were so cross to his own wishes lest Men should have been rouz'd from their dead sleep by such irrational and damnable insinuations and so have seen with horrour and amazement what Gods they worshipped Yet neither could the more sagacious part of Mankind be satisfied with these things they saw the distance between God and Man was too great to be made up by any typical or representing Sacrifices and that a compleat purity was far beyond the reach of meer humane nature therefore the Gentiles who had some sense of that weight which opprest them groan'd and long'd earnestly to be freed from the slavery of corruptions by some means sufficiently powerful to that end and so to be brought in to the glorious liberty of the Sons of God hence rose those frequent discourses of the Gods assuming Humane shapes coming down to earth and conversing with Men which though we find most frequently mention'd in Poetical Writings yet unquestionably had its foundation from those accounts in the Writings of Moses concerning the apparitions of Angels as particularly to Abraham and Lot and Jacob hence grew that prevailing rumour about the times of Augustus Caesar that an universal King should be born in Judaea to whom all other Monarchs should be forc'd to bow and who by wonderful means should make up the breach between God and man this too had a farther confirmation from the translation of the old Testament into the Greek Language and from some fragments of the true Sibylline Oracles not unknown to Tully or Virgil and from Balaam's predictions as plain as any Jewish Prophecy whatsoever which he being of another Nation would certainly acquaint his own Country-men with from whom it quickly might be spread over the whole World From some or all these Originals arose the Expectation of those Eastern Sages who no sooner saw that prodigious Star shining at Noon-day but they concluded that glorious Light which was to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of God's people Israel was then risen but though Men did generally apprehend the necessity of those things and lived in continual expectation of them yet how such things should be how such prodigious but excellent effects should ever be produced was a Mystery hid from all ages a dark obscure unfathomable abyss of Divine goodness and wisdom never offer'd to be explain'd to any because incomprehensible by all As it was the unhappiness of the Gentiles to be encombred with a great deal of Ignorance so it must follow that their Mysteries where clearest had but a very indirect aspect to their acknowledgments and expectations But the Jewish solemnities and predictions had a more exact and direct aim at the coming of the promis'd Messias their Prophets were more numerous their prophecies better attested and more commonly known and enquired into their Rites and Ceremonies all of Divine appointment and consequently not one of them insignificant or superfluous till they were vacated by the appearance of the Messias himself in and by whom they were unridled and accomplished Yet their Religion was Mysterious still to the most understanding Persons among them their prophecies tho' so much inquired into yet like a Book seal'd to them and they as unable to conceive how the Son of God should take upon him humane nature how he should put an end to all Typical Sacrifices though of never so Divine an Institution by offering himself one perfect and all-sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole World which so should really effect that mighty reconciliation which all other did but imperfectly hint at they were as unable to conceive of these things as a People who had long sate in darkness could have been as by their prejudices against him and their absurd fancies about him appear'd when no other Messias could serve their turn but some powerful temporal Prince rais'd up by the hand of God as Moses Joshua or the Judges of old had been to free them from the slavery they then lay under and once more to restore the Kingdom to Israel The result then of all is this that the World has known no Religion or Religious worship but what has had some circumstances and fundamentals too not obvious or easie to be understood either by the unthinking vulgar or by the more curious and inquisitive understandings it 's enough for my design if the World concur in that one principle That something may be necessary to be believ'd which yet no meer humane reason can comprehend Nay I may proceed farther and say That some points of faith are so very sublime that even revelation it self cannot make them intelligible to Men as Moses when he had seen the back parts of God the shadow or reflex of his glory was as far off comprehending his full glory as before and the Apostles when in their transfigured Master they saw a glorified body yet were unable to express what they saw but by very weak resemblances and S. Paul when ecstasied in the third heavens could no more compleatly comprehend the felicities or glorious visions of that place than he could before Since then natural reason led the Gentiles to believe mystick truths and God led his own people of Israel to the like from both together we may conclude That Religion it self cannot subsist without them and that those things which are called mysteries in Religion are not therefore to be rejected because they are