Figure of Future Time the Ark wherein God discovered himself to be present by his Oracles and in which the Tables of the Law were kept the Advancement of Aaron the Brother of Moses the High-Priest the Ceremonies of their Consecration and the Form of their mysterious Habits the Priests Functions the Sons of Aaron those of the Levites with the other Observances of Religion and that which is most beautiful and decent the Rules of good Manners the Policy and Government of his chosen People of whom he would be himself the Legislator This is what is observable in the Epocha of the Written Law Afterwards we see the Journey continued in the Wilderness the Revolts the Idolatries the Punishments and Consolations of the People of God whom this Almighty Legislator reduced by these means by degrees the Anointing of Eleazor Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1452 the High-Priest and the Death of his Years of the World 2552 Father Aaron the Zeal of Phineas the Son of Eleazor and the Priesthood secured to his Posterity by a particular Promise During this time the Aegyptians continued the Establishment of their Colonies in divers Places chiefly in Greece where Danaus the Aâ—gyptian was made King of Argos and dispossess'd the Ancient Kings that came Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1451 from Inachus Towards the end of the Israelites Years of the World 2553 Journying in the Wilderness we see the Beginnings of Wars which are rendred successful through the Prayers of Moses But he dies and leaves to the Israelites their whole History which he had carefully digested from the beginning of the World even to the time of his Death This History is continued by the command of Josuah and his Successors This afterwards was divided into several Books and hence it is that we have the Book of Josuah the Book of Judges and the Four Books of Kings The History which Moses wrote and in which all the Law was included was also divided into Five Books which are called the Pentateuch and which are the Ground of Religion After the Death of that Man of God we read of the Wars of Josuah Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1445 the Conquest and Division of the Holy Land Years of the World 2559 and the Rebellions of the People punished and re-established at divers times There Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1405 are likewise the Victories of Othoniel the Son Years of the World 2599 Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1325 of Kenaz the Brother of Caleb who delivered Years of the World 2679 him from the Tyranny of Chausan-Rishathaim King of Mesopotamia and Eighty years after That of Ehud the Son of Gera Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1322 over Eglon King of Moab About this Years of the World 3682 time Pelops the Phrygian the Son of Tantalus reigned in Peloponnesus and called that famous Country by his Name Bel the King of the Chaldeans received from those People Divine Honours The ungrateful Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1305 murmuring Israelites fall again into Servitude Years of the World 1699 Jabin King of Chanaan subjecteth Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1285 them but Deborah the Prophetess who Years of the World 2719 judged the People and Baruc the Son of Ahinoam overcame Sisera the General of Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1245 that Kings Army Thirty years after this Years of the World 2759 Gideon that mighty Man of Valour even without fighting pursues and overcomes the Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1236 Medianites Abimelech his Son usurped the Years of the World 2768 Authority by the Murther of his Brethren exercised it after a Tyrannical manner and Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1187 at last loseth it and his Life together Jephtha Years of the World 2817 makes his Victory bloody by a Sacrifice that was not to be excused but by a secret Order and Dispensation from Heaven concerning which it hath not pleased him to reveal any thing to us In this Age there hapned very remarkable things among the Gentiles Herod l. 1. c. 26. For according to Herodotus his Account which seems to be the most exact Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1267 we are to reckon for that time 514. years Years of the World 2737 before Rome Gen. x. 11. and from the time of Deborah Ninus the Son of Bel and the Foundation of the first Empire of the Assyrians The Court was established at Nineveh an Ancient City and then pretty Famous but it was made more Splendid and Glorious by Ninus Those who ascribe 1300 years to the first Assyrians have their Foundation from the Ancientness of the City and Herodotus who allows them but 500 speaks only of the Empires Duration since its beginning under Ninus the Son of Bel to extend it self into the Upper Asia A little after and in that Conqueror's Reign Jos xix 20. Joseph Antiq 8.2 we are to fix the Foundation or the Renewal of the ancient City of Tyre whose Navigation and whose Colonies rendred it so Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1252 considerable At last a little after Abimelech's Years of the World 2752 time we meet with the memorable Combates of Hercules the Son of Amphitryon and those of Theseus King of Athens who made but one great City of the twelve Towns of Cecrops and instituted a better Form of Government among the Atheninians During Jephtha's time whilst Semiramis who came from Ninus and was the Governess of Ninyas inlarged the Assyrian Empire by her Victories The Famous City of Troy already taken once by the Greeks under Laomedon its third King was Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1184 utterly reduced again by the Greeks under Years of the World 2820 Priam the Son of Laomedon after a Siege of ten years V. Epocha The Taking of Troy The fourth Age of the World This Epocha of the Ruin of Troy which hapned about the year 308. after the Departure out of Aegypt and 1164 years after the Deluge is very considerable as well because of the Importance of so great an Years be ∣ fore J. C. 1184 Event celebrated by two of the greatest Years of the World 2820 Poets of Greece and Italy as because that every thing may be brought to this Date which was most remarkable in those called the Fabulous or Hâ—roick Times the Fabulous by reason of the Fables in which the Histories of those Times are wrapt and Heroick by reason of those whom the Poets have called the Sons of the Gods and Heroes Their Lives were not far from this Overthrow For in the time of Laomedon the Father of Priam were all the Heroes of the Golden Fleece Jason Hercules Orpheus Castor and Pollux and all the others that are known to you and in the time of Priam likewise during the last Siege of Troy there were Achilles Agamemnon Menelaus Vlysses Hector Sarâ—edon the Son of Jupiter Aeneas the Son of Venus whom the Romans acknowledged for their Founder and several others from whom the most Illustrious Families and even
Years of the World 3116 to change Figure in the Kingdom of Judah Athaliah the Daughter of Ahab and Jezabel carried Impiety along with her into the House of Jehosaphat Jehoram the Son of so pious a Prince chose rather to imitate his Father-in-Law than his own Father Years be ∣ fore J. C. 885 The Hand of God was upon him His Years of the World 3119 Reign was short and his End dreadful In the midst of his Chastisements God wrought unheard-of Prodigies even in favour of the Israelites whom he would now recaâ—l to Repentance They saâ— without ever being converted the Wonders of Elijah and Elisha who prophesied during the Reign of Ahab Mâ—rrâ— Aâ—â—na and five of his Successors At this time Hâ—mer flourished as Hesiod had done Thirty years before The Ancient Manners aâ—d Customs which they represent to us and the Vestigia that they still keep with much Grandeur and with the ancient Simplicity does not a little serve to let us understand the Antiquities that are a great deal more remote and the Divine Simplicity Years be ∣ fore J. C. 884 of the Scripture There had been terrible Years of the World 3120 Spectacles in the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel Jezabâ—l was thrown down out of a Tower-window by the command of Jehu who valued not the painting her Face and tyring her Head but fulfilled the Word of the Lord in causing his Horses to tread her under their Feet He killed Jehoram King of Israel the Son of Ahab even all the House of Ahab was destroyed and it wanted but a little of drawing that of the Kings of Judah into its own Ruine King Ahazia the Son of Joram King of Judah and of Athaliah was slain in Samaria with his Brethren as an Ally and Friend to the Children of Ahab As soon as this News was brought to Jerusalem Athaliah resolved to cut off all that remained of the Seed-Royal without sparing her own Children and so to reign and govern by the loss of her own Only Jehoash the Son of Ahaziah a Child that then hung at the Breast was stole away from her Fury by Jehosheba his Aunt Jehosheba the Sister of Ahaziah and Wife of Jehoiada the High-Priest hid him in the House of the Lord and saved that only precious Remainder of the House of David Athaliah who thought him dead with the rest lived without fear Plat. de Repâ—◠〈…〉 Arist â—olit l. 2. c. 9. Lycurgus prescribed Laws to the Lacedemonians He is rebuked for having made them all Martial after the Example of Minos whose Institutions he had followed and for having but little provided for the Womens Modesty for that so he might make all his Men Soldiers he obliged them to a very laborious and temperate Life Nothing was stirring in Judah against Athaliah and therefore she thought her self established during a six years Reign But God raised her up an Years be ∣ fore J. C. 678 Avenger in the holy Sanctuary of his Temple Years of the World 3326 When he was come to be seven years old Jehoiada made him known to some of the Rulers over Hundreds with the Captains of the Guard and the Royal Army whom he had carefully managed and being assisted with the Priests he anointed the young King in the Temple Easily were the People persuaded to acknowledge the Heir of Davâ—d and of Jehosaphat At the noise whereof Athaliah ran to dissipate the Conspiracy but being forced without the Ranges of the Temple she there received the Reward of her Crimes As long as Jehoiada lived Joash reigneth well keeping to the Law of Moses After the Death of this holy Man of God corrupted by the Flatteries of his Courtiers he falls in with them to downright Idolatry The High-Priest Years be ∣ fore J. C. 840 Zacharias the Son of Jehoiada was resolved Years of the World 3164 to reprove him for it but Jehoash without ever being mindful of what he owed to his Father caused him to be stoned But Vengeance followed close at the heels of Years be ∣ fore J. C. 839 this for the next year Jehoash being beaten Years of the World 3165 by the Syrians and fallen into contempt was assassinated by his own Subjects and Amaziah his Son a better Man than himself was set upon the Throne Years be ∣ fore J. C. 825 The Kingdom of Israel being wasted and Years of the World 3179 depressed by the Victories of the Kings of Syria and by Civil Wars re-assumed its Forces under Jeroboam II. who was more pious than his Predecessors Hoziah otherwise called Azariah the Son of Amaziah also governed the Kingdom of Judah with no less Honour and Glory This is that Years be ∣ fore J. C. 810 Famous Hoziah that was smitten with Leprosie Years of the World 3194 and often reproved in Scripture for having towards his latter days presumed to take upon him the Priestly Office and against the Prohibition of the Law had himself offered up Incense upon the Altar of Perfumes He was to be set aside though he was a King according to the Law of Moses and Jotham his Son who was afterwards his Successor did wisely govern the Kingdom Under the Reign of Hoziah the Holy Prophets the Chief of whom at that time were Hosea and Isaiah began to publish their Prophecies in Writing and in particular Books the Originals of which they deposited in the Temple to serve as a Monument to Posterity The Lesser Prophecies which were given only vivâ voce were as was usual registred in the Rolls of the Temple with the History of the time The Years be ∣ fore J. C. 776 Olympic Games instituted by Hercules and Years of the World 3228 long discontinued were re-established and from that re-establishment came the Olympiades by which the Grecians counted their Years Aboâ—â— this time ended that which Varro calls thâ— Fabulous because the profane Histories then were full of confusion and falsities and the Historical times began wherein the affairs of the World were reported with more exactness and fidelity The first Olympiad is marked out by the victory of Corebus They were renewed every five years and after four years Revolution There in the Assembly of all Greece at Pisa first and afterwards at Elida those famous Combats were celebrated where the Conquerors were crowned with incredible Applauses The Exercises likewise were in great honour and Greece every day became more strong and more cultivated Italy as yet was almost all over savage The Latin Kings of Aeneas's Race reigned at Alba. Phul was King of Assyria 'T was believ'd he was the Father of Sardanapalus called according to the Eastern Custom Sardan Pul that is to say Sardan the Son of Phul. 'T was also thought that this Phul or Pul had been King Years be ∣ fore J. C. 771 of â—ineveh who joined with his People in Years of the World 3233 Repentance at the Preaching of Jonas That Prince invited by the Confusions of the Kingdom of Israel went to invade it but
perswade a whole Nation even the old Men who had seen that Prophet and had always looked for that miraculous Deliverance which he had foretold them of Esdras and Nehemiah could not have written the History of their Time some other must have done it in their Name and those who have made all the other Books of the old Testament would have been so esteemed by Posterity that the other Falsifyers would have gained little Credit to their Imposture No doubt but they would have been ashamed of so many Extravagancies and instead of saying that Esdras had of a sudden brought to light so many Books so different one from the other by the Characters both of Stile and Time one must affirm that he might have inserted into them the Miracles and Predictions which made them to pass for Divine An Error more gross still than the former since that those Miracles and those Predictions are so interspersed in all those Books so often inculcated and repeated with such different turns and so great a variety of powerful Figures in a word they have so constituted the whole Body of them that if we have ever but so much as opened those holy Books we must see that it was a great deal more easy perfectly to make a new Model of them than to insert in them those things which the Incredulous are so much puzled to find there And tho' it should be granted them whatsoever they ask yet the miraculous and divine Parts are so much the Foundation of those Books that they must be yet acknowledged whatsoever Aversion any may have to them And admit that Esdras might have added afterwards the Predictions of those things that had already happened in his time yet those which were fulfilled since which you have seen in so great a number who should superadd them God it is possible might have bestowed on Esdras the gift of Prophecy that so the Imposture of Esdras might seem the more probable and they might rather have a false one to be a Prophet than Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel Or else every Age might have had a prosperous Counterfeit who might impose upon the Faith of a whole Nation and that new Impostors thro' an admirable Zeal of Religion might have continually been adding to the divine Books after that the Canon might have been closed that they might be spread abroad with the Jews over all the Earth and translated into so many strange Languages Would not this have been out of eagerness of Desire to establish the Religion the way utterly to destroy it Would a whole Nation so easily suffer a Change of what they verily believed to be Divine whether thro' Conviction of Reason or thro' the power of Error Could any one hope to persuade Christians nay or Turks to add but one single Chapter either to the Gospel or to the Alcoran But perhaps the Jews might be more docile than other People or not so Religious as to preserve their holy Books What Monsters of Opinions must come into their Minds to make then