other Christians are in of being reduc'd under the Slavery of this Mortal and common Enemy so that how prosperous soever the Christian Arms are or have been we are still in greater danger than ever of being ruin'd by the Legions of these Infidels not those of their Spahi or Janizaries but by those of another Order far more mischeivous forasmuch as they fight under our own Colors and pretend to be of our Party such Enemies are ever look'd upon as the most dangerous for they are rarely discover'd till they have given the Mortal Blow Now these are the Socinians a Sect which though exploded the World above a thousand Years ago under the appellation of Arians are in these our days risen again from the Grave and like Spectrums appear every where in the Dark In denying therefore the Divinity of Jesus Christ they do with the Mahometans not only deny the Trinity the Doctrine of Justification or the Merits of Christ's Satisfaction but also Baptism in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost together with the Doctrine of Original Sin So many fatal Errours do follow one upon the Neck of another by denying that one Fundamental Truth which Christ himself is pleas'd to call the Basis of his Church viz. That glorious confession of St. Peter Thou art Christ the Son of the living God The Socinians we all know are a Mungril Brood half Christians half Turks and for this Reason 't is that they swarm so much in Poland Hungary and Transylvania and are found at this day to fight openly for the Crescent against the Cross This Argument is too great and weighty to be discours'd upon under the Method I am engag'd to it would require a Volume though we cannot but hope that as the Pens of pious and learned Men will not be wanting to pursue and stab their Errours so the Sword of the Magistrate will not fail to find out their Persons CHAP. XXVII Of the Immortality of the Soul THe Immortality of Man's Soul is a point of high concernment and comes next to be consider'd of for as much as all our reliance upon God's Providential Order as also all the hopes and rewards which depend upon our Faith with whatsoever else relates to our Christian Practice are all built upon this Persuasion viz. That the Soul of Man which is the Principle or Source of all his Actions is of an incorruptible Nature and survives the Body But before we proceed to Proof 't is necessary to clear some doubts which seem to obstruct us in the Prosecution of this Argument The first grand difficulty is from the Old Testament for if the Immortality of the Soul be so great a Truth and so necessary to be believ'd how comes it to pass we find no mention of it in all the Jewish Writers of Old In all the Books of the Old Testament there is no place to be found where there is so much as mention made of the Kingdom of Heaven â—â— of a future 〈◊〉 after Death Had the Patriarchs and Prophets believ'd any such thing they must needs have mention'd it some time or other as being a thing of the greatest concern to them and the best support against the Misfortunes of the World and the Terrour of Death And above all David must needs have taken notice of it having such frequent occasions given him for it from the whole course and variable occurrences of his life Nay even at his Death his Discourses with Solomon were very copious about setling the Temporal Affairs of his Kingdom but not a Word of the place where he was going to nor do we find that Abraham Jacob Moses Samuel or any of the Patriarchs and Prophets to whom God so largely and familiarly reveal'd his Will ever touch'd upon this important point at the hour of their Death only we read that they slept with their Fathers and were gather'd to their People and there was an end And though we read oft times of the Soul and of Hell in the Old Testament yet 't is plain that by Hell is understood nothing but Death or the Grave as by the Soul also is understood no more but the animal Life and sometiâ—es the Heart and Affections A Resurrection of the Body is indeed mention'd by Job and Daniel but that 's another point but no proof can be produc'd which speaks of the Soul as of an immaterial and spiritual substance subsisting after Death To this I answer First that the Scripture is not so silent touching the Soul's Immortality but that there is ground enough even from Scripture to make the matter dubious For most Divines are of Opinion that 't was Samuel's real Soul which God suffer'd the Witch to raise the Night before Saul's Death which could not be had it not surviv'd the Body And even in Ecclesiastes which Book seems even in a manner to determine Man's felicity in Temporal Enjoyments upon the summ of the matter we are told by Solomon that the Body shall return to the Dust but the Spirit to God that gave it though much either way cannot be concluded