mysteries indeed i. e. because every little pretender to sence cannot comprehend them And so we come to the second enquiry propounded in the beginning of this discourse and that is Whether our Saviour intended the entire abolition of all other Religions for the Settlement of his own or rather to unite what was good in every distinct religion into one and to sublime or perfect that so as it might tend most to God's glory and Mans happiness and whether that could be effected Men standing in their present corrupt state without the retaining of old or declaring of new Mysteries in his Religion where for our better satisfaction we must again examine these things What Sentiments Men generally had of the ends of Religion before our Saviours appearance in the world How far they had depraved or perverted those ends The reason of these enquiries will appear afterwards We enquire then what Sentiments Men generally had of the substance and ends of Religion before our Saviours appearance in the world And here if we would give Religion as it 's true a definition we may take it thus Religion is the worship of God in such a manner as is most agreeable to those revelations he has made of himself to the World this the Jews confirm The Author of the book Kosri or a Dialogue between the King of Cosar and Rabbi Isaac Sangar concerning Religion infers from a precedent discourse Libri Cosri pars 3. p. 234. That Men can have no access to God i. e. they cannot be admitted as true worshippers but
Original of that call'd the Dead Sea from the Conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrha Admah and Zeboim by fire from Heaven of the Ascent of the Jews out of Aegypt and the Calamities suffer'd by the Aegyptians upon their account of the Original of the Jewish Government Sacred and Civil c. These accounts of Antiquity and many more of the same nature look'd infinitely more probably than the dreams and forgeries of their eldest Authors for whose sake they look'd upon all their own stories relating to the first Ages of the World as onely obscure and fabulous These Pleas as I said before might serve to bring any into as good an opinion of that Book which we call Scripture as of any other meer humane writing But that 's not enough Scripture may to Infidels themselves be prov'd to be far superior in the original nature and use of it than any thing else the World pretends to the certainty of which lays open a fair way for the conversion of Infidels to Christianity and indeed is such a medium as without it or unquestionable miracles which Miracles too must tend wholly to the confirmation of the authority of Scripture it 's wholly vain to pretend to their conversion What I mention'd at first that the excellency of Scripture might be prov'd or its authority have a due influence upon such as acknowledge onely the being of a God was spoken with relation to Atheists who deny any such Being at all for tho' we have not met yet with any Nation so barbarous but it has had some notion of a God as where-ever there is any pretence to divination or predictions of future contingencies there must be such yet since some will pretend to Courage enough utterly to deny the existence of a God and make it their business to make proselytes to the same non-sense I confess no Arguments of that nature I aim at can have any effects on them those who deny a God will scarce acknowledge any particular Writing to be the Word of God but to those who do acknowledge a God these things will be obvious enough and past dispute That if there be a God i. e. One great supreme Being who presides with an absolute and illimited power over the World and all transactions in it This God must necessarily have all those Attributes due to himself which are requisite for the exercising such a power for he that believes not this has no true notion of a God without which yet no Man can pretend to any true or solid religion for as the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us He that comes to God must believe that he is Heb. 11.6 and that he is a rewarder of those that seek him so the Stoick Philosopher joyns with the Apostle when he makes the greatest part of true Religion to consist in having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true opinions of the Gods so as to know that they are and that they manage all things well and justly that all ought to obey them and acquiesce in those things which are done by them Epict. Ench. c. 38. and to act in agreement with them as being govern'd by an All-wise Mind now according to these Models none can have a true or exact apprehension of a God but he who represents God to himself as capable of performing all those things for which he thinks it necessary to believe He is And from hence it was that Epicharmus tells us Cudw Intel Syst p. 263 -4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing escapes the eye of the Divinity this you ought to take notice of He 's the Overseer of us all and there 's nothing that he cannot do which shews he understood the God of all things to be omnipotent omniscient and omnipresent three of those great attributes Christians give to God and that it was necessarily to be understood by all others who pretended to the same knowledge of a God Hence God or he whom Pagans own'd to be the supreme God known to them by the name of Jupiter is call'd