hominum But after the mention of those things going before giveth a punctual account of Christs way of proceeding in judging his own flock for those he judgeth from his white Throne can be no other but such as could claim the benefit of the Covenant of Grace such as could say Lord Lord and plead we have prophesied in thy name in thy name we have cast out Devils we have eat and drank in thy presence or something of that nature whereby they will challenge the benefit of the Book and pretend their names are writ in it till Christ open the Book lay before them the Terms of that Covenant and by the evidence of their own Conscience convince them they cannot claim that Salvation was tender'd in the Gospel for that they have not observ'd the Conditions on which it was offerd they have not fed the hungry cloath'd the naked they have not been merciful humble meek pure in heart peace-makers by which names the heirs of the Evangelical blessings are set down in the Book of Life of the same tendency is that description of the general Judgement which our Saviour gives wherein he passeth over the judgment of Infidels and confines his discourse to his way of process with his own Flock with elect and reprobate Professors of worshipping the one God through the Seed of the Woman The Goats are part of Christs visible Flock the excrescencies of his Mystical Body that serve for Ornament and therefore the Churches hair is compared to a Flock of Goats Cant. 4. 1. Cant. 6. 5. and the Kidds of the Flock mentioned as well as the Lambs Can. 1. Hence St. Jerom well observes that the barren and Fetid Hee-Goats not the Shee-Goats that go up from the washing and bear Twins Cant. 4. 2. shall be separated from the Flock in Mat. 25. Rhem. Test. note in Mat. 25. 32. They are separated who in the visible Church lived together as for Hereticks they went out of the Church before separated themselves and therefore not separated here as being judged already There being none amongst the Goats of that Flock who could plead they had not seen or known Christ but only that they had not seen him so and so they believed he was ascended into Heaven and sate at the right hand of God but little thought he was hungry and thirsty and opprest in his poor Members on Earth and the only thing that is laid to their charge being their transgressing the Royal Law their not living up to Evangelical Precepts their not practising those Christian Duties they had an opportunity to perform living in the Communion of Christs Members No larger bounds doth David or Asaph set himself Ps. 50. where having only hinted Gods destroying the Infidels at his glorious appearance by the fire that burnt before him and that horrible tempest round about he giveth an account at large how God after that will proceed to the trial of such as were in Covenant with him called his people vers 4. his Saints that have made a Covenant with him by Sacrifice ver 5. that have enter'd Covenant by Circumcision or given up themselves as a Sacrifice to God by promising to be his Servants as R. David explains that Text Faedus per Sacrificium ut Exod. 24. 8. Moses faedus ferit offerebat sacrificia dicendo ecce sanguis faederis in Daresh faedus Circumcisionis Rab. David in p. 50. de die judicii futuro quando redemptor venit ut Joel 3. 1. ver 4. advocabit caelum ad Angelos caeli ut vindictam sicut in exercitum Assur exequentur 2 Reg. 19. 35. that they being dispatcht he may judge his people Postquà m Deus vindictam in hostes suos ex gentibus ostendit tunc ex Israele peccatores exterminat Zach. 13. 8. duae partes exterminentur Isa. 4. 3. omnis scriptus in libro erit sanctus Not only by calling but election when the Lord shall have washed away the filth and shall have purged the blood from the midst of Jerusalem by the spirit of judgment Before these and these alone the Book of Life the Covenant is open'd vers 7. Hear O my People and I will speak O Israel I will testifie unto thee I will call Heaven and Earth to testifie against thee Quod fâ—dere me Deum tuum agnoscere obligatus es pro peccatis tuis reprehendam te non pro sacrificiis quia in Decalogo non est mentio sacrificiorum nec est haec res magna in oculis meis utrùm sacrifices vel non That by covenant thou wast bound to acknowledge me thy God and I will reprove thee for thy sins not for Sacrifices because in the Decalogue there is no mention of Sacrifice neither is this a thing of any value in my eyes whether thou sacrifices or not Vicars decupla in Psal. 50. And then the Books of Conscience are open'd their sins the Transgressions of the Royal Law are ser in order before the faces of such as have taken the Covenant in their mouths but hated to conform unto it when thou sawest a Thief thou consentedst unto him and hast been a partaker with the Adulterer c. Of the same Tenour is the discourse of St. Paul 1 Thes. 4. upon which Musculus hath this note Non recenset omnia quae futura in adventu Domini sed ea tantùm idque in summa quae concernunt salutem fidelium de perditione vero impiorum Deque ruina mutatione totius mundi nihil meminit The Apostle doth not rehearse all things future at the Advent of the Lord but only those things and that briefly which concern the salvation of the faithful but of the perdition of the wicked and change of the world he makes no mention § 6. 4. Though I approve not the Sentence of Lactantius and the old Millenaries that the Saints shall rise a thousand years before the wicked yet I cannot cordially subscribe to that of Gennadius Massiliensis de eccles dogmat cap. 6. Erit resurrectio mortuorum omnium hominum sed una in simul semel non prima justorum secunda peccatorum ut fabula est somniatorum sed una omnium There will be a resurrection of all men but one at the same ininstant of time not the first of the just and the second of the unjust as some men dream but one of all men This opinion I say I cannot subscribe to as conceiving it to thwart the Assertion of Saint Paul 1 Corin 15. 23. all shall be made alive in Christ but every man in his own order Christ the first fruits then those that are Christs at his coming then the end c. and 1 Thes. 4. 16. the dead in Christ shall rise first first not in respect of those in Christ that shall be alive for as we that are alive shall not prevent them that are asleep so neither shall they that are asleep prevent us that are alive seeing we shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye
pieces At the lowest rate it demonstrates to what an height those curious cursed arts were then grown to Can we think that St. Paul would have singled out that place where Satan was inthron'd to have wrought miracles in for the confirmation of the Divinity of the Gospel had they not been special miracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Luke stiles them Act. 19. 11 12. Would he have given experiments of the healing vertue conveyed from his body to aprons and handkerchiefs where counter-charming amulets were of that common use as the proverb of Ephesia Alexipharmaca speaks them to have been What would it have profited to have invocated the name of the Lord Jesus over the sick there where were extant such a number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of books teaching how to unravel the Conjurers work had the Apostle not been assured that the vertue of that name and of his own body through that name was both as to cause and effect above every name above any word they could find in their books of curious Arts that name of Judahs Gods imposing having infinitely more power than the word of Ida's Tactyls invention though it came not with that boysterous harshness as did their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Clemens reckons them in the place above quoted Sect. 2. This Image of Diana this counterfeit of the Divine Magia descending from faln Jupiter was not only worship'd at Ephesus and in all Asia but throughout the Roman Empire In whose Metropolis the Sect of those black Philosophers was grown so numerous under Tiberius as his decree to banish them the City had taken effect if the multitude of Families which that hook threatned to extirpate and their promise to give over the practice of those curious arts had not made the Emperour relent Sueton. Tiberius 36. By this connivance Magical operations attain'd to that perfection in Nero's Reign as men could not promise themselves to find their grounds on that side of the hedge next morning where they left them over-night For Pliny lib. 28. reports that at that time an Olive-yard belonging to Vectius Marcellus was by Magick removed one night unto the other side of the high-way A thing so strange as I should hardly give credit to Livies report but that I find Apuleius make mention of it in his Apologie as a thing so usual and ancient as the Laws of the twelve Tables made provision against it by making it capital The naming of Apuleius his Apology brings to mind the occasion of it which was to purge himself of the crime of Magick wherewith he was charged before Claudius Maximus Lievtenant of Africa as Apollonius Thyaneus was of the same crime before Domitian A pair of the fiercest Pagan adversaries to our Religion August de Civitat 8. 19. The Jews indeed had a sharper edge against us and as strange a back as Hell could forge coming not one whit behind the Gentile in his proficiency in the black Art being grown more Samaritan than the Samaritan himself 1. Not only in their charmings by the explication of the Tetragrammaton Jehovah in twelve and in forty two letters to which they imputed that force as they affirm'd with no less blasphemy to their own than our Religion that Moses wrought all his miracles by means of Shemhamphorash the twelve-letter'd explication of the name Jehovah ingraven on the rod of God And that our Jesus by vertue of the same sowed within his skin effected those great works which he performed And that Rabbi Chanina by vertue of the two and forty letter'd name of God did whatsoever he would The Jews father'd this Art upon Solomon who they say left forms of conjurations of the efficacy whereof one Eleazar gave proof before Vespasian and his Sons and their whole Army Josephus being present as himself reports Antiquit. lib. 8. cap. 2. Yea that whosoever knew these explications being modest humble of a middle age not given to anger or drunkenness and wore them about him would be belov'd above and below in heaven and in earth rever'd and fear'd of men and heir of this and the world to come Buxtorf lexic. voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. But in their Wisemens reading certain verses over wounds laying Phylacteries upon sick persons charming away serpents and an evil eye of which practices the Jerusalem Talmudists amongst whom our Saviour converst make frequent mention In particular they tella story in Sotah of R. Meirs being too hard for an Inchantress and in Sanhedrim R. Joshuah out-vying a Samaritane conjurer of Tyberias quoted by Dr. Light foot in his Harmony It were endless to trace Josephus through all those passages where he describes Judaea in our Saviours time to have been over-run with Magical Juglers Under Felix saith he Judaea was again full of Magical Impostors and Seducers of the unskilful vulgar who by their inchantments drew companies into the wilderness promis4ng they would shew them from heaven manifest signs and prodigies at the same time a certain Jew out of Aegypt came to Jerusalem professing himself a Prophet who perswaded the multitude to follow him unto Mount Olivet promising that from thence they should see the walls of Jerusalem fall so flat as through their ruines there should be a way opened into the City Joseph Ant. Jud. 20. 6. Which Aegyptian in another place he styles Magician Jos. 〈◊〉 Jud. 2. 12. Nay he scarce mentions a sticker in the Jewish wars upon whom he sets not this brand that he was a jugling conjurer Such was John the son of Levias c. Josep 〈◊〉 J. 4. 4. Sect. 3. The Primitive Church was so beset with these snares of Hell as she thought good to caution her Catechumens of the danger of falling into them â—not only by informing them that in their renouncing the Devil and all his worship at Baptism they renounc'd Auguries Divinations Amulets Magical Inscriptions on Leaves Witchcraft Incantation and calling up of Ghosts Id. Catech. illuminat 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But by inserting into the Greek Liturgies this form of abrenuntiation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I renounce Conjurations Charmes Amulets and Phylacteries St. â—yril Catech. Mystag 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem Cat. c. But what need we any other Witness of the infamy of that Age for the then general spreading of this Diabolical Art than the Satyrical reflections which their own Poets made upon it Juvenal in his sixth Satyr Horace in his Epode against Canidia and Virgil in his Pharmaceutria do in the chain of their Golden Verses hale that Cerberus out of his Kennel into so clear a Sun-shine so manifestly discover those depths of Satan and bring to light those hidden things of darkness as the reading of their Poems is enough to initiate their over-curious Readers in those mysteries of iniquity which were then working and the translation of them might lay a temptation before the ductile vulgar to essay the efficacy of their
praemio 7. 7. If the Truth dispers'd among several Persons and scatter'd among several Sects were by any man collected into one and digested into a body it would without doubt not dissent from us When Apollodorus offer'd to Socrates a precious and gorgeous Tunick and Pall to put on when he drank the poyson and to be wrapped in when he was dead Socrates turning to Crito Simacus and Phaedo what an honourable opinion saith he hath Apollodorus of me if he think to see Socrates in this Robe after I am dead if he think that that which will then lay at his feet is Socrates I know not my self who I am Aelian var. hist. 1. 16. This Socratical Aphorism Tully expresseth thus Mens cujusque is est quisque Is one Egg more like another than this of the Schools to that of the Gospel where Jesus concludes Abraham to be still living from Moses his stiling God the God of Abraham so many years after his decease That of Abraham he left behind him in his Sepulchre is not Abraham but that of him that still lives But it would require an Age to transcribe by retail those numerous Philosophical Axioms which speak the Language of Scripture so perfectly as the whole matter of controversie betwixt the Fathers Apologizing for and the Philosophers contending against our Religion was brought by mutual consent to this point Whether the wise men of the World receiv'd those Doctrines from our Scriptures or the Pen-men of the Scripture from their Schools Celsus in Origen contends earnestly that whatsoever was solid in the Christian Religion was borrowed from the Philosophers by whom it was better and clearlier delivered He instanceth in our affirming God to dwell in light inaccessible this saith he is no more than what Plato teacheth in his Epistles that the first Good is ineffable In our Saviour's commending Humility This is Plato's Doctrine saith Celsus teaching in his Book of Laws that He who would be happy must be a follower of Justice with an humble and well-composed mind In Christ's saying 'T is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven what is this saith he other than that of Plato It is not possible that a man can be very rich and very good From the fame Fountain Celsus will have Christ to draw that saying Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadunto life and few there be that find it and that our Doctrine of the fall of Angels and their being reserved in chains was derived from the Poet Pherecides and Homer vide l. 4. col 9. The Patrons of the Christian Cause on the other hand contended that the waters of the Academy were drawn from the wells of the Sanctuary that the Sun of knowledg arose in the East and thence displayed its Beams over the World St. Ambrose proves that Plato borrowed of David in Psalm 35. And upon that in Isaiah 40. For she hath received at the Lords hand double to her iniquity saith he Plato eruditionis gratiâ in Aegyptum profectus ut Mosis gesta Legis praecepta Prophetarum dicteria cognosceret c. in psalm 118. serm 18. St. Austin quotes St. Ambrose proving from Chronology that the Grecians borrowed of the Jews not è contrà and thence commends the reading of Secular History de Christiana Doct. lib. 2. cap. 28. and in his Epistle to Polinus and Therasias writes thus Libros Ambrosii multùm desidero quos adversùs nonnullos imperitissimos superbissimos qui de Platonis libris Dominum profecisse contendunt dilligentissimè copios ssimè scripsit Aug. Epist. 