and by which were we possessed of them they would much more easily have been reconciled and understood The Jews were very curious and exact in the preservation of things of that Nature and good Reason they had so to be for amongst the Heathens want of Posterity might be supplied by Adoption but the Jews were obliged to a strict succession in Alliance and Kindred The whole of this matter is most judiciously discoursed of by the learned Grotius in his Annotatious upon these two Evangelists to which the exact disquisition of all the particulars being too large a task for this undertaking I fear not to refer any impartial Reader for a sufficient Answer to all that can be reasonably objected against the Bible from hence there being nothing contained in either of these two Genealogies that of St. Matthew and that of St. Luke that in the least implies any direct contradiction nor is there any such difference between them or between them and any other part of the Bible one of which must be punctually made good or else this Objection is of no force as appears wholly uncapable of any Reconciliation But on the contrary 'T is evident the Evangelists do after an admirable manner consist and agree with themselves Although in order to many excellent ends and to clear us all Doubts about our Saviours descent they differently account Which upon the forementioned Grounds can seem hard to none to conceive Fourthly They tell us There is much contained in the Bible that seems of too Mean and Low a nature to come from such a wise and Excellent Being as God and by no means fit to be Ascribed to Him Such are many Stories and many Similitudes and divers Expressions we find there On the one hand they reproch this Book for containing things too High to be Credited And on the other hand they object against it as containing many things too Mean to be Regarded In the one they impeach Gods Power and imply some things are too Great for him to Effect And by the other cast a contempt upon the highest effects of his Condescention and Goodness for nothing can more Savour of it then such a familiar way of conversing with Men 'T is true that the Scriptures have by divers Similitudes Resemblances and Allegories made the whole World and all we converse with some way or other Hieroglyphical to us of Divinity Have expressed somewhat of Religion to us by all Parts of the Creation and by the most common imployments of Humane life Then which nothing could make Religion look with a more Familiar aspect upon us nor render the Mysteries of it more easy to be embraced by all capacities Nor is any thing more likely to preserve the memory of things Supernatural and Divine in the minds of men then when they are expressed to them by such things with which they are sure to have a constant converse while they stay in this World Whatsoever we find in the Bible of this Kind stands sufficiently discharged from all Reasonable exception because 't is visibly but adjusting the Notions of Religion to the impotency of many capacities And of the meanest expressions either in Similitudes Allegories Metaphors or otherwise that we find in the Scriptures These two things must be acknowledged by which they are enough secured against all just and rational Contempt First That they are such as in their own nature are proper and apt to informe in all those Cases in which they are made use of And Secondly They all appear to have a direct tendency to instruct men in the Noblest and Sublimest Truths And are evidently Conducing to the Highest and most Excellent Attainments that Mankind are Capable of These and such like Objections have often faced the Bible But have given very little stop to its Progress Indeed all occasions given though by its worst Enemies for the Discussion of it have turn'd greatly to its Advantage and still made it appear less capable of any Just and Solid Exception The Bible is a Book that will endure Discourse The Deeper we search into all parts of it still the surer we are to find a Divine bottome 'T is true that the manner of its composure is suitable to its nature and end Savours altogether of the wisdome of another world 'T is evidently design'd to subvert all corrupt Interests and debase mens proud opinions of their own knowledge 'T is writ after a sort that seems peculiar to God and in no such way as Mankind use to treat one with another And therefore 't is no wonder if Some men both Object against it and Reproch it Divers things there are which in the Reading of this Book we are rationally obliged to Consider and by the due consideration whereof the Grounds of most mens exceptions would be removed First the Scriptures appear to be Designed as a General Store-house of Instruction and Satisfaction to all sorts of Capacities and Conditions to the end of the world And therefore it can be no very easie task upon good Grounds to condemn any Part either as Useless or Improper Secondly Many passages in the Scripture relate to things past and long since transacted of the circumstances of which we are not fully informed And many passages were accomodated to things then well known which we in these After-ages are ignorant of Others relate much to things future and to come The Wisdome and Excellency of which will not so fully appear till Hereafter And so we see it was in the Old Testament The use and Reason of many things then could not be so fully discern'd till explain'd and interpreted by the Gospel The Book of Ruth might then happly have been judged by some as an Impertinent Addition to the rest of the Bible But since the writing of the New we see what an excellent use there was of it to make good our Saviours natural discent in the flesh according to the promise He that saw no more then the Old Testament might have thought that Historical discourse of Melchisedâ—c that we find in Moses to be very defective mentioning so considerable a Transaction of so Great a Man in those early times of the world without giving any further account of him But now under the New we are informed how Eminent a Projection of Divine Wisdome was wrapt up in the seeming Imperfection of that Story and that the Eternal Generation of our Saviour in his Divinity in a strange and unthought off way was Represented and Figured thereby Thirdly Many parts of the Bible relate to the Customes and Laws of particular Places and Countreys Without the knowledg of which No man can be a Competent Judge of them In the Books of Esther Ezra and Nehemiah many things relate to the Customes and Laws of the Persians In the Prophets divers things are not to be understood without a reference to the Histories of several Countries to which they Relate In the New Testament many passages refer to the Laws and Customes
us as appear evidently sitted and suited to supply all the defects of our natural Knowledge and after an admirable manner harmonize with the rational Nature in which things from Above are so interwoven with things below and every way so proportioned to them as that Truths Supernatural which we cannot fully comprehend appear justified to us by Truths natural that we are perfectly judges of and between both there appears a wonderful concord If we find a Book written in God's own Name commanding the World upon that single account to bow before it and in a way peculiarly proper to his own Soveraignty and Greatness with a positive claim to his immediate Authority and the truth of this claim established to the World by a multitude of the greatest and most eminent Miracles at several times openly wrought that ever were extant and the Fact of which was never by any deny'd A Book the Doctrine whereof by the power and reputation of those Miracles it s own innate Worth and the Divine Assistance that accompanyed it without the least humane help nay against all Humane-Opposition all earthly Policy and Force withstanding it has gain'd so great an acceptance as we see â—his to have done subdued in its first enâ—rance that great Empire of Rome subâ—erted the whole Judaical Fabrick and â—as made both Heathenism and Judaism â—inaly fall before it If we find a Book that gives us the â—est and most satisfying account of the â—hole affair of this World and all the Vicissitudes of it and of God's providential Rule and Dispose of all Humane Affairs A Book in which the whole business of the World is fully and strangely epitomized and we see nothing happen or come to pass contradictive of but according to what is there written and of which we find there some general notice If we find a Book the Doctrine whereof totally subverts the whole interest of the Devil and all the corrupt interests of Men in a way far superior to what ever was or can rationally be supposed ever could be attempted in that kind by the wisest and best of men and introduces much nobler and elevated Notions oâ— Piety and Vertâ—e than the World werâ— any other way ever possessed of If we find a Book that has plainly anâ— directly foretold most of the great thing that have come to pass in all Ages thaâ— has many hundreds of years beforâ— some of them happened pronounced with an absolute prophetick certainty about thâ—m and has never been found tâ— mistake in a tittle though it has somâ—times descended so to Particulars as 〈◊〉 name even the Persons of men long before they were born cannot once be impeached for giving a wrong Divination about the least Circumstance relating either to Persons or Things If we find a Book that has been signally preserved from the greatest rage of many powerful Adversaries and from the most Violent and Potent Attempts for its total Suppression and Ruine of such who were in highest Authority and furnished with greatest advantages to effect it A Book that has scap'd all sorts of Contrivance against it and safely descended through the Channel of so many Ages and been to this day providentially secured and unmaimed and intirely delivered over to us If we find a Book that evidently in the judgment of all right Reason improves Mankind to the highest pitch in all worthy and excellent Attainments boâ—h Moral and Divine Brings the World into the best posture 't is capable of Makes men Wiser Better and Happier than they ever were or could themselves find out how to be If we find a Book that by means utterly unthought of and far out of all humane-reach and yet of a most holy and excellent Nature sweetly and safely even to our greatest admiration reconciles us to God Fills up that vast Gulph that was between Heaven and Earth and makes way for a free and perpetual intercourse between God and Man Exposes to the view of the World thereby a Beatitude infinitely transcending whatever the Wisdom of Man could contrive or invent which the rational Soul the more it considers still the more it adores and admires and in which to the utmost 't is delighted and satisfied In short If we find a Book that has all those things if we respect both the Matter of it and the Manner of its conveyance to us appurtenant to it that we can rationally expect should accompany a Revelation from Heaven and such a supernatural Law by which we may suppose God would enlighten and rule the World A Book that every way answers all the great ends of Revelation proposeth most suitable Remedies to all our natural Defects leaves not a Disease in Humane Nature uncured nor a Breach that mans fall hath occasioned un-made up If there be not one thing we can imagine God should reveal to us in order to our present or future Welfare about things visible or invisible about This World or the Next that we are not here told of If we have here such discoveries made of things supernatural and unseen as have evidently set bounds to the restless and inquisitive minds of Men about those Matters And such as we cannot reasonably judge could be the product of any humane thoughts nor of any thing lesse than the infinite and boundless Wisdom and Knowledge of GOD himself If we have found such a Book If the Bible be thus qualified What can be otherwise judged upon such Premises but that this Book is indeed that sacred Instrument wherein God has recorded his Sovereign Pleasure This is in truth that Revelation from Heaven the World in all Ages have so much expected and to which so many false pretensions have in all Ages been made Here is indeed contained that System of Laws supernatural by the publication whereof God has abounded in all the effects of his Bounty and even out-done the furthest Conceptions the World has at any time had of his Goodness How strangely unreasonable were it to derive such a Book from the highest degree of imposture How heterodox is it to all good sense to suppose that the worst and most pernitious delusion by which the World has been ever abused which we must needs reckon this Book to be if it be not from God should have in point of time the precedency of all true Religion and be of an antienter date than any divine Truth the World can pretend to Who that believes the supream Existence of God can imagine that the best documents in the judgment of all unprejudiced reason that ever mankind were disciplin'd by should have the Devil or the vilest of men for their Authors That such should contrive and publish a Doctrine that brings men to the best method of living That such should reduce mankind to the happyest and best condition and out do the Divine goodness in that particular Who can imagine that the Devil or any ill men in promoting the highest Treason against God counterfeting his Name and Authority and