from the Passages of this Book which seems to be no other than a Collection of Observations made by Solomon under his two Capacities Natural and Divine or a Miscellany of Aphorisms as they were dictated by the Natural Man and Wisdom But whatever it be this is certain that if the Books of Tobit and of Wisdom be of any Credit with us as I know not but they should there is enough for our purpose being told Cap. 2. and 3. of Wisdom that God created Man to be Immortal and that the Souls of the Righteous are in the hands of God and there should no Torment touch them and a little after he says that though they be punish'd in the sight of Men yet is their Hope full of Immortality Tobit also in his Prayer Cap. 3. desires of God that he might be deliver'd out of his Distress and go into the everlasting place In the next place 't is notwithstanding probable that God thought fit to conceal the clear knowledge of this as also of other Important Mysteries of Religion such as the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the Incarnation with some Truths of this Nature from the Generality of the Jews to render the Preaching of the Gospel more glorious by the new Discoveries it was to bring along with it and this is what Saint Paul tells us expresly 2 Tim. c. 1. viz. That Jesus Christ had abolish'd Death and brought Life and Immortality to Light through the Gospel though 't is pious also to believe That many of the Holy Patriarchs and Prophets under the Mosaical Institution had some secret dawnings of this Light even by the Shadows it reflected Their wandrings in the Wilderness represented their Instability Hardships and Errours of Life all which were to end in Caanan the place of everlasting Rest Their Jubelees also and Sabbaths were Types also of the same Everlasting Rest as St.
most prone to Idolatry their Kings also and Rulers being most of them Vicious and Idolaters in Times of Peace easily drawn away to follow the Superstition of their Neighbours and at length broken to pieces by a miserable Captivity and even the scatter'd Fragments of their Nation batter'd by a continual series of Calamities and irrepairable Disorders And yet notwithstanding all these disadvantages we find their Religion to have been miraculously preserv'd for the space of Fifteen hundred years For the Law of Moses was never abolish'd nor any new Rites introduc'd by the solemn Decrees of the Sanhedrim so that there was still the Face of a Church and Men rais'd up in an extraordinary manner to support the same by their exemplary Lives and seasonable Instructions all which could not be but by the singular and special Power of Almighty God when for so long a Tract of Time all human Means universally conspir'd to the utter Ruin and Extirpation of it CHAP. XV. Of the Authority of the Old Testament THE Divine Authority of the Books of the Old Testament in which the Jewish History and Religion is contain'd may be demonstrated first from the Matter and Manner of their writing next from Records of human Antiquity And First The Old Testament has singular Advantages above any other Works and Writings whatsoever in respect of its Antiquity It begins with the Creation of the World with a short account of the Antidiluvian Times down to the general Deluge after which time it shews the Re-settlement of Mankind as also what Nations were of greatest Antiquity and then comes more particularly to the Ancestors of the Jewish and describes the plainness of the first Ages in the Lives and Manners of their Patriarchs From thence it descends gradually to the Time of the Jews settling in Egypt in many delectable Passages with some account also of the Neighbouring Nations During their abode in Egypt we have little Account till such time as Moses appear'd to whom the Law was given From Moses downwards we have a more large and accurate History distinguish'd by several Successions of Judges and Kings and the years they govern'd reduc'd to certain Periods of Time even to the Babylonish Captivity we have a particular History also of their Re-settlement and after some intermission we have an Account of their Actions under the Government of their High-Priests during their Wars with the Greeks Not long after which Time followed the Birth of the Messiah In short the Acts and Monuments of the Old Testament are of that Antiquity that even the first Historians amongst the Greeks as Herodotus and Thucydides flourish'd but about the time of Esdras who was one of the last amongst the Jewish Writers In the next Place these Sacred Books have a singular Advantage above all other Writings whatsoever whether we consider the great variety of Matter contain'd in them or the Stile in which they are writ The Stile is for the most part very plain and obvious to all Capacities as Books of this kind ought