willing to shake off the Yoke of divine Authority and not to regulate their Sentiments no more than their Manners but by their distorted Reason Let none say that the discussion of these Matters is perplexing and troublesom For if it should be so they must either lay the Charge of it on the Authority of the Church and the Tradition of so many Ages or else push on the Examination to the utmost Extremity and never believe they can be rid of it but say they require still more time than will be given to their Salvation But certainly not to turn over the Books of both the Testaments with an endless Labour we need only read the Book of Psalms where are collected so many antient Songs of Gods People to see there in the most divine Poetry that ever was the immortal Monuments of the History of Moses of that of the Judges and Kings imprinted by Song and Measure in Men's Minds And for the new Testament The bare Epistles of St. Paul so Lively and Original so strong as to time both of the Affairs and Motions which then were and in short of so pointing a Character those Epistles I say received by the Churches to which they were addressed and from thence communicated to other Churches will be sufficient to convince all honest Minds that every thing in the Scriptures which the Apostles have left us is according to the Original So likewise do they support one another with an invincible Force The Acts of the Apostles are but a continuation of the Gospel their Epistles suppose it necessary but that all may agree together both the Acts and the Epistles and Gospels do every where own the antient Books of the Jews St. Paul and the other Apostles are continually alledging what Moses hath said Act. 3.22.7.31 32 c. Rom. 10.5.19 what the Prophets have said and writ after Moses Jesus Christ calls to witness the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms as Witnesses who all depose the same Truth When he hath a mind to explain his Mysteries Ibid. 27. John 5.46 47. he begins at Moses and all the Prophets and when he tells the Jews that Moses wrote of him he lays down for a Foundation what was most certainly believed among them and brings them back to the very Spring Head of their own Traditions But however we will see what can be opposed to this so acknowledged an Authority and to the Consent of so many Ages For since in our days Men have been so presumptuous and daring as to print in all sort of Languages Books against the Scriptures we ought not to dissemble or conceal what they alledge for the decrying its Antiquities Therefore what say they to justify the Pentateuch's being supposititious and what can be objected to a Tradition of three thousand Years standing upheld by its own Power and by the course of things Nothing of Consequence nothing that is positive nothing that is of weight and substance Some little Chicaneries and Quarrels they have at Numbers Places and Names and such Observations that in all other matters are reckoned at most but as vain Curiosities uncapable of reaching the stress of the Case are here alledge to us by way of Decision of an Affair the most serious that ever was There are say they Difficulties in the History of the Scripture No Question to be made on 't which yet there would not be weâ—e the Books less antient or had they been supposititious and made as they are so bold to say by a cunning and industrious Man If they had not been so Religious as to give it us as they found it but had taken the liberty to correct it where it did not please them There are Difficulties which arise by length of time when places have changed their Name or Condition when Dates are forgot when Genealogies are no further known when there is no remedy for the Faults which a Copy
tho' never so little mistaken so easily introduces in such things or that matters of Fact which have slipt out of Mens Memories do leave a Darkness upon some part of the History But then is this Obscurity in the Issue it self or in the stress of this Affair By no means All there is followed and that which is obscure serves only to let us see a more venerable Antiquity in those holy Books But there are Alterations in the Text The ancient Versions do not agree together the Hebrew in several Places is different from it self and the Text of the Samaritanes beside the Word which they accuse them of for changing it expresly in favor of the Temple of Gerizim differs also in many other places from that of the Jews And from thence what do they conclude That the Jews or else Esdras had contrived the Pentateuch at the return of the Captivity 'T is just the contrary that they should conclude The Differences of the Samaritane serve only to confirm what we have already established that their Text is independant from that of the Jews So far can we be from imagining that those Schismaticks took any thing from the Jews and Esdras that we have seen exactly to the contrary that it was in spight to the Jews and Esdras and in hatred of both the first and the second Temple that they invented their Chimera of Gerizim V. sup 1. p. 49. Seq 57. 63. Who therefore does not see it plain that they would rather have accused the Imposhires of the Jews than followed them Those Rebels who scorn'd both Esdras and all the Prophets of the Jews with their Temple and Solomon that built it as well as David who had assigned the place of it what did they regard in their Pentateuch if not an Antiquity superior not only to that of Esdras and the Prophets but also to that of Solomon and David in a word the Antiquity of Moses wherein they both agreed How indisputable then is Moses his Authority and that of the Pentateuch that all the Objections tend only to the affirmation of it But then from whence come those varieties of Texts and Versions From whence indeed unless from the Antiquity of the Book it self which hath gone thro' the Hands of so many Transcribes for so many Ages that the Language in which it was written is almost now worn out But let us leave these vain Disputes and in one word pluck up the Difficulty by the Roots Let any one say if it be not evident that in all the Versions and Texts that are there are still to be found the same Laws the same Miracles the same Predictions the same train of History the same Body of Doctrine and in short the same Substance Wherein then after all this do the varieties of Texts hurt What do we need further than this unalterable Fond of the sacred Books and what can we demand more of the divine Providence And as for the Versions is that a sign of Forgery or Novelty that the Language of the Scriptures is so antient that the Delicacies of it now are lost and we find our selves puzled to give it all its Elegance and to express it in its full sence and Power of meaning Is not that rather a Proof of its greater antiquity and if one would stand upon little trifling matters let any one tell me if in those several places wherein they have found themselves perplexed any one of them has been setled by reason or by conjecture We have followed the Faith of Examples and as tradition never permitted the sound Doctrine to be altered so we thought that the other faults it there were any served only to prove that none hath innovated any thing here by the dictate of their own Spirit But now here is at last the main stress of the Objection Are there not some things added in Moses's Text and how comes it to pass that we find his Death at the end of the Book that is attributed to him What Marvel is this that those who continued his History should have added his happy end to the rest of his Actions and so to make one and the same Body of the whole for the other additions let us see what they are Is there any new Law or any new Ceremony any Dogma any Miracle or any Prediction they have not so much as dreamt of any such thing there is not the least suspition of it nor the least Sign That had been to add to the work of God the Law had forbid it and the scandal it would have occasioned would have been very horrible What then Deut. 4.12.12.5 supra 2. part p. 220. why they may have continued perhaps a Genealogy that he had begun or possibly may have explained the name of a Town changed by time upon occasion of the Manna wherewith the People were fed for forty Years they may have particularized the time when that Heavenly Nourishment ceased and that Fact written since in another Book shall be made a Remark Jos 5.12 Exod 16.35 upon that of Moses as a manifest and publick Fact of which all the People were Witnesses and four or five Remarks of this Nature made by Josuah or Samuel or some other Prophet of a like Antiquity because they had only regard to notorious Facts and where there was apparently no difficulty may have naturally past into the Text and the same tradition may have brought them down to us with all the rest shall presently all be lost Shall Esdras be accused thro' the Samaritane where those Remarks are found shew us that they have an Antiquity not only above Esdras but above the Schism of the ten Tribes It matters not all must fall upon Esdras If those remarks came higher the Pentateuch would be then more antient than it ought and we could not pay reverence enough to the antiquity of a Book the very Notes whereof would be of so great an Age. Esdras therefore may have done all Esdras may have forgot when he would make Moses to speak and may have made him to write so grossly as you see what things did happen after his time Shall a whole work be convicted of forgery by this only place the Authority of so many Ages and the publick Faith will then be of no further stead to him as if on the contrary we did not see that those remarks which they so much boast of are a new proof of Sincerity and Integrity not only in those that made them but also in those that transcribed them Has there ever Judgment passed on the authority I do not say of a Divine Book but of any Book whatsoever upon such slight and trivial reasons But it seems the Scripture is a Book that is an Enemy to Mankind it would oblige Men to submit their Minds to God to suppress their disorderly passions but Man is bent upon his own destruction and let the reward be what it will he will make himself a
28 c. But their Priest gave them only the Books of Moses which the revolted ten Tribes had retained during the time of their Schism The Scriptures composed by the Prophets who sacrificed in the Temple were by them detested and therefore the Samaritans have received no other than the Pentateuch even down to this day Whilst Esarhaddon and the Assyrians so firmly were setling themselves in greater Asia the Medes likewise began to be considerable Dejoces their first King named Arphaxad in Scripture founded the Great City Ecbatana and laid the Foundations of a great Empire They had set him on the Throne to reward his vertues and to put an end to the disorders which Anarchy had caused among them Conducted by so great a King Herod l. 1. c. 27. they supported themselves against their Neighbours but they did not enlarge their Years be ∣ fore J. C. 671 Dominions Rome daily grew but it was weakly Under Tullus Hostilius the Third Years of Rome 83 King and by the famous Battle between the Horatii and the Curatii Alba was conquered and ruined Its Citizens incorporated in that victorious Ville did mightily greaten and fortify it Romulus was the first who took that way to make it more flourishing where he received the Sabins and other vanquished People And they forgat their Overthrow and became most Faithful and Affectionate Subjects Rome in extending it's Conquests regulated it's Militia and it was under Tullus Hostilius that it began to learn that Noble Discipline which made it to be at last the Years be ∣ fore J. C. 670 Mistriss of the Universe The Kingdom Years of Rome 84 of Egyyt weakned by its long Divisions was re-established under Psammeticus That Prince who owed his Safety to the Ionians and Carians established them in Egypt then shut to Strangers About this time the Aegyptians began to commerce with the Greeks and since that time also the History of Aegypt down to the mingling of pompous Fables by the Artifice of the Priests began as Years be ∣ fore J. C. 657 Herodotus tells us Herod l. 2. c. 95. to have some certainty In the mean time the Kings of Assyria became more and more terrible to all the East Years of Rome 97 Saosduchin the Son of Esarhaddon called Nebuchadonosor in the Book of Judith in battle array defeated Arphaxad King the Medes Years be ∣ fore J. C. 656 Flushed with this Success he attempted to Years of Rome 98 conquer all the Land To compass this his design he passed the Euphrates and ravaged all as far as Judah The Jews had provoked God and given themselves up to Idolatry after the Example of Manassâ—h but they had repented with that Prince and God took them into his Protection The Conquests of Nebuchodonosor and Holofernes his General were upon a suddain stopt by the hand of a Woman Dejoces although he was beaten by the Assyrians left his Kingdom in a condition of growing greater under his Successors Whilst Phraortes his Son and Cyagorus the Son of Phraortes subdued Years be ∣ fore J. C. 643 Persia and pushed on their Conquests to lesser Years of Rome 111 Years of Rome 641 Asia even to the borders of Halys Judah Years of Rome 113 indured the detestable Reign of Amon the Son of Manasseh and Josiah the Son of Amon wise and prudent from his Childhood endeavoured to repair the Disorders that were caused by the wickedness and impiety of his Predecessor-Kings Rome when Ancus Martius was King brought some Latines under it's subjection and government and continuing to make Citizens of her Enemies she shut them up within her Walls The Veienses already weakened by Romulus Years be ∣ fore J. C. 626 suffered new Losses Ancus pushed on his Years of Rome 128 Conquests as far as to the Neighbouring Sea and built the City of Ostia at the Mouth of the River Tyber At this time the Kingdom of Babylon was invaded by Nabopolassar That Traitor whom Chinaladan otherwise called Sarac had made General of his Armies against Cyagorus King of the Medes joyned himself with Astyages the Son of Cyagorus took Chinaladan in Nineveh destroyed that great City so long a time the Mistriss of the East and set himself upon the Throne of his Master Under this ambitious Prince Babylon grew in Pride and haughtiness Judah whose Impiety waxed more Years be ∣ fore J. C. 624 and more had every thing to fear The pious Years of Rome 130 King Josiah for some small time by his great humility suspended the punishment which his people had deserved but the evil increased under his Childrens Reign Nebuchadonosor Years be ∣ fore J. C. 610 II. more terrible than his Father Years of Rome 144 Nebuchadonosor succeeded him This Years be ∣ fore J. C. 607 Prince bred up in Pride and always ingaged Years of Rome 147 in War made prodigious Conquests both in the East and West and Babylon threatned to bring all the Land into subjection and vassalage His Menaces had soon their effect upon the People of God Jerusalem was left wholely to this proud and mighty Conqueror who took it three times The first at the beginning of his Reign and in the fourth year of the Reign of Joachim from whence begins the 70 years of Babylon's Captivity taken notice of by the Prophet Jeremiah the second under Jechonias or Joachin the Son of Joachim Jer. xxv 11 12. c. xxix 10. and the last under Zeâ—ekiah when the City was utterly destroyed the Temple burnt and the King Years be ∣ fore J. C. 599 carried Captive to Babylon with Serajah the Years of Rome 155 Years be ∣ fore J. C. 598 High-Priest and the bâ—t part of the people Years of Rome 156 The most eminent of those Captives were the Prophets Ezekiel and Daniel with them also are reckoned the Three Children whom Nebuchadnezzar could not make to worship his Golden Image nor consume by his Fiery Furnace Greece was flourishing and its Seven Wise Men made themsâ—â—ves illustrious Years be ∣ fore J. C. 594 Some time before the last desolation of Jerusalem Years of Rome 160 Solon one of the Sevâ—â— prescribed Laws to the Athenians and established Liberty Years be ∣ fore J. C. 578 upon Justice The Phocians of Ionia Years of Rome 176 brought their first Colony to Marseilles Tarquin the Antient King of Rome after he had conquered a part of Tuscany and adorned the City of Rome with his Pompous and Magnificent Works finished his Reign In his time the Gauls led on by Bellovesus possessed in Italy all the Suburbs round about Years be ∣ fore J. C. 566 Po whilst that Segâ—vesus his Brother Years of Rome 188 carried far up into Germany another swarm of the Nation Servius Tullius Tarquin's successour established the Census or the List of Citizens that were distributed into certain Classes whereby that great City was regulated and ordered as a private Family Nebuchadnezzar beautifyed Babylon which was mightily inriched by the Spoils of Jerusalem and the
