obscurities And indeed what a furious love of the Alcoran is it that causes a man to observe such things in it of which its author would not have us believe he ever thought and such as his interpreters reject and his followers detest and abominate For why are they so affected to the Law of Mahomet unless because it promises them all sorts of corporeal contentments And should any expound those things to them in a mystical way who doubts but that they would think his endeavor was to cause all the hope of their beatitude to vanish into smoke Moreover though for the Words and the Rime that book was written in an Arabick style good enough yet it is composed of parts so loose and incoherent amongst themselves that 't is a wonder how they that read it with so much admiration do not advert its impertinence For it is a hotchpot of several confused matters huddled together without any other connection then they have by chance and it is sufficiently apparent that it was built at several times and by divers hands and not followed according to one uniform and continued designe For he mingles therein the Histories before the Law with those after it those of the New Testament with the Wars of his own time and sometimes divides one into two or three pieces and contrarily sometimes ineptly molds two or three into one Prayers promises exhortations admonitions commandments and laws priviledges and histories descriptions of Paradise and Hell Philosophy and Divinity after his manner fables of times past and future the number of the Celestial Orbs and the death of a Cow are to be found jumbled together in one and the same Chapter And you would say sometimes that they are verily the ravings of a man in a fever or the enthusiasmes of a drunkard Vt nec pes nec caput uni Reddatur formae And if the order thereof be so perverted the matter is little better He saies that the Mind of man is a portion of the soul of God which he breath'd into him at his first creation and that under the shadow which the trees make they adore the Deity He swears by the Alcoran in one place and in another by his pen that that book was sent to him from Heaven That the Heavens would fall were it not for the Angels that pray for us That Jesus Christ had the soul of God That many deserted Christ because he was too eloquent And disputing against the Christians he proves that Jesus is not the Son of God and that God can have no Son in as much as he hath no need of any thing whatsoever He saies Men were created of shadow and Divels of flames of fire And as for the creation of the rest of the Universe he relates it in this manner God created the Earth in two days and fastned it to the mountains as it were by anchors and cables In the two next dayes he caused all sorts of herbs to spring up for the nutriment of animals After which the earth being thus framed began to emit exhalations and steams of which he formed the Heavens in two other days in which he placed the Stars and gave them principally in charge to chase away the Devils by the splendor of their light when they go to spy what is doing in Heaven Did he reason or rage when he writ all these excellent pieces of Divinity But then he interweaves the same here and there with I know not what putid fables He repeates a hundred and a hundred times so distrustful is he it will not be believ'd that God is the author of that rare book professes that all mankind together could not have made the least syllable of it He sprinkles the doctrine of the resurrection with shamefull and unprofitable fables Sometimes he goes about to discourse of matters treated on by the Writers of the New Testament and presently discovers that he understands nothing at all of them as where he makes a comparison of Christ with Adam Then in another place he trifles incongruously about the Table of the Lord and the Sacraments of the Gospel He boasts of having cemented the Moon together again which himself had cut in sunder He speaks of Predestination and the Providence of God as a Fatal Destiny and some say 't is by this means that he rendred his followers so adventurous in war because being perswaded that the decrees of that Destiny are inevitable they cast themselves without heed into the mouth of danger presuming they shall not dye in case it be not predestinated though their hearts were pierced with a hundred Javelins Lastly he contradicts himself at every turn But the thing for which he most frequently defends himself is his not doing of miracles and he will not allow anyone to require them from him though indeed he did all thing◠which no man ought to undertake unless he can prove his vocation by authentick miracles For he abolisht the constitutions which himself acknowledged were authoris'd by God as those of the Law and the Gospel He introduc'd a new form of Religion and invaded the dignity of soveraign Magistrates levying armes against Princes though he was but a private person giving liberty to slaves in spight of their masters with an absolute authority and maikng invasions and wars the most violent and bloody that ever were seen in the world But ought not he to have authoris'd himself by miracles to shew the right he had to do all this Who ever attempted any of those things as Moses or Elias or Christ or his Apostles but at sometime or other gave testimony of their celestial calling by miracles Certainly when I consider on the one side the absurdity and grosseness of almost every thing he saies I cannot but think he had great need of miracles to perswade the same to people of understanding and I should reckon it a miracle if any honest man could believe him And on the other side when I consider the nature of his doctrine and those to whom he perswaded it I conceive it no great miracle to have allur'd and drawn carnal minds by the gaudy baits of a carnal Paradise In a word it needs not to be much versed in that work to observe that it is a medly of all impertinent and bad things amongst which there is sometimes found some little good as there is in the Drugs of Egypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what good there is there is overwhelmed in an abysse of falsities impieties fables and impertinences and it is not difficult to shew from what fountains he deriv'd it all The good doctrines and sentences which are sometimes met with by the way are taken from the Old and New Testament The hatred which be perpetually testifies against the doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ he receiv'd by contagion from the Arians and other hereticks that were in high repute in his time That vile pollution of Marriage by the licentious multiplicity
be made of its suffrage And I cannot imagine that there is any at this day that bears the name of Christian who esteems it to have been of Divine revelation Wherefore the little I shall say to prove it is not so much for necessity of the thing in it self as because the design of this work does not permit me to pass it over absolutely in silence To judge therefore what it was we must not conceive it such as it is amongst barbarous and savage Nations such as the Toupinamboults are at present and the people of Suevia and Sarmatia were of old For who will believe that any extraordinary Celestial light in matter of Religion ever illuminated those Nations amongst whom there is scarce seen any traces of so much as humanity It is true there have been some people in our times that have written so highly in commendation of the contentment there is in their opinion in living under the simple Laws of nature as they speak that they seem inclinable to favour the manners and condions of Savages and prefer it before ours so as to have no shame at all of their nakedness and to boast that they do not cover it but onely in respect to custom But as for these persons it is not my present purpose to dispute against them If they would speak the genuine sentiments of their hearts they would not onely not acknowledge any particular revelation of the will of God in Religion but would moreover make profession of not believing the immortality of their souls nor any Religion in the world and after having rendred themselves like to those miserable Savages in all brutalities they would surpass them in this point that they would cast under their feet all remembrance of God of whom in their Desarts and forlorn Barbarism the Margajats and Patagons have yet some fear and reverence I speak now to such as make some esteem of the improving elegancy of Learning and who have some portion of honesty lest in their conversation amongst men The Greeks and Romans therefore have without question carried the preheminence in all kindes of politeness and excellence amongst the Pagan Nations So that it is amongst them that we must seek for this particular revelation whether it may be found in the Religion of either of those people It is true the Egyptians were much celebrated for their mysteries and rare wisdom and divers have thought that all the wisdom of Greece was transported from the treasuries of Egypt by those that travell'd thither for it But if there were any thing of good among them they had it from communication with the Jews who besides that they sojourned a long time in Egypt before the Greek name arose in the world they were their neer neighbours in Palestine and had frequent and free commerce with them yet have they so viciated corrupted and obscured in their superstitions and idolatries what they had learned from them that there is none of it to be known and distinguish'd almost all the books in which they had expounded their mysteries are lost But he that is desirous to know what excellent opinions they had what divine wisdom it was that made them so cryed up he may please onely to read the Treatise written by Plutark of Isis and Osiris and he will see in the first place that the veiles and allegories under which he sayes they hid their knowledge are shameful and putid fables such idle and dull extravagancies and impertinences in themselves that it is impossible they could serve for a coverture to any conceptions I do not say heavenly and divine but worthy of men and ordinary sober sense In the next place he will finde that all that Plutark with singular acuteness of wit could uncypher of them is so dubious and the text on which he comments so plyable to all sorts of fancies that he that would set himself about it might invent several other interpretations as probable as his They are as the divers impressions of clouds to which the fancy of every man ascribes what image or lineaments seems best to him And lastly he will discover that though the expositions which that Philosopher presents us there were as certain as if they had been delivered by an Oracle yet they all terminate in two caitive and dismal Demons unknown even to them that ador'd them in uncouch speculations concerning the motions of the Moon and the Inundations of Nilus in Platonick Idea's and the Riddles of Pythagoras and in that ancient foppery of Oromasdes and Arimanius two opposite principles of all things with some cold mystical interpretations of reasons why the Egyptians religiously worshipped the Ox the Sheep the Ichneumon Larks Storks Serpents Dogs Beetles and Weesels Is not here great cause to boast of having drawn from the fountain of Divine Wisdom it self So little ground is there to think so that on the contrary there is no person of indifferent understanding but in the reading of that Treatise would pity Plutark that bestowed so much knowledge and labour in commenting upon such absurdities and could not discover them to be such What shall we then say of the Greeks who held from the Egyptians whatever they had not altogether bad and what shall we think of the Romans who had nothing but from imitation of the Greeks both in humane Sciences and Religious Politie But put the case they had borrowed nothing from the Egyptians but that this Divine Revelation had been peculiarly imparted to them I would be told from what books that were in reputation amongst them we ought now to take it For we have heard say indeed that they had Sibyls by whose means they were made acquainted with divine secrets and who also writ books of the same but the wind and time have carried them away If there be any thing lest of their Oracles as there are divers excellent Greek verses that bear their name at this day yet are with very just reason suspected by the learned the Christian Religion is clearly described in them and the Pagan so strongly and directly confuted that the Christians could scarce finde more express proofs for themselves then in those books of theirs And there is no likelihood that these were the same whom the Roman Priests went to consult as oft as there was occasion to avert some raging mortality For they taught not to render to Apollo Latona Diana Hercules Mercury or Neptune those honours which they us'd to perform to them to make them propitious in such occurrences If therefore this revelation was contained in the Books of the Sibyls it is perish'd long since and we have no more knowledge of them then of those of Numa Pompilius which were burned at Rome by authority of the Senate because they tended to the subversion and annulling of all their Religious Ceremonies They had moreover memorials of the rights of the Pontifices Augurs and Aruspices Of all which there is nothing left but the name Miserable are
