eternity So then whatsoever befals us here we shall conclude it requisite to provide that we be not miserable hereafter and consequently that we make our selves a friend of him that hath the issues of death in his power and moderates and dispenses the rewards of Eternity but there is no way to have him propitious to us but by obedience no reason to expect that he should satisfie our longing or fulfill our will to all Eternity unlesse we fulfill his will for our time of triall in this life and that is by the exercise of Religion only attainable So that the consideration of the Souls Immortality will likewise enforce us to a necessity of Religion Thus farre the common principles of naturall reason will force us even the first and most common principles of intelligence such as are grounds of clear evident and perfect demonstration so that it must be the Fool alone as the Psalmist speaks which can be an Atheist so that they are without excuse whoever glorifie him not as God thus farre those poor remains of sight which yet is left to the corrupted off-spring of our degenerate Parent will serve to leade us to the generall necessity of Religion but here indeed it Jeaves us destitute of the certain waies of pleasing God and consequently destitute of clear and solid grounds of hope of attaining to eternall happinesse And here it is that the Scoffers and irreligious men take occasion to reason themselves and others to destruction seeing that nature hath here deserted us and left us no infallible Rules of particular waies of devotion they contend that ther are none such and consequently that our Religion is vain and uncertain uncertain in the issue because uncertain in the grounds and principles And here now against them we pretend that wherein our naturall light hath failed us the mercy of God hath been pleased to supply us that God hath not left us without a certain rule and Canon of Religion not without a light shining to us in this dark place particularly that he hath given to us his holy Word to be a Light to our feet and a Lanthorn to our paths and that the books of the holy Scriptures are that Word of God PART III. Concerning the truth and Authority of our Scripture SECT. I. Petitions and Cautions premised to the question YOu will doe me the favour to consider that our present controversie is against those that deny the Authority of the holy Scriptures so that we cannot have the advantage of those Arguments which in every other controversie of Religion are the most valid I mean Arguments drawn from the Authority of the Scriptures themselves which is the best if not the only authentike rule of decision of such differences as doe arise such as doe indeed arise in the Church of God who all doe agree in a profession of that faith which is delivered in these holy Books this I say they agree upon in these generall tearms however with wonderfull heat and distance they vary in their judgements whether or no some particulars be of the recommendation of the Scripture It is then the common principle of Christians and the ultimate rule for the judgement of those that are within but as for them that are without the Church they ae likewise out of the jurisdiction of this Canon or Judge and to give over their incredulity or rather infidelity as some of our Divines have done with this ill-interpreted axiome for rejection that they deny our principles and so are not worthy to be disputed with or to referre them only to the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of the Scriptures and to the spirit working with the reading and hearing of them it might be to prove a scandall to them without and to such as are weak and wavering within it were tacitely to imply that we have no way to gain the question unlesse our of courtesie the adversary be pleased to yeild it to us to resolve the motives of our Catholique Faith into private impulses and particular dictates of the Spirit arguments of very great credit and reputation due to our selves as particular favorites of the holy Spirit but such as being deserted by the tenor and regiment of our lives render us dishonourable to that holy Spirit whereto we pretend whilest in the apprehension of men we doe at least obliquely entitle it to such actions as are inconsistent with it professing we hold our faith by private revelation and consequently have our understandings taken up by the holy Ghost at such time as our wils are guilty of enormous sinnes A fancy that is the mother of diverse prodigies lately broken into the Church as that either God sees no sinne in beleevers that Murther Adultery Incest Sacrilege any thing may be committed and that these are no sinnes in beleevers arguing thus that they which have the holy Spirit are free from sinne such as do beleeve the Gospel they have the holy Spirit because there is no other motive sufficient besides a private illumination so then they cannot be guilty of sinne but yet they may and doe commit such things as those we mentioned wherefore those are no sinnes Thus doth Satan transform himself into an Angel of light and act his Tragedies in the likenesse of the holy Spirit Nay we say and doe beleeve that the Devils also beleeve and tremble that the Kingdome of Heaven is like a Net which drew to shore fishes of all sorts some to be put into vessels and others to be thrown away We say and doe acknowledge to the glory of God that the internall light of the holy Scriptures is sufficient to make the man of God perfect to salvation and that in some it is the means of generating faith in men but that the most of those beleevers who have the happinesse to be trained up from their infancy in any part of the Christian Church by observing the esteem