to be but withal it speaks with that Gravity and Authority as becomes Divine Oracles not insinuating its Precepts by Rhetorical Arts but enjoyning them by a kind of Majesty and severe Commands and yet we have some Descriptions especially amongst the Prophets made with that liveliness of Representation and grandeur of Expression as far exceeds the Raptures of our Modern Poets or those of former Ages What Strains of Wit can draw such an Idea of a Glorious Combatant as that we meet with in Isaiah cap. 63. in the Description he gives us of our Saviour's Bloody but Victorious Conflict upon the Cross Who is he that cometh from Edom with died garments from Bozrah this that is glorious in his apparel travelling in the greatness of his strength Answ I that speak in righteousness mighty to save Quest Wherefore art thou red in thy apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth in the Wine-press Answ I have troden the Wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me for I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I will stain all my raiment And I looked and there was none to help and I wondred that there was none to uphold therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me and my fury it upheld me And I will tread down the people in mine anger and make them drunk in my fury and I will bring down their strength to the earth Can there be form'd a nobler Image of a Conqueror dapled with Blood wreeking with Revenge and panting and bestriding his prostrate Enemy in the sight of two Armies How far short of this is Aeneas's Character in his Combat with Turnus describ'd by Virgil So that Angelus Politianus shew'd a singular delicacy or rather a critical weakness in neglecting to read these Sacred Compositions for fear of debasing his Stile whereas Marsilius Ficinus and John Picus Mirandula Men of greater Parts and Learning delighted in nothing more than in the study of them If we consider the variety of Matter treated of in these Sacred Writings there is no Collection under Heaven can compare with them what excellent Observations and Instructions have we for Morality in the Books of Ecclesiasticus which without an Hyperbole may be said to be the best in that kind in the whole world as reaching to all the Circumstances of Life The Books of Solomon must tell a Heathen that he was a Man of vast Knowledge His Canticles shew him to have been a Man of a most pregnant Fancy His Ecclesiastes seems to have been a Discourse by way of Dialogue betwixt Wisdom and a Sensual Nature But his Proverbs do declare him to have been both Good and Wise and were writ probably before he was Corrupted The Books of the Prophets shew that they were writ by Men of intrepid Resolutions They reprove without Flattery and touch the Affections to the quick breathing always an Ardent Zeal for Vertue and for the Glory of Almighty God And as for the Book of the Psalms they are a kind of Poem and they must be confess'd of all Hands to flow from an inexhaustible Fountain of Piety and Devotion and teach us how we may Address our selves to God under the several Forms of Confession Petition Supplication Thanksgiving Vows and Praises And truly had David been inspir'd with a Human Spirit he would have employ'd his Poetick Fancy in illustrating some Passages of his own Life viz. His Fights and Victories as a Warriour and particularly his Engagement with Goliah would have afforded noble Matter for an Heroick Poem or else as a Courtier he would have Compos'd some soft Pastoral or Madrigal containing his Amours with Bathsheba or as a Friend he would have exercis'd his Fancy about his more Innocent Love and Affection for Jonathan But we find nothing of this Nature his Subject always is Divine one while as a Suppliant or
Penitent another while as an humble Petitioner anon with Strains of Gratitude and in Heavenly Raptures he addresses himself to his Creator and Celebrates the Praises of Almighty God by recounting his Wonders and Mercies his Comforts and many Deliverances all which cannot but shew that they were dictated by another Spirit and kindled by a purer Fire than what commonly sparkles in the gay Fancies and Inventions of Men. As for the Historical Books of the Old Testament we have touch'd upon them already and we may say of the whole Book or Collection of these Sacred Writings that 't is like the Manna it speaks of it is Food to every Palate such as does not nauseate but has a rellishing Taste of every thing and creates an Appetite And 't is worth our Observation that let a Man read these Holy Writings with all attention imaginable yet when he comes to read them again he shall discover some things of which he was ignorant before though he repeat the Section of them to the very end of his Life which shews that t is a Spring which is inexhaustible