Earth all mention of the Name of God they could not have invented any other effective complot then to imprint this belief in our mindâ— Now although this sort of people do not as yet make so numerous a Party as the two other and hath not hitherto ventured abroad wholly unmasked yet being it is growing every day and the Opinion of Indifference begins to bear a great vogue and particularly in France insomuch that a considerable number of those Persons which are esteemed the most polished either by the education of Litterature or of the Court are become imbued with it and even some it seems amongst those which wear the title of Divines incline to favour it I have judged it my duty with the good leave of all true Christians to engage against this Error in this Treatise both to undeceive if possible such as are already mislead into it and to pre-arm others against its poyson that they be not inveigled by the bait Hoping that besides the bened ction of God to whom my purpose cannot be unacceptable I shall find as well those who stile themselves Catholicks as they who are termed the Reformed notwithstanding the r mutual Controversies candid and favourable the Error which I attaque being equally enemy to both There are three kinds of men that esteem the exterior profession of all Religions indifferent The first acknowledge no Providence and do not admit God to be concerned with humane affairs notwithstanding they believe him of a nature so excellent in it self and transcendent above all other beings that for this consideration alone be deserves our reverence and devotions and this was sometimes thâ— Religion of Epicurus to which these men have given new birth The second order confess a Providence governing the World but acknowledge no express revelation of the the Will of God in reference to his Service an Opinion held by the greatest part of the Philosophers And thirdly another sort who besides the instruction which may be collected from Providence ruling the Vniverse and the study of Nature do assent that God hath revealed something particularly concerning himself and the manner of service fitting to be rendred to him yet esteem not themselves thereby obl ged to follow a certain and determined Profession of Form of Religion a Sect unknown to the Ancients and born in our own times Suitably hereunto I have purposed to dispute against each Order apart to the end the Discourse may be more amply satisfactory and the series of the contexture more dependent and conspicuous in which regard I have divided my Work into three Parts of which the First shall serve as a step to the Second and that to the Third and so each of them distinctly treat the Question particularly assigned to it But if in some places the Discourses seem to divert a little from the subject which the Lemma's of the Chapters promise besides that I do it not out of incogitancy and have my reasons for it which perhaps shall appear in their duo time I hope to manage my Digressions which such moderation that reducing the Reader speedily into his way it will not be offensive to him to have been drawn aside for a few moments to the consideration of things which I have deemed convenient to the Vniversal design of my Work One advertisement there is I am to give him before hand That I shall take the greater part of my reasons from the emanations and motions of our own nature and from conscience without dilating my self into those prolixe discourses in which the incomparable advantages of the Christian Religion above all others have been sufficiently demonstrated by arguguments drawn from other topicks and from the testimonies of the Ancients For as those excellent persons that undertook it have outdone all that I am able to attempt so verily I do not believe that in treating with such as are indued with some sense of piety there are any reasons preferable to those which are desumed from the motions of the same or that towards such as have none at all any other course of argumentation can be very powerful and effective I am not ignorant some writers have conjoyned this method with their other reasons and so far is it from me to go about here to detract any thing from their commendation that on the contrary I wish the labors of those great Men were as carefully perused as their peculiar worth and the importance of the matter deserve But seeing Books how good soever they be and in whatever language written have their Time at the end of which they remain neglected in the dust of Closets and almost buried in oblivion and that on the other side this profane humor is immortal and gathers youth every day sprouting and inlarging to the shame of our Age It ought not to be accounted strange if after others I bring my Endeavors to the rooting of it up or at least to intercept its future fertility And possibly my design of imploying no other instrument then that of argument and reason will not be less profitable to the greater part in regard all the world is able to use it then the diligence others have had to inrich their Writings with Disquisitions of rare and profound erudition of which the Learned onely are capable judges Besides it many times happens that what is produced upon the credit or testimonies of Antiquity hath not much weight in this matter with the Intelligent Because if it be ascribed to God these Indifferents accuse it to have been forged by such as were infatuated by affection to Religion and if the original of it be referred to men they are ready with a return that in all ages men have deceived themselves So that there remains scarce any other principle from which to dispute against these people then that of Nature and Reason to which they would not be thought to renounce The Eternal God to whose glory I undertake this work guide my Mind and my Hand in the conduct of the same A TABLE OF The Chapters contained in this TREATISE The first Part. CHAP. I. THat according to the Doctrine of the Epicureans there can be no assurance of the existence of a Deity page 1 CHAP. II. Wherein the Service of God consists And what that is the Epicureans can rendâ—r him according to their Principles p. 17 CHAP. III. With what kind of adoration the Epicureans according to their Principles can â—eâ—erate tâ—e Dâ—ity p. 29 CHAP. IV. A more particular consideration of the Honor which the Epicureans pretend to render to God in respect of his Power Goodnesse Justice and Wisdom p. 41 CHAP. V. The Continuation of the Arguments evincing that the Epicureans cannot adore the Deity in a due manner with the solution of some Objections p. 58. CHAP. VI. Of the natural difference which is between Vice and Vertue and of the Terrors of Conscience Whether it can be deduc'd from them that there is a Providence p. 80 CHAP. VII Of the
manner to render that honor and worship to God which our duty obliges us to because it is natural to us to be but little solicitous of such things of whose Being we are not indubitably assured and especially if they be such as utterly inconcern us We reverence our Kings out of regard to the eminence of their Dignity but they govern and protect us and the peace of the Commonwealth and safety of every particular person depends on the homage and obedience which is rendred to them But how few are there that in the whole course of their lives have so much as one reverential thought for Princes and Potentates who are separated from them with onely an arm of the Sea or a Mountain and how much less do we intertain any thoughts of alliegiance and awfulness towards the Mogal or Prester John or the great Cham of the Tartares Yet if there should be any one so sensibly respectful of Royal Dignity as not to think of the Kings of Persia or China but with some veneration in such case nevertheless it is requisitâ— that he be absolutely perswaded that there are Kings in Persia and China and give an intire belief to the relations that affirm it But I imagine there is no man so unboundedly superstitious in this particular as to bear honor in his breast towards those that rule in the Southern Continent onely upon inducement of having seen such a Part of Earth drawn in the foot of a Map and that there is some likelihood they are inhabited In like manner who can doubt that the worship which the Epicureans render to God is extreamly cold and languid and that they would not bear it patiently if the remembrance of him were exterminated out of the world Nevertheless being they seem desirous men should believe otherwise of them let us undertake the inquiry into the measure and rate of that honor they pretend to express towards him according to their Principles For in regard Epicurus once writ a Tract concerning Piety towards the Gods as Diogenes Laertius and Cicero have recorded he seems to have been willing it should be conceived that his intention was not to banish Religion from amongst mankind To pass by at present the particular of outward Ceremonies which occur in all Religions whereof we shall treat hereafter and to confine my self to that onely which is most essential to and as it were the soul of Religion I assert that all the service mortals are able to render to the supream Being is reducible to these four principal Heads First Adoration of his excellent nature above all other Beings in the Universe Next Affiance in his goodness with expectation of assistance from him in exigencies Thirdly The expressing of Thankfulness for benefits already received And lastly The embracing and practice of Virtue in the conduct of life out of regard and obedience to him As to the trust and dependance upon his goodness the most devout Nations have always with good Reason esteemed it a principal part of his honor and of his service For if there be any thing that can challenge veneration in the World it is the power to do good if any thing love and commendation it is the will to put that power in use Wherefore for that whatever is venerable and praise-worthy in the inclinations of men must be in a degree infinitely more eminent in the Deity as well because of the infinite perfection of his being as in that he is the source from whence all other things derive the perfections they own of necessity these two