the World Thales Miletius the founder of the Ionick School who was Antiquissimus Sapientum in Graece and the first Author amongst them of that Science they afterwards called Natural Philosophy and came nearest to the Story of Moses he derived all things from Water Rerum omnium principium dixit esse Aquam ex Aqua namque omnia existere in Aquam resolvi omnia Following therein Homer the great Prophet of Graece whose Books were indeed the great Pagan-Bible and from whom not only most of the Gracian Religion but most of all the Heethen Theology was after derived for he makes the Sea the common Parent of all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Occanum rerum genuit qui cuncta parentem Year of the Gods themselves for he derives their Pedigree no higher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oceanumque DeuÌ„m patrem Tethymque parentem Anaximander his Successor he thought the World came from no one particular thing but that all things had their proper and singular beginnings which he held to be Infinite and that Infinite Worlds were thereby begotten all which had their successive Original Continuance and End Anaximenes he thought all things came from Air Ex Aere omnia fieri in hunc desinere omnia Heraclitus ascribed all to Fire thought all things came first from Fire and would revert to Fire again Pythagoras the Author of the Italick Philosophy and the first introducer of the Name of Philosophy according to Laertius And as Clemens Alex. tells us the first that took the Name of a Philosopher upon himself which St. Austin sayes he did out of modesty refusing to be called a Wise man which every Philosopher was before but chose rather to stile himself a lover of Wisdom he ascribed all things to Numbers 'T were endless to mention all the absurd and contradictory speculations the Philosophers had about this matter The three best of all the Philosophers who successively instructed each other and attained to the top of the Graecian Literature Socrates Plato and Aristotle What a Cloud did those elevated understandings set in about these matters Socrates so far as we can judg of him by what his Scholars have collected of his for he wrote nothing himself saw so great vanity in the Sentiments of all the Philosophers about these things withall was so convinc'd of his own inability to come to a right comprehension of them that he applied himself chiefly to Morality waved all disputings about them as uncertain and no way satisfying and made his business to instruct men in the Rules of good living and to withdraw them from such speculations wherein he found they had been ever benighted and lost which doubtless was the wisest resolve by far that any of them ever came to it being a singular part of prudence to be silent in that about which we are Ignorant And in this particular happily he made good what the Oracle said of him Mortalium unus Socrates vere sapit Plato asserts three first Principles of all things Deum Materiam Idaeam Deum Conditorem omnium Materiam autem primariae rerum genitarum generationi subjacentem Causam occasionemque Deo creationis praebentem Ideam porro Creaturae cujusque exemplar And sometimes adds a fourth Animam universalem Aristotle makes but two Principles Deum Materiam And indeed so contradicted the former Hypothesis of Plato and so little agreement was there in those things between them though he had been his Scholer from fifteen that Plato complains He kicked at him as Foals use to do at their Dames that have bred them up Some thought the World Eternal without a Deity Aristotle he thought it Eternal with a Deity and that the World flowed naturally from the Divine Being as light does from the Sun Nor indeed was there any one Philosopher amongst them all but held that the matter of the World in some posture or other about which they much differed was Eternal as well as the Deity it self And therefore one of the Ancients sayes Omnes Philosophi in his consenserunt semper prater Deum ab omni Eter nitate aliquid fuisse In this all Philosophers have agreed that there was somewhat else besides God from all Eternity They never admitted the matter of the World could possibly come originally from Divine Potentiality and so from nothing if you respect matter that Maxim Fieri é nihilo nihil in nihilum nil posse reverti was universal amongst them and still confined by them all to the notion of matter For Divinity no parts of the world before or since ever produced a farther Corruption therein then Greece and Rome in their greatest splendor They made Gods of all parts of the World and of themselves living and dead Idolatry was then in its Meridian That natural notion men have of a Deity has been in no Age of the World more notoriously debauched to the very dregs of all false worship then in those knowing times Whatever they generally loved or feared fancied and not understood that they were sure to Adore Their backs were bowed down with an ignorant implicite reverence to what they knew not and so their Devotions proved as ruinous to them as their Vices 'T was their Religion in Graece that made men turn Atheists and made that learned Countrey the first Soyl that ever Atheisme grew in 'T was so grosly absurd and their Poets had made it so ridiculous that it became lothsome to the most intelligent part of themselves At Athens so blind were they in their Devotion and withall so confused with the multiplicity of their own Deities not sometimes knowing which to apply to that they inscribed Altars to the unknown God by which they fell accidentally into the worship of the true God before they were aware for the unknown God amongst them 〈◊〉 indeed the true God The occasion of 〈◊〉 â—uch we find in Laertius in the life of Epimenides who he sayes in the time of the great Plague that was at Athens Oves allas nigras in Areopagum adduxit ac dimissis deinde quo ire vellent auctor suit ut ubi illi recubuissent ibi Sacrificarent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These Altars are likewise mentioned by Pausanias Lib. 1. and by Phylostratus Lib. 6. Such Altars so inscribed also they had in Rome upon the occasion of an Earthquake there when they knew not which of their Gods to apply to as appears by Agelli Lib. 11. Chap. 28. In Rome their Religion was growen to that height of absurdity that one tels us in Cicero the Roman Priests themselves did to such a degree contemn their own Devotions and Ceremonies that they could scarce forbear smiling at each other when they met in the Streets 'T were strange to believe God should be pleased with what Men mockt at themselves Cotta in Cicero's Books de Nat. Deor. sayes plainly Religions must be continued as they were first instituted for the safety of Common-Wealths but that otherwise all
to him as his rational being calls for and he himself is capable of And to arrive at this there is no possibility without Revelation Natural Divinity if duely pursued points men directly to Supernatural from a sense of its own deficiency And our Natural light shews us the necessity of Revelation from its own imperfect discoveries and by directing us to many Daties in general which without Revelation we know not well how to perform My natural light tells me of a Sapreme and Perfect Being that made me but gives me no distinct or satisfying information about him My natural light enjoyns me to Worship him but cannot sufficienly direct me in the way of it My Natural light tells me I am upon Ill terms with God and bids me is my nearest concern indeavour a Reconciliation with him and assures me of the possiâ—ilit of it from the general notion I have of his Goodness but can give me no sure and certain Directions for the obtaining of it In short My natural light tells me Man is a Creature made for Supernatural enjoyments for Rewards and Punishments from God Superiour to this World but discovers not unto me sufficient and infallible means which in this case is of absolute necessity to my welfare for the obtaining the one or avoiding the other but bids me look upward and expect to be further taught from above So that to say there is no Revelation at all That God has left Mankind wholly to the conduct of Nature is plainly to say God has left Man under that unhappiness which no Creature is under besides himself that is not fully informed about those things he is most concerned to know nor sufficiently enabled to obtain the great End of his Being 'T is to say God has made a reasonable Creature with a direct tendency towards himself and the highest Supernatural good with great Hopes and sears of Rewards and Punishments from him and with inherent Obligations in his own Nature relating to both and vet hath left him with great uncertainty and obscurity to contemplate about these things and has given him no sufficient or to his own Reason satisfying directions about them then which no conception more vile and impious and in it self more contrary to all true notion of God can at any time infest the minds of men If it be acknowledged there is any where extant a Revelation from God to the World let it be produced Let the best â—ival to the Bible upon that account or all its Competitors together be brought foâ—th and let but the dictates of right and impartial Reason of Reason as much it self as we are able to conceive it as abstracted from all prejudice all Byass of Custom Education or any câ—llateral interest as we can suppose it be the Judge and we shall soon pat an end to the Contest Let men be but true to that Divinity they are born with and to the gennine issues of their own Reason which must be the Judge in this case and the Bible must needs be Predominant and prevail against all Competition And that will be thus made to appear There are somethings which by the Judgement of right Reason must necesiarily be appurtenant to a Revelation from God and such a Divine Law as we are in pursuit of and without which it cannot reasonably be supposed Now we find those things peculiarly to belong to the Bille and that they are no way applicable to any other Writings or Pretences to Revelation whatsoever And this being so as by the following particulars 't will