in Palestine nor understood by any but the dispersed Hellenists And so were no way likely to be sent from the Holy Ghost to that Church who never owned any Scripture for Canonical but what was in Hebrew a Language peculiar to them And the Bibles they constantly used till our Saviours time in their Synagogues were all in Hebrew Thirdly There is in most of these Books some eminent discovery of their own Humane Extraction As in the second of Macc. 2.24 The Author of that Book whoever he were tells us that he had borrowed what he wrote out of Jason of Cyrene and contracted five Books of his into one Volumn And so what he there wrote he is so far from fathering it on the Holy Ghost or any Dictates of his that he plainly confesseth 't was none of his own but the bare Epitomy of another mans Writings and desires to be excused if he had not done it well And 't is most notoriously evident to every common Reader that many of these Books contain such ridiculous Stories and gross Absurdities that without high impiety and great contradiction to all those Natural Notions we have of God they cannot be imputed to the Holy Ghost as their Author Fourthly These Books were never received by the Church of the Jews into their Canon nor are to this day And so during the times of the Old Testament were never received by any Church for there was then no other which is most absurd to conceive of any parts of God's Written and Supream Laws As also that the Jews to whom in a most peculiar way the Oracles of God were committed and who had the custody of all God's Sacred Records and were as St. Austin calls them God's the Churches great Library-Keepers should so notoriously err as to reject for not to receive into their Canon is to reject so great a part of the Bible 'T is somewhat strange that those of the Roman Church with whom chiefly we contest in this Matter and who annex to the Church an infallible Judgement should imagine the Church of the Jews to fall into so great and gross a mistake in so fundamental a matter That the Jewish Church never heretofore received these Apocryphal Books into their Canon nor do to this day is a thing that with the least colour of Reason cannot be denyed That they do not to this day is known all the World over wheresoever the Jews are And their Bibles are to be seen That the Ancient Church of the Jews before the times of our Saviour had no other Books within their Canon than those we now have is evident from the testimony of Josephus in his first Book against Appion who there tâ—lls us what Books the Jews reckoned Canonical and sayes They are onely twenty two in number according to the number of Letters in their Alphabet and reckons those very Books we now receive as onely Canonical Other Books he sayes there were written after the Captivity but they were never numbred with the Sacred Records Origen St. Jerome and many other of the Christian Writers have largely proved the same Those of the Roman Church who have turn'd every Stone to ease themselves from the dint of this Argument have found no other countenance that ever these Books received from the Jews to make us suppose they received them into their Canon but that in some places some few of the Hellenist Jews that lived remote from Palestine had annexed some of these Books to their Septuagint Bibles But such Hellenists themselves had any esteem of them as Canonical Writings Nor can it any more be proved from thence that they had than it can That we in England receive them into our Canon because they are bound up with some of our Bibles And never were any of these Books annexed to the Hobrew-Bibles used at Jerusalem and in Palestine nor were any of them ever read or admitted into their Synagogues there In truth This matter in point of Fact is so notorious and evident that Bellarmine himself makes an ingenuous confession of it and sayes plainly Hos omnes Libros speaking of these Apocryphal Books ad unum rejici ab Hebraeis That every one of these Books were rected by the Church of the Jews Contr. 1. lib. 1. ch 10. And confirms the same out of St. Jerome And if so we have then not only the judgment of the Judaical Church in this case which is singly sufficient For 't were a ridiculous contradiction to make any Books part of the Old Testament now which were not so received then But we have also a more infallible determination For our Saviour and the Apostles fully and constantly approved the Old Testament as the Jews were then possessed of it 'T were absurd to suppose that our Saviour should with so much exactness reduce all to the Rule of the Scripture and yet tacitly approve and silently pass over so great a mistake about the Rule it self Our Saviour directs the Jews to search the Scriptures as they then had them as being perfect and compleat Appeals to their own Bibles upon all occasions in his own defence Expounded Moses the Psalms and the Prophets as those to whom he spake were acquainted with them and as they were then extant Nay he himself read and preached in their Synagogues out of the Scriptures as he there found them and as they were there publickly used And no man can soberly imagine that our Saviour would go about to instruct the People out of any false and imperfect Rule The Apostles likewise upon all occasions made use of the Old Testament as they found the Jews possessed of it Nor have we the least intimation that the Jews were either mistaken in the number of those Books they received or that the least alteration had been made in those Books since the times wherein they were first written And 't is as evident that the Old Tement as the Jews then had it and as our Saviour and the Apostles approved it descended down to the Christian Church and was constantly so received The Primitive Writers agree universally in it Cyprian Epiphanius Athanasius Nazianzen all bear witness to it Cyril Bishop of Jerusalem after he has reckoned up to his Catechumini the 22 Books of the Old Testament we now receive adds Hos lege viginti duos Cum Apocryphis nil habe negotii Catechis 4. Read these two and twenty Books But meddle not with the Apocrypha Origen quoted for it at large by Eusebius in his History reckons up the very same twenty two Books for the Canonical parts of the Old Testament And so does St. Jerome and expresly reckons the other Apocryphal The same we find in Russinus who sayes The Apocryphal Books they never antiently called Libros Canonicos but Ecclesiasticos And the first Council we read of that entred into a consideration of this Matter which was that of Laodicea about the year 364. in their 59 Canon declare the Canonical Books of the
all the certain notions we have of another and a farther World and the great account of all invisible things and Secondly because 't is the highest Motive we have to all good living 't is from hence from the authority of this Book that we are chiefly obliged to all that is holy and good and engaged against all the corrupt prastises of humane Life when we consider with what difficulty we attain in the first Case to a fixed and unshaken belief of such things as we do not actually see and how apt we are in the latter to decline from the strict Rules of a good life nothing can seem more necessary then a rational insurance about the great Foundation of all Belief and Practice in both That with a perfect security to our present and future welfare we may rely upon this Book as that great and only Revelation by which God will inform rule and judge the world I have hereby attempted to make evident not only from its own excellent nature and composure and such visible and open effects of a supreme and almighty power as accompanyed its first Publication and lasted till the Church was so far built that the Scaffolding might be safely taken down but also from many other considerations from whence an abundant testimony to its Divinity will appear to result And this task if sufficiently perform'd as 't will give answer to all reasonable doubts and cast a just contempt upon all prophane reproaches so it will also reflect much upon those who though they acknowledge this Book to come from God yet not acquiessing singly in the conduct thereof declare it thereby insufficient to those great ends for which it appears to be intended and such are those of the Roman Church on the one hand and all sorts of Enthusiasts on the other who by a twofold superfoetation that of endless Traditions and that of new and continued Revelations have rendred the whole Scriptures if not useless Yet as to their great end and design altogether deficient and imperfect My Lord I seek not by this Dedication to countenance a defence of the Bible nor any way to secure my self against the just reproach of an ill performance the first would engage me in an open affront to a Christian State and the other oblige me to be too injurious to You and that Candor and love to Truth you possess 'T is alone that great Honour and that entire affection I have for Your Lordship that Interests Your Name in this matter though there is nothing less needed by You than discourses of this nature Yet there is nothing more due from me then an open and publick profession that my self and what ever I do is devoted to Your Service I know my Lord into what hands I commit these Papers when I present them to You that great hazard to which they are exposed by your first view will sufficiently inure them to all future dangers I consider that Judgement with which they are put to encounter and want not a due sense what the success must needs be I know also your remedying kindness and am enough secur'd thereby am in this case upon the same terms of relief that he was that discoursed before Caesar who thus address'd to him Qui apud te Caesar audent dicere magnitudinem tuam ignorant qui non audent humanitatem My Lord as You were pleased before to allow that Method I used in discovering the Unreasonableness of Atheism So I promise my self some acceptance in the account I now give You of the Reasonableness of Scripture Belief as I know no better Property can be convey'd to the World then a Rational Possession of God and his Word So I am also much pleased that I have spent some part of my time in doing what You required To whom I owe all that is due to the most Generous and most lasting Friendship and shall ever be as much as I can be which is but what I ought to be My Lord Your Lordships most true Friend And most Humble Faithful Servant CHARLES WOLSELEY THE REASONABLENESS OF Scripture-Belief THat the being of the Christian Religion depends much upon the Credit and Authority of that Book we call the BIBLE there needs little to be said to prove it The instance were as hard to find as 't is unreasonable in it self to suppose that any man should at the same time reject the Bible as Fictitious and yet embrace the Christian Religion as True For it must either be granted there are No Laws any where extant that do formally constitute this Religion which is absurd to suppose of any Religion or they must needs be admitted here No man can be a Jew and renounce the Olâ— Testament nor he a Mahumetan that disclaimâ— the Alchoran Because to deny the Authority of those Books is visibly to rase the great foundation of all profession and practice in those two Religions Although the fact of Christs being in the World and many other things relating to the Christian Religion be attested to by other writings yet the Scriptures are the onely means by which we come to a sufficient knowledge of a Religion established upon that foundation and which alone contain the Laws and Constitutions of such Religion No considerable attempt has been at any time made to set the Christian Religion upon any other Bottom then the Bible to promulge any other edition of Christian Laws to write any Counter-Story of Christ and the Apostles or is there extant in the World any different account of their Doctrines from whence might be deduced a Contrary or other systeme of the Christian Profession from what is recorded in this Book Nor is it reasonable to believe there can be any foundation lay'd whereon to erect Christianity where the Bible is excluded For whatsoever has otherwise then by the Bible by writing or tradition descended down to the World touching the Christian Religion has been either by its Friends or its Enemies For the Latter no mention is made in any Heathen Writer of any Christian Laws nor indeed of any considerable matter at all relating to the Christian Religion farther then what we find in the Bible it self And so amounts to no more then a Cumulative help to its Credibility And 't is evident those of the Heathen who have at any time opposed the Christian Profession and disputed most against it have opposed it as contained there That Book being granted on all hands to comprise its Doctrine and to be the stated rule of that Religion For the former whatever has been by the writings or Traditions of such who embraced the Christian Religion and gave their Assent to it conveyed down to us can never induce any other Rule of that Religion then the Bible For besides that all such Collateral traditions are in their own nature relative to the Bible dependant upon it and such as must necessarily stand and fall together with it they have also come from the hands