properties are to be found in him One that he takes pleasure to expand himself in acts of goodness towards his creatures and particularly toward mankind in whom his image is resplendent The other that his power to do Good is incapable of circumscription Hence it was that the most Religious people as I said above have accounted that God became offended if men had less confidence in him then was sutable to the merit of that infinite power and eminent goodness and in the Books we receive for sacred such persons are expresly praised and commended whose minds were reposed with greatest assurance upon his care and which remained unshaken by the assault of great distresses and perplexities Now as to performance of this sort of service towards God it is absolutely renounced by the Epicureans in as much as they recount it amongst the principal requisites of the Divine Beatitude that as he is without all participation of our necessities so he does not give himself the trouble of having any resentment or solicitousness concerning them Whereby under pretext of advancing the glory of his felicity they blemish the splendour of his Goodness in which consists the principal perfection of his Being It is most certainly a happy condition to injoy such an affluence of all sorts of good things as not to stand in need of others and to be sufficient to ones self But it is also beyond denial incomparably more honorable to afford to another some participation of this happiness especially when it is incapable of any diminution saving by a perpetually reserved and solitary injoyment without communicating to any other person They ought to have ascribed to so perfect a nature at least as much commendation of benignity as Ennius gives him that shews the way to deviating travellers or bestows fire upon his neighbor or lights his Candle For so are his words recited by Cicero Homo qui erranti comiter monstrat viam Quasi lumen de suo lumine accendit facit Vt nihilo minus ipsi luceaâ—t cum illi accenderit For the next particular Prayer they are so far from allowing it a part of the service of God that on the contrary they look upon it as a thing rather meriting scorn or laughter being either an evidence of poorness of spirit in the adverse accidents of fortune or a token of abject slothfulness in such as refusing to take the pains for providing by industry and vigilance to their needs recurre to God for support of their worthlesseness Certainly if there be any good consolation to be had in the sufferance of calamities it will as soon be found among those that follow a Religion whatever it be as among those by whom all sorts are universally rejected and if examples of magnanimity are to be met with they must not be sought for amongst such as place the supream Good of mankind in corporeal Pleasure This opinion is too soft and effeminate of it self to inspire men with vigorous and masculine sentiments in the midst of adversities This is not from the School that gave us Cato's and Regulus's but a more likely Seminary of such as Aristippus and Heliogabalus Whereas on the other side the Doctrine that instructs men to address to the Deity in time of their afflictions do's not prescribe them to abandon the ship to the incertainty of the tempest and to lay aside the practice of prudence under
true Why did he refer all to the glory of God and nothing to his own Or if his project were to credit himself onely by misprising and debasing his own worth why did he not at least leave that authority to his children rather then to his domestick servant But he was so far from that that contrarily to what naturall affections dictate to men he made one of his attendants heir of his grandeur and left his own issue to fall into a low and contemptible condition in comparison of his own Certainly it must either be said that Moses was an impostor in forging both the history of the creation and others which he relates or if any credit be given to him in the narration of that History so remote from his own times then much rather ought he to be believed in his recital of things which befell himself of which there were so many witnesses either to confirm or convince them of falsity And surely they are abundantly confirmed in that they were never so much as accused or suspected Besides that their Posterity ha's received them from hand to hand as divine irrefragable truths and religiously maintained them for the space of many Ages Which they would never have done if the tradition of those ancient miracles had not from time to time been rendred authentique and worthy of perfect belief by extraordinary actions predictions judgements and deliverances in which appeared the singer of God I shall say something more since the matter leads me to it Namely that if the Philosophers against whom I dispute at present have vivacity and quicknes enough of understanding to be certainly perperswaded of the Creation of the World by reasons which their Wit is able to suggest to them and the Ancients did not observe I dare aver that would they take pains in reading the Books ot Moses with as much attention as they use in their own ratiocinations they would there more certainly remark that they are proceeded from divine inspiration then they could know of themselves that God ha's created and governs the World For there are not more lively and evident arguments in the World that God is the Author of it then there are in the Books of Moses alone to induce a belief that they are not of humane invention As I conceive if a man should have from the hand of Archimedes himself the description of those admirable Engines which he made and that he had replenish'd the same with as many tokens of his incomparable skill in the Mathematicks as there are traces of the Deity in the five books of Moses he would find therein as much or more cause to admire the extraordinary grandeur of that Personages Wit as in attentively considering his Machines and his Engines CHAP. IV. How much true Godliness is concern'd in the certain knowledge That the whole World is governed by a special Providence and That the same is no otherwise attainable but by Revelation HItherto we have discours'd largely of the Providence which governs the World and treated with the Philosophers of our Times as with persons that acknowledge it and yet we are not fully assured what their judgement is really concerning it although it be a thing highly important to our dispute For the Opinions of the Ancients have been very different about it and the Moderns hide themselves and do not willingly appear in publick in regard that the Christian Religion being universally receiv'd in Europe such as do not believe the same are look'd upon as Monsters so that it is very difficult to know distinctly what opinion they have of it If therefore they be of that perswasion which is attributed to Aristotle though some undertake to excuse him from it their piety towards the Deity must consequently be wholly cold and languid For Aristotle is accounted to have believ'd that the world being from eternity by emanation from God as the light proceeds from the Sun things are so necessarily disposed that God being the first Mover of the Heavens whether immediately or by the intervention of what he calls Intelligences he is also by consequence the Author of all things Because the other less universal motions depend on the Heavens and from those other less universal motions proceed all things which are produced in the World every cause acting sutable to its own Nature as the Water moves the wheel of a Mill and the wheel the Axeltree and that another less wheel and this also another till at length the motion arrives at the stone which bruises the corn and reduces the same into flower So that God is indeed authour of all things but as a universal cause which hath under it an infinite number of other subalternate and subordinate which are the proximate causes of effects which come into Being and which receive their power of acting from the influence of the first and most universal of all by the means of motion And forasmuch as things which are termed fortuitous and contingent do not depend on certain determined causes which are ligned by a sort of train to that superior universal one and consequently if they be administred by God they are administred by an Especial Providence they which discourse at that rate take no notice at all of them no more then of a thing which does not agree with their Principles Nor can it be denyed but that grand Philosopher seems very frequently to lay down the grounds of this Divinity although sometimes excellent sentences escape from him to the honor of a Particular Providence which is extended even to casual things or such as depend not on the concatenation of natural causes But it is to be fear'd that they are words spoken out of design to avoid the reproach which would have lain upon him of being too little religious or at most the eruptions and flashes of Nature which oftentimes surmounts the most deeply imprinted perverse opinions and causes a man to forget his own Maximes when they are contrary unto it how constant and resolved soever he be to maintain the same The Author of the Book De Mundo dedicated to Alexander seems to go a little higher and speaks of God and his Providence in more magnificent terms But in the first place the stile evidently shews that Aristotle never writ it and I should readily incline to their opinion who father it on Philo Judaeus whom the Books of Moses had imbued with many better and sounder opinions in relation to piety then all that ever was met with in Greece but he disguised himself on purpose and accommodated that elegant Treatise after the Greek mode Secondly in case it had proceeded from the hand of Aristotle yet it always terminates in this that God keeps himself in the Heavens onely and that it is not sutable to his glorious nature to be amongst frail and visible things and that he governs the World by means of subordinate causes in nature as the great King of Persia do's his Providences