and that the more we drink of these Waters the more we thirst from whence it is that the Wisest and most Learned Men have addicted themselves most to the reading of these Books the nearer they drew towards their End which shews also that 't is their Nature to lead Men forwards towards a State of further Perfection Another thing which shews these Books to be of Divine Inspiration is the manner of their writing Turn over all human Histories whatsoever and we shall still find it to have been their grand Scope and Design to magnifie their own Nation and to represent their Actions with all advantageous Characters imaginable to applaud their own Customs and Manners and to avouch the Justice of their Dealings But 't is otherwise in these Sacred Writings the Pen-Men of them are in nothing more copious than in shewing the Blemishes of their own Nation their Apostacies their Idolatrous Dispositions together with the notorious and scandalous Lapses and Relapses of their Kings though held in never so great esteem for Power and Goodness And this certainly is an Invincible Argument that they did not in their Reports proceed upon Natural and Human Considerations but as it was dictated to them by a higher and more noble Impulse and contrary to the Genius and Temper of that Nation who in reality were as Vain Self-admiring and Unconstant as any other People upon the Face of the Earth 'T is beyond my Power to answer such Difficulties as occur in the Old Testament touching the Jewish Genealogies and Chronologies together with some Customs and Passages as seem strange to us of this Age since we find the like and greater in the Writings of all prophane Authors though never so well digested or perhaps God Almighty might on purpose suffer some Passages to be obscure and seemingly Repugnant to our Understandings the better to subjugate our Reason to Faith which is a more excellent degree of assent because it resolves it self into the absolute Authority and Veracity of the Proponent without hesitance or any dependance upon our own feeble Notions In the last Place the Divine Authority of these Sacred Writings is legible in the Acts and Monuments even of Human Antiquity so that the most polite Writers amongst the Ancients did light their Candles from this Sacred and ever burning Lamp Virgil and Ovid borrowed out of Genesis their History of the Worlds Creation which they improv'd or rather debas'd by their Poetick Fictions Iapetus the Father of Prometheus and by whom the World was Re-peopled after the Flood was no other but Japhet whom the Poets feign'd to be the Son of Coelum and Terra that is to have had his Extraction from God The Ogygian and Deucalion Floods were Poetick Fictions deriv'd from Noah's Deluge Plutarch Plutarch lib. quod Bruta ratione utuntur makes mention too of a Doves being sent out of an Ark by Deucalion to discover the Abatement of the Waters The Giants climbing up to Heaven was taken from the building of Babel we find also whatsoever occurs in the Fragments of Prophane Writers of greatest Antiquity to square with the Accounts we meet with in the Jewish Monuments The Egyptians and Chaldeans were ever held amongst prophane Authors to have been the most Ancient of Nations and we find the same in Scripture also The History of the burning of Sodom has left indelible Marks of its verity in the Bituminous Waters and noisom smells of the Lake adjoining which is so stinking and poisonous that nothing can live in it as appears even at this very day as also in the Fruits which grow near that accursed Place which though most beautiful to the Eye are easily crumbled to Dust and Ashes as Morney du Plessis a Morn cap. 26. de Verit. Rel. proves out of Galen Strabo Solinus and others The same thing is affirm'd also by Tacitus The departure of the Children of Israel out of Egypt under the Conduct of Moses with many other Passages of the Old Testament are mention'd by b Justin lib. 36. Justin as also by c Lib. 5. Hist Tacitus though with some depravation The simplicity and plain Pastoral Life together with the Habits of the Patriarchs are much the same which we meet with in Homer who liv'd a little after the time of David in his Descriptions of the Age and Men of which he wrote and even the Feasts of the Gods consisted of no other Dainties than Bread and Wine The Temple of Solomon was so famous throughout the World that it gave the denomination to the City it self which is called Hierosolyma quasi Hieron Solomonis or the Temple of Solomon And even at this very day the great Emperor of the Abyssines or of Ethiopia called Prester John with all the Natives of that vast Country though Christians still retain Circumcision not as brought thither by the Eunuch who was Baptiz'd by St. Philip but in Memory of their descent from the Queen of Sheba whom