undeniably appear to be where any Revelation in the general is admitted the Bible cannot with any colour of Reason be rejected And in truth its Divine Authority will against all opposition be established First There must be reasonably supposed in any Divine Laws God shall reveal to the world such a Legislative Authority expressed in Commanding in Promising in Threatning and throughout the whole of them as is by the judgement of our own Reason suitable to the Sovereignty of God and our natural subjection to him that is we must needs suppose God to give Laws in a way like himself In this respect the Bible is singular No Book under under Heaven contains such an assumption of Supremacy over the world nor speaks to us in such a manner with that Majesty and uncontrollable Authority in Gods own Name as this doth Requires indispensible obedience from from all Mankind to whatever it enjoyns as the Will and Pleasure of the Great God upon the highest Penalty That of Eternal destruction to Soul and Body How far any man could have gone in this respect in personating the Supreme Majesty of God and abusing the world with a Counterfeit of his Divine Authority needs not to be considered in this case though 't is certain the Bible has out gone all the possible contrivance of Men in such a way and none but God himself could have spoke to the world in words so becoming his own greatness and so suitable to those conceptions right Reason will give us of him because though many Books and Writings have made a claim to Revelation besides the Bible yet in fact no Book nor Writing has so much as attempted to Command the world in so Majestick a way nor indeed in any way becoming the Greatness and Sovereignty of God The Bible has a peculiarity in this respect above all other Writings that have been extant since the world began We find not an instance where any have so far usurped the Throne of God as with such an absolute superintendency to dictate to the world All pretended Revelations have in this visibly discovered their own nakedness and betrayed their own mean descent Not one of them having been clothed with such a Divine Majestick Authority as becomes a product of Infinite Wisdom and Power and most of them no way suitable to the common Prudence of men The Ancient Heathen pretences to Revelation were for the most part the meanest and most trifling part of those Ages wherein they were extant And that Alchoran which in later times Mabomet has father'd upon Revelation is a Systeme of Laws so prodigiously unsuitable to the Majesty of God that 't is much of it no way reconcileable to common Discretion or any way worthy an Edition from Wise or or Good men Secondly My Reason will tell me that a Revelation from God to the World must needs be supposed to give us an Account of all things necessary for us to know and to carry in it a Compleatness and Sufficiency of Instruction and Direction for all the great Ends of Mankind relating to this life and a future 'T is not imaginable that God should make a Revelation to the world and not make it proportionate and sufficient to all the Ends of Revelation The great End of Revelation is to supply the Desiciencies of Nature for if Nature were in it self perfect and without defect there needed then no Revelation and to
sorts of Christians under the Gospel St. Jerom calls it a Book full of Idle dreams The Papists themselves though they have admitted many other Books that we reckon Apochryphal into their Canon yet have still rejected this and Bellarmine himself in his Book de Script Eccles speaks with great contempt of this whole Book And calls the Author of it whoever he were a writer of Romances Secondly There are many very good and sufficient Reasons to induce us to believe the contrary First There is no where in any part of the Bible the least mention not by Esdras himself though he gives us a large and particular account of what he himself did of any such thing And 't is not conceiveable but so eminent a thing as God inspiring one man to write over again so great a part of the Bible which so many had been inspired to write before would have been some where or other Recorded nor is it credible but that so great a Judgment upon the Jews as the total loss of their Law would have been distinctly mentioned when the Holy Ghost is so very particular in giving us an account of all the lossâ—s the Jews underweâ—â— at that time of all the ruines made by the Babylonians at Jerusalem and of all the spoils they carryed into Babylon from thence Secondly 'T is not to be doubted but that there were multitudes of Copies in the hands of the Religious Jews especially the Priests of whom there were many hundreds who had a constant use of it And that the People also dâ—d generally possess themselves of it after that eminent danger it had undergone and the Recovery of â—â—â—n the Eighteenth year of Jâ—siah And 't is not to be supposed that all the Copiâ—s could be destroyed Those that probably were in the hands of Jeremiah Gedalich and many others who stayed behind and accepted their liberty to continue still in Judea and those in the hands of Daniel Ezekiel and those that were carryed away with them in the first Captivity to Babylon long before the City and Temple were burnt and all those which were probably kept by many of those that were carried into Babylon after especially if we consider that we no where find that the Babylonians made it any part of their business in particular to destroy and extirpate their Law And when Antiochus did afterward with all his might indeavour it by Reason of the many Copies that were extant in good mens hands he was no way able to effect it Thirdly It appears the Jews had the Scriptures with them during the time of their Captivity in Babylon both from Daniels Prophecie who Prophesied there and also from other Historical Evidence First From his Prophecie for we find him in the 9 Chapter of his Prophecie quoting several times particularly the Writings of Moses And in the beginning of that Chapter he sayes He understood by Books the number of years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the Prophet that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem And those Books could be no other but the Prophecie of Jeremiah it self with other parts of the Scripture and the Records of the Kings of Babylon wherein were to be found the times that the Jews were brought thither which Daniel compared together and so found out the End of Jâ—remies seventy years and of the Captivity the difficulty in the doing of which arose from hence that there had been four distinct Captivities and four several Kings of Judah carryed into Babylon at four several times first Manasses then Jehojakim and with him amongst others Daniel himself Thirdly Jeconias and with him Ezekiel and Mordecai and lastly Zedekias when the City and Temple were destroyed And 't was not a thing very easie to know from which of these Captivities to reckon the seventy â—aâ—s Ezekiel seems to begin it eleven years before the City was destroyed when Jeâ—â—onias was carryed away thither for he sayes In the five and twentieth year of our being in Captivity in the bâ—ginning of the year in the tenth day of the month in the fourteenth year after that the City was smitten And the Prophet Jeremie in comforting those that were carryed away with Jecenias used these words Thus saith the Lord after seventy years be accomplished in Babel I will visit you and cause you to return to this place by which he seems to begin the seventy years from thence but in other places is very express that the seventy years were to be accounted from the destruction of the City and Temple And so it appears the Captivity mentioned by Ezekiel was not that by which the seventy â—ears were to be reckoned Nor was the Prophecie uttered by Jeremie to comfort those that were captivated with Jeconias to commence when uttered nor till the destruction of the City and the last Captivity of Zedekiah All which Daniel considered and by comparing these Prophecies together found the exact time from whence the seventy years were to be accounted Secondly From Historical Evidence for Josephus sayes the Reason why Cyrus set on foot the rebuilding of the Temple and restoring of the Jews to their Countrey was his reading the Prophecie of Isaiah which was written â—10 years before his time wherein the Prophet foretells in Gods name that Cyrus should be raised up for that very purpose upon reading of which during the Captivity he save Cyrus was ravished with admiration of God and surprized with an ardent zeal to bring about what was so long before written And t is highly probâ—ble that God made use of the sight of that Prophecie to engage Cyrus to what he did for otherwise 't was a thing in it self most absurdly impolitick and against all ordinary Rules of discretion to restore such a people and rebuild such a place that had been so famous and so terrible to all the Nations round about Especially when as Josephus sayes there went out of Babilon at their return of those two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin there captivated Four Milions six hundred twenty and eight thousand Persons that were above twelve years old besids four thousand and seventy Levites and of their Wives and Children together forty thousand seven hundred forty and two besides also some hundreds of the Tribe of Levi that were Porters Singers and other sacred Servitors Fourthly 'T is not Imaginable that Zerubbabel Joshuah Haggai and so many others of them would have so laboured as they did to return out of Babylon toâ—e-build their Temple and restore their Ancient Worship if the Law of God the great Rule and Foundatioâ— of it had been wholly lâ—st and extinguished Nay it appears evidently in the Book of â—zra that those Jews that firstâ—etâ—â—â—ed into Judaea before Esdras came out of Babylon brought the Law out of Babylon with them for in the sixth of Esdras 't is there said They set the Prâ—ests in their divisions and the Levites in their coâ—ses and setled the Worship oâ—the Temple
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