body of the fabulous shadows that we see in the writings of the most ancient authors in the World who will doubt but all which they have is taken from thence and that we ought to refer what is therein deprav'd and corrupted thereunto as to its principle and have recourse thither to learn what we are ignorant of Moreover as the minds of men are so various that we scarce see a son follow the design of his fathers building when the foundations of it are laid and the walls already erected much less do they willingly conform throughout to their predecessors in Sciences and disciplines every one being ambitious of the glory of having augmented corrected or invented some thing which occasion'd so many sects of Philosophers and Lawyers If there be found a Religion all whose parts accord together with an excellent harmony although it ha's been propounded at several times and by several persons in several places and are so far from difformity that they consist unite together with a perfect proportion though several workmen have labor'd therein can it be denyed but that it was one and the same Architect that always presided over the work seeing it is manag'd with so equal and uniform a conduct Whereas even the Palaces of Kings are composed of parts oftimes so disagreeing that they dispaparage the edifice according as successors have had different fancies from their ancestors yea even such as have been built by one alone always represent something in their contrivance which argues the inconstance and imbecillity of man But especially if there be found a Doctrine whose revelations or supernatural truths having been very little and obscure at the beginning so that it was impossible for the mind of man to explain them have yet many hundred years after been multiplyed in so sutable a manner that it is dubious which to admire most either the consentaneousness between the principles and their sequels or the faculty that was requisite to deduce the same from them and to unfold them after a manner perfectly admirable There is no question but he was the same that cast the seed into the earth and made it grow that first presented those invelop'd sparkles of light and afterwards illustrated and unveiled them Moreover inasmuch as God is the author of all things his glory ought to be their natural end but as none of the most knowing Philosophers ever propos'd the same to himself or indevour'd to shew the tendency of things thereunto yea on the contrary the most part speak nor of God or if they do 't is with some notorious disadvantage to his glory If there be a Doctrine that aims wholly and all whose parts conspire unanimously thereunto must it not be said that God intended the same as a means to redress the distraction and wandering of humane minds and to reduce them into the right way For how could it be that men should so prodigiously neglect the glory of God unless they were estrayed from their end since they were made for it And how were they able when once lost in a strange Country so well to recover the direct path again of themselves Every Religion ought to contain the testimonies of Gods good will to mankind and the duties of men towards him If therefore there be a discipline a doctrine a book a society in which God himself speaks to men in a style and manner agreeable to the eminence of his Majesty displays his justice to them most terrible in its appearance discovers his power in its highest magnificence and gives them to sound the bredth and length depth and heigth of his infinite mercies after a manner which cannot but ravish the thought of man with admiration who can imagine that ever any man durst speak so And lastly if examples of an incomparable virtue be found therein with incitations and instructions to piety such as are not to be parallell'd any other where in the world 't is an indubitable argument that they are proceded from some other then the humane mind or the School of man It is natural to men to aspire after a supreme good it is inseparably rooted and fixed in our minds Yet never any man attain'd it or could so much as certainly tell wherein it consists and 't is lamentable to observe how different inconstant and incongruous the opinions of Philosophers have been in a matter of so great importance Therefore if there be any Doctrine that discovers the variety and solly of those that so grosly deceived themselves about it and which brings to light and exposes to the eyes of all the earth a Beatitude that comprehends all the excellencies the Philosophers were able to express in this point and infinitely more who can doubt but that it was God himself that hath lighted this torch to dissipate all the darknesses of our minds Lastly Man being fallen from so high a degree of perfection into so great a corruption of which Heaven and Earth and his own conscience bears him witness and there being by that means so large an abysse between God and him a war so irreconcilable between his justice and our offenses If there be a Doctrine that teaches an expedient to fill up this gulf and as I may so speak to build a bridge over it to renew the commerce and correspondence between God and us procuring satisfaction to his justice and raising us up from our ruines is it not necessarily consequent that it was God himself that reveal'd it For what edifice ever erected it self when it was fallen and emerg'd anew out of its rubbidge To him that is fallen from the favour of God into his indignation who can shew the hope and means of his reconciliation but God himself And I shall not fear confidently to assert that such a Religion ought besides the preceding evidences be authorised from Heaven maintained against its enemies and be effectuall to be perswaded after an extraordinary manner Wherefore if there be one to which God hath born witness by great and signal miracles which surpass both the power of humane nature and the illusions of Magick and even the faculties of any malignant spirit and the highest intelligences seeing they could not be performed but by the power of God and that it professes to be proceeded from him who can be so bold as to gain-say it For without dispute God could never have afforded his power to the confirmation of a lye or revealed himself from Heaven expressely in such miraculous works to favour an imposture that pretends to his name with a false title Moreover if being conversant in the world as a stranger contradicted by all Nations ardently persecuted by malignant spirits and by such as they had seduced by their illusions and drawn to their service it ha's been as it were visibly defended by dreadful judgements discharged both upon the persons and Nations that opposed it by pestilence and mortalities by famines and wars by subversions of Cities and dissipations of
we if the truth was there of which we are in despair ever to have any intelligence Shall we then have recourse to find it in the books of the Poets Truely it would be an excellent design to go about to build a Religion upon the model afforded us in the Theology of Hesiod the Hymmes of Orpheus the Poems of Homer the Odes of Pindar the Metamorphoses of Ovid and the divine Theology of the great Virgil who is so hard put to it to save the gods of the poor Aeneas from the sack of Troy and who trusses them up in the same fardel with the little Ascanius as companions of the same fortune It were more rationally credible that the beasts and trees held that rare converse together which Aesop reports of them in his Fables then to give belief to the adventures and exploits which those Poets ascribe to their Deities For in the first there would be nothing but childishness or at most but brutishness in the latter impiety and blasphemy And if as some would have it believ'd of them though perhaps themselves never thought of any such matter their intent was to cover under the veil of those fables several true mysteries pertaining to the knowledge of the Deity and understanding of the secrets of nature so far was the teaching the same after such a manner from being a divine intention that on the contrary the honor of the Deity hath thereby been unworthily impaired and the truth smother'd under most horrible lies It follows therefore that we go to the writings of Philosophers to which we cannot without great injury to truth ascribe the commendation of being proceeded from celestial inspiration since the authors themselves though sufficiently presumtuous do not pretend they were so And indeed we have shewn above that they were either wholly ignorant of the requisites to a true piety towards God or if they had knowledge of some few it was wonderfully obscure and dubious But how could the revelation of God have suffered them to groap and wander in that ignorance To conclude is it then to those Oracles of Delphos Dodona Jupiter Ammon and others the like that we owe the glory of this divine knowledge Truly it moves both shame and pity to hear themselves speak both of the original and faculty of divination and cessation of Oracles It was a heard of Goats that first brought that of Delphos which was the most famous and venerable of all into reputation But the virgins that were placed there to give answers to inquirers which they receiv'd by their obscene parts were not long there but there arise most notorious scandals of them All their predictions were ambiguous and doubtful like our Almanack-makers who prophesie by hap-hazard and themselves gave this account of it that the Daemons which spoke there not knowing things to come but by inspection of the Stars and so being able to gather from thence but incertain conjectures they shrouded their ignorance under the ambiguity of words capable of different interpretations to the end they might make good their credit whatsoever the event of things might be In a word afâ—er Plutark had bestirr'd himself on all sides to finde out the causes of these Oracles and their ceasing and sometimes conceiv'd them perishable and mortal Daemons sometimes immortal but that they chang'd place he seems to resolve upon this worthy Philosophy That the earth was in some places indued with certain prophetick Virtues which come by exhalations to be mingled and insinuated into souls fitting to receive those inspirations and so cause in them those Enthusiasmes and predictions of future things Afterwards when all the virtue is spent and the whole mass that was made thereof in the subterranean caverns evaporated then the prediction that was made by the Oracles of things to come ceases and is extinguish'd Without question those divinations could not but be very clear which proceeded onely from the fumes of the earth and the religious devotions very good that were paid to these divining exhalations and the persons who received the impressions of them in their souls But perhaps though the evidences of this divine revelation be lost I mean the books in which it was recorded yet it ha's remained in the memory of man and is preserved by practise as by a living transcript Be it so Let us therefore now examine the Pagan Religion in it self Which certainly if it was divine ought to have afforded a great knowledge of those supreme truths in the understanding of which consists the perfection of our souls And yet it ha's been pitifully defective herein For setting a part at present those principles of Christian Religion which seem most incredible and by reason of which profane men reject or suspect it there is no person that ha's a dram of common sense but will freely confess that we have beyond comparison more knowledge of the nature of the Deity and true virtue then the ancient Greeks or Romanes ever had which notwithstanding we have drawn from books more ancient then them by many ages and which condemn the Gods of all other Nations Whence therefore came it to pass that if they had that particular revelation we enquire after they were so ignorant of those indubitable truths of which we are so knowing who have learnt the same from those that are profess'd enemies to the Pagan Deities If what they believ'd in matter of Religion was truth whence do those truths which we perceive now so clearly and comprehend so certainly convince them of falshood And if the Gods which the Pagans ador'd were true Gods why do the books which have taught us so many excellent things whereunto humane reason cannot repugne call them Gods of clay And indeed they were marveillous Gods for even those that ador'd them knew their parents and could shew their tombes and tell a thousand debaucheries of them which confirm that they were so far from being worthy to reign in the heavens that on the contrary they deserved publick punishment upon earth Their thefts their rapes and adulteries their attempts against parents their whoredoms whereby if we believe their authors they filled the heavens with bastards their Sodomies and incests would not have been suffered unpunish'd by those that built Temples and Altars to them if they had apprehended them in the jurisdiction of their respective Republicks And the supreme Jupiter himself must not be excepted of whom Menelaus exclaimed with more reason then he imagin'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter pater nemo Deorum est te perniciosior What a kind of Religion is that whose Gods have had a beginning and that a long time after men of whose history we have certain knowledge For Jupiter and Saturne and Vranus are none of them so ancient as Abraham On the other side what Gods had the Nations before these came into the world Whosoever saith Plutark would search into the histories of the times that preceeded Theseus and Hercules shall find therein nothing
