made known unto you If all these places being put together contain not a prophesie concerning Christ The Word of God the Son of God who was made flesh and came into the world as to redeem the world by the oblation of his own body so also to reveal the truth of God unto men if all these places I say being put together doe not amount to a prophesie I know not we may call a prophesie Sure we are there is nothing forged or supposititious in all this which of the Sibyls that collection of verses I mean which now goeth under that name and of Mercurius Trismegistus hath been proved For a close of this third point or principle I shall add a passage of Dio Chrysostomus a famous Oratour and Philosopher who lived in Trajanus the Emperour his days and was in great account with him whose words also because he was a great Platonist may be some light to those of Plato's All the discourses and all the devices of men are nothing to divine inspiration and revelation or authority For what traditions or doctrines soever concerning the gods and this Vniverse that are not void of wisdome and truth have been among men all such were begotten in the souls of men by divine will and by a speciall lot or luck Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as may bee knowne by them that were the first Prophets and Professors of Divinity such as Orpheus son to one of the Muses is reported to have been in Thracia and another certain Shepheard in Boecria taught by the Muses And whosoever they be that take upon them to vent any doctrine of their own abroad for true without divine rapture or inspiration their doctrine is certainly both absurd and wicked The fourth is IV. That those books of the Old and New Testament c. I said before I presupposed I had to doe here with Christians who were already satisfied concerning the truth of those books It is well known that such have been of old and are at this day too many who though they professe to admit and allow for divine the same Scriptures that we doe and pretend to the faith and doctrine therein contained as much as we yet do not beleeve of Christ as we doe I have no direct aim at them in this Discourse intended only for the further satisfaction and confirmation of Orthodoxe Christians in this main point no direct aim I say but as the handling of this argument upon Scripture grounds may prove a conviction of their impiety and infidelity As for them that professe against this ground of either Old or New Testament which we build upon they will not neither directly or indirectly come within our reach But how then may some object perchance can we as we first maintained give a rationall account of our faith and stop the mouths of Atheists and Infidels if we cannot prove the Scriptures to be the Word of God upon common grounds of humane reason and ratiocination To which we answer that although we doe not apprehend those grounds so evident and so uncontrollable as to oblige every rationall man to a present and ready assent and therefore not to be reckoned among those common notions though reducible to them and principles we have spoken of yet that the Scriptures by them that are learned may be maintained upon grounds of reason sufficient to convince and to convert an Infidel who with simplicity of heart without strong prejudice or worldly engagements to the contrary doth seek the truth we doe professe to beleeve and should be sorry were it our aim or argument if we could not make it good One argument onely I shall insist upon here which by ancient Christians as being both popular proper I mean for vulgar capacities and solid was much pressed and whereof they found good use The testimony of a known professed enemy or adversary hath always among all men been accounted a very pregnant evidence And what relation there is between the Old and New Testament is well known to all Christians and may soon be demonstrated to them that are not Now then what greater evidence of the truth of the Old Testament can any man require then the Jewes our greatest and most malicious adversaries Then the Jews I say who by a speciall Providence though scattered and dispersed through the whole world continue to this day a distinct Nation from all other Nations of the world and to this day so zealous for Moses and all other Scriptures of the Old Testament that in all places for testimony of the truth of those Scriptures they are ready if they be put to it to lay down their lives and to forgoe whatsoever is dearest unto them Whose predecessors also that too by a speciall admirable Providence have been of old so curious and so provident for the preservation of those Scriptures which they acknowledged that they devised an art of which art either for invention or accuratnesse there is no parallel in all the ancient learning of the Heathens how to prevent not the losse of it onely but the corruption also by any either addition or diminution or alteration in words or syllables yea letters and tittles How much this argument of the Jews testimony was made of by the ancients and of what consequence it then proved may appear by Saint Augustine who speaks of it in sundry places of his Works In the twelfth of his books against the Manicheans he saith Quid enim est aliud hodieque gens ipsa Judaeorum nisi quaedam scriniaria Christianorum basulans leges prophetas ad testimonium assertionis Ecclesiae that is For what to this day are the Jews but as it were the registers or record-keepers of the Christians bearing up down the Law and the Prophets with them for a testimony to the Church Saint Augustine in these words doth allude to the custome of the Jews who then in every Synagogue were wont and use it in most places I beleeve to this day to have sacred chests or desks wherein to keep their holy Bible not onely for its safety but in reverence to it also What Saint Augustine cals Scrinium Tertullian inditeth armarium in his De Habitumuliebri ch 3. And Epiphanius in his Treatise De Ponderibus mensuris where he treateth of the difference of Canonicalll books from others he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such books saith he speaking of that which is called Wisdome and others of like nature are accounted by them usefull and profitable but are not in the number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Canonicall for which cause also they are not laid up with the Canonicall in the aron that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the chest or capse of the Testament Lamp Alardi Epiphyll Phiolog I wonder that any man could so mistake Epiphanius as though he had beleeved that the whole Jews Bible or Old Testament had been kept in the Ark where the two Tables containing