34. And not barely affirm'd it but brought in evidence for the proof of it either from common Principles of Reason or the Authority of heathen Chronologers St. Origen thus Contra Cels. lib. 6. cal 1 2 3 c. Moses was long before the most ancient of your Philosophers and therefore they must borrow light from him but it was impossible he could light his Candle at theirs before they were lighted and the Apostles were the unlikeliest men in the World to understand your Philosophers The same Father Origen contrà Celsum lib. 1. cal 13. in answer to Celsus objecting Moses his Juniority to the Heathen Theologues saith that Hermippus in his first Book of Lawgivers declared how Pythagoras translated his Discipline from the Jews into Greece and that there was extant a Book of Haecateus in which he so approves of the Jewish Philosophy as Herennus Philo in his Commentar de Judaeis questions whether it be the genuine Book of Haecateus whose name it bears it seeming to him improbable that an Heathen Philologer would write so much in their commendation St. Austin in his eighteenth Book de Civitate from Chap. 2. to the end of that Book demonstrates by Chronology that our Prophets were elder than their Philosophers And in his 8. 11. de Civitate Dei affirms Plato to have transcribed the description of the first matter in his Timaeus mentioned also by Cicero and thus translated Mundum efficere volens Deus terram primo ignemque jungebat When God was about to frame the World he first joyntly made the matter of Fire and Earth from that of Moses In the beginning God made the Heaven and Earth Gen. 1. 1. Plato by Fire understanding Heaven And his notion of the Air upon the Water to have been Plato's mis-conception of that of Moses The Spirit moved upon the Waters And his Dogma in Phaedone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Every right Philosopher is a lover of God to have been derived from the sacred Fountains where nothing flows more plentifully than such like Doctrine But that which made this most learned Father almost believe altogether that Plato had read Moses was his observing Plato to have been the first Philosopher who called God by that name which God reveal'd himself by to Moses in his Embassy to Pharaoh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am that I am or That that is A name appropriated to God by Plato in his Timeus calling God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ever-being and so familiar with the Platonicks as in their Master's stile they superscribed their Treatises concerning God with this Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of him that is A name saith St. Austin I find in no Books before Plato save in those where it is said I am that I am This was modestly said of that cautious Divine for the truth is Alcimus writes to Amynthas that some Philosophers had got that Notion by the end before Plato naming Epicharmus and quoting those words of his at which Plato lighted his Candle and Plato himself in his Sophista confesseth little less But it comes all to one as to our Argument for Epicharmus was a Pythagorian and that Pythagoras the circumcised Philosopher received that and all his other refined Notions from Moses his Writings or by discourse from the Jewish
and Egyptian Priests at first or second hand Isocrates Busiridis laud. pag. 539. gives as pompous a proof as is to be met with any where Of the Religion of the Egyptians saith he I could commemorate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many and great things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the observing of which I am neither alone nor first but many both of this and the former Age among whom is the Samian Pythagoras who travelling into Egypt became their Disciple and brought Philosophy and Religion into Greece and Clemens Alexandrinus Stromat lib. 1. as full and clear one as can be required who out of the Pagan Records affirmeth Pythagoras to have been circumcised in Egypt that he having thereby liberty of going into their holy places might the better learn their mystical Theology and that he learned there to call his School 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of the same importance with Synagogue The same assertion is made by Justin Martyr in paraclesi ad gentes By Eusebius in praeparat Evang. And before them by Aristobulus Judaeus in his Epistles to Ptolemy Philometer lib. 1. quoted by Eusebius to wit that Plato did transfer many things into his out of the Jewish Writings upon which saith Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was not for the Jews only but that Nation was the sacred School of the whole World concerning the knowledg of God and the way of spiritual living Clemens Alexandrinus from their own stories sheweth that the Grecians did not only borrow their best Notions from the Jewish Scriptures but the manner of expressing them sententiously A mode of teaching what Plato commendeth as that which all the Greeks press after but none attain'd to but the Spartans That they so esteem'd the form of uttering moral Rules in Proverbs in imitation of Solomon as they father'd such Sentences as came nearest that Model upon several Authors as if they thought many of their wisest men must have put their heads together for the production of one so compact a Sentence as we have thousands of in Scripture each one striving who should bear away the honour of being reputed its father as the Cities of Greece strove for Homer That which was thought worthy to be set over the Gates of Apollo's Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some attributed to Chilon Chamaelio in his Book of the Gods ascribes it to Thales Aristotle to Pythias That other Nè quid nimis some father upon Chylon Strato in his Treatise of Inventions upon Stratodemus but Didimus upon Solon Stromatum lib. 1. There is scarce a Sentence of note either in the Poets or Philosophers but what the same Clemens in the same Treatise patterns in our Scriptures and demonstrates the Gentiles to have had theirs from thence not è contrà by computing the ages of the Founders of every Sect and finding them by their own reckoning to be younger than Moses by many hundreds of years Xenophon the Author of the Eleatick is said by Timaeus to have lived in the Reign of Hieron the Scicilian Tyrant by Apollodorus in the time of Darius and Cyrus so that this Sect is younger than most of the Prophets Thales the Father of the Ionicks is said by Eudemus in his history of Astrology to have fore-told that Eclipse which happen'd at the Battel betwixt the Medes and Lydians in the reign of Cyaxeres the father of Astiages to whom agrees Herodotus in his first Book this Cyaxeres was contemporary with Salmanassar who carried the ten Tribes captive so that the Kingdom of Israel was standing upon its last legs before this Sect had got foot For the stating of Moses his age he brings the Testimony of Appion one who so far disgusted the Religion of Moses as he wrote that Book against it which Josephus answers who making mention of Amasis King of Egypt alledgeth the Testimony of Ptolomeus Mendesius a Priest who wrote the History of the Egyptian Kings in three Books and saith that in the raign of Amasis the Jews under the conduct of Moses came out of Egypt which Amasis was contemporary as he saith to Icarus And of Dionisius Halicarnassaeus who in his Chronicles affirms the Argolicks who derive their Pedigree from Icarus to be the most ancient of the Grecians then whom the Atticks who come of Cecrops are younger by four Generations as Tatianus saith and the Arcadians who come of Pelasgus nine And the Photioticks who come of Deucalion fifteen and the Wars of Troy twenty that is five hundred years So much is the subject of Homer younger than Moses Now Homer is the most ancient Heathen Author and was therefore Aelian var. hist. 13. 22. painted by Galaton spewing Grecian Learning and all other Poets licking up his Vomit A posture wherein bating the homeliness of the conceipt Moses might with more reason be drawn For whatsoever material divine Truth the heathen World had except the remains of the first Tradition by Noah and his sons were but the fragments of his loaf the crums they gathered up under the table of Shew-bread Hence Eusebius spends the whole tenth Book de preparat Evangel in accusing the Ethnicks of Ingratitude for hating the Jews from whom they learn'd the liberal Sciences and of Theft for challenging those Ethick Precepts for their own which they stole out of the Hebrew Books And the eleventh Book in proving the Platonick Philosophy to have been fetch'd out of Egypt and Judea and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 writ over the Portal of the Delphick Temple spoken of by Plutarch to have been borrowed from Moses his History of God's giving himself this name I am that I am And the twelfth in instancing what Platonick Sentences concur with Moses Besides those Pagan Authors quoted by Clement we have Herodotus Terpsicore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Ionians received the knowledg of letters from the Phaenicians hence all Learning is called Phaenician And Eupolemus libro de Judaeae Regibus ait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moses was the first wise man And for the juniority of most ancient Heathen Writers we have the Testimony of the same Herodotus who in the life of Homer collects out of Lesbian and Cumane Antiquities that Homer was born 622. years before Xerxes his invasion of Greece circa finem And of Macrobius in Som. Scip. 2. 10. who affirmeth that there is no Greek History extant which mentions any thing of note above 2000. years by-past for beyond Ninus nothing famous is inserted into Books Abhinc ultra duo retrò annorum millia de excellenti rerum gestarum memoriâ nè Graeca quidem exstat historia nam suprà Ninum nihil praeclarum in libros relatum est Now Macrobius lived under Theodosius as Johan Isaac by Joseph Scaliger's indication observes ex codice Theodosiani lib. 6. titulo de praepositis sacri cubiculi And was it seems a Pythagorick Philosopher and yet a Gentleman of that Christian Emperour's Bed-Chamber vide Johan Isaaci notas in Macrobium My desire to
to be not of God's Will as St. Austin de haeresibus affirms Hermes to have thought the ineffable Word to be Filius benedicti Dei bonae voluntatis The Son of the blessed God and his good Will upon which St. Austin thus flouts the Pagan Quaerebas Pagane conjugem Dei audi Mercurium Abjiciatur quaeso ex corde tuo impura pravitas Conjux Dei bona voluntas est Thou demandest of what Wife God begat his Son Let Mercury answer thee Cast I pray thee impure pravity out of thine heart The wife of God is his own good Will of that he begat his Son In the expressing of whose Eternal Generation though the Gentiles spake not by Rule as we do yet they blunder'd out our sence and communicated the Reliques of the Old Tradition of the eldest Nations in such Terms as they could Trismegistus referente Lactantio de vera Religione 4. 6. in his Book entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfect Word The Lord and Creator of all things whom we usually call God begat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the second Person visible and sensible I call him sensible not saith Trismegistus because he hath sence that 's not our business now to resolve but because the Father sends him to reveal himself to the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 parallel to St. Paul's God manifest in the flesh to our Saviours He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also and to St. John's No man hath seen God at any time but the only begotten son who is in the bosom of God he hath reveil'd him Hermes proceeds because therefore he produced him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first and one and alone and because he was pleasing in his sight and full of Grace of all truly good things he sanctified him and loved him exceedingly as his own proper Son Upon which St. Austin hath this Observation Quem primò factum dixit poste à unigenitum appellavit Augustin de 5. haeresibus him whom before he said God made he afterwards calls his Son and begotten This Son of God Trismegistus as he is there quoted by Lactantius de vera Religione l. 4. c. 6. stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Workman and Sibyl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Counceller because by his Councel and Hand he fram'd the World These passages in truth as well in the judgement of Lactantius and St. Austin for he makes the same both quotations and applications of Hermes and the Sibyllines tom 6. de quinque haeresibus are a Transcript of that divine Discourse of Solomon touching Wisdom Prov. 8. 22. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old when he prepared the heavens I was there then was I by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight Trismegistus referent Lactant. l. 4. c. 7. affirms That the Cause of this Cause is the Will of the sacred Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which produced that God God the Son whose name it is not possible for humane mouth to express and a little after speaking to his Son saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is a certain ineffable word of Wisdom of that Lord of all of whom we have preoccupations or preconceptions which to expressis above the power of man This ineffable word Zeno asserts to be the Maker and Governour of the whole World Id. ib. cap. 9. item Tertual apolog contragentes cap. 21. Apud vestros quoque sapientes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est sermonem atque rationem constat artificem videri universitatis Hunc enim Zeno determinat factorem qui cuncta in dispositione formaverit c. § 3. Now that he who is this Light of Light this God-born of the Essence of his Father before all Worlds was in the opinion of the wisest Heathens to become Man for the Redemption of the World to become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mortal in regard of his assumed humane Nature as the Milesian Oracle answered those that enquired whether he were God or man may be evident from the Testimony of the Sibyls and indeed was from thence so clearly evinc'd by the Patriarchs of the Christian Cause as the Adversaries had no place of refuge left but this sorry one That the Verses alledged were not Sibylline but forged by the Christians as long since complain'd St. Austin Quod à sanctis Angelis vel ab ipsis Prophetis nostris habere poterunt quae cùm proferimus à nostris ficta esse contendunt August de consens Evangel lib. 1. c. 20. Tom. 4. pag. 164. b. That which the Sibyls sing touching Christ They might learn either of the holy Angels or the Writings of the Prophets but when we urge Pagans with their Verses they contend that we Christians forged them And before him Constantine in his Oration cap. 19. where he mentions and answers that Calumny In which way of calumniating that most immaculate Spouse of Christ the Primitive Church with a suspicion of the most damnable Adulterations that any Society can be guilty of some of our Modern Criticks have not been afraid nor asham'd to run with the Pagan Wits but with far more excess of impious scorn and to the utter subversion of all rational Belief for if that Church was so far deserted not only of Grace but common Honesty as to forge Sibylline what assurance can we have that she did not forge Divine Oracles I shall therefore first for the preventing of an inundation of Irreligion make up the Bank that has been cut by those too sharp Wits to whom nothing was wanting to render them absolutely and without exception judicious save the learning of the first Lesson in that Science To be wise with Sobriety 1. Lactanctius de vera sapientia 4. 15. would tell these Calumniators that were they as well read as they pretend themselves to be they would never have made this Objection Quod profectò non putabit qui Ciceronem Varronémque legerint aliósque veteres qui Erythraeam Sibyllam caeterásque commemorant quarum exempla proferrimus qui Authores autè obierunt quà m Christus secundùm carnem nasceretur The Verses of the Sibyls which the Church alledged she found quoted in the writings of Tully Varro and other old Writers who were in their Graves before the blessed Babe lay in the Manger Touching Varro the same Father de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 6. gives us this account and therein resolves the Question of Tacitus whether there were more Sibyls than one Annal. 6. An una seu plures fuerint Sibyllae M. Varro than whom never man was more learned either among the Greeks or Latins in those Books which he writ to Caesar the Great Pontiff speaking of the Quindecimviri saith that the Sibylline Books were not the Works of any one Sibyl though they were all called Sibylline because all Women-prophetesses were of the ancients called Sibyls either from the Delphick Prophetess of that name or from their