to men of one perswasion Whenever men in order to the founding of any Science lay down positions and Principles upon which they proceed if such Principles be beyond the first and common rudiments of every mans Reason though in themselves never so true yet they ought to be subject to debate and admitted questionable in all Reasonings about that very Science Not to admit some universal Maxims is the way to make Mankind certain of nothing and to admit any particular mens Opinions as indisputable Principles is the way to inslave the World to every party The Scriptures are the first Principles of Christians but not of Men. The first of Christian Religion but not of all Science And therefore we ought to begin their Proof against all Antiscriptural opposition from the common Notions of every mans Religion and Reason and from thence induce an assent to their Divine and Sacred Authority which we shall find God has made sufficiently evident to a rational and impartial inquiry Secondly The Testimony given by the Holy Ghost in the Minds and Consciences of Men to the Truth of the Scriptures though it be the most convincing Evidence that can be given to them and that way God is pleased to reserve to himself of giving men an unquestionable satisfaction about that and all other Divine things yet 't is not to be urged in proof of the Scriptures against its professed Adversaries And that upon two accounts First Because the blessed Spirit it self is not a common demonstrable Principle amongst Mankind and so cannot be made use of against those that know no such Testimony nor admit the being of any such Principle Nothing but what a man does assent to can with any good Reason be urged upon him to prove what he does not assent to To go about to prove the Scriptures by any Evidence arising from the Holy Ghost must needs be visibly absurd because there is no other way to prove that there is any such thing in Being as the Holy Ghost but by the Scriptures themselves So that what I am about to prove must first be admitted before I can make good the existence of that Medium I take to prove it by Secondly Whatever Evidence the Holy Ghost gives to any man to assure him of the Truth of any proposition that Evidence as such can never go beyond his own Breast nor can I ever prove any thing by it as it is a Divine and infallible Evidence because such Evidence is no way Communicable to another but in an ordinary way Nothing is visible to another in such cases but the Reasons I can produce The Divine illumination I have within my self to convince me that such Reasons are Cogent and prevailing can never be so demonstrated as to convince another that has no such illumination The illuminations of the Holy Ghost in the Minds of Men are no other way to be conceived of then that he is pleased to propose the right Grounds and Reasons upon which things are to be believed and to convince and satisfie the understanding that they are so and to bring men to acquiesce in Conclusions by assertaining them of the Truth of the Premises 'T were Heterodox and false and one of the worst sorts of Enthusiasme to say That Divine illumination were not always accompanied with rational Evidence And that any thing were the product of the Holy Ghost in the Minds of Men for which no Reason could be given 't were most unsuitable to a reasonable being and most contrary to the manner of Gods dealing with Men all the intercourse between God and Man being maintained by the truest exercise of our rational faculties and no otherwise Whoever rests assured from a Divine Testimony of the Truth of the Scriptures as coming from God may deal with an Antiscripturist by those Grounds and Reasons upon which such Testimony is built But will vainly and to no purpose urge that satisfaction he receives of the validity of such Grounds and Reasons from such a Testimony when that Testimony can be no further made Evident then by such Reasons and Arguments as he is able to produce for it of the sufficiency of which every other Mans Reason in an ordinary way must necessarily be the Judge To this present undertaking there ought also to be this praeliminary Consideration that as there are divers Things of divers Natures true so there are various ways of rendring the Truth of them Evident and Mediums of proof proper and peculiar to each This is visible in Aethicks in Physicks in Mathematicks and in all other Sciences When we discourse of the Bible divers things will come in question the Truth of which by various Mediums of proof must be established First in the general whether it be reasonable to believe that there should be any such Supernatural Law as this sent from Heaven or no! This is to be cleared from the exercise of our own Reason and the common principles of such natural Religion as every man is born with Secondly whether this Book as 't is now proposed to us be in the Matter of it such as is likely to come from God and to be that Law by which the Supreme Maker of all things would Rule and Judge the World This must also be cleared from that Natural Divinity that lodges in every Man 's own Breast and those primary Notions of God and Religion which all unprejudiced Reason assents to and which are antecedently supposed to all discourses of Revelation and whatever is Supernatural Thirdly whether this Book was written by those Persons whose Names it bears and in those Times wherein it avows it self to be written Whether such Miracles were wrought such Praedictions fulfilled All things of that Nature being matters of fact must be proved to us by credible Testimonies and by such means as can ascertain us about a matter of fact and a thing long since past He that demands to be satisfied about a matter of fact long since past and yet denies to acquiesce in Historical Evidence is so absurd as at the same time to propose a Doubt and resolves against all way of Answer Fourthly whether this Book as now we have it be the same it was when it was first written and have not been since corrupted or changed The proof of this depends upon what may be rationally urged to make it credible That this Book should still be secured by a Divine care and to render the ways and means Historically Evident by which such a Divine care in all Times and Ages hath been exerted And so in all other things that may be in doubt about the Bible there are proper inducements to our belief as will appear hereafter and such as the Nature of such a subject requires And he that will not acquiesce in a belief of things upon the Evidence they are capable of though perhaps not so full and convincing as some other things will afford declares himself to be obstinately willful and absurd Nothing
can now be urged in proof of the Bible that will come under any sensible demonstration The proposal of this Book to the World to be received as a Law Divine is not so made as by Mathematical Evidence or gross visible absurdities in its denial to introduce it self irresistably at the first sight But this book is so proposed to our belief as that all men by a serious and impartial consideration of the matter of it and a due enquity into all the Circumstances attending it may have ground sufficient to acquiesce in it as Divine and judge it to be such as it self claims to be And that the Bible should be upon such terms and no other proposed to the belief of the World seems highly reasonable when we consider that God intends this book as the great SHIBBOLETH by which he will try the World that from the believing or not believing of it shall arise the great discrimination between Virtuous and Good Men and such who free from the prevailing influence of corrupt and sensual Interests pursue the Genuine dictates of right Reason and improve those notions of Divinity they are born with and others who either choose to be Sottishly Ignorant or else wilfully to oppose what God had made in it self most suitable and corresponding to the Reason and Conscience of every unprejudiced Man The truth is our Assent or not to the Bible is made a matter of Reward and Punishment And therefore 't is so proposed to our belief that there may be a sufficient ground for both The way to this Discourse in hand being thus far cleared I shall now prosecute the design of it in this method First I will indeavour to render it a thing reasonable to be believed that there should be some supernatural Law revealed from God and given to mankind in order to their present and future happiness as the great Guide and Rule of all their actions towards God and towards each other And that 't is not a reasonable supposal that the world in the posture we find it should be left singly to the conduct of Nature Secondly That 't is most rationally credible upon all such grounds by which a judgment in this case ought to be established That this Book we call the Bible is this Revealed Law superadded to our natural Light and contains in it self that compleat Systeme of Divine Truth by which God will Informe Rule and Judge the World And this I shall endeavour a proof of from the matter of this Book it self and from such external concomitants of it as highly concur to create a belief of its Divine Authority And lastly propose all such considerable Doubts Queries and Difficulties as the minds of men are usually busied withall about this Matter And attempt their Satisfaction therein To make the first thing proposed evident that 't is Reasonable to believe in the general that God should give us some further direction then what our Natural Light will afford us That he should promulge some Supernatural Law to the world Let these several things following be duely considered First What wretched and dismal Ignorance has the world been in yea the wisest and best parts of it and in what disagreement with it self about all parts of Religion where this supernatural Law hath been either not known or not received How sadly hath that inbred principle of Religion wherewith all men are born been seduced and mislead where there has been nothing supernatural to guide and direct it The natural notion of a Deity has corrupted into all folly and vanity and men have formed Religions not only hateful to God but at last nauseous