give an account of the old Chaldean Idolaters in Abraham's and Moses his time and to be wrote as long ago as that Vid. Maimon More Nevoch Part. III. Cap. 29. Now if these Zabian Books which Maimonides and his Followers so much rely upon prove to be Forgeries then all this Zabian Hypothesis fall to the ground Now these Zabian Books which Maimonides saw were one called Haistamchus another Hattel eshmaoth or of speaking Images another called Tamtam another named Hasscharabh another of the Degrees of the Celestial Orbs and of the Ascendant Figures in each degree another Book of speaking Images a certain Book attributed to Hermes a Book wrote by Isaack the Zabian which disputes for the Law of the Zabians and his great Book of the Customs and Particularities of the Zabians Besides another Book of Agriculture Now is not this a pretty Library of Books for the Abrahamical and Mosaical Times But if they are so ancient as is pretended how came they never to be heard of but among the Jews in Aegypt or Spain about four or five hundred years ago One would have thought that some of the Writers of the Old or New Testament should have spoke of some of them or some of the Learned Fathers who understood the Orientals as St. Jerom and Origen who were so inquisitive this way methinks they should have somewhere mentioned them But to go no further some of these Books carry forgery in their very Titles The Book of speaking Images looks like the stories of the Talismans which the Arabian talks so much of about that time The Book of Celestial Orbs and Ascendants looks like a forgery about Rambam's time when the Follies of Judicial Astrology among the Arabians were at the height But Isaack the Zabian was infatuated to give himself that name pretending to be older than Abraham and yet take his Son's Name Or however his Jewish Name must needs tell all the World he was no Zabian And besides Isaack in his great Book treats of the Temples dedicated by the Zabii to Intellectual Forms whence any body would know the Book to be wrote by some one who had been bred in a School of the Peripatetick Philosophy And the Disputes in those Books about the Eternity of the World shew they were compiled by some one who had been where Aristotle's Arguments upon that subject had been bandied about I should weary you to tell you all the simple Tales which Maimonides quotes of these Books which are all composed in the very strain of the Talmud from whence any body may guess their Original They make Abraham very doughtily disputing with a great King of the Zabians That there is another God besides the Sun and that the Sun is but the Hatchet in the hand of God For which the King claps Abraham up into Prison but notwithstanding that Abraham disputes there still so that the King at last fearing lest Abraham should do mischief among his People by his subtile Disputations seizes all his Goods and banishes him to the further part of the East Now does this look like a Zabian or rather not like a Jew who had a mind to aggrandize the great Parts of his Progenitor Besides the foolishness of that Writer is betrayed by making such great Monarchies in those Ages of the World when Kingdoms were generally confined to Cities or small Provinces as appears by Abraham's fighting half a score of such Kings with 318 Men. The same Books tell you strange Tales of Adam and Seth and Noah c. which plainly shew them to be wrote by one who was acquainted with the Mosaick Genealogy That Adam was the Apostle of the Moon and exhorted Men to her Worship that Seth was a Renegado to his Father's Worship and so was Noah who condemned Image-worship That Adam went into a far Country nigh India and brought home a Tree with Flowers Leaves and Branches of Gold and likewise a Tree of Stone with the Leaves of another green Tree whose Leaves would not burn in the Fire that was so large that ten thousand Men of the bigness of Adam might shelter themselves under it and that the two Leaves which he brought with him were so large that each of them would cloath two Men. But I will tire you no longer with these insipid Talmudical Lies which methinks any body might guess a Jew to be the Author of But however what rare stuff is this to explain Scripture by One would wonder how it should come into the heads of Learned Men to think that God in framing his Sacred Laws should have any regard to such idle Tales For my part I pity them when I see them so sweating themselves in such a silly Enterprise and throwing away so much Labour and Learning to no manner of Purpose and besides the great Advantage they give to the Infidels to expose the Laws of God when they see that Christians settle them upon so slender a foundation Phil. It behoves you to be as zealous for your Religion as you can for you find we get ground upon you every day We live in a very prying Generation and 't is not laying your hand over a sore place in your Religion that will secure it now you must maintain your cause by pure dint of Argument or lose it But what say you now to your great Legislator when we shall