when they are quoted as such by those Persons that lived next and immediately after them and have passed from the very first Age through all Ages downward with an unquestionable Authority there is no possible account to be given how they should first come by it and then for ever after retain it unless they were for certain the Works of those Men whose names they bear Thus particularly Saint Matthew's Gospel is quoted by Clemens of Rome a Familiar of Saint Paul by Ignatius by Policarp by Papias the Disciples of Saint John not to mention Justin Martyr Athenagoras Irenaeus and all the other Writers of the Age next after the Apostles Now if this be so Then first Either this Gospel was written in the Apostles time or it was not If not how could it be cited by those that were their Contemporaries Secondly The things reported in it were either true or false if true then so is the Gospel too if false then it had destroyed its own credit by publishing known falshoods For though it is easie to forge a Story acted in former times without discovery and contradiction yet to make a Forgery of so wonderfull a transaction as was the History of Jesus of Nazareth so near the time in which it was pretended to have been acted and that without controll or contradiction nay with full credit and undoubted Authority as appears by these Apostolical Mens unanimous Testimony is if any thing in the World absurd and incredible enough to make up another Article of Infidelity Thirdly Either this Book was written by Saint Matthew or it was not If it was then it was the Testimony of an eye Witness that converst with our Saviour both before and after his Resurrection If it was not then how could it be thrust upon him in his own Age and gain so unquestionable an Authority with those Men that conversed either with him or with his Companions And now if we gain the Authority of this one Gospel that alone is a sufficient proof of the Divine Authority of the Christian Faith in that the main Foundations of it are here recorded viz. The Life Death and Resurrection of our Saviour which being believed as they are here recorded are an infallible demonstration of his Divinity The same account I might give of almost all the other Books of the New Testament in that they were received from the beginning as the most unquestionable Records of the Apostles But that were onely to repeat the same Argument so many times over and therefore supposing the same ancient Testimony concerning them as we have concerning Saint Matthew I shall leave the Reader to apply the same Argument that I have urged concerning him Neither do I this onely to avoid needless Repetition but because it has been often done by other hands particularly by Eusebius of old and Huetius of late who have vouched every Book by it self from the Testimony of the earliest Antiquity And therefore as for the truth of the matter of Fact I had rather refer to them than transcribe them though that being supposed the Argument is of the same force in every one as it is in Saint Matthew's Gospel § IX It is true that some few Books were for a good time doubted of as the Epistle to the Hebrews the Second of Saint Peter the Second and Third of Saint John and the Apocalypse But then first Suppose their Authority was still questionable the Christian Faith can subsist very well without them by the remaining Authority of those that were never questioned And though they are very usefull and excellent Discourses yet have they little peculiar in them that is not to be found in the other Apostolical Writings And if we understand the matter aright though they are written by Divine Inspiration yet are they not of the Foundation of the Christian Faith but onely pious Discourses proceeding upon the supposition of it Being written occasionally either to exhort us to an effectual belief of those things that are recorded in the Gospels or to encourage us against Tryals and Persecutions or to allay Schisms and Contentions or to confute Errours and Heresies or to reform Abuses and Corruptions so that though they had never been written the Foundations of our Faith were before firmly laid in the History of our Saviour's Life Doctrine Passion and Resurrection And therefore the Authority of all the rest is at last resolved into that of the historical Books that is the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles which being supposed true they warrant both the Reason and Authority of the Apostolical Epistles that onely deduce those proper and natural Conclusions that flow from their Premises Nay farther 't is not primarily necessary to Christianity to believe that the Books of the New Testament were dictated by an infallible Spirit but it is sufficient that the historical Books are good and authentick Records of the Life of our Saviour and the design of his Errand into the World and that the Writings of the Apostles are pious Discourses consonant with and conducing to the Ends of Christianity The Foundation whereof seems to lie in this one thing that Jesus Christ was sent into the World for the Work he pretended to come about by Divine Commission For God having set several Hypotheses of Providence on work in the World to bring all things to their end and perfection at last design'd this as the most compleat model of all Vertue Goodness and Morality So that if the History of those things which Jesus both did and taught be truly recorded by the Evangelists that is a sufficient evidence of his own Divine Authority But as for his Historians that comes in upon another score in that we know that the Authours of all those Writings were inspired and directed by the Holy Ghost but then that we know onely from the Writings themselves and therefore their Truth must be supposed antecedent to their Divine Authority and that being supposed our Saviour's Divine Authority is thereby proved and that being proved that alone is a full demonstration of the Divinity of the Christian Religion But secondly If those few Books were so long debated before they were admitted into the Canon that is an Argument of the great care and caution of the Church in its belief in that it would not lightly receive any Book till it was fully satisfied of its being Authentick and therefore its long doubtfulness and disputation about these Books clears it from all suspicion of rashness and credulity as to those that she always own'd with a full and unanimous Approbation Thirdly The Controversie concerning the disputed Books relates not so much to their Antiquity as their Authour and they are not brought in question because they were not written in the Apostolical Age but because it seemed uncertain by whom they were then written Thus the Epistle to the Hebrews some attribute to Saint Paul some to Saint Luke some to Barnabas some to Clemens but if it