to themselves Devotion men still had to somewhat above them but they knew not well how to express it The Wisest saw reason enough to scorn their own Religion but knew not how to compose a better Some went farr in the Negative in saying what ought not to be that then was amongst themselves but none ever attained to a certain directory of what should be When we view over the utmost products of all humane abilities and the greatest discoveries at any time made by natural light we shall find the world without Revelation to have been greatly defective in these three things First in their Divinity in their conceptions of the Deity and their Worship of him Secondly In the account they gave to themselves of the worlds first Production and of the Origine of things Thirdly In their Morality and in their Ethical Institutes of humane life and the converse of mankind together First In their Divinity Varro ranks all the Heathen Theology under three heads Their Fabulous and Historical Theologie Their Natural and Mystical Theology Their Civil and Political Theology which he also calls Mythical Physical and Civil The first came from their Poets and contains such a Rapsody of Nonsense and Folly as the like to it hath not upon any occasion nor upon any subject been collected since the world began That one God was born from a Mans Head another from a Mans Thigh a third from some drops of Blood That some Gods were Thieves others Adulterers others Servants to Men with multitudes of such absurd and ridiculous fictions The Second sort came from their Wise men and from their Philosophers They dispute what the Gods are Where they are And whence they are And amongst them we find an endless diversity and most stupendious folly some making the gods to consist of Fire some of Numbers others of Atoms and by their Mystical Divinity interpreting Jupiter to Fire Juno to Earth Pluto to Air Nestis to Water and others of their Gods to the several parts of the World with many other so gross and notorious absurdities that Justin Martyr tells the Graecians that the Divinity of their Philosophers Multo sit quam Poctarum Theologia atque de Diis doctrina ridiculosior is much more absurd then that of their Poet. The third sort relates it self to the Laws and Customes of particular Cities and Countreys by which they ordered their Priests what Gods they should worship at what Times and Seasons and upon what occasions what Sacrifices and Services and all things relating to the exercise of their Religion both upon the Stages in their Theatres and also in their Temples For in the one they represented their Gods and had Plaies acted in honour to them as a part of Religion and in the other they Worshipped them In all which we find them shedding the blood one of another and offering most inhumane sacrifices and a numberless multitude not only of childish and foolish but profane and impious obscene and lascivious rites and ceremonies If we look back as farr as any Heathen Records will carry us and view over the Barbarous Nations of the world for so the Graecians were pleased to call all but themselves according to that of Varro Barbarae sunt omnes nationes praeter Graecos the Phaenicians the Caldaeans the Egyptians and such others as we have
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
And indeed well might he tell them so for the Prophets Hosea and Isaiah were contemporary with the first Olympiad which began as Scaliger proves aut of Eusebius and others but in the Reign of King Ahaz whose Son Hezekiah lived at the same time with Numa in Rome and Eâ—dras himself and the latest Writers of the Old Testament wrote before Socrates Philosophized in Athens who taught not there till some time after the Captivity This Antiquity of Moses and his Writings and their precedency to all other written Religion or Learning is in fact so evident that 't is not capable of any tollerable denial And as Scaliger sayes in his discourse upon Eusebius the proof of it resulting so plainly from the universal Testimony of Heathen Authors themselves nihil superesse Paganis videtâ—r nisi aut ut ingeâ—ua confessio ab tis exprimcretur aut silentium pertinacâ—ae sinem faceret And he adds quod certe faeliciter câ—ssit ut hac in parte Porphrius manus daret 'T is not made out from any nice disputes between Chronologers comes not within any near compasses of time but from a general concurrence of all Histories and is so far beyond the â—each of all contradiction that the worst Enemies to our Religion have agreed it and given in their Testimony to it Of this Eusebius in the tenth book of his Praep. Evan. Chap. 3. takes special notice and tells us that Porphrie one of the most raging malicious Enemie that ever the Christians met with had in his fourth book which he writ against them given this Testimony to Moses and his Antiquity That he had written the History of the Jews truly which thing he had perceived by conferring it with Sanchoniathon the Berutian who rehearseth the very same Circumstances and Names and Places that Moses does the which he had learned out of the Registers of one Hierumbalus a Priest of the God of Levi and out of the Chronicles of the Cities and out of Holy Books dedicated to Temples and this Sanchoniathon sayes he was after Moses about the time of Semiramis By which it evidently appears he had such an Opinion of the Antiquity of Moses that he makes him to be much earlier in the World then we affirm him to be But 't is agreed on all hands he lived and writ in a time long before any other Authors of books or any other written Learning was known And this clear Evidence we have so clear that in such a case a clearer cannot be expected of the Antiquity of Moses in point of fact and the Preeminence of his Writings above all others in that respect gives us very probable ground to believe that he himself was the first introducer of Letters as well as the first Writer of Books whatever other Nations have fabulously boasted to the contrary and notwithstanding Plinies absurd supposition that Letters were Eternal because he imagined the World to have been so for 't is not reasonable to think if the World had enjoyed the use of Letters before but that there would have been some Monuments of it before his time remaining at the least to the next after Ages of which we should have had some credible account from them And therefore Diodorus Siculus gives this as the Reason why there were no more Antient Histories and that the Actions of Kings were not Recorded of old because the World wanted Letters Impossibile est sayes he primas Literas aeque ac primos Reges vetuslas extitisse And Josephus gives the very same Reason why we have no more Antient History then we have because the world antiently wanted the use of Letters but especially we cannot suppose but that those Revelations God made before of himself and his mind to some parts of the World would have been safely preserved in Writing and left upon Record to posterity long before Moses writ nor can we well imagine that those Holy men to whom at any time God pleased to reveal himself should not use their utmost diligence in the best way to secure and communicate so inestimable a Treasure of this we hear not the least upon any tollerable ground of credit nor of any other Writings before Moses but upon reports that appear grosly fictitious and fabulous 'T is a thing greatly probable that till Moses his time the World knew nothing of Letters for we neither find any Laws of God or of Men written before and 't is likewise most probable that we owe them not nor their use to Humane invention but to Divine Revelation and 't is likely Plato had learned so much from the Jews when he said in his Cratilus that the Original of Letters was from the Gods 'T is a thing offers its self very fairly to our belief that God himself when he gave the Ten Commandements written by his own singer to Moses introduced the first Alphabet and that Letters themselves and those Divine precepts are of an equal Date I insist not on this as capable of any certain and positive proof nor if it were is it to be urged as a convincing Evidence of the truth of the Bible But yet 't is a Circumstance of very considerable weight and has very good probabilities for its belief and that we shall find if we consult but what Chrysostome Theophilact and other of the Christian Writers have said in the justification of it Cyrill of Alexandria in his seventh Book against Julian insists much upon it Vives upon the thirty ninth Chapter of St. Austins 18 Book de Civ Dei sayes that 't is the most common opinion both of Jews and Christians that Moses first gave Letters to the Hebrew Language which doubtless has the Priority of all others and that Eupolemus Artapanus and many other profane Authors affirm it and that both the Egyptians and also the Phaenicians from whom the Graecians first learnt the use of Letters had their Letters from Him and that Moâ—es was that Mercury to whom the Egyptians ascribe the first invention of them The Objections that are usually made against this seem but of very little weight First we are told of certain Tractates of Enoch that were written before the Flood Secondly of two Pillars of the Sons of Seth with observations Astronomical engraven upon them which they set up to continue their Learning and that it might remain beyond the Flood which Adam had foretold them of The one of which remained in the Countrey of Syria till the time of Josephus as he himself sayes Thirdly that Moses in the 21 of Numbers makes mention of the Book of the Wars of the Lord as a Book extant before that time And fourthly that Moses himself is said to be Learned in all the Learning of the Egyptians which learning probably was written For the first That there were Books of Enochs Writing before the Flood which were preserved in the Ark for so they must be seems to be a story wholly fabulous we find not one word of them amongst
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
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
