to rule over who had been accustomed to lead dissolute lives with women to enrich themselves by depredations and robberies and to live by violence and rapine Perhaps such as favour him may be offended at these reproaches though they contain nothing but what is true Let the doctrine be considered alone in it self The first thing which be propounds is that he is a great Prophet of God and a messenger by whose ministry he makes known his will to men In the mean while he acknowledges the Old and New Testament as divine Books for he affirms that God imparted the Law to Moses and the Psalms to David and the Gospel to Jesus Christ and in the general speaks very advantageously of them all pretending that as the Gospel succeeded the law so likewise the Alcoran succeeds the Gospel But how is it possible that so great a change should arrive in the Church of God that the Gospel should be as it were devoured by the Alcoran without any prediction of so remarkable a matter either in the Old or New Testament Certainly God hath followed a quite other method in all times as to what regards the various dispensation of his knowledge In contracting alliance with Abraham he in a manner laid the foundations of the Law and the Gospel and declares things that did foreshew both the one and the other The Law which came into the world four hundred years after made express and direct mention of Jesus and Mahomet himself does not deny but that Jesus was promised by the Prophets How comes it to pass therefore that the Gospel hath intimated nothing of Mahomet to advertise the Christians of so marveillous a mutation to the end they might prepare themselves thereunto It is true that his advocates do here alledge two things One that Moses designed him by those words God shall raise up unto you a Prophet like to me among your brethren Hear ye him The other that his name was expresly written in the Old Testament but that the Jews and Christians have expung'd it out of all places where it was in their books But both these exceptions are vain For as for the first The Gospel applyes those words of Moses to Jesus Christ Which if they do with just reason how are they competent to Mahomet If they be perverted to a contrary sense whence is it that Mahomet confesses that the Gospel is of divine institution and revelation Either Mahomet is an Impostor that arrogates that to himself which agrees to Jesus Christ or the Gospel is false to which notwithstanding Mahomet allows the dignity of being proceeded from the hand of God himself For the second it is without all colour of reason For who first rased the name of Mahomet out of our Books Was it done before he was born and his doctrine had gain'd any repute in the world No surely for neither the Jews nor the Christians had at that time any interest to move them to commit such a sacriledge If he were named therein yet they pretend it was with a promise to the Church of God to raise up a great and soverain Prophet to it at a certain time and who would have gone about to efface such promises out of the holy books Certainly as the Jews did not imbezle out of their Scriptures those which promised Christ before he was revealed so neither would the Christians have blotted out of theirs those of this supreme Prophet before he came into the world And if they have so carefully preserved the predictions of Antichrist who was to commit such horrible outrages how much more dearly would they have kept the promises of this great and incomparable personage Was it then after the times of Mahomet Certainly no for there are copies of the Old and New Testament in their primitive language and Greek and Latine Translations made many ages before the birth of Mahomet which are inserted in the Writings of those that preceded him by a long time and which are found wholly congruous with ours The Chaldaick Syriack and Ethiopick Versions and Paraphrases which were performed long before these was any mention of Mahomet in the world have continued in their integrity to the present without any trace of this prophecy In a word of all the ancient Christian and Jewish Commentators and Authors that have labored with an incredible diligence in the Old and New Testament for a thousand years past none hath lest the least conjecture or shadow in his writings of ever having any knowledge of it Could it possibly be that this prophecy should be so totally rooted out of all the Writings in the World in which it ought to have been implanted as not one slip or sprig to be left of it neither in Europe nor Asia nor Africa And why were not the Turks carefull to preserve some Authentick Copy wherein it might be found thereby to convince the fraud of the Christians and support the honor of their Prophet by the Scriptures Certainly we cannot have a greater animosity against Mahomet then the Jews have against Christ and we are not less jealous of the conservation of our Gospel then they were of their Law Wherefore since they have not erased out of their Law the testimonies which authorise the person of Christ and his doctrine there is no reason to suspect that we should have expunged out of the Gospel those that had favour'd Mahomet and Mahometisme But further put case the Holy Spirit forgot to make mention of Mahomet as a great Prophet in the Old and New Testament yet if so be the Law the Prophets and the Gospel are proceeded from God and the Alcoran also be as its authors pretends descended from Heaven it is requisite that their doctrines agree together For God cannot be repugnant to himself Now the Jews observe an excellent correspondence between the Prophets and the Law and the Christians between the Gospel the Law and the Prophets but there is such a disagreement between these Books and the Alcoran as neither the Mahometans nor the Jews nor the Christians nor God himself can reconcile them together I shall not now mention that the Old and New Testaments teach that the Messias is both God and Man and that there are three Persons subsisting in the Blessed Trinity and that Christ dyed for the redemption of mankind because they are points which perhaps may be disputed although to receive the New Testament for the Word of God and to reject the Doctrine of the Trinity and that of Redemption by the Merit of Christ is as if a man should take back with one hand that which he casts away with the other I shall onely speak of those things which are clearer then the light it self In the Alcoran the History of the Creation of the World of the Terestrial Paradise of the Fall of man of the Death of Abel of the Deluge and the Arke of Noah of the Angels which appeared to Abraham of the Selling and Imprisonment of Joseph
