they never thought they did so Constance who persecuted St. Athanasius the Defender of the Ancient Faith ardently desired says Ammianus Marcellinus Id. lib. 15. to get him condemned by the Authority which the Bishop of Rome had over the others By seeking to support himself with that Authority he made the Heathens themselves sensible of what was wanting to his Sect and honoured the Church from which the Arrians had departed thus the Gentiles themselves acknowledged the Catholick Church If any one asked them where they kept their Assemblies and who were their Bishops they never deceived them As for Heresies whatsoever they made they could never get rid of the name of then Authors The Sabellians the Paulianists the Arrians the Pelagians and the rest were scandalized in vain at the title of the Faction which was given to them The World whatsoever they could do would speak naturally and designed every Sect by him from whom it first sprung As for the great Church the Catholick and Apostolick Church it was always impossible to affix any other Author to it than Jesus Christ himself nor to assign to it the first of its Pastors without going up as high as to the very Apostles nor to give it any other name than what it had before taken So that what Hereticks soever were made they could not conceal it from the Heathens She opened to them her Bosom all â—he World over and they ran to her in troops Some of them were possibly lost in the by-Paths but the Catholick Church was the great way wherein entred always most of those who sought after Jesus Christ and Experience has sufficiently discovered that to her it was given to bring in the fulness of the Gentiles Her also it was whom the unbelieving Emperours attacked with all their power and force Orig. cont Cels 7. Just. Apol. 2. Origen tells us that few of the Hereticks were sufferers for the Faith St. Justin more ancient than he hath observed that the Persecution spared the Marcionites and the other Hereticks The Heathens only persecuted that Church which they saw spread her self over the face of the whole Earth and only acknowledged her self for the Church of Jesus Christ What matters it to pull off some of the Branches her good Sap was not lost for all that she went into other places and the cutting down the superfluous Wood served but to make the Fruit come better In fine if we consider the History of the Church we shall always find that when ever one Heresie impaired it she recovered her losses both by enlarging outwardly and increasing inwardly light and piety whilst she beheld in some distant Corners the cut off Branches to dry and wither The work of man was perished notwithstanding the power of Hell to support it the work of God has continued and the Church hath triumphed over Idolatry and all Errours whatsoever THIS Church so always attacked XIII General Reflections on the Progress of Religion and the relation there is between the Books of the Scripture yet never overcome is a perpetual Miracle and a clear and shining Testimony of the Immutability of the Divine Councils In the midst of the agitation of Humane Affairs she still supported her self with an invincible force so that by an uninterrupted course for near these seventeen hundred years do we see her come up even to Jesus Christ in whom she hath collected the Succession of the ancient People and was found reunited to the Prophets and Patriarchs And so many astonishing Miracles which the Hebrews of old saw with their eyes do still serve at this day to confirm our Faith That great God who wrought them for a Testimony of his Unity and his Almightiness what could he do more authentick to preserve the memory of them than to leave in the hands of so great a People the Acts which punctually attest them in order of time this is what we now have in the Books of the Old Testament that is to say in the most ancient Books that are in the World in those Books which are the only ones of Antiquity where the knowledge of the true God is taught and his service ordained in those Books which the Jews have always so religiously kept 'T is certain that they were the only People who originally knew God the Creator of Heaven and Earth and consequently the only People to whom the Divine Secrets were to be committed They also kept them with a most religious care Those Books which the Egyptians and the other People called Divine are lost long since and there scarce remains so much as any confused Remembrance of them in ancient Histories The sacred Books of the Romans wherein Numa the Author of their Religion had written the Mysteries of them are perished even by the hands of the Romans themselves and the Senate commanded them to be burnt as tending to the overthrow of Religion And those same Romans at last suffered likewise the Books of the Sibyls Tit. Liv. li. 40. c. 29. Varr. l. de Cult Deor ap Aug. de Civ 12. 34. to be destroyed which were for so long time reverenced by them as Prophetical and wherein they would make the World believe that they found the Decrees of the Immortal Gods concerning their Empire and yet notwithstanding they never published I do not say one single Volume but so much as one single Oracle It has been only the Jews who have had the Sacred Scriptures in so much the greater Veneration as they were the more known Of all the ancient People these alone preserved the Primitive Monuments of their Religion albeit they so fully gave testimony of their Infidelity with that of their Ancestors And at this very day do this People still remain upon the Earth to carry into all Nations where they are dispersed together with the course and progress of their Religion the Miracles and Predictions which render it immoveable When Jesus Christ was come and sent by his Father to accomplish the Promises of the Law he confirmed his Mission and that of his Disciples by new Miracles which have been also written with the same exactness The Acts of them have been published all the World over the Circumstances of Time Persons and Places have made the Examen easie to all that have been careful of their Salvation The World was informed the World has believed and if we have but ever so little considered the ancient Monuments of the Church we must avow that never has any thing been determined with more of reflection and knowledge But as to the Relation which the Books of the two Testaments have to one another there is one difference to be considered that is that the Books of the ancient People were composed at divers times Some are the times of Moses others those of Joshua and the Judges and others of the Kings some are those when the People were brought out of Egypt and received the Law others those when they obtained the
promised Land and others those when they were re-established by visible Miracles To convince the incredulity of a People who were wholly devoted to their Senses God took a long extent of Ages in which he distributed his Miracles and his Prophets that so he might often renew the sensible Testimonies by which he attested his holy Truths In the New Testament he tooks another conduct He would no more reveal any thing anew to his Church after Jesus Christ In him was perfection and fulness and all the Divine Books that have been composed in the New Testament were made in the times of the Apostles That is to say that the Testimony of Jesus Christ and of those whom Jesus Christ hath been pleased to choose for the Witnesses of his Resurrection hath been sufficient for the Christian Church All that has come since has edified it but it has not been looked upon as purely inspired by God but what the Apostles have written or what they have confirmed by their Authority But in that difference which is found between the Books of the two Testaments God hath always observed that admirable order of making things to be written just at the times when they happened or at least when the memory of them was very fresh And so those that knew them wrote them those that knew them received the Books which bore witness of them and both the one and the other have left them to their Posterity as a most precious and invaluable Inheritance and they most carefully and piously have preserved them And thus was formed the Body of the Holy Scriptures as well the Old as the New Testament Scriptures which from their Original have been regarded as true in the whole as given by God himself and which have been also kept with that great Religion that it was thought none could dare to alter the least Letter of it without a strange Impiety And thus it was that they came down to us always holy always sacred always inviolable the one kept by the constant Tradition of the Jews and the other by the Tradition of the Christians so much the more certain as it was confirmed by the Blood and Martyrdom as well of those who wrote those Divine Books as of them that received ' em St. Austin and the other Fathers demand upon whose Faith we attribute the profane Books to certain Times and Authors Aug. cont Faust 11. 2. 32. 21. 33. 6. Every one readily answers that the Books are distinguished by the different Relations they have to the Laws Customs and Histories of a certain Time by the Stile it self which bears impressed the Character of particular Ages and Authors and more than all that Iren. 1.2.17 Tertul. adv Marc. 4. l. 4 5. Aug. de utilit ced 3. 17. cont Faust Manich. 22. 79. 28. 4. 32. 33. Cont. adv leg Porph. 1. 