raised against Christianity but as for that private Opposition that it met with from Philosophers and pretendedly learned Men it was so very contemptible that it scarce deserves consideration For though one would expect to have found all the learned World engaged in a Controversie that concern'd the whole World yet they were very few that concern'd themselves against the Christian Cause and those that did so onely pelted at it with remote and far-fetcht cavils but never came up to the matter of Fact which is the onely pertinent subject in this Enquiry and if that stand firm all other Opposition falls short of the Argument and breaks its own force upon it self by endeavouring to disparage the truth of a thing that it cannot deny or to prove the same thing to be false that it cannot but confess to be true Nay so far were they from putting the matter of Fact to the question that they were all forced to take it for granted Porphyry and Celsus impute our Saviour's Miracles to Magick Hieroles and Trypho say onely that the Christians make too much of them by making a God of a divine Man Julian tells us that he did no such great matters but onely cure the Lame and the Blind So that it seems none of them were at that time hardy enough so much as to think of controuling the reality of our Saviour's Actions for fear of too much disadvantage in the Controversie Now after this it is easie to foretell with what trifling pretences they must satisfie themselves and they were so very trifling that it-will require but very little pains to shew their Vanity All the Opposition then that was made to it this way proceeded meerly either from gross Superstition or avowed Atheism The first is coincident with the former account of the publick Persecutions and was nothing else than a meer fanatick zeal for the old Pagan Idolatry And this was chiefly managed by the Pythagoreans the onely superstitious Sect among all the Philosophers who were all along so zealous of the Grecian Rites that they may properly be styled the Monks and Friers of that Religion This humour they derived from their first Founder Pythagoras himself who having learned that part of natural Philosophy from Thales and Anaximander that explain'd the mechanical contrivances of Matter and Motion to which alone those Philosophers pretended he quickly perceived either by the sagacity of his own Mind or the instruction of Pherecides that there was some intelligent Being in Nature that was the cause of the order and harmony of Things And it was this that so strongly possest him with the notion of a Deity whom he defined to be a Mind diffused through all Nature from whom all things receive their Life and Activity As not being able to understand how the natural effects that are constantly and every where visible in the World could be brought to pass but by the present and immediate assistance of such a power And now having his Mind thus throughly touched with a sense of the Divinity and finding the Orphean Rites and Constitutions at that time the most sacred Solemnities of Religion in the World he grew very zealous of them as the most religious Symbols of Divine Worship Neither was his zeal satisfied with the superstition of his own Country but he travel'd into all parts of the World to inform himself of their several ways of worshipping their Gods And then composed a Service of his own partly out of the Orphean partly out of the AEgyptian partly out of the Chaldean partly out of the Eleusinian and partly to mention no more out of the Samothracian Rites which together with his own theurgick Ceremonies must make up a compleat Rhapsodie of all the Superstition and Idolatry of the Heathen World And though some of his Followers Leucippus Democritus and Epicurus apostatised so far from his Institution as to fall into the rankest and most audacious Atheism yet all that persevered in their Master's Discipline were sure no doubt to be most of all strict in his Religion And it was onely this Sect of Philosophers who were Men rather devout than learned that all along gave authority and reputation to the old Heathen Idolatry And therefore when Christianity began to bear it away it could not be expected but that they should appear the most forward Champions to defend their Fanes and their Temples their Altars and their Oracles against the new and prevailing Religion The first and the ablest Champion was Porphyrie a Man at that time eminent for Wit and Learning but so entirely eaten up with fanatick zeal for his Religion that he had not patience so much as to hear of any thing that opposed it and this set him all on fire against Christianity For being by nature of a fierce and angry temper insomuch as he attempted to cut his own Throat as he describes himself in the Life of Plotinus and withall very much inclined to Austerity and Devotion for he was a very strict observer of the Pythagorean Rules this fixt him in his fanatick and superstitious zeal than which there is nothing more insuperable Though when this happens to be join'd with a natural eagerness of temper it grows into meer fury and outrage and so transports Men out of the use of their natural Understandings And this seems to have been the case of Porphyrie not onely from that description that he gives of himself and that account that his Friends give of his Life but also by that Character that is given of his Writings against the Christians which is described by the most impartial Writers as full of rage and bitterness Though how he performed what he undertook is not so certainly determinable in that not onely his own Book but all those that were written against it are utterly perisht But by those fragments that remain of it in the Writings of the Ancients it does not at all appear that he ever ventur'd to deny the matter of Fact of our Saviour's Miracles but granted them so far as to impute them to the power of Magick But how vain that pretence is we have already shewn at least the whole of the Controversie depends upon the truth of the matters of Fact that are recorded of our Saviour none of which I do not find that he ever undertook to controul and as long as that stands firm all other Opposition is but trifling However he was a Person so infinitely superstitious that his Opinion can be no prejudice against the cause of Christianity because he was at no liberty to make any enquiry into the truth of its pretences And of the same Kidney was Hierocles especially if he were of which there is little doubt the same zealous Person that was first Judge at Nicomedia and afterward Prefect of AEgypt under Dioclesian and a great Agent in his bloody Persecution however he was a zealous Orphean and extreamly addicted to the old Pythagorick Superstition But whatever he was otherwise his work
of so ridiculous a surmise And he has no ground to bear him out in it but onely his Epicurean conceit that the Resurrection from the dead is a thing impossible But as for that we will not dispute it with him at present though it is evident that according to the Principles both of their own and all Philosophy it is altogether as easie and conceivable as the generation of a Man The matter of Fact what has been is the onely Argument of our debate and we will not go so far about as to dispute its possibility when we have demonstrated its actual certainty And yet in the conclusion of all Celsus after he has taken so much pains and that in the Person of a Jew to prove the impossibility of a Resurrection is so wretchedly sottish as to declare his own belief of the Resurrection even of the Body to eternal Life and that the first proof and specimen of it is to be given to the World by the Messias In the third Book he begins to dispute in his own Person and first objects that the dispute between the Christians and Jews was of no moment in that both believed that there was to be a Saviour of the World and onely differ'd in this whether he were already come or were yet to come And yet this beside the gross absurdity of the Objection it self is a meer contradiction to all the former Discourse by the personated Jew For if the difference between the Jews and the Christians were so small as he pretends then all the sad out-cries and invectives of the Jew against the Christians were onely clamorous Nothings But this is objected like an Atheist that lookt upon these and all other differences about Religion as trifling Fooleries And therefore Origen in answer to it shews him the excellency of both in the Worship of the supreme Deity as opposed to the folly and impiety of the Heathen Idolatry But beside that as for the difference between the Jews and the Christians concerning our Saviour nothing but extreme ignorance could have objected its Vanity For is it nothing whether he were the promised Messias the Son of God the Saviour of the World the Judge of Mankind as the Christians believed or whether he were a bold Impostor that pretended to these great Titles onely by virtue of magick Art as the Jews believed If the first were true that commands the obedience of all Mankind to his Laws as the onely terms of