St. John Baptist Years of J. C. 28 appeared Jesus Christ made himself to be Years of J. C. 30 Baptised by that divine Fore-runner The Eternal Father acknowledged his well-beloved Son by a voice that came from Heaven The Holy Ghost descended upon our Saviour under the pacifick Figure of a Dove all the Trinity manifested themselves There began with the seventy weeks of Daniel the Preaching of Jesus Christ This last Week was the most important and the most observable Daniel had divided it from the rest as the Week or Alliance was to be confirmed Daniel iv 37. and in the midst of which the ancient Sacrifices were to lose their efficacy and virtue It may be called the week of Mysteries Jesus Christ established his Mission and his Doctrine then by innumerable Miracles and at last by his Death It Years of J. C. 33 happened in the fourth year of his Ministry which was also the fourth Year of Daniel's last Week and this great Week was in this manner justly cut in the midst by his Death Thus it is easy to make up the Computation of the VVeeks or rather it is already made up There remains nothing now but to add to the 453 Years which we shall find from the 300th year of Rome and the twentieth of Artaxerxes down to the beginning of the common Aera the thirty Years of that Aera which we see comes down to the fifteenth year of Tiberius and to the Baptism of our Lord These two Summs will make up 483 years the seven Years still remain to compleat the 490. The fourth which makes the middle is that in which Jesus Christ died and all that Daniel hath prophesied is visibly shut up within the prescribed term There is no extraordinary necessity for such an exact punctilio of Justness and nothing obliges us to take in this extream rigour the Middle observed by Daniel The most difficult will content themselves in finding it in what point soever it be between the two Extremities what I say is that so those who shall think they have good reason to place either a little higher or a little lower the beginning of Artaxerxes or the death of our Lord might not rack and torment themselves in their calculation and that those who would endeavour to embarass and perplex a thing that is clear with tricks of Chronology might be delivered from their unprofitable and impertinent subtilties Matth. 25.45 Phleg. 13. Olymp Thal. Hist. 3. Tertullian Apol 21. Orig. 2. cont Cels Tr. 35. in Matth. Euseb Hieron in Chron. Jul. Afric Ibid. The Darkness which covered the whole face of the earth at noon-day and at the instant when Jesus Christ was crucifyed is taken for an ordinary Eclipse by the Pagan Authors who have made their remarks upon that memorable Event But the first Christians that spake of it to the Romans as of a Prodigy taken notice of not only by their Authors but also by the public Registers have shewn that neither at the time of the full Moon when Jesus Christ dyed nor in all the year when this Eclipse was observed was it possible for any to fall out but what must be supernatural We have the very words of Phlegon Adrian's Freed-man cited at a time when his Book was every where public and extant as well as the Syriac Histories of Thallus who followed him and the fourth year of the 202. Olympiad observed in the Annals of Phlegon is that of the death of our Lord. To accomplish the Mysteries Jesus Christ arose from his Grave on the Third day he appeared to his Disciples he ascended up into to heaven in their presence he sent them down the Holy Spirit the Church is formed Persecution begins St. Stephen is stoned St. Paul is converted A little after Tiberius dies Caligâ—la his Grand-son and Son by adoption Years of J. C. 37 and his Successor astonishes the whole world by his cruel and brutish Folly he causes himself to be adored and commands Years of J. C. 40 his Statue to be placed in the Temple of Jerusalem Cherâ—as frees the world from this Monster Claudius reigns notwithstanding his Stupidity He is dishonoured by Messalina Years of J. C. 41 his Wife whom he re-demands after he has Years of J. C. 48 caused her to be killed He is married to Agrippina Years of J. C. 49 the Daughter of Germanicus Acts 15.50 The Apostles keep the Council of Jerusalem where St. Peter speaks first as he does every where else The converted Gentiles are there freed from the Ceremonies of the Law The Sentence of it is pronounced in the name of the Holy Ghost and the Church of St. Paul Acts â—6 4 and St. Barnabas carry the Decree of the Council to the Churches and teach the faithful to submit to them Such was the way of the first Council The stupid Emperor disinherits his Son Britannicus and adopts Nero the Son of Agrippina In requital she poisons this too Years of J. C. 54 easie and credulous Husband But the Empire of her Son was no less fatal to her self than to all the rest of the Commonwealth Years of J. C. 58 Corbulo got all the Honour of that Reign by Years of J. C. 60 the Victories he gained over the Parthians Years of J. C. 62 and Armenians Nero at the same time began Years of J. C. 63 his War against the Jews and the Persecution against the Christians c. This was the first Years of J. C. 66 Emperor that had persecuted the Church He caused St. Peter and St. Paul to dye at Rome But as at the same time he persecuted Years of J. C. 67 all Mankind so he found all sides to revolt Years of J. C. 68 against him he understood that the Senate had condemned him and so he killed himself Years of J. C. 69 Every Army made an Emperor The Quarrel was decided near Rome and in Rome it self by dreadful and terrible combats Galba Otho and Vitellius perished in them The afflicted Empire came a little to it self under Years of J. C. 70 Vespasian and enjoyed some rest But the Jews were put to extremities Jerusalem was taken and burnt Titus the Son and Successor of Vespasian gave to the world but a Years of J. C. 79 short satisfaction And his days which he thought lost when they were not signalized by some kindness and benefit came upon the heels of each other with a too swift Succession Nero was seen to be revived in the Person of Domitian The Years of J. C. 93 Persecution was renewed St. John coming out of hot boyling Oyl was banished into the Isle of Patmos where he wrote his Revelations A little after he wrote his Gospel at about 90 years of Age and joyned the Quality of an Evangelist to that of being both Years of J. C. 95 an Apostle and a Prophet From that time the Christians were continually persecuted as well under the good as under the evil Emperors These Persecutions
them in the â—ime of St. Justin Just in adv Tryph. and we also find in their Talmud the Doctrine of one of their ancientest Masters who said that Christ was come according as he was declared in the Prophets R. Juda filius Levi. Gem. San. 11. but he kept himself secret somewhere at Rome among the poor Mendicants But such an Opinion as this so wild and extravagant could not sink into their minds therefore the Jews being at last forced to confess that the Messiah was not come in the time they had reason to expect him according to their ancient Prophecies fell into another extream as bad as the former But a little more and they had renounced their Messiah who failed them in time and several of them followed a famous Rabbi R. Hillel Ibid. Is Abran de C. fidei whose words are likewise found preserved in the Talmud He seeing how far the time of his coming was gone and past concluded That the Israelites were to look for their Messiah no longer because he had been given to them in the Person of Ezekiah Indeed this Opinion too was so far from obtaining amongst them that they did quite detest it But as they could not tell what further to make of the times pointed out to them by the Prophecies and knew not which way in the world to extricate themselves from this Labyrinth they then made an Article of Faith of this which we read in the Talmud Gem. San. c. 11. Moses Maimon in Epit. Talm. Is Abran de cap. fidei All the times which were designated for the coming of the Messiah were past and with an universal consent they cried out Cursed be those who reckon the times of the Messiah Just as we see in a Tempest that has driven the Vessel far off from the way it was steering the Pilot is mad and desperate when forced to forsake his Compass and submit himself to the pleasure of the outragious winds and waves that carry him where they list From that time all their indeavours have been to elude the Prophecies in which the time of Christ was set out to them they mattered not how they o'rethrew all the Traditions of their Forefathers provided they could but deprive the Christians of those admirable Prophecies and they went at last so far as to say that that of Jacob did not respect Christ But their ancient Books betray them That Prophecy is understood of the Messiah in the Talmud Gem. Tr. Saned c. 11. Paraph. Onkelos Johanan Jero ol v. Polyg Ang. and the manner as we explain it is found in their Paraphrases that is to say in those Commentaries that are the most Authentick and the most valued among them We find in them in express words that the House and Kingdom of Judah to which all the Posterity of Jacob and all the People of Israel were one day to be reduced would continually bring forth Judges and Magistrates until the coming of the Messiah under whom a Kingdom should be formed made up of all People This was the Testimony that their most famous and most received Doctors gave also to the Jews the first times of Christianity The ancient Tradition which was so firmly established could not be abolished all at once and though the Jews had not applyed the Prophecy of Jacob unto Jesus Christ yet they durst not deny that it did belong to the Messiah They arrived not to that height and excess till a long while after and when they have been pressed by the Christians at any time they hive still found their own Tradition to be against them As for Daniel's Prophecy wherein the coming of Christ was confined within the term of 490 years counting from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus As that term came down to the end of the fourth Millenary of the World so was it a most ancient Opinion among the Jews that the Messiah should appear toward the end of that fourth Millenary and about two thousand years after Abraham One Elias whose name was great among the Jews although it be not the Prophet had so declared before the Birth of Jesus Christ and the Tradition of it is preserved in the Book of the Talmud Gen. Tr. San. c. 11. You have seen this term accomplished in the coming of our Lord for he did indeed appear about two thousand years after Abraham and towards the four thousand of the World However the Jews did not know him and being frustrated of their expectation they said that their Sins had kept off the Messiah who was to come But yet our Dates are ascertained by their own confession and it is a very great blindness to make a term which God hath so particularly set forh iâ— Daniâ—l to depend on Men. And this is likewise 〈◊〉 great Perplexity to them to consider that that Prophet should make the time of Christ to go before that of the Ruine of Jerusalem so that that latter Period being accomplished that which preceded it must needs be so to Antiq. 1â— c. ult de Bell. Jud. 7. 4. Josephus is here most mightily deceived He justly reckoned the Weeks which were to be followed with the Desolation of the Jewish People and seeing them accomplished in the time when Titus laid Siege before Jerusalem he questioned not but the very moment of the Destruction of that City was then come But he never considered that that Desolation was to be preceded by the Coming of Christ and of his Death so that he understood but half the Prophecy The Jews that came after him would fain have supplied this Defect They have forged to us an Agrippa descended from Herod whom the Romans they said did put to death a little before the Destruction of Jerusalem And they would needs have that Agrippa Christ by his Title of King to be the Christ which is spoken of in Daniel a new Proof of their Blindness indeed For besides that that Agrippa could neither be the Just nor the Saint of Saints nor the end of the Prophecies so as the Christ whom Daniel describes in that place was to be besides that the Murther of that Agrippa whereof the Jews were innocent could not be the cause of their Desolation as the Death of Daniel's Death was to be which here the Jews say was a Fable Agrippa descended from Herod was ever a Party of the Romans ever civilly treated by their Emperors Joseph l. 7. de bell Jud Jus Tiber. Biblioth Phot. cod 33. and reigned in a Canton of Judea long after the taking of Jerusalem as Josephus and oter Contemporaries do testifie Thus every thing which they Jews invented to elude die Prophecies served only to confound them They themselves did not believe those Fictions they were so gross and their best Defence was in that Law they enacted not to reckon any longer the days of the Messiah By that means they willfully shut their Eys against the Truth and renounced those Prophecies in which the
they never thought they did so Constance who persecuted St. Athanasius the Defender of the Ancient Faith ardently desired says Ammianus Marcellinus Id. lib. 15. to get him condemned by the Authority which the Bishop of Rome had over the others By seeking to support himself with that Authority he made the Heathens themselves sensible of what was wanting to his Sect and honoured the Church from which the Arrians had departed thus the Gentiles themselves acknowledged the Catholick Church If any one asked them where they kept their Assemblies and who were their Bishops they never deceived them As for Heresies whatsoever they made they could never get rid of the name of then Authors The Sabellians the Paulianists the Arrians the Pelagians and the rest were scandalized in vain at the title of the Faction which was given to them The World whatsoever they could do would speak naturally and designed every Sect by him from whom it first sprung As for the great Church the Catholick and Apostolick Church it was always impossible to affix any other Author to it than Jesus Christ himself nor to assign to it the first of its Pastors without going up as high as to the very Apostles nor to give it any other name than what it had before taken So that what Hereticks soever were made they could not conceal it from the Heathens She opened to them her Bosom all â—he World over and they ran to her in troops Some of them were possibly lost in the by-Paths but the Catholick Church was the great way wherein entred always most of those who sought after Jesus Christ and Experience has sufficiently discovered that to her it was given to bring in the fulness of the Gentiles Her also it was whom the unbelieving Emperours attacked with all their power and force Orig. cont Cels 7. Just. Apol. 2. Origen tells us that few of the Hereticks were sufferers for the Faith St. Justin more ancient than he hath observed that the Persecution spared the Marcionites and the other Hereticks The Heathens only persecuted that Church which they saw spread her self over the face of the whole Earth and only acknowledged her self for the Church of Jesus Christ What matters it to pull off some of the Branches her good Sap was not lost for all that she went into other places and the cutting down the superfluous Wood served but to make the Fruit come better In fine if we consider the History of the Church we shall always find that when ever one Heresie impaired it she recovered her losses both by enlarging outwardly and increasing inwardly light and piety whilst she beheld in some distant Corners the cut off Branches to dry and wither The work of man was perished notwithstanding the power of Hell to support it the work of God has continued and the Church hath triumphed over Idolatry and all Errours whatsoever THIS Church so always attacked XIII General Reflections on the Progress of Religion and the relation there is between the Books of the Scripture yet never overcome is a perpetual Miracle and a clear and shining Testimony of the Immutability of the Divine Councils In the midst of the agitation of Humane Affairs she still supported her self with an invincible force so that by an uninterrupted course for near these seventeen hundred years do we see her come up even to Jesus Christ in whom she hath collected the Succession of the ancient People and was found reunited to the Prophets and Patriarchs And so many astonishing Miracles which the Hebrews of old saw with their eyes do still serve at this day to confirm our Faith That great God who wrought them for a Testimony of his Unity and his Almightiness what could he do more authentick to preserve the memory of them than to leave in the hands of so great a People the Acts which punctually attest them in order of time this is what we now have in the Books of the Old Testament that is to say in the most ancient Books that are in the World in those Books which are the only ones of Antiquity where the knowledge of the true God is taught and his service ordained in those Books which the Jews have always so religiously kept 'T is certain that they were the only People who originally knew God the Creator of Heaven and Earth and consequently the only People to whom the Divine Secrets were to be committed They also kept them with a most religious care Those Books which the Egyptians and the other People called Divine are lost long since and there scarce remains so much as any confused Remembrance of them in ancient Histories The sacred Books of the Romans wherein Numa the Author of their Religion had written the Mysteries of them are perished even by the hands of the Romans themselves and the Senate commanded them to be burnt as tending to the overthrow of Religion And those same Romans at last suffered likewise the Books of the Sibyls Tit. Liv. li. 40. c. 29. Varr. l. de Cult Deor ap Aug. de Civ 12. 