20. c. by the publick Faith and by a constant Tradition All these things concur to the establishment of the Divine Books to distinguish the Times and to mark out the Authors of them and the more Religion there was in preserving them entire the more indisputable is the Tradition which preserved them for us Thus hat it been always acknowledged not only by the Orthodox but also by Hereticks and even by Infidels Moses has ever passed in all the East and afterwards in all the World for the Legislator of the Jews and for being the Author of those Books that are attributed to him The Samaritans who had received them from the ten separated Tribes have as religiously kept them as the Jews You have seen their Tradition and their History Two People so opposite took them not one from the other but both received them from their Common Original in the Times of Solomon and David The ancient Hebrew Characters which the Samaritans still retain do sufficiently shew that they have not followed Esdras who changed them Thus the Pentateuch of the Samaritans and that of the Jews are two compleat Originals independant one on the other The perfect conformity that is seen in the substance of the Texts justifies the Sincerity of both those People They are faithful Witnesses that agree without understanding one another or to speak better who agree together notwithstanding all their Enmities V. sup 1. part p. 24 25 34 49 59 63 80 86 87. and which only Immemorial Tradition of both Parties hath united in the same mind Those therefore who say tho' without any reason that those Books being lost or having never been were set up or composed a new or altered by Esdras besides their being contradicted by Esdras himself as may very well be observed in the course of his History are likewise so by the Pentateuch which is even now at this day to be seen in the hands of the Samaritans so as it had been read in the first Agas by Eusebius of Cesaria St. Jerome and the other Ecclesiastical Author so as those People had kept it in their Original and a Sect so weak as that seems not to continue so long but to bear this Testimony to the Antiquity of Moses The Authors that wrote the four Evangelists received no less assured Testimony from the unanimous consent of the Faithful the Heathens and the Hereticks That great Number of various People who received and translated those Divine Books as soon as they were made agree in their date and in their Authors The Heathens have not contradicted this Tradition Nor Colsus who attacked those Sacred Books even in the first beginning of Christianity nor Julian the Apostate tho' he was neither ignorant of any thing nor omitted any thing that might descredit them nor has any other Heathen ever suspected them to be supposititious but on the contrary they have all given them the same Authors as the Christians The Hereticks although they were confounded by the Authority of those Books yet durst not say that they were not of the Disciples of our Lord. Nay some of those Hereticks saw the beginnings of the Church and before whose eyes were written the Books of the Gospel So that fraud if there could possibly be any would have appeared too near to have been successâ—ul 'T is true after the time of the Apostles and when the Church was already spread over the face of the Earth Marcion and Mannes always the most rash and the most ignorant of all the Hereticks notwithstanding the Tradition coming from the Apostles coâ—tinued by their Disciples and by the Bishops to whom they had left their Chair and the Conduct of the People and unanimously received by all the Christian Church were so bold as to say that there Evangelists were supposititious and that that of St. Luke which they preferred to all the others they knew not why since it came by no other way had been falsified But what proofs gave they of this nothing but meer Visions no positive Matters of Fact All the reason they gave was that what was contrary to their
Sentiments must necessarily have been invented by others than by the Apostles and for all their proof they alledged the very Opinions which were in Controversie Opinions otherwise so extravagant and so manifestly mad that it is not to be imagined how they could ever enter into the mind of man to conceive But certainly to accuse the Sincerity of the Church one must have in ones hands Originals quite different from those of hers or some demonstrative proof But they and their Disciples being called upon to produce some they are struck dumb and have left by their Silence an undoubted proof that in the second Age of Christianity in which they wrote there was not only an Index and manifest signification of Falsity in them Iren. Tertul. Aug. loc cit but there was not the least Conjecture that could be opposed to the Tradition of the Church What shall I say of the Consent and Harmony that is to be found in the Books of the Scripture and of that admirable Testimony which all the Times of the People of God gave one to the other The Times of the Second Temple presuppose those of the First and carry us back to Solomon Peace was only established by Combats and Fightings and the Conquests of God's People return us to the Times of the Judges to Joshuah and to the Children of Israel's coming out of Egypt In reflecting upon an entire People's coming out of a Kingdom where they were Strangers we shall remember how they got in thither The twelve Patriarchs appeared immediately and a People that were never look'd upon but as one single Family leads us naturally up to Abraham who was the Main-stock of it Were those People more wise and less addicted to Idolatry after their return out of Babylon It was the natural effect of a severe Chastisement which their own past Offences had drawn upon them If that People boasted that they had several Ages seen Miracles which never other People had seen they might also boast that they had had the knowledge of God which no other People had What would any have Circumcision the Feast of Tabernacles the Passover and the other celebrated Feasts in the Nation Time out of mind to signifie if not the things we find taken notice of in the Books of Moses that a People distinguished from all others by a Religion and by a Carriage so very peculiar who had kept from its Original upon the Foundation of Creation and upon the Faith of Providence a Doctrine so followed and elevated a so lively Remembrance of a long Succession of Facts so necessarily chained together Ceremonies so regulated and Customs so universal should be without a History to recount their Origine and without a Law to prescribe Customs to them for a thousand years whilst it continued in that Estate and that Esdras should all on the sudden begin to give them under the Name of Moses with a History of their Antiquities the Law that should form their Manners when that People who were then made Captives beheld their antient Monarchie utterly thrown down what more incredible Romance could any one ever invent And is it possible for any one to give Credit to it with joyning at the same time Ignorance to Blasphemy To lose such a Law after one has received it either a People ought to be quite exterminated or else through divers Changes be brought to such a pass that they have nothing but a confused Idea of their Original Religion and Customs If that Misery happened to the Jews and that the Law so well known under Zedekiah should be totally lost sixty Years after notwithstanding all the industrious Care of Ezekiel Jeremiah Baruch and Daniel without reckoning up the rest and in the time too when this Law had its Martyrs as the Persecution of Danâ—el and the three Children do plainly demonstrate If I say that holy Law was lost in so short a time and was so profoundly forgot till Esdras was permitted to re-establish it according to his own Fancy that was not the only Book which ought to be made them For he ought at the same time to compose all the Prophets both old and new that is to say those who had written both before and during the Captivity those that the People had seen write as well as those which they very well remembred not only the Prophets but also the Books of Solomon and the Psalms of Davâ—d and all the Books of History since in that whole History there can scarce be found one single considerable matter of Fact and in all those other Books so much as one Chapter which being taken out of the Books of Moses such as we have 'em can subsist one Moment Everything there speaks of Moses every thing there is sounded upon Moses and indeed every thing ought to be so for that Moses and his Law and the History which he wrote was effectually in the Jews all the Foundation both of their publick and private Conduct Indeed it was a very marvellous Enterprise in Esdras and very novel in the World to make at the same time so many Men to speak with Moses of a different Character and Stile and yet every one in a manner uniform and always like to it self And on a sudden to make so great and entire a People as they were to believe that those were the antient Books which they had always had in Reverence and the new which they had seen made as if they had never heard any thing spoke of and that the Knowledg of the present time as well as that of the time past was utterly defaced Such are the Prodigies we must believe if we will disbelieve the Miracles of the Almighty and refuse to receive the Testimony by which it was evident that they had told so great a People they had seen them with their Eyes But if that People were returned from Babylon unto the Land of their Fathers so new and so ignorant that they could scarce remember they had ever been so that without the least Examination they had received all that Esdras was pleased to give them How then is it that we see in the Book which Esdras wrote 1 Esdr 3.7.9 2 Esdr 5.8.9.12 13. and in that of Nehemiah his Contemporary whatsoever was there said of the divine Books With what Front durst Esdras and Nehemiah speak of the Law of Moses in so many places and that publickly as of a thing known to all the World and which all the World had in their Hands How were all the People seen to act naturally in Obedience to that Law as having had it always present with them But how was it said at the same time and at the Peoples Return that all that People admired the Accomplishment of the Oracle of Jeremiah concerning the seventy Weeks Captivity That Jeremiah which Esdras had been forging with all the other Prophets how had he on a sudden found Credit By what new Artifice were they able to