But alas this is an Augean Stable Though there should be some small Deities inferior to the supreme which yet right reason abhors yet He ought to be of a majesty so glorious and of an essence and power so immense as we have shewn above that no corporeal image either by the hand in brass or marble or even by the mind in the fancy can be framed of him In as much as all corporeal figure not onely determines and limits the subject which it represents but always refers it to the proportion of the thing it self under the figure whereof it is represented Now how abominable was the idolatry of the Pagans in this respect The Egyptians represented the Deity under the figure of beasts and Apollonius in Philostratus blames their Gymnosophists for it The Greeks and Romanes thought they did more sutably to represent him under a humane figure How came this to pass but only because they imagin'd that God resembled themselves and that there was a proportion as it were of greater and less between them and him And was it not upon this apprehension that they were so forward to attribute the name of God to men as to Kings Emperors and Philosophers and that they dedicated Temples and Altars to them and burnt incense to their Statues Wretched worms of the earth that conceived they could comprehend what God is and measure him by their fadom To make Gods at their pleasure and to become Gods themselves But that which was most of all pernitious to them was the consecration of their Idols into which by means of certain invocations they conceiv'd they could attract some portion of the essence of the Deity or cause some extraordinary virtue to descend from him into their images after which they look'd not upon them as meer Images but as things partaking of the divine nature it self For under this pretext Daemons enter'd into them making them sometimes speak intelligibly sometimes weep sweat bleed remove from their places clatter their weapons and practis'd divers other kinds of illusions in them whereby the poor people were encharmed and conceiv'd the same opinion of them as if they had had the Deity it self lodged in their Temples Thus the evil Spirit exercis'd an absolute dominion amongst them In short it is an abuse of time to spend many words in shewing that all their opinions in this matter were false their mysteries wicked their observations frivolous and the service which they rendred to their Gods full of Idolatry Their sacrifices were oftentimes barbarous and inhumane for not onely the Massagetes the Phoenicians Carthaginians Persians and some other less civilis'd nations but the Greeks and Latines and Gaules whose Druydes were in great esteem offer'd victimes of living men yea some their own children to their false Gods as if they had conceiv'd God delighted to feed on their entrails And who sees not that it was the devil who is a murderer from the beginning that incited them to those so lamentable bloody devotions Their mysteries rendred men furious and frantick for with what a spirit were those enraged women agitated after their devotions in the Bacchanal festivals Their auguries by the flight of birds their presages by the smoke of incense and the fat of their sacrifices and by inspection of the intrals of immolated beasts were so absurd that they seem to have been invented in derision of those that applyed themselves to them and argue that the learned Greeks and prudent Romanes how great personages soever they thought themselves had not much wisdom in the heart as One of themselves sometimes said since they sought it in the liver of beasts Then for their ceremonies there is nothing more inept and ridiculous Was it not excellent to hear the Curetes and Corybantes when they were in procession some of them drumming upon Kettles some upon Bucklers and Helmets and others gingling chains and Cymbals Their manners of celebration were dishonest and unbecoming For how could they but be asham'd both of those dances of naked men about tombes and of the races of naked men in the publick places of the Cities yea at the meeting of women in the Lupercalia Their propitiations purifications and oblations were unprofitable and inefficacious For what could the death of poor beasts do in order to appeasing the anger of God It was not they which had offended nor did it belong to them to bear the punishment If their blood had had the virtue of making propitiation for sins the rich however otherwise wicked were happy that were able to offer hecatombs And what efficacy was there in the aspersion of cold water to cleanse the conscience of man from his crimes Certainly with good reason did One amongst them write Ah! nimium faciles qui tristia funera caedis Tolli fluminea posse putatis aqua Fond men that think by waters crystall flood To cleanse away the horrid guilt of blood Their miracles were for the most part illusions of Daemons as the Serpent adored for AEsculapius in the City of Epidaurus and afterwards carried to Rome to asswage the pestilence and the apparitions of Castor and Pollux relating the tidings of the defeat of Perseus King of Macedonia and all the speakings and sweatings of Images in their Temples Or else they were tricks of Magick as that of Appius Navius who to gain credit to his Auguries cut a Whetstone in two with a Razor in the presence of Romulus and also that manner of appeasing a raging plague in the City of Ephesus practis'd by Apollonius of knocking down a Daemon with stones and his vanishing before Domitian and all those jugling sleights that were done before him when he was at a feast with the Brachmans of India Or they were simple gulleries as that of the inundation of the Lake of Alba. The inventors of their devotions were crafty men who abused the credulity of the people to render them plyable to their laws and more respectful to their persons as themselves confess of Numa Pompilius at Rome and Minos at Crete and some others The most seemingly devout sectators of their Religions were very frequently contemners of them in the bottom of their hearts though outwardly they put on a grave countenance to retain the affection of the vulgar as Cotta who in the books written by Cicero de Natura Deorum sayes that Religions must be preserved in the state they were at first instituted for the conservation of Commonwealths but that otherwise wise people laugh privately at all those mysteries which was very religiously spoken by a Pontifex Maximus Or they were shamefully superstitious For was it not gravely done of Fab. Maximus and C. Flaminius one to depose himself from the Dictatorship and the other from the Mastership of the Horse because a Mouse made a noise in the time of their installation and of the Senate of Rome to call home Figulus out of Gallia and Scipio Nasica out of the Island of Corsica to abdicate the Consulship because
of the Plagues of Egypt and Pharaoh of the Calling of Moses and his Miracles are so villanously corrupted and contaminated with Fables both contrary to the truth and ridiculous in themselves that whatsoever is excellent elegant genuine pathetical and divine in the books of the Jews becomes cold and impertinent absurd and devested of all verisimilitude when this busie sciolist ha's the management of it If Moses and Mahomet were guided by the same spirit whence comes it to pass that they do not agree together How do the Writings of the Former ravish attentive and sober minds with admiration while the confused trash of the latter deters ingenuous spirits from the belief of those histories In like manner there is in the Evangelists a clear and coherent narration of the Annuntiation of the Angel to the Virgin of the miraculous Conception of Christ of the Birth of John the Baptist and the history of Zacharias his father of the Crucifying of our Saviour and his Ascension into Heaven and other like matters with their circumstances and dependances All which is so perversly related in the Alcoran debased with so many falsities and fables mangled and disguised with so many additions contradictions and intolerable mutilations that were it not for the proper names that he uses therein and some slight marks by which the reader may judge that he intended the rehearsing of those histories it would be difficult to imagine that he had ever heard of or understood any thing of them Wherefore if the Alcoran be proceeded from the Spirit of God and yet it bears testimony to the divinity of the Gospel how is it that the same spirit blows both cold and hot Why does it report at one time after one manner and differently at another Had it lost the memory of that which pass'd in Judaea five or six hundred years before and therefore recounted the same afterwards after such a disagreeing manner Or why did it not make use of the Memorials which the Evangelists and Apostles who were ocular witnesses of those transactions had recorded concerning the same But it s possible our Books have been altered Which is a most frivolous exception For if they were changed before the Sarazin name was heard in the World by what prophetick spirit could it have been divined that Mahomet was to come and so to new mold all the Old and the New Testament out of despight to him And if it was afterwards how come our Books to accord from word to word and poynt to poynt both in this and all other matters with the Commentaries of all them that writ in the first Ages of Christianity How would the Jews have permitted the Christians so to alter the Old Testament from the beginning to the end and the Christians the Jews likewise the New seeing they are so irreconcileable enemies amongst themselves Is it not rather to be believed that the ignorance of Mahomet who had never profest Christianity and the bad memory of those that help'd him to compile his Alcoran who suggested to him by roat that little of it they had learnt by hear-say caused him to committ all those hideous absurdities And certainly he extremely mistrusted that people would believe so For there is nothing he ha's so strictly forbidden as to dispute concerning his Law with the Jews because his cheats and foists are so open to discovery and conviction Two things alone keep up in credit amongst his fellows the falsities which he vented with so outragious an impudence Force of Arms the terror of which he diffused wheresoever he came and the Profound Ignorance of the people that follow him to whom it is forbidden to enter into any examination of the verity of things But if he be fouly inconsistent and discordant in the relation of histories he is no less in the doctrines which he teaches For the Gospel exhorts universally to patience and would not have any maintain or advance it otherwise then by sufferings and though in other things it condemns not wars justly engaged in by Princes for conservation of their rights and the peace of their dominions yet in matter of Religion it recommends onely constancy in suffering of the Cross and would have us be contented with that promise that all shall be so well ordered by the Providence of God that none shall have cause to complain that he leaves his own in oblivion But what does Mahomet in this cast There is not a chapter in all his book wherein he do's not preach fire and sword wars and massacres for the advancement of his Law He promises rewards in Paradise to those that shall acquit themselves valiantly therein and denounces eternal pains to cowards And although as He contradicts himself very frequently he says sometimes that no person ought to be constrained by force to receive his Law yet himself was the first that began so to make it be believed and gave special commandments for it which also ha's hitherto