of wives and concubines came from the Schole of the Nicolaitans The rare carnal Paradise was the invention of Cerinâ—hus and the ancient Chiliasts and that other foist That Christ did not suffer really but onely some Fantasme in his place was forged by the Cerdonians and others of that stamp The greatest part of his Fables are borrowed from the Jews and some Apocryphal Authors that were current like false money in those times and his gross follies wherewith he hath larded and strewed it throughout came from his own ignorance and for that having himself no knowledge at all neither of the Old nor New Testament nor of the writings of the Jews nor profane histories nor the Poets he trusted to the memory of a lewd Monk and some false Christians or false Jews who never understood very much of them whence all that he relates out of them is delivered rashly and at random But on the other side though there were nothing but truth in the whole Alcoran nothing but what were rational in it self and consentaneous to the Holy Scriptures both for histories and doctrines yet the author of it ought nevertheless to be held for no other then an Impostor for that he dares to vaunt himself for a great Prophet For such a Prophet as he pretends to be ought not onely to declare things agreeing with those that were before him but either to reveal doctrines unknown till then or to expound those which were delivered enigmatically and to unveil them out of their obscurities and withall to make faith of his calling either by miracles or prophesies of things to come ratified by the events the prediction of which does not import the vivacity of humane wit by penetrating by conjectures into some things undiscern'd by vulgar eyes but the wisdom of God to whom the bottom of the most impenetrable secrets is conspicuous Otherwise all Divines that ever writ concerning Religion either Jewish or Christian congruously to the books of the Old and New Testament should be either Prophets or Apostles Besides were there no errors in the Alcoran yet how many books have we that treat the best things contained therein in a manner incomparably more excellent Wherefore he ought to be accounted a Deceiver and the father of Deceivers who being so ignorant so impertinent so absurd so discordant from truth so fabulous and pollute he yet glories that he is the greatest of all the Prophets by whose ministry God revealed himself to men Now if Mahomet himself was so gross and mad a fool his principal Doctors and interpreters had yet more need of manacles and chaines then he which I shall shew onely by the sample of two books which they have in esteem In one of which is described the journey of Mahomet into Paradise by the conduct of the Angel Gabriel He entred say they into the first heaven being mounted upon Alborach an animal something bigger then an Asse and having a humane face where he observ'd that that first sphere was of fine silver and so thick as would require the space of five hundred years to be travell'd over by a foot-man There they found an Angel so high as it would be a thousand years journey from his head to his foot with seventy thousand other Angels each of which had seventy thousand heads every head seventy thousand hornes every horn seventy thousand knots and the distance of fourty years journey between one knot and another Also every head had seventy thousand faces in every of which there were seventy thousand mouths in every mouth seventy thousand tongues and every tongue spoke a thousand languages in which they praised God seventy thousand times a day you may imagine what a rare melodious noise they made In the second heaven which is made all of burnished gold they found a great multitude of Angels greater then the former amongst whom there was one whose se et touch'd the earth and his head the eighth Heaven 'T is strange no body ever saw him at least in one of the hemispheres But all these were but pygmies in comparison of another whom they met in the third Heaven who was so prodigiously great that if he should hold all the world in the palm of his hand he could nevertheless shut it Yet betwixt him and those which were in the fourth heaven it is hard to say whether there were any proportion unless some new Geometry be f und out to express it For every one of them had seventy pair of wings in each of which were seventy thousand pinions and every pinion was seventy thousand cubits long But as for him that they saw in the fifth sphere the Poets with their Briareus never understood any thing of him for what was he with his hundred armes to the Angel that opened the gate to them who had seven thousand arms at the end of each of which he moved seventy thousand hands In the other spheres they scarce found Angels of so enormous a stature but in the eighth sphere they beheld I cannot tell what huge Gyant so dreadful that he could have swollowed the Globe of the Earth Sea as easily as a little Pill Is the true History of Lucian and the Chronicles of Garagantua to be compared to this In the other Book is recited the discourse between a Musulman and a Jew who puts questions to him about the principal points of his doctrine and here it is that the spirit of error and lying displayes its full sails He saies God created a large Carton or Paper-volume and a pen of so rare a shape that it was five hundred days journey in length and four and twenty in breadth and that with this pen which ha's four and twenty points he writes continually in that Paper all that ever was is or shall be in the world That the light of the Sun and the Moon were equal in the beginning so that the day could not be well distinguish'd from the night but the Angel Gabriel as he flew by struck the Moon with the end of his wing and made it loose half its light Mention is made there of an Ox of so immense a greatness that between each of his horns whereof he hath fourty there is the distance of a thousand years journey And yet he says this Ox is under the Earth which the Hollanders sail round about in less then a year And least the Sea should complain of being destitute of Mahometical Monsters he assignes a fish to it whose head is in the East and tail in the West which carries on his back the whole earth seas and mountains a heavy load indeed but the air and darkness which he casts into his burden do not much increase his weight He makes Rats to have been produc'd in the Ark of the sneesing of a Hog and Cats of the sneesing of a Lyon perhaps by reason of the resemblance of their snout and muzzle And he saies that Seraphiel whosoever he be is not worth much enquiry