at large in the 12th Book of his Jewish Antiquities Some will needs imagine that Antiochus so far prevailed in this undertaking that the Scriptures then Extant were wholly Destroyed But the contrary is most evident and a special providence in their preservation sufficiently visible For no sooner was that storme over but the Bible was every where publickly extant having been particularly preserved by Matthias the Son of Asmonaeus and his sons who as Josephus says resolutely ventured their Lives in the doing it and also by other good men and was universally known in that Age amongst the Jews to be so Calvin in the first book of his Institutes observes That though the Jews had undergone the malice of manifold Enemies on all hands yet neither the Loss nor the Change nor the Corruption of their Law was ever by their worst Enemies objected against them And indeed how great soever their enmity was against their Religion yet they never denied but that Moses was the Author of it and that the Law they had was the Same He deliâ—cred at first Under the New Testament since the closure and completion of the Whole What a fâ—â—ious Persecution did the Bible esâ—ape in the time of Dioclesian Who after the grievous sufferings of the Christians in Mine fore Persecutions assaults them about the year 302 with the sorest and most cruel of all and with a full purpose to root Christianity utterly out of the world and destroy its very Name from the face of the Earth Euselius tells us that in the Nineteenth year of his Reign He publisht an Edict against the Christians and Christianity it self In which he so much Gloried that he caused a Pillar to be erected as his Memorial to all posterity with this Inscription Dioclesiano Casari Augusto superstitione Christi ubique deleta To Dioclesian the Emperour having abolished the superstition of Christ all the world over By that Edict he commands that the Christian-Churches should every where be demolished the Christians all Seized and Imprisoned Et quibuâ—cunque adhiâ—itis Machinis victimas Idolis immolare cogerentur That by all sorts of means fair and foul they should be brought to sacrifice unto his Idoâ—s And that the Scriptures should be every where sought for burnt and destroyed And whoever Retained them should be most sharply Tormented Dioclesian at this time had the command of the greatest part of the Habitable world For as one of the Roman Writers said Romanâ— spatium est Vrbis Orbis idem The Scriptures were then but in Written hand Men generally Quak'd with the fear of that Raging Tyrant Very many Apostatized and delivered up the Bible to his wrath and were thereupon branded with the name of Traditores of which and of the whole business we might perhaps have had a larger account had not The Life of Deoclesian written by Eusthenius his Secretary been since lost For As Baronius has rightly observed in his Annalls We have now no Writer who did at that time Historically set down the Actions of that Emperour Yet God by his Providence delivered this Book out of his hand Disappointed his fury and suffered him not to quench the Light of these Divine Laws The Christians at that time Tired out the Inventions of their Enemies in finding out ways to torment them and by their constant and patient suffering the utmost of humane misery even wearied out their Executioners One remarkable passage we have in Euseblus that happened upon this occasion A noble man in Nicomedia of eminent Quality hearing this Edict against the Christians and the Bible published at Nicemedâ—a After it was Read and openly fixed to a publick Pillar in the presence of Dioclesian himself Maximinius Galerius Constantius and other the Chiefest persons in the Empire for 't was usual with the Emperors to come themselves in Person with their chiefest Attendanâ—s to hear their own Edicts against the Christians proclaimed to see the Christians tormented and to make themselves sport with their miseries this Noble man had such a zeal for the Bible and the Christian Religion that before the Emperors face he took down that prophane and impious Edict and with a Holy indignation openly tore it to pieces and and thereby willingly exposed himself to the utmost suffering the fury and rage of the Emperour could any way make him the subject of Two things are usually urged in diminution of the â—â—ble and its Authority upon a quite contrary account We are told by some The Bible has been so far from being preserved intire in the whole or in its parts that first all that part of the Bible that was then extant when the people of Israel were carryed into Babylon periâ—â—ed in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and that Esdras wrote it himself all over again upon their return and that we have now so much of the Bible only from Him and as he Re-pâ—â—ned it In this Mr. Hobs in the 33 Chapter of his Leviathan where he has not failed to insinuate all such things as might gratifie men of Sceptical notions about the Bible is very positive and tells us The Books of the Old Testament are derived to us from no other time then that of Esdras and were retrived by him when they were lost And Secondly we are told that many particular Books and Writings penned by Divine inspiration and once part of the Bible have been since consumed by Time and are now wholly lost out of the World The first That so much of the Old Testament as was then extant which was the whole as we have it save some part of the Psalms the Prophecies of Ezeâ—iel Daniel Haggai Zachary and Masachai and the Books of Esther Ezra and Nehemiah was totally lost and all the Copies destroyed in the ruine of Jerusalem and the Temple is an assertion very weakly grounded And there are very sufficient Reasons to perswade us to believe the contrary First Weakly grounded for there is no other ground for it but that in an Apocryphal Book that goes under the Title of the fourth Book of Esdras a Book every where stuffed with Childish and fabulous Stoties There we find this absurd fiction that Esdras should speak unto God and tell him Thy Law is burnt and no man knoweth the things that thou hast done and therefore desired to be inspired to write it all over again and to wrire all that had been done in the World from the beginning And that after he had been forty days and nights with God in an apish foolish imitation of Moses and had taken a Potion God had prepared for him he dictated all the Bible over again to five men Now of how little credit this Relation being no where found but in this Book ought to be with any considering man will appear if we consider that this Book was not only constantly rejected as Apocryphal by the Jewish Church as a counterfeit under Esdras his name and none of his but has been so by all
a Word that famous and venerable Senate in which the last of the Prophets were present all parts of the Old Testament being compleated and the whole Prophecy that God vouchsafed till the coming of the Messiah delivered applied themselves to the punctual Collection of the several parts together and securing the Original text against any corruption or alteration exactly setled the Canon of the Old Testament which the Jews kept punctually to till the times of our Saviour who fully approved the Scriptures as he then found the Jews in possession of them Secondly That any parts of the Bible or any Books dictated by the Holy Ghost are wholly Lost we utterly deny The affirmation of it is neither consisting with the notion of Divine providence in General nor can any particular proof be brought to make it good Those who insist upon this as Bellarmine and some of the Papists do thereby to gain an advantage to the Church when 't is put in ballance with the Bible And others with design by proving the Loss of any Part to invalidate the Authority of the Whole instance in the three thousand parables or proverbs of Solomon and a thousand and five songs spoken of 1 King 4.32 The Books of Nathan the Prophet and Gad the Seer mentioned in the second of Chronicles The Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and the visions of Iddo or Addo the Seer spoken of in the 2 Chron. 9. and some others And under the New Testament an Epistle of St. Paul written as they suppose to the Laodicaeans mentioned Colos 4.16 Although very many of these Writings mentioned in the Old Testament seem to refer to other parts of Scripture contained in the Bible In particular 't is probable that Nathan and Gad wrote some parts of the Books of Samâ—â— and the Kings so much at least as concern's the Actions of David of which they were exactly knowing if they wrote not the whole Second Book of Samuel and the first of the Kings which some upon probable grounds supposes yet Admit all these were other writings then are now contained in any part of the Bible it will no way follow they were ever any part of Canonical Scripture When the Scripture mention's Books written by these or any other Men and relates historically to the matter oâ— them as St Paul sometimes quoted Heathâ— Authors Will that Infer They are parts of the Bible By no means Nay the very Writers of the Bible themselves such as David Solâ—mon and others of the Prophets might and without all doubt some of them did Write many things in an ordinary way that were True without any Divine or Infallible direction and which were never incorporated with the Bible and so says St. Austin in his 18th Book De civ Dei says be Those Prophet whom it pleased the Holy Spirit to inspire wrote some things as Men And those works we have 〈◊〉 in our Canon nor had the Jews in theirs and other things as from the mouth of God and these works are really Distinct Some being held their own as Men and some the Lords as speaking by them And therefore He that will prove from hence that any parts of the Bible are Lost must first be well assured that These are no parts of the Scriptures we are now possessed of and Secondly that admitting they are not That they were written by an Infallible Spirit and ence within the Canon Of which Latter we are well assâ—red the least proof cannot be made For the Jews were most faithful Preservers of those Oracles of God committed unto their change Nor were they ever so much as once blamed by Christ or the Apostles for any Miscarriage that way