declaring the Councel of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enim Deos non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they called according to the Aeolick Dialect God Sios not Theos and Counsel not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 biâ—t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thence the Sibyls were so called who were Ten. All whom he reckons up under those Authors who wrote of them severally The first the Persian of whom mention is made by Nicanor who wrote the Gests of Alexander The second Libyssa whom Euripides mentions in Lamiae prologo The third Delphick of whom Chrysippus speaks in his Book of Divination The fourth Cumaea in Italy of whom Nevius in his Punick War and Piso in his annals make mention The fifth Erythraea whom Apollodorus Erythraeus affirms to have been his Citizen and at the Gracians expedition against Troy to have prophesied the overthrow of that City and the lying Pen of Homer The sixth Samia of whom Eratosthenes writes That he had found in the ancient Annals of the Samians that she had prophesied of him The seventh Cumana by name Amalthaea or as some call her Demophile as others Herophile She brought nine Books to Tarquinius Priscus demanding three hundred Philippicks for them a price which the King would not give but taught at the madness of the Woman upon which she burnt three of them in the King's presence and demanded the same price for the remainder at which the King more admired her folly But she persisting upon the same price after she had burnt other three for the three then remaining the King gave it her The number of these Books was increased after the repair of the Capitol because they gathered up and brought to Rome all the Books of any of the Sibyls that could be found either in the Grecian or Roman Cities Vide Tacit. annal 6. The eighth Hellespontica whom Heraclides Ponticus writes to have flourished in the time of Cyrus The ninth Phrygia who prophesied at Ancirae The tenth Tyburtina whose name was Albunea who is worship'd at Tybur as a Goddess The Verses of all these Sibyls are extant and divulged up and down except of Cumana whose Books are conceal'd by the Romans it being unlawful for any to look into them but the Quindecim-viri Their several Books but without distinction of Names saving that Erythraeas Name is inserted in her Verses being more famous and noble than the rest of whose Prophecies Fenestella a most diligent Writer speaking of the Quindecim-viri tells us That C. Curio the Consul made a motion to the Senate that Embassadors should be sent to Erythrae to search out Sibyls Verses and conveigh them to Rome and that P. Gabinius M. Octavilius and L. Valerius being sent upon that errand collected a matter of a thousand Verses out of private Manuscripts Touching Tully's Quotations of the Sibylline Oracles I have spoke before Lib. 1. cap. 9. sect 5. and shall to what I have made there upon that Subject add now these Animadversions That the Sibylline Oracles were not only in being before Christ's time but a moat in the eyes of those who were averse to Monarchy because they were interpreted to point at the erecting an universal Monarchy and to boad that indefinitly and in general before Christ's Incarnation which the Church after his taking of flesh applied to him in particular So as the Church was so far from inventing the Oracles as she did not so much as invent the application of them to the Messias but had that done to her hand by other Heathen Divines who conceived they had respect unto him that was to be born King of the Jews For though I believe the more ancient Times look'd upon them as deliramenta as little better than the dotages of old Women because of their denouncing certain monstrous Miracles without describing either how or when or by whom those things were to be effected of which deficiency both Lactantius after and Cicero before Christs Birth take notice yet when the Eastern Prophecy touching the Messias came to light by means of the Septuagint those Scripture-oracles by their punctual describing of every circumstance gave that light to those more general Sibylline Oracles as they grew formidable to that party that could not endure to hear of a change of the Worlds Government into that form which both of them foretold the rising up of And when the general ones in Sibyl and the more distinct ones of sacred Scripture came to receive their accomplishment their sense grew more plain and the application of them more obvious which till then was unintelligible The voices of the Prophets sounded in the ears of the Jewish people for above fifteen hundred years and yet were not understood till Christ's Doctrine Actions and Passion had commented upon them I do not at all wonder with the learned Dalaeus de usu patr lib. 1. cap. 3. that Ruffinus in zeal to Origen should forge an apology for him under the name of Pamphilus nor that he should father a Treatise of Sextus the Pythagorean Philosopher upon Sixtus the holy Martyr nor that he of whom St. Jerom complains should forge a Letter under his name wherein he makes him confess the Hebrews had by their delusions perswaded him to translate the Bible after that maner he did But rather at his ranking the most ancient Fathers among Forgers for their quoting the Sibylline Oracles and most of all at the reason he gives because Celsus objected that against Christians For had he consulted the place he might have taken notice of Origen's Reply That if Celsus his Epicurism would give him lieve to put himself to the trouble of examining the Authors out of which they made their quotations he would find they did not forge them of their own heads but found them in Authors of high esteem among all Philosophers but those of Celsus his Sect Origen contrà Celsum lib. 7. Calum 16. Besides it is not like that such holy men would support so strong an edifice with so weak a prop of a pious fraud or borrow help from a falshood to evince the Truth If they durst have been so impudently ventrous how easie had it been for their learned Adversaries to have detected the Imposture and silenced the Christian Advocates with reproach and shame as Dr. Heylin in answer to Casaubon Geogr. Marmoricâ pag. 931. If it be question'd how they came into the Christians hands Lactantius inform us out of their own Writers That the Books of all the Sibyls save Cumana were vulgar and in every Man's hand that would reach for them And though Augustus caused a thousand Sibylline Oracles to be burnt which by the number seem to be those very Verses of Erythraea which the Roman Legats collected against which he might perhaps have a pique upon reason of State because of their agreement with that Eastern Oracle which had put the World into those expectations of a change as that wise Prince thought ought not to be cherished as tending toward the keeping of
the unreasonableness by a two-fold Argument related not only by St. Jerom in locum but by our Sir Walt. Rawleigh par 1. l. 3. cap. 1. § 2. of the History of the World viz. 1. The Seventy above an hundred years before Antiochus translated Daniel amongst the rest of the Jewish Prophets And 2. Jaddus the High Priest shewed to Alexander the Great that Vision of Daniel chap. 11. 3. A mighty King shall stand up that shall rule with great dominion c. wherein Alexander is presented as the Subduer of the Persian and Erector of the Grecian Empire as himself applied it Joseph Jud. ant l. 11. c. 8. It had been to small purpose to have shewed Alexander the Book had it been untranslated I therefore upon these Testimonies rest so well assured that the Seventy translated the whole Old Testament as I conceive the discussion of that Question needless and cannot strain my Invention to find out Arguments to convince that Generation of men who have Ignorance or Impudence enough to resist the force of these Authorities the least whereof is able to weigh down all Prejudices to the contrary Howbeit though the Churches Champions had hus baffled Porphyry yet the Jew was glad to take take the like Subterfuge from the dint of this Prophecy by ascribing to Daniel less Authority than to Moses and the Prophets reckoning his Book among the Hagiographa composed by Ezra and his Synagogue And when he was beaten thence he had no way to ward off the force of the Christian's arguing from this Prophecy that our Jesus is the Christ but by this distinction viz. That Daniel's Prophecy as also Zachary's points to a Messiah in all points like to our Jesus A Shepherd that was smitten and not able to save himself or Flock a Messiah that was cut off and ejected out of his Kingdom not able to hold that Kingdom he usurped In Dan. vis 8. non erit ejus populus qui eum negaturus est sive ut illi dicunt non erit illius imperium quod putabat se retenturum whereas Christ the Son of God whom they yet expect is described by the Prophets as asking long Life of God and obtaining it for ever as asking and receiving the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his Possession as one that will make his people willing in the day of his power and will come in that Majesty as shall bear down all opposition before it This Jewish Evasion Broughton quotes out of the Talmud in his Concent of Sacred Scripture anno mundi 3535. A clear acknowledment that Daniel's Text prescribes the Time of the Messias and that that time so exactly sutes the coming of the blessed Jesus as neither Jew nor Gentile durst stand a Dispute with the Christian upon that ground but after some Bravadoes and light Skirmishings retreated to such Boggy and Quagmire-fastnesses as these Why do you urge us with the Authority of Daniel a spurious Prophet whose Book was not writ by him whose Name it bears but by some false Jew saith Porphyry by Esdras's College of Elders say the Jews and when the Jew is beaten hence he grants the Argument yields the Christian his Conclusion and so leaves himself no way to escape a total Rout but over the narrow and slender Bridg of this sorry Distinction Our Scriptures foretell of two Messiasses one base and mean like your Jesus the Son of Joseph the Carpenter another high and mighty the Son of David the King who shall repair the decayed Tabernacle of David and sit upon his Throne for ever These were the desperate shifts which the Defenders of the Christian Faith put the Jews to by their demonstrating out of Daniel's Weeks that the Fulness of Time for the appearance of the Messiah was then come when our Saviour exhibited himself being put to this plunge that they must either confess the Divinity of Christ or deny the Divine Authority of their own Prophetick Books or split in two their Messias whom those Books foretell § 2. To shew the unreasonableness of both these Evasions would fall in more methodically in another place yet that my Reader while he is travelling with me through this Prophecy in search of the Christ may not fall under the least discouraging doubt of the Canonicalness of this Book or under the least fear of finding here a Messias who is not the Son of David as as well as the Son of Joseph and the Son of God as well as the Son of David I shall now remove these stumbling-blocks As to the first Evasion viz. the debasing the Authority of Daniel it was a mere Pretence taken up to blunt the Edge of that Prophecy the Dint whereof the Jew was not able to avoid For before the Christian took that Sword into his hand for the Defence of Christ the Synagogue had as high an esteem of him as any other of the Prophets of whose Faith touching this part of the Old Testament-canon Josephus who lived to see the last hour of Daniel's Weeks expired is an impartial Witness who makes this clear and full Confession antiquit 10. 12. viz. Daniel was a most happy man and a most excellent Prophet and after death obtained eternal Memory for his Books which he left writ are at this day read among us this was in the Reign of Domitian after the accomplishment of Daniel's Weeks being such as give full proof of Gods vouchsafing to have familiar Conference with him For he did not only as other Prophets foretell things to come but define the precise time when they were to fall out which have had that Effect in the certainty of Events as hath procured him credit among all sorts of mortal Men there being those Circumstances in his Writings from whence the certainty of his Prophecies may be more clearly gather'd than from any other of our Prophets For the proof of which having instanc'd in his Vision of the four Beasts in his Prediction of the rising of the Roman Empire and the desolations it was to bring upon the Jewish People he concludes thus All these things being reveiled to him by God he committed to Writing and left to Posterity c. Indeed had Josephus been silent the Book it self speaks Daniel to be the Pen-man of it where the Angel bids him seal the Prophecy which sure was not a Blank which Ezra and his Companions were to fill up Nay the Jews silence Mat. 24. 45. Mar. 13. 14. when Christ quoted Daniel's Prophecy gave Consent that he was the Author of that Book which had they conceived not to have been his Writing but the Tradition of the Elders they would not have failed to have bid our Saviour who had so frequently rebuked them for adhering to Tradition wash his own hands of that Crime which he objected to others Touching their other Subterfuge their distinguishing of Messias a man inferiour to Solomon in Wisdom may judg it a sufficient Evidence that that
modo infidelibus nec Angelis vel bouis vel malis Aquinas sum pa. 3. q. 89. art 7 8. The Judgment of retribution appertains to all the judgment of discussion to believers only neither to Infidels nor Angels either good or bad The holiness of Elect Angels and the impiety of Devils and Infidels is so notorious as they need no discussion He that believes not is condemn'd already Et quoniam de his sententia in absolutionem and cannot be absolv'd and therefore they shall be destroyed from not judged before Christs presence saith Lactant. de divino praemio 7. 20. They shall not stand in judgment Psal. 1. that is of the general day saith Aben Ezra Nos juxta operum nostrorum mensuram judicabit illos verò non judicabit sed arguet condemnatos Jerom in Mic. c. 4. We shall be judged according to our works but Infidels God will not judge but take them up short as condemn'd already Ad judicium non veniunt nec Pagani nec Haeretici nec Judaei c. August Serm. 38. de Sanctis Neither Pagans nor Hereticks nor Jews come into judgment because it is written of them that they are already condemned Alii judicantur pereunt alii non judicantur pereunt alii judicantur regnant alii non judicantur regnant c. Greg. Mag. moral 26. Some are judged and perish viz. the Goats of the Flock some are not judged and perish viz. they that are not of the Flock some are judged and reign viz. the sheep of the Flock some are not judged and reign viz. the Guardians of the Flock Elect Angels c. Qui intrà Ecclesiam mali sunt judicandi sunt damnandi qui verò extrà Ecclesiam inveniendi sunt non sunt judicandi sed tantùm damnandi Isid. Hispal Sent. lib. 1. cap. 27. 3. After the Infidels are thus dispatcht of the method of Gods proceeding with whom I know no Text in the whole Book of God that purposely and plainly speaks but this of Rev. 20. the great white Throne shall be erected for the trial of such as have made Profession of worshipping the one God through the seed of the Woman or of embracing the Covenant of Grace in the various dispensations of it the whole Flock of Christ both Sheep and Goats who shall have allowed them the benefit of the Book the Book of the Covenant and be judged according to the Terms of the Covenant of Grace implied by the white Throne Fideles qui fuerunt saltem numero cives civitatis Dei judicabuntur ut cives Aquin. Sum. 3. q. 90. art 7. Believers who were at least in account the Citizens of the City of God shall be judged as Citizens In order to which Trial the Books are open'd the Books of every mans Conscience as many Books as there are Consciences so as every man shall be his own Judge as to matter of Fact accordingly as his own Conscience shall accuse or excuse St. Jerom in Daniel 7. The judgment shall be set and the books shall be open'd i. e. Conscientiae opera singulorum in utramque partem vel bona vel mala revelabuntur St. Austin de civitat 20. 