of the Plagues of Egypt and Pharaoh of the Calling of Moses and his Miracles are so villanously corrupted and contaminated with Fables both contrary to the truth and ridiculous in themselves that whatsoever is excellent elegant genuine pathetical and divine in the books of the Jews becomes cold and impertinent absurd and devested of all verisimilitude when this busie sciolist ha's the management of it If Moses and Mahomet were guided by the same spirit whence comes it to pass that they do not agree together How do the Writings of the Former ravish attentive and sober minds with admiration while the confused trash of the latter deters ingenuous spirits from the belief of those histories In like manner there is in the Evangelists a clear and coherent narration of the Annuntiation of the Angel to the Virgin of the miraculous Conception of Christ of the Birth of John the Baptist and the history of Zacharias his father of the Crucifying of our Saviour and his Ascension into Heaven and other like matters with their circumstances and dependances All which is so perversly related in the Alcoran debased with so many falsities and fables mangled and disguised with so many additions contradictions and intolerable mutilations that were it not for the proper names that he uses therein and some slight marks by which the reader may judge that he intended the rehearsing of those histories it would be difficult to imagine that he had ever heard of or understood any thing of them Wherefore if the Alcoran be proceeded from the Spirit of God and yet it bears testimony to the divinity of the Gospel how is it that the same spirit blows both cold and hot Why does it report at one time after one manner and differently at another Had it lost the memory of that which pass'd in Judaea five or six hundred years before and therefore recounted the same afterwards after such a disagreeing manner Or why did it not make use of the Memorials which the Evangelists and Apostles who were ocular witnesses of those transactions had recorded concerning the same But it s possible our Books have been altered Which is a most frivolous exception For if they were changed before the Sarazin name was heard in the World by what prophetick spirit could it have been divined that Mahomet was to come and so to new mold all the Old and the New Testament out of despight to him And if it was afterwards how come our Books to accord from word to word and poynt to poynt both in this and all other matters with the Commentaries of all them that writ in the first Ages of Christianity How would the Jews have permitted the Christians so to alter the Old Testament from the beginning to the end and the Christians the Jews likewise the New seeing they are so irreconcileable enemies amongst themselves Is it not rather to be believed that the ignorance of Mahomet who had never profest Christianity and the bad memory of those that help'd him to compile his Alcoran who suggested to him by roat that little of it they had learnt by hear-say caused him to committ all those hideous absurdities And certainly he extremely mistrusted that people would believe so For there is nothing he ha's so strictly forbidden as to dispute concerning his Law with the Jews because his cheats and foists are so open to discovery and conviction Two things alone keep up in credit amongst his fellows the falsities which he vented with so outragious an impudence Force of Arms the terror of which he diffused wheresoever he came and the Profound Ignorance of the people that follow him to whom it is forbidden to enter into any examination of the verity of things But if he be fouly inconsistent and discordant in the relation of histories he is no less in the doctrines which he teaches For the Gospel exhorts universally to patience and would not have any maintain or advance it otherwise then by sufferings and though in other things it condemns not wars justly engaged in by Princes for conservation of their rights and the peace of their dominions yet in matter of Religion it recommends onely constancy in suffering of the Cross and would have us be contented with that promise that all shall be so well ordered by the Providence of God that none shall have cause to complain that he leaves his own in oblivion But what does Mahomet in this cast There is not a chapter in all his book wherein he do's not preach fire and sword wars and massacres for the advancement of his Law He promises rewards in Paradise to those that shall acquit themselves valiantly therein and denounces eternal pains to cowards And although as He contradicts himself very frequently he says sometimes that no person ought to be constrained by force to receive his Law yet himself was the first that began so to make it be believed and gave special commandments for it which also ha's hitherto been practis'd by his successors upon all occasions In the Gospel Christ reduces Marriage to its ancient and natural purity prohibiting Polygamy and Divorce saving in case of adultery onely By the Alcoran it is lawful to have four or five wives if a man be able to keep them and to add to them moreover if he pleases a number of concubines How then is it that Christ having taught that the permission of Divorce was an induligence to the people of Israel because of the hardness of their hearts that at the beginning it was not so and so having by degrees abolish'd polygamies which had been in custom amongst them How is it I say that this Prophet whose revelations are if you will believe himself the accomplishment of the Gospel and the Law establishes the same again with so boundless licentiousness Certainly Christ did in this correct the defects of the polity of Moses and put things into an estate convenient to the excellence of times under the Gospel To urge the same further Had there been any thing in the causes of the Gospel to be amended Mahomet ought to have caused as much purity of holy marriage to have shin'd in his Law above that of Christ as Christ had made to appear in his above that of Moses And notwithstanding clean contrary he dishonors and pollutes it more then it ever was in the time of the Law of the Jews or even amongst idolatrous nations that have had any knowledge of natural honesty Add hereunto that the Gospel being a Doctrine of holy liberty and which hath favoured us with the grant of well-using such things as are neither good nor evil in themselves hath abrogated the constitution which obliged to abstain from them and likewise recommended the use of them in time of necessity which appears expresly in wine which the Apostle advises Timothy to use for the weakness of his stomach And so far was Christ from intending that his disciples and believers should abhor that sort of liquor that he hath