by them the great Architect or Maker of the World the Prince and chief Ruler of the Vniverse the first or chief God the first Mind the great God the greatest of the Gods the highest the superior to all Gods the most transcendent God the God of gods the Principle of Principles the first Cause He that generated the Universe He that rules over the whole World the Supreme Governor and Lord of all things the God without beginning self-originated and self-subsisting He that is far beyond the reach of Humane Minds and understandings that Eternal Being which can never change and never perish The beginning the end and the middle of all things He who is one God onely and all Gods in one now the result of all these titles is That the Supreme Being which governs the World is infinitely perfect which if drawn down into Christian words and principles amounts to this That God is infinitely powerful just true merciful glorious loving and good to all his Creatures and all these things are so essentially constitutive of the Deity that without the concurrence of them all there could be none for what is perfect must be so in all instances for any one exception ruines the whole assertion and makes that Being what ever he may pretend to really imperfect Amongst these several Attributes which render God adorable to the World that Love or Goodness of his whereby he regulates and provides for all his Creatures is one and as he originally desires so he promotes their real happiness and of this Goodness the Heathens had notions as well as our selves though not perhaps so clear or convictive as those God has blest us with in Scripture thus Platonists perswade us that God himself was turn'd into Love when he made the World that order in which he had set and that providence by which he govern'd all things showing the most prodigious effects of Love or goodness So the Greek Comedian gives us an odd Idea of the World 's Original Aristoph in Nubibus That in the beginning Confusion and Night and Hell and Darkness had an existence there was then no Earth nor Air nor Sky In the first place black-winged Night laid a prolifick Egg in the inscrutable bosome of profound Darkness from which in succeeding Hours was produced desirable Love glittering in the Air with golden Wings and like the breeding Winds coupling with prepared Chaos or dark confusion in the infernal regions p. 121. expos'd our kind first of all to light nor had the Gods themselves any being till Love it self had mingled all things Which Poetical expressions being duly explain'd or reduced to plain sense and the Gods in the last passages meaning onely Angels Moses his history of the Creation Gen. 1. and St. John's discourse John 1. concerning the Creation of all things by Christ with his assertion oft repeated That God is Love are not very different from
bodies and yet be Angels or Spirits still much more must it be believed that God could do the same Thus still he prosecutes his Argument and all his care was to prove not that Christ was God for that was granted on all hands but that he was Man which some denyed upon that very ground because he was God without controversie Again in his book of Prescriptions against Hereticks De Praescrip p. 36. He lays down somewhat like the form of a Creed and agreeable to our own Where first he says They believed one God the World's Creator who produced all things out of nothing by his Word that Word his Son was called by the name of God variously seen by the Patriarchs always heard in the Prophets at last brought by the power and Spirit of God the Father into the womb of the Virgin Mary He took flesh of Her and was born of Her and so became the Man Jesus Christ c. Here we have our Saviour's Existence antecedently to his birth of the blessed Virgin not only asserted but declared as the general Doctrine and Tradition of the Catholick Church and that less than two hundred years after our Saviour's Passion and made use of as a Prescription against an Heretick Now Marcion if he had not been well assured that Tertullian asserted no more than what was the current Doctrine of the Catholick Church might easily have baffled all Tertullian's pretence to Prescription by shewing him that all the Christians of the former Age were utterly ignorant of his pretended Articles of Faith but we never hear of any such Reply made Tho' we have no reason to doubt but that the Hereticks of those ages were as earnest to maintain their Errors as those are who tread in their footsteps in this After this in the same book Tertullian reflects upon other capital Hereticks So he tells us that Cerinthus maintained fol. 41. that Christ was only of the seed of Joseph a meer Man without any Divine Nature He tells us again that Theodotus of Byzantium blasphemed Christ for He too brought in a Doctrine quâ Christum Hominem tantummodo diceret Deum autem illum negaret Wherein he taught that Christ was a meer Man and that he was not God that He was indeed born of a Virgin thro' the Holy Ghost fol. 42. otherwise He was only a Man no better than others but as his Goodness gave him a greater authority than others If Tertullian then took Theodotus to be an Heretick on account of this Doctrine it can scarce be doubted but he 'd have taken Socinus and his Partners for the same had they liv'd in those days and I find our Socinians doing so much