prove that all his Celebrated Religion which he pretended to give the Jews from Heaven was only pinched from the Worship of the Heathen Aegyptians And this your own Divines are sensible of at last and by reason of the plain Evidence of the Case have given over the Cause to us For some of them have proved the Christian Religion to be all Jewish and others the Jewish Religion to be derived from the Heathen and therefore for my part I am for taking my Religion at the Fountain head and so will continue a Primitive Heathen in defiance to all innovation I have nothing to say to Christianity for the Judaical Laws are the matter now in hand and these I say were most of them the Ceremonial especially nothing but Aegyptian Rites which Moses brought over with him thence which is a considerable Argument against the Divinity of them for to be sure God Almighty would never have copied his Laws from a parcel of simple Idolaters To begin with Circumcision which is pretended to be the Characteristick of the Jews that to be sure was taken from the Aegyptians or some other Nation that Ceremony being used not only in Aegypt but in Aethiopia by the Colchi and Arabians Thus the Vrim and Thummim was enjoyned in imitation of that Locket of Jewels which hung from the Neck of the Aegyptian High-Priest mentioned by * Hist Fab. Lib. 1. c. 37. Diodorus Siculus The Linnen-Garments which the Jewish High-Priest and other inferiour ones wore were copied from the Aegyptian Priest who wore the like as Herodotus †Herod Hist Lib. 2. c. 37. and Plutarch
III Fig. IV. A Conference WITH A THEIST PART II. CRedentius thinking himself obliged to return the Visit which Philologus had lately given him after a small walk of some half a Mile his House lying from Credentius's but at that Distance he very opportunely hears that Philologus was retired to his study after Dinner and not suffering the Servant to give him the disturbance of calling him down he with his wonted familiarity enters upon him there The Room it self was adorned with all the beautiful Paint and Figures which a skilful hand could add and the Books were Methodically ranged into various Classes under the Images of Ancient Philosophers and Poets and some other celebrated Modern Writers Nor was there wanting any Greek Philosophical or Philological Writer down from Homer to Pletho and all the Latin Classicks stood in the exactest order and the most curious binding and what yet commended them most they were chiefly of the charming Editions of Aldus the Stephani and Vascosanus Here were all the Learned Adversaria Dissertations c. of the famous Philologers of this and the last Age Trapezuntius Valla Volateranus the Scaligers and Casaubons here was a Collection of every thing curious in the Philosophy of the Moderns up to Petrach and Mirandula all the Wits of our own and the Neighbouring Nations every thing useful and delicate in the Methematicks and Poetry most singular sets of the Modern History Maps and Travels in short a well chose Collection of the most refined and pleasing Authors which may tend to render the study of a Gentleman agreeable and to highten his Genius Philologus drawing a Chair for him to sit down according to his wonted pleasantness tells Credentius he was heartly glad to see him but for Entertainment he must expect the same that he gave him the other day endeavouring always to write after so good a Copy as Credentius so that he must expect to be treated only with Discourse Adding with all that the Entertainment too of that nature would be very mean and be no tolerable recompence for that instructive Discourse he was pleased to afford him the other day which he protested had made him ever since both wiser and better Cred. I perceive Sir you retain still so much of the complemental strain that I have not yet brought you up to that plain sincerity of that Religion I am Advocate for And if you find any forcible conviction in the Arguments I then urged you must attribute that to the evident Truth of our Religion and not to my management Phil. I would not have you Sir conclude too fast neither my Head is not so full of Revelation yet as to swallow the whole doctrine of the Bible without chewing Truly Sir I am a kind of an obstinate Heathen I shall hold out my Infidelity to the last and Faith must gain upon me by Inches or not at all You indeed have defended strenuously enough the History of the Creation and the Fall but this tends no more to make a Man a Christian than to make him a Jew I expect to have the reasonableness of the New Covenant as you call it made clear to me and the Mediatorship in all its particulars I must demand an account why simple Natural Religion should not perform as acceptable a service to God Almighty as when 't is cumbered with Jewish and Christian Rites why God should not as well be pleased with a Mans doing his duty himself as for the sake of a Mediator and to what purpose a Man must be forc'd to believe the Inspiration of a few Books wrote I know not when and by I know not whom and which for the most part tell