Salvation and if so then nothing could more concern them than to be satisfied in its truth and reality So that it is so far from being a trifling Controversie as Celsus foolishly objects that there was never any Controversie started in the World of greater concernment to Mankind But the Epicurean's real meaning is that all Controversies about Religion are trifling because all Religion is a Cheat and if it be so then indeed it is but a childish thing to contend about it But otherwise if there be a Providence that governs the World then certainly if any thing in the World does it highly concerns all Men to inform themselves of those certain rules of Duty that he has prescribed to their practice But against both Religions the Epicurean objects that they began in Sedition the Jewish against the Egyptians and the Christian against the Jews But in the first he supposes the Jews to have been originally Egyptians which because it is a vain and proofless presumption can prove nothing And yet it is much more vain to charge Christianity with Sedition because all Sedition either designs or acts some violence against the Government whereas it is evident that our Saviour allowed no Weapons to his Followers but Sufferings and has threatned no one offence with greater severity than endeavours of disturbance to the civil State under pretence of Religion So that it is plain that if his Religion be true it could not have been brought in more inoffensively to the powers of the World And therefore it cannot with any ingenuity be charged with Sedition till its truth or falsehood be first determin'd For that is the onely Controversie in this matter which if Celsus and his Partisans had but the courage to undertake they would have had no need of these petty and remote reflections The next Cavil is that the Christians affected nothing but singularity Very likely this when so many of them travel'd into all parts of the World with the extreme hazard of their Lives to convert if it were possible all Mankind to Christianity But though they seem'd to agree at first they afterward divided into Factions But this is an objection against the levity of humane Nature not the truth or excellency of Christianity For beside what Origen answers that there was never any thing of great reputation in it self or usefulness to the World about which Men did not raise disputes and make parties I would onely ask him Whether supposing the truth of Christianity it was not in the power of Men to raise Controversies about it if it was then their doing so is no objection against it if it was not that is to say no Religion can be true unless it bring a fatal necessity upon all that pretend to it to be both wise and honest which is such an awkerd condition of things as destroys not onely all the Principles of Religion but of humane Nature it self But says he they scare the People with Fables and Bugbears Tell what says Origen beside future Rewards and Punishments We indeed believe that there is a sovereign Governour of Mankind and that hereafter he will sit in Judgment upon all our Actions And in this belief we instruct the People out of the holy Scriptures and exhort them to live as they ought that must give an account of themselves to the great Governour of the World These indeed are Fables to an Atheist and an Epicurean but not to any Man that believes any thing of the Providence of God or the Obligations of Religion And that is the thing that Celsus writes against not meerly Christianity onely he is fiercest in his opposition to that because it is so full a check to his impiety though otherwise the main of his Objections that he levels against that aim as directly against all Religion And thus the Bugbears of a future State with which he here upbraids Christianity are common to all Mankind but onely his own Sect. And though he would make us believe that he would not for all the World take away the Opinion of Rewards and Punishments in the next Life this Vizor is too ridiculously put upon an Epicurean 't is too gross a contradiction to himself and he renounces his first Principle to impose upon the People but though they indeed may easily be imposed upon by any thing as they were by his Master Epicurus who frequented their publick Sacrifices to make himself sport at home with the folly of their Superstition yet he should never
't is aggravated with all the circumstances that can heighten its baseness 't is without all plea of excuse or palliation And this certainly is the true account of the unexemplified severity of the Divine Justice against Christendom For never was any part of the World harass't with such remarkable Plagues and Judgments as this has been in that their biggest Impieties were but ordinary things if compared to the vileness of our Apostasie The times of their ignorance as the Apostle discourses God winked at but now that his wrath is so clearly revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men if they shall at any time persevere in hardness and impenitence they cannot but treasure up to themselves anguish and tribulation and wrath against the day of wrath and be still heaping up stores of vengeance till some time or other the flood-gates shall be opened upon them and overwhelm them in irrecoverable ruine and destruction At least to conclude with my believing Reader for if he be an Infidel I turn him back to the premises of this Discourse our Saviour has a second coming when he shall as he has said he will once more rise up from his Throne of Majesty shall put on the Robes of Justice and return accompanied with an innumerable Army of blest Spirits to destroy the wicked and disobedient and take vengeance of his open Enemies but much more of his disloyal and treacherous Friends And if so I shall onely desire him to consider what horrour and anguish must then seize all guilty Souls with what trembling and infinite amazement must every careless and disobedient Christian appear before all this dreadfull Glory And how will even their spirits dye away under an intolerable fear and confusion of Conscience Who can conceive the bitterness and the agonies of guilty Minds whilst they receive their last Sentence What a wild and stupid thing is Man that can believe and yet forget these things and sleep careless under the expectations of a day of Doom For 't is as certain that our Saviour will once come to condemn the World as he once came to redeem it and if he be the true Messias 't is then past question that he shall be our Judge and yet after all this how do Men who seriously think that they seriously believe these things live as if they were secure that they should never be call'd to any future account careless and forgetfull of all things but a few vanishing pleasures and trifles here below with slender regard or total neglect of their eternal Condition In brief the terrours of a future Judgment and the different portion of woe or bliss hereafter are so evidently declared in the Gospel that for any Man who believes it to live careless of them is in truth a sottishness that I can neither conceive nor express much less load or upbraid with any higher aggravation than barely its own folly and therefore I shall onely leave this great Meditation upon the Minds of my Christian Readers and conjure them all to a serious and habitual practice of Vertue and Piety as they hope for any benefit from our Saviour's first coming and desire to escape the terrour of the second THE END ERRATA PAge 1. line 4. from the end in the Preface for Vice 1. in Vice p. 127. l. 1. for Sextus r. 