right to this Theodotus as fairly to reckon him among the Patrons of their opinions If we go farther with Tertullian we find him assaulting the same Heretick Marcion again and arguing God's extraordinary goodness from that great Humiliation of himself to take humane nature upon him He concludes his argument at last with this Totum denique Dei mei penes vos dedecus Adversus Mar. l. 2. f. 68. sacramentum est Humanae salutis c. All that which in your opinion is so disgraceful to the God I believe in is the Seal of our Salvation God converst with Man that Man might learn to do those things that are divine God acted suitably with Man that Man might endeavour to act agreeably to God God was found in a mean state that Man might be exalted to the utmost He that despises such a God can hardly be thought to believe in God crucified In another book against the same Marcion he argues from the antient apparitions of Angels that Christ tho' God had a true and real body We will not yield to thee says he that Angels had only a fantastick body but those bodies they assumed had a true solid humane substance this elsewhere he makes good it follows If it were not hard for Christ to exert the true sence and action of a Man in imaginary flesh it was much easier to make true and substantial flesh as he was the Author and maker of it to be the subject of true common sence and action Thy God was fain to appear in an imaginary body l. 3. fol. 72. because he was not able to produce a real one But my God who without pursuing the common course of nature could make real flesh of Earth could have invested Angels with real bodies of any kind whatsoever For with a word He made the world of nothing and shaped it into so many various bodies as we see Then he tells us Angels had flesh truly humane and connate with the time they appear'd in because Christ only himself was to be flesh of flesh that by his Birth he might purifie ours that by his Death he might free us from the slavery of Death he rising again in that flesh in which he was born only that he might die Therefore He appear'd in a true body accompanied with Angels to Abraham but not a body that was born because it was not that body which was to die In consequence of this discourse which proves our Saviour's Pre-existence to his Birth fol. 73. he urges his Adversary with that name of Immanuel or God with us from whence proving the reality of his divine he regularly infers the equal reality of his humane nature If we proceed we find the same Father publishing his Faith in the beginning of his book against Praxeas He was an Heretick so far yet from believing Christ to be a Creature or a meer Man that he asserted it was God the Father who was born of the Virgin and crucified and Dead and that He was Jesus Christ In opposition to him the Father declares As we are instructed by the Holy Ghost Adv. Prax. fol. 144. which leads us into all truth We believe one God and that the Word is the Son of that one God who was begotten of him by whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made that he was sent by the Father into the Virgin and born of Her Man and God the Son of Man and the Son of God and called Jesus Christ This was then his Faith and with him Christ had a being before he was born into the World and was what we assert the Creator of all things Thus afterwards he tells us in the same book the Father is God fol. 147. the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and dilates upon and vindicates that truth He tells us that the Father is God Almighty and most high fol. 149. and that the Son justly claims the same titles and that the Father and the Son are one God and indeed c. 21.22 fol. 219 220. the farther proof of this is the general design of that book He confirms the same Doctrine in his Apology for Christianity against the Gentiles Besides these books he wrote one particularly concerning the
Doctrine S. Cyprian himself is mighty frequent in such passages so in his Epistle to Rogatianus he calls out Lord Jesus Christ our King and Judge and our God Ep. 3. p. 6. Ep. 11. p. 23. and what higher characters could be given him In his Epistle to his Presbyters and Deacons he encourages them to assiduity in Prayer by the consideration of having Jesus Christ our Lord and God our Advocate and Mediator Plebi Thibaeri p 123 125. p. 146 148. so again in his fifty first Epistle to Cornelius Bishop of Rome in his fifty eighth Epistle twice in h s sixty second to Januarius and others Christ is our Judge our Lord and our God so in his sixty third in his Epistle to Jubaianus concerning the invalidity of the Baptism of Hereticks He argues against that Baptism thus If any one says he can be truly baptis'd by Hereticks he may then by that Baptism obtain remission of sins if He obtain remission of his sins he is sanctified and is made the temple of God I ask then of what God if of the Creator he cannot be his temple because he believed not in him if you say of Christ neither can he be his temple Epist 73. p. 203. who denyes Christ to be God if you say he 's the temple of the Holy Ghost seeing the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are all One how can the Holy Spirit be pleas'd with him who is an enemy to both the Father and the Son Here the force of the Martyrs argument lyes only in the Identity of nature in