been practis'd by his successors upon all occasions In the Gospel Christ reduces Marriage to its ancient and natural purity prohibiting Polygamy and Divorce saving in case of adultery onely By the Alcoran it is lawful to have four or five wives if a man be able to keep them and to add to them moreover if he pleases a number of concubines How then is it that Christ having taught that the permission of Divorce was an induligence to the people of Israel because of the hardness of their hearts that at the beginning it was not so and so having by degrees abolish'd polygamies which had been in custom amongst them How is it I say that this Prophet whose revelations are if you will believe himself the accomplishment of the Gospel and the Law establishes the same again with so boundless licentiousness Certainly Christ did in this correct the defects of the polity of Moses and put things into an estate convenient to the excellence of times under the Gospel To urge the same further Had there been any thing in the causes of the Gospel to be amended Mahomet ought to have caused as much purity of holy marriage to have shin'd in his Law above that of Christ as Christ had made to appear in his above that of Moses And notwithstanding clean contrary he dishonors and pollutes it more then it ever was in the time of the Law of the Jews or even amongst idolatrous nations that have had any knowledge of natural honesty Add hereunto that the Gospel being a Doctrine of holy liberty and which hath favoured us with the grant of well-using such things as are neither good nor evil in themselves hath abrogated the constitution which obliged to abstain from them and likewise recommended the use of them in time of necessity which appears expresly in wine which the Apostle advises Timothy to use for the weakness of his stomach And so far was Christ from intending that his disciples and believers should abhor that sort of liquor that he hath
would be of his burden if he were buried under a mountain But they in whom God hath put some sparkle of spiritual life feel what a great hinderance it is to their spiritual motions and are discruciated and oppressed with it in their Consciences And we have evinc'd above that this Corruption is manifest in all against those which do not acknowledge the Holy Scriptures Now could the Divine Justice in their opinion allow that men should arrive to Eternal Felicity without satisfaction beforehand and repentance of that natural corruption No surely And they which acknowledge no Satisfaction do yet confess it absolutely necessary to the obtaining forgiveness of sins and beatitude by that forgiveness that the sinner repent of his Offenses I ask therefore whence they have this repentance Whether God begets it in them or whether they have it from themselves Certainly the books of the Jews teach expresly that 't is God who circumcises the Heart And the usual prayers of David That God would teach him to walk in the ways of his Commandments sufficiently shew that if He that was already converted and a man according to God's heart stood in need of the Working of God in him that he might follow his ways aright it follows that with greater reason it is necessary for God to work the conversion of sinners who are grown obdurate in their Wickedness This though it were not so plainly held forth in the Holy Books is so evident that even reason and experience make it good For if Aristotle who acknowledg'd not the vitiosity of mans Nature but attributed all his depravedness to custome teaches that when a man ha's once contracted a habit of vice by custome it is not in his power afterwards to quit it by reason that vice ha's possess'd his faculties whose strength and performance is necessary to rescue him from it and hinders them from executing their natural abilities much more is it impossible for a man to disimplicate himself from sin the habit of which is in him not by custome onely but also by nature Custome it 's said is another Nature yet Nature is always stronger then custome How will it be then when inveterate custome and nature are found together in the same vice Certainly in such case another force then humane is requisite to reform it Moreover is not true repentance the Love of Holiness and Righteousness And is not that Love also the chief part of Beatitude of which other things are but as Dependances Surely he that denies this must pass into the School of the Epicureans who plac'd the Supreme Good of Man in Pleasure and made no reckoning of Virtue but onely so far as it is requisite to a cheerful and Pleasant Life Which was condemned by most part of the Pagans and would be shameful for the Jews and those who acknowledge their Books to be Divine not to condemn It will follow therefore that without a foregoing satisfaction to his Justice God may give the Wicked the principal part of Beatitude without Repentance For since 't is he that gives them to be penitent and that the principal part of Felicity lyes in Repentance that is in the love of righteousness and holiness God shall give them the principal part of beatitude before he sees any preceding repentance in them Now if there be nothing in the Nature of God which hinders him from giving the most excellent part of the Supreme Good to the Wicked without any regard to repentance why should there be ought in it to hinder him that he should not even without that give them the other part of it which consists only in appendances to wit Immortality and Glory Which yet themselves account a thing absurd and impossible Nor would it be material here to say that it is not possible that God should give this Second and less principal part of Beatitude unles man have the former before because Happiness is a natural consequent of Virtue besides that there is such a correspondence between them that virtue is incompatible with Misery and Happiness with Vice and that they are things of so repugnant an essence that there is no possibility of coupling them but there will appear a remarkable dissonance in the conjunction And lastly that God may draw neer to a sinful Creature to amend it inasmuch as he loves virtue in which the amendment of it consists for its own sake but cannot have any communion with a wicked creature to render it happy by reason the Happiness of a creature is not so precious with God that to confer it he should do injury to his justice and his Wisdom which abhors vice and wickedness For in the first place if Happiness accompanies Virtue by a natural and inseparable dependance misery does not less necessarily attend vice and wickedness So that if it be not possible for Virtue not to be remunerated with a sutable Happiness it is not less impossible for Vice not to be punisht with due chastisement there being an equal necessity and dependance between these things And truely he that considers the matter attentively will finde that the bond which conjoyns Beatitude and Virtue together is less indissoluble then that which connects Vice and Punishment For the condition of the Creature being such that it ought to be holy and virtuous though God had not commanded it and that God having so commanded it is bound to obey his command though he had not proposed the hope of Reward inasmuch as it owes all to God both in regard of the infinite eminence of his Majesty and because it holds its being from him the promise which God makes of remuneration and the actual retribution which he performs of the same ought to be imputed onely to his goodness and gratuitous liberality We cannot pretend any other right towards him from whom we hold all yea our very Being Now that which proceeds from Goodness seems not to be of so strait an obligation but that he which does it is at his liberty not to do it and especially when the transaction is between two persons the dignity and authority of one of which is infinitely above the condition of the other Hence it is evident how regard being had to the soverain Majesty of God which advances him infinitely above all his creatures and exempts him from all obligation towards them he might have enjoyned Holiness Virtue to his creatures without promising Recompense for it But the relation which is between Punishment and Sin as to the consequence and dependance one of another is a relation of Justice from the exercise of which it is so impossible for the Supreme and Infinite Dignity to be exempt that the greater it is the more is it oblig'd thereunto for that as I said the Love of Justice on which the exercise depends and the Hatred of Evil is a Perfection in God inasmuch as he is supreme governor and magistrate of the Universe whence the greater his dignity is in this
decree The Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And vers 12. Kiss the Son lest he be angry For whatever clouds they endeavor to obscure this place with it is as clear as the Noon-Sun that it cannot be applyed to David or any other besides the Messias No other can inherit so glorious a name as to be called The Son of God nor have the uttermost parts of the Earth for his possession and the Heathen for his inheritance So likewise that that promise made unto David When thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy Fathers I will set up thy seed after thee which shall proceed out of thy bowels and I will establish his Kingdom He shall build an house for my Name and I will establish the throne of his Kingdom for ever I will be his Father and he shall be my Son is applicable to Solomon though that which follows agrees to him But if he commit iniquity c. the too great magnificence of the words and the event of things cannot allow the Kingdom of Solomon having been first of all rent in two in the time of Rehoboam and afterwards his Throne for so many Ages so shatter'd to pieces that there are not the least reliques of it to be found in the world And in another place Vnto us a Child is born unto us a Son is given c. Of whom without question Solomon is to be understood where he introduces wisdom speaking thus By me Kings reign and Princes decree Justice By me Princes rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the Earth The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was made When there were no depths I was brought forth when there was no fountaines abounding with water Before the mountaines were setled before the hills was I brought forth When he prepared the Heavens I was there when he set a compass upon the face of the depth Then was I by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him For what a strange manner of speaking would this be if the intent were onely to express that God is wise To what purpose were it to give us notice so diligently that he was wise from the beginning if there be no other mystery in it seeing it is as impossible that he should ever be without Wisdom as his own Divine Nature What maner of expression is it of Gods being wise from all time for wisdom her self to cry out the Lord begat her Can any Poetical Fury excuse such extraordinary and uncouth fetches and especially in a Book whose style otherwise throughout though it seems writ in verse is as remote from enthusiasmes as the Heavens are from the Earth Now the Son is without question a Person distinct from the Father The Wisdom begotten from him which begets it The Branch shouted forth from him that emits it He that causes to sit from Him that sits at the right hand And reason consequently proves the same evidently For since it was requisite satisfaction should be made to that eternal and immutable Justice and it behoved him to be God that should make it to whom could he satisfie unless there be an other person likewise God in whom this Justice is considered For we have asserted and repeated many times that this Justice is a Perfection in God which consists