14. That is Of the Conscience and the works of every man on both sides whether good or bad shall be reveiled Qua fiet ut cuique opera sua cuncta in memoriam revocentur mentis intuitu mirâ celeritate cernentur St. August Serm. 67. de tempore By which opening of the Books of conscience it shall come to pass that every man by the inspection of his mind shall by a strange celerity remember all his works and the Judge the testimony of Conscience standing by shall demand of every man an account of his Life Adstante conscientiae testimonio rationem vitae caeperit postulare Bonaventura Breviloq par 7. cap. 1. Fiet apertio Librorum scilicet Conscientiarum There shall be an opening of the Books to wit of every mans Conscience And for the Trial of Right another Book shall be open'd the Book of Life the Covenant of Grace wherein all mens names are writ by their Qualifications which will only be ponderated then that therein had salvation promis'd them and whosoever is not found to be qualified as that Book describes the Heirs of Life to be shall by the Angels of God after Christ has pronounced the comdemnatory Sentence upon them be gatherd out of Gods Kingdom as tares as things that offend and be cast into the Lake of Fire provided for the Devil and his Angels Hanc omnium revelationem comitatur separatio quae Mat. 25. 32. comparatur separationi pastoris segregantis oves ab haedis hanc separationem excipit sententiae dictio Vossii theses theol disp 15. Thes. 1. 2. 3. After this revelation follows the separation of the Sheep from the Goats and after this separation the Judge pronounceth Sentence § 3. These are my Conjectures as to the Order of Gods proceeding in the day of Judgment my Reasons for my placing the loosing of Satan and the Gogick war and the confusion of both Captain and Army betwixt the Resurrection and Judgment of the Elect or profest Believers I shall now tender before the Churches Tribunal to whose Sentence of approbation or reprobation I am indifferently willing to stand as one that espouses no other interest but that of truth 1. That this going out of Satan to deceive the Nations into an engagement against the holy City will not be till after the Resurrection of the just may be inferr'd from the numerousness of this Heathen-army for multitude as the Sand of the Sea large enough to march upon the breadth of the earth listed out of the four quarters of the earth such a multitude as doubtless shall never be seen together but when the Heathen shall be awaked and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat where God shall sit to judge all the Heathen round about even those multitudes of multitudes in the valley of decision Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whither the Heathen are to come and to gather themselves round about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the conduct of that mighty one whom the Lord will cause thither to come and there bring down Joel 3. 11 12 13 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Warriour shall be tamed 2. Indeed Prophetical terms are not to be stretcht always to the utmost extent of the letter nor in every word to be expounded according to the Literal sence for those burthenous words proceeding from the mouth of God like Bullets do often graze before they reach their utmost mark and spend not all their force where they first light and therefore though particular locall and indeterminate Judgments be denounc'd in words borrowed from and make as great a crack as the last to awaken us to repentance in order to the diverting or procrastinating of the effects yet when through our impenitency we provoke God to inflict them they are
betake our selves to those Testimonies to the truth which they have given Aust. tom 6. fol. 27. Contra Judaeos Paganos c. oratio Convertimus nos ad gentes demonstramus nos etiam gentibus testimonium Christo esse prolatum quoniam veritas non tacuit clamando etiam per linguas inimicorum nonne quando poeta ille facundissimus inter sua carmina dicebat Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur alto Christo testimonium perhibebat And the learned Vives in Aug. de Civitat 10. 27. disproves Servius his application of it to Asinius Pollio as inuring on Virgil the brand of a false Prophet the Civil Wars of Rome long out-lasting his Consul-ship Or that which after his death sang his Epicaedium That which sounded his coming into the world or that that sounded the march to his conquest of the World The Satyrist setting his Trumpet to his mouth and lifting up his voyce to make that crowd of bestial immoralities make way that wholly bid defiance to the sober instructions of the Gospel or the Comick gently distilling those principles of vertue into mens minds as prepared the world for a more ready imbracing of the Royal Law To be sure the masculine poetry of that age ushered Christs doctrine into the Empire as the Baptist did into Judaea for what the Law was to the Jew that the liberal Sciences were to the gentile a School-master to bring them to Christ as Clemens Alexandrinus Stromat 1. affirms and as it were set the game for the net of the Gospel as the same learned Father observes Or as Theons Musicians in Aelian Aelian var. hist. 2. 44. prepared the expectant spectators with their incentive Songs for a more plausible reception of the express Image of the eternal Father riding upon his white horse conquering and to conquer So serviceable was Poetry to the Gospel as St. Paul quotes it thrice in confirmation of the Divine Truth But it would have done it as great disservice had it been the figment of the Apostles brain and not His Poem to use the Apostles phrase Ephes. 2. 10. who gives to man the power of invention and of framing Ideas Sect. 2. It is bad halting we say before a Criple 't is worse counterfeiting before a Poetical age an age so well seen in the art of feigning Homers figments past for truth Hesiods God-births for good Divinity while they singly monopolized the spirit of Poetry and had that spirit elevated to extraordinary degrees of divine heat by the antiperistasis of the coldness of the circumjacent impoetical age wherein they flourish'd but not when all was full of Poets Tully himself then though a knee-worshipper of those Gods yet in heart explodes them that Poet in prose quickly smelt them out to be figments A babe will buss a baby of clouts bewray that innate principle of Idolatry that Pope i' th' belly at the sight of the most rude-drawn picture In the simple age of our fore-fathers it was argument enough with the vulgar to conclude a story true if they had read it in a Ballad It was no demonstration of Apelles his art that he drâ—w Alexanders image so near the life as Bucephalus neigh'd at sight of it Aelian 2. 3. Alexander at Ephesus seeing an image of himself that Apelles had drawn did not praise it to the liking of the Painter who therefore hangs it in the sight of his horse and he neighing at it as he used to do at the sight of his Master Apelles told Alexander he perceiv'd his horse was better skill'd in the art of painting than himself I should rather have concluded it well done had Alexander himself not disprov'd it who was better able to judge of its artificialness than his horse Quid enim vacua rationis animalia arte decepta miremur Valer. Max. 8. 11. It would have been to me no absolute commendation of the Painters art to have seen the Birds pecking at Zeuxes Grapes for I frequently see the like cheat put upon silly fish whom every Boy and Country Swain can have to leap at a made Fly but had I behold Zeuxes in scorn offering to pull aside Parrhasais his painted curtain that the spectaters might take a view of the picture as he supposed behind it I should hardly have refrained those loud applauses of so admirable an Artist as would have scared away the Birds from Zeuxes Grapes The Metaphor from Painters to Poets is not far fetcht The Priâ—â—itive Church must have had as stupendous a degree of daring any thing as Parrhasus If they had a mind to deceive with fables they must devise them so cunningly as the most critical age in the art of devising cannot detect the forgery Had their draught of the way to heaven through the veil been a painted curtain it must have been shadowed with such incomparable dexterity as to cheat with its show of substance and reality an age not of Babes Brutes and Birds but of Painters CAP. III. Our Saviours age too much skill'd in the black-art to be cheated with magick tricks Sect. 1. YOu may surmise perhaps as both Jew and Gentile of old objected that Belzebubs hand was in this draught That they that made the show cast mists before the worlds eyes and by diabolical inchantments fascinated the otherwise clearest sighted spectators Celsus in Origen lib. 1. cal 5. 7. Vide August de consensu Evangel lib. 1. cap. 9. Ita vero isti decipiunt ut in illis libris quos Christum scripsisse existimant dicant contineri eas artes quibus eum putant illa fecisse miracula quorum fama ubique percrebuit Tom. 4. pag. 162. But before whom were these supposed pranks play'd was it not before a generation so well so ill seen quo melior eo deterior in those kinds of arts as he that could have the confidence that way to deceive the world must think himself able as we say to cheat the Divel So famous was Ephesus of old for its skill in the Black-art as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. were proverbially used in the ancient Comicks The forms of whose diabolical mysteries claim as great antiquity as Jove himself for they that rock'd him in his cradle the Idaei Dactyli were the inventors of the six Ephesian charming words as Clemens Alexandrinus testifieth Stromat 1. 5. 18. and in our Saviours time were grown to that bulk as the price of the Books writ upon that subject found then in one City and in the hands of those Citizens that were converted amounted to 50000 pieces of Silver which summ whether it amount to 9000 French Crowns as Calvin or but 8700 as Beza computes and the Independent brethren plead in their reasons against the Presbyterians inference from the Church of Ephesus or to more as the Presbyterians urge in their answer for they are ever for the greatest summ is one of those many fruitless endless questions with which as with knotty wedges the now Church has been cleft in
his Exhortatory to the Gentiles or Eusebius who in his Praeparatory to the Gospel or Theodoret who in his Books of the Affections of the Greeks write that Plato did translate many things into his out of Moses his Books When Numenius the Philosopher stiles Plato the Moses of Greece 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is Plato but Moses speaking in the Attick Dialect Vives in Aust. de civit lib. 8. cap. 11. God planting his word in Judaea the Center of the habitable Earth left all men without excuse who by natural Sentiments finding a Dearth at home did not travel thither to buy Corn so that it is not to be wondred at that inquisitive men should come out of all Nations and hang upon the Skirts of the Jews But towards the rising of the Sun of Righteousness the day Star of the Septuagint arose in the sight of the Gentile Empire Temple light confining it self no longer to that Kingdom of Priests diffused its beams not faintly through the Crannies of verbal Tradition to a few but in their full Lustre to all through its Windows made by this Translation as wide on the out-side as the material Temples were on the inside So that those Scriptures of Moses and the Prophets to which the Apostles appeal'd for the proof of what they taught had been for some hundreds of Years made common to Gentiles and in every man's hand that listed to read them by which means the World is put into a capacity to try by that Touch-stone of what Metal the Gospel was A way of tryal it would never have â—ood to much less have called for had it been conscious to it self of the least Adulterate Mixtures Is it possible by false transcribing to put a cheat upon that man that has the Original in his custody Why the Old Testament is the Original draught of the Messiah The Gospel pretends it self to be the Transscript of that Original And therefore had the Serpent intended to have cheated the World by a false Copy he would have taken Pen in hand before the time of the Apostles before the Original Deed had come to its hands This Argument that never sufficiently praised Apologist for the Christian Faith Tertullian as his use is pithily and strenuously presseth to the Conscience of the Gentiles Apol. advers gentes cap. 18. Nec istae nunc latent Ptolemaeorum eruditissimus quem Philadelphum supranominant omnis literaturae sagacissimus cum studio bibliothecarum Pisistratum ut opinor aemularetur inter caetera memoriarum quibus aut vetustas aut curiositas aliqua ad famâ—m protrocinabatur ex suggestu Demetrii Phalerei grammaticorum tunc probatissimi cui praefecturam mandaverat libros ae Judaeis quoque postulavit proprias scilicet vernaculas literas quas soli habebant Sed ne notitia vacaret hoc quoque Ptolemaeo 〈◊〉 Judaeis subscriptum est sepâ—uaginta duobus interpretibus indultis quos Menedemus quoque Philosophus providentiae vindex de sententiae communione suspexit Affirmavit haec quoque vâ—bis Aristaeus ita in Graecum stilum ex aperto mâ—nimenta reliquit Hodie apud Serapaeum Ptolemaei bibliothecae cum ipsis Hebraicis literis exhibentur Sed Judaei palam lectitant vectigalis libertas vulgo aditur sabbatis omnibus qui audierit inveniet Deum qui etiam studuerit intelligere cogetur credere The Old Testament Scriptures wherein is laid up the treasure of the whole Jewish and from thence of our Religion Quibus the saurus totius Judaici sacramenti collocatus inde etiam nostri Id Ib. paulo inferius are now divulged For the most learned of the Ptolemy ' s Sur-named Philadelphus a diligent inquirer after all kind of literature emulating as I suppose Pisistratus his Library among other memorials which either their Antiquity or rareness commended to publick Fame upon the suggestion of Demetrius Phaleraeus whom he appointed Library-keeper required of the Jews those Books that were writ in their Mother Tongue and no where extant but in their own custody alone But that the World might no longer be destitute of the knowledge of them the Jews yield to Ptolemy ' s request and give Licence to Seventy two Interpreters to translate their Bible for whom Menedemus the Philosopher Menedemus non ille Cynicus Coloti Lampsaceni Discipulus sed Socraticus Phaedonis filius Josep autiq 12. 3. Not the Cynick who was the Scholar of Colotus Lampsacenus but the Son of Phaedon and the Disciple of Socrates that defender of the Doctrine of Providence by reason of those Scriptures agreement with his Opinion had a very great respect Aristaeus also hath affirmed to you these things having left manifest Memorials thereof in Greek Hieron prefat in pentateucham Aristaeus Ptolemaei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the Procounaesian whom Strabo condemns as a fabulous and jugling Historian who lived in the Reign of Cyrus and in the fabulous age of Greece though Josephus Eusebius and others stile this man Aristeus Franc. Junii not in locum Tertulliani Ptolemy ' s Library together with the Hebrew Scripture which they translated is at this day to be seen in the Temple of Serapis Serapium templum it a exornatum ut post capitolium nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosues cernat in quo bibliothecae fuerunt inaestimabiles septuaginta voluminum millia Ptolemaeis regibus vigiliis intentis composita bello Alexandrino dum diripitur civitas sub Dictatore Caesare conflagrasse Am. Marcellin lib. 22. The Temple of Serapis so beautified as next to the Capitol the whole world affords not a more stately Piece wherein were Libraries of inestimable value and 70000. Volumes gather'd together by the two Ptolemies was burnt in the Alexandrian War when Caesar was Dictator yet through special Providence if not the whole Library yet at least the Hebrew Testament which the Seventy translated into Greek escaped the fire as is manifest from this Appeal of Tertullian to that Hebrew Copy And if you be unwilling to go so far to inform your selves in the truth of these things 〈◊〉 you may have assurance of it at home for in Rome the Jews read this Translation publickly and as long as they pay their Composition for enjoying this liberty the Vulgar repair every Sabbath to their Synagogues where he that hears may find the true God and he that labours to understand what he hears cannot chuse but become a Christian. § 2. The learned Scaliger with-holds assent to this so currant Story of the Ptolemaean Version conceiving that book of Aristaeus out of which Josephus and from him the Fathers borrowed that story to have been feigned by some Grecizing Jew to get the greater Reverence and Authority to that Translation Scalig. animadvers in Eusebium ad an 1234. We will consider his reasons not so much for the weight of them as for the esteem of the Author to whose inestimable parts some perhaps may not think fit to cast in that Allay which the judicious and impartial