perfect Attributes the terms of our pardon must come from God 'T is not in man to find out how God shall forgive him or to to Chalk out the Tracks of Divine Justice and Mercy toward himself nor will his guilt be removed nor his thoughts be at rest till he know Gods mind about it Nothing can assure us of Reconciliation with God but what is from Heaven appointed as the means of it No natural knowledg can give us any certain direction about it nor is it reasonable to believe it should If Humane Nature had no absolute security in it self of its first state how can we expect it should restore it self when once degenerated What did not remain perfect when it was so is much more unlikely to recover again out of Imperfection to be so Every man may know he is degenerated from what he ought to be and so may reasonably collect from what he once was but no man can reason himself into a ceâ—taâ—n way of Recovery The whole world have subscribed to their own Apostacy but could never agree upon any certain remedy How miserably have Mankind tired themselves and to how little purpose in finding out what would appease Divine Anger and compensate for their disobedience No man ever yet worsâ— ipped any God but he made some Offering to him in hopes that might indemnisie him and be taken in Lieu of his own punishment Men have at a Venture offered up all parts of the world in Sacrifice have tried all experiments victimis lavacris and by all other means their best guesses could suggest to them to obliterate their own Guilt and to procure D vâ—â—e favour but never were upon any suâ—er gâ—ound then their own vain fancies for acceptance Agaâ—hias tells us in his second Book of the Peâ—sian war that the Persians were wont to solemnize a great Holy-day once a year which they called The death of Vices in which as an eminent piece of Devotion they slew multitudes of Serpents all other sorts of wild Beasts and thereby thought they should Execute all their Corruptions safely bury their sins The Philosophers abounded with remedies foâ— this Epidemical Disease Some thought to cure the evil of the world in a Moral way some in a way Mathematical and some by Religious Ceremonies But alas The right way of doing it has lain hid from Ages and Generations till God himself made it known and revealed it from Heaven VVhat a trifle is the Blood of a Sheep or an Oxe to satisfie for an Offence against an Infinite Justice At how easie and cheap a rate might men Sin and God be satisfied And what a publick tolleration of evil were it if the Blood of Bulls and Goats might take away sin and the lives of unreasonable Creatures Commute for the sins of Men The consideration of all these things does directly Steer us upward and point us to a dependance upon Revelation to give us a clear distinct and satisfying Knowledge of God of our selves and of this whole World How man came to Rebel and Sin first to enter By what ways and means Indemnity may be obtained And upon what terms we may be again reconciled to God and accepted This precious discourse the design of which is to render it a reasonable supposal that there should be in the general some Divine Revelation some Laws Supernatural promulged to the world and that Mankind should not be wholly left to the conduct of Nature can be no way ungrateful to those who are already possessed with a due esteem of the Scriptures and do assent to their verity because 't is to re-inforce one of the greatâ—st supports to all Scripture-belief Nor will it seem impertinent to those who are any way ingenious in their doubts and enquiries about this matter because 't is naturally necessarily the first step that is to be taken in order to their satisfaction But may be very well offensive to such who shall design to themselves a disbelief of the Scriptures and make it their Province to weaken their Authority and render all proofs brought for them insufficient because it goes far towards an evident and apparent determination of the whole cause against them Does indeed petere jugulum of their chiefest pretences and virtuâ—lly breaks the very Back-bone of all Antiscriptural opposition for if there be such a thing as a Revelation mâ—de to the World as that which the goodness of God and the wants of men seem necessarily to call for If God have given to Mankind a Law supernatural Where is this Divine Law to be found 'T is but reasonable to suppose it somewhere or other upon Record This Book we call the Bible must needs be it and will certainly carry it against all Pretenders the natural dictates o right Reason being Judge What Book or Writing is there extant under Heaven that can with any tollerable colour counter plead the Bible upon this account A man must be horribly Hood-winkt in his inteâ—lectuals that does not evidently see 't is impar coâ—gressus between the Bible and all other Pretenders From what paâ—ts of the world will you fetch such a Supernatural Lâ—w by which we may suppose God to Govern Mankind one either fit for him to Give or for us to Receive according to that Natural Knowledge we have of him and of our selves and that Rational Judgment to which all Supernatural pretences ought to be subjected Where wâ—ll you find a Systeme of Divinity that makes known to us in a way suitable to our natural conceptions of him the most of God and of his Nature we are able to comprehend delivers us from all the intanglements of Humane Nature by ways and Methods so pâ—opoâ—tioned thereunto and discoveâ—s to us ceâ—taâ—n tracks to the highest happiness here and hereafter we are capable to enjoy Shall we go to the Laws of Lycurgus and Solon because they pretended to Revelation Can any man be so stupid Those Laws were chiefly Municipal and made no pretence to what we enquire after Shall we imagine the Books of the Sybills because they were thought to be filled with many Divine secrets contained such Revelation The greatest part if not the whole of them is long since perished out of the world which is proof sufficient they were none of those standing Laws by which God designed to Rule and Judge Mankind Some excellent Greek Verses there are indeed extant at this day which go under their Names but they are upon good grounds by the most learned supposed to be none of theirs And iâ— they were the Christian Religion and the Truths contained in the Bible are so clearly described and the Pagan Religion so directly and strongly confuted therein that the Scriptures can scarce have a greater Testimony given to their Divinity Shall we go to the inspired Entâ—usiasticâ—l Poâ—ts for this Revelation What a ridiculous foppery would that seem to one that has once conversed with the Bible And what a wild extravagant Religion should we
the Jews in the time of our Saviour and the Apostles nor before and 't is certain if there had been any Books then extant in truth written by him they would have been in great esteem and veneration in the Jewish Church though they had not been within their Canon which we are sure they were not and Philo or Josephus most diligent searchers of their Antiquities would have made some eminent mention of them in whose Works we find altum silentium about any such Books and therefore 't is not to be supposed they believed there were any such real Books then extant But 't is most probable that after the Apostle Jude had in his Epistle quoted a Prophecie of Enoch which Prophecie without doubt he came to the knowledge of either purely by Revelation which I rather believe or else by a Tradition the truth of which was ascertained to him by Revelation by which means came others also of the Sacred Writers in after-times to be ascertained of what they writ about divers things that relate to the History of Moses that were not to be found in his Books for in the Psalms we find mention of some things done in Moses his time that are not recorded in his Books St. Paul in the 9 to the Hebrews sayes that when Moses had spoken every precept according to the Law he took the blood of Calves and Goats with Water and Scarlet Wool and Hyssop and sprinkled bâ—th the Book and all the People saying this is the Blood of the Testament c. In which the Apostle has added several things that are not inserted by Moses in the selation of this passage in the 24 of Exodus So Stephens Speech set down in the 7 of the Acts tells us that Moses in killing the Egyptian supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God by his Hand would deliver them but they understood not By which we have a Reason given for Moses killing the Egyptian that he himself has no where set down and by which we come to understand that before Moses went into the Land of Midian God revealed to him that he was to be the deliverer of that people which Moses himself has not any where told us I say 't is probable that some Hereticks in the Church most likely the Gnosticks who much cryed up those Spurious Writings to promote their own corrupt Opinions and Interests took occasion from thence to frame certain counterfeit Books just as some others did under the names of Jaâ—nes and Jambres after St. Pauls mention of them as written by Enoch before the Flood which Books have sufficiently betrayed themselves for those that were published under his name were stuft as St. Austin sayes with such absurd and fabulous Stories of Angels and such ridiculous relations of Gyants whose Fathers were Angels and no men that they are to be justly rejected as pâ—lpably counterfeit and fictitious Of the same mind is Jerom Chrysostom and Epiphanius and when Celsus alledged some absurd Stories out of those writings in reproch to the Christians Origen in his fifth Book answers him by shewing what a mean esteem the Jews as well as the Christians then had of them For the second those Pillars of the Sons of Seth 't is beyond all compass of credit that any such Pillars should be set up with an intention to outlast the Deluge or that they should so do or that any Engravings upon them should be visible some thousands of years after especially upon one of Brick for Josephus tells us there were two at first erected one of Brick and another of Stone and that of Stone they made on purpose to last if the other should decay how he came to such an exact account of their minds the Reader may guess and yet he sayes 't was that of Brick that then remained upon which he does not absolutely say there was any thing written in Letters but that the Sons of Seth Engraved upon them such things as they had invented which might be by many other representations and other ways then by Letters for I doubt not but that a Symbolical representation of mens thoughts one to another was extream early in the World though they wanted Alphabetical Letters Nor does Josephus say that He saw it it himself or give any punctual account what it was that was engraven upon it or any certain Place where the Pillar was to be seen but only in general that it was then in the Countrey of Syria where he left men of leisure to enquire after it The truth is there are so very many improbable and unlikely if not impossible Circumstances do attend this vain Story that 't is plain Josephus though in the general a Historian of deserved credit took it upon bare report from others some late Authors think and perhâ—ps not amiss from the fabulous relation of Manetho who sayes he took his History from some Pillars set up before the Flood and was marvailously abused in that Countenance he seems to give to it nor ought it to seem strange that he should be so for we sind many of the best Historians have taken up things upon trust and fallen thereby into very great mistakes Suetonius and Tacitus are both eminent Historians amongst the Romans yet both guilty of strange mistakes Tacitus tells us in his History That the Jews worshipped an Asses Head with the highest veneration then which nothing could be more untruly and upon less ground affirmed and Suetonius so mistook that he thought Christ lived in the time of Claudius for he sayes In the time of Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes civitate expulit That Claudius expelled the Jews out of Rome who were continually making uproars being stirred up thereunto by Christ Then which there could not be an absurder mistake nor a greater falshood well uttered For the third The mention that Moses makes in the 21 of Numbers and the 14 of the book of the wars of the Lord as a Book then extant his words are wherefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord what he didin the red Sea and in the brooks of Arnon First divers probable senses are given of the place that render it no Objection in this case The Geneva Translation not much differing from some others renders it thus Wherefore it shall be spoken in the book of the Battles of the Lord c. If so then 't is Prophetical and may relate to Joshuah who is said to sight the Battles of the Lord and to the Relations in the books of Joshuah or Judges that were to be after Junius reads the words thus Idcirco dici solet in recensione bellorum Jehovae c. Wherefore it is wont to be said in the rehearsal of the Wars of the Lord c. And so understands it not of any particular book but that amongst the Wars that God disposed for the good of the Israelites there was in those times a famous mention in the