us no more but what Natural Religion told us before Therefore by your leave Credentius I will attack you 1. With the sufficiency of Natural Religion in general towards the Worship of God and a good life 2. Particulars of the Conference In opposition to the Mediatorship of Christ 3. In opposition to the Writings of the Bible Of Natural Religion And now Credentius have at you upon the first head I think I need not deâ—uce Arguments for this out of the depth of Philosophy for I dare say you will never be able to answer these four Verses of our English Poet. Natural Religion easy first and plain Riddles made it Fabulous Priests they made it gain Offrings and Sacrifices next appear'd The Priests eat roast meat and the people star'd I protest the cunning Blades had a brave time of it when they could fill their Bellies at the peoples charge who thought themselves well paid to look on and see them feed But in the mean time the poor folk were miserable befool'd when they were made to believe that they rendered the Deity more their Friend or themselves the better Men by stuffing the Priests Guts For what signifies a Fat Bullock to God-Almighty but the roguish Priests knew well enough what use to make of it when it served them thus to gormandize upon And truly their Brethren of the holy Tribe have kept up the same Craft and Legerdemain ever since It is but the same Juggle of the designing Priesthood that upholds all the superstitions in the World that maintains both the Pagods of India the Mosques of Turky and provides so confortable a maintenance for all the sanctified Gentlemen here in Europe The plain dictates of nature are a thousand times a better Rule of Life than the foolish rites prescribed by these superstitious Coxcombs that rook the people of their money by telling them strange Tales and exhibiting odd Ceremonies for them to gape at What cann't a Man Live and Die as becomes a good Man without Sacrifices and Ave Maries and Sacraments and Absolution Cann't I live as nature directs without being plagued and tormented by a parcel of Creed-contriving Sin-making Hypocrites For my part I grudge those Harpies every morsel of Bread they eat and think that Cheats and Pick-Pockets ought to be maintain'd at the charge of the Nation as well as they It vexes me to think that the generality of people should be such Cullies to part so easily with so considerable a part of their Estates to pay their Priests for Hypocrisy and Lyes and at the same time to adore their Holinesses for their Piety and Good service For my part they shall get as little of my money as ever they can and I generally tell them their own when ever I meet them I know two or three of our Neighbours that tamely deliver up their Nose to their Priests Fingers and truly you Credentius suffer them to buzze about you like so many Flies but you have sense enough to discover the Foxes Ears through the Sheeps Livery it is only your good nature that hinders you from doing any thing unkind to any one but for my part I make the Sparks know their Distance I give them no quarter when ever they fall in my way and that makes them as much scar'd
A Conference WITH A THEIST PART II. SHEWING The Defects of Natural Religion The Necessity of Divine Inspiration The Rationale of the Mosaical Laws and defence of His Miracles Together With an Account of the Deluge the Origin of Sacrifices and the Reasonableness of Christ's Mediatorship By WILLIAM NICHOLLS D.D. Rector of Selsey in Sussex and Chaplain to the Right Honourable Ralph Earl of Mountague The Second Edition Corrected LONDON Printed by T. W. for Francis Saunders at the Blue-Anchor in the New-Exchange and Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1699. To the Most Reverend FATHER in GOD THOMAS Lord Archbishop OF CANTERBVRY May it please your Grace I Having begged Protection for the former Part of this mean Performance under the Vmbrage of Your late Dear Friend and our good Bishop I presume to lay the Second Part at your Grace's Feet whom God has made next under himself the Succourer of his Afflicted Family And I humbly pray That You would be pleased to add one more Token of your Respect to the Memory of that Admirable Person as favourably to accept this poor Present from one of his Vndeserving Friends This My Lord I address to Your Grace with all Heartiness and Sincerity and with the humblest Thanks for your kindness to the Relations of my Vnfortunate Diocesan and for Your Assistance in getting his Station in the Church supplied by so excellent a Successour thereby mitigating the unspeakable Loss sustained by the whole Diocese and in particular by My Lord Your Grace's most Obedient and Dutiful Son and Servant Will. Nicholls PREFACE THat indifferent good Reception which my Bookseller informs me that the former Part of this Conference has met withal in the World has made me presume to venture abroad a second It is my hearty Prayer to God that these mean Endeavours may contribute to the abating that reigning Infidelity which has poisoned such a number of the Gentry and others