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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45356	A discourse of the excellency of Christianity	Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703?	1671 (1671)	Wing H461; ESTC R25404	37,770	96

Wonders by the help of Apostate Spirits which if it were so is a very pregnant Testimony that Jesus performed his Miracles by the Divine Power and Approbation for otherwise his Fraud would soon have been detected by that great Council 4. That there are prestigious and Satanical Miracles is an Evidence that there are likewise True and Divine as in Nature the being of Worse argues the existence of Better Sophisms and Falshood the reality of Truth and the operations of Second Causes lead us to the knowledge and being of a First wherefore if it be granted that evil and lapsed Genii can work Miracles it is apparent that the first and best Cause of all things may and does produce Effects of a Divine Power and Virtue and that the Miracles of the blessed Jesus were such appears partly from the Holiness and Purity of his Life and Manners in all parts of them blameless and irreprehensible and partly from the Design and Intention of his Miracles namely to confirm and give credit to that sublime and heavenly Doctrin he brought into the World whose End was to correct and reform the Lives of men and disseminate the blessed Life and Nature of God upon Earth which Considerations are sufficient to beget a firm and undoubted Perswasion that the immaculate Soul of Jesus was extraordinarily assisted and acted by a Divine Power and Efficacy which enabled him to perform those stupendious Operations that are recorded in the Gospels 3. We have reason to believe that there was a timely History of the Life and Transactions of Jesus compiled For we can no ways doubt but that the Disciples of our blessed Lord bearing so tender and dear a Love to their Saviour and being so fully convinced and satisfied in their Minds that he was the promised Messias who should regenerate and renew the World did compose and draw up an Abstract or Compendium of his Life And if we consider likewise how much it would conduce to the carrying on the Design they were setting on foot in the World that all men should believe in the Holy Jesus and imitate his immaculate and faultless Example we cannot readily believe that they were so stupid as to neglect such an effectual Instrument for the promoting their purpose or so uncharitable as to envy Mankind so great a Good 4. That the Histories of the Gospel were compiled by those whose Names they bear in the forefront And for this we have no greater Reason to doubt than we have to question whether the Pentateuch or five first Books of the Bible were written by Moses or whether those Writings which bear the Names of Cicero and Virgil as their Authors were ever composed by them Suppose now we would know who was the Author of some very antient Writing to prove this one Testimony must be taken from those who were contemporary with the Author or at least very little distant from him and from the perpetual Consent of wise and learned men and in this the sacred Volumes have infinitely the advantage above any other Writing whatever Tertullian affirms that the Archetypal Copies written with the Apostles own hands were extant in several Churches in his time Age jam qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in negotio salutis tuae percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesident apud quas ipsae Authenticae Literae corum recitantur And is it any more incredible that the very Autographa of the Apostler should be seen in Tertullian's time than that Cicero's hand should be shown in Quintilian's or Virgil's in Gellius his age But beside that we have the concurrent Testimony of Justin Martyr Irenaeus and Clemens Alexandrinus all of which were the very next to the Apostolical Age we never find any Controversie moved either by Jews or Pagans whether those Writings were theirs whose Names they bear Julian in Cyril acknowledges that the Epistles of Peter and Paul the Gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke are the very Writings of those Persons with whose Names they are adorned Add to this further that amidst the early Differences and Dissensions amongst Christians we never find any sober and grave Person questioning this Truth Indeed we read of the Ebionites a sort of Judaizing Christians who rejected the Epistles of St. Paul but yet they denied not that he was the Author of them but refused them because they thought St. Paul an Undervaluer of and Apostate from the Law of Moses But suppose the Author of any of the Books of the New Testament be to us unknown as it is of the Epistle to the Hebrews yet ought it not to be of any less Credit and Authority with us for either the Doctrin or History contained in it because the Matter and Substance of the Book is more to be regarded than the Name of the Author and therefore because for example we find nothing in the Epistle to the Hebrews which may rationally invalidate our Belief of the things contained in it and over and above have sufficient evidence that it was never repudiated by the Christians who succeeded the Apostles we deservedly receive it as Canonical Scripture 5. That we have all imaginable Reason to ground our Faith upon those Histories of the Gospel delivered to us And this appears 1. Because 't is not likely those who wrote them should be deceived 2. Neither is it probable they would deceive others There is no likelihood they should be deceived because they were either Eye-witnesses of the things they delivered to Posterity or else wrote them from the mouths of those who were Spectators of them and we never find a Miracle recorded which Christ did alone without the Company of two or three of his Disciples When he was transfigured he took with him Peter James and John when he raised the Ruler of the Synagogues Daughter he carried the same three with him Matthew was one of them who perpetually accompanied our blessed Lord and saw the greatest part of those things which he wrote Mark it is thought was an Associate of St. Peter and wrote his Gospel from his mouth And Luke beside that he was one of those who travelled about with St. Paul who had his Commission and Revelation from Heaven he also in his Dedicatory Preface to his Gospel professes himself to have had perfect Understanding of all things from the very first as they were delivered to him from those who were Eye-witnesses of them St. John was the beloved Disciple and always followed the Lord Christ where-ever he went and setting aside the Metaphysical Sermons recorded in his Gospel he relates very few miracles or new things but what are confirmed by the Testimony of some one of the other three As for that notable Miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead after four days burial omitted by all the rest it is capable of this account St. John lived long after all the rest of the Apostles and Evangelists even to the