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hope of Immortality The vanity of Epicurus his great Antidote against the fear of Death viz. That Death cannot hurt us because when that is we are not p. 106. § XXII All the other Receits prescribed by the Philosophers against the fear of Death represented and exploded p. 113. § XXIII Without a future State no sufficient foundation for Vertue First Not for Temperance p. 120. § XXIV Secondly Not for Justice nor Magnanimity p. 124. § XXV The vanity of the stoical Philosophy represented upon its Principles neither Happiness nor Vertue without a future State p. 131. § XXVI An account of the Platonick and Peripatetick Morality out of Tully And first his consolatory Discourses in his first Book of Tusculane Questions against the fear of Death proved vain and ineffectual p. 139. § XXVII The same shewn of the Remedies prescribed in his second Book for the alleviating of Pain p. 147. § XXVIII The same shewn of the Prescriptions of the third and fourth Books against Grief and Trouble under the calamities of Life and all other perturbations of the Mind p. 151. § XXIX An account of the fifth Book where he forsakes the Peripatetick Philosophy as insufficient to his purpose and what good reasons he had so to doe p. 157. § XXX The defect of his own new way of philosophising proved in general p. 162. § XXXI That great and glorious Maxime of his Friend Brutus That Vertue is sufficient to its own Happiness proved to be a vain and empty saying without Immortality The Argument concluded p. 167. PART II. A Demonstration of the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion from the undoubted Certainty of the Matter of Fact and the uninterrupted Tradition of the Church § I. THE great advantage of the Gospel above the Law of Nature pag. 175. § II. The Evidence and Certainty of the Christian Faith demonstrated from the infinite and intolerable Absurdities of Unbelief p. 179. § III. This particularly proved according to our Saviour's own Advice in the Article of his Resurrection p. 182. § IV. The impossibility of the Apostles being false in their Testimony of it demonstrated from the first Instinct of humane Nature love of Life and desire of Self-preservation p. 184. § V. The same proved from its contradiction to all the principles of Prudence and common Understanding p. 190. § VI. The same proved from its inconsistency with and contrariety to their own design in publishing Christianity to the World p. 193. § VII The undoubted Truth of the Scripture History if written by those Persons whose names it bears p. 199. § VIII That it could not be written by any other demonstratively proved p. 204. § IX The Books of the New Testament whose Authority was sometime disputed proved to be of Apostolical Antiquity p. 207. § X. Mr. Hobbs's Witticism against the Divine Authority of the Scriptures that the Canon was first compiled by the Council of Laodicea confuted p. 210. § XI The concurrence of Jews and Heathens with the Testimony of Christian Writers p. 112. § XII Josephus and Saint Luke reconciled about the Tax of Cyrenius and the Death of Herod Agrippa p. 215. § XIII The famous Testimony of Josephus concerning our Saviour vindicated from the exceptions of Tanaquil Faber and other Criticks p. 222. § XIV The Testimony of Phlegon concerning the Eclipse at the Passion asserted p. 229. § XV. Pontius Pilate his Narrative concerning our Saviour to Tiberius and Tiberius his Opinion of it cleared p. 230. § XVI The Story of Agbarus proved genuine p. 235. § XVII The impossibility of the Apostles prevailing upon the Faith of Mankind if their Story had been false p. 239. § XVIII The speedy propagation of Christianity in all parts of the World described Philo's Therapeutae proved to have been Christians p. 241. § XIX The first disadvantage of Christianity if it had been false its being a late matter of Fact p. 251. § XX. The second disadvantage of Christianity was its contrariety to the Atheism and the Luxury of the Age in which it was published p. 256. § XXI The third disadvantage of Christianity was its defiance to the establisht and inveterate Religions of the World both Jewish and Heathen p. 259. § XXII The wonderfull success of Christianity notwithstanding all other disadvantages not to be ascribed to any thing but the greatness of that rational Evidence that it gave of its Truth p. 263. § XXIII That the Apostles planted the Christian Faith with so much speed by the power of Miracles and that it was not possible to have done it any other way p. 266. § XXIV The continuance of the same power to the next following Ages asserted and with the greatest Assurance appeal'd to by all the Advocates of Christianity in their publick Writings p. 275. § XXV The vanity of the Objection of the Ancients against the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles that they were wrought by Magick p. 283. § XXVI The vanity of the Miracles opposed by the Heathens to our Saviour particularly that of Vespasian in curing the Lame and the Blind p. 287. § XXVII An account of the evident Imposture of Apollonius Tyanaeus from his own Historian Philostratus p. 293. § XXVIII The Evidence of the Christian Faith from meer humane Tradition and that first publick by the uninterrupted succession of Bishops in the chief Churches from the Apostles p. 300. § XXIX The same proved by private Tradition and first of Saint Clement Bishop of Rome p. 308. § XXX Secondly of Saint Ignatius with an account of himself and his Epistles p. 311. § XXXI Thirdly of Saint Policarp Pothinus and Papias The wisedom of the Ancients vindicated as to the Paschal Controversie p. 320. § XXXII Of Hegesippus The purity of the primitive Church vindicated against all Innovators And Hegesippus his History against the cavils of Scaliger p. 328. § XXXIII Of Justin Martyr Irenaeus and a great number more p. 338. § XXXIV The Objection from the Infidelity of great numbers of Men in that Age answered the first ground of the Infidelity of the Jews was their invincible Prejudice in honour of Moses p. 343. § XXXV Their second great Prejudice was their expectation of a great Temporal Prince for their Messias and how they were crossed in it by our Saviour p. 349. § XXXVI Atheism the ground of the Sadducees opposing Christianity and fanatick Pride and Arrogance of the Pharisees p. 357. § XXXVII The Heathens opposed Christianity for the sake of Idolatry The Neronian Persecution onely a trick of State to secure himself from the fury of the Multitude by delivering up the Christians to it p. 363. § XXXVIII Domitian's Persecution founded upon jealousie of State against the Line of David Hegesippus vindicated in his account of it against Scaliger The jealousie both of the Emperours and the Senate about the Messias p. 370. § XXXIX An account of the following Persecutions and of the injustice and unreasonableness of their several Proceedings against
of the Laws of Nature § II. 1. As to the Sufficiency of the Publication of the Law of Nature the plain Account of it has been obscured by nothing more then that it has alwaies been described and discoursed of in metaphorical and allusive Expressions such as Engravings and Inscriptions and the Tables of the Heart c. As if the Law of Nature consisted of a certain number of Propositions that were imprinted upon the Minds of Men and concreated with their Understandings by attending to and reflecting upon which they were instructed or bound to govern their moral Actions Perhaps this may be true and God may possibly have put some secret Notices into the Minds of Men for the greater security of Justice and Honesty in the World but then beside that there is no way to prove the Certainty or demonstrate the Obligation of any such inward Record this plainly resolves the Authority of the Law of Nature into uncertain and unaccountable Principles or such as may be pretended and when they are ought to be admitted without any Proof or Evidence of Reason and this amounts to no more then all the idle and precarious Pretences of Enthusiasm and whatsoever some Men affirm or fancy to be written upon their Hearts must immediately pass an Obligation upon all Mens Actions and the Finger of God may be as wildly pleaded in all cases that are not to be accounted for by the Principles of natural Reason and Conscience as the Spirit of God has been