Solomon treated not only at his Table but at his Bed also so that amongst other proud Titles of that Emperour he glories most in stiling himself the Son of Solomon and of David The Memory of the Ten Tribes who were at several times carried away Captives by Teylath Phalastor and Salmanastor into the Desart and Nothern Parts of Media is preserv'd to this very day in the Tartars who 't is certain are descended from the Jews who were dispers'd by the Medes their Conquerors for the Colchians who were the Progenitors of the Tartars as Herodotus tells us Herod lib. 2. were Circumcis'd tho' the Name of Tartar was not considerable nor known till about the year of our Lord 1200. at such times as Givigi their Captain began to over-run the World with his Barbarous Multitudes However so it was that they still retain'd Circumcision even long before they ever heard of Mahomet and upon
nor Zorobabel nor any of the Jewish Worthies be call'd Deliverers God knows they were poor Supplicants and depended wholly upon the Indulgence of the Persians But the Crcumstance of the Gentiles being to be made partakers of these Blessings extends the Benefits of these Prophesies infinitely beyond the Fortune of the Jewish Nation who were ever after but a poor scattered and precarious People As to the Authority of these and many such like Prophesies even Atheism it self cannot question it unless we say That the Jews after the appearance of Jesus Christ did stuff the Old Testament with such Prophetick Passages as made against themselves and their Religion Besides all these Passages being found in the Translation of the Septuagint and considering also with what exactness the Jews kept these sacred Copies even to numbring the very Letters how negligent soever they were in observing the Commandments of the Law 't is utterly impossible such Passages should be foisted in without their knowledge as it is impossible that such certain and punctual Predictions should proceed from any other Mouth but that of Almighty God and this I take to be an Argument ad hominem and such as might convince even Porphyry himself were he now alive And so I have done with the Old Testament CHAP. XX. The Advent of Jesus prov'd from Heathen Predictions BUt besides the Prophesies recorded in Sacred Writings we have other Predictions also out of prosane Monuments which though of an inferiour Authority are very apposite to prove the Verity of Christ's Messiah-ship All the Histories of the Age wherein Christ was Born doe testifie that both Herod as also the Jews were in present Expectation of the Messiah Hence it was that Herod who yielded up himself to the flatteries of his Followers was easily persuaded to think that he himself was the promised Messiah and those who adhered to this Belief were in Scripture called Herodians as is conjectur'd For the Jews finding Herod to be a King of great Power and who rebuilt the Temple also after a most magnificent Form they presently concluded that this was he who was to restore their State and Empire And Herod too was not wanting to himself to improve such favourable overtures upon which account it was that he committed so many Murders even on his own Children also hoping in the general Massacre to extinguish the true Messiah where-ever he was as Josephus tell us we read Jos de lib. Jud. l. 7. c. 7. also in Suetonius in the Life of Vespasian as also in Tacitus how it was the Belief of many in that Age that in the Sacred Monuments of the Priest was registred that out of Judea should come forth those who were to govern the World which was Tacit l. 5. Hister erroneously interpreted of Titus and Vespasian But above all Those famous Monuments of the Sybills are a compleat evidence of this Truth Tully whilst he endeavours Tul. lib. 2. de Divin to evacuate the Credit of these Prophesies reports this Passage out of them That he who was indeed to be our King was to be called also a King in Case we would obtain Salvation This Prophesie was contain'd in the initial Letters of some Verses which for this reason also were called Acrosticks telling us withall that the Prophesies of the Sybills were lockt up and were not to be inspected but by order of the Senate forasmuch as they seem rather to contribute to the Subversion then to the Conservation of Religion there being nothing more odious to the Romans than the thing called King which was legible throughout these Sacred Books And truly so plain did they speak of Christ's Government and Kingdom that even amongst the Sacred Prophets we shall not meet with a Description more apposite then what was transcrib'd by Vergil out of these Sybelline Oracles who by his Intimacy with Augustus obtain'd a sight of them applying in his Genethliacon of Saloninus the Son of Asinius Pollio who was a Favorite of the Emperor's those