of God If there be not why then are arguments drawn from thence against the Epicureans to prove providence to them and to refute their opinions concerning the nature of God If there be why cannot a man make use of them to guide him at least in some measure to the knowledge of those secrets God forbid that we should so much forget our selves as to forget how clearly God ha's revealed himself in the World The manifestation which he hath made therein of his Perfections is one thing and the faculty which we naturally have to understand them an other Reason indeed but that which is right and in its integrity not such as we now possess might have thence collected the means of serving God in a due manner But as it is deprav'd blind and maim'd in its powers and apprehensions it is utterly incapable of discerning the truth therein or forming certain rules of piety from thence There is light enough in the Sun to make it be seen but it is by those who have eyes to these who never had any or have lost them it is as dark as the Earth on which they tread In like manner an infinite number of bright and excellent truths are held forth in the World and its Government to him that ha's the eye of his Understanding sufficiently clear and serene But the Eye of the Understanding which we call Reason in the conditition we injoy it at present is so distemper'd clouded and perturb'd that it beholds the truths which are there notwithstanding all their clearness but very obscurely and though they are most certain and stedfast in themselves yet when it contemplates them it perceives them onely as if they were inconstant and wavering Nor are men in this Age more free from these natural impediments then they were two thousand years ago and consequently can be no better assured of their knowledge For to say that 't is a Science which may aswell have been improved as others they which liv'd since having taken from the Opinions of the Ancients what was pure and rejected the unsound and bad is a thing of no moment to our discourse because it is untrue Perhaps Aristotle built his Philosophy up with the opinions of Elder Philosophers by refining them from that which he found faulty and serving himself with the truths before discover'd by them aswell to employ the same as materials to his structure as to find out others which were yet abstruse aad unknown And indeed it hath been observed that Hippocrates furnish'd him with the grounds of his Physiology so that he had no more to do but to build upon them and some have moreover believ'd that in divers places of his Writings and particularly in his Epistles he supplyed him with many singular advantages to the composing of his Ethicks And although he refutes Plato in several of his Opinions yet it is certain that he took many excellent instructions both from the discourses which he heard him make in his Academy and from the reading of his Works But I pray observe how this came to pass Aristotle was indued with an understanding capable to discern distinctly enough in matters of Philosophy the truths which his predecessors had brought to light and distinguish the same from falsities he was able to cull out and to place some apart from others and so to compose out of his own inventions and those of others a Body of Science better contriv'd then any had been before and whose parts were more correspondent amongst themselves But here the Question is concerning truths which the mind of man in its present estate is not capable to perceive clearly so that if he were put to make his choice of those different Opinions it would betide him that instead of hapning right he would rather choose the worst and thus it hath fallen out to all them which took imperfect humane reason for their guide therein If this reason be not satisfactory to my Adversaries let them pay themselves with experience Why did not Cicero garble all those different Opinions of Philosophers touching the Nature of the Gods to frame a good one if possible and leave posterity a rational doctrine in so important a matter But in stead of doing so the consciousness of his weakness makes him content himself with reciting them and after all his stories he knows as little of it as he did at first as if they had been nothing but clouds and darkness cast before his eyes Or why do not they show us the writings of some Philosopher either ancient or modern who being no otherwise assisted then by the meer light Reason ha's had more sound and sober opinions concerning it then his predecessors On the other side it will be found that some Philosophers who heretofore impugned Christian Religion and the Books of the Old and New Testament and who ought to have purifi'd that doctrine from the old absurdities it abounds with to the end their adversaries might have less advantage against it have been guilty of as many impertinences as they of preceding times and afforded as much cause to be insulted over in regard of the stupidity and ridiculousness of their conceits The unhappiness is that being naturally blind in these things we nevertheless conceive we see clearly and are so possess'd with a good opinion of our selves that we will not admit any one to teach us or if we have been taught by some bodyelse we are so ungrateful that we will not acknowledge it but reproach and execrate those persons from whom we have received all the purest of our knowledge For 't is the same case with these people and the Epicureans who having been enlightned by Christian Religion in many truths in the ignorance or incertitude of which they had otherwise eternally stagger'd or fluctuated they arrogate the glory of having of themselves drawn them out of the bottom of Democritus's Well or establish'd the belief of the same amongst men by the strength of their reason For why are they not say they as capable to invent them as they are to apprehend and receive them since they are revealed A wonderful Question truly and worthy of such subtle persons As if there were not a capacity in children of a dozen years old to apprehend the most difficult Geometrical Demonstrations when they are taught the same by some skillful Master who notwithstanding could never of themselves have invented the least Theorem in that Science Or as if we did not see them every day learn the Arabick Tongue readily by help of a knowing Instructor although they were as well able to pull the Stars out of Heaven as we say as to have disentangled the confusion of that Language and reduc'd it into Grammatical Rules It is indeed by the same faculty of Understanding that discover'd truths are comprehended and those found out which are unknown but there is required a far greater strength and vivacity of Intellect to make new discoveries then to comprehend