34. to be destroyed which were for so long time reverenced by them as Prophetical and wherein they would make the World believe that they found the Decrees of the Immortal Gods concerning their Empire and yet notwithstanding they never published I do not say one single Volume but so much as one single Oracle It has been only the Jews who have had the Sacred Scriptures in so much the greater Veneration as they were the more known Of all the ancient People these alone preserved the Primitive Monuments of their Religion albeit they so fully gave testimony of their Infidelity with that of their Ancestors And at this very day do this People still remain upon the Earth to carry into all Nations where they are dispersed together with the course and progress of their Religion the Miracles and Predictions which render it immoveable When Jesus Christ was come and sent by his Father to accomplish the Promises of the Law he confirmed his Mission and that of his Disciples by new Miracles which have been also written with the same exactness The Acts of them have been published all the World over the Circumstances of Time Persons and Places have made the Examen easie to all that have been careful of their Salvation The World was informed the World has believed and if we have but ever so little considered the ancient Monuments of the Church we must avow that never has any thing been determined with more of reflection and knowledge But as to the Relation which the Books of the two Testaments have to one another there is one difference to be considered that is that the Books of the ancient People were composed at divers times Some are the times of Moses others those of Joshua and the Judges and others of the Kings some are those when the People were brought out of Egypt and received the Law others those when they obtained the
promised Land and others those when they were re-established by visible Miracles To convince the incredulity of a People who were wholly devoted to their Senses God took a long extent of Ages in which he distributed his Miracles and his Prophets that so he might often renew the sensible Testimonies by which he attested his holy Truths In the New Testament he tooks another conduct He would no more reveal any thing anew to his Church after Jesus Christ In him was perfection and fulness and all the Divine Books that have been composed in the New Testament were made in the times of the Apostles That is to say that the Testimony of Jesus Christ and of those whom Jesus Christ hath been pleased to choose for the Witnesses of his Resurrection hath been sufficient for the Christian Church All that has come since has edified it but it has not been looked upon as purely inspired by God but what the Apostles have written or what they have confirmed by their Authority But in that difference which is found between the Books of the two Testaments God hath always observed that admirable order of making things to be written just at the times when they happened or at least when the memory of them was very fresh And so those that knew them wrote them those that knew them received the Books which bore witness of them and both the one and the other have left them to their Posterity as a most precious and invaluable Inheritance and they most carefully and piously have preserved them And thus was formed the Body of the Holy Scriptures as well the Old as the New Testament Scriptures which from their Original have been regarded as true in the whole as given by God himself and which have been also kept with that great Religion that it was thought none could dare to alter the least Letter of it without a strange Impiety And thus it was that they came down to us always holy always sacred always inviolable the one kept by the constant Tradition of the Jews and the other by the Tradition of the Christians so much the more certain as it was confirmed by the Blood and Martyrdom as well of those who wrote those Divine Books as of them that received ' em St. Austin and the other Fathers demand upon whose Faith we attribute the profane Books to certain Times and Authors Aug. cont Faust 11. 2. 32. 21. 33. 6. Every one readily answers that the Books are distinguished by the different Relations they have to the Laws Customs and Histories of a certain Time by the Stile it self which bears impressed the Character of particular Ages and Authors and more than all that Iren. 1.2.17 Tertul. adv Marc. 4. l. 4 5. Aug. de utilit ced 3. 17. cont Faust Manich. 22. 79. 28. 4. 32. 33. Cont. adv leg Porph. 1. 20. c. by the publick Faith and by a constant Tradition All these things concur to the establishment of the Divine Books to distinguish the Times and to mark out the Authors of them and the more Religion there was in preserving them entire the more indisputable is the Tradition which preserved them for us Thus hat it been always acknowledged not only by the Orthodox but also by Hereticks and even by Infidels Moses has ever passed in all the East and afterwards in all the World for the Legislator of the Jews and for being the Author of those Books that are attributed to him The Samaritans who had received them from the ten separated Tribes have as religiously kept them as the Jews You have seen their Tradition and their History Two People so opposite took them not one from the other but both received them from their Common Original in the Times of Solomon and David The ancient Hebrew Characters which the Samaritans still retain do sufficiently shew that they have not followed Esdras who changed them Thus the Pentateuch of the Samaritans and that of the Jews are two compleat Originals independant one on the other The perfect conformity that is seen in the substance of the Texts justifies the Sincerity of both those People They are faithful Witnesses that agree without understanding one another or to speak better who agree together notwithstanding all their Enmities V. sup 1. part p. 24 25 34 49 59 63 80 86 87. and which only Immemorial Tradition of both Parties hath united in the same mind Those therefore who say tho' without any reason that those Books being lost or having never been were set up or composed a new or altered by Esdras besides their being contradicted by Esdras himself as may very well be observed in the course of his History are likewise so by the Pentateuch which is even now at this day to be seen in the hands of the Samaritans so as it had been read in the first Agas by Eusebius of Cesaria St. Jerome and the other Ecclesiastical Author so as those People had kept it in their Original and a Sect so weak as that seems not to continue so long but to bear this Testimony to the Antiquity of Moses The Authors that wrote the four Evangelists received no less assured Testimony from the unanimous consent of the Faithful the Heathens and the Hereticks That great Number of various People who received and translated those Divine Books as soon as they were made agree in their date and in their Authors The Heathens have not contradicted this Tradition Nor Colsus who attacked those Sacred Books even in the first beginning of Christianity nor Julian the Apostate tho' he was neither ignorant of any thing nor omitted any thing that might descredit them nor has any other Heathen ever suspected them to be supposititious but on the contrary they have all given them the same Authors as the Christians The Hereticks although they were confounded by the Authority of those Books yet durst not say that they were not of the Disciples of our Lord. Nay some of those Hereticks saw the beginnings of the Church and before whose eyes were written the Books of the Gospel So that fraud if there could possibly be any would have appeared too near to have been successâ—ul 'T is true after the time of the Apostles and when the Church was already spread over the face of the Earth Marcion and Mannes always the most rash and the most ignorant of all the Hereticks notwithstanding the Tradition coming from the Apostles coâ—tinued by their Disciples and by the Bishops to whom they had left their Chair and the Conduct of the People and unanimously received by all the Christian Church were so bold as to say that there Evangelists were supposititious and that that of St. Luke which they preferred to all the others they knew not why since it came by no other way had been falsified But what proofs gave they of this nothing but meer Visions no positive Matters of Fact All the reason they gave was that what was contrary to their
Sentiments must necessarily have been invented by others than by the Apostles and for all their proof they alledged the very Opinions which were in Controversie Opinions otherwise so extravagant and so manifestly mad that it is not to be imagined how they could ever enter into the mind of man to conceive But certainly to accuse the Sincerity of the Church one must have in ones hands Originals quite different from those of hers or some demonstrative proof But they and their Disciples being called upon to produce some they are struck dumb and have left by their Silence an undoubted proof that in the second Age of Christianity in which they wrote there was not only an Index and manifest signification of Falsity in them Iren. Tertul. Aug. loc cit but there was not the least Conjecture that could be opposed to the Tradition of the Church What shall I say of the Consent and Harmony that is to be found in the Books of the Scripture and of that admirable Testimony which all the Times of the People of God gave one to the other The Times of the Second Temple presuppose those of the First and carry us back to Solomon Peace was only established by Combats and Fightings and the Conquests of God's People return us to the Times of the Judges to Joshuah and to the Children of Israel's coming out of Egypt In reflecting upon an entire People's coming out of a Kingdom where they were Strangers we shall remember how they got in thither The twelve Patriarchs appeared immediately and a People that were never look'd upon but as one single Family leads us naturally up to Abraham who was the Main-stock of it Were those People more wise and less addicted to Idolatry after their return out of Babylon It was the natural effect of a severe Chastisement which their own past Offences had drawn upon them If that People boasted that they had several Ages seen Miracles which never other People had seen they might also boast that they had had the knowledge of God which no other People had What would any have Circumcision the Feast of Tabernacles the Passover and the other celebrated Feasts in the Nation Time out of mind to signifie if not the things we find taken notice of in the Books of Moses that a People distinguished from all others by a Religion and by a Carriage so very peculiar who had kept from its Original upon the Foundation of Creation and upon the Faith of Providence a Doctrine so followed and elevated a so lively Remembrance of a long Succession of Facts so necessarily chained together Ceremonies so regulated and Customs so universal should be without a History to recount their Origine and without a Law to prescribe Customs to them for a thousand years whilst it continued in that Estate and that Esdras should all on the sudden begin to give them under the Name of Moses with a History of their Antiquities the Law that should form their Manners when that People who were then made Captives beheld their antient Monarchie utterly thrown down what more incredible Romance could any one ever invent And is it possible for any one to give Credit to it with joyning at the same time Ignorance to Blasphemy To lose such a Law after one has received it either a People ought to be quite exterminated or else through divers Changes be brought to such a pass that they have nothing but a confused Idea of their Original Religion and Customs If that Misery happened to the Jews and that the Law so well known under Zedekiah should be totally lost sixty Years after notwithstanding all the industrious Care of Ezekiel Jeremiah Baruch and Daniel without reckoning up the rest and in the time too when this Law had its Martyrs as the Persecution of Danâ—el and the three Children do plainly demonstrate If I say that holy Law was lost in so short a time and was so profoundly forgot till Esdras was permitted to re-establish it according to his own Fancy that was not the only Book which ought to be made them For he ought at the same time to compose all the Prophets both old and new that is to say those who had written both before and during the Captivity those that the People had seen write as well as those which they very well remembred not only the Prophets but also the Books of Solomon and the Psalms of Davâ—d and all the Books of History since in that whole History there can scarce be found one single considerable matter of Fact and in all those other Books so much as one Chapter which being taken out of the Books of Moses such as we have 'em can subsist one Moment Everything there speaks of Moses every thing there is sounded upon Moses and indeed every thing ought to be so for that Moses and his Law and the History which he wrote was effectually in the Jews all the Foundation both of their publick and private Conduct Indeed it was a very marvellous Enterprise in Esdras and very novel in the World to make at the same time so many Men to speak with Moses of a different Character and Stile and yet every one in a manner uniform and always like to it self And on a sudden to make so great and entire a People as they were to believe that those were the antient Books which they had always had in Reverence and the new which they had seen made as if they had never heard any thing spoke of and that the Knowledg of the present time as well as that of the time past was utterly defaced Such are the Prodigies we must believe if we will disbelieve the Miracles of the Almighty and refuse to receive the Testimony by which it was evident that they had told so great a People they had seen them with their Eyes But if that People were returned from Babylon unto the Land of their Fathers so new and so ignorant that they could scarce remember they had ever been so that without the least Examination they had received all that Esdras was pleased to give them How then is it that we see in the Book which Esdras wrote 1 Esdr 3.7.9 2 Esdr 5.8.9.12 13. and in that of Nehemiah his Contemporary whatsoever was there said of the divine Books With what Front durst Esdras and Nehemiah speak of the Law of Moses in so many places and that publickly as of a thing known to all the World and which all the World had in their Hands How were all the People seen to act naturally in Obedience to that Law as having had it always present with them But how was it said at the same time and at the Peoples Return that all that People admired the Accomplishment of the Oracle of Jeremiah concerning the seventy Weeks Captivity That Jeremiah which Esdras had been forging with all the other Prophets how had he on a sudden found Credit By what new Artifice were they able to