Doctor Heilin mixeth with them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but of equal arrogance Heilin Belgium 362. pag. and importance of the effect for it upon every slight critical exception we suffer the credit of those generally approved Historians whose fidelito has pass'd for current and gained the prescription of so many Ages who had better means of detecting the falsity 〈◊〉 we have and as much honesty to put them upon the improvement of those means we shall at the long run turn all faith out of doors except it be of this Article that every modern Mercury is Trismegistus ter maximus omnia solus One with whom wisdom was born and shall dye Job 12. Scaliger's First Objection Hermippus in Diogenes Laertius affirms that Demetrius Phalereus whom Aristeus brings in as the procurer of this Translation was so far out of favour with Ptolemy Philadelphus for perswading his father to dis-inherit him as in the beginning of his Reign he banish'd him what can therefore be more improbable than the report of Aristaeus Answer 1. Should we grant to Hermippus in Diogenes an equality of Authority to Aristaeus in Josephus which to him that considers the disproportion either of time or place betwixt Josephus and Diogenes will seem a very unequal Match yet this would not prejudice the story of Aristaeus as to that Circumstance the learned Critick cavils at If we weigh what Anatolius Bishop of Laodicea affirms in Eusebius Eus. ec Hist. 7. 31. where commending Aristobulus he saith he was one of them who were sent to translate the sacred Scripture of the Hebrews unto the gracious Princes Ptolemaeus Philadelphus and his father Am. Marcellinus also useth the plural number Ptolemaeis regibus vigiliis intentis composita lib. 22. which passages as they fully reconcile the seeming contradictions of the Fathers in their Computations of the time of this Version St. Jerom and Eusebius placing it in the beginning of Philadelphus Irenaeus attributing it to Ptolemy Lagi and Clemens Alexandrinus questioning to whether of them it should be referred are not adverse but divers expressions of the same date viz. the later end of Lagi his Reign in the two last years whereof his Son was his Colleague So it clearly solves the Objection for after Lagi his death possibly Philadelphus at the beginning of his Reign alone might bannish Demetrius and yet in the beginning of his Reign with his Father be so far from discovering his displeasure against him as to hide his grudge from his Father's apprehension whom he could not but think would stand betwixt Demetrius and harm he might very well put him upon that imploy about his Library which was like enough to take up all the thoughts of so bookish a Man and to divert them from being imploy'd about the securing of himself from that fatal stroke he intended for him as soon as his Shield was taken away as soon as the days of mourning for his Father should come But to put it beyond all doubt that the Translation was forwarded by Demetrius Phalereus under Lagi Clemens Alexandrinus states it thus the Scriptures of the Law and Prophets were translated as men say in the Reign of Ptolemy Lagi or as some say in the time of Philadelphus cum maximam ad eam rem contulisset diligentiam Demetrius Phalereus ut verterentur vehementer procurasset after that Demetrius Phalereus had to wit under Lagus used a great deal of diligence towards the effecting of that thing Clem. Storm 1. 110. As if this sagacious and most learned Father had so many hundreds of Years before smelt Scaligers Objection Answer 2. But to answer thus from the Allegation of this Laodicean Bishop may seem to some to have too much of the Laodicean temper in it to be too luke-warm a Reception of so hot a Charge against so great an Authority as the story of the Septuagint comes armed with to gratifie therefore the just Zeal of them that are of that perswasion let us weigh the opposed Testimonies in an equal Ballance In one Scale we find Hermippus in the other Aristaeus say they yet hang in an equal poyse jam sumus ergo pares I can give free lieve hitherto to suspend assent Let then the overweight that is cast into both these Historians cast the Scales 1. The voucher for Hermippus is Diogenes Laertius who about the ear of Christ 145. wrote the Lives of the heathen Philosophers an Author of good credit and judgment where he writes intentionally but every occasional dash of his Pen as this was touching the Septuagint cannot seem with intelligent persons to be of credit sufficient to dash out the authority of Josephus who voucheth Aristaeus his story and not only lived nearer the time of this transaction by almost an hundred years but upon the place where the chief part of it was perform'd a man so peculiarly qualified by all helps imaginable for the giving a full and faithful account of the Jewish affairs as he that knows how well skill'd he was in their Antiquities and how free he stood under the protection of the Roman Emperours and of his own Judgment being a Pharisee and Priest in Judaea and therefore not of the Alexandrian Interest of any temptation to flatter the Jew in general much less the Alexandrian and Greecizing faction and how accurately he discharged that part of the Jewish History the matter whereof fell under the ocular inspection of men then living when he put it forth in so much as Agrippa for his part gives him those Testimonies Josephi vita It appears by thy Writings that thou needest no information in any of these things whereof thou writest and again I have read thy Book wherein thou seemest to me to write History more accurately than any man else And how strenuously he maintains against Appion's Cavils his History of the Jewish Antiquities proving the truth of those passages against which Appion excepts by the Testimony of those Witnesses whom the Graecians themselves esteem most worthy of belief Cont. App. lib. 1. And the self-contradiction of those were alledged against the truth of this History And how well he vindicates against Justus his exceptions his History of the Jewish wars not only in retail but in gross appealing to common sence to judg whether of them were more like to hit the mark of truth Justus who did not publish his History until twenty Years after the writing of it when those Caesars King Agrippa and Captains that managed the Wars were deceased or himself who out of consciousness to the truth of his own History dedicated and delivered it into those Emperour's hands through whose hands the Affairs had past which he wrote of and in whose custody were kept the Journals of all those Proceedings He I say that knows these things and hath the Art to judg of Hercules by his foot or rather of his foot by his body will think that Josephus came not short of the mark he set himself in his Writings exprest thus
Custody he was in under Lysias Felix and Festus being so ragingly mad that they could not fasten their Teeth upon him as they attempt to take him by force out of the Guards hand that Lysias had set upon him to prevent their tearing him in pieces Act. 21. 3. and 23. 10. set twenty Couple of Blood-hounds in lurch to kill him if they can but inveigle him out of the Castle-gates Act. 23. 13 15. and 25. 3. They would certainly bark at the length of his Chain at Rome and do their utmost to shorten it and bring him to a speedy Trial to make his Answer very early in Nero's fifth year as Dr. Lightfoot states it St. Jerome puts this past all doubt when speaking of the Acts of the Apostles he saith Cujus historia usque ad biennium Romae commoranti Paulo pervenit id est usque ad quartum Neronis annum ex qua intelligimus in eadem urbe librum esse compostum Jeron de viris illustribus Lucas St. Luke ' s History reacheth to St. Paul ' s two years imprisonment at Rome that is to the fourth year of Nero whereby we understand that that Book of the Acts of the Apostles was writ at Rome § 4. Which being premised it remains that in the Second place I show that at that Time St. Paul appear'd before Nero he was so far from being visibly stain'd with Acts of Cruelty as his Quinquennium for the Justice of it past into a Proverb The Emperour Titus was wont to say that the best Princes exceeded not Nero's first five years Seneca in his Book de clementia gives him during those years this Encomium Potes hoc Caesar praedicare audacter omnium quae in fidem tutelámque venerunt nihil per te neque vi neque clam Reipublicae ereptum nulli adhuc principum concessam concitpisti innocentiam nemo unus homo uni homini tam charus unquam fuit quà m tu populo Romano magnum longúmque ejus bonum Thou maist boldly Caesar publish this that of all those things which have been committed to thy trust thou hast not either by violence or fraud robb'd the Common-weal of the least of them and thou hast coveted a thing which hath not been granted to any of thy Predecessors to carry thy self innocently neither was any one man so dearly beloved of one man as thou art of all the people of Rome being their great and lasting good during which time though he was a bad Man yet he was a good Emperour The Circean Cup of Court Delicacies had early metamorphos'd him into a beast of Epicurus his Stie wallowing in all manner of Bestial Sensuality but he was not as yet grown up into so fierce tearing and bloody a Beast as to merit the name of a Lion He was suspected indeed to enter like a Fox to have been accessorie to his Mother Agrippinas poysoning of Claudius in that he was wont to call Mushroms the meat of the Gods because by them impoyson'd his Predecessors had been translated into the number of the Immortals And he was principal in the Murther of Germanicus but was so far from avouching that Act as he would have the Poyson prepared in his own Closet Cubiculum Caesaris juxta decoquitur Tacit. annal 13. 180. and obliged his Shee instrument to secresie by the trible Bond of Donatives Threats and Promises Suet. Nero 33. and cast over it the Cloak of this Pretence That the suddenness of his Brother-in-law's death was to be laid to the charge of an Apoplexy which to his knowledge he had been troubled with from his Cradle Tacit. annal 13. 181. Nay so far was Nero from reigning yet visibly like a Lion as Tacitus affirms that the death of Julius Silanus was procured by his Mothers craft without his knowledge and Narcissus his against his will the only persons besides Germanicus whose death as unjustly procured is bewail'd by the Historians of that part of his Reign Ignaro Nerone per dolum Agrippinae Ad mortem agitur invito Principe Id. ibid. 176. Yea so tender would he then seem of shedding Blood as he never signed the most just Condemnation of any Malefactor till the last of his five first years was almost expired without regret and repeating his wonted Wish Vtinam nescirem literas Would God I had never learnt to write Sueton. Nero 10. So artifically did he dissemble or his Tutors Barrha and Seneca divert his Natural inclination to Cruelty which they perceived would not be tamed by love of Vertue by giving way for the more free vent of his amorous Passions laying his bloody Mars asleep in the bosom of his bucksom Venus Tac. ann 13. quo faciliùs si virtutem aspernaret voluptatibus concessis retinerent as all men conceived good hopes of him that after he had allaid the Edge of his juvenile Salacity he would prove an excellent Prince This was the sence which the World then had of Nero and thus the Opinion of the Primitive Church exprest by Eusebius Eccles. hist. 2. 22. that St. Paul made his first Apology before him in that first part of his Reign while he was milder both in Affection and Carriage than he proved afterwards And St. Jerome de viris iliustr is right in that Note he makes Sciendum autem in prima satisfactione necdum Neronis imperio stabilito nec in tanta scelerae irrumpente quanta de eo narrant historiae St. Paul ' s first appearance before him was when his Empire not being establish'd he had not run into those wickednesses which Histories tell of him that is it was before he grew so outragious as to deserve the name of a Lion for his Cruelty or upon any other imaginable account but for his being in his own Conceit an Anti-Lion to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Can we then imagine that Nero would let go his hopes so deeply imprinted before he had canvast and heard what the Jews could say against what St. Paul alledged for proof of this that Jesus of Nazareth is King of the Jews Would not Poppaeas Zeal ingage her to muster up all the force she could possibly raise of malicious Jews to enter the lists and confute Christ's Champion on this ground which if they let him win and make good against them they must bid an eternal Vale to their admired Law and Temple and bow their stubborn knees to that crucified God whom they so much despised And if that command she had over Caesar's Affections so sovereign as Tacitus undertakes from that Topick to vindicate him from the Aspersion cast on him by some that he wilfully kick'd her out of his to make her bed in the Grave Tacit. an 16. 246. Poppaea mortem obiit fortuitâ mariti iracundiâ à quo gravida ictu calcis afflicta est neque enim venenum crederem quia amori uxoris obnoxius erat had not been fee enough to bribe him against St. Paul yet sure the pleasure he took in rolling
built the two Books De miraculis Martyrum writ by Gregory Turonensis who shuts up his first Book thus It behoves us therefore to desire the Patronage of Martyrs c. and his second thus We therefore well considering those Miracles may learn that it is not possible to be saved but by the help of Martyrs and other Friends of God But Simeon Metaphrastes deserves the Whet-stone from all that ever professed this holy Art of Lying for the advantage of Truth who notwithstanding that in his Preface to the strange Romance of Marina he blames others for forging Stories of the Saints and polluting their true Memorials with most evident Doctrines of Devils and Demoniacal Narratives yet himself splits upon the same Rock and so Shipwracks his Credit with all Intelligent Persons as Baronius himself is ashamed of him in notis ad martyrologium Roman Jul. 13. I need not multiply Instances the World swarms with lying Legends Their avowed Doctrine of Mental Reservation of Equivocation to promote the Cause of Religion casts up as wide a Gulf betwixt Gospel-Tradition and theirs as is betwixt Heaven and Hell the God of Truth and the Father of Lyes Quomodo Deus Pater genuit filium veritatem sic Diabolus genuit quasi filium Mendacium August 42. tract in Johan 8. 44. these introduc'd by Persons that account it meritorious of Heaven to forge the grossest Fables so it be in service of the Church which the Apostle calls speaking Lyes in Hypocrisie 1 Tim. 4. 