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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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