mighty puissant Kings as all the East stood in awe of and it was Cyrus that crushed the Empire by his taking of Babylon If therefore the generality of the Greeks and Latins that have followed them make no mention of those Babylonian Kings if they have given no place to that great Kingdom among the first Monarchies whose continuance and after-accidents they relate in a word if we can scarce find any thing in all their works of those famous Kings Tiglath-Pilesar Salmanasar Sennacherib Nebuchadnezzar and several others so renown'd in Scripture and in the Eastern Histories we may then surely attribute it either to the Ignorance of the Greeks who were more Eloquent in their Reports than studious and industrious in their Searches or else to the loss we have had of what was more exact and faithful in their Histories Indeed Herodotus had promised a particular History of the Assyrians Herod l. 1. c. 28 47. which we have not either by our sad misfortune of its being lost or of his not having had time to do it and we cannot imagine that ever so judicious and Historian would have forgotten the Kings Herod l. 2. c. 91. of the second Empire of the Assyrians especially since even Sennacherib who was one of them we find mentioned in the Books that we now have of this great Author as being King both of the Assyrians and Arabians tSrabo liâ— 15. Strabo who lived in the time of Augustus reports what Megastenes an Ancient Author near the time of Alexander had left in Writing concerning the mighty Conquests of Nebuchadnezzar King of the Chaldees whom he makes to run through Europe enter into Spain and extend his Arms as far as the Colonies of Hercules Aelian calls Tilgamus King of Assyria Aelian liâ— 12. Hist Anim. c. 21. that is to say Tilgath or Tiglath which we find in the Holy Scriptures and in Ptolomy we meet with an Enumeration of the Princes of great Empires among whom there is a long succession of the Kings of Assyria who were unknown to the Greeks and whom it is easie to reconcile to the Sacred Hystory If I would bring in the Accounts of the Syrian Annals Berosus Abydenus Nicolas of Damascus Joseph Antiq l. 9. ult 10. c. 11. l. 1. cont Ap. Euseb Prap. Ev. 9. I could be too tedious even for a long-winded Reader Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea have preserved the pretious fragments of all those Authors and indeed of an infinite many more which they had entire and perfect in those times whose Testimony is a confirmation to us of what we read in the Holy Scripture concerning the Eastern Antiquities and especially concerning the Assyrian Histories As to the Monarchy of the Medes which has the second Preference among the great Empires by most of the prophane Historians as separated from the Empire of Persia certain it is that the Scripture ever unites them both together And your Highness sees that besides the Authority of the sacred pages the bare order of Matters of Fact shews us that it is that we are still to look at The Medes before Cyrus though they were very powerful and considerable yet were much lessened by the greatness of the Kings of Babylon But Cyrus having Conquered their Kingdom by the collected Forces both of Medes and Persians of which he afterwards became the Master by a Legitimate Succession as we have observed from Zenophon it seems most probable that the great Empire of which he was the Founder as it ought indeed did take his Name to both Nations so that That of the Medes and Persians are but one and the same thing tho' the glory of Cyrus made the name of the Persians to be the more prevailing It may be also thought that before the VVar of Babylon the Kings of the Medes having extended their Conquests to the Greek Colonies in lesser Asia were by that means famous among the Greeks who attributed the Empire of greater Asia to them because they were only acquainted with them of all the Kings of the East And yet the Kings of Nineveh and Babylon who were greater and more puissant but more unknown to the Greeks have been near quite forgotten in those Bâ—oks that are remaining to us concerning the Grecian Histories and all the time from Sardanapalus down to Cyrus have been only given to the Medes And therefore we need not to trouble our heads so much in reconciling as to this point the prophane to the sacred History For as to what respects the first Kingdom of the Assyrians the Scripture gives us but a very slight touch by the Bye and neither mentions Ninus who was the Founder of that Empire nor excepting Phul any other of its Successors because their History was no way interfering with that of the People of God As for the second Kingdom of the Assyrians most of the Greeks are either quite ignorant of them or else because they have not throughly known them as they ought they have confounded them with the former VVhen therefore those of the Greek Authors sâ—all be objected to us who according to their own Caprice and Fancy range the three first Monarchies and make the Medes Successors to the antient Empire of Assyria without speaking a word concerning what the Scripture seems to be so strong in there is only this answer to be made that they were unacquainted with this part of the History and they are no less contrary to the more curious and best informed Authors of their own Nation than they are to the Holy Scriptures And that which in one word answers all the difficulty the sacred Authors who are nearer to the times and places of the Eastern Kingdoms writing moreover the History of a People whose affairs were so intermixed with those of these great Empires though they had no other advantage besides this it were enough to put the Greeks and Latins to Silence who followed them But if notwithstanding the obstinacy should go on still to maintain this celebrated order of the three first Monarchies and that to keep entirely to the Medes the second rank which is ascribed to them any are wilfully resolved to make the Kings of Babylon subject to them in affirming still that after an hundred Years Subjection these at last should deliver themselves by a Revolt yet in some manner it doth save the Câ—ntinuance of the sacred History but it doth very little agree with the best prophane Historians to whom the sacred History is more favourable in that it ever unites the Empire of the Medes to that of the Persians There is yet remaining to be discovered one of the Causes of the obscurity and darkness of these antient Histories And it is this that as the Eastern Kings took up several names or if you please several titles which in some length of time they espoused as their own Name and which the People either translated or pronounced variously according to the several particular Idioms of each
lower but the difference is very little and the Circumstances of time do much assure the Date of Eusebius They are likewise pretty agreeing with Thucydides a most exact Historian Thucyd. l. 1. and that grave Author almost a Contemporary as well as a fellow Citizen of Themistocles makes him to write his Letter about the beginning of Artaxerxes his Reign Cornel. Nep. in Themisto Cornelius Nepos an Ancient and Judicious as well as an Elegant Author will not have us question this Date after the Authority of Thucydides and it is so much a stronger Argument because another more Antient Author than Thucydides was agrees with him 'T is Charon of Lampsacus cited by Plutarch Plut. in Them and Plutarch adds himself That the Annals this is to say those of Persia concur with those two Authors But however he does not follow them tho' he gives us no reason for it and those Historians who begin the Reign of Artaxerxes eight or nine years later agree neither in time nor are they of so great an Authority Therefore beyond all dispute we ought to reckon the beginning of it toward the end of the seventy six Olympiad and near the 280 year of Rome and so the twentieth year of this Prince will come to be about the end of the eighty first Olympiad and near the 300 year of Rome Whereas those who to conciliate Authors reject this and make the beginning of Artaxerxes his Reign to fall out lower are forced to conjecture that his Father had at least associated him to the Kingdom when Themistocles wrote his Letter but which way soever it be our account is secure This Foundation being settled and granted the rest of the Account is easie to be made and the Consequence will render it plain and evident After Artaxerxes had made his Decree The Jews laboured mightily to rebuild their City and the Walls thereof as Daniel had prophesied Dan. ix 25 Nehem. ii 17 18 19. Nehemiah managed and ordered the work with a great deal of Prudence and Courage in defiance to all the oppositions of the Samaritans Arabians and the Ammonites The People sat about the Work and Eliashib the High-Priest incouraged them by his Example In the mean while the new Magistrates which were set over the People of Rome increased the Divisions of that City and Rome brought under a Monarchy did want those Laws which were necessary for the good Constitution of a Common-weal The Reputation of Greece which had made her self more famous by her Government than Years be ∣ fore J. C. 452 by her Victories excited the Romans to Years of Rome 302 follow her Example so that they sent Deputies to search into the Laws of Greece and especially into those of Athens which were more agreeable to the State of their Years be ∣ fore J. C. 451 Republick According to this Model ten Years of Rome 303 absolute Magistrates which they created the next Year after under the Name of the Decemviri digested and set down the Laws of the Twelve Tables which are the Years be ∣ fore J. C. 450 Ground and Foundation of the Roman Law Years of Rome 304 The People overjoy'd at the Equity wherewith they were made suffered them to usurp the supreme power which they used Years be ∣ fore J. C. 449 with Tyranny enough So that there were very Years of Rome 305 great Convulsions by the Intemperance of Appius Clodius one of the Decemviri and by the Murther of Virginia whom her Father had rather have slain with his own Hand than have abandoned her to be a Sacrifice to the Passion and Lust of Appius The Blood of this Second Lucretia awakened the Romans so that the Decemviri were quite thrust out But whilst the Laws were framing under these ten Magistrates Esdras a Doctor of the Law and Nehemiah the Governour of the Jewish People newly re-established in Judah were reforming the Abuses and bringing in the Law of Moses so that they began to be observed in the first place One of the main points of their Reformation was to oblige all the People 2 Esdr xiii Deut. xxiii 3. and particularly the Priests to leave their strange Wives whom they had married contrary to the express Letter of the Law Esdras put the Holy Books in order and made a very exact review of them and collected the Antient Memoires of the Jews to compile out of them the two Books of Paralipomena or Chronicles to which he added the History of his own Time which Nehemiah finished By those Books is that long and tedious History which Moses had begun ended and which the following Authors continued without interruption till the re-building of Jerusalem The rest of the Sacred History is not writ in the same train Whilst Esdras and Nehemiah were making the last part of this great Work Herodotus whom the Prophane Authors call the Father of History it self began to write So that the last Authors of the Holy History met with the first Author of the Greek History and when this began That of the Jews only to take it from Abraham already had made up five Ages Herodotus never thought to speak of the Jews in that History he hath left us and the Greeks would not inform themselves of any but such People whom War Commerce or a great Fame had made notorious and considerable Judah that with great difficulty began to raise it self from the Ashes of its Ruine never in the least attracted their regards And it was in this miserable and calamitous time that the Hebrew Language ceased to be common During the Captivity and afterwards by the commerce that happened between them and the Chaldeans the Jews learned the Chaldee Tongue which very much bordered upon their own and had almost the same Idiom and Genius This reason induced them to change the ancient Figure of Hebrew Letters and so they writ Hebrew in the Chaldee Characters which were most in use among them and easier to be made This alteration was almost insensible between the two Neighbouring Languages whose Letters were of the same value and efficacy only differing somewhat in their formation From that time the Holy Scripture was only to be found among the Jews in the Chaldee Letters But the Samaritans still kept their old way of Writing Their Posterity have persevered in the same Custom even down to our days and by that means have preserved the Pentateuch which they call the Samaritan in ancient Hebrew Characters such as they found them in Medals and in all the Monuments of past Ages The Jews lived very peaceably and quietly under the Authority of Artaxerxes That Prince being forced by Cymon the Son of Miltiades General of the Athenians to make a shameful peace utterly despaired of overcoming the Greeks by force and so only thought of making his advantage by their feuds and divisions There happened very great Convulsions between the Athenians and Lacedemonians Those two people being jealous each of other shared all
After a long War Childebert and Clothaire the Sons of Clovis conquered the Kingdom of Burgâ—ndy and at the same time sacrificed to their Ambition the younger Sons of their Brother Clodomir whose Kingdom they divided between themselves Some time after and whilest Belisarius was so vigorously attacking the Ostrogoths what they had in the Country of the Gaules was left to the French France extended it self then a good way beyond the Rhine but the Partages of Princes which made up so many Kingdoms kept it from being re-united under one and the same Dominion It s chief parts were Neustria that is to say Western France and Austrasia Years of J. C. 553 that is to say Eastern France The same year that Rome was re-taken by Narses Justinian caused the fifth general Council to be held at Constantinople which confirmed those that went before it and condemned some Writings that seemed favourable to Nestorius That is what we call the three Chapters because of the three Authors long since dead whereof they then treated It condemn the Memory and the Writings of Theodorus Bishop of Mopsueste a Letter of Ibas Bishop of Edessa and among Theodoret his Writings those he had drawn up against St. Cyrill The Books of Origen which pestered all the East for one whole Age were also reprobated This Council which began with but ill designs yet had a happy Conclusion and was received by the Holy See which at first had opposed it Years of J. C. 555 Two years after the Council Narses who had taken Italy from the Goths defended it against the French and obtained an absolute Victory over Bucelin General of the Troops of Austrasia Yet notwithstanding all these Advantages Italy did not long remain under the Government of Emperors Under Justin II. Nephew of Justinian and Years of J. C. 568 after the Death of Narses the Kingdom of Lombardy was founded by Alboün He took Milan and Pavia Rome and Ravenna were scarce safe from his Hands and the Lombards put the Romans to extream sufferings Years of J. C. 570. 