Passages which in Truth could belong to none but Jesus as appears evidently from this Description The happy Days are come foretold long since Eciog 4. By Cuman Sybills Sacred Song from hence All fature Ages shall there date commence The Virgin too returns the upright raign Of Ancient Saturn now returns again An Off-spring now to us from Heavens sent forth Help chast Lucina this celestial Birth Which puts a Period to the Iron Race And o're the World a Golden one does place Whose heavenly conduct shall mankind deliver From all their Guilt freed from all fears for ever Whose God-like Life shall yet more glorious prove By listing Hero's ' mongst the bless'd above These shall behold him too who never shall cease By 's Fathers Art to rule the World in Peace Such a lofty Description as this could by no means square with the Circumstances of Soloninus who died nine days after he was Born Nay had Augustus himself had a Son I question whether these Characters could have been applied to him even under a Poetick License of Flattery In short they were transcrib'd out of the Sybelline Oracles to which the Ancient Writers of the Church so often appeal'd as to the most uncorrupted Monument of Antiquity Forasmuch as these Books were kept by the Romans with the greatest care imaginable under the Custody of the Colledge of Sacred Rites call'd Quindecem viri and and so impossible to be alter'd by the Christians Nor could these Passages be interpreted of any but of Jesus who being he that was to give Peace to the World was born also under the Reign of Augustus who shutting up the Temple of Janus proclaim'd this Memoriall and glorious Passage that at the time of our Saviour's Birth there was a Universal Cessation of Arms over all the Earth as was predicted and was necessary to introduce this Prince of our Eternal Peace CHAP. XXI Of the Doctrines of Jesus THe second General Argument by which we have propos'd to prove the Truth of Christ's Messiah-ship is taken from his Doctrine as also from the History of his Life and Miracles as they are represented to us in the Writings of the New Testament Now in these Writings there are two things to be consider'd first their Authors secondly their Authority To prove their Authors we have no other way but by humane Authorities but yet such too as are strengthen'd by all the evidence of Reason For if it were rashness unpardonable to question the Truth of Caesars conquering Britain or of his Defeating Pompey and of his being Murdred in the Senate for as much as the Books which report these things are esteem'd to be the Genuine works of those who liv'd in the same Age whose names also are prefix'd to them t is certainly much greater madness to doubt that the Books of the New Testament were writ by the Apostles since we find a more universal and uninterrupted belief hereof in the concurring Voices of an Infinite
the reflection of Images from a brittle Glass But Charity is of a permanent and Celestial Nature it hopeth all things it boasteth not it self it seeketh not its own but another's good and of the three Graces though it be rank'd in the last place yet is it by the Apostle accounted the first and greatest of them If we look into the Transactions of the World we shall ever find those to have been the bravest who were most diffusive of their Goodness and the wider they extended their Compassion and Bounty the greater Honours were they ever thought worthy of This greatness of Mind in doing good to all not that swelling Ambition of enlarging it self by Dominion and Empire was that in all Ages made Men Heroes and in some sort Partakers of the Divine Nature whereas private Ends with thoughts and Contrivances which terminate in our own good only have been ever accounted Characters of a narrow and straitened Mind The CONCLVSION THE great Scope of this whole Discourse through all the precedent Chapters has been to combat Atheism and Irreligion or Profaness from the Light of Nature which not only shews us the Existence of a God but that the most perfect and purest Worship by which a Creature is capable to express his Adoration is most justly due unto him The Existence of a God is discover'd to us from the Theory of Nature from Principles of Reason and from the Eminent Testimonies of the best Men in all Ages By the same Light we discover also some of the Attributes of God indeed so Essential that they are incommunicable to any other Being and serve to prove both the Unity as well as the Verity of the Godhead These I have briefly spoken to forasmuch as they are every where copiously and clearly handled by such as write upon this Subject The considerations of God in relation to his Creatures do afford us a larger field of Matter to travel in whether we reflect upon his Works or the Worship he requires of us The grand Work