made it a part of the celebration of his most sacred mysteries What new inspiration therefore had this pretended Prophet to forbid wine as an abominable thing and the game of Chess as a diabolical and cursed invention As for the prohibition of Games of Chance such as Cards and Dice he is most readily commended for it but I know not what evil sports of industry had done him that he should attribute the invention of them to wicked spirits and excommunicate unpardonably out of his Paradise all those that divert themselves therewith Above all things the contrariety of manners and fashions of behaviour is remarkable between the authors of these two Religions the Christian and the Mahometan For Christ shewed himself an unimitable example of all sorts of virtues and Mahomet acknowledges him such and his most bitter enemies could never find any thing in him that was to be blamed Whereas Mahomet like a monster of uncleanness places amongst the priviledges allowed him above others of his sect that it was not lawful for them to have more then four or five wives beside some concubines but he had liberty from God to espouse as many as he pleas'd And that which is horrible to hear he makes God speake as if he had endowed him with extraordinary vigor at his birth for that purpose Yet I am the most mistaken man in the world if he were not jealous so strictly doth he injoyn his wives not to go forth of the house to make no flaunting of their beauty and never to appear but with a veil over their faces and so severely do's he forbid the Mahometanes to approach and caress them yea to enter into his house saving at certain houres prefixed and determined by him And for the height of continence in a Prophet of God his sectators do not deny that becoming enamour'd of the wife of Zeid his slave he caus'd him to divorce her that he might espouse her himself because of her excellent beauty and afterwards this beast introduces God speaking and owning that it was he that married them together Who can doubt as to the rest of the genius of this person But indeed the Paradise which he promises to his True-believers is an indubitable argument that the mind of this man was absolutely ingulfed in the dissoluteness of the flesh and subverted with the love of women and that his intention was to inveagle the minds of others by the same baits of lasciviousness For with what beatitude in the heavens above do's he feed their hopes They shall be saies he in a Paradise watered with fair and delightful fountains which shall flow as gently as if they were of liquid crystal They shall lye and repose in the shadow under the cool of thick-leav'd and stately trees which by their own motion shall intwine into pleasing bowers There shall they eat all sorts of delicious fruits in all seasons and shall be recreated with the melody of ten thousand little birds warbling amongst their branches wherewith shall be mingled the consort of most harmonious instruments and melodious voices Their attire shall be magnificent and triumphant as of silk purfled with gold and bedecked with jewels and pearls They shall sleep in beds imbroider'd with gold their pillows shall have great pearles hanging at the corners and their curtaines shall be beset with jewels beyond value and number And that which tickles his fancy most they shall each have their wives transcendently beautiful with breasts delicately protuberant and eyes like Jet enchased in Sylver whiter then snow and as great as large Eggs which is a bigness something exorbitant unles he will give them an enormous stature at the Resurrection And because sine Cerere Baccho friget Venus they shall banquet with them every day and shall be diverted with all sorts of sports and recreations that can be imagined and they shall be served at their feasts in fair large goblets of gold and crystal beset with most precious jewels and that by beautiful young Lads more smooth then pearls themselves and perfumed with odors beyond that of Amber-gris and the most fragrant of Arabia What can be concluded from this description of his rare Paradise but that Mahomet was wholly of flesh and there was nothing spiritual lest in his soul Then as for Hell he describes it almost after the same rate For he saies that the Wicked shall be cruelly tormented there in flames and shall beg for a little water to refresh them upon which shall be given a little drop of I know not what liquor but so poisonous and corroding that it shall eat out their bowels and yet they shall not dye then they shall be fed against their wills with a fruit resembling the Devils testicles which shall boil like fire in their stomacks and they shall be cloathed with shirts of flaming pitch and wear great collors of burning fire about their necks Is not this an excellent prospect of the infernal pains I know there are some of so perverted fancies as to seek out mysterious doctrines hidden under them Yea they go so far as to make comparison thereof with that which is contained under the veil of some typical and figurative words in the books of the Old and New Testament But were not these wild-brain'd persons sufficiently punisht in this life by their own folly they should be answered with stripes and scourges instead of the reasons of Divines and Philosophers For what is mysterious in the Bible is such that were it not understood yet it offers nothing either absurd or ridiculous And that which is understood of it as there is scarce any thing which is not saving some prophecies not yet accomplished in regard they are veiled under enigmatical expressions ha's been manifested by events which are the best Commentaries on prophecies or illustrated by doctrines explicitely and cleerly delivered in other places of it So that the whole book does give light unto it self by its own beams But in those prophecies of Mahomet the obscure matters are irrational and ridiculous in their obscurity and he that goes about to seek some doctrine worthy of esteem under the bark of his words there is in the first place such a perpetual dissonance in the text of the Alcoran that he will soon perceive those words were not made for those things and liken a noble and excellent doctrine cloathed with the seemingly mysterious style of that person to the story of Hercules's putting on the attire of a young maid for what could be easier then to discern that those feminine habiliments were unsutable to the robust and nervous members of him that overcame so many monsters In the next place he will be forc'd to borrow that doctrine some where else either from the Holy Scripture or from Philosophy and transplant the same into the Alcoran as into a strange soil For of it self it neither furnishes matter wherewith to supply its deficiency and emptiness nor light to clear up its