As for an Epistle supposed to be written by St. Paul under the New Testament to the Laodicaeons which is since Lost The supposition is frivolous and groundless For the words in the Greck are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that from Laodicaea Which cannot be understood of an Epistle written by St. Paul to Laodicae but of one written from Laodicaea either to the Colossians themselves which they then had by them or else to St. Paul which he sent them and required them to read it as containing something expedient for them to know The mistaken opinion from this place of an Epistle from St. Paul to the Laodicâ—ans hath most probably arisen from the ill rendition in the Vulgar Latin where the words are rendered illa quae est Laodicentium But without any ground from the Original Catherinus confesseth that according to the opinion of Chrisostome and Oecumenius Non hic nominari Epistolam a Paulo scriptam ad Laodicenses sed ex co loco scriptam That here 's no mention of any Epistle written by St. Paul to the Laodicaeans but of some Epistle written from Laodicaea That there was anciently a Counterfeit Epistle that pretended to be written by St. Paul to the Laodicaeans which is since lost is most true But in those times wherein 't was extant it was universally Rejected as Spurious and known so to be St. Jerome speaks of it but says Abomnibus exploditur The second Councel of Nice in their sixth Canon say thus of it Inter Epistolas Pauli Apostoli quaedam fertur ad Laodicenses quam Patres nostri tanquam Alienam reprobaverunt Tertullian against Marcion and Theophilact both reject it with great contempt and say 't is Apostolico nomine planâ— indigna And Bellarmine himself though he had formerly affirmed there was such an Epistle which was certainly Lost Yet in the first Chapter of his Book which he calls his Recognition or After-view of his works Retracts it says he was mistaken and that there never was any such thing as such an Epistle written by St. Paul So that all the Insinuations of this kind that any parts of the Bible any Books written by a Divine inspiration have been at any time Lost out of the world appear to be very weakly and ill Grounded And in truth the foot steps of Divine providence have been eminently visible in Securing those Holy writings upon this threefold account From Destruction Addition and Alteration First No accidents of Time nor Designs of its worst Enemies have Totally obliterated the Whole or any Part. Secondly Though many have attempted to piece in and add to it false and counterfeit Fragments and some whole Gospels yet in defiance to all those Essays the Scriptures have remained intire and stood like a Rock Impenetrable No Spurious Writings have been able to incorporate with this holy Book Such who have gone about to forge Scripture have but made the Lustre of the Bible more Eminent and more evidently shewed us the difference of Gods reâ—ealing from Heaven and Mens counterfeiting upon Earth Mens writing by the strength of humane abilities and mens writing as they were moved thereunto by the Holy Ghost Thirdly From Alteration No man has been suffer'd notwithstanding all the attempts of Hereticks to that purpose to pollute or corrupt it All
such attempts have still been discovered and openly sham'd How many Hereticks have carryed about their own Confutation whilest they possessed this Book and yet have not been suffer'd to change or alter such passages as have been most Cogent against themselves The Bible passed through the Arian-world with all those plain Evidences it contains of the Divinity of our Saviour When Emperours Câ—uncils and indeed upon the matter the whole Christian-world wâ—â—etainted with that Heresie the Bible scapd the infection when the alteration of two or three plain texts would have done them more service then all the volumns they wrote in their own Defence And great designs were on foot that way yet they were still disappointed as is evident by what we find in St. Ambrose The Jews to this day need no other Confutation then their own Bible Moses and the Prophets in whom they trust are theiâ— greatest Accusers All sort of Hereticks to this day are possessed of the Bible as Uriaâ— was of Davids Letters to Joab which contained his own Ruine and as Goliaâ— was of hiâ— sword which served at last to cut off his own head Secondly The success and effect of this Book since its conveyance gives in a Signal and most undeniable Evidence to its Divinity If we consider the ways and means by which it has introduced it self and upon what terms the Religion contained in it has gained that reception we find it has had amongst Man-kind 'T is of admirable consideration that a Religion directly opposite to the whole corrupt interest of humane Nature and calling men to the highest Mortification and Self-denial upon the account of an Invisible World to come nakedly proposed by men upon a worldly account always inconsiderable without any the least Earthly supports A Religion perioding the Jewish Religion and totally subverting all other Religions A Religion opposed disowned to the utmost by the Jews themselves though it derived it self wholly from them and pretended to be the natural product of their Religion and the true Completion of all they believed and expected a Religion in oppostion of which the whole World besides were agreed and indeed both Jews and Heathens perfectly concurred I say 'T is of admirable consideration that such a Religion so circumstanced against all the Religion the Wisdom and the Force of the World should at first make its entrance and be embraced by so great a part of Man-kind and within the space of thirty years or thereabouts after its first Publication for so it was be spread not only throughout all parts of the Roman Empire but also amongst the Parthians and remotest Heathens To no other Cause but it s own Innate worth and the Divine evidence from Heaven attending it can it with any tolerable colour of reason be ascribed The zeal men had for all other Religions in which they were Educated sufficiently prompted them to hate abhor and persecute it The Learning and the Wisdom of the whole World was employed to render it despicable and to bring it under contempt And all the force of the Roman Empire was every where violently at work for its total Suppression and Extirpation And yet against all these seeming invincible oppositions did the Bible prevail The power of that great Empire could not withstand the naked proposal of a simple Truth And both Judaism in the main of it as a National Establismment and Heathenism finally fell before it This Book and the Religion it contains as it avows it self to be solely from God and comes to us with a commanding voice from Heaven speaks to us in God's own Name and upon that single account requires our obedience And those that wrote it neither had nor pretended to have any other Authority but what was Divine and from Above So it has introduced it self by Means suitable thereunto Never was there at first any Force used to compel men nor any Arts practised to deceive men about this matter No man can prove out of any Story that ever the Apostles or the Primitive Professors of this Religion raised Arms to introduce or promote it Or that any Humane Authority did countenance or assist it The Christian Religion has this to say for it self above all others That 't is to debtor to the Sword either in a Civil or Military way Neither the Sword of Justice nor the Sword of War can lay any claim to it as a Product of theirs The greatest part of the Roman World â—ad embraced it and were become Criâ—tians before Constantine publickly owned it It ows nothing to any violent course for its Primitive Reception nor indeed to any Humane contrivement Neither the subtilty of Philosophers nor the Eloquence of Orators assisted in this matter It never advanced one step further in its first publication than its own Innate Excellency the Divine evidence attending it procured it acceptance nor did it ever gain a Convert but where it could approve it self by Divine Evidences to the Reasons Consciences of men to be Divine I make a peremptory demand to all Antiscriptural men to grant me this as a truth not capable of any denial That for three hundred years together the Gospel by its own Divine strength withstood the most furious and violent Winds Tides of all humane opposition and by no other assistance but what was purely Divine travelled most parts of the World over It offered it self to mens reception upon no other terms but by an Appeal to the Judgment and Concience and was contenteâ— to stand and fall by the Rational determination of every mans own Breast and sâ— prevailed Such who embraced it haâ— no other way of Contest but Holiness oâ— living and Patience in suffering 〈◊〉 both which they were very Eminent To the first their very Enemies the Heathens bore testimony Pliny and others speak of the Christians harmless and holy behaviour For the latter Never was any Religion so begun and propagated by such indefatigable Sufferings How few Martyrs for Religion can the Heathen World boast of If we admit Socrates for one how few Successors had he And those few they pretend to seem by all Circumstances to be such as had no other end but to perpetuate their own names to Posterity by suffering for such things as they thought the World would highly magnifie But for Christian-Religion we find innumerable sufferings of Men and Women of all Ranks Qualities Ages and Conditions In many of which we cannot suppose any thing but Conscience and hopes of a future Reward could possibly be the Motive Being persons of such mean parts and conditions as could no way be thought to design a Name to themselves hereafter Nor indeed can we reasonably suppose an esteem upon Earth and vain-glory could be the ground upon which any of them suffer'd when we consider they suffered for a Religion the very name of which was every where Odious and Detestable and the Profession of it brought nothing but shame and contempt It swims down to