2. vide Meed in locum Those publish'd by Men who less fear'd dying than lying who chose rather to suffer the cruellest Death to lay themselves obnoxious to the Calumnies of captious Adversaries through their Parasie their Freedom of Speech then to tell the most innocent and officious Lye and therefore the unlikeliest Men in the World to abuse the World with Figments and devised Stories and Persons from whose Hand a Man might with more safety and security have taken a Cup suspected to have Poyson in it than a Cup of Wine from the Hand of the most Divine Philosoper as Apollodorus said of Socrates in comparison of Plato Athenaeus dyprosoph l. 11. c. 22. Christian Religions APPEAL To the BAR of Common Reason c. The Second Book The Apostles were not themselves deluded no Crack'd-brain Enthusiasticks but Persons of most composed Minds CHAP. I. The Gospel's Correspondency with Vulgar Sentiments § 1. The Testimony of the Humane Soul untaught to the Truth of the Christian Creed in the Articles touching the Unity of the Godhead his Goodness Justice Mercy The Existence of wicked Spirits § 2. The Resurrection and Future Judgment Death formidable for its Consequences to evil Men No Fence against this Fear proved by Examples § 3. In hope of future Good the Soul secretly applauds her self after virtuous Acts. This makes the Flesh suffer patiently § 1. WHat Exception can be made against so impartial a Relation of Men possessed with such a mortal Detestation of Forgery made to an Age so well accommodated against Delusion by all internal and external Fortifications imaginable cannot in my shallow Reason be conjectured except it be that of Celsus and his Modern Epicurean Disciples That the Apostles themselves were deluded or which is worse infatuated For who but raving and dementate Persons would have ventured to put off Adulterate Wares to so knowing an Age But then how could they have framed the Doctrine and History of Christ in such a Decorum in so exact a Symmetry of Parts not only among themselves but to the great World as Lactantius argues Abfuit ergò ab iis fingendi voluntas astutia quià rudes fuerunt quis possit indoctus apta inter se cobaerentia fingere cùm Philosophorum doctissimi ipsi sibi repugnantia dixerint haec enim est mendaciorum natura ut coherere non possint illorum autèm traditio quià vera est quadrat undique ac sibi tota consentit ideò persuadet quià constanti ratione suffulta est Lactant de justicia lib. 5. cap. 3. The Apostles had neither Will to feign nor any crafty Design upon the World because they were plain Men and what illiterate Man can have the Art to make Fictions square to one another and hang together seeing the most learned of the Philosophers have spoke things jarring amongst themselves for this is the Nature of Untruths that they cannot be of a Piece But the Tradition of the Apostles because it is true one part falls out even with another and it agrees perfectly with it self and therefore gains upon Mens Minds because it is underpropp'd with that stedfast reason and on every side Squares with Principles of Reason Origen useth this Argument Cont. Cels. l. 3. willing him to consider if it were not the Agreeableness of the Principles of Faith with common Notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that prevailed most upon all candid and ingenuous Auditors of them For how can that be the Figment of deluded Fancies the issue of shatter'd Brains that 's so well shap'd as it bears a perfect Proportion to and Correspondency with whatsoever hath had the common Approbation of Mankind Being calculated 1. To the Meridian of common Sentiments to the Universal Religion of the whole World to the Testimony of every natural Soul to whose Evidence Christian Religion appeals by her Advocate Tertullian in his admirable Treatise De Testimonio Animae I call in saith he a new kind of Witness yet more known than any Writing more tost than all Learning more common than any Book that 's put forth greater than whole Man that is the All that is of Man Come into the Court Oh Soul whether thou beest Divine and Eternal as most Philosophers think and by so much the rather not capable of telling a Lye Or not Divine but Mortal as Epicurus thinks and so much the rather thou oughtest not to lye for Fear of distracting thy self at present with the Guilt of so Inhumane a Vice whether thou art received from Heaven or conceived of Earth whether thou art made up of Numbers or Atoms whether thou commences a being with the Body or art infused after the Body from whencesoever and howsoever thou makest Man a Rational Creature most capable of Sense and Science But I do not retain thee of Council for the Christian such as thou art when after thou hast been formed in the Schools and exercised in Libraries thou belchest forth that Wisdom thou hast obtained in Aristotle's Walks or the Attick Academies No I appeal to thee as thou art raw unpolish'd and void of acquired Knowledge such a one as they have that have only a bare Soul such altogether as thou comest from the Quarry from the High Way from the Looms I have need of thy Unskilfulness for when thou growest never so little crafty all men suspect thee I would have thee bring nothing with thee into this Court but what thou bringest with thy self into Man but
secure my Reader from stumbling at the Objection of Celsus and to shew him the validity of that Reply which the maintainers of the Christian Cause return'd to it hath forc'd me to this Digression from the pursuit of that Argument I was producing to prove the consonancy of our Faith with the approved Maxims of Philosophy drawn from each sides claiming the Primogeniture and pleading that theirs was the First-born It being therefore manifest by the confession of both parties that Christianity and Philosophy agree in their Maxims I shall take this as a Supersedeas from that toylsom labour of collecting the several parcels of Christian Verity out of the vast Ocean of Secular Authors on whose surface they lay scatter'd the gathering up whereof is compared by Clemens Alexand. Stromat 1. to the setting together again of Pentheus dismember'd limbs and requires more reading and a stronger memory than I dare pretend to being not only of a courser Clay but wanting the helps which those learned Fathers had whom Tertullian Testimon animae cap. 1. affirms to have evidenced to the World by an enumeration of Particulars that Christian Religion propounds nothing new or portentous but for which it hath the suffrage of Humane Learning and Pagan Writers A Province so well administred by St. Clemens of old and the incomparable Lord of Plessai of late as renders it a needless work for me I shall therefore only instance in two or three such heads of Christian Doctrine which I have not observed others to have spoken of as approach nearest to the Foundation and are vulgarly reputed opposite to the Dictates of Philosophy yet have been attested to by Philosophers § 2. 1. That man in order to his being happy must be restored to Communion with and Conformity unto God is the Assertion of the Platonicks as well as us Christians Plotinus that most refined mouth of Plato as one St. Austin lib. 3. Academ quest stiles him who had more insight into Philosophy than a thousand of our modern Blatterers In his first Book de dubiis animae writes thus Father Jove pittying labouring Souls made the bonds wherein they were held solvable and allowed them some interval breathings and intermissions wherein they might live from their Bodies and from that of themselves which they had contracted by converse with their Bodies and sometimes be there where the Soul of the World is always taking no thought of these inferiour things vide Jamblicum de mysteriis tit Via ad felicitatem The ground of this Sentiment he might have had from his master Plato who in his Timaeus distils from his pen these golden drops while the soul lives below God she meets with nothing but turbulency and uncertainty the perfect print of Solomon's seal of his vanity and vexation of spirit She must therefore fly to her native Countrey expressed to the life in St. Paul's having our conversation in Heaven But where shall we have a Passage-boat How shall I make my flight thither There is but one expedit and certain way to wit becoming conformable unto God A main point of Christian Philosophy which his foresaid Scholar thus comments upon Plotin de contemplat All beatitude flows from our contemplating that best and fairest Father whereby our souls bidding farewel to the body and freed from drudgery enjoys in that mean while that happiness which the soul of the Universe enjoys eternally and without intermission No man can attain to an happy life that does not in the purity of chast love adhere to that one best Good the inocmmutable God With the like Doctrine Plato in his Convivio feasts his guests ears A blessed man by the inspection of the Divine Pulcritude not only produceth but nourisheth in himself not only appearances and shadows but real and substantial Vertues such as lively express him whom we contemplate Was ever any thing said by Christian Theologues more resembling our Philosophy than these Platonick Dictates Compare those with the Evangelical Notions of being changed into the same Image by beholding the glory of God c. and then say if they make not as perfect an harmony as if these lessons had been set by the same Master Now whether God did ever hang out to the World a more lively Picture of himself than him whom the Apostle stiles the express Image of his Father's Person or did ever throw out a stronger cord of love to knit men's affections to himself than the Son of his love I dare refer to the determination of Philosophy it self after I have discussed some other Maxims common to that and Christianity § 3. 2. The Original Tradition of the all-comprehending Evangelical Promise The seed of the woman shall break the head of the Serpent that grain of Mustard-seed whence grew the tall Tree of the whole Gospel that Rose of Sharon in the bud which in process of time dilated its leaves to their full dimensions deliver'd to the World by Noah that Preacher of Righteousness was not wholly obliterated out of the memory of the Gentile-World That it still retain'd the Tradition of Man's Apostacy from God appears from Celsus In Orig. lib. 6. cal 20. his quoting Pherecides for bringing in the Serpent Ophioneus as heading a Party against Saturn the father of all the Gods and therefore cast down with his followers out of Heaven and bound in chains From Aelian's reporting Var. hist. 3. 1. that the Serpent which Apollo slew had usurped the place of the Divine Oracle a plain intimation of his presuming to wrest Gods Oracles and of his setting up his own in their room in his conference with Eve The same Author in his description of Tempe in the story of Python gives us a perfect prospect of Eden into which the Serpent had insinuated himself and where he received his deaths wound his fatal doom Erithraea quoted by Lactantius de orig erroris lib. 2. the greatest part of whose writings are repositories of the old Tradition turns this part of Moses his History into Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man was form'd by God's hand but being seduc'd by the Serpents guile be became obnoxious to death and learn'd to know good and evil Hyginus in his Poetic astronom titul Serpens quotes Pherecides speaking of golden Apples of a Serpent set by Juno to watch her Orchard of a Serpent which the Giants in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set upon Minerva and thrown by her to among the Stars Manifest prints of the old Tradition Indeed the corrupt Matter issuing from the Wound was a dayly Monitor to humane kind that it had been struck with the Serpents poysonful sting and therefore it is hardly conceivable that they should wholly lose the Tradition of the Remedy the Memory of that soveraign Plant which would cleanse and heal them Though through the vanity of men's minds and the craft of those who made themselves Lords over their Faith on purpose that they might settle
Taurican Chersonesus who sacrificed all the Strangers they could lay hands on to Diana quoting for this Enripedes That pair-royal of Friends Pylades and Orestes had died no other death if they had slain their Keepers and stolen away the Goddess Lucian Toxaris The next whom Clemens instanceth in are the Thessalians among whom the Inhabitants of Pella sacrifice an Achaean to Releus and Chiron for which he quotes Maninius in his Collection of Wonders The Cretensians among whom the Lycians sacrifice men to Jupiter for this he quotes Anticlides in reditibus The Lesbians who as Dosidas saith pacified Bacchus with humane Hostes. The Phocensians whom Pythocles in his third Book de Concordia affirms to have sacrificed Men to Diana Taurica The Athenians among whom as Demaratus writes in his first Book of Tragical Things Ericthonius for the pacifying of Proserphone sacrificed his own Daughter And the Romans among whom as Dorotheus relates in his fourth Book of the Affairs of Italy Marius sacrificed his Daughter Diis Averruncanis To the Gods that expel mischief Lactantius de falsa Relig. lib. 1. cap. 21. proves this to have been an ancient Custom in Italy to precipitate Men from the Milvian Bridge for the appeasing Saturn's wrath out of Ovid's in Fastis quotannis Tristia Leucadio sacra peracta Deo And to sacrifice to the same God their own Children After whose Dialect Micah 6. 7. the Prophet introduceth apostate Judah querying Shall I give my first born for my trangression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul to which the Spirit returns this pat answer He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what the Lord requires of thee viz. to do justly and love mercy neither of which can be done in this barbarous inhumanity to thy own Bowels and to humble thy self to walk with thy God not to outrun God in thy hastening to bring forth a Saviour before the fulness of Time c. In the same place the same Lactantius relates out of Poscennius Festus this Story That the Carthaginians being overcome by Agathocles King of Sicily and conceiving that to be the effect of God's displeasure against them for the rendring of Heaven propitious sacrificed two hundred Noblemens Sons Of the same bran saith he are the Rites of the Mother of the Gods whose Priests attone her with the Blood of their Genitals and of Bellona wherein her Priests lance and slash their own shoulders with Swords which they carry in both their hands as they run like frantick men about her Altars the very same Oratory which the Priests of Baal used who in their contest with Elijah when he lent a deaf ear to the sound of their Prayers lifted up to him the voice of their blood as that they doubted not but would obtain for them a favourable audience Herodotus in his Euterpe pag. 128. relates how at Busiris in the Festivals of Isis after the Sacrifice the whole Company being many thousands lash themselves till blood come and that in Papremis the Company that assemble to worship the Deity of that place fall together by the ears and wound yea kill one another Dion Roman histor lib. 43. reports that Julius Caesar to propitiate Mars caused to be sacrificed to him two of those Mutineers who raised a commomotion in the Camp because of Caesar's Prodigality in his exhibiting showes and Plays to the Senate and People grudging that so much water should run beside their Mill for which he saith he had neither Sibylline nor any other express Oracle but only Custom Pliny lib. 36. writes that the Moors sacrificed Men to Hercules others say to Saturn as Plato by name in his Minoe and Dionysius Halicarnassus as also Theodoritus Cyrenaeus Tacitus de moribus Germanorum saith That the Germans do on certain stated days appease Mercury with humane Sacrifices That the Semnones the most ancient Stock of the Suevians on certain anniversary holy Days meet together in a sacred Grove and begin the solemnity of the day with sacrificing a man for the Common Good for so I translate his caeso publicè homine That the Reudigni Aviones Angli Varini Eudoses Snardones Nucthones in the service they perform'd to the Mother of Gods whom they call Hertham that is Earth the very English of the Grecian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drowned those that had officiated in the Procession The same Historian Tacitus an 14. fol. 207. tells us that Suetonius Paulinus at the taking of the Ifle of Man found Groves devoted there to bloody Superstition for they used to sacrifice Captives at their Altars and to look into their inwards by way of Auguration Dictys Cretensis who was comrade to Idomenoeus in the Trojan War wrote a Journal of that War which Paxis presented to Nero and Septimius Romanus translated into Latin in which Treatise de Bell. Troj lib. 1. we are told that for the appeasing of Dianas displeasure against Agamemnon for slaying the Hart that was feeding in her Grove his Daughter Iphigenia was required in sacrifice Upon this ground Euryphylus in Virgil perswades the Grecians when they were returning from Troy to appease the angry Deity with humane Blood with the blood of Polixena Aeneid lib. 2. Sanguine placastis ventos virgine caesa Cùm primùm Iliacas Danai venistis ad auras Herodotus Melpomene relates how the Getes the most morallized of all the Scythians send every year to their God Zamolxis a Man whom they had first sacrificed And how the Messagetes immolate in their old Age all Persons of note counting none happy but them that die that kind of death Herod Clio. And lastly how the whole Scythian Nation do sacrifice to Mars whom they esteem the chief God one of every hundred Captives whose Blood they gather into a Basin and with it besmear a Fauchion which with them is the Idol or Representation of Mars Herodot Melpomene This Custom reached to the farthest Western Nations as Plutarch de superstitione observes who if they had Children of their own sacrificed them to Saturn if not bought other mens Children to that purpose as men buy Lambs or Chickens While they were sacrificing their Mothers were to stand by and look on who if they shewed any sign of sorrow they were ever after accounted opprobrious persons Yea as far as the then reputed World's end Hercules Pillars as Timaeus the Historian affirms in his rebus Deliacis for the Inhabitants near to those Pillars saith he use to sacrifice their Kinsfolks if they reach the seventieth year Strabo lib. 11. reports that in Albania a Country near the Caspia◠Sea they used to sacrifice to the Moon their supreme Deity those of their initiated servants that had most of that Goddess in them after they had been sumptuously feasted a whole year before These two last I report upon the Credit of Natalis Comes Mytholog l. cap. 17. de victimis not out of penury for to the best of my knowledge there is not an old Historian extant that gives