mouths of most men concerning those passages there expressed Paulus Fagius who seems to give the rightest account of it differs not much from this of Junius only reads it in the futuretense and supposes it to intend a future relation his words are Ideo dicetur est enim verbum Hebraicum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 futuri temporis in commemoratione bellorum hoc est cum bella Deicommemorabuntur recensebuntur a posteris quae bella pro Israel in mari rubro gesscrit quae ad hos torrentes quasi dicat hi auo locitanquam memorabiles ab omni posteritate repetentur in quibus Deus pro Israel dimicavit ubi prodigia Coeleslia ostâ—nsa sunt that is In the relation that shall be hereafter of the Wars of the Lord there shall be a famous mention amongst all posterity of what God did for Israel in those two places wheresoever the Wars of the Lord are spoke of what God did in those two places shall have an eminent mention The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sepher signifies properly any rehearsal or enarration recensionem aut enarrationem quamcunâ— recensionem scriptam but per accidens If we understand it not to relate to any Book but only to a relation Verbal as it seems most probably to do because Moses speaks only of a rehearsal in generals but not directly of a written rehearsal it reaches not this matter and if it do I see no good reason can be given why by that Book of the Wars of the Lord should not be meant either some succeeding Book part of the Bible or else that very Book of Numbers it self But Secondly which way soever this Text be taken it can never be reasonably urged to prove there were Letters or Books before Moses because 't is said to be a Book relating a Story of things done in Moses his own Time for those Wars called the Wars of the Lord commenced but at the peoples coming out of â—gypt under his conduct And therefore 't was impossible there should be a written story of them before Moses himself was extant To the last Objection I Answer 'T is true that the Egyptians were a Learned people probably the most learned the world then had The continued clearness of their Skye and the constant overslows of Nile naturally tending to render them learned in those two Noble Sciences of Astrology and Geometry yet there is not the least ground to believe they had any use of Alphabetical Letters before Moses his time or any other way to express or communicate their learning but what was Symbolical and Hycroglyphycal nor is there the least Record any where extant to evince the contrary Aristotle sayes The ancient way of the Egyptians writing was per Hiâ—roglyphycas literas saxis incisas and he adds Conceptus aâ—imalium scrâ—bunt uti occulata side legimus in lapidibus per figuras idem in omnibus Scientijs Artibusque sacientes quos locabant in Templis tanquam Paginas perlegendas talesque illis pro libris extant Tacitus tells us Primi per siguras Animaâ—ium Egypti sensus mentis efsingebant antiqâ—â—ssima Monumenta memoriae humanae impressa saxis cernuntur Diodorus Sicalus long before in the fourth part of his History has given us a large account of this Symbolical way of writing amongst the Egyptians and Ethiopians which was reduced to these three heads Imitativa Tropica Enigmatica nor do we hear a word of any other writing amongst them till Moses his time who in all probability first discovered to them that way of transferring their minds one to another by Alphabetical Letters And this Artapanus a most ancient Historian tells us who speaking of Moses sayes Vt quasi Deas ab Egyptijs coleretur propter Literarum inventionem Mercurium appellatum That he was reverenced by the Egyptians as a God and for his first inventing of Letters called Mercury The Antiquity of the Bible in point of fact being thus cleared 't is in the second place to be considered what Testimony to the Divinity of the Bible does in truth result from thence And herein we shall find the one very remarkbly leading us to the other First in the general 't is a thing not to be denied that a reverence to Antiquity seems to have been universal All men in all Ages seem to have risen up and payed respect to the Hoary Head of Antiquity and that upon these two grounds First What is most Ancient has undergone the greatest Trial Every man is ready to venerate what has endured the Test of many Generations and lasted through most Ages because nothing corrects mistakes like Experience not distinguishes falshood and truth like Time Time we say and truly say is Index as well as Edax rerum Secondly Every mans Reason tells him all Secundary truth must needs lie nearest to the Eternal truth and so be of greatest Antiquity Error of every kind is of a later Edition then truth an Apostacy from it and a Corruption of some prime Principles Though Error and falshood may be very Ancient yet Truth is still the Elder Brother and has this still to say to all its opposers Non fuit sic ab initio And therefore the farther we wade into Antiquity the nearer still we come to Truth In Religion most especially that Maxim prevails antiquitate nihil verius veritate nihil antiquius In the present case the Antiquity of the Bible carries in it a very signal proof of its Divinity That which is the most ancient Religion is like to be the Truest greatest antiquity in Religion is an eminent mark of greatest Truth and that upon these two very forcable considerations First 't is reasonable to believe that there has been an intercourse between God and Man since the beginning and a Supernatural inter course since mans first defection that Gods Revelations were as early as mans necessities That there was no time wherein man stood in need of Supernatural Instruction and help but that God affords it to him If the supposal of Revelation in the general be reasonable as I have proved at large it is the other will follow and we shall find good ground to believe that there has been a Revelation from God since there was first Reason for it and such a constitution as Supernatural Religion in order to mans happiness and recovery that bears an equal Date with his first apostacy to think otherwise were to deny what the notion of Gods goodness very openly affirms to us And this being so no Religion can be True that is not clothed with great antiquity And that Religion that is most ancient and can derive it self from the beginning must needs be most True The Bible therefore giving us Historically an account of Gods first intercourse with man and of the constant continuation of it in all Ages and being it self the first account that ever was given of Religion in such a Written way upon all accounts the most Ancient the world
has and in its own Antiquity answering that antiquity we may justly expect to accompany Gods First Revelations the Bible I say upon this account has a singular evidence given in to its Credibility and its antiquity does strongly affirm its Divine Authority Secondly The Antiquity of the Bible does point us to its Divinity because 't is not reasonable to believe that the First Writen account the world had of Religion should be a Cheat that the First eminent Record of Religion should be a Lye and not only a Lye but the Worst of Lies and the most Pernicious and Destructive falshood for so it must needs be to impose a Law upon the world in Gods name without his Authority that ever was published amongst mankind 'T is not in the judgment of right Reason consisting with the Wisdom and Goodness of God to suffer the world to be Originally Cheated in point of Religion to suffer a publick open Counterfeit of his Name and Authority to the highest degree First to possess the world and take the Precedence of all truth to permit the Devil to publish a Systeme of Lies and erect a Monument of Falshood Before there was any written Record of Truth We must needs suppose Gods care of Men and the concern's of his own honour to engage him to the contrary and that God should First establish his own Truth to which mankind might still have a recourse and by which as a Standard all Delusions and False Pretensions might be Tried 'T were as one says well very absurd to think God should permit the Devil to set up a Chappel before he had built a Church If the Bible were originally composed by Impostors and be not a Divine Book 't will then undeniably follow that the most Primitive and Ancient account we have of Religion is connterfeit And that in the Earliest notices we have of God of the worlds Original Mans fall and the way of his Recovery for we have none so early as what the Bible gives us of any of these and of some of them no other the world is Deceived and Abused and that God suffer'd the Devil in the first place and before any thing was publiquely extant from him to contradict it in his name and with pretence of his Authority to abuse and deceive Mankind with a false and delusive account of all those things they are most concern'd to know and upon the right Knowledge of which their present and future happyness does unavoidably depend This very one consideration will prevail much upon every impartial judgment Who can believe the first Religion should be the worst when True Religion must needs be as old as the World And the Earliest notions of God the falsest when we must needs think it reasonable that God should reveal himself to the World from the beginning Or that the first book we sind writ should contain the Highest imposture in point of Religion and more dishonour God and abuse the World then any or all the Books written since 'T is a thing beyond all compass of credit That God should suffer false informations to be given in his own Name of himself and his own Revelations from the first beginning of the World for about 4043 years for about so long a time it was from that first intercourse between God and Man the Scripture gives us Historically an account of till the last Revelation of St. John And that this account should begin with the first book that the world had and be gradually carried on into such a complete Systeme as now we see it is in a Written way by several hands in several Ages for a thousand and six hundred years together for about so long a time it was from Moses his first Writing to St. Johns Closing the Bible Nor is it supposable that the vilest falshood for such is the Bible if it be not from God a Religion whereby if it be false God would be more dishonoured and men more deluded then by any that ever was yet extant should have this to say in its justisication That 't is of all others the most Ancient and has been longest lasting amongst Mankind The consideration therefore of this Book in the Time of its conveyance the Antiquity of it in respect of the matter it contains and the Antiquity of it self as a Book written long before all others and of so early a Date in the World does with great Evidence point us to its Divine Original and very strongly tends to perswade us that God himself was the Author of it Secondly The way and manner of this Books conveyance to us The Method of Gods thus Recording his pleasure has been such that we shall find we have all those reasonable inducements and in some respects more to credit it upon which we receive any Humane Authors and acquiesce in them as true And all such farther Evidence as we can well expect to insure us of the truth of a Book that pretends to come from God and be Divint And this will appear to be so if we consider first the Instruments God imploied in the writing of it and such humane Circumstances as attended their doing it And Secondly The Divine witness God himself has in the most eminent way given to this Book in its conveyance to ascertain us of the truth of it and of the sincerity of those that wrote it First If we consider the Pen-men of this Book those Amanuenses God made use of for the writing of it and such Circumstances as attended their doing it How unlikely a thing is it that they either did or could abuse the world in this matter if we reflect upon these several things First the unblemished Credit and Reputation of these Writers Secondly the several Qualifications and Qualities of them Thirdly their Interests as moral and reasonable men Fourthly their Number and that great distance of Time in which many of them wrote one from another For the first Nothing we know does more credit Ancient Authors then the good Report of those Ages wherein they lived transferred to posterity Not one of those Holy Pen-men God imploied in writing the Bible was that ever we find upon any good grounds tainted in Reputation or convicted of any sort of Impostor in their own or future ages but were men of acknowledged Integrity and Sanctity in those times wherein they lived and very many of them gave the highest Testimony to their integrity in becoming Martyrs in justification of what themselves writ For the Second the various Qualities and Conditions of these Writers seems much to secure us against so vile a design as this book must needs be composed with if it be not from God Some of them were Kings and men of the greatest quality before they writ and not very likely to be guilty of so much baseness and meanness to carry on such a work and also men of deepest Learning and Knowledge Others of them many of the Prophets and most of the