perswade a whole Nation even the old Men who had seen that Prophet and had always looked for that miraculous Deliverance which he had foretold them of Esdras and Nehemiah could not have written the History of their Time some other must have done it in their Name and those who have made all the other Books of the old Testament would have been so esteemed by Posterity that the other Falsifyers would have gained little Credit to their Imposture No doubt but they would have been ashamed of so many Extravagancies and instead of saying that Esdras had of a sudden brought to light so many Books so different one from the other by the Characters both of Stile and Time one must affirm that he might have inserted into them the Miracles and Predictions which made them to pass for Divine An Error more gross still than the former since that those Miracles and those Predictions are so interspersed in all those Books so often inculcated and repeated with such different turns and so great a variety of powerful Figures in a word they have so constituted the whole Body of them that if we have ever but so much as opened those holy Books we must see that it was a great deal more easy perfectly to make a new Model of them than to insert in them those things which the Incredulous are so much puzled to find there And tho' it should be granted them whatsoever they ask yet the miraculous and divine Parts are so much the Foundation of those Books that they must be yet acknowledged whatsoever Aversion any may have to them And admit that Esdras might have added afterwards the Predictions of those things that had already happened in his time yet those which were fulfilled since which you have seen in so great a number who should superadd them God it is possible might have bestowed on Esdras the gift of Prophecy that so the Imposture of Esdras might seem the more probable and they might rather have a false one to be a Prophet than Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel Or else every Age might have had a prosperous Counterfeit who might impose upon the Faith of a whole Nation and that new Impostors thro' an admirable Zeal of Religion might have continually been adding to the divine Books after that the Canon might have been closed that they might be spread abroad with the Jews over all the Earth and translated into so many strange Languages Would not this have been out of eagerness of Desire to establish the Religion the way utterly to destroy it Would a whole Nation so easily suffer a Change of what they verily believed to be Divine whether thro' Conviction of Reason or thro' the power of Error Could any one hope to persuade Christians nay or Turks to add but one single Chapter either to the Gospel or to the Alcoran But perhaps the Jews might be more docile than other People or not so Religious as to preserve their holy Books What Monsters of Opinions must come into their Minds to make then willing to shake off the Yoke of divine Authority and not to regulate their Sentiments no more than their Manners but by their distorted Reason Let none say that the discussion of these Matters is perplexing and troublesom For if it should be so they must either lay the Charge of it on the Authority of the Church and the Tradition of so many Ages or else push on the Examination to the utmost Extremity and never believe they can be rid of it but say they require still more time than will be given to their Salvation But certainly not to turn over the Books of both the Testaments with an endless Labour we need only read the Book of Psalms where are collected so many antient Songs of Gods People to see there in the most divine Poetry that ever was the immortal Monuments of the History of Moses of that of the Judges and Kings imprinted by Song and Measure in Men's Minds And for the new Testament The bare Epistles of St. Paul so Lively and Original so strong as to time both of the Affairs and Motions which then were and in short of so pointing a Character those Epistles I say received by the Churches to which they were addressed and from thence communicated to other Churches will be sufficient to convince all honest Minds that every thing in the Scriptures which the Apostles have left us is according to the Original So likewise do they support one another with an invincible Force The Acts of the Apostles are but a continuation of the Gospel their Epistles suppose it necessary but that all may agree together both the Acts and the Epistles and Gospels do every where own the antient Books of the Jews St. Paul and the other Apostles are continually alledging what Moses hath said Act. 3.22.7.31 32 c. Rom. 10.5.19 what the Prophets have said and writ after Moses Jesus Christ calls to witness the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms as Witnesses who all depose the same Truth When he hath a mind to explain his Mysteries Ibid. 27. John 5.46 47. he begins at Moses and all the Prophets and when he tells the Jews that Moses wrote of him he lays down for a Foundation what was most certainly believed among them and brings them back to the very Spring Head of their own Traditions But however we will see what can be opposed to this so acknowledged an Authority and to the Consent of so many Ages For since in our days Men have been so presumptuous and daring as to print in all sort of Languages Books against the Scriptures we ought not to dissemble or conceal what they alledge for the decrying its Antiquities Therefore what say they to justify the Pentateuch's being supposititious and what can be objected to a Tradition of three thousand Years standing upheld by its own Power and by the course of things Nothing of Consequence nothing that is positive nothing that is of weight and substance Some little Chicaneries and Quarrels they have at Numbers Places and Names and such Observations that in all other matters are reckoned at most but as vain Curiosities uncapable of reaching the stress of the Case are here alledge to us by way of Decision of an Affair the most serious that ever was There are say they Difficulties in the History of the Scripture No Question to be made on 't which yet there would not be weâ—e the Books less antient or had they been supposititious and made as they are so bold to say by a cunning and industrious Man If they had not been so Religious as to give it us as they found it but had taken the liberty to correct it where it did not please them There are Difficulties which arise by length of time when places have changed their Name or Condition when Dates are forgot when Genealogies are no further known when there is no remedy for the Faults which a Copy
Figure of Future Time the Ark wherein God discovered himself to be present by his Oracles and in which the Tables of the Law were kept the Advancement of Aaron the Brother of Moses the High-Priest the Ceremonies of their Consecration and the Form of their mysterious Habits the Priests Functions the Sons of Aaron those of the Levites with the other Observances of Religion and that which is most beautiful and decent the Rules of good Manners the Policy and Government of his chosen People of whom he would be himself the Legislator This is what is observable in the Epocha of the Written Law Afterwards we see the Journey continued in the Wilderness the Revolts the Idolatries the Punishments and Consolations of the People of God whom this Almighty Legislator reduced by these means by degrees the Anointing of Eleazor Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1452 the High-Priest and the Death of his Years of the World 2552 Father Aaron the Zeal of Phineas the Son of Eleazor and the Priesthood secured to his Posterity by a particular Promise During this time the Aegyptians continued the Establishment of their Colonies in divers Places chiefly in Greece where Danaus the Aâ—gyptian was made King of Argos and dispossess'd the Ancient Kings that came Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1451 from Inachus Towards the end of the Israelites Years of the World 2553 Journying in the Wilderness we see the Beginnings of Wars which are rendred successful through the Prayers of Moses But he dies and leaves to the Israelites their whole History which he had carefully digested from the beginning of the World even to the time of his Death This History is continued by the command of Josuah and his Successors This afterwards was divided into several Books and hence it is that we have the Book of Josuah the Book of Judges and the Four Books of Kings The History which Moses wrote and in which all the Law was included was also divided into Five Books which are called the Pentateuch and which are the Ground of Religion After the Death of that Man of God we read of the Wars of Josuah Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1445 the Conquest and Division of the Holy Land Years of the World 2559 and the Rebellions of the People punished and re-established at divers times There Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1405 are likewise the Victories of Othoniel the Son Years of the World 2599 Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1325 of Kenaz the Brother of Caleb who delivered Years of the World 2679 him from the Tyranny of Chausan-Rishathaim King of Mesopotamia and Eighty years after That of Ehud the Son of Gera Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1322 over Eglon King of Moab About this Years of the World 3682 time Pelops the Phrygian the Son of Tantalus reigned in Peloponnesus and called that famous Country by his Name Bel the King of the Chaldeans received from those People Divine Honours The ungrateful Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1305 murmuring Israelites fall again into Servitude Years of the World 1699 Jabin King of Chanaan subjecteth Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1285 them but Deborah the Prophetess who Years of the World 2719 judged the People and Baruc the Son of Ahinoam overcame Sisera the General of Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1245 that Kings Army Thirty years after this Years of the World 2759 Gideon that mighty Man of Valour even without fighting pursues and overcomes the Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1236 Medianites Abimelech his Son usurped the Years of the World 2768 Authority by the Murther