But though that influences the Minds of Men with secret and undiscernible Impressions yet it must not be made use of to warrant the Lawfulness of any Undertaking but that must be decided by the common and avowed Rules of Vertue and Religion because it is certain that the Spirit of God always acts according to their Intendment and Direction so that by them we must judge of its Impulses and not suffer our selves to be determin'd in any Affair but where they will abet or justify our Proceedings whether we really are or are not acted by any other Principle otherwise there could be no certain Rule of moral Actions And thus too may Men that are bold and confident call every thing the Law of Nature that they have a mind or fancy to without being bound to give any Proof of its Reasonableness or Account of its Obligation it is no more but calling it the Law written in their Hearts and then it must right or wrong pass for the Universal Law of Mankind so that after this rate there will remain no certain method whereby we may discern mens own Fancies Prejudices and Inclinations from the true Dictates of right Reason and the natural Grounds of Good and Evil. And therefore these Phrases are not to be taken in exact propriety of Speech but only in a loose and popular way of Expression and so they were intended by those that first used them that only alluded to the known Customs and Solemnities of enacting Laws that were always wont to be declared and published to the Subject by Writing or Proclamation and in allusion to this they came to describe the Law of Nature by the Voice within the Book of Conscience the Tables of the Heart c. because the Laws of Nature are as certainly declared reasonable and obligatory by the State of Nature as if they had been written upon our Minds by the finger of God or proclaim'd by an audible voice to our Consciences However Though we should allow them in their literal sense and so for any thing I know we may yet we can never derive the certainty of their Obligation from such uncertain Suppositions at least we need not when they are so clearly demonstrable from Reason and Experience from the Observations of Nature and the Necessities of Life from the Advantages of Justice and the Comforts of Society this gives a complete and satisfactory Account of their Authority to the Minds of Men and they may come to a sufficient Knowledge and Understanding of their Duty by their own Thoughts and Reflections without any other declaration or express discovery of the Will of God And this seems to be the meaning of Saint Paul in his description of the case of the Gentiles Rom. 2. 14 15. where it is observable that he describes the Law which he affirms to be written in their Hearts in allusion to the Mosaick Tables not by the common expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 general Notions or Instincts of Good and Evil but by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reasonings or such evident Results or Conclusions as it is natural or at least very easy for the Mind of Man to make from its experience and observation of things for the Heathen World had no other Objects to exercise or entertain their Thoughts withall but what Nature presented to them and therefore those Reasonings of their Consciences that Saint Paul here speaks of must of necessity be deduced from this Principle and no other And thus are the Laws of Nature drawn forth into use and bound upon the Conscience not by any express Voice or immediate Impression of the Legislator but by vertue of the workings of our own Minds and the unavoidable Results of our own Consciences that as long as we act sincerely and meditate impartially upon the Nature of things will lead us into some knowledg of our Duty and convince us of the reasonableness and necessity of our Obedience There is no man so desperately dull and stupid as not to be able to perceive and examine the Truth of the first Problems in Morality when as we shall prove they are so evident from the whole frame and constitution of Nature and when they are found so usefull from all the experience and observation of humane Life that it is even impossible to open our Eyes or to look abroad without observing their Goodness so that we cannot suppose any Person to live without any sense of Vertue and Religion without supposing such a brutish Stupidity as can scarce be supposed incident to a Rational Creature But if any Man will choose inadvertency and resolve to make no serious Reflections upon the most common Objects that present themselves to his outward Senses there is nothing in the World so plain or so obvious that he may never so much as take notice of But then this is such a brutish Affront to his Nature such an affected and wilfull sottishness that it is of all Crimes the most unnatural and inexcusable It is indeed not impossible but a Man may be so wretchedly regardless of all things as never to have made one Observation all his life-time and to be ignorant even of the Truth of that Proposition that the whole of any thing is bigger then a part of it but then nothing can ever be pleaded to excuse such a palpable brutishness and inadvertency and all the World will impute so gross an Ignorance to the most shamefull and unpardonable neglect of
upon such appeals and challenges as these that is an evident Demonstration of their undoubted truth and reality And this may suffice for the proof of the truth of Scripture-history supposing the Books of it were written by those Persons whose Names they bear Though beside this it is no inconsiderable proof of their Integrity that Eusebius has observed in their impartial way of writing Thus onely Saint Matthew himself of all the Evangelists takes notice of his own dishonourable Employment before his Conversion and Saint Mark who wrote his Gospel from the information of Saint Peter is observably sparing in those things that might tend to the praise of that Apostle and so could not with decent modesty be reported by himself but more exact than any other of the Evangelists in the description of his shamefull Fall Thus when Saint Peter had so frankly own'd our Saviour for the Messias Saint Matthew relates our Saviour's Answer with a high Commendation of him Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jona for Flesh and Bloud hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Then charged he his Disciples that they should tell no Man that he was Jesus the Christ. Whereas in Saint Mark all these magnificent Expressions of our Saviour to Saint Peter are modestly omitted and all the Answer that is there made is no more than this And he charged them that they should tell no Man And so again though Saint Mark in all his other Relations is more compendious than any of the other Evangelists yet in the Story of Saint Peter's denial of his Saviour he is most of all circumstantial And whereas Saint Matthew and Saint Luke set off the greatness of his Repentance afterwards by saying that he wept bitterly Saint Mark expresses it more modestly onely that he wept Now when Writers pass by such things as make for their own praise and record their own Faults and Miscarriages that without their own discovery might never have been known to Posterity they are of all Men least to be suspected of falsehood and give the strongest proof in the World of their love to Truth and Sincerity So again granting that they would not stick at any falsehood to advance their Master's Honour and Reputation yet to what purpose should they forge Lyes of his Disgraces and Sufferings especially all those shamefull Circumstances that they have recorded of his Condemnation and Execution Now if we believe them in the black and tragical part of the Story why not in all For if they onely design'd to set off their Master's Greatness why do they so carefully acquaint the World with the History of his Misfortunes Why do they tell us of his great Agony before his Passion of his scourgings and