in the hatred of evil and that God by punishing exercises the office of universall Magistrate and Judge of the World Wherfore it was necessary for the person who exercis'd this inexorable Justice to be distinct from him upon whom it was exercis'd the punisher from the sufferer For in one and the same matter and the same respect none can be Magistrate and Criminal both together Well will some say let Christian Religion stop there The Scripture and Reason hold forth these two distinct Persons But Christianity conjoines also a Third What necessity is there of multiplying thus the Persons of the Deity Indeed that which makes the Christian Doctrine seem strange in this point is that Humane Reason is not easily able to comprehend how divers persons really and distinctly subsistent can reside in one single and simple essence the union of essence being according to the judgement of Reason repugnant thereunto But if it be granted upon inducement of the Holy Scriptures and the necessary dependance of these truths so excellently coherent together that there are two distinct Persons in one single essence of God the Doctrine of a Third ought not to be scrupul'd For the Unity of the Divine Essence will be as little repugnant to the distinct subsistence of Three Persons as of Two It behoves us therefore to inquire in brief whether the Jews may finde this Third Person in their Books Now mention is so frequently made of the Spirit of God in the Books of the Prophets that it is some trouble to make choise in so great a multitude These are apparent amongst others I have not spoken in secret from the beginning saith Isaiah chap. 48. and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me Are not the Lord and his Spirit distinct And yet to whom appertains it to send Prophets but to the Lord himself If the Spirit had not been God would Isaiah have call'd himself his Prophet And that it might not seem to be the Second Person who is call'd The Spirit he elsewhere puts all three distinctly in one and the same passage And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the Spirit of Wisdom and Vnderstanding the Spirit of Counsel and Might c. For it is clearer then the day That the Branch growing out of the roots of Jesse is the Messias upon whom seeing the Spirit of the Lord ought to rest and that He also as we have shewn is the Lord behold here is one only Lord distinguish'd into three Persons And in another place in the same terms The Spirit of the Lord is upon me What me The Prophet No. For it follows Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek he hath sent me to binde up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound To proclaim the acceptable yeer of the Lord. Effects which transcend both the capacity and the condition of the Prophets times And to the same effect in another place Behold my servant to wit the Messias so styled in respect of his humane nature and because as he is Mediator he is employed by his Father for Redemption of the Church whom I will uphold mine Elect in whom my Soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him And that passage in the 1 chap. of Genesis is very remarkable though they except against it And the Earth was without form and void and the Spirit of
between these two figures and yet after so many thousand years to the present time it is not found out nor determin'd what it may be Where is the person amongst us that is able to make our handsomely what is meant by the Agent and Patient Intellect as they speak and wherein their difference consists And 1. evertheless they bicker in the Scholes to maintain that they are really distinct Certainly nothing ought to be so well known to us as our selves nothing so evident to our minds as their own motions Now we understand and will different things a thousand times in one day and yet 't is disputed whether the Will necessarily follows the dictates of the Understanding or have some liberty of resistance for all dominion it ha's over it 'T is scarce known whether they be two distinct Faculties and there are some which confound them Books are compil'd of the Miracles of Nature so term'd because the effects indeed are visible but the causes undiscern'd The Occult Sympathies and Antipathies of things fill complete Volumes and after the most exact and curious Enquiries Obscurity and Incomprehension is pleaded in Favor of Ignorance Physitians examine our Pulses every day and the most learned amongst them if ingenuous confess they understand not what that wonderful facultie is which sets the Heart in motion whether it began to move first by contracting or dilating it self and whether the Arteries are contracted at the same instant of the Hearts extension What ground of scandal therefore is in this assertion that there is something in the Nature of God which we are not able to comprehend But which is more should it be granted that there is but one single person in the Divine Essence yet none can boast of being able to solve the difficulties which may arrive from thence For what humane mind is capable of distinctly understanding how all the Perfections of God are his very Essence and not Accidents or Qualities like those faculties of ours really distinct from the subject in which they reside Since there are some of them not onely extremely different as Wisdom and Power but directly opposite as Justice and Mercy And yet reason induces yea compells to believe it otherwise Accidents must be imagin'd in God and consequently a composition unworthy the simplicity of his being Who is he of us that is able to imagine an infinite essence as the Divine is diffus'd infinitely in the mane space beyond the world expanded throughout the whole Universe so as to be totally present in all things not divided or separated by the occurse and interposition of bodies not mingled and confounded with the spiritual and immaterial substance of our Souls Where is the man that is able to conceive after what manner our souls are extended through all the members of our bodies For if it be all in every part of the Body as is commonly taught what difference is there between it's manner of being in the whole body and in each of its members and if it be not totally present in each part why is it not compos'd of parts after the manner of bodies and by consequence divisible and corruptible I am not ignorant that many subtle distinctions are us'd in this matter more proper to cast a mist before the eyes then to afford a clear and certain knowledge of it but I am confident they are most times not understood even by those which alledge them Now let us bestow our inquiries in such things as yield solid satisfaction to the mind and not in such in which those that propose them have only design'd to shew the vivacity of their Understandings and their abilities Otherwise if we betake our selves to subtleties forsaking manifest deductions and conclude that for true which we are not able to make out the Speculations of our Scholasticks in this kind will over-cloud our Religion and supply matter enough for contradiction But there are certain verities resembling too radiant lights which dazle if beheld in themselves and in their fountain by reason of the weakness of our eyes but content and delight if look'd upon in the correspondence they have with others more preceptible by our minds And this in question is of this Nature Now there are two ways of being assured of the verity of this Doctrine The first is that which we have touch'd upon formerly That every man have so high an estimation of the justice of God as to believe it absolutely implacable towards us without a preceeding satisfaction for our offences and know so well to weigh the horror of Sin that he never dare think of approaching God without confessing ingenuously that he ha's deserv'd both the temporal death of the body and the eternal of the Soul and that it is impossible for him ever to obtain pardon unless some other satisfie for him and that with a price equivalent to the greatness of his crimes and the Dignity of Divine Justice For he that is thus dispos'd in his soul and we have shewn above that the right consideration of the nature of God requires man to be so assoon as the means of so idoneous a satisfaction is propounded to him he will eagerly embrace it unless he ascribe too much to Reason and presume too much on his own capacity to comprehend things which are above his reach But the good opinion we have of our selves in being able to dive into abstruse matters causes us oftentimes to commit most pernicious errors The Second is for a man to consider attentively what the Book is and the Doctrine in general and in the body of which this makes but a part For there will appear in the First so many evidences of its Divinity and in the Second such an indissoluble connection of this point with many other verities of an indubitable certitude and evidence that it will be impossible for the mind of man if it be not totally obstinate and hardned not to acquiesce therein And in truth let him begin with the books of Moses Their Antiquity in the first place renders them venerable above all other writings of the world For there are lest no monuments in all Antiquiquity that come near them by many Ages The War of Thebes and the Sacking of Troy to which Lucretius limits the knowledge men have of ancient matters in these verses Praeterea si nulla fuit genitalis origo Terrai coeli semperque aeterna fuere Cur supra bellum Thebanum funera Trojae Non alias alii quoque res cecinere Poetae And the times of Theseus and Hercules beyond which Plutarch is able to discover no certainty in Histories followed a long while after the birth of this great Prophet The language in which it was written is the mother of all others of which the several words which they have retain'd from it and which are as slips of that ancient stock and the names of their very letters bear sufficient testimony The style of it is plain indeed
but full of such native decency and graces its narrations so equal and accompanied with so curious a facility that the truth of what it relates is resplendent throughout and seems to justifie it self with a confidence that none would call it in question an undubitable evidence of its generosity The discourses it assigns those it introduces are wonderfully pathetical and agreeable to the condition of the persons The things which it relates both of the creation of the World and the propagation of Mankinde upon examination of reason alone hold forth a higher evidence then that of verisimilitude And it is dubious whether the histories of the deluge of the conflagration of Sodom of the building of the Tower of Babel and the like more clearly convince the Fables we meet with in the books of Poets as a well-proportioned body discovers the deformity of the prodigious shadows it casts or whether those vain worn-out traces of these ancient verities bear a more irrefragable testimony to the same The Prophetical eruptions speak a spirit other then humane The Predictions found therein have been so ratifi'd by events that 't is too great obstinacy to disparage their credit by contradiction And if some things be related to have come to pass beyond the ordinary ways of nature as mysterious shadows of what was to appear afterwards and which really appear'd in due time there results a light truely admirable from the comparison of the Verity with the Figure And the miracles which he performed for confirmation of his doctrine and for accomplishing the enterprise which himself declar'd was committed to him which might have been refuted by a hundred and a hundred thousand persons if they had been counterfeit and for defence of which so many millions of men would at present lay down their lives clear him from all suspicion of