of his Brethren exercised it after a Tyrannical manner and Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1187 at last loseth it and his Life together Jephtha Years of the World 2817 makes his Victory bloody by a Sacrifice that was not to be excused but by a secret Order and Dispensation from Heaven concerning which it hath not pleased him to reveal any thing to us In this Age there hapned very remarkable things among the Gentiles Herod l. 1. c. 26. For according to Herodotus his Account which seems to be the most exact Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1267 we are to reckon for that time 514. years Years of the World 2737 before Rome Gen. x. 11. and from the time of Deborah Ninus the Son of Bel and the Foundation of the first Empire of the Assyrians The Court was established at Nineveh an Ancient City and then pretty Famous but it was made more Splendid and Glorious by Ninus Those who ascribe 1300 years to the first Assyrians have their Foundation from the Ancientness of the City and Herodotus who allows them but 500 speaks only of the Empires Duration since its beginning under Ninus the Son of Bel to extend it self into the Upper Asia A little after and in that Conqueror's Reign Jos xix 20. Joseph Antiq 8.2 we are to fix the Foundation or the Renewal of the ancient City of Tyre whose Navigation and whose Colonies rendred it so Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1252 considerable At last a little after Abimelech's Years of the World 2752 time we meet with the memorable Combates of Hercules the Son of Amphitryon and those of Theseus King of Athens who made but one great City of the twelve Towns of Cecrops and instituted a better Form of Government among the Atheninians During Jephtha's time whilst Semiramis who came from Ninus and was the Governess of Ninyas inlarged the Assyrian Empire by her Victories The Famous City of Troy already taken once by the Greeks under Laomedon its third King was Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1184 utterly reduced again by the Greeks under Years of the World 2820 Priam the Son of Laomedon after a Siege of ten years V. Epocha The Taking of Troy The fourth Age of the World This Epocha of the Ruin of Troy which hapned about the year 308. after the Departure out of Aegypt and 1164 years after the Deluge is very considerable as well because of the Importance of so great an Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1184 Event celebrated by two of the greatest Years of the World 2820 Poets of Greece and Italy as because that every thing may be brought to this Date which was most remarkable in those called the Fabulous or Hâ—roick Times the Fabulous by reason of the Fables in which the Histories of those Times are wrapt and Heroick by reason of those whom the Poets have called the Sons of the Gods and Heroes Their Lives were not far from this Overthrow For in the time of Laomedon the Father of Priam were all the Heroes of the Golden Fleece Jason Hercules Orpheus Castor and Pollux and all the others that are known to you and in the time of Priam likewise during the last Siege of Troy there were Achilles Agamemnon Menelaus Vlysses Hector Sarâ—edon the Son of Jupiter Aeneas the Son of Venus whom the Romans acknowledged for their Founder and several others from whom the most Illustrious Families and even
mighty puissant Kings as all the East stood in awe of and it was Cyrus that crushed the Empire by his taking of Babylon If therefore the generality of the Greeks and Latins that have followed them make no mention of those Babylonian Kings if they have given no place to that great Kingdom among the first Monarchies whose continuance and after-accidents they relate in a word if we can scarce find any thing in all their works of those famous Kings Tiglath-Pilesar Salmanasar Sennacherib Nebuchadnezzar and several others so renown'd in Scripture and in the Eastern Histories we may then surely attribute it either to the Ignorance of the Greeks who were more Eloquent in their Reports than studious and industrious in their Searches or else to the loss we have had of what was more exact and faithful in their Histories Indeed Herodotus had promised a particular History of the Assyrians Herod l. 1. c. 28 47. which we have not either by our sad misfortune of its being lost or of his not having had time to do it and we cannot imagine that ever so judicious and Historian would have forgotten the Kings Herod l. 2. c. 91. of the second Empire of the Assyrians especially since even Sennacherib who was one of them we find mentioned in the Books that we now have of this great Author as being King both of the Assyrians and Arabians tSrabo liâ— 15. Strabo who lived in the time of Augustus reports what Megastenes an Ancient Author near the time of Alexander had left in Writing concerning the mighty Conquests of Nebuchadnezzar King of the Chaldees whom he makes to run through Europe enter into Spain and extend his Arms as far as the Colonies of Hercules Aelian calls Tilgamus King of Assyria Aelian liâ— 12. Hist Anim. c. 21. that is to say Tilgath or Tiglath which we find in the Holy Scriptures and in Ptolomy we meet with an Enumeration of the Princes of great Empires among whom there is a long succession of the Kings of Assyria who were unknown to the Greeks and whom it is easie to reconcile to the Sacred Hystory If I would bring in the Accounts of the Syrian Annals Berosus Abydenus Nicolas of Damascus Joseph Antiq l. 9. ult 10. c. 11. l. 1. cont Ap. Euseb Prap. Ev. 9. I could be too tedious even for a long-winded Reader Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea have preserved the pretious fragments of all those Authors and indeed of an infinite many more which they had entire and perfect in those times whose Testimony is a confirmation to us of what we read in the Holy Scripture concerning the Eastern Antiquities and especially concerning the Assyrian Histories As to the Monarchy of the Medes which has the second Preference among the great Empires by most of the prophane Historians as separated from the Empire of Persia certain it is that the Scripture ever unites them both together And your Highness sees that besides the Authority of the sacred pages the bare order of Matters of Fact shews us that it is that we are still to look at The Medes before Cyrus though they were very powerful and considerable yet were much lessened by the greatness of the Kings of Babylon But Cyrus having Conquered their Kingdom by the collected Forces both of Medes and Persians of which he afterwards became the Master by a Legitimate Succession as we have observed from Zenophon it seems most probable that the great Empire of which he was the Founder as it ought indeed did take his Name to both Nations so that That of the Medes and Persians are but one and the same thing tho' the glory of Cyrus made the name of the Persians to be the more prevailing It may be also thought that before the VVar of Babylon the Kings of the Medes having extended their Conquests to the Greek Colonies in lesser Asia were by that means famous among the Greeks who attributed the Empire of greater Asia to them because they were only acquainted with them of all the Kings of the East And yet the Kings of Nineveh and Babylon who were greater and more puissant but more unknown to the Greeks have been near quite forgotten in those Bâ—oks that are remaining to us concerning the Grecian Histories and all the time from Sardanapalus down to Cyrus have been only given to the Medes And therefore we need not to trouble our heads so much in reconciling as to this point the prophane to the sacred History For as to what respects the first Kingdom of the Assyrians the Scripture gives us but a very slight touch by the Bye and neither mentions Ninus who was the Founder of that Empire nor excepting Phul any other of its Successors because their History was no way interfering with that of the People of God As for the second Kingdom of the Assyrians most of the Greeks are either quite ignorant of them or else because they have not throughly known them as they ought they have confounded them with the former VVhen therefore those of the Greek Authors sâ—all be objected to us who according to their own Caprice and Fancy range the three first Monarchies and make the Medes Successors to the antient Empire of Assyria without speaking a word concerning what the Scripture seems to be so strong in there is only this answer to be made that they were unacquainted with this part of the History and they are no less contrary to the more curious and best informed Authors of their own Nation than they are to the Holy Scriptures And that which in one word answers all the difficulty the sacred Authors who are nearer to the times and places of the Eastern Kingdoms writing moreover the History of a People whose affairs were so intermixed with those of these great Empires though they had no other advantage besides this it were enough to put the Greeks and Latins to Silence who followed them But if notwithstanding the obstinacy should go on still to maintain this celebrated order of the three first Monarchies and that to keep entirely to the Medes the second rank which is ascribed to them any are wilfully resolved to make the Kings of Babylon subject to them in affirming still that after an hundred Years Subjection these at last should deliver themselves by a Revolt yet in some manner it doth save the Câ—ntinuance of the sacred History but it doth very little agree with the best prophane Historians to whom the sacred History is more favourable in that it ever unites the Empire of the Medes to that of the Persians There is yet remaining to be discovered one of the Causes of the obscurity and darkness of these antient Histories And it is this that as the Eastern Kings took up several names or if you please several titles which in some length of time they espoused as their own Name and which the People either translated or pronounced variously according to the several particular Idioms of each