Mockings of his purple Robe and reeden Scepter of the Contumelies and Reproaches that were thrown at him whilst he was hanging on the Gibbet of his being forsaken by all his Followers of his being abjured by the most zealous of them all and that without the application of Racks or Torments These things if not true to what purpose should they invent them nay if true why should they not doe what they were able to stiflle them if the onely design of their Romance had been to gain Honour to their Master So that if they were honest and faithfull in those sad Relations concerning him why not in those that carry Triumph and Reputation in them For if they had design'd to lye for his Glory they must have baulk't every thing that might any way offend the Reader And if they had design'd a Romance instead of that plain Story that they have recorded to Posterity they would have told us that Judas had no sooner given the treacherous Kiss but he was turn'd into a Stone that the Hand that struck him was immediately wither'd that Caiphas and his Accusers were struck blind that the Souldiers who supposed they had apprehended him had onely seised a Phantasm whilst he vanisht away that his Judges were befoold in all their phantastick Process against him whilst he stood invisible among them despising their Mock-solemnity In short was it in all humane Accounts much more becoming the grandeur and dignity of that Person that he pretended to be that he should not have been obnoxious to the common Miseries and Calamities of humane Life but that when by his Divine Power he had establisht his Kingdom in the World he should have return'd back to Heaven without any suffering and with all the Ornaments of Glory and Triumph This certainly had been much more proper matter for a Romance if they had design'd nothing but their Master's Greatness than to have fain'd those mixt Actions that are recorded of him in the Gospels and those that would have believed their other Reports would not have disbelieved these And therefore seeing they would not corrupt or suppress the Truth in the unpleasant part of the Story we have no ground to suspect them of the least falsehood in any other part of it howsoever in it self strange and miraculous when it is so evident that their design was real Truth and not their Master's Greatness § VIII But if we believe the Books of Scripture were not written by those Authours whose Names they bear then we must believe that either they were forged in their days or afterwards If in their days then they either own'd them as true or not If they vouched them they gave them the same Authority as if they had been indited by themselves If they disown'd them as containing Reports that they knew to be false then they themselves were obliged to discover the Imposture which having never done that is an undeniable evidence that if they were written in their time either they themselves writ them or at least approved of them But if they were written afterwards how came they to meet with such an early and universal reception in the Christian Churches We find them always own'd as the undoubted records of the Evangelists and Apostles in the most ancient Writers that lived after them nay some with them Now how is it possible that Books that contain in them matters so strange and wonderfull if they had been counterfeit and spurious and thrust upon the World after the death of those Persons whose names they pretend to bear should command such a catholick and unquestionable reputation If indeed they had pretended to have lain obscure for some time and to have been afterwards retrieved there might have been some ground of suspicion But when they are own'd as the most ancient and undoubted records of the Church
were written by any of them it is not much material so it were written by some of them and that it was so is very evident from Clemens his Epistle who has borrowed divers passages out of it word for word And to the same purpose is the Controversie concerning the Revelations all allowing it to have been of Apostolical Antiquity onely some will have it to have been written by Saint John the Apostle others by Saint Mark sirnamed John others by Saint John call'd the Elder but whosoever it was that wrote it it was written in the Apostolical Age and that is enough Though it is moreover sufficiently attested that Saint John the Apostle was the Authour of it both by the Testimony of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus who lived very near the time of its writing Lastly Those that were at first doubted of were not afterwards rashly admitted into the Canon but were admitted upon carefull enquiry mature deliberation and unexceptionable Testimony For as they were at first own'd by some and disputed by others this became a matter of debate in the Church and that obliged them to make farther enquiry after the evidence of their Authority and by that means the whole Church was at last satisfied of that which at first onely a part of it was able to prove And this might come to pass after this manner the Apostles directed many of their Epistles to particular Churches so that it is possible that some of them might be known to some Churches and not to others who therefore doubting of them put those who asserted them to have been true Apostolical Writings to prove their Assertion and they it seems brought such evident proof of their Tradition as gain'd the consent of the whole Church to their Authority And this probably they did by producing the Originals written under the Apostles own hands and reserved in the Archives of the several Churches For that many such there were Tertullian informs us even in his time and to them refers the Men of his own Age for their full satisfaction § X. And therefore it is but a very slender Witticism of Mr. Hobbs in derogation of the Authority of the holy Scripture when he has acknowledg'd that the Writers of the New Testament lived all in less than an Age after Christ's Ascension and had all of them seen our Saviour or been his Disciples except Saint Paul and Saint Luke and consequently that whatsoever was written by them is as ancient as the time of the Apostles yet were they made canonical Scripture onely by the Authority of the Church that is the Council of Laodicea which first collected the Canon of the Scriptures and recommended them to us as the Writings of those Apostles and Disciples under whose Names they go hereby wittily intimating or rather broadly asserting that these Writings were not canonical Scripture till that Council that is till the year 364. But first Supposing that it is not the Authour but the Authority of the Church that makes a Book Canonical then were the Books of the New Testament made so long before the Council of Laodicea in that we find them enumerated in the Apostolical Canons which though they were not compil'd by Clement as was vulgarly supposed yet were they the Decrees of Councils in the first and second Ages succeeding the Apostles So that upon this account they were stamp't Canonical almost as soon as they were written Secondly The Testimony of the Church neither is nor can be any more than a proof or an argument of the Original and Divine Authority of the canonical Books as any other Testimony is or may be Thus when we cite Clement of Rome Ignatius Policarp Justin Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus yes and Celsus himself that lived either in or near the Apostles times as giving in Testimony to their Writings no Man can without very wilfull impertinence thence infer that it is they that give the Books their Divine Authority when it is so evident that they are onely made use of as competent Witnesses to attest that they were no forged Writings but were pen'd by those very Persons under whose Names they go and if they are then they themselves make good their own Authority For Authority is nothing else but the right or power of binding our Assent which unless it