Moses could not humanâ—ly foresee That so many Prophets would ariâ—â—â—n so many after Ages to justifie explain and carry on what he at the first writ nor could Moses or those Prophets know any thing of the coming of Christ and the Apostles so exactly to fulfill the whole And yet all this and all things relating to the Bible have come as punctually to pass as if all those persons that writ the Bible had lived at one time had all talked together and perfectly agreed the whole business before one word of it was written Nay Moses is so explained and justified by the Prophets and both in such a way explained and fulfilled by Christ and the Apostles Promises and Prophecies are in such a manner made good fulfilled and interpreted as seems utterly beyond the reach of all humane skill and contrivement supposing all the Writers had lived at one time had all consulted together and with their utmost abilities laboured to bring it so to pass What Humane skill can we reasonably conceive could have contrived such a gradual fulfilling throughout the whole Bible as now we see of that promise That the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents head What Humane Artifice can we conceive could have contrived such a Prophetical Prayer as Gods perswading Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Sem with such a fulfilling of it as that after the World had been Canton'd in Ages then to come into Jew and Gentile from their posterity both Jews and Gentiles who were in the highest enmity each to other should incorporate into one faith and become one under the Gospel by an united subjection to one common Head and so in many others of the like Nature And indeed no man that is not bereft of his wits can Imagine that any company of Impostors could have been the Authors of such a projection as the saving men by Jesus Christ which is the main and grand design of the whole Bible or could have contrived such remote obscure promises of it at first and such gradual and stupendious fulfillings of those promises after 'T is not I say only highly improbable that such a number of men living in such distant Ages should agree to write such a Book but 't is unreasonable to Imagine that admitting they had so agreed yet that they could have produced such a book as the Bible or that a Book so consisting with it self could have been at such remote distances of time contrived by the cunningest Heads of any wicked Impostors whatsoever Nothing less then a Divine and Heavenly Wisdom could have guided so many hands as writ the Bible in so many Ages into such an admirable agreement and punctual correspondency with themselves 'T is not easie to find an agreement between men of the same sect and opinion in any one Age or to find any one man in his own writings if he write much exactly agreeing with himself But to see so many men in writing such a Book as the Bible so harmonizing together as there they do is of singular consideration Throughout the whole Book we find these Writers still proceeding and building forward till the Top-stone is layed without rejecting any thing all things compleated and fulfilled never any thing denied Contradicted or destroyed but we still see a rare use of every part relative to the whole and such a fabrick intirely reared without the least part Mis-placed or any cause seen to entertain a second thought or to Alter Of which no instance can be given in the promoting of any humane Science whatsoever The Harmony we find in this Holy Book is of great Remark upon these three accounts First 'T is a harmony that results from exceeding Different Styles and the greatest Variety of Matter 'T is not so many mens bare agreement together upon any few plain points but t is so many mens agreeing together who have writ Historically Prophetically Doctrinally with wonderful variation both for Matter and Manner of all the Sublimest notions the minds of men are capable of as well as of the plainest truths of things in Heaven in Earth in Hell of all sorts of things relating to God and Men and of the whole business of this World and the next Secondly 'T is a harmony resulting from an involved Correspondency of the parts one with another and of every part with the whole now we see it conjoyn d in such a way as could not be foreseen or contrived by any humane wisdom in the writing of any one distinct part There is in the toâ—um compositum of the Bible such a peculiar Oeconomy relating to the whole in the conjunction of all the parts and likewise such an united consent in all the parts when together relating to their conjunction in all the Doctrines Prophecies Promises Types Histories to promote the same thing and such a Dependency each upon other in order to it the whole in its connexion is so issued into one great and common end as must needs argue a further and greater design in producing the whole then what any Individual Men could possibly have at several distant Times in writing the paâ—ticular Parts Thirdly 'T is such a harmony as has been and still is dayly more and more discoâ—erable to us by the Accidents of Time And the products of Ages and Generations have shewed us much of it that lay hid and we knew not of before The more experience we have of this Book the more we find it at unity with it self and the more we search into it the deeper harmony still we discover Every Age proves a fresh Interpreter and the successive Revolutions of this whole world reveal to us more and more of its rare and admirable Concord and we come to find things that seemingly most differ'd in the highest and safest agreement Which when we consider by how many several Pens and at how many several and distant times this Book was handed down to us could not be the effect of any Humane Artifice nor is it a thing that any Writers by the strength of their own abilities could possibly in their own Times design or provide for Nor can we suppose it the effect of any other cause but an Infinite Comprehension and Foresight And that the Writers of this Book were in all times guided in what they wrote by the Supreme Wisdome of that one God who is constant to himself and the Same for ever This consideration of the Pen-men God made use of for the Writing of this book and those Humane circumstances that attended their doing it goes thus far That there is at least as much if not More Ground to believe this book upon that single account as there is to Receive any other Humane Authors we are most satisfied in Indeed as rational inducements to credit those men that wrote the Bible considering Who they were that wrote it and how and when and upon what Termes they wrote it as to credit any other Authors we least doubt
as his Minister to execute so many dreadful Judgments upon the Jews and therefore would establish him by those extraordinary Actings in the possession of the Roman Empire which with great difficulty and against much probability to the contrary he obtained and as Suetonâ—us sayes of him after he had obtained it wanted Personal Authority and Majesty to manage such a Dominion A clear instance concerning this whole matter God gave us at first in the Magicians opposition to Moses wherein he gave us to know that although Divine Truth might by Miracles be opposed yet the superiour Luster of his own Miracles should be so visible to all as perfectly to silence and vanquish the rest and both in Number Continuance and Quality as then it was the difference should be to every Eye obvious and apparent Thirdly The matter for the establishment of which Divine Miracles are ever wrought affords us ground sufficient to distinguish in this case 'T is always a doctrine leading us to that God of whom we have a notion imprinted in our own Nature revealing him further to us and instructing us in all those Holy Virtues and excellent ways of living that most correspond to our Natural light are most suitable to that natural Divinity we are born with and evidently tends to make us most happy here and conduct us to the highest reward hereafter Whatever miracles we shall at any time see wrought to justify a Contrary doctrine my own Reason will reject as a Temptation and assure me that in the one case a miracle is sent from God to Ascertaâ—n me and in the other the Devil is only inabled in the highest manner to Tempt and to Try me And these three ways in the case of miracles are we sufficiently secured against all the attempts that can be at any time made to seduce us that way And may hereby rest abundantly satisfied in the testimony of Divine Miracles given to Divine Truth by whatever ways the Devil shall be able to countenance and promote a Contrary Interest Now That the Scriptures have been attended with Miracles in their conveyance is not as before is proved by any denied And that those miracles have the advantage of all the foregoing circumstances is likewise very evident The Doctrine of Moses is the First bâ—rn of all others being the Religion that was from the Beginning God in the first place setled and consecrated That by a miraculous Power before any other Systeme of Religion was extant and gave it therein the Precedency of all false Prophets and Impostors and whatsoever Doctrines they should by that means oppose it withall And so the New Testament being the natural product of the old is by the miracles of Moses at the first and those of our Saviour and the Apostles after upon the validity of both which 't is established secured against all opposition that can that way be made against it to the end of the world Secondly The way and manner of Gods working those miracles by which the Scriptures are justified to us to be his Words has eminently distinguished them from all other operations of that kind So 't was in the times of Moses when the Devil by the Magicians went further that way then ever he did after How far did the miracles of Moses exceed His More miracles Greater miracles More Continued miracles Undeniable and Uncontrolable evidences of Gods Infinite and Almighty Power in a way far superiour to what they could bring about Under the Gospel the miracles have been such in the manner of their working as leaves no room to doubt of Gods intention to secure us from Heaven â—â—ereby of the Truth of our Saviour and his â—â—â—â—rine If we consider First the grand â—â—â—â—sion of them To fullfil the Old Testament and establish the New And this by Private men respecting the world without the least clothing of Humane Power or Authority Who can imagine less then that a Commission to Christ and the Apostles should be sealed from 〈◊〉 Heaven in extroardinary way to assure the World of their Authority to do this Secondly The admirable Nature of those miracles Raising dead persons curing all sorts of diseases commanding Winds and Seas Vanishing in a moment out of the sight of multitudes Thirdly Their Number being exceedingly Many done in all places and upon all occasions where they came Fourthly Their Visibility openly seen and acknowledged by all present by multitudes Fiftly Without the use of any Secondaâ—y means or the least shew of Diabolical enchantments And as one of the Ancients says Sine â—lla vi Carminum sine Herbarum aut Graminum sâ—ccis sine ulla aliqua observatione sollicita Sacrorum Libaminum Temporum c. All most frequent in Heathenish Sorceries and Enchantments Sixthly The Long and lasting continuance of them Not only during the times of Christ and the Apostles and one of them the Apostle John lived till Trajan's time which was above a hundred years from Christs birth but also for very many years after in the Christian Church What miraracles does the world pretend to that can compare themselves with these miracles upon all or any of these accounts No men noâ— Devils ever did such works nor in such a manner as these were What lamentable and pitifull things are those of Apollonius Tyanaeus Esculapius or any others compared with These And what a shameful and indeed Ridiculous Partiality does appear in Hierocles and Porphiry who designing thereby to incense the Empeâ—ours against the Christians who much justified themselves upon the power oâ— miracles and to bring them under persecution have indeavoured to draw a Paralel between the miracles of Christ and Apollonius We find by Eusebius that Hierocles in a Book that is since lost compared Apollonius and Christ the Evangelists who wrote our Saviours Story and Philostratus the writer of Apollonius his Life upon that account together and preferred Apollonius and Philostâ—atus before the other But with what an unreasonable Partiality is eaâ—y to be seen by any that wilâ— consult Eusebius his Answer to him One chieâ— miracle Philostratus tells us off was that Appollonius sitting at meat was served after wonderful manner with Men of Brass And another is That an Elme tree speak to him and Saluted him with many other such things which to every common understanding appear at first sight very capable of Deceit and Delusion The Sun is not in Lustre more Superior to the Dimmest Star then Christs miracles are to all Pretensions of that kind Nor were there ever any operations either of men or of Angels visible in this world that with any colour of Justice and Truth can all circumstances considered be put in ballance with those eminently miraculous actings of Christ and his Apostles Thirdly The Doctrine contained in the Scriptures which the miracles were wrought to confirme and to assure us of the sincerity of those that delivered them to us is most evidently from God most corresponding to our Natural obligations to him and