571. and calamities Rome was but poorly assisted Years of J. C. 574 by her Emperors whom the Covetous Nations Scythia the Saracens a People of Arabia and the Persians more than all the other grievously tormented on all sides in the East Justin who only believed himself and his Passions was always beaten by the Persians and by their King Chosroes His resentment of so many Losses put him into a Years of J. C. 579 Phrensie so that his Wife Sophia governed the Empire This unhappy Prince too late recovered into his good Senses and confessed as he was dying the Malice of his Flatterers After him Tiberius II. whom he had named Emperor repressed the Enemies comforted the People and enriched Years of J. C. 580 himself by their Alms. The Victories of Years of J. C. 581 Mauritius the Cappadocian General of his Armies broke the heart of the proud Years of J. C. 583 Chosroes Those were recompenced by the Empire which Tiberius gave him at his death with his Daughter Constantina At that time the Ambitious Fredegunda Wife to King Chilperick the first put all France into a Combustion and engaged all the French King in most bloudy and cruel Wars In the midst of the Miseries of Italy and whilst Rome was visited with a most Years of J. C. 590 dreadful Pestilence St. Gregory the Great was advanced maugre all his resistance to the See of St. Peter That great Pope stayed the Plague by his devout Prayers instructed Emperors and did absolutely make a just Obedience to be paid to them comforted Africa and fortified it confirmed in Spain the Visigoths converted from Arianisme and Ricardes the Catholic who was just got in again into the Bosom of the Church converted England reformed the Discipline in France whose Kings being always Orthodox he exalted above all Kings in the World He overcame the Lombards saved Rome and Italy which the Emperors could give no assistance to suppressed the growing Pride of the Patriarchs of Constantinople illuminated the Church by his Doctrin governed both the East and the West with as much resolution as humility and gave unto the World a perfect Model of Ecclesiastical Government The History of the Church hath nothing more glorious than the Monk St. Austin's Years of J. C. 597 Entrance into the Kingdom of Kent with forty of his Companions Beda l. 1. who going before the Holy Cross and the Image of the Great King our Lord Jesus Christ made solemn Vows for the conversion of England S. Gregory who had sent them instructed them by Letters truly Apostolical Greg. lib. 9. Ep. 58. ind 4. and taught S. Austin to tremble amidst the continual Miracles which God wrought by his Ministry Bertha a Princess of France brought King Edhilbert her Husband over to Christianity The Kings of France and Queen Brunehault protected the new Mission The Bishops of France did also engage in this Work and it was they who by the Order of Du Paga consecrated St. Austin The Supply which St. Gregory sent to the new Bishop was productive of new Years of J. C. 601 Fruits and the English Church assumed its Years of J. C. 604 Form The Emperor Mauritius having tryed the fidelity of the Holy Pontiff was corrected by his advice and received from him that commendation so worthy of a Christian Prince as the Heretics durst not open their mouths in his time However that pious Emperor was guilty of a great Fault A Years of J. C. 601 vast number of Romans were destroyed by the hands of the Barbarians for want of being ransomed by a Crown per head Immediately afterwards the good Emperor testifyed his remorse and he poured out a Prayer to God to punish him in this World rather than in the other and then was the revolt Years of J. C. 602 of Phocas who before his eyes cut the throats of all his Family Mauritius being the last that was killed amidst all this sad Scene of calamities was heard to say nothing but only that verse of the Psalmist Psal 119. I know O Lord that thy Judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me Phocas being advanced to the Empire by so horrid and Years of J. C. 606 detestable a crime endeavoured to gain the Years of J. C. 610 People in honouring the Holy See whose priviledges he confirmed But his Sentence was pronounced Heraclius proclaimed Emperor by the African Army marched against him Then Phocas found that oft-times debauches do more ruin Princes than Cruelties and Photin whose Wife he had vitiated betrayed him to Heraclius who caused him to be killed France a while after beheld a much Years of J. C. 614 stranger Tragedy Queen Brunchault being delivered up to Clothaire II. was sacrificed to the ambition of that Prince her Memory was quite effaced and her virtue so much extolled by Pope S. Gregory was scarce able to be defended The Empire in the mean time was
event puts us above all the nice Punctualities of the Chronologâ—sts and the total Subversion of the Jews which so closely followed the Death of our Lord is sufficient to convince the most willfully blind that the Prophecy is accomplished There remains nothing more now but to observe to you one Circumstance of it Daniel discovers a new Mystery to us The Oracle of Jacob had told us that the Kingdom of Juda was to cease at the coming of the Messiah But it does not say that that Death should be the cause of the Downfal of that Kingdom God revealed that most necessary Secret to Daniel and he declared to him as you see that the Ruine of the Jews should be the Consequence of the death of Christ and of their Ingratitude If you observe the place the Course of Events will quickly make you an excellent Commentary You see what God shewed to the Prophet Daniel a little before the Conquests of Carus and the Re-building of the Temple In the time of the building of it he raised up the Prophets Haggai and Zachariah And presently after he sent Malachi who was to conclude the Prophecies of the antient People What was it that Zachariah did not see One could almost say that the very Book of God's Decrees was laid open to that Prophet and that there he read the whole History of the People of God from the time of the Captivity The Persecutions of the Kings of Syria and the Wars which they made upon Judah are all of them discovered to him in their very particulars Zach. 14.1 2 3 4 c. He saw Jerusalem taken and sack'd a dreadful Pillage and infinite Disorders the Peoples Flight into the Desart uncertain of their Condition whether Life or Death and at the very Vigil of its last Desolation there does all of a sudden a new Light appear to him The Enemies are vanquished the Idols are thrown down in all the Holy Land There is nothing but Peace and Plenty seen both in City and Country and the Temple is revered in all the East One remarkable Circumstance of those Wars is revealed to the Prophet and that is that Jerusalem shall be betrayed by her own Children Zach. 14.13 14 and that among her Enemies there shall a great many Jews be found Sometimes he sees a long Succession of Prosperity Judah is full of Strength the Kingdoms that oppressed it are humbled the Neighbours that were continually tormenting it Pâ—â—l 9.10.6 Zâ—â—â— 9.1.2.3 â— â— 6 7 8. are punished some are converted and incorporated into the People of God The Prophet sees that People blessed with divine Favours amongst which he relates to them the Triumph as modest as it was glorious Rejoice greatly O Daughter of Zion Ibid. 9. shout O Daughter of Jerusalem behold thy King cometh unto thee He is just and having Salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the Foal of an Ass After he had recounted their Prosperities he summs up from the beginning all the course of their Afflictions He sees all of a sudden Fire in the Temple all the Country in desolation with the capital City Murders Violences Zach. 11.1 2 c. and a King who countenances and encourages them But God hath pity on his forsaken People he becomes himself their Shepherd and his Protection sustains them At length he kindles civil Wars amongst them Ibid. 11.8 9. and the Face of things looks dismal The time of that Change is designed by a certain Character and three Princes degraded in one Month denote the beginning of their Troubles In the midst of these Calamities there appears yet another greater than all the rest A while after those Divisions and at the time of their Ruine God is prized at thirty pieces of Silver by his ungrateful People and the Prophet sees all Ibid. 12 13 c even to the Potters field about which that Money was employed From that time arise great Disorders among the Shepherds of the People at last they become Blind and their Power is destroyed What shall I say of the marvellous Vision of Zacharia who sees the Shepherd smitten and the Sheep scattered What shall I say of the regard which the People had for the God whom they have pierced Zach. 13.7.12.10 and of their mourning for him as one mourneth for his only Son and of their bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his First-born Zacharia saw all these things but that sight which is still greater is the promise of God's Presence and Love He that toucheth you toucheth the Apple of mine Eye Zach. 2.8 9 10 11 12 13. Sing and rejoyce O Daughter of Zion for lo I come and I will dwell in the midst of thee saith the Lord and many Nations shall be joyned to the Lord in that day and shall be my People and I will dwell in the midst of Thee c. Haggai says less things but what he says is very surprising Whilst the second Temple was building and the old men who had seen the Glories of the first were weeping and lamenting in comparing the Poorness of this last Building with the Magnificence of the other the Prophet who sees farther publishes the Glory of the second Temple Hag. 2.7 8 9. and prefers it to the first I will shake all Nations and the desire of all Nations shall come and I will fill this House with Glory saith the Lord of Hosts The Glory of this latter shall be greater than of the former saith the Lord of Hosts He explains from whence shall come the Glory of this new House in this that the desire of all Nations shall come That Messiah who was promised two thousand years before and from the beginning of the World as the Saviour of the Gentiles shall appear in this new Temple Peace shall be establis â— there all the astonished World shall bear Witness of the coming of this their Redeemer there was but a little while to wait and the times assigned for this waiting are in their last period At length the Temple was finished the Sacrifices were offered in it But the Covetous Jews prophaned it and brought thither that which was torn and the lawe and the sick so that the Offering was defective Malachi who reprov'd them for it was raised to a higher Consideration and upon the occasion of the unclean Sacrifices of the Jews he sees an Offering always pure and never sullied which shall be presented to God Mal. 2.11 13. no more so as it was in the Temple of Jerusalâ—m heretofore but from the rising of the Sun even to the going down of the same no more by the Jews but by the Gentiles among whom he prophesied that the name of God should be great He sees also like Haggai the Glory of the second Temple and the Messiah who honours it with his Presence But he sees at the same time that the Messiah is the God to whom
Sparks of it in the Old Testament Solomon said that the Dust should return to the Earth as it was Eccles 12.7 and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it The Patriarchs and the Prophets lived in that Hope and Daniel had foretold that there should a time come Dan. 12.1 2 4. that those who slept in the Dust of the Earth should awake some to everlarting Life and some to shame and everlasting Contempt But at the same time that those things were revealed to him he was commanded to seal up the Book even to the time of the End to let us understand that the full discovery of these Truths was reserved for another Season and another Age. But though the Jews had in their Scriptures some Promises of eternal Happiness and that towards the time of the Messiah's coming in which they were to be declared they spoke much more of them as appears by the Books of Wisdom and the Maccabees yet however this Truth gained so little Reputation among the antient People that the Saducees without ever knowing it not only were admitted into the Synagogue but also were advanced to the Priesthood It was one of the Characters of the new People to lay down as a Foundation of Religion the faith of a future Life and that was to be the Fruit of the coming of the Messiah Wherefore not being satisfied with telling us that a Life eternally happy was reserved for the Children of God he hath told us wherein it consists The happy Life is to be with him in the glory of God his Father John 17. the Life of happiness is to see the glory which he hath in the bosom of the Father from the beginning of the World the Life of happiness is that Jesus Christ is in us in his Members and that the eternal Love which the Father hath for his Son extendeth it self to us he fills us full of the same Gifts In a word the Life of happiness is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent but to know him in that manner which we call a clear sight 1 Cor. 13.9 12. 2 â—p 3.2 face to face the sight which reforms in us and perfects there the Image of God that according as St. John says We shall be like unto him because we shall see him as he is That sight shall be followed with an Immense Love and unexpressible Joy and a Triump that shall have no end Rev. 7.12.19.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. An eternal Alleluja and an eternal Amen shall be heard to resound through all the heavenly Jerusalem and all Calamities shall be done away and all Desires shall be satisfied there shall be nothing else to do but to sing Salvation and Glory and Honour and Power unto the Lord our God and to fall down and worship him who sits on the Throne for ever and ever With these new Rewards it was but neâ—essary that Jesus Christ should propose to us new Ideas of Vertue more perfect and purified Practices The End of Religion the Soul of Vertues and the Abridgment of the Law is Charity But until Jesus Christ was come into the World we may say that the perfection and the effects of that Vertue were not throughly known It was truly and properly our blessed Saviour that taught us to place our Satisfaction in God alone To set up the Kingdom of Charity and to reveal to us all the Duties of it he lays before us the Love of God even to the hating of our selves and continually persecuting that Principle of Corruption which we all carry about with us in our hearts He propounds to us the Love of our Neighbour even to the extending that beneficent Inclination to all men including therein even those that hate and persecute us he proposes to us the moderating of our sensual Desires even to the absolute cutting off our own Members that is to say that which gives us the most lively and sensible impressions He proposes also to us submission to the Will of God even to the rejoycing at the Sufferings he lays upon us as also Humility and that too to the loving of Reproaches for God's sake and to the believing that no Indignities how injurious soever can make us so vile in the eyes of men as we truly are in God's sight by our shameful and abominable sins Upon this foundation of Charity it is that all the conditions of Humane Life are perfected It is by that that Marriage is reduced to its primitive form the Conjugal Affection is now no more divided so holy a Society is only terminated by Death and Children do not now see their Mothers cast out for entertaining of a Step-dame in their places Celibacy is set forth as an Imitation of the life of Angels which is wholly and entirely taken with God and with the chast delights of his Love Superiours do learn that they are the Servants of others and devoted to their Good and Inferiours do acknowledge the wise order of God in their lawful Powers although they abuse their Authority this very thought sweetens to us the hardships of Subjection and under the most troublesome Masters Obedience is not at all troublesome to the true Christian. To these Precepts he superadds Councils of eminent perfection to renounce all pleasures to live in the Body as if we without the Body to forsake all things to give all we have to the Poor that we may possess nothing but God to live upon a little yea almost upon nothing and to expect that little too from Divine Providence But that Law which is most proper to the Gospel is that of bearing his Cross The Cross is the true Trial of Faith the true Foundation of Hope the perfect purifier of Charity in a word the true way to Heaven Jesus Christ dyed on the Cross he bore his Cross all the while he lived 't is by the Cross that he would have us to follow him and he hath promised to reward it with Eternal Life The first to whom he particularly made this Promise of Everlasting Rest was a Companion of his Cross This day saith he Luke 22.48 thou shalt be with me in Paradise Immediately after his Expiration on the Cross the Veil which covered the Sanctuary was rent from the top to the bottom and the Heaven was opened to holy Souls It was after he came from the Cross and from the horrours of his Punishment that he appeared to his Apostles glorious and a Conquerour over Death that they might thereby learn and understand that it was by the Cross they were to enter into his Glory and that he would shew no other way to his Children Thus in the Person of Jesus Christ was given to the World the lively Image of an accomplished Vertue who had nothing nor did expect nothing here in this World who received from men only continual Persecutions yet he never ceased doing of them good and for all that on whom