be done by the Authour himself it is impossible to be done by any other and all the Councils in the World can never give Divine Authority to any Book if it had it not before All their Office is to bear testimony to their Authenticalness and it is no inconsiderable Evidence of it when so many grave and learned Men of the first Ages of Christianity upon mature deliberation of the whole matter in Council declare that upon the strictest enquiry they are fully satisfied that those Books were written by those very Authours whose Names they bear But from hence to infer as the Leviathan does that their canonical Authority that is their being the Law of God depends entirely upon the Decree of the Church as if it could give or take it away at pleasure onely becomes Mr. Hobbs's Logick and Modesty and them it becomes equally for it is very hard to determine whether the Conclusion be more impudent or more impertinent § XI And now beside this direct demonstrative proof of the Apostolical Antiquity and Authority of the holy Scriptures which alone is a full demonstration of the Divinity of the Christian Institution there is another more remote way of proving the truth of the History insisted upon by learned Men that is by the concurrent Testimony of foreign Writers Jews or Heathens who lived in or about the same time but this Evidence is so weak in comparison of that which I have already produced that I shall not prosecute it as an Argument in my Cause but rather consider it as an Objection against it viz. That if the History of our Saviour were so known and notorious as is pretended how comes it to pass that so little notice is taken of it by any Authours but onely such as were his own Disciples There were many other excellent Writers especially Historians about that time so that if his Actions had been so great and remarkable as his Disciples tell us they were it is scarce credible that they should pass him over with so slender a regard and scarce any mention of him In answer to this I shall in the sequel of this Discourse give a satisfactory and rational account of the Infidelity both of Jews and Heathens notwithstanding Christianity brought along with it all that Evidence that we pretend it did But beside this I shall here shew that the best Writers of that time concur with and so confirm the main strokes of our Saviour's History and by consequence all the rest that is interwoven with them especially when what they write is purely to deliver matter of Fact without any design to serve the cause of Christianity For when all things
altogether false and frivolous what is that to what hapned at Rome So that had there been never so many of the Posterity of David at Babylon there might have been no more than two found at Rome And therefore if Hegesippus had affirm'd that there were onlytwo all Scaliger's Stories of Babylon are to no purpose But when he has affirm'd no such thing but on the contrary gives us a distinct account of Simeon the Son of Cleopas Bishop of Jerusalem who lived there after the time of Domitian Scaliger could have no motive to make the Objection but onely to empty his Common-place-book of two or three Rabinical Quotations But yet his next Exception is much worse viz. that there was no such Person as Judas of the Kindred of our Lord mention'd in the Gospels But suppose there were no such upon Record it seems very hard dealing with an Ancient Writer that lived so near the times that he Writes of and had opportunity of enquiring into the Genealogy of the Family when he affirms that there was such a Branch of it to deny the truth of the matter of Fact onely because it hapned not to be mention'd in the Gospels whereas nothing is better known than that divers more material passages relating to our Saviour's Family are there omitted their design being to describe his own descent from David and not to give any account of the several present Branches of the Family And yet after all Scaliger's confidence that there was no such Man upon Record do we find him expresly reckoned among our Saviour's nearest Kindred Mat. 13. 15. Is not this the Carpenters Son Is not his Mother called Mary And his Brethren James and Joses and Simon and Judas So blind is the humour of Criticising as to overlook the most obvious passages rather than loose the Glory of one new discovery This passage I have vindicated not because that it self was at all needful to my purpose but onely to maintain the credit of Hegesippus for if there were no such Story that saves our labour of giving any account of it if there were then we must take it as we finde it in Hegesippus according to whose account it was no Persecution for Religion but onely a jealousie of State Neither is it to be wondred at that Domitian though of all men most suspicious should be so strongly tainted with it when the same conceit had for a long time been of so great force among his Predecessours For it is very obvious from the Histories of those time that the Jewish Notion of their Messias had got deep footing in the Gentile World from the Authority of the Sybilline Oracles in that the Old Books of the Sybils that had been for many Ages Religiously preserved in the Capitol were together with the Capitol it self burnt about Eighty years before our Saviour's Birth and to retreive their loss three Ambassadours were about Seven years after when the Capitol was rebuilt dispatcht into Asia to gather together what Records they could there find of those Prophesies and brought back with them about a thousand Verses By whom they were first Composed I am not concern'd to enquire though it is probable as the Learned Isaac Vossius conjectures that they were Collected by the Jews out of the Ancient Prophets as appears from their agreement with the Holy Writings and especially in the great Prediction of a Messias or Universal Monarch Which it seems was so plainly foretold by them that in a little time it alarm'd the Senate it self to forbid the reading of them and that for very good reason too When they found every aspiring Spirit in the Common-wealth to apply them to himself For this was one of the Foundations of Catiline's Conspiracy as Tully informs us concerning Leutulus in his Third Oration against Catiline And when Caesar had made himself Master of all it was vulgarly believed to have been the effect of this Prophesie as the same Author Triumphantly tells us in his Second Book of Divination which was written immediately after Caesar's fall Cum Antistitibus agamus quidvis potius ex illis libris quà m Regem proferant quem Romae posthaec nec Dii nec homines esse patientur The great thing that offended the zealous Common-wealths Man in them was the name of a great King And if we may believe Suetonius or his Author Julius Marathus the same year that Augustus Caesar was Born the Senate upon the account of this Prediction Regem populo Romano naturam parturire that nature was then in labour with a King of the Romans Decreed nequis illo anno genitus educaretur Not unlike the practice of Herod when he Murther'd the Children of Bethlehem to secure the Title of Shiloh to himself which some of the Atheistical Jews of the Sect of the Sadducees had flatteringly applyed to him and were for that reason stiled Herodians And this conceit himself cherished with very great care among the Jews as the fulfilling of Jacob's Prophesie upon the departure of the Scepter from Judah to himself thereby to conciliate the greater reverence and Authority to his Government And this probably was the reason as very an Atheist as he was of his building so magnificent a Temple because the Jews expected such a glorious work from their Messias Now this conceit being so familiarly entertain'd in the minds of men in that Age it is no wonder if all that were in actual possession of Authority whether themselves believed it or not were so watchful against all pretenders to it but much less in such a suspicious Prince as Domitian especially as