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 Sun upon the Crucifixion of our Saviour which considering the Position of the Moon at that time it being the time of the Jews Passeover must needs be judged to be prodigiously supernatural was mentioned in many Heathen Writers which Eusebius sayes he himself had read Both Eusebius in his Chronology and Origen in his second Book against Celsus tell us That Phlegon Trallianus who lived in the time of Adrian in the thirteenth Book of his Chronicles wrote of this Eclipse and sayes That in the fourth year of the two hundred and tenth Olympiâ—d there was the greatest Eclipse of thâ—â—an that ever was beheld and withal a strange Earth-quake And that year was exactly the eighteenth year of Tiberius in which our Saviour suffered And 't is certain by what we find in Tertullians â—â—â—loâ—y and other of the Christian Writâ—rs in those first Ages that this and divers other Passages that relate to the Stoâ—â— of the Gospel were in those times Reâ—â—red amongst the Romans For they ofâ—en appeal to their own Records to â—â—ove the truth of this and many other particulars Justin Martyr in his Apology to the Emperor Antoninus which â—e wrote but fifty years after the death of St. John perswading the Emperor to the belief of our Saviours Miracles refers him to the Acts of Pontius Pilate then Registred at Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That our Saviour says he did these things you may learn from the Registers of the Acts done under Pontius Pilate Josephus who was born about five or six years after our Saviours suffering and survived the Reigns of both the Vâ—spatians relates much of the New Testament Story of John the Baptist of his Holy Life and also of his Death Tells us of Herod and gives a large and particular account of his strange and remarkable Death of Pilate of Festus Foelix Gamaliel and others Indeed neither Jews nor Heathens did ever in those times contradict or deny any matter of Fact that relates to the New Testament Story judging it certain beyond all denial Julian himself admits the Fact of Christ and his Miracles and plainly acknowledges the Books of the New Testament were written in those Times and by those very Men whose names they bear That we have no fuller and exacter an Account of Christ and the Affairs of Judea in his time in the Roman Story is not to be much wonder'd at if we consider the peaceable Posture that Country was then in News which best pleased the Romans from any of their Provinces and wherein they were mostly concern'd Tacitus observes that Judea was most quiet in the Reign of Tâ—berius as well it might All that our Saviour and his Followers did tending highly to Peace and Subjection Now We find that the Roman-Writers chiefly applyed themselves to write of some famous Wars the suppression of some eminent Mutinies or some such Accidents as in their Issue redounded much to the Roman-glory The peaceable condition of any Province usually shortned their Relation of it and therefore neither of the Jews not of the Christians in that Age have they vouchsafed to say much Nor did the Christians at any time such was their peaceable and submissive behaviour give Historians occasion to mention much more of them than their patient sufferings But in the after-times of Vâ—spatian Trajan Adrian when the Roman-Sword was drawn against the Jews and there were great Mutinies Rebellions and Wars amongst them the Roman-Historians have left us an ample Relation of all those Affairs Two things there are of great eminency in themselves and of most publick Nature contained in the Bible the Fact of which have had such signal justification as does greatly establish the Truth of the Whole and to which a very peculiar Remark is due The one is the History of the Flood in the Old Testament and and the re-peopling of the World after it by the Posterity of Noah The other is those Prophetical Predictions of the Destruction of Jerusalem of the ruine of the Temple and the Afflictions and Sufferings of the Jews uttered by our Saviour in the New For the first That there was such a Flood Nothing I have shewed has had a more universal Belief That the Earth according to the History of Moses was again re-peopled by the Posterity of Noah and that the Nations were divided in the Earth from his three Sons and their Issue as Moses tells us we have from the Records of all Nations and the consent of all History abundant cause to believe And that upon this three-fold account First We find that in those Eastern Parts where Noah and his Family are said first to land and settle themselves after the Deluge the Grandure of the World first began of which the Greatness and Splendor of the Assyrian-Empire is a sufficient Instance Those Eastern Countries arriving to much state and pomp and to much greatness in Dominion and Government long before either in Greece Italy or any of the Western Parts any such thing was attained to or known Which evidently shews that the Inhabitants of those Countries were the First-born and Heirs of the World who had the great Court and Metropolis amongst them and that other Nations were of the Younger House and Colonies of a Latter Edition Secondly The earliness of Learning of Art Sciences and Inventions amongst â—he Assyrians Chaldaeâ—ns and Egyptians before they so much as budded forth or appeated in other Conntries does argue That those parts were first inhabited That they were the eldest Possessors oâ— the World had been longest in it werâ— of greatest Experience and that otheâ— Nations People were gradually deriveâ— and planted from those Countries anâ— the Inhabitants of that part of the World Thirdly We find that those in honour of whom the Nations received their first Names were the Posterity of Noah that Moses tells us of From Japhet most probably the Eldest Son of Noaâ— called by Hesiod and others of the most anâ—ient Writers Japitos and his Posterito Japeâ—â—onides came the Gomerians or â—ymbrians from his Son Gomer the Magogims from Magog the Medes or Madians from Madus the Jones after called Graeâ—â—ns from Javan in Greek Jovan and so from the Posterity of the other two The Canaanites from Canaan the Sabaeâ—ns from Seba which the Grecians write Saba the Philistims from Palesthim the Thracians from Thyras the Sidonâ—ans from Sidon the Egyptians from the Posterity of Cham Egypt being called Mizraim from Mizraim one of his Sons Mizraim in Hebrew being the name of Egypt and antiently even to the time of Josephus the Egyptians he sayes were called Chuseans from Cush or Chus the eldest Son of Cham And so throughout all the chiefest parts of the Earth we find the several Nations by their antient denominations to be originally descended from that Posterity of Noab set down in the tenth of Genesis Sems Posterity appear to have been the Planters of Asia Chams of Africa and Japhets of most part of Europe with Asia the Less
Of the first peopling of America from whence it was first peopled or at what time little account can be expected nor can any Objection be reasonably made from thence in this Matter because of the perfect silence in all Antient Story of any such place and because of our total ignorance of it till of late but there is ground sufficient to believe that 't is of a much later Plantation than the other three parts of the World For there are not Records found amongst the People of that Countrey that exceed a thousand years and as most tell us from thence Not above eight hundred The exact and punctual account of this whole Matter we have from Josephus and Eusebâ—us heretofore and from many learned men since But especially from the most excellent Bochart who has herein far exceeded them all and whose most successful endeavours this way have not onely most evidently cleared the Truth of Sacred History in this particular but indeed the Whole of what Moses has wrote is very greatly justified thereby Secondly Those Prophetical Predictions of our Saviour in the New Testament concerning the miseries of the Jews their being led Captive into all Nations the Besieging of Jerusalem and such a Ruine of the Temple as that one stone should not be left upon another with many other Prophesies relating to that business have had such an eminent and notorious fulfilling in the times of Vespatian Trajan Adrian and since as greatly justifies the whole of the Gospel and much assures us of the truth of all that our Saviour has spoken What we find in Tacitus Hegysippus and other Heathen Writers but especially the Story of Josephus their own Historian has written of that which happened to the Jeus their City and Temple about forty years after the sufferings of Christ is so exactly corresponding to what he himself foretold and is set down in the 24th of St. Matthew that no instance can be given that any future events were ever so plainly and fully foretold and so punctually fulfilled in any Age Nor can any impartial man consider that strange Agreement there is in every Particular between what then happened and what our Saviour foretold so many years before without being greatly affected with it And how fully competent Josephus was to write that Story may be judged by what he himself sayes in his first Book against Appion I my self sayes he have composed a most true Story of those Wars and of every particular thing there done As well I might having been present in all those Affairs For I was Captain of the Galilaeanâ— amongst our Nation so long as any resistance could be made against the Romans And then it fell out that I was taken by the Romans And being Prisoner unto Titus and Vespatian they caused me to be an eye-witness of all things that pass't First In Bonds and Fetters And afterwards freed from them I was brought from Alexandria with Titus when he went to the Siege of Jerusalem So that nothing could then pass whereof I had not notice For beholding the Roman Army I committed all things to writing with all possible diligence My self did onely manage all Matters disclosed unto the Romans by such as yeelded themselves for that I only did perfectly understand them Lastly Being at Rome and having now leasure all businesses being past I used the help of some for the Greek Tongue And so I published a History of all that had happened