Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
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A52535
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A discourse of natural and reveal'd religion in several essays, or, The light of nature a guide to divine truth.
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Nourse, Timothy, d. 1699.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing N1417; ESTC R16135
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159,871
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385
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and so Prop up the Frailty of my Body with the Force and Resolutions of my Mind I will have the same Contempt for the Riches I possess as for those I want and as I shall not look more Dejected when they are withdrawn so neither will I be Exalted when they flow in upon me with the greatest Affluence and Lustre I will not be Transported when I find Fortune coming towards or going from me for I will look on other mens Estates as mine own and mine as though they did belong to others leading such a Life as though I were born for the sake of others and upon this Score I shall ever be thankful Whatsoever I Possess shall not be hoarded up sordidly nor wasted profusely believing ever that I do possess no more than what I am able to employ to good Uses I shall not measure Benefits by their Bulk and Number but rather value them by the Worth of the Receiver never deeming it too much which is bestow'd upon a deserving Person I will do nothing upon the Score of Opinion and Popularity but upon the Account of Conscience And whatsoever I shall do by my self alone I will imagine it to be done in the sight of the Sun and upon the greatest Theatre and in the fullest Confluence of Men. I will restrain the Desires of Nature by giving Measures to eating and drinking and not live only to fill and empty my Belly I will be chearful with my Friends reconcilable with my Enemies I will grant before I am entreated and meet a Petition half way In fine I will look upon the wide World as my Country and I shall believe the presiding Gods to be ever near me and to observe and censure all my Words and Actions and whensoever Nature or any Accident whatsoever shall put a Period to my Life I shall part with it willingly and with this assurance that I have ever lov'd a good Conscience and honest Endeavours and that no Mans Liberty was ever lost by my ill Behaviour much less mine own He who proposes such Ends as these and acts accordingly needs not doubt but he shall be admitted into the Light and Fellowship of the Gods Thus far he This certainly was great Advice from a Heathen and if his Life were answerable I durst pronounce him happy CHAP. XIII Of the Religious Worship of the Heathens NOW since Divine Worship is not only determin'd to private Duties and to a passive Resignation of our Wills to that of the Supream Governour and Moderator of all things but does require also some Publick Forms to prevent those great Errors to which an unguided Liberty does betray men Our next Enquiry must be after this Point also and this no other than what we call Religion But before I advance to further Inference I think it necessary to make some few Remarks upon Religion in General in the Publick Worship of a Deity which amongst the Romans according to Valerius Maximus was resolv'd into Lib. 1. c. 1. these Four Points First Their stated and solemn Ceremonies and those were appointed by the Pontifices Secondly The right of doing things depended upon the Observation of their Augurs Thirdly The Predictions of Apollo and these were contain'd in the Books of their Vates and Sybils And Lastly Their Judgment and Removal of Portents or ill Omens by the Exorcisms of the Etrurians or of such as follow'd the Rites and Discipline of that Superstitious People Moreover according to the Ancient Custom in Matters Sacred when any thing was recommended to the Gods it was called Prayer when any thing was requested of them it was by Vows when any thing was to be repaid to them it was call'd Giving of Thanks When any Design was on foot or any Publick Business to be done they had Recourse to Augurs or Consulted the Entrails and when any thing was to be Perform'd by solemn Rites it was by Sacrifices And so great were the Endeavours of the Ancients not only in preserving but also in amplifying their Religion that there were sent from Rome by Order of the Senate Ten Youths of the Noblest Hopes and Families who were recommended to the like Number of Cities in Etruria there to be Imbued and Disciplin'd in their Religious Mysteries The Religion of the Ancient Romans Apud Alexand ab Alexand. lib. Genial Dier as to its History is something intricate and perplext Nevertheless I shall endeavour to give some small Account of it as I find it Recorded and this too in the clearest and shortest Method that I can this being very Preparatory to the main Scope and Design I have in hand The Sum of what I meet with then upon this Subject may be reduc'd under these Two General Heads Religious Persons and Religious Offices As to Religious Persons they were of two sorts Priests and Augurs First I shall begin with their Priests Numa Pompilius the first Founder of Religion amongst the Romans was himself a Priest or Pontifex Afterwards there was a College of these Pontifices which at first consisted only of Four Persons but in course of Time as the Empire grew greater and greater this College had its enlargments also so that Sylla made their Number to be Fifteen amongst whom there was one who Govern'd the rest who was called Pontifex Maximus It belong'd to this College to Institute and Interpret Ceremonies both Publick and Private and to determine what Gods were to be Worshipp'd and with what Altars Temples and Sacrifices 'T was their Business also to appoint Holy-days called Feriae on which men ceas'd from their ordinary Employments that they might with greater Devotion attend on Sacred Duties Moreover it did belong to them to see that the Worship of the Gods was not Corrupted by introducing Foreign Rites and Ceremonies and to take care of what related to Funeral Rites and Sepulture and to Prescribe Forms of Atonement for the Ghosts of the Dead by certain Rites and Sacrifices called Inferiae to consider also of Vows and to Prescribe Publick Forms of Prayer and Supplications or solemn Processions 'T was the Duty of the Pontifex Maximus to make Annals of what was done or happen'd and to enter the same into a Register call'd Album in which Book also were enter'd all Publick Decrees and Constitutions together with the Names sometimes of those who bore Office In fine it was his Province to preside over the College of Pontifices to whom also the Rex Sacrorum the Augurs the Flamines and Vestal Virgins were subject and punishable by his Censor The Function of the Pontificate was ever held in so great Veneration that the chiefest Magistrates were ambitious of it such as Licinius Crassus Julius Caesar and many others And in token of Grandeur the Pontifex was allow'd his Lictor or Sergeant with his Ax and Rods He was allow'd also his Litter and a Curule Chair or Seat of State with other Ornaments proper only to the greatest Officers Nor was any man capable of this Sacred