lower but the difference is very little and the Circumstances of time do much assure the Date of Eusebius They are likewise pretty agreeing with Thucydides a most exact Historian Thucyd. l. 1. and that grave Author almost a Contemporary as well as a fellow Citizen of Themistocles makes him to write his Letter about the beginning of Artaxerxes his Reign Cornel. Nep. in Themisto Cornelius Nepos an Ancient and Judicious as well as an Elegant Author will not have us question this Date after the Authority of Thucydides and it is so much a stronger Argument because another more Antient Author than Thucydides was agrees with him 'T is Charon of Lampsacus cited by Plutarch Plut. in Them and Plutarch adds himself That the Annals this is to say those of Persia concur with those two Authors But however he does not follow them tho' he gives us no reason for it and those Historians who begin the Reign of Artaxerxes eight or nine years later agree neither in time nor are they of so great an Authority Therefore beyond all dispute we ought to reckon the beginning of it toward the end of the seventy six Olympiad and near the 280 year of Rome and so the twentieth year of this Prince will come to be about the end of the eighty first Olympiad and near the 300 year of Rome Whereas those who to conciliate Authors reject this and make the beginning of Artaxerxes his Reign to fall out lower are forced to conjecture that his Father had at least associated him to the Kingdom when Themistocles wrote his Letter but which way soever it be our account is secure This Foundation being settled and granted the rest of the Account is easie to be made and the Consequence will render it plain and evident After Artaxerxes had made his Decree The Jews laboured mightily to rebuild their City and the Walls thereof as Daniel had prophesied Dan. ix 25 Nehem. ii 17 18 19. Nehemiah managed and ordered the work with a great deal of Prudence and Courage in defiance to all the oppositions of the Samaritans Arabians and the Ammonites The People sat about the Work and Eliashib the High-Priest incouraged them by his Example In the mean while the new Magistrates which were set over the People of Rome increased the Divisions of that City and Rome brought under a Monarchy did want those Laws which were necessary for the good Constitution of a Common-weal The Reputation of Greece which had made her self more famous by her Government than Years be ∣ fore J. C. 452 by her Victories excited the Romans to Years of Rome 302 follow her Example so that they sent Deputies to search into the Laws of Greece and especially into those of Athens which were more agreeable to the State of their Years be ∣ fore J. C. 451 Republick According to this Model ten Years of Rome 303 absolute Magistrates which they created the next Year after under the Name of the Decemviri digested and set down the Laws of the Twelve Tables which are the Years be ∣ fore J. C. 450 Ground and Foundation of the Roman Law Years of Rome 304 The People overjoy'd at the Equity wherewith they were made suffered them to usurp the supreme power which they used Years be ∣ fore J. C. 449 with Tyranny enough So that there were very Years of Rome 305 great Convulsions by the Intemperance of Appius Clodius one of the Decemviri and by the Murther of Virginia whom her Father had rather have slain with his own Hand than have abandoned her to be a Sacrifice to the Passion and Lust of Appius The Blood of this Second Lucretia awakened the Romans so that the Decemviri were quite thrust out But whilst the Laws were framing under these ten Magistrates Esdras a Doctor of the Law and Nehemiah the Governour of the Jewish People newly re-established in Judah were reforming the Abuses and bringing in the Law of Moses so that they began to be observed in the first place One of the main points of their Reformation was to oblige all the People 2 Esdr xiii Deut. xxiii 3. and particularly the Priests to leave their strange Wives whom they had married contrary to the express Letter of the Law Esdras put the Holy Books in order and made a very exact review of them and collected the Antient Memoires of the Jews to compile out of them the two Books of Paralipomena or Chronicles to which he added the History of his own Time which Nehemiah finished By those Books is that long and tedious History which Moses had begun ended and which the following Authors continued without interruption till the re-building of Jerusalem The rest of the Sacred History is not writ in the same train Whilst Esdras and Nehemiah were making the last part of this great Work Herodotus whom the Prophane Authors call the Father of History it self began to write So that the last Authors of the Holy History met with the first Author of the Greek History and when this began That of the Jews only to take it from Abraham already had made up five Ages Herodotus never thought to speak of the Jews in that History he hath left us and the Greeks would not inform themselves of any but such People whom War Commerce or a great Fame had made notorious and considerable Judah that with great difficulty began to raise it self from the Ashes of its Ruine never in the least attracted their regards And it was in this miserable and calamitous time that the Hebrew Language ceased to be common During the Captivity and afterwards by the commerce that happened between them and the Chaldeans the Jews learned the Chaldee Tongue which very much bordered upon their own and had almost the same Idiom and Genius This reason induced them to change the ancient Figure of Hebrew Letters and so they writ Hebrew in the Chaldee Characters which were most in use among them and easier to be made This alteration was almost insensible between the two Neighbouring Languages whose Letters were of the same value and efficacy only differing somewhat in their formation From that time the Holy Scripture was only to be found among the Jews in the Chaldee Letters But the Samaritans still kept their old way of Writing Their Posterity have persevered in the same Custom even down to our days and by that means have preserved the Pentateuch which they call the Samaritan in ancient Hebrew Characters such as they found them in Medals and in all the Monuments of past Ages The Jews lived very peaceably and quietly under the Authority of Artaxerxes That Prince being forced by Cymon the Son of Miltiades General of the Athenians to make a shameful peace utterly despaired of overcoming the Greeks by force and so only thought of making his advantage by their feuds and divisions There happened very great Convulsions between the Athenians and Lacedemonians Those two people being jealous each of other shared all
Constantinople and continued at Nice The Pope sent his Legates thither The Council of the Iconoclasts was condemned They are detested a Persons who led by the Example of the Saracens accused the Christians of Idolatry It was decreed that Images should be worshipped in Remembrance and for the Love of those whom they represented which is called in the Council a relative Worship and an honorary Adoration and Salutation opposed to the supreme worship and Adoration of Latria or entire Subjection which the Council reserved to God alone Besides the Legates of the Holy See and the presence of the Patriarch of Constantinople there appeared there the Legates of other Patriarchal Sees which were then oppressed by the Infidels Some disputed their Mission with them but that which was not at all contested was that far from disavowing them all the Sees accepted of the Council without shewing any Contradiction and it was received by all the Church The French encompassed with Idolaters or new Christians whose Ideas they were afraid to meddle with and on the other hand being harrassed with the equivocal Term of Adoration hesitated a long while Amongst all the Images they would only pay an Honour to that of the Cross absolutely different from the Figures which the Heathen believed were full of the Divinity They kept however in an honourable place and also in their Churches the other Images and hated the Iconoclasts What other Difference there was it made no Schism The French owned at last that the Nicene Fathers required to Images but the same kind of Worship all Proportions observed as they themselves paid to Relicks to the Book of the Gospel and to the Cross and that Council was honoured by all professing Christianity under the Name of the seventh general Council Thus have we seen the seven general Councils which the East and the West the Greek and the Latin Churches received with an equal Reverence The Emperors convoked those great Assemblies by the Soveraign Authority they had over all the Bishops or at least over the Chief on whom the rest depended and who were then Subject of the Empire The publick Carriages were provided by the Order of the Princes They assembled the Councils in the East where they made their Residence and they commonly sent thither their Commissaries to keep the Peace The Bishops so assembled brought with them the Authority of the Holy Ghost and the Tradition of the Churches From the beginning of Christianity there were three principal Sees which had the precedency of all others that of Rome that of Alexandria and that of Antioch Conc. Nic. Can. 7. Conc. C. P. 1. Can. 3. Conc. Chalced. Can. 21. The Nicene Council allowed the Bishop of the Holy City to have the first place The second and the fourth Council raised the See of Constantinople and would have that the second So that there were five Sees which afterwards were called Patriarchal The Precedency was given to them in the Council Among those Sees the See of Rome was always look'd on as the first and the Council of Nice regulated the others upon that Conc. Nic. Can. 6. There were also Metropolitan Bishops who were the Chiefs of the Provinces and who went before the other Bishops It was very late ere they began to be called Archbishops but their Authority was never the less When the Council was formed the Holy Scriptures were propounded the Passages of the antient Fathers Witnesses of Tradition were read It was Tradition which