obscurities And indeed what a furious love of the Alcoran is it that causes a man to observe such things in it of which its author would not have us believe he ever thought and such as his interpreters reject and his followers detest and abominate For why are they so affected to the Law of Mahomet unless because it promises them all sorts of corporeal contentments And should any expound those things to them in a mystical way who doubts but that they would think his endeavor was to cause all the hope of their beatitude to vanish into smoke Moreover though for the Words and the Rime that book was written in an Arabick style good enough yet it is composed of parts so loose and incoherent amongst themselves that 't is a wonder how they that read it with so much admiration do not advert its impertinence For it is a hotchpot of several confused matters huddled together without any other connection then they have by chance and it is sufficiently apparent that it was built at several times and by divers hands and not followed according to one uniform and continued designe For he mingles therein the Histories before the Law with those after it those of the New Testament with the Wars of his own time and sometimes divides one into two or three pieces and contrarily sometimes ineptly molds two or three into one Prayers promises exhortations admonitions commandments and laws priviledges and histories descriptions of Paradise and Hell Philosophy and Divinity after his manner fables of times past and future the number of the Celestial Orbs and the death of a Cow are to be found jumbled together in one and the same Chapter And you would say sometimes that they are verily the ravings of a man in a fever or the enthusiasmes of a drunkard Vt nec pes nec caput uni Reddatur formae And if the order thereof be so perverted the matter is little better He saies that the Mind of man is a portion of the soul of God which he breath'd into him at his first creation and that under the shadow which the trees make they adore the Deity He swears by the Alcoran in one place and in another by his pen that that book was sent to him from Heaven That the Heavens would fall were it not for the Angels that pray for us That Jesus Christ had the soul of God That many deserted Christ because he was too eloquent And disputing against the Christians he proves that Jesus is not the Son of God and that God can have no Son in as much as he hath no need of any thing whatsoever He saies Men were created of shadow and Divels of flames of fire And as for the creation of the rest of the Universe he relates it in this manner God created the Earth in two days and fastned it to the mountains as it were by anchors and cables In the two next dayes he caused all sorts of herbs to spring up for the nutriment of animals After which the earth being thus framed began to emit exhalations and steams of which he formed the Heavens in two other days in which he placed the Stars and gave them principally in charge to chase away the Devils by the splendor of their light when they go to spy what is doing in Heaven Did he reason or rage when he writ all these excellent pieces of Divinity But then he interweaves the same here and there with I know not what putid fables He repeates a hundred and a hundred times so distrustful is he it will not be believ'd that God is the author of that rare book professes that all mankind together could not have made the least syllable of it He sprinkles the doctrine of the resurrection with shamefull and unprofitable fables Sometimes he goes about to discourse of matters treated on by the Writers of the New Testament and presently discovers that he understands nothing at all of them as where he makes a comparison of Christ with Adam Then in another place he trifles incongruously about the Table of the Lord and the Sacraments of the Gospel He boasts of having cemented the Moon together again which himself had cut in sunder He speaks of Predestination and the Providence of God as a Fatal Destiny and some say 't is by this means that he rendred his followers so adventurous in war because being perswaded that the decrees of that Destiny are inevitable they cast themselves without heed into the mouth of danger presuming they shall not dye in case it be not predestinated though their hearts were pierced with a hundred Javelins Lastly he contradicts himself at every turn But the thing for which he most frequently defends himself is his not doing of miracles and he will not allow anyone to require them from him though indeed he did all thing◠which no man ought to undertake unless he can prove his vocation by authentick miracles For he abolisht the constitutions which himself acknowledged were authoris'd by God as those of the Law and the Gospel He introduc'd a new form of Religion and invaded the dignity of soveraign Magistrates levying armes against Princes though he was but a private person giving liberty to slaves in spight of their masters with an absolute authority and maikng invasions and wars the most violent and bloody that ever were seen in the world But ought not he to have authoris'd himself by miracles to shew the right he had to do all this Who ever attempted any of those things as Moses or Elias or Christ or his Apostles but at sometime or other gave testimony of their celestial calling by miracles Certainly when I consider on the one side the absurdity and grosseness of almost every thing he saies I cannot but think he had great need of miracles to perswade the same to people of understanding and I should reckon it a miracle if any honest man could believe him And on the other side when I consider the nature of his doctrine and those to whom he perswaded it I conceive it no great miracle to have allur'd and drawn carnal minds by the gaudy baits of a carnal Paradise In a word it needs not to be much versed in that work to observe that it is a medly of all impertinent and bad things amongst which there is sometimes found some little good as there is in the Drugs of Egypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what good there is there is overwhelmed in an abysse of falsities impieties fables and impertinences and it is not difficult to shew from what fountains he deriv'd it all The good doctrines and sentences which are sometimes met with by the way are taken from the Old and New Testament The hatred which be perpetually testifies against the doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ he receiv'd by contagion from the Arians and other hereticks that were in high repute in his time That vile pollution of Marriage by the licentious multiplicity