â—he Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and the poyson of Heresie consists effectually in denying the Lord Jesus Christ to be God but he would not have argued thus had not the Divinity of Christ been the general and well known Doctrine of the Church p. 212. He uses the same argument again in his 74. Epistle to Pompey to name no more Now â—n conclusion who can imagine that a holy Martyr so great an enemy to Idolatry so careful to refute the vulgar Error of a â—lurality of Gods should yet so very frequently use such suspicious expressions as must needs make the World believe he â—wned Christ for God and consequently multiplied those Gods himself which he expos'd others so much for if the whole objection were not to be removed by that assertion that the Father was God and the Son God yet they were not two but one God an Identity of their nature necessarily inferring the Vnity of the God-head The same Africa affords us yet another Writer of great antiquity and learning Arnobius in his several books against the Pagan Religion in his first book reflecting upon several of their Gods he takes notice how much they were grieved that Christ should be worshipped by Christians and received for and esteemed as a God And whereas Pagans derided Christians Arnobius adver gentes l. 1. p. 21. Edit Leidensis for accounting him a God whom they owned to have been born a Man he retorts upon them that They were guilty of that crime but says He supposing all you object in that respect were true would not Christ on account meerly of those benefits he confers upon us deserve to be call'd and to be thought a God He argues from their own principles who thought every considerable Invention of any Man was enough to procure his being Deified as Bacchus for finding out the use of Wine Ceres for Bread Minerva for Oyl c. But in the mean time Arnobius openly enough acknowledges that Christians did receive Christ as God He speaks yet more plainly soon after Christ for his benefits ought to be called God Nay He really is God without any scruple or ambiguity and would you have us deny him Worship or disown his Government But will some angry Pagan cry out is Christ a God We answer he is God and a God of infinite Power too and which will more exasperate an infidel he was sent from the supreme King to us upon the greatest errand in the World Perhaps the Pagan being more enraged at this will demand a Proof of what we say there needs certainly no greater proof of Christ's Divinity than an exact examination of his actions If it be objected that He was a Magician and performed his mighty works only by unlawful arts Let them who object this shew us any of their Magicians who ever did any thing like what was done by Christ or if they have done any thing of a prodigious nature it has still been by invoking some other Being but Christ without any Helps without any Magick Rites or Observations did all he did by the power of his own Name and what was proper and agreeable to and worthy of a True God nothing he did was hurtful or mischievous but helpful saving and the kind effects of divine Bounty And was he Mortal was he only one of us at whose ordinary commands Weaknesses Sicknesses Fevers and all bodily Pains were gone at once Was he one of us l. 1. p. 27. c. whose very Look the Devils could not endure Was he a meer Man whose slightest touch could cure the bloody Issue whose hand could make Hydropick humours vanish who could make the Lame run the Wither'd Hand recover its motion the Blind to see nay those who were born without eyes to see the light Was He a meer Man at whose word the angry Seas laid down their rage the rugged Storms and Tempests sunk while He with a dry foot walkt upon the swelling billows and trod upon the Oceans back the waves themselves standing amazed at the prodigious action and humble nature submitting to her Founder And so he proceeds in a florid and pathetick stile by an induction of particulars and a relating of circumstances to prove that Christ must be True God and that all the Idols of the Heathen were none Again a little after he tells the Pagans Christ was the high God the God from the beginning a God sent from unknown kingdoms God sent by the Prince of all things to be the universal Saviour whom neither the Sun nor Stars if they have any sence nor the Governours nor Princes of this World nor those mighty Gods who assuming that terrible name affright poor mortal creatures were able to find out or so much as to guess what He was or whence He came at whose very look then when he was clothed with flesh p. 32. the universal fabrick trembled and fell into a sudden disorder Again Arnobius brings in the Pagans objecting If Christ was God why was He seen in the form of a Man Why was He put to Death as Men are to this he answers Was there any other way whereby that invisible power which had no Corporeal Substance could suit it self to the World or be visibly present in the assemblies of mortal Men than by assuming a covering of solid matter which might be a proper object whereon Men might fix