which in their Church is had of those holy Bookes they doe betimes upon the reputation of their Church receive them with a kinde of veneration that upon this motive they receive the faith and that others doe upon other inducements entertain it and once for all we say that besides the secret and free illuminations of the holy Spirit these want not Arguments to enforce the reason of unbvassed men to entertain the Scripture as the Word of God and that all such as without the engagement of perverse affections shall admit those Arguments in their apprehensions must necessarily be of that belief Before I betake my self to the proof of this assertion I must premise that by the books of the holy Scripture I mean such books of the old and new Testament as in the Church of England have been accounted Canonicall and that I intend not here to take up the controversie which is betwixt the Church of Rome and us concerning the books which are Apocryphall the drift of my discourse being against those who beleeve
Ghost by the imposition of their hands unlesse they could have healed all manner of diseases the blinde the lame the deaf the dumb c. by words touch shaddow or could have spoke all sorts of Languages or rather at one speaking could have brought to passe that men of every language should perfectly have understood their speech as if it had been their own Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and Judea and Cappadocia Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphilia Egipt and the parts of Lybia about Cyrene strangers of Rome Jews and Proselytes Cretes and Arabians they all heard them speak in their own tongues Nor did it please the Lord of the spirits of all flesh here to stint the dispensations of his holy spirit to them he gave them not only the power of miracles but the spirit of prophecy he unfolded to them the everlasting rolls and admitted them into his decrees and would not hide from them the things which he meant to bring to passe in the generations to come he urged them by his holy Spirit and they foretold the fates of the world they foretold it and God brought it to passe I cannot stand to reckon up all their prophecies which they delivered and shortly after they were fulfilled of the spreading of that leaven of the growth of that grain of mustardseed of the mighty and wonderfull propagation of the faith and the perpetuall enduring of it of the rejection of it by the Jews and the receiving of it by the Gentiles of the hatred of the Jews and the torments which were to be undergone by the glorious Martyrs of the destruction of Ierusalem and the calamities of that faithlesse Nation all these make it evident that God was with them that there is infinitely more reason to beleeve the writers of the New Testament then any other writers That none can disbeleeve them without forfeiting his reason by asserting that God would give testimony to imposture SECT. VI That the Old Testament is the Word of God A Proposall of three severall assertions whereby it is concluded HAving demonstrated that the Books of the New Testament are all of them to be received under the authority and credit of the word of God that the dogmaticall parts are to be received upon the credit of the Histories and the Histories upon the common principles of reason and consequently that no man professing to be guided by reason and judgement can refuse them It remains that we demonstrate the same of the Old Testament and that we take off those colours and answer those Sophisms which by some men are urged against the Scripture and so conclude this argument Before I proceed to the former of these I must call to your remembrance that which in the beginning I did premise that under the title of the Books of the Old Testament I did comprehend those and those only which in the Church of England have been admitted under the name of the Books of the Canonicall Scripture and that I had no purpose at all to meddle with the controversies which are betwixt us and the Romane Church about the books which are Apocryphall the reason why the Church hath entertained them only into the Canon is because they onely were of the Canon of the Jews beleef before the coming of our Saviour they only being written in the Hebrew tongue and consigned by Esdras at the return of the Jews from the Babilonish captivity as is generally beleeved amongst the Jewish Rabbines whilest the Prophets Haggai Zachary and Malachy were yet alive Now although the way to demonstrate the truth of them considering the question apart and by ic self be the same with the way whereby we did demonstrate the truth of the New Testament by asserting the Authours of them to have been those men to whom they were evermore ascribed and from the qualities of the things delivered in matter of History and the characters of those persons who have delivered the severall parts of it to demonstrate that no reason can be imagined why such men as those are and must be supposed to be should deliver such impostures as those must be supposing them to be impostures that no end or motive can be discovered which they should propound to themselves for their reward but on the contrary that many reasons are visible why they should have held their peace if they durst have concealed those things from the world the reasons from safety gain glory and the like as might either jointly or severally be demonstrated of even all the books of the Law and of the Prophets which make up the greatest part Moses together with the Law having delivered likewise the shame of himself and Miriam and Aaron The Prophets having been all or most of them hardly used which of the Prophets have not your Fathers persecuted Although I say this had