Lord Jesus was the Messias Because the preaching of Christ was grounded on this point That God had heretofore by his Prophets promis'd a Messias to the people of Israel who should be the Redeemer of the Nation and he was sent accordingly by God for that end in the fullness of time t in which regard he invited all the world to receive him as the Supreme Prophet Let them speak it out therefore confidently whether Christ be the Messias promised by the Old Testament or not For if he be not it behoveth to become Jews and to account him as they do for the greatest Deceiver that ever was upon the earth and hence forward turn our Churches into Synagogues reducing all Christian order to the ancient manner of the Tabernacle If he be the Messias promised by the Old Testament he is God for that describes him to be such as we have shewn by irrefragable proofs And that those Books of Moses David and the Prophets are divine what we have spoken above in the matter leaves it no longer doubtful Nevertheless admit for the present they be writings purely humane surely these excellent Theologers will not deny least the reading shame them but that they agree all in this particular That from the Nation of the Jews ought one day to arise a great and rare personage who should be King in Israel and should be called the Son and the Branch of the Lord himself And this hath been the expectation of that people in all times with which they comfort themselves still in their deplorable desolation But what moved them to speak in this manner if they had no other instinct but from their own mind Who incited Moses to set this fraud first on foot Why did the others many Ages after so carefully cherish ratifie and augment it in several circumstances with other false prophecies What profit did they reap by deluding the world with such a hope They must have had intelligence so many ages before with a man who was not yet in being to foretell that he should exist and this man born by chance at the just time which they presum'd to determine must have taken occasion from these fortuitous predictions and the expectation rais'd by them in the minds of men to declare himself the person whom so many prophets in so many different times had unanimously presag'd was to exist Now it would be a strange case that Moses should first of all without any necessity of so doing or advantage by it in reference to his design of governing the people of Israel and the establishment of his power take up a fancy of the future arising of some great Prophet and then another should come two or three hundred years after and revive this prediction made at randome and enlarge and clear it up with other new for this opinion was successively more and more confirm'd and rooted in the minds of men and that at length at the time prefixt and the set period there should be found one both confident enough to draw all those presages to his advantage and so favor'd by fortune that all the circumstances of his birth his life and his death should meet together in his person Surely ther 's as much likelihood in this as in the Imagination of Epicurus concerning the framing of the world by the casual lighting together of Atomes But there 's something yet more strange If they were predictions purely humane and also fortuitous like the Ephemerides of Nostradamus being they were cloath'd in magnificent terms and there was nothing promis'd less then a King sitting upon the throne of David who was to restore the Commonwealth of Israel faln into so miserable an estate under the power of the Romans If Jesus were merely man and intended to advantage himself by the foolish hopes of that people what a preposterous madness was it to take the course he did In stead of exciting the people to sedition against the Romanes he commands to pay tribute and pays it himself to give example In stead of insinuating into the affections of daring adventurous men and such as he might use for Captains he makes choise of a dozen poor Fishermen and people of such condition to have them continually in his train Instead of erecting his Nation to magnanimity he betakes himself to preach humility and obedience In stead of imploying the virtue of doing miracles he was so mighty in to astonish Herod or Pilate in some surprise or battail he heals the lame and the blind and the dumb and the paralytick And that which is if these Opinionists be credited the height of folly instead of raising men into hope of his victories he foretells to them which followed him that he was to dy upon the Cross and sharpely reproves one of them who went about to disswade him from that purpose of his Was this the way if it was a humane Design to be get in the world already posses'd with hope of a Messias for a great Earthly King a belief that he was the person which was promised by their Prophets Surely Mahomet us'd not this course who takes arms in hand gives freedom to slaves and because he knew his doctrine could not support it self by the prop of truth plants it in all places where he can by wars and battles Wherfore to conceive a person should endevor to serve himself after this manner of the presumptions and expectations of men is not to fancy a man but a lunatick In the next place I ask whether Jesus Christ when he called some persons with him to serve him in the work he undertook as nothing is more apparent then that he had twelve peculiar Apostles he discover'd this secret of his pretended Divinity to them or whether he abus'd them aswell as other men For if he discover'd the same to them 't was a wonderful complot that he should style himself the Son of God deport himself for very God and they profess themselves his messengers sent immediately from him to promulgate his doctrine and at last for their reward he should be ignominiously crucifi'd and each of them respectively after divers dangers both by Sea and Land after imprisonments stonings tortures and racks should conclude their miserable and painful lives by cruel and shameful deaths Truely though he chose Fishers and men of low condition yet I believe there was none among them so stupid as to be capable of being perswaded to partake in this enterprise upon these conditions For as for his having induc'd them to it by this onely consideration that great good should come thereby to the World and that the Nations should be converted by their word from Idols to the true God there was so little colour in the thing that he would never have been believ'd so little of that generosity in them which leads men to promote the universal good of the world without appearance of other recompense then misery and death that none of them would have