of this Nation or at least may stir up some abler Pen to encounter with it this way For after all the Objections which I have heard made to me about my free way of arguing the Theistical Arguments in Dialogue I think it is more like to do good among the Infidels than a Methodical Discourse ranged into Chapter and Section for those that are tainted with these Opinions are generally a sort of fastidious Students who though they talk much read but very little and every thing which is designed for their use must be attempered to their Palats to make it go down with them Now the Dialogical way of all others is most apt to excite Attention by constantly springing up new Objections which set a continual edge upon the Mind and make it eager to see them removed so that the Author of a Dialogue has this advantage above others that he carries the Read◠Thoughts always fresh along with him 〈◊〉 are generally lost or at least often grow languid in a continued Discourse of any considerable length I have not indeed brought in such frequent Interlocutions as are requisite for a just Dialogue like those of Plato and Lucian For that would have taken up a great deal more Paper to little purpose only to please a few curious Criticks and at last the Argument would be but the more obscured by it And on the other side I have avoided the dry method of the Scholastick Ob. and Sol. where the Objection is proposed without any manner of Life only in order to be refuted which can never be pleasant to the Reader who at first sight sees that the Author sets this up only as a Man of Straw which whan he fights with it he shall be sure to get the better of I have therefore made use of the middle way in clothing the Objections in such a dress as two Men that had a mind to convince one another can be supposed to use And this is the Pattern which the best of Writers Cicero in his Philosophical Tracts has set whose very faults I should never be ashamed to imitate As to those Tragical Exclamations which some honest People have made concerning my urging the Infidels Arguments with that little Wit and Briskness with which they are usually talked in and putting some Expressions in my Deists Mouth which reflect upon Christianianity I cannot upon the most serious Consideration approve their Zeal For when I was to write a Dialogue upon this Subject I must make the Theist say something or other and I think I should but little have observed the Rules of Decency to have made the Infidel talk in the Language of a Grave Theologue For I am sure if I had done so I had made more People laugh at me than now I have made angry Besides I have the whole World before me for Precedents in this matter Those Atheistical Prosopopoea's which are are brought in by Solomon in Ecclesiastes are urged with a peculiar Poignancy of Wit which the Atheists of all Times have endeavoured to excel in And Cicero in his Book de Natura Deorum frames the Arguments of Velleius the Epicurean with a great deal more Wit and Smartness than those of Cotta the Academick or Balbus the Stoick And in the same strain all along in Minutius Foelix Cecilius exposes the Doctrines of the Christian Religion And so the Arguments of Trypho the Jew recorded in Justin Martyr Those of Celsus in Origen and of Julian in St. Cyril are more Blasphemous Reflexions and Insinuations against Christianity than any that are found in this Conference If any shall say that I help vitious Men to Arguments against Religion I answer that these Arguments are common enough to be found elsewhere and those whose Minds are byassed this way know well enough where to look for them in those wicked Books where they may find all the Poison without the Antidote As to those Schemes of the Creation and the Deluge I have made in this and the former Part I must tell the Reader again that I design them only as possible Theories which I do not lay down as if they were exactly true but that they might be so which is all I am concerned to prove against the Infidels who deny the Possibility of these Mighty Revolutions And those People that pretend to be angry at any Philosophical Explication of the Creation and the Deluge in this way may as well be displeased with Butio and Dr. Wilkins for proving the Possibility of the Reception of the Animals in Noah's Ark and with the generality of the Commentators upon the Bible who do upon occasions shew the Possibility of those many miraculous Relations which are found there If this Part finds as kind usage abroad among those Judgments I most value as the former did or if I can learn it does any good among those I design'd it for I will publish the Third and last Part or otherwise I have done with the Subject and Hic Caestus Artemque repono Fig. I Fig. II Fig.