fraud and imposture Proceed then to the books of Josuah the Judges Samuel and the rest which writ the histories of the Kings of Juda and Israel and there will appear in them such an excellent continuation both of matters and times such an exact description of Genealogies a narration of various occurrences arrived both in the Church and State in the persons of Kings and Prophets great and small Princes and Vulgar war and peace and all sorts of accidents which carry with them a thousand marks of verity by the correspondence they have with humane passions and affections and the resemblances we observe of them in the various adventures of ordinary life that a man must either bely his own faculties or give belief to such illustrious truths And remarkably here and there occur such excellent instances of the Divine Providence both in justice and mercy such illustrious examples of eminent piety and virtue in rare personages such grave admonitions and efficacious exhortations by the mouths of the Prophets that he must exceed rocks in stupidity that does not resent some lively emotions in his soul by reading them Then go forwards and read the book of the Patience of Job the Psalms of David and the Proverbs of Solomon Good God how fraught with wonders Sometimes you will meet with sentences so full of Wisdom both in reference to knowledge and moral virtue that the most excellent piece the Philosophers ever compos'd in that kind is dross and darkness in comparison sometimes with a complaint so lamentable that it may melt the most rigid hearts with compassion sometimes with the voice of God speaking and revealing himself from Heaven in a most august Majesty surrounded with lightnings and with a terrible voice resembling thunder In one place an ardent prayer in another testimonies of a fervent piety here a zeal for the glory of God and so inflam'd a virtue or else so violent a hate against vice that when you come to pass from reading of these books to those of the Philosophers or of any other whatsoever that ha's assai'd to write of such matters you will seem to be transported from Vesurius to Carcasus In the whole series of them are interspers'd predictions of future things so remote that no other but the Spirit of God durst have offered at them apostrophes to the Nations which were to be converted to the knowledg of the God of Israel exultations for the manifestation of the Messias so different from the ordinary thoughts and sentiments of men that we must forget who we are if we attribute the same to humane invention And throughout the whole body composed of members so well adjusted and disposed in so excellent a harmony together are universally diffus'd like blood replete with spirits vigor life consolation so lively efficacious and sensible to the soul into what perplexing inquietudes soever it falls that there is none so sweet a refreshment in any ardor nor soverain balm to whatsoever wound And lastly he that shall proceed from thence to the reading of the other Prophets unless he do it with much supinity and negligence will observe in each page sparklings and beams of a light and inspiration truely Divine Do they expound what the aim and use of the Law is they do it with most profound Wisdom Do they reprove and threaten in the name of God the gravity of their admonitions is inimitable and the denunciations of his judgements terrible so that no humane voice is able to stretch to so high a strain without breaking no affectation can be set out in a dress so stately constant and uniform Do they promise If temporal deliverances 't is with demonstration of so redoubtable a power that the very name of the Lord of Hosts which is so often repeated in them sounds a kinde of grandeur I know not how to express and which cannot arise from humane imagination If spiritual redemption by the Messias 't is in termes which represent an inexhaustible sea of benedictions and riches Do they foretell things to come if it be in obscure termes the very obscurity of the Prophecy is venerable and there is always something of greatness discernable cross the veil though not very distinctly if it be in plain words the names of persons designed intire Ages before their birth times predetermin'd and circumstances of matters most exactly taken notice of sufficiently argue that they are neither divinations of Daemons nor humane conjectures neither nature being capable of so remote a foresight Then their transports are so sublime and their flights so bold that no man durst attempt to soar so high the doctrine held forth is so directly intended to the glory of God and the salvation of man that 't is not possible any evil spirit should have been the author of it and the mixture of the Law with the Gospel is dispensed therein so wisely according to the condition of times and the oeconomy of Prophecies opening themselves by degrees maintained after such a rate that should men and Angels conspire together they would fall infinitely short of such an admirable wisdom And I entreat such Readers as have any
And nevertheless what remaines of the Empire of Alexander that may give us assurance of its quondam existence are there any traces of it either in Asia or Europe Certainly no statues which were erected to him no medals no pillars erected for his monument no memorial engraven in a rock or mountain no person of his lineage nor shadow of his Empire can give us any certainty of him There 's nothing but the Books of the Ancients for it of which it may be in like manner demanded whether they be not supposititious and whether the Authors whose names they bear were ever in the world Onely it ha's continued constantly in the memory of men that there was sometimes an Alexander surnamed the Great by reason of his virtues and grandeur And what have we of Caesar His Commentaries which may with as much reason be call'd in doubt as the Epistles of Saint Paul For what more lively character do those bear of that great Emperor then these do of this great Apostle More then this what evidence can be produc'd but I know not what vain pretended inscriptions some mutilous monuments and the foundation of some old castle without any other title of its author then the ancient tradition that the Romanes waged great wars with our Gaules under his conduct The most eminent token remaining of him is a vain shadow of his Empire transfer'd from Rome to Germany and his name which is perpetuated from one to another by those Princes Now is there any thing in all this to be compar'd with the immarcessible evidences which the Apostles have left of themselves in the whole earth And if the name of Caesar retain'd by the German Emperors and that carkass of his Empire are sufficient proof that there was a great Prince of that name is not the name of Saint Peter preserved by the Bishops of that place and their authority to which those Caesars have subjected themselves an authentick testimony that there was a Saint Peter The Romane Name is indeed perisht and the Nations have shook off the yoak of its obedience and out of the shivers of that great body are risen up divers Kingdoms who own it no longer how ever renown'd Emperors and formidable armies it had heretofore But the Christian Name is Living and the memory of those who founded it though we be now far remov'd from their Generation so fresh and deep in the minds of men that a self-oblivion will sooner arrive to all mankind then they will forget them They are continually spoken of in life they are sought to for consolation in death the knowledge of them is instil'd into the souls of little children with their milk who do not so soon understand that they are men as they do that they are Christians and disciples of the Apostles If therefore a much less certain tradition be not question'd why shall that which is so constant be call'd into doubt If belief is given to some fragments of statues and some old triumphant arches defac'd by time shall we not give credit to so many Temples and infinite other authentick monuments Wherefore it remains that there are certain things which though no otherwise known then by tradition and common report nevertheless cannot be contradicted but by contentious spirits and such as are insupportable in their impudence For when a thing containes nothing incredible in it self and is moreover universally receiv'd when all memorials that can be requir'd of it are found both in books monuments when the multitude of those which affirm it is innumerable in comparison of those which deny it when it is embraced by all sorts of spirits and of all conditions high and low learned and ignorant rich and poor when it ha's got footing in several Nations pass'd over seas and mountains and penetrated into the most remote regions when it ha's taken such root in the minds of men that millions might be found all absolutely dispos'd to suffer death in defence of it it behoveth to have lost common sense or to be immensely brainsick to be capable still to distrust it The Question whether the Books attributed to them be theirs or not perhaps may seem of somewhat more difficulty to be resolv'd And yet if we be minded to use the same argument the Christians have had so constant an opinion from all time that they are so and all Nations and Languages so unanimously acknowledg'd it and render'd them so uniform a testimony that if we doubt not but the Books bearing the names of Aristotle and Cicero are truely theirs much more ought we to be assured of these to which such a cloud of witnesses of all qualities and in all times have given most peremptory and convincing evidence But let us close with them a little nearer The first thing which ought to be consider'd in a writing is the matter whether it be both excellent of it self and consentaneous to the condition of the person who propounds it For I am perswaded the Marshal de Strossy who was an assiduous reader of Caesar's Commentaries was not so much assured by the title of the Book that they had that incomparable Captain for Author as by the traces of an extraordinary military sufficiency he discern'd in them which could not have been made or written but onely by a man that was a perfect master in the art of war Now who did the Apostles pretend themselves to be Ministers sent to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ and dispensers of his heavenly mysteries Let it examin'd what consonance there is between their writings and this profession and a most perfect correspondence will be found between them For in that which they have written of his history they paint him out to us so much to the life and with so natural a pencil that he that reads them attentively cannot but seem to himself to see understand and converse with him amongst his disciples in Judea Moreover all their doctrines and narrations have that aim without ever intermixing any thing of humane sciences or affairs and extraneous matters little conducing to their purpose and yet even in that which they teach they discover such a profound wisdom so unknown to all those that ever profess'd learning and nevertheless so conformable to the humane Understanding when once it ha's comprehended the same that it is abundantly manifest that they in truth deriv'd from the fountain of those mysteries what they dispenc'd to us and that they pourtray'd Jesus so lively by having a perfect Idea of him deeply imprinted in their souls Since therefore the matter of those writings is such that they could not have been made but by those who were either Apostles or alike qualifi'd what is more rational then to attribute the same to them seeing they bear their names inscrib'd in the front and the aire as I may so speak and genius of them in their aspect In the next place the style is to be consider'd which ought to be agreeable both