in the aforesaid War Which History of mine is so true that I fear not to call Vespatian and Titus Emperors in those Wars to witness for them I first gave a Copy of that Book to them after to many noble Romans present in those Wars I sold also many of them to our own Nation to such as understood the Greek Language Amongst whom were Julius Archelaus Herod the Honest and the most worthy King Agrippa who do all testifie that my History containeth nothing but truth who would not have been silent if any thing either out of Ignorance or Flattery I had changed or omitted in any particular The City of Jerusalem and the Temple being about forty years after our Saviours time by Vespation and Titus totally ruined and demolished The Jews after that three times indeavoured to rebuild their Temple The first time was under the Emperor Adrian in the year after Christ 136. Which attempt had no other effect but the slaughter of fifty thousand of them with many other sad Desolations which we find set down at large by that noble Historian Dion Cassius Their second attempt was under Constantine which he soon quashed but not without great Expressions of his Displeasure against them cutting off their Ears and branding their Bodies and making most of them Slaves and Vagabonds Their last attempt to rebuild it was in the dayes of Julian when they were so far from being any way hindered that they were highly encouraged by Julian himself with Money and all Materials on purpose as Sozomon tells us to vilify the Christian Religion and confront our Saviours Prediction The Story of it we have from one that we are sure could have no design to befriend the Christians Ammianus Marcellinus a Heathen-Historian and a Souldier at that time in Julians Army He tells us with what immoderate Expences and indefatigable Industry the Jews by the help of Julian set about it intending to make it more famous than ever And that to expedite the Work Julian appointed one Alyppius a Person of great quality in his Army to oversee it and assist in it And at last concludes his whole Relation with these words Cum itaque rei idem fortiter instaret Alyppius juvaretque Provinciae Rector Metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebis assultibus erumpentes fecere locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum hocque modo elemento destinatius repellente cessavit incaeptum Am. Marcel lib. 23. When therefore this Alyppius set eagerly on the work being assisted by the Governour of that Province dreadful Balls of Fire bursting forth with often assaults near the Foundation made the place the Workmen being several times devoured with the flames inaccessible And after this manner the Element resisting as with some kind of destiny the design was given over This was that final stroke from Heaven that put a period to all endeavours of rebuilding that place and to all future attempts of restoring again the Jewish Church-state and Polity And how great an Evidence is it to the truth of the Gospel and the Whole of what our Saviour has spoken to sind all these Predictions against his great Opposers and Crucifiers so strangely and so exactly and in so visible and notorious a manner fulfilled And in truth that general prophetick Spirit we find throughout the Bible those manifold plain and direct Predictions 't is every where fill'd with of things future and to come tells us much of its Divinity and greatly assures us It could not be an effect
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
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
broke forth like the Sun in his strength has over-spred the whole Horizon of the Christian Church And where ever the Gospel is owned these Books are received with that Veneration that becomes due to such Sacred Writings The Church of England Judges the doubts that have been at any time made about any parts of the New Testament not worthy of our Notice And therefore in the sixth Article it is thus expressed In the Name of the holy Scriptures we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church That is no considerable doubt no general doubt in the Whole Church Nor indeed any such doubt as ought to disturb either the Churches determination or any particular mans judgment about this matter For it cannot be shewed that any One intire Church or that any National or Provincial Council or indeed that any Considerable part of the Christian World in any Publick Confessions Catechisms or otherwise have rejected any of those Books we now reckon within the Canon The most Considerable Doubt that we find made about any one of them was about the Epistle to the Hebrews which for some time was doubted of in the Roman Church And yet Eusebius says onely It was doubted of a quibusdam in Ecclesia Romana by some in the Roman Church and 't is certain much of that doubt was whether St. Paul were the Authour of it or no But to conclude an Answer to this Question let these two things be Considered First under the Old Testament so soon as all the Parts of it were finished the Canon of That was exactly settled by men of an infallible Spirit in the times of Esdras and those last Prophets contemporary with him and so no further Doubt was or could reasonably be made about that Secondly under the New Testament it pleased God so to order it that he that closed up the whole Bible and wrote the Conclusion of it so far out-lived all the other Pen-men that he himself might very well see the Whole conjoyned and deliver it over to the Church intire as we now have it The Apostle St. John not onely survived Titus and that famous Destruction of the Temple and the Jews in his time but he lived through Domitian's time and Cocceius Nerva's time to the Reign of the Emperour Trajan which was somewhat above a Hundred years after our Saviours Birth and sixty and odd after his Crucifixion so Irenaeus tells us lib. 2. p. 192. And some other of the Apostles it should seem lived long for the same Author says that there were in his time Saniores qui non solum Johannem viderint sed alios Apostolos Elders that had not onely seen S. John but others of the Apostles That the Canon of the New Testament was established and setled by Apostolical Authority seems very probable S. Austin contra Faust Man lib. 11. cap. 5. and in his 19. Epist positively affirms it Distincta est says he à posteriorum libris excellentia Canonica authoritatis veteris Novi Testamenti quae Apostolorum confirmata temporibus Saint Jerome sayes Johannem omnium longissimè vixisse videre libros omnes confirmare pâ—sset si qui fictitij liberi ederentur eos à sâ—cris verè Canonicis distinguere That the Apostle John out-lived all the rest of the Apostles that he might perâ—se and confirm all the Parts of the New Testament and distinguish them from all counterfeit Writings if any such came abroad And he further adds That some Spurious Writings concerning the actions of S. Paul were brought to him and that he by his Apostolical Authirity condemned them Tertullian de Prescript says expresly The Canon of the Bible is founded upon Apostolical Authority And Eusebius gives this plain testimony to it Narrant veteres Johannem Asiaticarum Ecclesiarum rogatu Germanum Scripturae Canonem constituisse The antients tell us says he that St. John upon the request of the Asiatick Churches settled the true Canon of Scripture 'T is certain that S. John before his death made his abode much at Sardis and Ephesus and amongst those Asiatick Churches For after the death of Domitian he was restored from his Banishment by the Emperour Nerva and returned from Patmos into Asia and there governed the Churches until his death And 't is extreamly probable that upon their desire he then fully settled the Canon of the New Testament for that there was then occasion for the doing of it we sind by Enseâ—ius his History of those times And it is evident from S. John himself that the Church of Ephesus had been attempted by false Apostles in those days and whatever Doubts of that kind were then extant we cannot otherwise suppose but that they would be proposed to him and End in his Apostolical determination So that if we lay all these things together St. Johns living so long after all â—he Parts of the New Testament but the Revelation were Written And his surviving some very considerable time after the Writing of that for it is most probable that he received those Visions and wrote them in the end of the Reign of Domitian his closing the whole with that Book after which he declares as many think by pronouncing a Curse to him that should add to it or diminish from it that there was to be no further Revelation expected having therein given a full account of the State of the Church to the end of the world Considering the Doubts that were then extant about some Parts amongst such as had not a thorough Information about them and that False apostles did then appear considering of how great a Concern it was then and would be to all future Ages to have the Canon of the whole Bible settled by an Infallible judgment and considering the material Evidence we have from many Primative Writers That indeed it was so All these things considered there seemes very probable Ground to believe that the Apostle John before he left the world did fully Determine this matter and 't is most likely that as the Knowledge of what he had done came to be published abroad the Doubts that were then made dis-appeared And we that live in these latter Ages see that all the Questions and Doubts that have at any time been are perfectly vanished and the whole bopy of the New Testament hath now gained an Universal reception Thirdly How can we that have not the Originals of the Scriptures not the Outographa 's of those that Wrote them but onely the Copies of them and most but the Translations of those Copies rest assured we have Gods Mind as it was first delivered In Answering to this Question it must be acknowledged that the Original Records of every Part of the Bible did at first consist of Perishable matter and have undergone the common Fate of all othâ—r Writings 'T is evident it was not the pleasure of God that the Authority of the Scriptures