to the Family of David who by the consent of the Jews that were the great Masters of these Prophesies had the first Title to this great Prerogative And yet it was not so much but onely as far as appears by Story they were presented by some flattering and officious Informers to the Emperour which occasion'd some trouble both to themselves and the followers of Jesus but when the jealous Emperour came to enquire into their Claims he was so satisfied of the Innocence of the men that he immediately dismist the Inditement as frivolous and revoked all Edicts against the Christians as Partisans in the same cause This is the true account of all his proceedings against them though if he had proceeded upon other reasons all his reasons could be nothing but reasons of State and all his executions nothing but acts of Savageness and Cruelty But whatever they were there is no evidence of his entring into the merits of the cause and if he did not his brutal Tyranny can be no objection Nay if he did all that can be inferr'd is that Christianity was not pleasing to one of the worst of Princes and that is the best that can be made of his Persecution and there we leave it that as Nero was the first so Domitian was the second Enemy to Christianity and conclude with Tertullian Consulite commentarios vestros
against the Christians was so contemptible that it was slighted as none of his own and made up altogether of borrowed Feathers out of other Mens Writings which he was not ashamed to transcribe word for word into his own Rhapsodie especially out of Celsus insomuch as Eusebius sticks not to affirm that there is but one passage in all his Book that was not answer'd aforehand by Origen And that was his parallel between our Saviour and Apollonius Tyanaeus but how evenly that runs we have already consider'd And therefore here I need say no more onely that from hence it appears that he did not so much as question much less deny our Saviour's Miracles but onely vyed the unvouched Stories of that pedantick Impostor with the so well voucht History of Jesus Nay he was so far from gainsaying their truth that he was forced to yield that he was a Divine Man and the onely thing for which he was so much offended against the Christians was that nothing less would serve their turn unless he might be reputed a God too So that his whole Opposition to the cause of Christianity amounts to nothing less than a clear confession of the truth of the matter of Fact and that is all that at present I am concern'd to prove And then as for the Emperour Julian as he was the fiercest of all the Enemies to Christianity so was he the most impotent too being too angry and passionate to make any just enquiry into the cause and withall of a strange lightness and vanity of Nature which those Historians that would most admire him remark as the most predominant principle in all his actions this hurried him according to the eagerness of his temper against the Christians because their Doctrine brought contempt upon all the old Constitutions of Greece of which he was so fond And this was the main of his Argument in his Book against the Christians that they disparaged the Heathen Gods and the Heathen Philosophers So that the bottom of all his zeal was nothing but pedantry and superstition For he valued himself not a little upon the Opinion that he had of his skill in the Grecian Learning and especially the mystical Philosophy of Plotinus lamblicus and the latter Platonists but much more upon his zeal for the old Superstition of which he was so childishly fond that it exposed him even to the contempt of the superstitious Rabble it self that flouted him as if he design'd the utter extirpation of Oxen as well as Christians And as he was so vain as to think himself Alexander the Great according to the Pythagorean Doctrine of the transmigration of Souls which put him upon his unfortunate Persian Expedition as not doubting to return with the same honour and success as he had done before so was he most ambitious of imitating Marcus Aurelius as he was of Numa in his zeal for the Worship of the Gods And it was this wild zeal lighting upon his temper that was naturally hot to a degree of madness that transported him into all his extravagant attempts against the Christians But as he was not naturally capable of any sober reasoning so much less in this case in which he was so much blinded with pride and passion And it is too evident with what little reason he opposed Christianity when the main thing that he always charged upon it was Atheism the very falshood and disingenuity of which charge is a manifest indication of his passion and partiality And as for his Book that he wrote against it with all possible keenness and indignation he dares not so much as come near the matter of Fact concerning our Saviour's Actions but plays aloof off against the Jews of old and the Christians of his own time But as for our Saviour's Miracles upon which the whole Controversie depends he does not so much as undertake to contradict them but onely says that it was no such wonderfull thing in him to cure the Lame and the Blind Seeing therefore he has not so much as meddled with the main Argument of Christianity the matter of Fact the evidence of that alone must of it self baffle all other Attempts At least till that is consider'd all other considerations are short of the Argument so that this alone may suffice as an answer to all his Cavils to refer him to the matter of Fact and if that prove it self true he can prove nothing but if it do not he need prove nothing it sinks of its own accord § XLIII However if they have any cavils that may seem to have any appearance of reason in them they are all raked together by Celsus the Epicurean who of all the Enemies to Christianity was both the boldest and the ablest as appearing with less folly and more malice For being an Atheist and so not at all tainted with their superstitious conceits he escaped all those disadvantages into which they run themselves by their fanatick zeal But being an Epicurean too he was the more exasperated against the Christian cause because that confuted all his wisedom by sensible experiment which was the onely proof of things that they would admit of in their Philosophy And therefore when they had so bravely deliver'd all wise Men that is themselves from the fear of a Divine Providence and the care of a future State it could not but be a very grating provocation upon Men of their proud peevish and ill-natur'd Principles to have so clear a baffle put upon all their wisedom and that in their own way And as this was the main motive of the peculiar displeasure of the Sadducees against the Apostles among the Jews so no doubt it wrought the same effect upon Men of the same Principles among the Heathens But of all others Celsus seems to have been most angry at the defeat and therefore lays about him to load it with all the cavil and calumny that wit or malice can invent And for the greater plenty of Objection he takes upon himself a double Person of a Jew and of an Heathen Though the truth is he personates the Jew full as awkerdly as the Ass did the Lion in the Lion's Skin his Epicurean Ears every where shew themselves through his Jewish Livery And he is so eager in his pursuit of Christianity that at every turn he forgets the Person he bears and falls as foul upon the Jews themselves as the Christians We shall engage him in both his shapes and leave it to any impartial either Jew or Heathen to judge of the reasonableness and validity of his Discourse His two great battering Engines that he plants in all parts of it we have already dismounted viz. His imputing our Saviour's Miracles to the power of Magick and his vying the Resurrection of others in Heathen Story with that of our Saviour And by this means we have already dispatched the greatest part of our business for being conscious to himself of the slightness of most of his Cavils he at every turn