thinking they were God's But the Jews are forc'd to homage them whom they knew were no Gods and therefore were holy to these their new Lords after a peculiar way of seperation and different from all the People in the World Henceforth their holy Lamps and Book of their Law must be deposited among the Gentiles in their Metropolis and perhaps in the Emperour's Palace that all Nations upon the Earth might vindicate God's severity against the Fedifrages and proclaim the Equity of his Ways after a Perusal of the Covenant betwixt God and them That the Gentiles might be lighten'd to the acknowledgment of that Lord Christ whom the Jews had rejected to whom Lamp and Law would be more useful than they had been to that blind Generation which by malicious Ignorance had put out its own Eyes § 3. But these wonders that these Utensils should escape the Fire should be singled out for Triumph and a Jewish Priest's committing all this to perpetual Memory which so clearly expresseth God's cancelling his Covenant with the Jews and his calling the whole World to be Witness of his giving them so full a discharge have nothing worthy of admiration in them in comparison of that for which principally I made the premised Allegations viz. That Judah's God should all this while hold his peace if indeed he were at that time Judah's God and had not renounc'd all Relation to those sometimes holy Things holy People nay and holy Name too For the Roman Eagle flutter'd in Triumph equally over all these That he should suffer the Actors of these Tragedies to reign in honour to depart in peace one of their own Priests urgeth this Argument Joseph Bel. Jud. l. 6. cap. 11. God was wont to avenge you on your Adversaries but Vespasian may thank the Jewish Wars for the Empire these Fountains and for instance that of Siloam which were dry to you run so plentifully to Titus as to afford Water enough for his Men for his Cattel and the flowing of the Grounds he has gain'd Therefore I believe God hath left the Temple and is fled from you and takes part with them with whom ye war I shall therefore prosecute this Argument more particularly This I say can never be sufficiently admired that Israel's quondam God should suffer the great-Instruments of their Misery to live applauded as the Delights and Darlings of Humane Kind to die bewailed with no loss sorrowful resentment of the Publick than that which men feel for and express at the loss of their own dearest and most intimate Relations and to be followed to the Funeral Pile with more Praise than Flattery her self could pour out upon living Princes Titus cognomine paterno amor deliciae humani generis Excessit quod ut palà m factum est non secus atque in domestico luctu maerentibus publicè cunctis Senatus tantas mortuo gratias egit laudésque quantas congessit nè vivo quidem unquam atque praesenti Suetonius Titus cap. 1. 11. Vespasian had no Mene Tekel writ against him for that Apparition he saw in his sleep of a pair of Ballances hanging up in the Porch of the Palace with Claudius and Nero in one and himself and Children in the other Scale was a Vision of Peace importing the Translation of the Imperial Crown out of the Julian into his the Flavian Family and the continuance of it in that Family as long as it had remain'd in the former during the Reigns of Claudius and Nero and that with such Felicity as the happy and beneficial Reigns of him and his Sons should counter-ballance the Mischiefs which the World receiv'd by the male-administration of those two last degenerate Branches of the Julian Stock By which Vision and other Portents he was so well assured of his Son's Succession as he was wont to ascertain the Senate That in spight of all treasonable Attempts to the contrary he was sure his Son or no body should reign after him Sueton. Vespasianus cap. 25. Titus indeed complain'd at his death that he had done one act for which he repented and but one Neque enim exstare ullum suum factum paenitendum excepto duntaxat uno Sueton. Titus cap. 10. So far was God from writing such bitter Bills against him that might make his Countenance fall his Joynts shake and his Knees smite against one another as he did against his Fellowblasphemer as he with hands stretched out to Heaven and a naked Breast complain'd to the God of Heaven almost in Job's Phrase I am cut off but not for my iniquity for I do not remember that ever I did any Act to be repented of except one What that Fact was he neither discovered saith mine Authour nor is it easie for any man to tell some thought it was his too much intimacy with Domitia his Brother's Wife but if that had been so that impudent Woman would have boasted of her being nought with so great and good a Man for she was a Woman not shy of keeping her own Counsel in such Cases If I may give my Conjecture I suppose it might probably be his seeking to obtain the Judaean Crown for himself a Design which his Father was jealous he had in his head and for which he incur'd hatred and blame while he served his Father in the Judaean Wars However it could not be his slaughtering and captivating the Jews his sacking their City and Temple his carrying away the holy Spoils for here were such a Multiplicity of Acts as to have confessed himself guilty in those things had been to have accused the greatest part of his Life after he came upon the the open Stage which was in a manner spent in Actions of this tendency And had God for vindicating the Glory of his sometimes-great Name charged upon his Conscience the guilt of his challenging the God of Judah he would have charged it so home as to have made him confess and give glory to God And to speak the naked Truth though the Rabbies put a blasphemous Gloss upon the words of Titus yet he did not thereby intend to affront that God who sometimes had been Judah's God but knowing that he came against Judea at the call and by the conduct of that God to dishearten them and encourage his own men he told them Their God was put to Sea that is he had forsaken the protection of them and their Land their strength was departed from them upon which account he subjoyn'd Let him come and give me Battel that is try if with all your strongest cries you can engage him to take your part who I am sure takes mine against you The words indeed sound like Nabsheca's or Nebuchadnexxar's but the difference of the times make their sence as different from theirs as Light from Darkness The God of Heaven was then God of the Jews and those Nations indivisible and therefore they in the name of their Idols defied the God of Heaven under the name of the God of Israel But
to wit from the 14. of October when Zachary ended his Ministry to the 24. of June following when the Church celebrates the Baptist's Birth exactly nine months and one day the ordinary time of a womans going with Child in the common opinion of Physiologists who assign six weeks for the plastick Virtue to do its work in and seven months and a half for the perfect vegetating of the Embrio â—echerm Syâ—â— Phys. l. 3. c. 14. Aristot. de Historia animal l. 7. c. 4. 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 Scip. l. 1. c. 6. cum nono mense absolutio est c. this reckoning the Mother of the seven Brethren makes 2 Mac. 7. 27. Oh my son have pity on me tâ—â—t â—are 〈◊〉 nine months in my womb So that if the Baptist's Birth was 〈◊〉 the most common course his Mother Elizabeth conceiv'd the 15. of October that is the day of her Husbands returning home for his Ministry in the Temple beginning and concluding with the Morning of the Sabbath when the Shew-bread was renewed and his habitation being distant from Jerusalem in the hilly Country of Judaea and therefore probably more than a Sabbath days-journey from the Temple it is not like but he would stay in Jerusalem till the Sabbath was over Now from the 15. of October to the Annunciation on which day the Church celebrates the Virgins Conception are five months three weeks and one day precisely so long was Elizabeth gone with Child at the Angels Salutation as her sixth month was upon its last week which is not only hinted by Gabriel but by St. Luke in the sequel of that story vers 39. In those days Mary arose and went into the hill-country to visit her cousin Elizabeth and she abode with her about three months that is till her Cousin was delivered and the Baptist circumcised for it is improbable that she whose affection carried her so far from home to give her a visit and detain'd her with Elizabeth so long would leave her in her greatest exigent or that so near and dear a Relation who had she been at her own home would have been sent for to the Baptist's Circumcision amongst the rest of the Kindred being with Elizabeth so near the end of her nine months would go home in that juncture and not stay till she had perform'd that Office of a Kinswoman And most of all that the blessed among Women whom the Evangelists signally commend for laying up in her heart all special Emergencies of Providence should not stay till she saw what became of Zacharie's dumbness or not be one of those Kinsfolks who upon the day of Circumcision are said to ponder what befel then in their hearts By this reckoning our Saviour indeed was ten months in the Virgins womb but as it is no strange thing for women to go so long so a fitter Period could not have been pich'd upon for the Lord of Hosts pitching his Tent in the blessed Virgin if it were but barely to answer the expectations of the Gentiles who out of Sybils Books had got this notion by the end that the Eastern Monarch the Jews Messias the Restorer of all was so long to Tabernacle in his Mothers Womb well exprest by Virgil in that Eclogue which Constantine the great in his Oration to the Clergy shews can be applyed to none but the blessed Jesus Matri longa decem tulerint fastidia menses When ten months shall have inflicted tedious weakness of stomack upon thy teeming Mother How much more convenient was it that Christ should fulfill that Period in the Womb which of all others is most canonical in the opinion of that great Oracle of Learning Varro who in his first Book de Hebdomadibus as he 's quoted by Agellius noct Attic. l. 3. c. 10. thus dictates Hi qui justissime in utero sunt post ducentos octoginta dies postquam sunt concepti quadragessima denique hebdomade nascuntur They who stay in the womb the most exact time after they have been conceiv'd are born in the fortieth week The learned Author of the wisdom of Solomon chap. 7. 2. brings him in affirming that he was fashioned to be flesh in his Mothers Womb in ten months And behold here is a greater than Solomon Taruntius being employed by Varro to calculate the Nativity of Romulus did with a great deal of confidence and alacrity declare to him that Romulus was conceiv'd on the twenty third day of that month which the Egyptians call Choe we December and born in Thoth that is September the 20. day the 12. before the Calends of October Plutarch Romulus that is he was born in the fortieth week in the last week of the tenth month after his conception and I suppose if the Births of Heroes were examin'd it would be found that antiquity assigned them commonly one month in the Womb beyond the account of ordinary persons § 5. But I leave this to be disputed by Mid-wives while to the proof of my Assertion that Christ was born at Christmas drawn from the time of Zacharie's Ministration I add another drawn from the Circumstances of Christ's Baptism St. Luke dates the Beginning of John's Ministry and Christ's Baptism both in one and the same fifteenth year of Tiberius and Christ's Baptism before Easter in that year Now St. Luke reckons Tiberius his Reign from the death of Augustus as hath been already proved that is the 19 of August And this clearly evinceth the absurdity of that Hypothesis that Christ was born in September and manifesteth all those strong Reasonings of ill-imploy'd wits for it to be meer Paralogisms For since our Saviour was born and baptized on the same day of the year had that been in September John must bestir himself at that rate as no man in his right wits can make haste to believe he did if betwixt then and the 19 of August preceding which is the utmost latitude we can allow in the fifteenth of Tiberius which commenc'd that day he could come into all the Country about Jordan and draw such multitudes of Disciples to his Baptism from Jerusalem and all Judaea and all the Region round about Jordan St. Luke 3. 1. 3. St. Matt. 3. 5. How vain doth this by name prove Beroaldus to be in his imagination that our Saviours Birth fell in September at the autumnal Equinox for from the 19 of August which was the first day of Tiberius his fifteenth year of Reign in which year the Divine Oracle saith the Baptist began his Ministry to the fourteenth of September on which day Beroaldus saith our Saviour was both born and baptized are but three weeks and four days now whether Christ's Forerunner could in that scantling of time fulfill the Prophecies which went of him and the work which the Evangelists say he did in preparing Christ's way before his face I refer to the determination of all unbiass'd and intelligent persons If it be here replyed that he began his Preaching towards the Spring and after he had spent
and to prevent his being exalted above measure sent Satan to buffet him to infix some pungent Disease in his flesh Dr. Hammond on 1 Cor. 5. 5 reckons St. Paul's buffeting as an effect of God's delivering him unto Satan which caused the like pain as they feel that have a Thorn in their Body or a barbed Arrow stuck in their Flesh or a sharp stake run through their body upon which they are as it were spitted as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word that is here translated Thorn signifies or any other sharp-pointed thing stuck in Man's Body as the Learned Cameron having its derivation from a Verb that signifies to dig or make holes in or bore through a thing affine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pasor circumcirca scalpo the same from whence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that kind of Worm that consumed Herod which makes me think St. Pau's Thorn might be a spice of his disease and to have been so apprehended by St. Paul himself as also to have been sent in his apprehension as Herod's was as a Judgement of God upon him for his priding himself in that glorious priviledge of being rapt up into the third Heaven Of which sin he suspected himself guilty not so much from any feelings of Prides working in his Soul as of these prickings and gnawings in his Flesh which resentment he could not have express in fitter terms than by the Metaphor of a pricking Thorn which as it creates the same kind of pain and shooting that Worms do so the Word which the Apostle uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes as near the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a worm as to that other word signifying a Thorn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all three have their names from the sharpness of their heads or points which makes them apt to prick and pierce Or than by the Metaphor of Satans buffeting which as it implies the Vermination of the Ears of which both Pliny and Celsus affirm the cure to be very difficult Vessâ—i Etymolog and therefore might occasion St. Paul to suspect that he was punish'd in that Organ through which he had in his Extasie received unutterable words so it alludes to Herod's being smitten 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the angel gave Herod a patt Or than by his more than importunate begging the removal of this Thorn his beseeching thrice speaks that veSpanâ—cy of desire to be quit of this affliction as is scarce consistent with that greatness of Christian Courage he shewed in bearing all other afflictions if he had not apprehended this to have had that poysonful sting of Pride complicated with it as its procuring Cause Hence signanter he prayes not that this thorn but that this thing might be taken away that is the Affliction with its Circumstances of his too much exaltation if he were as Satan suggested really guilty or if not his fear of it for that he was jealous of himself as faln into Herod's sin because he found himself in Herod's Disease and thought he read his sin in the judgement is yet more manifest by the answer that God return'd My grace is sufficient for thee my strength is made perfect in weakness and St. Paul's triumph upon that Answer most gladly