spoken of in the Gospel and whom the Heathen confessed Matth. 22.16 Mark 3.6.12.13 Pers Vet. Schol. Sat. v. 11. 180. Joseph de bell Jud. 3.14 for Persius and his Schoâ—iast informs us that even in the time of Nero the Birth of King Herod was celebraâ—ed by his Followers with the same Solemnity as the Sabbath Josephus stumbles into the like Error That Man being instructed as he says himself in the holy Books of the Prophets and himself a Priest as his Parents â—ere acknowledged that indeed the coming of that King so much promâ—sed by Jacob exactly agreed with the time of Herod where he shews us himself with that industrious care a manifest beginning of the ruine of the Jews but as he saw nothing in his own Nation which filled up those ambitious Ideas that it had conceived of its Christ he went on somewhat further before the time of the Prophecy Lib. 3. de bell Jud. 14.7.12 and applying himself to Vespasian he assured that the Oracle of the Scripture signified that Prince the delared Emperour in Judea Thus did he wrest the holy Scriptures to authorize his Flattery and being miserably blind he bestowed upon Strangers the hopes of Jacob and Judah he sought in Vespasian the Son of Abraham and of David and to an Idolatrous Prince attributed the Title of him whose light was to draw off the Gentiles from Idolatry That conjuncture of time favoured it much But whilst he was attributing to Vespasian what Jacob had spoken of Christ the Zealots who defended Jerusalem attributed it to themselves And it was upon that only Foundation that they promised themselves the Empire of the World Joseph de bell Jud. lib. 7. as Josephus relates it more reasonable than himself in that aâ— least they went not out of the Nation 〈◊〉 seek for the accomplishment of the Promisâ—â— made to their Forefathers How blind were they to that great advantage which the preaching of the Gospel thâ—â— made among the Gentiles and to that nâ—â— Empire which Jesus Christ was setting up over all the Earth What was more glorious and beautiful than an Empire in which Piety was to reign the true God to triumph over Idolatry Eternal Life to be published and declared to Infidel Nations and was not even the Empire of the Caesars a piece of pompous vanity in comparison with this But however that Empire seemed not illustrious enough to charm the Eyes of the World How ought we to be disabused from these earthly Grandeurs before we can come to any true knowledge of Jesus Christ the Jews understood the time the Jews saw the People called to the God of Abraham according to Jacob's Prophecy by Jesus Christ and his Disciples and yet for all that they mistook even that Jesus who was signalized to them by so many signs And altho' throughout the whole course of his life and after his death he confirm'd his Mission by so many extraordinary Miracles yet those besotted and infatuated Wretches rejected him because they could see nothing in him but a solid Grandeur which was void of all that splendid Decoration which strikes the Senses and because he seemed rather come to condemn than to reward their vain Ambition And yet however forced by the Conjunctures and Circumstances of time in spight of their blindness and obduracy they sometimes seemed to vail to their Prepossessions Every thing at the time of our Lord was so exactly fitted to the Manifestation of the Messiah that they were in great suspicion lest St. John the Baptist might be he Luke 3.15 1 John 19.20 His manner of life which was austere extraordinary and very surprizing touched them sensibly and tho' the Grandeurs of the World was wanting yet they appeared at first as if they were willing to be satisfied with the lustre of so amazing and prodigious a life The simple and common life of our Jesus Christ was offensive to those gross as well as proud Spirits who were only capable of being taken by their Senses and who otherwise being far enough from a sincere Conversion would admire nothing but what they looked on as inimitable So that St. John the Baptist who they thought deserved to be the Christ was not believed when he declared to them the true Christ and Jesus Christ whom they must have imitated as soon as they had believed on him appeared to the Jews too humble and meek for them to follow him But yet the Impression that was made upon them that Christ must appear about that time was so strong and powerful that they could not wear it off for almost a whole Age. They thought the fulfilling of the Prophecies might have a certain extent and was not still wholly determined to a precise particular point of time so that for almost an hundred years they talked of nothing but of false Christs that got themselves to be followed and of false Prophets who declared them The foregoing had never seen any thing like it and the Jews made no such brags of the Name of Christ neither when Judas Maccabeus gained so many Victories over their Tyrant nor when his Brother Simon freed them from the Yoke oâ— the Gentiles nor yet when the first Hyrâ—â— got so many Conquests The time and the other signs did not then agree to it and it was only in that Age of Jesus Christ that they began to speak of all those Messiahs The Samaritans who read the Prophecy of Jacob in the Pentateuch made themselves Christs as well as the Jews and a little after Jesus Christ they called to mind their Dositheâ— Orig. Tract 27. in Matt. Tom. 14. in Joh. 1. cant Cels Iren. 1. 20 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 4.25 Simon the Magician of the same Country boasted also that he was the Son of God and Menander his Disciple called himself the Saviour of the World Whilst Christ was living and amongst them the Samaritans believed the Messias was near coming so generally was it expected in the Nation and among all those who read the ancient Oracle of Jacob that Christ was to appear in those days When the time was so past that there was no further expectation of him and that the Jews had seen by Experience that all the Messiahs whom they had follow'd were so far from delivering them from their Evils that they had but the more emerged them in 'em it was then a good while e're was seen among them any more new Messiahs and Barchochebas was the last whom they owned as such in those first and early times of Christianity But the old Impression could not yet utterly be done away In stead of believing that Christ had appeared as they had done in the time of Adrian under the Antonines his Successors they thought upon â—his to say that Christ was in the World â—ho ' he did not then make himself visible because he tarried for the Prophet Elias who was to come to consecrate him This was a common Discourse amongst
those that looked for him and there was not between them one moments Interruption that People were dispersed over all the Earth the Gentiles ceased not to gather together and that Church which Jesus Christ hath built upon a Rock not all the Powers of Hell have ever been able to overthrow O what Consolation is this to the Children of God! But what Conviction is here of the Truth when they see that Pope Innocent the Eleventh who now most deservedly fills the first See of the Church we are continually ascending without any interruption even to St. Peter made by Jesus Christ the Chief of the Apostles from whence by running back to the Priests that served under the Law we go up even to Aaron and Moses from them to the Patriarchs and so to the beginning of the World what Course what Tradition what marvellous Connexion and Chain is here If our Minds which are naturally uncertain and by their doubtfulness become the Shittlecock of their own Reasonings have need in the Questions which concern our Salvation to be fixed and determined by some certain Authority what greater Authority is there than this of the Catholick Church which reunites in her self all the Authority of passed Ages and the ancient Traditions of Mankind to its first Original Thus the Society which Jesus Christ looked for during all past Ages at last founded upon the Rock and where St. Peter and his Successors were to preside by his Orders justified it self by its own Course and bore in its eternal duration the Character of the Hand of God 'T is also this Succession that no Heresie no Sect no other Society than only the Church of God was able to give to it self The false Religions could imitate the Church in many things and especially in saying as she did that God founded them but that Discourse in their Mouth was only a Discourse in the Air. For if God hath created Mankind and if in creating him after his own Image he hath never disdained to instruct him how to serve and please him Every Sect that doth not shew its Succession from the beginning of the World is not of God Here fall prostrate at the feet of the Church all the Societies and all the Sects that men have set up both within and without Christianity As for Example The false Prophet of the Arabians had the cunning to say that he was sent from God and after he had deceived the People most grosly ignorant he knew how to make his advantage of the Divisions of his Neighbourhood to extend into it by force of Arms a Religion that was wholly Sensual but neither has he dared to suppose that he was the Saviour expected nor could he in short give either to his Person or to his Religion any real or apparent Unity with past Ages The expedient he found to free himself from that was new For fear lest they should search into the Scriptures of the Christians for Testimonies of his Mission like to those which Jesus Christ found in the Scriptures of the Jews he pretended that both the Christians and the Jews had falsified all their Books His ignorant Followers believed him on his own word six hundred years after Jesus Christ and he declared himself not only without any precedent witness but also without any attempt either of supposing or of promising any one sensible Miracle which might authorize his Mission either by himself or any of his Followers So likewise the Heresiarchs who have founded new Sects among the Christians have had the Art to make the Faith more easy by denying the Mysteries which passed our Senses They were able to dazle men by their Eloquence and by a seeming shew of Piety to move them by their Passions to ingage them by their Interests to gain 'em over by Novelty and Libertinism either by that of the Mind or else by that of their Senses In a word they could easily either deceive themselves or deceive others for there is nothing more Humane but besides that they could never boast they had done any Miracle in Publick nor reduce their Religion to positive Facts whereof their Followers were Witnesses there was always a most unhappy mischief attended them which they could never conceal and that was their Novelty It will always be visible to the eyes of the whole World that they and their Sect which they have established will be detached from that great Body and from that ancient Church which Jesus Christ has founded where St. Peter and his Successors have kept the Primacy in which all Sects have found themselves established The moment of the Separation will be always so apparent that the Hereticks themselves can never be able to deny it and they will never dare so much as to attempt to make themselves to come from the Source by an uninterrupted Succession This is the inevitable weakness of all the Sects which Mankind has set up None can change the Ages past nor give themselves Predecessors nor ever make them to be found in possession The only Catholick Church fills up all precedent Ages by a Course of Succession that can never be disputed with her The Law came before the Gospel the Succession of Moses and the Patriarchs makes but one and the same with that of Jesus Christ to be looked for to come to be acknowledged by a Posterity which is to last as long as the World this is the Character of the Messiah in whom we believe Jesus Christ the same yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and for ever Thus besides the advantage which the Church of Jesus Christ hath of being alone founded on miraculous and divine Facts which they have written for all to see without any fear of being falsified as to the time in which they happened there is likewise in favour of those who lived not in those Times one Miracle that always is subsisting which confirms the truth of all the rest that is the Course of Religion which hath been always victorious over the Errors that have crept in which indeavour to destroy it You may add to this also another Chain and that is the visible uninterruptedness of a continual Punishment upon the Jews who have not yet received Christ so long ago promised to their Fathers They nevertheless expect him still and this their expectation which is always frustrated is one part of their Punishment They expect him and discover in their Expectation that he hath always been expected Condemned therefore by their own Books they confirm the truth of Religion they as I may say do carry all the Course of it written on their Foreheads and at one view we see what they have been why they are as we see them and for what they are reserved Thus four or five Authentick Facts and those more clear than the light of the Sun do discover our Religion to be as old as the World And consequently they discover that it hath no other Author than He who made the World
who was capable of breaking his Fortune and letting himself be dazled with his great Successes was not born to overcome the Romans From that time Rome made great Enterprises every day and Hannibal as couragious and victorious as he was could not hold up against her 'T is easy to judge by that single event to whom at last all the Advantage was likely to come Hannibal swollen with his mighty Successes thought the taking of Rome was very easy and therefore gave himself some intermission Rome in the midst of all her Calamities neither lost her Courage nor her Confidence and undertook greater things than ever It was presently after the Defeat at Cannae that she besieged Syracuse and Capua the one unfaithful to Treaties and the other rebellious Syracuse could not defend her self neither by her Fortifications nor by the inventions of Archimedes The victorious Army of Hannibal came in vain to the help of Capua But the Romans forced that Captain to raise the Siege at Nola. A while after the Carthaginians defeated and slew in Spain the two Scipio's In all that War nothing fell out more sensible nor more fatal to the Romans Their loss obliged them to make their last efforts Young Scipio the Son of one of those Generals being not satisfied with his having relieved the Affairs of Rome in Spain went and waged War with the Carthaginians in their own City and gave the last blow to their Empire The state of that City did not permit Scipio to find there the same resistance as Hannibal found from Rome and you will be enough convinced of that if you do but a little look into the constitution of those two Cities Rome was in her strength Polyb. 1 3â—.6.49 c. and Carthage which was beginning to fall was kept up only by Hannibal Rome had her Senate united and that was exactly the time when that Concert was which is so much commended in the Book of the Maccabees The Senate of Carthage was divided by old irreconcileable Factions and the loss of Hannibal had been the rejoicing of the most considerable part of the great Lords Rome although poor and engaged in Agriculture yet bred up an admirable Militia which only aimed at glory and to aggrandize the Roman name Carthage enriched by her trading beheld all her Citizens set upon their wealth and not at all dâ—sciplin'd in War whereas the Roman Armies were almost all made up of Citizens Carthage on the contrary held it for a Maxime not to have any but strange Troops oft-times as much to be feared by those that pay them as by those that they are imployed against These defects came partly from the first Institutiâ—n of the Common-wealth of Carthage and partly were introduced by time Carthage always loved wealth Arist Pol. 2.2 And Aristotle accuses her for so much being set upon it as to suffer the Citizens to prefer it to Vertue By that means a Republick wholly made for War as the same Aristotle observes at last neglected the exercise of it That Philosopher does not blame her for having only strange Militias and therefore it is believed that it fell not into that defect till a long while after But Riches brought thither naturally a Merchandizing Republick they loved to enjoy their wealth and thought to find every thing in their Mony Carthage fancied her self strong because she had a great many Soldiers and never could be brought to understand by all the Revolts she had seen befallen her in the latter times that there is nothing more unhappy than a State which could only be supported by strangers wherein there can be found neither Zeal nor Security nor Obedience Polyb. 