at all and withall think no Jesus Christ was ever in the world and consequently all this Discourse is absolutely unprofitable they must be referr'd to the preceeding dispute in which I prov'd their Divinity against the Jews and others like them If they afford any belief to those Books certainly they will never accuse them of having forg'd the testimonies render'd of Christ from heaven the authors of which might not only have contradicted one another but might have been convinc'd of fal shood by fifty thousand persons What then was the meaning of God in these words This is my Son in whom I am well pleased As for the miracles which he wrought as raising the dead giving sight to such as were born blind healing inveterate lamenesses of many years and the like they could not proceed from any but a special assistance of a power truely divine And what appearance is there that God should have afforded his infinite power to such an impostor to cause men to believe in him and consequently to found such a prodigious and universal Idolatry We know said one God hears not the wicked But who ever was more wicked then Christ if he was so impious and such a blasphemer as this Opinion represents him Then in reference to the certain predictions which Christ made of things to come into which no humane conjecture could dive there needs no other proofs of them then by comparing the correspondence which the Evangelists observe of them with the events themselves He foretold that he should dy and it came to pass accordingly But which is more he foretold that he should rise again and he was not deceived in his assurance He foretold the ruine of Jerusalem and the Romanes as if they had been hired by him for that purpose fullfill'd his Prophecy He declar'd that when he was once lifted up on high he would draw all men to him and experience attests the verity of this oracle For his Cross is like a standard lifted up before the Eyes of all Nations to summon and invite them to his knowledge Now many others indeed have foretold things to come but I judge it impossible for such a person as Christ would have been had he been such as these people describe him to have obtain'd the spirit of Prophecy from God Balaam sometimes prophesied of things to come but it was for the good of the people But this of Christs would have been to gain credit to the word of an impostor to lead men into many snares and especially as was said for God to lend his hand to the seting up of Idolatry As for what these good the people say that it was lawful to abuse men in some points in order to leading them to embrace certain excellent virtues although it be a strange and absurd method of teaching truth by the favor of prodigious falsities and a wiliness uncommendable by prudent judgements yet should it be admitted it ought not to be practis'd unless in matters which draw no pernicious consequences after them as when the simplicity of childhood is beguil'd by smearing honey or sugar on the brim of the cup which contains a medicinal potion Deceptaque non capiatur Sed potius tali facto recreata valescat But the using impious and blasphemous falsities and which are infallibly effective of such idolatry had Christ and his Apostles practis'd it they had not followed that incomparable precept which they give us for a rule of our actions Not to do evil that good may come of it As for the other opinions being they are consequent of this and by reason of their dependency implicitly prov'd in the proof of their primitive principle I shall not insist upon demonstrating the truth of them Only I shall intimate that Saint Paul had been a person of a stranglye distemper'd mind to labor so much in disputing against the Gentiles from the maximes of Nature and against the Jews from the constitutions of the Law to draw arguments from the books of the Old Testament to expound allegories to reason raise and resolve objections in maintaining the doctrine of justification by faith and of predestination or eternal election and other like doctrines if they were nothing but fictions His writings discover a wisdom too profound to leave place for an accusation of so inept and ridiculous deceit But the cause these people speak after this rate is that they never read or never understood the Holy Scriptures and the oeconomy of Christian Religion For did they attentively consider them they would easily observe that the point of Christs incarnation in this doctrine is like the image of Phidias in the Statue of Minerva which if taken away the whole work is dissolv'd if let alone all the parts of the statue are terminated in the same with such art and wisdom that an observing mind is ravish'd with admiration at the whole contrivance But let us now return to our Design and bring it to conclusion CHAP. XI That Indifference in the professing all Religions is not justifiable according to the Christian Religion which Party soever be embraced And for Conclusion The Refutation of the Pretext propounded in the Preface WE have by the Divine assistance shewn by reasons in which all endu'd with any sense of piety and even in whom nature and reason are not absolutely perverted ought to acquiesce That the Jewish Religion having been heretofore alone of divine institution the Christian hath by the authority of the Messias so succeded it as that it hath wholly abrogated its use and That this latter bears infinite evidences of its heavenly original both in the excellence of its doctrine and the correspondence of it with the ancient Prophecies We also intimated at the beginning that there are two principal Parties of Christians under which all are ranked that wear this name differing in two principal Points on which all their other controversies depend One of these Parties holds that that particular Revelation by which God hath ordain'd Religion and matters pertaining to his service ha's been left to men by two ways namely by the Scripture and by verbal Tradition the Scripture to serve for a foundation to Tradition and Tradition to be a supplement in the deficiency of the Scripture for that it contains not all things necessary to salvation and even in what it do's contain is of dubious understanding and hath need of the interpretation of Tradition Moreover that the dispensing of Tradition ha's been committed to the hands of the Bishop of Rome to use it with a Soverain and Apostolical authority and a promise from God to be absolutely infallible in it The other Party acknowledge no other revelation of the Divine Wisdom then that which is contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament rejecting all verbal Tradition in reference to things necessary to salvation And as for the authority of the Pope concerning the infallible interpretation of the Word of God they not onely do not