of which iniquity as a great Man of our own said in the Age before us cannot be better resolved than into the powerful and deceitful working of Satan who delights thus to do despite to our Lord and to his Religion by seducing his professed Subjects into a belief of such things as make them and Him ridiculous unto unbelievers and ingage them in the worst kind of Rebellion he could imagine by worshipping Bread and Wine instead of their Saviour and all this upon the least occasions and shallowest reasons SECT XIII Other Instances of it BUT besides these plain confessions of that Church against it self there are many other things which I shall but just name wherein we have the testimony of several of their own learned Men ready to be produced for our and against their belief proving clearly that the present is not the old Religion of that Church but that they have brought into it many Innovations by adding to the Canonical Books of Scripture by making their vulgar Latine Translation of the Bible about which they themselves cannot agree authentical by forbidding the People to read the holy Scriptures in their own Language and by denying them the publick Prayers in a Language they understand by giving the Pope not only a new Title of Universal Bishop but an authority and jurisdiction which was never heard of for many Ages by increasing the number of Sacraments and altering their nature by taking away the Cup from the People and turning the Sacrament of Christs body and bloud into a proper expiatory sacrifice by celebrating the Eucharist without any body to communicate by setting up Images in Churches and ordaining Religious Worship to be given to them by invocating Saints and Angels as was said before and by the Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences and many other together with a vast number of strange ceremonies in the making holy water consecrating bells c. For which no antiquity can be pretended The woful effect of which is this if we may speak the plain Truth that by pressing upon Mens belief a great deal too much and placing great vertue in trifles they have tempted Men to believe nothing at all As is apparent from hence that where and when as an excellent Writer of our own speaks this Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism or Infidelity hath most abounded And how should it do otherwise when as he observes so many lying Legends have been obtruded upon Mens belief and so many false Miracles forged to justifie them as are very likely to make suspicious Men question the truth of all And so many weak and frivolous ceremonies devised and such abundance of ridiculous observances in Religion introduced as are no less apt to beget a secret contempt and scorn of it in witty Men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this perswasion setled in their mind which is indeavoured to be rooted in them from their childhood that if they be not of that Religion they were as good be of none at all And when a great part also of the Doctrines now mentioned so apparently make for the temporal ends of those who teach them that sagacious Men can scarce forbear thinking they were on purpose devised to serve those designs That particular doctrine also of Transubstantiation being so portentous that joyned with the forenamed perswasion of No Papists no Christians it hath in all probability brought more than Averroes to this resolution since Christians eat that which they adore let my Soul be among the Philosophers And lastly the pretence which is so common that there is no ground to believe the Scriptures but their Churches infallibility and yet no ground to believe their Churches infallibility but some Texts of Scripture being too plain a way to lead those who discern the labyrinth wherein they are to believe neither Church nor Scripture SECT XIV Whereby they have spoil'd Christianity as the Pagans did the Natural Religion THESE things which have been already urged by the Writers of our Church for the conviction of those who are capable of it I repeat here again because they seem to me very powerful for the preservation of those who are not already tainted or too far gone in that delusion Which is so great that to summ up all belonging to this Head we may safely say Popery is just such a depravation of the true Christian Religion as Paganism was of the Natural Religion There cannot be a righter conception of it than this which appears too plainly in the absurd doctrines and opinions which they have mingled with the Christian Faith in their multiplied superstitions in their fabulous relations of the Saints wherein they have surpassed the very Poets themselves and to pass by the rest in their prostrating themselves before Images and giving religious worship to Men departed Which last instance furnished the Pagans of Cochin with this answer to the Jesuits as Christoph Borrus one of that Order relates when they pressed upon them the belief of one God and no more We do believe it said they but those whom you see us worship in their Images were Men of great Sanctity whom pious People therefore worship according to their merit just as you give to the Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors divers degrees of honour and religious service as you know them to have excelled in vertue