the ten Commandements were appointed to be laid which Ark before the said Testament was compleat ever since the Babylonian Captivity had been wanting Petavius himself a learned Jesuite that hath set out Epiphanius except he may be allowed to expunge those words as spurious the last refuge of venturous Criticks when they are plunged and cannot get out doth plainly professe to suspect this to have been the opinion of Epiphanius whereas we have more occasion to suspect of him that he did not understand him or had any thought of those passages of Tertullian and Augustine which would have made Epiphanius his meaning clear enough and as we conceive unquestionable I have now done with those grounds of common notions and principles of humane reason the consideration whereof I conceived would be proper and pertinent to the subject we are to treat of a subject of it self so sublime and so farre above the reach of humane understanding that whoever takes upon him to meddle with it had need to lay wel his grounds before-hand and carefully to circumscribe himself lest he fall into extravagances before he be aware Qui scrutatur Majestatem opprimetur à gloriâ whether that were Solomons meaning Prov. 25.27 or no may be controverted but a true sentence it is however and they shall be sure to find it true that proceed not in such arguments with much warinesse This method of proceeding by certain hypotheses laid for a foundation though it be most proper to Mathematicians yet it is not unusuall to other Artists and Writers It is the very method used by Plato in his Timeus the subject whereof is the Creation of the world of man particularly our subject is the restauration or regeneration of mankinde in Christ which of the two is generally accounted the greater work OF THE INCARNATION of CHRIST ANcient Philosophers that have written concerning the nature of this Universe observe this as a great mystery of nature and a singular evidence of the power and wisdome of God the author of nature that whatsoever is commonly said to dye or to perish is by this death or corruption which they more properly call alteration the cause of the production and generation of something else whereby the course of this worlds generation in generall is continued and maintained It may be applied in some kinde to this sacred subject and mystery of Christ his Incarnation The fall and miscarrying of the first Adam was the cause or occasion at the least of the second Adam Had not the first Adam the first fruits of mankind in whom the whole lump was either to be sanctified or polluted sinned and by his sin undone all that should come from him the second Adam Christ Jesus according to the flesh as the Scripture speaketh had never been born for there had been no need of him For as for the conceits of some either ancient Hereticks or later Schoolmen who have maintained a contrary opinion as neither grounded upon Scripture nor any probability of reason and generally rejected by the more sober of all sides I willingly passe by But on the other side though the Incarnation of the Son of God of all the works of God hath eminently the preeminence yet we may not say or think that therefore the first man sinned or was ordained to sin that the Son of God might be incarnated For so wee should make God the author of sin then which nothing either in it self can be more detestable or more contrary to true piety God indeed to whom all things past present future are equally present as hee foresaw from all eternity the fall of Adam and in him of all mankinde so did he from all eternity decree the Incarnation of his Son for the restauratiō of man Whence are those phrases of Scripture that Christ as a Redeemer a 1 Pet. 1.20 was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world that we were b Ephes 1.4 chosen or c 2 Tim. 1.9 saved in Christ before the foundation of the world or before the world began and again that Christ is the d Apoc. 13.8 Lamb slain from the foundation of the world though as for this last passage I rather embrace their interpretation such hyperbaton's as they call them being very frequent in the Scriptures who referre this from the beginning of the world to the book of life as Apocal. 17.18 rather then to the Lamb slain though I must professe against the reason that is given by some as Ribera the Jesuite upon the place as though there were any absurdity or incongruity in the speech being so justifiable by other parallel places of Scripture But this foresight of God did no ways occasion much lesse necessitate the disobedience of Adam who as he was created with perfect freedome of will so he might had not he been wanting to himself have resisted the temptation of the Devill and have continued in that innocency to which his happinesse and immortality was annexed But it so fell out that Adam used his freewill to his own and all that should be after him being descended from him their ruine and eternall confusion Better it had been for him certainly and better for all that had any dependence of him never to have been for I am not of their opinion that think any beeing better then no beeing then to see himself at once stript of his happinesse and innocency of the son of God become the slave of the Devill and besides his own personall misery the occasion of so much evill unto others Seneca De Clem. l. 1. Quanto autem non nasci melius quà m numerari inter publico malo natos how much more then quà m unum omnis omnibus mali causam extitisse Here a question offers it self though we would be very cautelous of moving questions of this nature where the Scripture it self is silent too much curiosity in this kind having been the occasion of sundry blasphemies and heresies yet because there is some ground for it in the Scripture we may not altogether passe it by The question is Why God would permit Adam to sin which he might many ways have prevented if he had thought fit The first answer is because it became God well if this be not too bold a speech to make good his own order and to maintain his owne work It had pleased God to endow Adam with a perfect free-will He was furnished with sufficient grace to continue innocent and to withstand sin but that grace was conditionall as be used it as he liked it he might either improve it or lose it If therefore we must make a question of it it is more proper to ask why God created Adam with free-will then why God did not hinder the sin of Adam being so created This very question much troubled ancient Philosophers who had the bare light of reason and nature for their guide Why God being so perfectly good as they did acknowledge him would suffer sin