interpreted Scripture They believed its true Sence was that which the past Ages had owned it to be and none thought they ought to explain it otherwise Those who refused to submit to the Decisions of the Council were cursed with the Anathema After they had explained the Faith they regulated the Ecclesiastical Discipline and made Canons that is to say the Rules of the Church They thought the Faith did never change and tho' the Discipline might receive several Changes according to difference of Times and Places yet as much as possibly we can we ought to labour after a perfect imitation of Antiquity But the Popes were only there by their Legates in the first general Councils but they did however expresly approve of the Doctrine and there was but one Faith in the Church Constantine and Irene religiously executed Years of J. C. 787 the Decrees of the VII Council but the rest of their Conduct was intolerable The young Prince whom his Mother had persuaded to marry a Lady he could by no means love gave up himself to reproachful Applications and being weary of paying any longer a blind Obedience to the Imperiousness of his Mother he indeavoured to remove her from the Affairs which hitherto she had managed in spight of him Alphonso Years of J. C. 793 the Chaste reigned in Spain The perpetual Continence of that Prince deservedly conferred on him that famous Sirname and rend'red him worthy to release Spain from that infamous Tax of a hundred Maids which his Uncle Mauregate had granted to the Moores Seventy thousand of those Infidels slain in a Battle with Mugait their General signalized the Valor of Alphonsus Constantine did also indeavour to make himself famous against the Bulgari but the Success did by no means answer his Expectations He at last brought down all Irene's Power and being unable to govern himself as much as to suffer the Empire of another he repudiated his Wife Maria to marry Theodote who Years of J. C. 795 was one of her Maids of Honour His Years of J. C. 796 incensed Mother heightened the Troubles Years of J. C. 797 which were caused by so great a Scandal Constantine fell by her Artifices She gained the People again to her by lessening their Taxes and brought the Monks and the Clergy into her Interest by a shew of a visible Piety At length she was proclaimed sole Empress The Romans scorned her Government and so went over to Charlemagne who subdued the Saxons repressed the Saracens destroyed the Heresies protected the Popes drew over the Infidel Nations to Christianity re-established the Sciences and Ecclesiastical Discipline assembled famous Councils wherein his profound Learning was admired and the effects of his Piety and Justice was not only felt in France and Italy but it extended it self into Spain England and Germany and indeed where not To conclude in the DCCC XII Epoeha Charlemagne Or the re-establishment of the new Empire Year of our Lord that great Protector of Rome and of Italy or to speak more properly of all the Church and of all Christendome was chosen Emperor by the Romans without his ever dreaming of it and Crowned by Pope Leo III. who had engaged the People of Rome to that Choice became the Founder of the New Empire and of the temporal Greatness of the Holy See The End of the first Part. TO THE Dauphin YOVR Highness sees the twelve Epocha's which I have followed in this Abridgment I have chained to each of them the
in his time had discovered to them the punctuality of the Declension set forth in the Prophecy they doubted not but that Christ was coming and they should see that new Kingdom in which all People were to be reunited One thing which they took notice of was that the power of life and death was taken from them Talm. Hierosol tr Sanhed Dan. 13. That was a great change since they had ever enjoyed that great priviledge till then to what Dominion soever they were subjected nay even in Babylon during their Captivity The History of Susanna plain enough shews that and it was a most certain Tradition among them The Kings of Persia who re-established them 1 Esdr 7.23 24 25 26. left them that power by an express Decree which has been already observed in its proper place and we have also seen that the first Seleucides had rather enlarged than straitned their Priviledges I need not here to repeat any thing of the Reign of the Maccabees where they were not only enfranchised but became mighty and formidable to their Enemies Pompey who weakened them as we have already likewise seen being content with the Tribute he had laid upon them and with putting them in such a condition that the People of Rome might dispose of them upon occasion left them their Prince with all his Jurisdiction It is sufficiently known that they received such usage from the Romans and that they never medled with their Government among themselves in those Countreys where they suffered them to have their Natural Kings In fine the Jews were resolved to lose that power they had of life and death but forty years before the Destruction of the second Temple and it is to be questioned whether this was not the first Herod that ever attempted to make this breach on their Liberty For since Joseph an t 14. 17. as well to be revenged of the Sanhedrim where he had himself been obliged to appear before he was made King as afterwards to gain over to himself the absolute Authority he had attacqued that Assembly which was as the Senate founded by Moses and the perpetual Council of the Nation that exercised the Supreme Jurisdiction by little and little that great Body lost its power and but very little of it did remain at the time when Christ came into the World Affâ—irs grew worse and worse under Herod's Sons when the Kingdom of Archelaus whereof Jerusalem was the Capital City being reduced into a Roman Province was governed by Presidents whom the Emperours sent thither In that wretched and pitiable estate the Jews had so small a share of the power of life and death that to get Jesus Christ to be put to death whom notwithstanding they were resolved to crucifie whatsoever it should cost them they were fain to have recourse to Pilate and that weak Governour having told them that they should judge him to Death by their own Law they presently answered him that it was not lawful for them to put any man to death John 18 31. Acts 12.1 2 3. And so likewise by the hands of Herod they caused St. James the Brother of St. John to be beheaded and clapt St. Peter into Prison When they had resolved on the death of St. Paul they delivered him into the hands of the Romans as they had already done Jesus Christ Acts 24. and the Sacrilegious Vow of their false Zelots who had sworn neither to eat or drink before they had killed that holy Apostle sufficiently discovered that they were sensible they had lost their power of taking away his life in a Judicial Course of Proceeding If they stoned indeed St. Stephen that was done tumultuously by the Rabble and by an effect of those Seditious Transports which the Romans could not always suppress in those who called themselves at that time the Devout Acts 7.57 58. This is held for certain then as well by those Histories as by the consent of the Jews and by the posture of their Affairs that towards the time of our Saviour and especially in that when he began the Exercise of his Ministry they absolutely lost their Temporal Authority They could not behold that their loss without remembring that ancient Oracle of Jacob which had foretold them that in the time of the Messiah there should be no longer among them either Power Authority or Magistracy One of their most ancient Authors takes notice of it and it is but reason in him to acknowledge that the Scepter was not then in Judah nor any Authority among the Heads of the People seeing that the publick Power was taken from them Tract voc magn Gen. seu com in Gen. and the Sanhedrim being degraded the Members of that great Body were no more looked on as Judges but as bare simple Doctors Therefore according to their own reckoning it was much about the time that Christ was to appear And as they saw then that certain Sign of this new King 's coming to be very near at hand whose Empire was to extend it self over all People they did effectually believe that he would appear The noise thereof spread it self round about and all the East were fully persuaded that it would not be long before they saw come out of Judah those who should Reign over all the Earth Tacitus and Suetonius report this Story as being established by a positive Opinion and by an ancient Oracle which was found in the Sacred Books of the Jews Suet. Vespas Tacit. l. 5. hist c. 13. Joseph de bell Jud. 7.12 Hegisip de Excid Jer. v. 44. Josephus relates that Prophecy in the same terms and says as they did that it was found in the holy Scriptures The Authority of those Books whose Predictions were seen so visibly accomplished in so many Instances was very great in all the Eastern Country and the Jews more attentive than any other in observing the several Conjunctures which were chiefly written for their Instruction acknowledged the time of the Messiah which Jacob had pointed out in their declension Thus the Reflections they made upon their Condition were very just and without being deceived about the time of Christ's Advent they confessed he was to come just in that very point of time he did But O the weakness of Humane Understanding and the Vanity which is the inevitable Source of Blindness the Humility of their Saviour concealed from those proud Souls the true Grandeurs which they were to look for in their Messiah They would have had him to have been a King like to the other Kings of this World which was the reason that the Flatterers of the first Herod dazled with the Greatness and Magnifâ—cence of that Prince who as much a Tyrant as he was yet forgot not to inrich Judea Epiph. lib. 1. haer 20. Herodian said that he himself was that King so much promised 'T was that also which gave way to the Sect of the Herodians by whom he was so much