will I glory in my infirmities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his now reading and repeating the gracious end of God in this Dispensation which answer of God is not a Promise but an adjudging the Victory to St. Paul the Spirits witness to his spirit that that favour which had rapt him up into the third Heaven had prevented his being lifted up above measure in the sence of that Priviledge and that by means of Gods sending Satan to inflict this Disease upon him in which weakness this tenderness of his heart exprest in this godly jealousie and the strength of his Faith exprest in his recumbency upon God not letting his hold go when Satan by these suggestions pull'd so hard were more glorious Effects of God's both Favour to him and grace in him than his preceding Rapture And St. Paul's Inference from this Answer speaks him to have learn'd by this what the purpose of God was in thus afflicting him which he knew not before vide Musculum in locum and to resolve that he would now to chuse be so far from fear of over doing it in boasting as he would glory more in this sickness than in his former exaltation as an occasion of bringing more Glory to God and an indication of a greater Vertue and Strength of Grace But I digress too far only I took occasion from the Parity of St. Paul's and Herod's Disease to vindicate this Text out of the bad handling of those who to the perdition of themselves and millions of their Disciples wrest it to a sence whereby it is given out to speak of Concupiscence or sinful Infirmities whereas it manifestly intends a bodily Disease except we will make God an Author of sin and his chosen Vessel to glory in his shame as themselves do in theirs I return to Josephus who witnesses a better Confession of the Christian Faith and gives a more honourable Testimony of Christ than they do in their Glosses and speaks more consonantly to the Apostolical sence in all those Texts of his we have conferr'd with the Sacred and in all the rest that any way concern the Emergencies specified in the Gospel the comparing of all which would tire my Reader and my self and one would think it should put Impudency her self to the blush to demand more Instances than have been produced or better Evidence for the proof of the Truth of Matters of Fact reported in the Gospel than the Testimony of such an Author yet that the Atheist may know the Church hath in this case more than one such VVitness I shall offer to Examination the Testimony of other Secular Records CHAP. IX Other Secular Witnesses to the Truth of Sacred History § 1 Phlegon of the Darkness and Earthquake at Christs Passion § 2. Thallus his mistaking that Darkness for an Eclipse § 3. The Records of Pagan Rome touching that and other Occurrences § 4. The Chronicles of Edessa though Apochryphall yet true Julian ' s Prohibition of the use of Secular Books in Christian Schools his Testimony § 5. Moses his History of Joseph attested by Pagans § 6. His History of himself § 7. Of Noah Balaam c. avouched by Secular Writers § 1. OF Phlegon a Pagan Writer under Adrian the Emperour who wrote 16 Books of Olympiads and therein the memorable Accidents that fell out in the space of 229 Olympiads He in his 13 or 14. Book affirms as he is quoted by St. Origen in Cels. l. 2. cal 8. 9. That Christ foretold many things to come which accordingly fell out and from this his foreknowledge of Contingencies is forc'd there to confess that his Doctrine was super-humane 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And mentions the Eclipse that happen'd at our Saviours Passion as the same Father
put upon them are a pack of as palpable Untruths as ever were asserted Not one of them wants its mate as we apply them to the blessed Jesus and the things appertaining to his Kingdom But they are barren of Effect and most of them past Child-bearing if they have not brought forth allready those Children which the Christian Church fathers upon them If their Messias be not already exhibited he can never be exhibited in that place at that time and with such other Circumstances as the Prophets assign The Temple which he was to fill with Glory is demolish'd the Polity during the standing whereof Shilo was to come is dissolv'd the Weeks within the compass whereof Messias was to make attonement for sin at the end whereof desolation was to come in like a flood are long since expired The Idols which at the appearance of his glorious Majesty were to creep into holes are already exterminated from off the face of this Earth so that if he has not already appeared it is impossible that at his appearance he should find any Gentile Idols to abolish from off this Earth and from under those Heavens which the Prophet pointed at and taught the Jews to point at during the Babilonian Captivity in making this profession Jer. 10. 11. Thus shall ye say unto them the Gods shall perish from under those Heavens that is which are over Chaldea Let the Atheist search if he can find in all that Tract one Heathen Idol CHAP. X. The Demonstration of Power § 1. Christians Gleanings exceed Pagans Vintage § 2. Christian stories of undoubted Pagan of dubious Credit § 3. Pagan Miracles mis-father'd § 4. Rome ' s Prosperity whence § 5. Wonders among Gentiles for the fulfilling of Prophecies § 6. For the punishment of Nations ripe for Excision § 7. Empires raised miraculously for the common good § 1. VVE have seen the Prints of incomprehensible Wisdom upon the Creatures and thence demonstrated the Being of a God we have seen the like impresses upon the Sacred Scriptures and thence proved that God to be the Author of them who contrived the Universe The next demonstration of a Deity is the impressions of infinite Power stampt upon his Works those Rhetorical Figures sprinkled in the Book of Providence which render the Contents of it more illustrious the divine Eloquence of it more august and specious For as in humane speech the moderate and decent aspersion of new and unusual words add a splendour to it so Miracles add a grace to the divine Eloquence and an Emphasis to that discourse God entertains the World with while he speaks to it by the Dumb Creature Sicut humana consuetudo verbis ità divina potentia etiam factis loquitur sicut sermone humano verba nova vel minus usitata moderate decenter aspersa splendorem addunt ita in factis mirabilibus quodammodo luculentior est divina eloquentia August ep 49. quest 6. In which strain the God of Israel the Father of the blessed Jesus hath as far out-stript all other pretenders to Divinity and Authors of Religions as the Feates of the Artillery Garden are exceeded by the wisest Stratagems of the greatest Captains the products of a Wheel-wright by Archimedes his Engines A blind mans catching an Hare by chance by the success and Achievements of Diana and her Quire of Huntresses or Don Quixots Windmill engagements by the Exploits of Caesar or the Sorcerers Serpents by that of Moses which if we compare together we shall find the stupendious Effects wrought by the Heathen Gods to have been 1. So few as an hundred of those Deities may be allowed to club for the production of one Miracle though no greater than the swelling of a Lake while the Romans besieged the Vejentes Exoptatae victoriae iter miro prodigio Dii immortales patefecerunt Val. Max. 1. 6. 3. a multitude of Gods are fain to joyn hands to open this light door What is this in comparison of the way through the red Sea No less than two durst venture to cast the scales at the Regil-lake on the Romans hands when their Army and the Tusculancs were so equally pois'd as neither would give one foot back It was as much as two of them could do and that on horse back to bring P. Vatinius word to Rome in a whole day of King Perses his overthrow in Macedonia Briefly put together all the miracles that Authors of any credit have father'd upon all their Gods or have reported to have been done in their names and the Miracles wrought by Moses alone in the Name of the God of Israel to prove that he was his Messenger the Miracles wrought by Christ alone in his own Name and Person to prove that he was the eternal Son of Israels God the Miracles wrought by St. Peter alone in the name of Christ to prove his Masters Resurrection and his own Delegation will far out-vie them Nay the after gleaning of Christs Miracles I mean those which were wrought at the Memories of Martyrs as low as the third and fourth Centuries are more than the whole Vintage of Pagan Prodigies deposited in Authors of undoubted credit as in Barnes Cypriani tract 1. cont Demetrianum O si audire eos velles videre quando à nobis adjurantur torquentur spiritualibus flagris verborum tormentis de obsessis corporibus ejiciuntur quando ejulantes gementes voce humanà potestate divina flagella verbera sentientes venturum judicium confitentur Veni cognosce esse vera quae dicimus Et quia sic Deos colere te dicis vel ipsis quos colis crede aut si volueris tibi credere de teipso loquetur audiente te qui nunc tuum pectus obsedit qui nuno mentem tuam ignorantiae nocte caecavit Videbis nos rogari ab eis quos tu rogas timeri ab eis quos tu times quos tu adoras videbis sub manus nostras stare vinctos tremere captivos quos tu suspicis veneraris ut dominos Certe vel sic confundi in istis erroribus tuis poteris cùm conspexeris audieris Deos tuo's quid sint ad interrogationes nostras statim prodere praesentibus licèt vobis praestigias fallacias suas non posse caelare So plentifully was this sweet and powerful savour of the Ointment of Christs Name poured out in the Age of St. Austin as that Learned Father having in his Book de vera Religione given Reasons why Miracles were not then so frequent as formerly lest he might thereby be understood to deny that the Church retain'd the gift of Miracles in his time upon second thoughts dares not commit that Tractate to the hands of Posterity without this animadversion upon it in the unparallel'd Books of his Retractations lib. 1. cap. 13. I argued indeed saith he in that Book of the true Religion that the Pagans had no reason to expect Miracles now but I never
affirmed that no miracles are wrought now for even then when I writ that Treatise I knew a blind man who was cur'd at Millain and several others nay there are now so many Examples of the like miraculous Cures wrought in these times as I cannot possibly know them all and yet I know more than I am able to reckon up And the same Father epist. 137. tells us that at the memory of St. Felix at Nola Miracles were then so usually wrought by Invocation of Christs Name as he purposed thither to send Boniface a Priest of his Church and one who accused him of Incontinency the one firmly attesting the other as peremptorily denying conceiving that though in Africa where no Miracles were wrought A thing which he wonders at seeing that Climate abounded more with Religious persons than Italie and I wonder as much at his wondring for that which he alledges as the reason of his astonishment was the reason of the thing he admires and therefore should have put a stop to it because Italy swarm'd more with Pagans than those parts of Africk therefore was that power of working Miracles continued there Tongues and all other supernatural Gifts being not for those that believe but for Infidels One of them might persist in their lie against Conscience yet that the reverence of the very place where the power of Christ had been so manifestly seen would extort from them the confession of the Truth To which he was encouraged by what had happen'd at Millan in the like case where a Thief who strongly denyed he was guilty of a Theft that was laid to his charge when he came to the Church there to swear in the presence of that God in whose Name so many Miracles had been wrought in that very place durst not swear as he had boasted he would but confessed the Fact and restored the goods he had stoln Before I close this point I will give one Instance more of the multitude of Miracles wrought for the Conversion of one peevish Heathen reported by this great Light of the Church who for Learning Judgment and Integrity deserves more credit than the whole Tribe of Pagan Scriblers who in his 67. Epistle gives this account of the Conversion of Dioscorus the Architheater It was not like that this mans stiff neck would be bowed nor his petulant Tongue tamed without a Prodigie It pleased God therefore to smite his only and exceedingly beloved Daughter with a dangerous sickness of whose recovery without Miracle he despairing implores the aid of Christ promising if he might see his Daughter restor'd he would embrace the Christian Faith his request is granted his Daughter recovers but he procrastinates the payment of his vow he hath not long seen her restored to health when Christ retracts the benefit and strikes him blind He vows the second time to become a Christian if he might recover his sight he obtains his sute regains his sight and sets forward toward the receiving of Baptism but they could not get him to learn the Creed till he is surprized with such a Palsey as deprives him of the use of his Tongue upon this he betakes himself to his Pen and writes the Confession of his former Hypocrisie and subscribes to the Confession of the Christian Faith upon which he is restored to the use of his Tongue and to perfect health I am perswaded upon an impartial search here are more indications of a Supernatural power made out for the conversion of this one man than ever God permitted all the Heathen Daemons to shew in proof of all false religions Of which perswasion I make no question but my Reader will be by that time he hath well weighed this example and studied an Answer to that Question of Arnobius To what purpose is it for the Defenders of the Pagan Impiety to shew one or perhaps two cured by Esculapius when none of their Gods relieve so many millions and all their Temples are throng'd with wretched and unhappy Patients who tire Esculapius himself with their Prayers and invite him with their most miserable vowes to help them Quid prodest ostendere unum vel alterum fortasse curatos cum tot millibus subvenerit nemo plena sint omnia miserorum infeliciúmque delubra qui Aesculapium ipsum precibus fatigare invitare miserrimis votis Arnobius And that by that time I have laid down the rest of the differences betwixt those which occur in prophane Authors and those reported in the Sacred Scriptures § 2. 2. For as to the Miracles reported to have been wrought by the God of Israel or by his servants in his name and power they are reported with the greatest Evidence of Truth that matters of Fact are capable of as hath already been demonstrated But the Prodigies said to be done in confirmation of Paganism labour under the burden of a very great suspicion that they are most of them lying Miracles Not one hath been found among the various Sects of Christians or Jews that ever question'd the Truth those of the Old those of either Old or New Testament-relations Though some of their Principles had they seen the tendency of them would have necessitated them to it The Manichees who denied the God of Israel to be the best and greatest God did yet believe that the History of the Old Testament was true The Sadducees who denied the Existency of Angels or Spirits yet owned the Books of Moses wherein the God of Israel is declared to be both great and good by the merciful wonders he wrought by the Ministry of Angels The Arrians denied Christ to be the Eternal God yet confest he did those stupendious works which none but God can do some whereof he professedly did on purpose to manifest himself to be equal to his Eternal Father Monsters of men they deny the Conclusions and yet grant Premisses most necessarily and demonstratively proving those Conclusions But of all those Pagan Writers that have escaped the Teeth of time and made mention of Pagan Prodigies there is not one but hath question'd the Truth of their own Legends so far as by the diligent reading of them I can find To the many instances that have allready been produc'd in my First Book Sect. 3. chap. 5. I shall here add the Censure of that Famous Critick Agellius who in his 9. 4. noct Attic. telling a story how that upon his coming to Brundusium he heard a fellow crying Books to whom he repairing bought the works of Aristaeus Proconnesius Isagonus Nicaeensis Ctesias Onesicritus Polystephanus and Hegesius Authors of great Authority as he stiles them and yet he calleth their Histories of such miraculous Accidents as made most noise and had been most universally believ'd in the Age of Paganism Books full of Miracles and Fables out of which repeating those that had best born up their credit unto his Age he mentions none but such stories of men with one eye of Pigmeis c. as there is no man