by the commands of God i.e. by Worshipping him according to his prescriptions and we cannot come to know the commands of God but by Prophecy or Revelation Or we may rest in the Apostles definition that true Religion is the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness in hopes of eternal life Tit. 1.1 2. But if we respect Religion in general as taken up by all Nations we may describe it as The method of worshipping God by all men suitably to those notions they had of him and of their own duties As for the Jewish Nation they were once the sole professors of true Religion and for the hardness of their hearts were loaded with abundance of Ceremonial institutions but yet in the law of Moses and in the Prophets we find sincere and hearty obedience to the moral Law very much urged and insisted upon as the best evidence of true and unfeigned piety and where God expostulates sharply with his people for their rebellion and disobedience He tells them plainly Ps 50.8 9 13 16 17 23. I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or thy burnt offerings to have been continually before me I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goat out of thy fold Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats No these things God could pardon But unto the wicked God says what hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth the reason of the expostulation follows thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee by which words the great folly of those is exprest who pretend themselves the servants of God and instruments of his glory and yet live disagreeably to their profession wherefore it 's added Who so offereth praise glorifieth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Thus again God by the Prophet Samuel argues with Saul 1 Sam. 15.22 Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams So the Prophet Isaiah Isa 1.11 13 16 17 18. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination to me it follows wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widows Well what should be the effect of all this reformation as much as a wretched sinner could hope for from the most benign Being Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord tho' your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow tho' they be red like crimson they shall be as wool So the Prophet Micah Micah 6.6 7 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oyl shall I give my first-born for my transgression or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my soul No God requires not these things at our hands but He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Nay Solomon himself who was so personally profuse in his offerings that a man would have suspected he had fixt the whole substance of Religion in such exterior services when he comes to draw up what was incumbent upon Man in a few words passes sacrificing by as inconsiderable in respect of this sincere obedience Eccl. 12.13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man Thus far the writings of the Old Testament receiv'd by the ancient Jews shew us the ends of Religion viz. That where it really had a place it necessarily produc'd purity and sincerity of mind without which no sacrifice tho' never so costly could be accepted with God David teaches us the lesson plainly Ps 51.6 7 10 19. Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom purge me with hysop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me and much more to the same purpose then he concludes all Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness with burnt offering and whole burnt-offering then shall they offer bullocks upon thine Altar But since the Jews are for the most part hardned against their own greatest interest and so may be thought to have now changed their minds being known for such bigotted ceremonialists I shall add the confessions of one or two modern Jews So Rabbi Isaac Sangar in the book Cosri before cited Cosri pars 3. p. 157. for thus he tells the King he converses with A holy and pious man is not the rigid man for every ceremonial punctilio but he who where he dwells with a prudent and impartial hand gives every one their right who loves justice oppresses none defrauds none nor bribes any to be his slaves or tools upon occasion Again Because the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth therefore the holy man neither does nor speaks nor thinks any thing but he believes the all-seeing eye of God to be upon him ready not only to reward for what 's well but for what 's ill done too and to visit for every perverse and wicked word or action p. 168. c. To him I shall add Rabbi Moises ben Maimon who in his More Nevochim More Nevoehim pars 3. c. 28. p. 419. or explainer of difficulties teaches us that every precept of God whether it be affirmative or negative aims at these things first that it may take away all violence from among men and beget good manners necessary for the conservation of political Societies and secondly that it may instil true principles of faith such as are in their own nature necessary to be known for the expelling of wickedness and encouraging honesty and virtue Now if these sober and necessary virtues which are of no value if not sincere be the ultimate intention of all God's Laws it follows that those virtues are more accounted of with God which are inward and affect the Soul than all outward performances how pompous soever as much as the end of a thing is more excellent than the means conducing to it The Son of Sirach agrees admirably with this truth He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten Eccl. 34.18 19.