tho' never so little mistaken so easily introduces in such things or that matters of Fact which have slipt out of Mens Memories do leave a Darkness upon some part of the History But then is this Obscurity in the Issue it self or in the stress of this Affair By no means All there is followed and that which is obscure serves only to let us see a more venerable Antiquity in those holy Books But there are Alterations in the Text The ancient Versions do not agree together the Hebrew in several Places is different from it self and the Text of the Samaritanes beside the Word which they accuse them of for changing it expresly in favor of the Temple of Gerizim differs also in many other places from that of the Jews And from thence what do they conclude That the Jews or else Esdras had contrived the Pentateuch at the return of the Captivity 'T is just the contrary that they should conclude The Differences of the Samaritane serve only to confirm what we have already established that their Text is independant from that of the Jews So far can we be from imagining that those Schismaticks took any thing from the Jews and Esdras that we have seen exactly to the contrary that it was in spight to the Jews and Esdras and in hatred of both the first and the second Temple that they invented their Chimera of Gerizim V. sup 1. p. 49. Seq 57. 63. Who therefore does not see it plain that they would rather have accused the Imposhires of the Jews than followed them Those Rebels who scorn'd both Esdras and all the Prophets of the Jews with their Temple and Solomon that built it as well as David who had assigned the place of it what did they regard in their Pentateuch if not an Antiquity superior not only to that of Esdras and the Prophets but also to that of Solomon and David in a word the Antiquity of Moses wherein they both agreed How indisputable then is Moses his Authority and that of the Pentateuch that all the Objections tend only to the affirmation of it But then from whence come those varieties of Texts and Versions From whence indeed unless from the Antiquity of the Book it self which hath gone thro' the Hands of so many Transcribes for so many Ages that the Language in which it was written is almost now worn out But let us leave these vain Disputes and in one word pluck up the Difficulty by the Roots Let any one say if it be not evident that in all the Versions and Texts that are there are still to be found the same Laws the same Miracles the same Predictions the same train of History the same Body of Doctrine and in short the same Substance Wherein then after all this do the varieties of Texts hurt What do we need further than this unalterable Fond of the sacred Books and what can we demand more of the divine Providence And as for the Versions is that a sign of Forgery or Novelty that the Language of the Scriptures is so antient that the Delicacies of it now are lost and we find our selves puzled to give it all its Elegance and to express it in its full sence and Power of meaning Is not that rather a Proof of its greater antiquity and if one would stand upon little trifling matters let any one tell me if in those several places wherein they have found themselves perplexed any one of them has been setled by reason or by conjecture We have followed the Faith of Examples and as tradition never permitted the sound Doctrine to be altered so we thought that the other faults it there were any served only to prove that none hath innovated any thing here by the dictate of their own Spirit But now here is at last the main stress of the Objection Are there not some things added in Moses's Text and how comes it to pass that we find his Death at the end of the Book that is attributed to him What Marvel is this that those who continued his History should have added his happy end to the rest of his Actions and so to make one and the same Body of the whole for the other additions let us see what they are Is there any new Law or any new Ceremony any Dogma any Miracle or any Prediction they have not so much as dreamt of any such thing there is not the least suspition of it nor the least Sign That had been to add to the work of God the Law had forbid it and the scandal it would have occasioned would have been very horrible What then Deut. 4.12.12.5 supra 2. part p. 220. why they may have continued perhaps a Genealogy that he had begun or possibly may have explained the name of a Town changed by time upon occasion of the Manna wherewith the People were fed for forty Years they may have particularized the time when that Heavenly Nourishment ceased and that Fact written since in another Book shall be made a Remark Jos 5.12 Exod 16.35 upon that of Moses as a manifest and publick Fact of which all the People were Witnesses and four or five Remarks of this Nature made by Josuah or Samuel or some other Prophet of a like Antiquity because they had only regard to notorious Facts and where there was apparently no difficulty may have naturally past into the Text and the same tradition may have brought them down to us with all the rest shall presently all be lost Shall Esdras be accused thro' the Samaritane where those Remarks are found shew us that they have an Antiquity not only above Esdras but above the Schism of the ten Tribes It matters not all must fall upon Esdras If those remarks came higher the Pentateuch would be then more antient than it ought and we could not pay reverence enough to the antiquity of a Book the very Notes whereof would be of so great an Age. Esdras therefore may have done all Esdras may have forgot when he would make Moses to speak and may have made him to write so grossly as you see what things did happen after his time Shall a whole work be convicted of forgery by this only place the Authority of so many Ages and the publick Faith will then be of no further stead to him as if on the contrary we did not see that those remarks which they so much boast of are a new proof of Sincerity and Integrity not only in those that made them but also in those that transcribed them Has there ever Judgment passed on the authority I do not say of a Divine Book but of any Book whatsoever upon such slight and trivial reasons But it seems the Scripture is a Book that is an Enemy to Mankind it would oblige Men to submit their Minds to God to suppress their disorderly passions but Man is bent upon his own destruction and let the reward be what it will he will make himself a
those that looked for him and there was not between them one moments Interruption that People were dispersed over all the Earth the Gentiles ceased not to gather together and that Church which Jesus Christ hath built upon a Rock not all the Powers of Hell have ever been able to overthrow O what Consolation is this to the Children of God! But what Conviction is here of the Truth when they see that Pope Innocent the Eleventh who now most deservedly fills the first See of the Church we are continually ascending without any interruption even to St. Peter made by Jesus Christ the Chief of the Apostles from whence by running back to the Priests that served under the Law we go up even to Aaron and Moses from them to the Patriarchs and so to the beginning of the World what Course what Tradition what marvellous Connexion and Chain is here If our Minds which are naturally uncertain and by their doubtfulness become the Shittlecock of their own Reasonings have need in the Questions which concern our Salvation to be fixed and determined by some certain Authority what greater Authority is there than this of the Catholick Church which reunites in her self all the Authority of passed Ages and the ancient Traditions of Mankind to its first Original Thus the Society which Jesus Christ looked for during all past Ages at last founded upon the Rock and where St. Peter and his Successors were to preside by his Orders justified it self by its own Course and bore in its eternal duration the Character of the Hand of God 'T is also this Succession that no Heresie no Sect no other Society than only the Church of God was able to give to it self The false Religions could imitate the Church in many things and especially in saying as she did that God founded them but that Discourse in their Mouth was only a Discourse in the Air. For if God hath created Mankind and if in creating him after his own Image he hath never disdained to instruct him how to serve and please him Every Sect that doth not shew its Succession from the beginning of the World is not of God Here fall prostrate at the feet of the Church all the Societies and all the Sects that men have set up both within and without Christianity As for Example The false Prophet of the Arabians had the cunning to say that he was sent from God and after he had deceived the People most grosly ignorant he knew how to make his advantage of the Divisions of his Neighbourhood to extend into it by force of Arms a Religion that was wholly Sensual but neither has he dared to suppose that he was the Saviour expected nor could he in short give either to his Person or to his Religion any real or apparent Unity with past Ages The expedient he found to free himself from that was new For fear lest they should search into the Scriptures of the Christians for Testimonies of his Mission like to those which Jesus Christ found in the Scriptures of the Jews he pretended that both the Christians and the Jews had falsified all their Books His ignorant Followers believed him on his own word six hundred years after Jesus Christ and he declared himself not only without any precedent witness but also without any attempt either of supposing or of promising any one sensible Miracle which might authorize his Mission either by himself or any of his Followers So likewise the Heresiarchs who have founded new Sects among the Christians have had the Art to make the Faith more easy by denying the Mysteries which passed our Senses They were able to dazle men by their Eloquence and by a seeming shew of Piety to move them by their Passions to ingage them by their Interests to gain 'em over by Novelty and Libertinism either by that of the Mind or else by that of their Senses In a word they could easily either deceive