according to the Law of Moses which we cannot conceive after seventy years they could so exactly have done or would ever have attempted to have done it had not they had the Law with them while Esdras himself was yâ—tâ—n Babylon and when Esdras did come to Jerusalem we find in the 8th of Nehemiah the people were so far from wanting the Law or staying for any such Restoration or Re-penning of it by him as is pretended that they desired him only to read the Law openly to them which he immediately did as a thing they were then possessed of and which was notorious amongst them Fifthly 'T is no way probable that Esdras should so Re-pen the Bible because we find his own writings full of Caldee words as also the Prophecie of Daniel but all that part of the Bible written before the Captivity is in pure Hebrew and 't is no way conceiveable but that if he had Re-penn'd the whole he would have written it in the same way he wrote his own Books and according to the Idiome that was then in use amongst the Jews either wholly in Caldee or else with some mixture of Caldee and Hebrew together The whole of this Story does evidently appear to be a Romantick fable taken out of a Book sâ—ust with many vain and ridiculous follies and is contradicted by another Apecryphal Book of much better credit 〈◊〉 wee 'l depend upon such Evidence for in the second Book of the Maccabees we are there told that the Tabernacle and the Ark in the sides of which the Law we know was placed were sâ—cured by the Prophet Jeremie and hid in a Cave at Mount Nebo when Jerusalem and the Temple were burnt And if any such thing were though the Law be not particularly mentioned yet being always kept in the Ark â—â—s not to be doubted but Jeremie preserved it with the Ark and had an especial reference to the securing of it in what he then did This we affirm as a truth to which both Jews and Christians have assented that at the return of the people out of Babylon the care of Esdras about the Bible and that great Synagogue that was then according to Moses his first institution assembled in which were present Haggai Zacharie Malachy Nehemias and Zerubbabel was very eminent and great and to this day we derive singular advantages from it For first with great diligence they made an exact seperation between such Writings as were of Divine Inspiration dictated by the Holy Ghost and were to be a standing Rule to the Church in all Ages and all other Writings whatsoever whether written by true Prophets or false for even true Prophets and such as were most eminent might and without doubt many of them did write diverse things without any immediate assistance or direction from God and consequently which were nor of Divine Authority they collected all the sacred parts of the Old Testament together which during the Captivity lay dispersed in private hands no publick use being made of them Incorporated the whole into one intire Volumn an admirable work in the order we now have it which before was not possible to be for several Psalms several of the Prophecies and some other Books were written after the coming of the people into Babylon and it does no where appear that those parts written before were conjoyned in one intire Volumn more of them then the five Books of Moses the Original Copy whereof Moses himself delivered in a publick assembly to the Levites to be layed up in the sides of the Ark the peculiar Archive God had by his special command appointed for it the whole of the Old Testament so united they ranked under three Classes and divided into three parts which division was continued amongst the Jews till the times of our Saviour who in the 24th of St. Luke refers to it when he sayes All things ought to be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms Secondly Their care in securing the Original Text of the Scripture was eminently great and most highly is it to be applauded in adding points to the Hebrew Letters to preserve the Knowledge of the Tongue and facilitate the reading and Learning of it dividing the sacred Writings into Verses with many other things of that kind most probably first begun by them of which the Jewish Writers give us a large account The whole of their indeavours this way and of those amongst the Jews that succeeded them therein was called the Massora which God wonderfully blessed to preserve the purity of the Hebrew Text and to deliver the Old Testament safely and intirely over to us What a useful and most laborious enterprize this Massora was we may know by the description Buxtorffe gives of it in the second Chapter of his most excellent Commentarius Massorethicus Massora sayes he est Doctrina critica a priscis Hebraeorum sapientibus circa Textum Hebraeum Sacrae Scripturae ingeniosâ— inventa quâ— Versas Voces Literae ejus nâ—meratae omnisque ipsarum variet as notata suis locis cum singulorum versuum recitatione indicata est ut sic constans genuina ejus lectio conservetur ab omni mutatione aut corruptio e aeternum preservetur valide premuniatur The Massora is a critical Learning about the Hebrew Text of the Sacred Scripture ingeniosly invented by the Ancient wise men amongst the Jews in which the Verses words and Letters are all numbred and all their variations particularly noted and set down in their proper places with a recital of the particular Verses that so the constant and genuine reading of the Scripture may be preserved and for ever secured against all change or corruption And that Ezra and this great Synagogue were most probably the first Authors and Contrivers of the Massâ—ra however augmented by others in after Ages and not some learned Jews at Tiberias that long lived after ouâ— Saviour as some have supposed Buxtorffe in the Eleventh Chap. of the samebook hath largely and learnedly proved from the best and most Ancient Writers amongst the Jews and thus concludes upon the whole Haec communis est Hebraeorum sententia Massoram a viris Synagogae magnae prosectam esse This is the common opinion amongst the Jews that the Massora came from the men of the great Synagogue Thirdly That Ezra and that great Synagogue to render the sacred Text more intelligible and make the truth of some Historical Relations more evident did make some small additions and some verbal alterations in some places is greatly probable and it might easily be done but no Re-penning the Bible nor the least violation offered to the sacred Record nor to the credit of its Authority nor can the least Objection though many have indeavoured it be raised from hence to that purpose when so many Persons of an infallible Spirit were present in that Assembly and who were without doubt Divinely directed about what they did in that matter In
Moses I mean the true antient Berosus and not the latter Counterfeit of him sets down the Story of it in the very same way that Moses does Begins his History Ante Aquarum cladem Famosam quâ universus perut orbis And sayes There was only eight Persons saved Cyril in his first Book against Julian shews that Alexander Polybistor and Abidene under the feigned names of Saturn and Xyfuthrus have writ for the most part the same Story that Moses has done of the Flood and of the Ark and the Place of its Resting And in very many other antient Authors have we particular Narratives of it And 't is evident that many Poetical Fictions and Fabulous Stories that we find amongst the Antient Heathen-Writers had their derivations from thence So that to doubt about the Fact of what Moses has written in this particular were extreamly unreasonable For 't were to deny what is eminently witnessed unto by several Historians of several Countreys and to withstand the Stream of an Universal Tradition The Story of Building the Babylontan Tower is particularly set down by the same Alexander Polyhistor and Abidene as we find them quoted at large by Eusebius They tell us That Men would needs in despite of the Godds build up a Tower to the Sun in the place where Babylon now is And when they had built it very high the Godds overthrew it And that at that time began the diversity of Languages And 't is obvious to the commonest understanding That all that Fiction of the Poets about the Gyants warring against Heaven is but a corruption of this Story The Burning of Sodom is mentioned by many of the best credited Authors by Diodorus Saculus Strabo Tacitus Pliny and Solinus And 't were easie to produce the like Testimonies to the most eminent Passages that Moses has set down That the People of Israel conquered the Land of Canaan dispossest the Inhabitants and setled themselves in Palestine is a thing so notorious from the Effects that 't is capable of no denyal And we have a large account of many particulars of it in Procopius Eupolemus and other Authors who wrote of Joshua Samuel Saul David in whom according to the Prediction of Moses the Government of that People came into the Tribe of Judah and others mentioned in the Sacred Story That there was such a King as Solomon that built a Temple at Jerusalem Josephus in his first Book against Appion proves from the antient Chronicles of the Tyrians which sayes he they have kept with great diligence And therein mention is made of Solomons League with the King of Tyre and of his building the Temple at Jerusalem and the exact time of it A hundred forty three years and eight months before the building of Carthage The same account we have in Eupolemus Alexander Polyhistor Haecateus Dius a Phenician and many others who have written so largely about that Temple that as some have observed There was not a Vessel nor any Tool or Instrument in it which they have not particularly mentioned which exactness we find not in any Heathen Story in the Descriptions of any Temples of their own The Captivity of the Jews in Babylon Cyrus his obtaining the Persian Empire and his Conquest of Babylon is all punctually set down by prophane Writers Alexander Polyhistor writes an exact Story of Jeremiah's Prophesie and of the Captivity And Diocles and Berosus both give an account of the Jews deliverance by Cyrus and that they were Captives in Babylon 70 years And Alexander Polyhistor and Haecateus both write of Cyrus his re-building the Temple of Jerusalem Daniels Predictions about the four Monarchies and other things have been visibly fulfilled beyond all denyal Porphiry so raged heretofore at that Prophetical Instance of the Truth of the Bible that he seeks by all means to evade it spends his whole twelfth Book which he wrote against the Christians to that purpose and finds no other way at last to do it but by an absurd pretence That those Prophesies about the four Monarchies were written long after Daniels death by some other in the times of Antiochas Which is sufficiently confuted Not only by the credible relation we have in History that Daniels Prophesie was shewed by Iaddus the High-Priest of the Jews to Alexander who lived many years before Antiochus when he was marching toward Jerusalem with an intention to destroy it who finding himself so particularly in that Prophesie prophesied of spared the City thereupon But because the 70 Interpreteâ—â— who tranâ—tated the Old Testament for Ptolomy about a hundred years before Antiochus tranâ—â—â—ated the Book of Daniel which was then extant and part of the Bible After the Captivity t is clear from all Story that the Jews that returned out of Babylon continued under a National establishment though not under a succession of Kingly Government from the Posterity of David for God had declared by Jeremiah that none of the Seed of Jeconaih should any more sit upon the Throne of David had Sovereign Jurisdiction among them which the ten Tribes had wholly lost and long before were totally deprived of Nay were still govern'd by some of themselves till the Romans imposed Herod and Idumaean upon them in whose time our Saviour was born So that the Scepter did not depart from Judah nor a Law-giver from between his feet till Shiloe came For the Matters of Fact relating to the New Testament 'T is not possible for any reasonable Man to dis-believe there was such a Man in Fact as our Saviour and such Men as the Apostles that lived in those times that erected the Christian Religion because of the succession of it in multitudes of Professors ever since and the written Account we have of it Not only from Christians themselves but from Jews and Heathens in those times Tacitus and Suetonius both make mention of Christ Tacitus in the 15th Book of his Annals speaking of Nero's cruelty to the Christians sayes The Author of them was one Christ who in the Reign of Tiberius was punished with death by Pontius Pilate Procurator of Judea Josephus speaks of him Pliny Suetonius and others write of the Christians extant in those times of their Principles their manner of Living and of their Sufferings Suetonius sayes in the Life of Nero Christianos genus hominum maleficae superstitionis suppliciis affixit That he pumshed the Christians a sort of men of a magical superstition Many Historical Passages in the Gospels are attested to us by Heathen and Jewish-Writters though 't is most certain the Roman Historians of that Age knew not much of the Affairs of Palestine as appears by what they have writ concerning the Jews especially Tacitus who appears very grosly ignorant both about them and their Religion The Star that appeared at our Saviours Birth is mentioned by Pliny lib. 2. chap. 5. And by the Philosopher Chalcidius largely in his Comment upon Platoes Timaeas Herodi killing the Children in Bethlehem by Macrobius The Eclipse of