been the naturall way to demonstrate the matter in question taken singly and apart by it selfe yet partly to avoid the similitude of matter which renders unpleasant even the most profitable discourses and partly to make a present dispatch of this Argument I shall content my self to have put you thus in minde that all those generall arguments for the truth and credit of those writers are common to these as well as to the others and that there needs no variation of them being to be applied to the question now in hand any other then the interchanging of their severall names their personall relations and qualities and other accidents In a word that the kindes of the Arguments are the same and the force of reason alike in both allowing only the difference of gradual and individuall circumstances This being premised the summe of what I shall further say is briefly this That 1. In the time of our Saviour and the Apostles these Bookes were true 2. That since that time they have not been changed From which two Propositions it will follow that still they are so and consequently that the Books of the Old Testament as well as of the New are the Word of God As touching these propositions the truth of them will be inferred by this ratiocination 1. The Books which we now receive are the same which the Jews do now receive 2. The Books which the Jews now receive are the same which they did formerly receive even up to the consignation of their Canon 3. The Books which then they did receive were true SECT. VII The first Assertion proved That the Books of the Old Testament which we now receive are the same which the Jews doe now receive THat those Canonicall Books which we receive are the self same with those which the Jews at the present do receive is a case so plain that it needs no manner of proof but only this that it is obvious to every man to compare our English or Latine Bibles with the Hebrew Bibles which are used amongst the Jews at present and daily put forth by the present
upon design seeing the differences that are do no way inferre any difference either in the Doctrine or History of the Testament it was of the favour and mercy of God to preserve to his Church those various readings that by comparing them together and likewise with the rest of the holy Scriptures both the true sence and the true reading of them might at once be manifested SECT. XI Objections against particular parts briefly proposed and answered NOw Objections against particular books of either Testament will be found likewise inconsiderable 't is true that many of them have been either doubted of or rejected by some men but those who have pertinaciously refused them have done it rather out of the interest of their passions and corrupt affections then out of judgement Briefly Ecclesiastes hath been rejected by some as Written by Solomon in his dotage Placing felicity in sences But the first of these can no way be proved nay the contrary appears by the whole tenour of it well considered and the latter is evidently confuted by the conclusion Fear Cod c. for God shall bring c. The Canticles have been taken for a Love-song compiled in a complement to Pharaohs daughter but it had been but a slender complement to tell her that her eyes were like fish-pools and her nose like the tower of Lebanon that looketh toward Damascus The Prophecy of Daniel hath been charged by Porphyrius to have been a History written after the things were done written in the time of Antiochus and imposed upon the world under the credit of the name of Daniel but beside the testimony of our Saviour it appears out of History that that Prophecy was shewed to Alexander the great in his advance towards Jerusalem 150. years before Antiochus New Testament Hebrews was rejected by the Latine Church because the Authour was unknown and because of some passages especially seeming to favour the Novatian herefie I answer 1. It is not the name of an authour which gives credit to his Writings but that character of his person which is drawn from his abilities and integrity Now these were never doubted of in that Authour 2. Those passages are very well to be understood otherwise then in favour of the Novatians 3. It was ever received in the Greek Church and recited amongst the Canonicall Books by the Councels of Nice Laodicea and Carthage 4. If we are to beleeve the Western Church had grounds to doubt of the credit of it at such time as it did not admit it we may as well beleeve that that Church had reasons which satisfied them of the authority of it at such time as they did receive it The Epistles of Saint James 2d of St Peter the second and third of St John Jude Revelations have all of them been doubted of for some time by some parties whether or no they were indeed written by those authours under whose names they are now received but though they were some time doubted by some they were alwaies received by others and those Churches which did refuse them so long as they were unsatisfied are to be supposed to have been satisfied when they did receive them and so we ought to give as great if not greater cedit to them then to such others as had not been questioned inasmuch as that which hath been deliberated and debated and then decided is to be credited as well as that which silently hath passed on unquestioned And now I have with brevity as I suppose congruous to such an Essay as I intended made evident the last assertion which I undertook That to disbeleeve either the whole body of Scripture or any part of it there is no reason or not any sufficient reason {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Eternity Necessity Simplicity Independency Incorporeality Immensity Unity Omnipotence Omniscience