11.17 'T is true the great Genius of Hannibal seemed to have supplied and remedied the defects of his Republick It is looked on as a Prodigy that in a strange Country and for full sixteen years there should never be seen I do not say any Sedition but so much as a murmur in an Army all made up of divers people who without understanding one another agreed so well in understanding the orders of their General But Hannibal's ability could not support Carthage when being attacked within her Walls by such a General as Scipio she was found without Forces Then was Hannibal to be recalled but he had with him only such Troops as were weakened more by their own Victories than by those of the Romans and which compleated their own ruine by the length of the Voyage Thus Hannibal was beaten and Carthage formerly the Mistress of all Afric of the Mediterranean Sea and of all the Commerce of the World was forced to undergo the Yoke that Sâ—ipio put upon her This was the glorious fruit of the Roman patience People who hardened and fortified themselves by their unhappinesses had good reason to believe they might save all provided they did not lose their hopes And Polybiâ—s hath very rightly concluded That Carthage would at last be obedient to Rome by the very nature of the two Republicks And if the Romans made use of those great Politick and Military Qualities only to preserve their State in Peace or to protect their opprest Allies as they made such a pretension to do we must as much commend their Equity as their Valour and their Prudence But when they had tasted the sweetness of Victory they then resolved to make every thing yield to them and pretended to nothing less than to put first their Neighbours and afterwards all the World under their Laws To attain that end they perfectly knew how to preserve their Allies to unite them among themselves to throw division and jealousie among their Enemies to penetrate into their Councils to discover their Intelligences and to prevent their Undertakings They not only observed the marches of their Enemies but also all the Progresses of their Neighbours and they were above all things curious either in dividing or in Counter-balancing by some other way the powers that became too formidable or which put too great obstacles to their Conquests Therefore the Greeks were to blame for imagining in the time of Polybius Polyb. 1.63 that Rome aggrandized her self rather by hazard than by conduct they were too fond of their own Nation and too jealous of those People they saw raised above them Or peradventure that seeing at a distance the Roman Empire to advance so quickly without penetrating into the Councils which ordered the motions of that great Body they attributed to chance as the custom of Men is the Effects of which the Causes were not known to them But Polybius whose strict familiarity with the Romans made him get so far into the secret of Affairs and nearly to observe the Roman Polity during the Punick Wars hath been more just and equitable than the other Greeks and hath seen that the Conquests of Rome were the consequence of a well form'd and understood design For he saw the Romans in the midst of the Mediterranean Sea to have their Eyes
principal matters that are dependent thereon You may now without any great difficulty dispose of according to the order of Time the great accidents of the Antient History and range them as I may so speak each under its proper Standard I have not in this Abstract forgot that celebrated distinction which the Chronologists make of the continuance of the World in 7. Ages The beginning of every one of them serves us for an Epocha If I have mixt any others with them it is that so things may be more distinct and that the order of time may be opened to You with less confusion When I speak to You of the order of Time I do not pretend My Lord that You should scrupulously charge Your memory with all the dates much less that You should concern Your self with all the nice disputes of the Chronologists where most an end they differ but in a very few years There is no question but that this contentious Chronology which scrupulously is taken up about those small matters hath its use but that is not Your object and is of very little service to enlighten the mind of a great Prince I would not be too refined upon this discussion of Time but in the calculations I have already made I have still followed that which has appeared to me the most probable without troubling my self to be Guarranty for it In the supputation of years which is made since the time of the Creation down to Abraham we had best join with the LXX which makes the World older whereas the Hebrew makes it younger by many Ages Although the Authority of the Original Hebrew seems as if it ought to carry it yet it is a thing so indifferent in it self that the Church which hath with St. Jerom followed the supputation of the Hebrew in our Vulgar Translation hath left that of the LXX in its Martyrology In effect what matter is it for History either to diminish or to multiply void Age where also there is nothing to give an account of Is it not enough that the times where the dates are important have their fixed Characters and the distribution of them be supported on certain foundations And tho' even in those times there should be a dispute about some years it should scarce ever make us perplexed and uneasie As for instance if we should put it some years sooner or later when Rome was founded or our blessed Saviour born You must own that such a diversity makes nothing to the course of Histories nor to the accomplishing of the Councils of God You must be careful to shun the Anachronisms which ruffle and embroyl the order of Affairs and leave the others to the disputes of the Learned I will not further oppress Your memory with the account of the Olympiads tho' the Grecians who make use of that render them very necessary for the fixing of Times It is fit You should know it that You may when there is occasion have recourse to it But it will be sufficient to keep to the dates which I propose to You as being the mosâ— simple and the most followed which are those of the World to Rome those from Rome to Jesus Christ and those from Jesus Christ to all succeeding Generations But the true design of this Abridgment is not to explain to You the order of Time tho' it be absolutely necessary in the reading of all Histories and in shewing how they relate to one another I have told You My Lord That my principal Object is to make you consider in the order of time the course of the people of God and that of great Empires These two things roul together in this great Movement of Ages where they have as I may say one and the same course But it is needful to understand them truly to detach them sometimes one from the other and to consider whatsoever hath relation to each of them THE SECOND PART OF THIS DISCOURSE ABove all Religion and the course of the people of God considered in this manner is the greatest and most useful of all the objects that can be proposed to men It is pretty to have before our Eyes the different States of God's People under the Law of Nature and under the Patriarchs The Course of Religion I. The Creation and the first Times under Moses and the Written Law under David and the Prophets since the Return of the Captivity until Jesus Christ and in summ under Jesus Christ himself that is to say under the Law of Grace and under the Gospel in the Ages which waited for the Advent of the Messias and in thosâ— in which he appeared in those where the Worship of God was confined to one Angle People and in those were conformable to the antient Prophecies it was spread abroad over all the face of the Earth in those at last wherein Mankind still clogged with Infirmities and gross Ideas has had need to be supported by Temporal Rewards and Punishments and in those wherein the Faithful that are the most instructed ought now only to live by Faith setting to minds upon Celestial good things which will yield them Eternal pleasure and satisfaction and suffering through the hopes at last of coming to enjoy them all the evils and miseries of this World which can exercise their Patience Certainly my Lord nothing can come into the heart of man to conceive more worthy of God than that he should first of all choose to himself a people which should be a most manifest Example of his Eternal Providence a people whose good or evil depends on Piety and whose condition bears evidence to the Wisdom and Justice of him who governs them Here it was where God began and this he fully discovered in the people of the Jews But after he had by so many sensible manifestations established this immutable foundation whereby he alone after the pleasure of his own Will did manage all the events of the present life it was time to exalt men to higher thoughts and to send Jesus Christ to whom it was reserved to discover to a new people collected out of all the people of the World the Secrets and Mysteries of a life to come You may easily follow the History of these two sorts of people and observe as Jesus Christ doth the Union of them both since that whether looked for or given it was ever the Consolation and the Hope of the Sons of God Thus then Religion was always uniform or rather always the same from the beginning of the World they always acknowledged the same One God as the Author and the same Jesus Christ as the Saviour of Mankind Thus You will see there was nothing more antient among men than the Religion which You profess and it is not without reason that your Ancestors have accounted it their greatest glory to be the Protectors of it What Testimony is this of its truth to see that in the times wherein the prophane Histories have nothing in them but
what is fabulous or at most things that are confused and half forgotten the Holy Scripture that is to say without controversie the most antient Book in the World brings us back by so many curious but precise accidents and by the same thread of things to their true principle that is to say to God the Maker of all things and does point out to us so distinctly the Creation of the Universe that of man in particular the happiness of his first Estate the causes of his miseries and frailties the Corruption of the World and the Deluge the beginning of Arts and those of Nations the distribution of Countries in a word the propagation of Mankind and other matters of the same importance whereof humane Histories speak but confusedly and oblige us elsewhere to seek for the certain sources of them And if the Antiquity of Religion gives it so much Authority its continued course without interruption and without alteration for so many successive Ages and notwithstanding all its manifold surprizing obstacles does manifestly discover to us that it is the hand of God alone that sustains it What is there more marvellous than to behold it always subsisting upon the same foundations of the beginnings of the World and neither the Idolatry and Impiety which surround it on every side nor the Tyrants that have persecuted it nor the Heretics and Infidels who have endeavoured to corrupt it nor the Cowardly that have betrayed it nor the unworthy Schismatics who have dishonoured it by their Crimes nor to conclude the length of time which alone was sufficient to wear away all humane things neither of these I say have been capable not only not to extinguish but so much as to alter it If we now shall consider what Idea this Religion for whose Antiquity we have so great a Reverence gives us of its object that is to say of the first Being we shall confess that it is superiour to all humane apprehensions and deserving to be regarded as coming from God himself That God whom the Hebrews and the Christians have always served and worshiped hath nothing in common with those Divinities full of Imperfection and even of Vice which the rest of the World adored Our God is One Infinite Perfect only worthy to revenge Wickedness and Vice and to Crown Vertue because that He alone is Holiness it self He is infinitely above that first Cause and of that first Mover which the Philosophers of old have acknowledged but yet have not adored Those of them that have been the most remote have proposed to us one God who finding a matter Eternal and existing by it self as well as He hath put it into frame and fashioned it as a common Artificer constrained in his work by that matter and by those dispositions which he did not make without ever being able to comprehend that if the matter were of it self it could not stay to have its perfection from a strange hand and that if God be infinite and perfect he hath not to do whatsoever he pleaseth but only of himself and of his omnipotent Will But the God of our Fathers the God of Abraham the God of whom Moses hath delivered wonders to us hath not only ranged this World but he hath done it all entire in its matter and in its form Before he had given it a Being nothing had it but himself He is represented to us as that God that made all things and that by his word as well because he did all by the most excellent reason as because he did it without the least of difficulty and that to make such a most glorious work as this World he was only at the expence of one word that is to say it cost him no more than his bare will and pleasure And to follow the History of the Creation since we have begun it Moses hath taught us That that mighty Architect to whom things cost so little was pleased to make them at several times and by returns from thence where he had before given over and to create the World in six days to shew that he acted not through an impulse of necessity or through a blind impetuosity as some Philosophers have vainly imagined The Sun emits at once without any reserve the power of all its rays but God who acts by intelligence and with a Sovereign liberty applies his Virtue and Power to what he pleaseth and just to so much too as he pleaseth And as in making the World by his word he discovers that nothing can trouble or with-hold him by making it at several resumptions it is sufficiently plain and evident to us that he is the Master of his Matter of his Action of all his Enterprises and that he hath not in any of his proceedings any other Rule but his Will which is always right by it self This Conduct of Almighty God doth likewise shew to us that every thing cometh immediately out of his hand The People and the Philosophers who have believed that the Earth mingled with Water and assisted forsooth with the warm beams of the Sun had produced of it self through its own fecundity Plants and Animals were most grosly mistaken The Scriptures have made us to understand that the Elements are barren if the word of God makes 'em not fruitful Neither the Earth nor the Water nor the Air would ever have had Plants or Animals which we now see in them if God who had made and prepared the matter of them had not also formed them by Almighty Will and had not given to every thing the proper Seeds whereby to multiply in all the succeeding Ages Those who see the Plants to take their birth and their increase by the heat of the Sun might think that that is the Creator of them but the Scripture hath plainly made it out to us that the Earth was clothed with Grass and all sorts of Plants before ever the Sun was made that so we might be satisfied that on God alone was all dependence It pleased that great Workmaster to create Light before he had put it into the form which he hath given it in the Sun and the Stars because he would inform and convince us that these great and magnificent Luminaries which we would so willingly make Divinities had by themselves neither that curious and shining Matter whereof they are now composed nor that admirable form to which we see them now reduced In a word the account of the Creation such as Moses has given us of it discovers to us that great Mystery of the true Philosophy that in God alone resides absolute Fullness and Power Happy Wise Almighty alone sufficient in himself he acts without necessity as he acts without need never straitned nor constrained nor puzzled with his matter wherewith he doth whatsoever he will because he hath by his alone Will given to it the foundation of its Being By this Sovereign right he turns it he fashions it he moves it without pain or uneasiness all