the greatest ruine to mankind deluding them with false informations about their chiefest concerns should be able to produce in their justification the most eminent Miracles and all the greatst Evidences that rationally can be expected to ascertain the World in the publication of the highest supernatural Truths In a word who can beleive a Book so circumstanced as we find the Bible to be should be composed by the worst Instruments and with the worst of designs No such thing can ever be credited while we suppose there is a God ruling above and men live in the exercise of Reason below 'T were most absurd to suppose that any Book falsely pretending to Gods Name and Authority designing his dishonour and mans destruction should be capable of such a proof as has been brought in defence of the Bible And yet so must the Tables be turn'd the whole proof must so be inverted of all that hath been said a contrary application must of necessity be made if this Book comes not from God and be not in truth what it self openly claims to be The Divine Authority of this Book we call the Bible being thus upon the forementioned grounds established I come in the last place to a Consideration of such Doubts and Objections as are usually made about it All the Material Difficulties that can be proposed will be reduceable to these four Questions I. First How could men come to be assured in those times wherein the several parts of the Bible were first writen that they were written by an Infallible Spirit and upon sure grounds distinguish them from all other Writings II. Secondly How come we certainly to know the true Compass and Extent of Holy Writ How can we know that we have now contained in our Bibles all that was writen by a Divine Inspiration and intended as a standing Rule to the Church and no more That is How can we be now safely assured about the Canon of the Scripture And be able upon good grounds to say What is Canonical and what is Not III. Thirdly How can we that have not the Originals of the Scripture not the Autographa's of those that wrote it but onely the Copies of them and most but the Translations of those Copies rest assured we have God's Mind as it was first delivered IV. Fourthly How can we believe this Book say some to be from God when we find contained in it divers Contradictions several strange and incredible Stories and other things greatly lyable to exception In answering the first Question This ought to be previously considered That there were Advantages peculiar to the belief of those who first received the Bible or any parts of it and lived in those Times wherein it was first delivered that we have not And we have likewise some Advantages and those very considerable to our belief which they had not They conversed with the Pen-Men themselves the Names of many of whom are to us wholly unknown the Holy Ghost not judging it necessary to record them foreseeing the Scriptures would descend to us upon other sufficient Evidence They were able to judge of their personal Integrity and the account they gave of their Divine Commission were Eye-witnesses of the Miracles saw the Original Writings And in the Apostles times many knew some of their Hands These we have not but we see the progress and success of this Book which they saw not We see this Book translated into all Languages whole Nations converted by it The Gospel spread all the World over and the fulfilling of many Predictions since which they could not then be Witnesses of With many other great Effects of it We see the Whole conjoyn'd and the excellent Harmony of it and the relation each part has to compleat the Design of the Whole Are in divers respects upon different terms of judging now upon the Whole from what men were in judging at first upon any particular parts But to come to a direct Answer to this Question There could be but two wayes to ascertain men in their reception of any part of the Bible when it first became publick First By some outward visible Justification of the Persons imployed in that Service to assure us that they were sent and commissionated from God Or secondly From the Matter and the Nature of such Writings themselves And herein a due consideration of those Times and Seasons in which the several parts of the Bible were written and the then present state of things and the order of writing it will much inform us Moses who layed the first and great Foundation of the whole Fabrick in the five Books that he wrote He had a justification Personal beyond all question His Commission and Authority to do what he did was sufficiently evident to all that conversed with him There was all that could be expected to assure those that then lived that God had imployed him For God admitted him openly to a personal converse with himself We read in the nineteenth of Exodus that the Lord said unto Moses Loe I come to thee in a thick Cloud that the People may bear when I speak with thee and believe thee for ever c. He impowered him upon many occasions to work the greatest Miracles that since the World had a being had ever been wrought and openly to shame and out-doe all his Opposers and all Pretenders that way And whensoever there was a doubt made about this Divine Authority or any contest with him upon that account as in the case of Korah and at other times God plainly and openly from Heaven in the sight of all the People decided the Matter to assure them and all Generations to come that Moses was no Impostor but acted by a Divine Commission in what he then did And indeed It being the first time that God revealed himself to the World in a written way and published those Laws which were to be a Standard to all that succeeded and the great Corner-stone of all that Revelation that he would at any time after make to Man-kind 't was but necessary it should be fixed and established upon certain and unquestionable grounds So that such who lived in Moses his time could have no good reason at all to doubt in the least of his sincerity for all was done that could be done to put that matter out of question And God visibly shewed himself as we find in the four and twentieth of Exodus and his own glory amongst them For 't is said They saw the Lord God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a Saphire-stone and as it were the Body of Heaven in its clearness Nor could there be any doubt raised Whether the Laws and Precepts of Moses were rightly recorded and as he intended they should For before his Death he himself by God's special command in a publick Assembly delivered over his Five Books to the Levites to be layed up in the sides of the Ark. After Moses his time
we have now contained in our Bables all that was written by a Divine Inspiration and intended as a Rule to the Church and no more That is How can we now be safely assured about the Canon of the Scripture and be able upon good grounds to say what is Canonical and what is not 'T is too apparent a Truth that nothing by the power of its own worth and excellency has ever been able to scape contempt and reproach from the unruly wills and debauched minds of corrupt and unreasonable men The Bible has met with its share in this kind Some upon Fanatical Pretences have despised and rejected the Whole Others have mangled and severed it as themselves thought good receiving some part only as Divine and rejecting the rest as they pleased Of this Iraeneus Tertullian Epiphanius St. Austin and many of the Christian Writers have given us a large account The Manichees rejected the whole body of the Old Testament as coming from an Evil God The Ptolemaites as Epiphamus tells us rejected all the Books of Moses The Gnosticks with some other Hereticks rejected the whole Book of Psalms Cerdon and after him Marcion rejected all the Gospels but that of St. Luke the Acts of the Apostles and divers other parts of the New Testament as we find by Tertullian The Valentimans rejected all the Gospels but that of St. John as we see in Irenaeus Others rejected all that St. John wrote The Ebionites received no Gospel but that of St. Matthen and rejected in gross all the Epistles of St. Paul In a word There is not one Part of the Bible from the first to the last that has scap'd the reprobation of some bad Men. But all such attempts were soon blown away expired in the Birth bore about them their own shame and reproach made no considerable battery upon the Truth in any Age Nor did they reach further than the vitiated Minds and corrupt Breasts of such Profligate Hereticks as were the first Authors of them In answering to this Question How we come to be well assured about the Canon of the Bible and that those Books now received by the Church of England and other Protestant Churches as such are all Canonical and no other Two things only will occur that are of any seeming moment In the due consideration of which all will be said that is needful about this Matter First How we come to reject out of our Canon those Books commonly called Apocryphal which were written at least all but one of them during the times of the Old Testament And secondly Upon what grounds we now receive some particular parts of the New Testament which have sometimes layen under question If we mistake in the first we have less in our Bibles than we ought If in the latter we have much more than we should About the first concerning the several parts of the Old Testament there is amongst Christians themselves a present Disagreement But concerning the other the whole Christian World is at this day of the same opinion For the First That there is good Reason to reject those Books commonly called the Apocrypha that they were not written by any Divine Inspiration nor sent us from GOD as any part of those Supream Laws by which he intended to rule and judge the World and so ought not to be reckoned within the Canon will be made very evident to any reasonable Judge upon these Considerations following First After the time of Esdras and the erection of the second Temple 't is universally agreed by all the most Antient Jews and Christians that the Jews had no Prophet amongst them Nor did GOD raise up any Man with an Extraordinary Spirit from the time of Malachi who is agreed to be the last Prophet till John the Baptist Which was for the space of four hundred and odde years Now 't is sufficiently evident that these Apocryphal Books were all written after the time of Malachi and so can be of no extraordinary Mission And if any of them had been written before and had been extant in Ezra's time which they were not it had been an unanswerable Reason for their Rejection now Because they were not received then For 't is well known that none of these Books now in question were by Him incorporated with the rest of the Bible nor were within the Canon at that time setled That the Jews had no Prophets by whom all parts of the Old-Testament were written For the Church is built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles And the whole of the Old-Testament is called Prophecy nor any Men of an Extraordinary Spirit amongst them after the Captivity both Jews and Christians generally agree Josephus is express in it in his first Book against Appion he tells us that from the time of Artaxerxes though certain Books had been written yet they deserved not the same Credit and Belief that the Sacred Scriptures did because there was no succession of Prophers amongst them Saint Austine in the 45th Chapter of his 18th Book De Civitate Dei sheweth at large that the Jews had no Prophecy after Ezra's time And the same Eusebius affirmeth in his Demonstrationes Evangelicae Post Zachartam Malachiam non fuâ—sse amplius apud Judaeos Prophetam Et a reditu ex Captivitate ad tempora Servatoris nullum babucrint Judaei sacrum Volumen The Jews had no Prophets after Zachary and Malachi nor any Sacred Writings after the Captivity till our Saviour's time And some of these very Books tell us as much themselves For in the first Book of the Maccabees Chap. 9. 't is there said That there was then great Tribulation in Israel such as had not been since the dayes that there had been no Prophet in Israel relating to Ezra's time And indeed it appears very plain from the Scripture it self that there were no Divine Writings published between the Prophecy of Malachi and the writing of the Gospels For the Evangelists take things up just where he left them and begin the Gospel from the end of Malachi's Prophecy For he ending his Prophecy at John the Baptist under the Type and Title of Elias and the Evangelists beginning the Gospel with Him for St. Mark expresly declares the ending of that Prophecy to be the beginning of the Gospel There is a visible combination from thence from that period of Prophesie of the Old and New Testament together Secondly All the Writers of the Old Testament were Prophets to the House of Israel and to the Church of the Jews and their Writings and Prophesies were directed chiefly to them And so they were all writ except some Passages in Daniel and Ezra that were written in the Chaldee Dialect to which the Jews had in their Captivity been much accustomed in their own Native Language the Language of Canaan which was the Hebrew But these Books were confessedly most of them first written in Greek and could be of no use at all to the Jews at Jerusalem and