may be a true Christian though he understand not upon what grounds of humane reason his faith is grounded which innumerable Christians for want either of education or through naturall indocility or prevented by death never attain unto If then in Divinity as well as in other Sciences to proceed with more solidity the consideration of the first principles be sometimes requisite it is in these points especially and principally which of themselves seem most contrary to reason and common sense such as this is Christ his Incarnation I know it hath been the opinion of some of Saint Chrysostome by name that the Incarnation of Christ the Son of God might of it self sufficiently be demonstrated and maintained by arguments of reason And somewhat of that kinde I have seen endeavoured by some but never yet any thing which did much satisfie me or whereby I could hope to satisfie any other And I account it a matter of no little danger for men to be too great undertakers in this kind Wit and subtilty may do well perchance in some other things but not so well in articles of such weight and consequence To goe on therefore in our intended method before we come to particulars of Christian principles in generall we shall first say That whatsoever among men professing to hearken to reason and endowed with competent judgement and discoursive faculties either without any arguing at all will currantly passe or upon very little arguing may be justified and approved for right or reasonable we reckon that in the number of common principles of which kind we take these three ensuing particulars to us here most considerable to be I. First that there is a God II. Secondly that the ways and counsels of God there being such disproportion between God and man must in all probability be different in most things from the thoughts counsels and apprehensions of the wisest of men III. Thirdly that whatsoever hath been revealed by God himself unto man ought to be beleeved and embraced by men with as much fulnesse of assent and beleef as what is most certain and undoubted amongst men as either grounded upon the senses or upon certain experience To these of which as we shall shew there can bee little question amongst rationall men being all avouched and averred by principall authors of severall ages and religions whose writings remain to this day because we have not to doe here with Heathens or Infidels properly but with such as make no question of the truth of the Scriptures but stumble most for want of due consideration as shall appear at some of the former we shall adde a fourth which is IV. That those books of the Old and New Testament generally received by all Christians for Canonicall were written by men inspired of God and justly accounted The Word of God Let us now consider of these principles severally for it will much concern us that some of them that have not been so throughly sifted and considered of by others be well cleared The first is that there is a God I. We need not adde by whom the world and all that is in it man particularly was made since it is the view and consideration of the world especially and all that is in it and man particularly that brings a naturall man to the knowledge of God Psal 19.1 2. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night uttereth knowledge So the Psalmist inspired by God speaketh of that knowledge of God common to all men even them that know not God otherwise by the bare evidence and testimony of nature And thereby we may the better know that David was inspired to say so because we finde others that were not inspired so generally and unanimously concurring in this acknowledgement Let those Heathens be looked upon that have written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is of the first apprehension or discovery made by men of a Deity as either Cleanthes or Aristotle of old whose names and arguments are recorded by Tully and by Sixtus Empiricus or later writers as Tully himselfe Plutarch Dio Chrysostomus and others they all pitch upon this as a principall evidence aequabilitatem motus conversionē coeli solis lunae syderumque distinctionem varietatem pulchritudinem ordinem that is in a word The beauty order constancy of the Heavens and Firmament Sun and Moon c. Even those who most wickedly did set themselves to argue against a Providence could not but acknowledge this a strong argument for Providence as Lucretius an excellent Poet but a professed Epicure in his opinions at least as when he saith Sol luna suo lustrantes lumine circum Perdocuere homines annorum tempora verti Et certa ratione geri rem atque ordine certo And again where he saith Nam cum suspicimus magni coelestia mundi Templa super stellisque micantibus aetherae fixum Et venit inmentem solis lunaeque viarum Tunc aliis oppressa malis in pectore cura Illa quoque expergefactum caput erigere infit Ecquae forte Deum nobis immensa potestas Sit vario motu quae candida sydera verset But whilest we make the Heavens the chiefest and clearest evidence of a Deity it must not be conceived that they are the onely For in very truth there is not any thing so meane in shew and common estimation which being throughly considered doth not set out the power and wisdome of God to a discerning eye as by ancient Philosophers and others that have handled this argument is copiously shewed Whence proceeded that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Presumption of all people and nations of the Universe in acknowledging and worshipping some Deity Which consideration above all others this generall consent and conspiration of all men I mean so farre moved Epicurus that he was constrained thereby as himself professed to acknowledge a Deity though the use and consequent of this acknowledgement hee did elude and frustrate by denying a Providence Solus vidit Epicurus esse Deos quod in omnium animis eorum notionem impressisset ipsa natura saith one of that sect in Tully that is that Epicurus did first avouch the being of a Deity upon that ground of mankinds generall consent though even so it be not altogether true but true it is that Epicurus did much enlarge himself upon that one proof and argument and was the first that applied the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to that purpose But how and how farre God may be found by the light of nature is largely disputed by the Schoolmen and by those that have written Metaphysicks Though all agree in the main yet they are not all of one minde neither concerning the extent nor the clearnesse of naturall light But to let them and their differences passe the Apostle clearly determines it and we with him Rom. 1.20 That