an eternal and prae-existent matter then must that matter have been immutable for though the things made out of it be subject to continual vicissitudes and corruptions yet the matter must be still the same as the Stone and Timber of which the House is made is the same still for nature and essence as 't was before Now if that out of which the World was made was Immutable and Eternal then must it have those Perfections of which the Divine Nature chiefly do's consist but if this cannot be granted then must it be mutable and then can it not be Eternal for what 's Eternal must of necessity endure the same for ever But to proceed This Truth of the Existence of a God made such deep Impressions on the minds of Men through all Ages that even the Poets themselves so much abandon'd as they were to their own wanton Fictions were ever and anon forc't to throw off their Masks and to expose the bare-fac'd Truth The places cited out of the Ancient Greeks are known and many As the Passages also of the Sibylls in Lactantius No less remarkable are the Latins Ovid's first Book of his Metamorphoses seems nothing but a Paraphrase upon Genesis As also Virgil in that Passage or Fiction of Aeneas his descent into Hell Lib. 6. Aeneld where his Father Anchises amongst other Mysteries tells him In the beginning 't was the Spirit did form Heaven Earth and Seas Sun Moon and Stars of Morn The Mind diffusing through the bulky Frame Fermented all the Mass and from thence came Trees Flowers Birds Beasts thence also Mankind sprang With whatsoever is in th' Ocean The like he hath also in his fourth Book of his Georgicks What Opinion the Wisest of the Romans had touching the Heathen Gods cannot be better learnt then from Cato in Lucan who being Lucan l. 9. reduc'd to great Extremities in the Deserts of Libya was advised by Labienus to Consult the Oracle of Hamon being then near unto it to which Cato most Christian like reply'd God's Throne 's the Earth the Sea the Air and Heaven And above all a Mind to Vertue given What needs a further search of Gods above What ever we see where ever we be there 's Jove adding further that 't was not the Oracle but Death which could make him certain and without more ado he continued on his march never offering so much as once to salute Jupiter In short whosoever shall consider what the wisest of the Heathen spake concerning a Deity though they sometimes used the word Jupiter as being a Name most known to the Vulgar yielding herein as I have said to the Stile and Customs of the Times in which they liv'd Nevertheless the Descriptions they made could belong to none but to the only True and Immortal God For could that Jupiter be thought by them to be Hominum Sator atque Deorum who was born in Creete and so came into the World being Peopled before his Birth as now it is Could he be the Father of those who were born before himself Or could he give Immortality and Divinity to others who could not preserve himself from Death Could he be the just and upright Governour of the World who in his Life time committed so many Murders Rapes and Incests and after his fictitious Translation ceas'd not to have his Ganymede and to be employ'd about nothing more than to get Fuel for his Lust The grossest Heathen could never believe this much less so many Excellent and Learned Men amongst them of whom we read so much in prophane Story Some are of Opinion that this knowledge which the Heathen had of the True God was not from any instinct of the Light of Nature but from Divine Revelation first to the Patriarchs and from them by way of Tradition deliver'd from Generation to Generation The Ground for their Opinion is this The most Ancient Authors whose Testimonies are cited in this Argument are Zoroastres and Hermes Trismegistus The former is said to have lived about the beginning of the Chaldean Empire and is by some suppos'd to have been the Son or Nephew of Ham. Whoever he was Plutarch makes him Tract de Isid Oser to have liv'd many Ages before the Trojan Wars he is said also to have Instituted the Order of the Magi and in Imitation of these the Persians afterwards had their Sophi These Magi had the Custody of the Emperors Archives Registring the Actions of their Lives and were accounted as Oracles in Matters of Religion As for Mercurius Trismegistus he was an Egyptian and of the greatest Antiquity In the Works which bear his Name he seems to speak as clearly of the Divine Mysteries as Moses himself Now the Egyptians and the Chaldeans were ever accounted by all Prophane as well as Sacred Historians to have been the most Ancient of all Nations and we find in Scripture that 't was with these Nations the Patriarchs had greatest Commerce For Abraham liv'd for some time amongst the Chaldees and in Egypt where the Children of Jacob also with their Posterity sojourn'd for some Ages 'T was no wonder then that these two Nations should have so early a knowledge of Sacred Mysteries as also of all other kind of Learning From Egypt it was that the Greeks took their Light Orpheus the most Ancient Author amongst them visited Egypt and search'd into all their Sacred Records Next after him was Pythagoras who not only travell'd into Egypt but into Chaldea also and 't was from Pythagoras chiefly that Plato took his Notions as the Poets from Orpheus so that the nearer they were to the Original the better always were their Copies But whatsoever knowledge the Ancients had by this way of Tradition certain it is that they could not but receive much Light too from the Book of Nature For Reason tells us that whatsoever has a Beginning must have it either from it self or from some other not from it self for then must it have had an Existence before it had an Existence the thing which produces another being ever before that which is produc'd But if it has its beginning from something else and that from another and so on we must either make an Infinite Progress in Natural Productions which is utterly impossible for no Infinite can actually be made up of Finite Actions or we must at length resolve all into one first Cause which in it self is without beginning which can be no other than God Let a Man turn himself which way soever he pleases he shall find a vast Expanse of Creatures before his Eyes He sees the Earth producing every Living thing and Plants in their Season and yielding all things useful for the Life of Man He sees the Heavens beautified with innumerable Stars of vast Bulk and Purity he sees those Glorious Luminaries the Sun and Moon he sees all these Celestial Bodies how they are most regular and perpetual in their Motion most unchangeable in their Natures and of wonderful Influence