considered in order to the satisfaction of such an enquiry First the Internal Cause of it And secondly the External Means by which it hath been brought about The Internal Cause of it hath layn in two things First An Insussiciency in our Natural Abilities since the Fall to ascertain us fully about Divine things and to give a satisfying answer to all those enquiries we naturally make about them Secondly the general ill improvement the world has made of those abilites it had and the universal Declension and Apostacy of mankind from that knowledg they might have arrived at For the first Though the Being of God and the existence of a Supreme Power be witnessed to by every mans Reason and every man be born with a relation to somewhat Above him and there be many Maximes of Natural Divinty connate to the true exercise of our rational faculties yet there be two things can never be attained by any Natural search First A certain knowledg What God is And Secondly a certain knowledg How he is to be Served Neither a Satisfying account of the Nature of his Being nor of a Worship acceptable to him is to be compassed without Revelation About these two things when men have had nothing told them from Heaven to fix them their Opinions have been as various as their Inventions The grosser part of the world God being onely an Intellectual Object whom they could not see generally fell to conceive of him by what they did see Cicero himself confessing that when we come to consider Qualis sit Deorum Natura Nihil est dificilius quam a consuctudine oculorum aciem mentis abducere Lib. 2. de Nat. Dear And the more Refined part lost themselves in a Wilderness of Abstracted Speculations about what they could never distinctly comprehend For the Second 'T is plain a great part of the Heathen Idolatry arose not only from their Mistakes in what they could not know but from a corrupt defection from what they might know Those Notices their own natural abilities gave them of God thwarting their Sensual Inclinations they delighted not to retain such a knowledg of God in their minds but willingly turned aside to Delusion left the guide of their Reason and chose the conduct of Appetite The Stupendious folly of their Religions is as a Thousand witnesses to this Truth That they lived not only below the true Knowledg of the one God but farr beneath the exercise of Right Reason For though I am apt to believe that a Supernatural knowledg does much instruct us in the true extent of what is meerly Natural and does much inkindle our natural Light and we see many things now to be attainable by Nature which the world so farr as I can discerne never found out without Revelation Yet 't is not credible that a Rational Being without some way extinguishing the dictates of his own faculty should make a God of that which he himself knew to be but a Perishing Creature or should think to please a being of such perfections as every mans Reason must needs ascribe to God by debasing himself before the Meanest parts of the World Secondly If we consider the External means by which these Internal Causes have operated and how all that Rubbish of Pagan Theology hath been visibly induced to defile and cumber the world from five things chiefly we may derive it First From a corrupt Tradition of the Worlds first original and the History of the Creation and the Flood and many passages both before and after the Flood which Noah and his family first conveyed down to the world in its Repeopling and the Jews from Moses afterward inform'd them off This appears to have been a great rise to many of the Heathen Superstions and Vanities and most especially amongst the Phaenicians much of whose Religion seems to be a plain corruption of those original Truths and an apparent Mythology upon the True History of things before and after the Flood as appears by Diodorus Sicubus and more anciently by their own famous Antiquary Sanconiathon in the Version of Philo Biblius The occasion of which corruption in the Tradition of those things was probably the Confusion of Tongues at first the great increase of Barbarisme after the proud desire every Nation had to apply all Traditional Stories of famous persons to some of themselves with many other Reasons which Scaliger Bochart and other Learned men give for it Secondly From the Fictions of the Poets who 't is clear were the first beginners of all the Graecian Learning and were therefore anciently called in Graece 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Teachers and as Strabo says and I thinks upon very good grounds were also the first beginners of all the ancientest Learning every where All other Speech whether Historical or Rhetorical being but the progeny of Poetry the Ancients knowing no other artificial or set form of speech but what was in Verse and therefore as the same Author saies Poetry was anciently called Prima quaedam Philosophia These fill'd the World with innumerable Fables Mythologized upon every thing and did greatly promote their Theological Vanities and the Corruption of all true Story Thirdly From the wild Speculations and multiplied Theories of the Philosophers of whom there were some hundreds of Sects which served greatly to Puzzle and Mis-lead men There being as Cicero saies no Absurdity but had some Philosopher for its Patron Fourthly From their Oracles by which the world lay subjected to all Diabolical delusions And fifthly from their corrupt Legislators such as Numa in Rome and others who finding the World Sequacious in point of Religion and Mankind apt to adore every fiction imposed upon their belief whatever they thought most conducing to their own Politick Ends. Nor has the World without Revelation been free from defects in its Morals though Men attained far therein and their Morality much outwent their Divinity Cicero wrought with much better success de Officiis then he he did de Nat. Deorum yet the Bible has greatly improved the world herein Let any man extract the most exact Scheme he can of Morality out of the best Philosophers and the acutest Moralists and compare it with the Doctrine the Bible proposeth to us about those things and the defects of it will be visible Amiraldus observes in his Treatise of Religions That scarce can there be found any Common-Wealth amongst those which have been esteemed the best policyed in which some Grand and Signal Vice has not been excused or permitted or even sometimes recommended by publick Laws Plato makes a Community of Women one of the fundamental Constitutions of his Republick Socrates and Cato I think are agreed to be two as famous Moralists as ever were in Graece or in Rome Cato the great exemplar for Virtue and Justice amongst the Romans and Socrates the Phoenix of Graece for Virtue and Piety of whom Xenophon gives this admirable account in his Book De Socratis memorabilibus dictis Nemo autem unquam Socratem
implum qâ—iddam irreligiosum aut facere vidit aut dicere audivit No man ever heard Socrate speak or ever saw him do a wicked and irreligious thing that is according to the conceptions they then had of those things Himself the first Author of Ethicks and the first that contemned the fruitless Speculations of the Philosophers about other things and reduced Men to the Doctrines of Morality So sayes Laertius of him Animadvertens autem naturalis speculationis fructum nullum esse eamque ad officia vitae nihil esse necessariam invenit primus Ethicen deque illa in Officijs in Publico quotidie Philosophans ea potius inquirenda hortabatur quae mores instituerent quorum usus domi esses necessarius Yet these two famous Vertuoso's were no better principled in Morality but that they could part with their Wives unto others for their own advantage And therefore Tertullian in his Apology cries out in derision of them O famous example of a Graecians Wisdom and Roman Severity A Philosopher and a Censor make a shameful Trade of their Wives Chastity Aristotle and Cicero both commend Revenge as a Laudable part of Magnanimity Self-murder in many cases was generally allowed off by the best of their Casuists One thing of great worth in it self and of most general use amongst Mankind we are upon the matter wholly obliged to Divine Revelation for That excellent Virtue of Humility has not a footstep to be found amongst them nor is there a word of true Solf-denial in their best Ethicks Nay the contrary Vice had a share with their Virtues Pride and Self-esteem was a disease Epidemical amongst them and seems wholly incurable by any notions they had Some arrived to that impudence to compare themselves with nay prefer themselves before their own gods 'T was either a horrible folly to Deifie what they Postponed to their own Self-estimation or else 't was a stupendious effect of their Pride to prefer themselves before the gods they Worshipped Never any man amongst them proposed the Honour of their own Gods as the chief end of their Actions nor so much as dreamt of any such thing 'T is Evident the best of them in their best Actions reflected still back to themselves and determinated there designed to set up a Pillar to exalt their own fame reputation to bring home a large Revenue of Glory and esteem to their own names especially before the Gospel was extant from the light of which 't is probable even the Heathen Philosophers themselves did in many things rectifie their Morals in after times Nor is it unworthy our notice upon how much safer and surer foundations the power of Princes and Magistrates is established by the Doctrine of the Scriptures then what we find it was by any other Laws With what positive indispensable strictness is mens subjection to Authority commanded Not the least allowance for any Opposition to be made by private men against their Superiours The worst Princes have a just claim to our submission when we cannot actually obey we are positively obliged quietly to suffer We find the World governed by much looser Principles amongst the best of the Heathen and Authority exercised upon much unsafer terms 'T was ordinary with them to rebel against Authority if they thought it not well exercised and to lay violent hands upon such as they had a mind to call tyrants and invaders of the Peoples liberties Nothing more frequent in their Writings then the highest Encomiums of those that murdered and assassinated men in highest Authority And nothing more common in their Cities then the Statues of such to perpetuate their Memory What superlative praises of those that slew the Tyrants of Thebes are transferred to posterity Nay that odious and detestable murder of Julius Caesar is so justified and applauded by Cicero himself as if Brutus and his Complices had been sent from the Gods to do it and yet in truth scarce did the Sun ever afford its light to a viler Action and the Sequel of it sufficiently testified Gods high displeasure with such a Barbarous Assassination for the people of Rome in general exchanged their Condition from better to much worse and by the absoluteness and severity of three or four sharp Masters felt an oppression far beyond even the most popular complaints of that kind against Caesar And for the Murderers themselves it fared much with them as it did with the accusers of Socrates Every one of them came to an untimely and remarkable End And some of them as the antients have been curious to observe slew themselves with the very same Swords wherewith they had assaulted him and became their own Executioners with those individual weapons by which they effected their malice against his noble person The Laws of the Gospel greatly heighten the attainments of the World in these things All revenge amongst private persons is there wholly exploded much more against such as are clothed with authority The Gospel bids us Pray for them that persecute us and despightfully use us and subject our selves to Authority not only for fear and out of Interest but also for Conscience sake And this Doctrine the Apostles themselves made good in their own Practice while they lived under that Monster Nero the worst of Emperours and the vilest of Men. The whole of these things point us to the reasonable expectation of that we are in quest of which is some supernatural Revelation All men have turned Banquerupts upon those first natural stores God intrusted them with 'T is necessary to set up anew upon the stock of Revelation Nothing can be more pregnantly urged to shew the necessity of it then that the best and most knowing persons of the World who have ransacked all the corners of Nature and seem to have set a Copy for succeeding Ages to write after in most Humane attainments have been so far from discovering the certain tracks to an Eternal happiness that they were never yet able to frame such a Religion as could reasonably satisfie others or convince the wisest of themselves or much less upon any good ground be supposed to find any acceptance with the true God In what strange mists of Religious Ignorance and folly did those knowing Ages of the world breath out themselves and expire making the meanest Creatures their Gods and ascribing the vilest qualities of the worst men to their Deities Loosing themselves in a wilderness of vain Worship to She Gods Wicked Gods Feigned Gods Senseless Gods Many Gods How do these things point us to the Necessity of the Bible to put an end to the foolish Fancies and Inventions of Men that what man since the fall could not find out or had lost the knowledg of God might acquaint him with and at once discover to him all those admirable Topicks of Divine Knowledge which the Scriptures contain and give him a clear and distinct account how the World came first to be made and of those