themselves or deceive others for there is nothing more Humane but besides that they could never boast they had done any Miracle in Publick nor reduce their Religion to positive Facts whereof their Followers were Witnesses there was always a most unhappy mischief attended them which they could never conceal and that was their Novelty It will always be visible to the eyes of the whole World that they and their Sect which they have established will be detached from that great Body and from that ancient Church which Jesus Christ has founded where St. Peter and his Successors have kept the Primacy in which all Sects have found themselves established The moment of the Separation will be always so apparent that the Hereticks themselves can never be able to deny it and they will never dare so much as to attempt to make themselves to come from the Source by an uninterrupted Succession This is the inevitable weakness of all the Sects which Mankind has set up None can change the Ages past nor give themselves Predecessors nor ever make them to be found in possession The only Catholick Church fills up all precedent Ages by a Course of Succession that can never be disputed with her The Law came before the Gospel the Succession of Moses and the Patriarchs makes but one and the same with that of Jesus Christ to be looked for to come to be acknowledged by a Posterity which is to last as long as the World this is the Character of the Messiah in whom we believe Jesus Christ the same yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and for ever Thus besides the advantage which the Church of Jesus Christ hath of being alone founded on miraculous and divine Facts which they have written for all to see without any fear of being falsified as to the time in which they happened there is likewise in favour of those who lived not in those Times one Miracle that always is subsisting which confirms the truth of all the rest that is the Course of Religion which hath been always victorious over the Errors that have crept in which indeavour to destroy it You may add to this also another Chain and that is the visible uninterruptedness of a continual Punishment upon the Jews who have not yet received Christ so long ago promised to their Fathers They nevertheless expect him still and this their expectation which is always frustrated is one part of their Punishment They expect him and discover in their Expectation that he hath always been expected Condemned therefore by their own Books they confirm the truth of Religion they as I may say do carry all the Course of it written on their Foreheads and at one view we see what they have been why they are as we see them and for what they are reserved Thus four or five Authentick Facts and those more clear than the light of the Sun do discover our Religion to be as old as the World And consequently they discover that it hath no other Author than He who made the World
wise goes staggering reeling and as it were besotted because the Lord hath shed the Spirit of Dizziness and Confusion in all her Councils She no longer knows what she does she is lost to her self But that Men may not herein be deceived God repaireth when he seeth good the stragling Senses and he that insulted over the Blindness of others falls himself into more Egyptian Darkness and often times without any thing else to confound his Sence and Understanding than his too long Prosperities Thus it is that God Reigneth over all People Let us no longer talk of Chance or Fortune or speak of it only as a Name wherewith we conceal our Ignorance That which is Chance in respect of our uncertain Councils is a concerted Design in a higher Council that is to say in that eternal Council which circumscribes all Causes and all Effects in one and the same Order Thus all concurs to the same end and it is for want of understanding the all that we find of Chance or of Irregularity in particular Accidents and Emergencies By that is verified the Saying of the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.15 that God is the blessed and only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Blessed whose Repose is unalterable who seeth every thing to change without changing himself and who makes all Changes by an Immutable Council who gives and who takes away Power who transfers it from one Man to another from one House to another from one People to another to shew that they have it only by way of Loan and that it is he alone in whom it naturally resides Wherefore all Governors find themselves the Subjects of a greater Power They aâ—t more or less than they think for and their Councils have ever more had unforeseen Effects They neither are Masters of the Dispositions which Ages past have made in their Affairs nor can they foresee what Coâ—rse the times to come will take so far are they from being able to force it He alone holds all things in his Hands who knows the Name of that which is and that which is not yet who presides at all times and anticipates all Councils Alexander little thought he laboured for his Captains nor that he ruined his House when he gained his Conquest When Brutus animated the Romans with such an excessive Love of Liberty he as little thought he was casting into their Minds the Principle of that unbridled and masterless Licence by which the Tyranny he designed to destroy was one day to be re-established with greater Severity than under the Tarquins When the Caesars flattered the Souldiers they had no designs of giving Masters to their Successors and to the Empire In a word there is no humane Power but what do what it can serves for other Designs than it aims at at present God alone knows how to bring about all things according to his own Will Wherefore every thing is surprising if we only look to particular Causes and yet nevertheless every thing goes on in an orderly manner This Discourse makes you see it clearly and not to speak of other Empires you see by how many unforeseen Councils but yet always connected in themselves the Fortune of Rome hath been carried on from Romulus down to Charlemain Your Highness might perhaps have thought I should have told you somewhat more of your own Country and of Charlemain who was the Founder of the new Empire But besides that his History makes a part of that of France which you your self have wrote and which you have already so far proceeded in I reserve to make you another Discourse of that wherein I shall be necessarily obliged to speak to you of France and of that great Conqueror who being equal in Valour to those which Antiquity hath the most boasted of doth yet exceed them in Piety in Wisdom and Justice That some Discourse shall discover to you the Causes of the prodigious Successes of Mahomet and this Successors That Empire which began two hundred Years before Charlemain may find its place in that Discourse but I though it would be much better to shew you in one continued Series its beginning and its declension So that I have no more to tell you in this first Part of my Universal History You will discover all the Secrets of it and you will have nothing to do but to observe in it all the Progress of Religion and that of the great Empires down to Charlemain Whilest you will see almost all fall of themselves and Religion only support it self by its own Strength you will easily then discern what is solid Grandeur and where a wise and considerate Man is to place all his Hopes A TABLE TO THE FIRST PART OF THIS DISCOURSE I. EPocha Adam or the Creation First Age of the World Pag. 1. II. Epocha Noah or the Deluge Second Age of the World Pag. 4. III. Epocha The Call of Abraham Third Age of the World Pag. 7. IV. Epocha Moses or the written Law Pag. 11. V. Epocha The taking of Troy Fourth Age of the World Pag. 15. VI. Epocha Solomon or the Temple finished Fifth Age of the World Pag. 17. VII Epocha Romulus or Rome founded Pag. 25. VIII Epocha Cyrus or the Jews re-established Sixth Age of the World Pag. 43. IX Epocha Scipio or Carthage Conquered Pag. 71. X. Epocha The Birth of Jesus Christ Seventh and last Age of the World Pag. 89. XI Epocha Constantine or the Peace of the Church Pag. 110. XII Epocha Charlemain or the re-establishment of the new Empire Pag. 149. A Table to the Second Part. THE Course of Religion Pag. 155. I. The Creation and the first Times ibid. II. Abraham and the Patriarchs Pag. 178. III. Moses the Law written and the bringing of the People into the promisid Land Pag. 189. IV. David the Kings and the Prophets Pag. 209. V. The times of the second Temple Pag. 247. VI. Jesus Christ and his Doctrine Pag. 267. VII The Descent of the Holy Ghost the Establishment of the Church the Judgments of God both on the Jews and on the Gentiles Pag. 298. VIII Particular Reflections upon the Punishment of the Jews and upon the Predictions of Jesus Christ who had taken Notice of it Pag. 316. IX Two memorable Predictions of our blessed Saviour are explained and their Accomplishment justified by History Pag. 330. X. The Progress of the Jewish Errors and the manner how they explain the Prophecies Pag. 345. XI Particular Reflections on the Conversion of the Gentiles The profound Councils of God which resolved to convert them by the Cross of Jesus Christ The Arguing of St. Paul upon this manner of their Conversion Pag. 366. XII Divers ways of Idolatry Sense Interest Ignorance a false respect of Antiquity Policy Philosophy and Heresies came to its Succor but the Church triumphs over all Pag. 376. XIII General Reflection on the Progress of Religion and the Relation there is between the Books of the Scriptures Pag. 401. A Table to the Third Part. THE Empires Pag. 437. I. That the Revolutions of Empires are regulated by Providence and serve to humble Princes Ibid. II. The Revolutions of Empires have particular Causes which Princes ought to study Pag. 445. III. The Scythians the Ethiopians and the Egyptians Pag. 447. IV. The Assyrians both antient and new the Medes and Cyrus Pag. 475. V. The Persians the Grecians and Alexander Pag. 48â— VI. The Roman Empire Pag. 505. VII The Successive Changes of Rome Explained Pag. 543. FINIS