of Creation is as demonstrable as any thing in Nature from the impossibility of a fortuitous production of the World out of a pre-existent Chaos and from an Incorruptibility of an Eternity of Matter with that of the God-head so that the very Creation of the World out of nothing is another Argument of the Verity and Unity of the Divine Nature But God's conserving Power or Providence being that we daily Experiment and by which we have so near and necessary a dependance on him even in our Beings and in all our Actions is a Point of great Importance also and capable of a larger Discourse whether we consider the Works of Nature in general or Humane Affairs in the regard they have either to publick Societies and Kingdoms or to the particular Concerns of private Men. That God's Providence is concern'd in all these and has an influence upon the Revolutions of Kingdoms is unquestionable What Measures and Inferences may be drawn from hence is a Matter of more dispute wherein we have endeavour'd to shew that God's determination or ordering of these Affairs is no Argument to prove them to be always good so as to justifie the Instrument by which such his Purposes are brought to pass We have seen in transitu what influence God's free Knowledg has on future Actions and how far Man may be a free Agent notwithstanding such Prescience or Decrees of God What hitherto has been spoken of are Points of speculation that which follows and is so necessary also to be known of God concerns Practice being no other than our Duty to him which is his Worship We have seen how the Gentiles and that all Ages and Kingdoms of the World ever held a Divine Worship to be due from them though almost all of them were Idolaters and superstitious in such Worship placing it on false Gods and those few amongst them who by the Light of Nature were directed to the Worship of the true God were yet very ignorant of the true Worship of God such a Worship being to be known only by Divine Revelation And although all the Heathen Law-givers and Founders of Religion pretended to receive their Precepts from some kind of Deity and by Revelation yet forasmuch as all such Deities were notoriously false and their Superstition long since vanish'd out of the World we ought not to give them a place amongst the Founders of reveal'd Worship and therefore we have consider'd such religious Worship as is at this day in Vogue having for its Object the true God and which make claim also to divine Revelation Of which The first is the Jewish touching whose Original there is no dispute amongst any Professors of Religion at this day extant in the World for both Christians as well as Mahometans do acknowledg Moses to have receiv'd his Laws from God and that the Jews were a People set apart by God for his peculiar Worship appears abundantly from the preservation of that little Nation and of their Rites amidst all the Kingdoms of the Earth which surrounded them and held them in subjection from whom as they differ'd extremely in Matters of Religion so was it impossible but their Religion should have been drown'd in that Ocean of Superstition which encompass'd them considering also their frequent Apostasies Persecutions and Inclinations to Idolatry had they not been upheld by a Divine Power from whom their Religion was deriv'd Notwithstanding this their Religion was but Temporary and to determine in the Messiah to whom also all the great Promises of the Old Testament all the Rites Ceremonies and Sacrifices had an immediate regard as Types and Figures in whom also they were all fully verified and accomplish'd which Messiah was no other but Jesus of Nazareth the true Saviour not only of the Jews but of all other Nations and who also was and is the Authour and Preserver of the Christian Religion which God was pleas'd to reveal by him as the only safe and secure way to everlasting Happiness This has been the chief Subject of this Book and the Truth hereof has been demonstrated not only from the Types and Prophesies of the Old Testament but from the Life Doctrine and Miracles of Jesus to which may be added the miraculous Effects and Success this Doctrine met with in the Conversion of the World The Mahometan Sect had for its Authour Mahomet who also pretended to divine Revelation but for what appears of him how wide soever he has extended his Dominion he was no other than a notorious Impostor whose Paradise was Sensuality and his Religion Empire The Discourse of the Soul's Immortality was a natural Result from the former Considerations of which also the better and more learned Heathens had a belief no less than of the Existence of God and of a Providence From all which Premises by an unavoidable Sequel of Reason we were led on to enquire what Benefits such Heathens were capable to receive from this kind of