A DISCOURSE OF THE EXCELLENCY OF Christianity I. THESS v. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in St. Pauls Church-yard 1671. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER READER THese Papers having lain by me for some years in scattered Parcels I was at last perswaded to unite in this small Discourse the Subject is great and glorious viz. To set forth Christianity in all its native Beauty and Lustre which has been too much sullied by the Atheistically given for whilst the speculative Infidel soars aloft and thinks to dispute God out of the World and laughs at Religion by Pretences and Shews of Reason though indeed he declares the greatest and vilest Folly the Practical Atheist sits beneath in a Crowd of Lusts and Passions Profits and Interests and though he believe there is a God and such a thing as Religion yet by reason of that firm bold Sin and the Devil have upon his mind he acts in Repugnancy to his Faith and frames wrong notions of God and Religion and if he may sleep securely in those sins he most delights in he is well contented and at ease And to reduce both these sorts of Persons to a sober and fixed Love of Religion and to the Prosecution of whatever is virtuous and excellent that Christianity might not be an idle and fruitless Notion but an inward Principle of Life daily perfecting the Souls of Men till it bring them to their highest and most complete Happiness is the Aim and only Design of this present Discourse A DISCOURSE OF THE EXCELLENCY OF Christianity 1. REligion in its usual and obvious sense is a Devoting ourselves to the Worship and Service of the Deity For God when he first made Man wrote this Truth on his heart That he was a Creature and beholden to something without him for his Life and Being and therefore ought to worship and adore God as his only Happiness and by whose ever-present Power he is as it were daily created anew and kept and preserved in Being And indeed there is no man who searches into the Perfections of Human Nature that can find any Principle or Power in Man of conserving and maintaining his own Existence wherefore his Existence being drawn through all the parts of time which have no Connexion or Dependence one upon another by some other more perfect Essence he must necessarily acknowledge that to be self-existent and sufficient and consequently adore it as the Author and Conservator of his present and particular Subsistence 2. Hence it is that Religion is not a thing which is merely instilled into us by Instruction and Education For let us be never so impiously diligent in rasing the venerable Name of the Deity out of his Temple and blotting his Inscription out of our Souls 't is manifest to all that we can never totally rid our Minds of the Apprehensions and Fears of a supreme Numen And that some men have so far debauched their Minds and stifled the Sentiments of Reason that they can swallow down the grossest Impieties as Sacriledge Rebellion Murder and Adultery without the least Regret proves no more that Religion is not a Principle of Nature than it doth of the Non-existence of the Sun that some men wilfully live in Darkness and shut up themselves that they may not see his Beams for 't is evident that such Persons have put themselves into a preternatural State and forced their Minds and Reasons to a Constitution far different from the Universal Nature or Reason of Mankind Nor can it be eluded by fancying Religion to be a piece of State-Policy invented only to keep People in awe and for the better cementing Governments together and so derived from one Generation to another by the Custom and Example of their Progenitors For if there were no such Faculty inherent in us and contemporary with our very Beings which had a Natural Propensity and Inclination to a Religious Veneration and Worship it could not be but that in time Nature would return and cast off whatever is contrary to it As a Spring has always a Conatus to unbend it self and if at any time the Impediment be removed will infallibly reduce itself to its proper state So our Faculties though they may be long distorted and forced out of their due Position yet they have still an Endeavour to free themselves and cast off that uneasie Load which constrains and oppresses them and will undoubtedly upon any due occasion offered return to their first and true state And if there were no such Being as God the wiser Ages of the World would soon discover the Falshood and Imposture and chalk out a fair Way and Method for the Natures of men to recover from that Error and Prejudice they lay under and by their own genuine Effort and Strength reassert themselves into their ancient Liberty But besides this the Peace and Tranquillity of Kingdoms and States Politick might sufficiently be conserved without the invention of Religion by severe Laws and Penalties For although there were no immaterial Being in the World yet every Person being so well satisfied with himself and contented with the exercise of those Faculties he finds in himself no man would seek his own Ruine and Torment and therefore there would be little or no need of instilling into the minds of men such a Notion as Religion 3. In the first Times and Ages of the World the Law of Nature which God hath equally implanted in all men and by which I mean nothing but Reason or that Power in man which teaches him to distinguish and put a difference between Good and Evil Beauty and Deformity Purity and Impurity was the only Rule and Guide to direct them and by the help of this they knew God and served him For God being in himself an infinite Rectitude and Perfection delineated himself and copied out his own Nature in all moral Agents so far as they were capable of receiving it And herein God left not himself without witness in that all Mankind had Means and Helps sufficient to come to the knowledge of a Deity by an inspection into the Book of Nature wherein God has displaid himself in plain and legible Characters so that they were wholly without excuse For if the Law written in their hearts and discriminating between Good and Evil together with the obvious Reflections from the Natures and Proprieties of things had not been enough to demonstrate and point out the Existence of a God men could not have been accountable nor rendred obnoxious to Punishment But although this Law sealed on the Tables of mens Hearts were sufficient to teach them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which might be known of God if they would have given heed to it yet in process of time it so came to pass that through the Iniquity and Perversness of mens minds whereby they gave themselves wholly up to their own Lusts and Passions this Light of Nature became dull faint and obscure and men