delivered from the heavy Yoke of Rites and Ceremonies that lay upon them But if they would admit of the Commandments of Christ which are full of all goodness easily permitted them to follow what course of life they pleased in matters of indifferency provided they would not impose the necessity of observing them upon others SECT XXV Conclusion of all UPON these terms we are ready to agree with them and I conclude all with this memorable Proposal which Erasmus made in a Letter to Johannes Slechta a Friend of his in Bohemia at the very beginning of the Reformation MD XIX This would reconcile People to the Church of Rome if all things were not so particularly defined and made a matter of Faith which we would have to belong to it but those only which are evidently expressed in the Holy Scriptures or without which we do not see any way to be saved To this purpose a few things are sufficient and a few things may be sooner perswaded than a great many Now out of one Article we make Six Hundred some of which are such that without indangering Piety we may either be ignorant or doubt of them And such is the nature of Mankind that what is once defined we hold tooth and nail and will by no means part with it But when all 's done the summ of Christian Philosophy lies in this That we understand all our Hope to be placed in God who freely gives us all things by his Son Jesus by whose Death we are redeemed into whose Body we are planted by Baptism that being dead to the lusts of this World we may live according to his Doctrine and Example not only abstaining from all evil but indeavouring to deserve well of every Body assd that if any adversity happen we bear it couragiously in hope of a future reward which without all doubt waits for all pious Persons at the coming of Christ and that we make such progress from vertue to vertue as notwithstanding to arrogate nothing to our selves but to ascribe all the good that is in us or that we can do unto GOD. These things chiefly are to be inculcated and beaten into the minds of Men so that they become as it were their Nature But if any will search into those things which are more abstruse about the Divine Nature the Hypostasis of Christ or the Sacraments that they may raise their minds the higher and draw them from things here below let them do so provided that every body be not compelied presently to believe what seems good to this or that Person For as out of large Deeds arise sooner Law-suits so are differences begotten by very many definitions And let us not be ashamed to answer to some things God knows how it may be done it is sufficient for me to believe that it is done I know that Christ's pure Body and Blood is to be purely received by those that are pure and that He would have this to be a most holy token and pledge both of his love to us and of our Christian concord among our selves And therefore I will examine my self and make a strict search whether there be any thing in me that ill agrees with Christ whether any discord with my Neighbour But how the Ten Predicaments are there how the Bread is Transubstantiated by the mystical words or as He explains himself in the latter end of his Book upon lxxxiv Psal how the body of Christ is there whether under the substance of Bread or under the species of Bread and Wine and such like doth not much conduce in my judgment to proficiency in piety c. By these and other such innumerable disputations in which some triumph the minds of Men are called away from those things which alone are to the purpose To conclude it will be of great moment to establish the concord of the World if all secular Princes and especially the Bishop of Rome would abstain from all appearance of Tyranny and of Covetousness For Men easily start back when they see slavery is prepared for them when they see they are not invited to piety but inveigled to be made a prey If they perceive us to be harmless to be beneficent they will most easily credit us and intrust themselves with us Thus He. It would not be very hard to make a longer Book on this Subject But this is sufficient as Grotius speaks in the beginning of this Discourse about the Truth of Christian Religion to convince those whose understandings are rightly disposed and are not pertinaciously set against all further information But no Arguments can be found of force enough to convince a froward will and perswade perverse affections which make Men uncapable of Moral Truth most of all of Divine Which will not enter as the Wise man speaks into a malicious Soul nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will flee deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in THE END A RECAPITULATION OF THE Principal Things handled IN THIS WORK According to the several Sections of each Book The Contents of the first Book THe Preface shewing the occasion of this Work Sect. I. Proving there is a God p. 1 Sect. II. That there is but one God p. 5 Sect. III. That all Perfection is in God p. 7 Sect. IV. God is Infinite p. 8 Sect. V. That God is eternal omnipotent omniscient and absolutely good p. 9 Sect. VI. That God is the Author cause of all things ib. Sect. VII Answer to that Objection concerning the cause of evil p. 15 Sect. VIII Against the Opinion of two Principles or causes of things p. 16 Sect. IX That God doth govern the whole World p. 17 Sect. X. Yea sublunary things p. 18 Sect. XI This is further proved by the preservation of Empires p. 19 Sect. XII And by Miracles p. 21 Sect. XIII Specially among the Jews wherunto credit may be given by reason of the long continuance of their Religion p. 22 Sect. XIV Also by the truth and antiquity of Moses his story p. 24 Sect. XV. And by the Testimony of many Gentiles p. 25 Sect. XVI The same is proved by the Oracle and Predictions p. 34 Sect. XVII The Objection is answered why Miracles are not now to be seen p. 36 Sect. XVIII And that now there is such liberty in offending p. 37 Sect. XIX Insomuch that good Men are oppressed p. 39 Sect. XX. The same argument is retorted to prove that the Soul survives the Body p. 40 Sect. XXI Which is proved by Tradition ib. Sect. XXII Against which no contrary reason can be brought p. 41 Sect. XXIII Many reasons may be alledged for it p. 44 Sect. XXIV Whence it follows that the end of all shall be Mans happiness after this life p. 45 Sect. XXV Which to obtain men must get the true Religion ib. The Contents of the second Book Sect. I. TO Prove the