Philosophick Disquisitions that he should ever have considered that to kill a rational Creature was to deface the Image of the All-wise Deity to usurp a barbarous power over one naturally equal with himself and to take away that Life which mutual Friendship obliged to protect that to violate a given Faith was a baseness beneath the dignity of a Rational Man and which if universally practised would destroy all Society out of the World No certainly the poor Indian never troubled his Head with these matters his thoughts in his younger days run all upon Hunting and Swimming and loving and afterwards to get good store of Progg for his Wives and Children but he never thought a word of these Rationale's of Morality which were invented by men of a learned Education and busy Thoughts How came then this poor fellow to the knowledge of these moral Duties Why truly I can conceive no other way than by Tradition his Father taught them him and his Grand-Father his Father and so up to Adam the common Parent of us all who had them first from God-Almighty as the universal Laws that all his Posterity should be governed by Nor is it any objection against this Opinion that Tradition does not seem to some so proper a means to convey Morality by to Mankind because of its liableness to Corruption and that it would have been more sensibly vitiated than we find it is had it descended by this Method For tho' Relations of matters of Fact Ancient Customs and difficult Articles of Faith may suffer much by being conveyed this way because the Understandings of Men cannot be supposed to have a clear understanding of these things upon the first proposal and so may be liable to mistake them which must occasion very great alterations in such a number of Deliveries but these plain Rules of Morality such as Worship God Honour thy Parents thou shalt do no Murder thou shalt not steal c. are so natural to the understanding so easy to be embraced by it and appear upon proposal to be so extreamly useful to Mankind that they must be assented to and can never be mistaken or forgot The same is the case of these Moral Rules as of very early and useful Inventions such as Spinning Weaving Arching c. which are conveyed to all the World not by being written in Books or in Mans Hearts but by the handing down from one to another for several thousand years together Now unless it was the general Opinion of Mankind that this was the ordinary way of conveying the Rules of Morality to their Posterity to what purpose should they take so much pains in instructing their Children as we find men have done in all Ages and in all Countries But if Morality were inscribed on Mens Hearts and so were all one as if it were implanted in their nature Parents might with as much Wisdom pretend to teach their Children to eat and drink to love their Children and desire a propagation of their Species which they cannot but do or if these moral Duties were the necessary and unavoidable deductions of Reason it would be as simple to go about to learn them the rules of Vertue as to teach them that one and one make two And it is further particularly remarkable and which may serve as a good proof of what has been said we find the Parents are commanded by God Deut. 6.6 to teach their Children these Moral Duties For after the recital of the Ten Commandments viz. the Moral Law He adds And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy Children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy House and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up And 't is yet further remarkable that what Moses here says shall be in the Jews hearts the Apostle says Rom. 2.15 was written in the Gentiles Hearts So that unless there can be a substantial Difference evinced between being in the heart and being written there all the Doctrine of inscribed Propositions falls to the ground And I am sure there is no reason why God should write Moral Laws in the gross and literal sense in the Gentiles Hearts and put them into the Jews by the ordinary way of teaching and instruction Riddles not the Corruption of Natural Religion 4. But in the fourth place Philologus you are something mistaken in asserting that it was the ancient Riddles when Men affected to deliver sacred Truths in the Aenigmatical way that first debauched natural Religion by introducing all the fabulosity of the Heathen Polytheism This is a position which is asserted very confidently by some who I believe are better Friends to Religion than you but I think without just ground for what ever I could see Phil. I beseech you Sir don't go to run down the grounds we build our assertion upon without understanding what they are For there is a great deal of reason to believe that the Aenigmatical way of explaining the nature and providence of the Deity gave occasion to the Heathen Polytheism and serves very much to apologize for it For I look upon the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Jupiter with the learned Ancients * Cic. de Nat. Deorum Lib. 3. Plat. in Timaeo Sallust de Diis Mund. Cap. 6. to be but the Aether or that fluid agitated part of the Universe which permeates the pores of all Bodies and is the cause of all motion generation fermentation c. and therefore is well called Jupiter quasi juvans pater The Goddess Juno †Cic. ib. Plato in Cratyl or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Air which warm'd or agitated by the aether is a principal cause of the procreation of Animals and Vegetables and was for that reason worshipped as the Goddess of Child-births ‖ Cic. ib. Natal Com. Myth Lib. 2. Cap. 2. Aug. Civ Dei Lib. 7. Cap. 19. Saturnus quasi Satur annis or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is said to be the Father of Jupiter because before the World was Time was He is said to dethrone his Father because the Creation of the World put a Period to that long unmeasured Duration Ceres quasi Geres à gerendo the Goddess of Corn or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qu. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mother Earth is only the Ground as Neptunus the Sea or the same Deity exercising his providence in all or to use St. Austin's words who expresses the meaning of the Ancients well thus Civ Dei Lib. 4. Cap. 11. Vid. De. hac re Var. De Ling. Lat. Lib. 4. Ipse in aethere est Jupiter ipse in aere Juno in mari Neptunus in inferioribus etiam maris ipse Salacia in terrâ Pluto in terrâ inferiore Proserpina in foris domesticis Vesta in fabrorum fornace Vulcanus in syderibus Sol Luna Stella in
a Heathen should come at a sight of that Book or at least a Relation out of it For Trogus Pompeius who wrot the History which Justin Epitomized was a Retainer in the Family of the Great Pompey who Conquered Judea and therefore in the Expedition of his Master there without doubt he picked up this imperfect Relation of the Jews either by reading their Books and afterwards forgetting or mistaking them or by mixing the True History with the Fabulous reports of some Neighbouring Gentiles So that in short the Scripture-History must regulate his report And then see how finely This does agree with it He makes the Jewish Original to be from Damascus and that Abraham was King of that place where Arathes the Wife of Syrus one of their ancient Kings was worshipped That after Damascus who gave name to the City succeeded Azelus and then Adores and then Abraham and Israel which Israel divided his Kingdom among his Ten Sons but made them all to be called Jews from his Son Judah That Joseph was Israel's Youngest Soâ— and that Moses was Son to him That the Jews were drove out of Aegypt for being Scabby that they were followed after by the Aegyptians because they had stolen some of their Sacra and that the Aegyptians were forced to return home by a Tempest That they were forced to fast seven days in the deserts of Arabia which occasioned the Institution of the Sabbath That the Memory of their being drove out of Aegypt for their scabbiness made it a part of their Religion not to converse with strangers lest the Knowledge of their Infirmity should render them contemptible That Moses his Son's name was Arvas i. e. Aaron who was an Aegyptian Priest who afterwards succeeded Moses in the Kingdom and from hence came the custom that the Jewish Kings were always Priests Now what a foolish and contradictious account of the Jewish History is this Report of Justin Who ever heard of the names of Azelus and Adores in the Jewish story When was such a Goddess as Arathes worshipped generally by the Jews who were always fam'd for the worship of one God where by the way this is only a simple mistake of the Author to say Arathe for the Astarte or Astaroth of the Sidonians Here is again Abraham mistaken for the Father who was the Grand-Father of Israel Here are Israel's Ten Sons set down for his Twelve his little Estate mistaken for an Empire and the Twelve Tribes for Ten Kingdoms Here is Joseph taken for Jacob's Youngest Son who was his eldest by another Venter and Moses passes for Joseph's Son who lived Three or Four Hundred Years after him Here is the name of Jews said to be imposed by Jacob which was not known till the time of the Captivity a Thousand Years afterwards Here are the Plagues which Moses inflicted upon Aegypt altered for the scabbiness of the Jews as if those heavy judgments came only by infection and the spoiling of the Aegyptians of their Bracelets Ear-rings c. turned into the running away with their Sacra Here is the History of the Manna and Quails confounded with the Institution of the Sabbath and their Injunction of not communicating with the Nations attributed to the foolish Fable about their Itch or Leprosy And besides here is again Aaron Moses his Brother mistaken into his Son and turned from a Jewish into an Aegyptian Priest here is the same Aaron made King of the Jews who was never otherways than Priest and that said to be the original of the Custom of the Jews having their Kings their Priests when never any such Custom obtained amongst them but only the Author has blundered the History of the Maccabees Government into this Fable So that Philologus I would have your Gentlemen for shame leave of to abuse the Jewish Nation with false stories out of Heathen Historians that knew so very little of their Country and are guilty of so many mistakes about it For in this short account of Justin you see there are almost as many mistakes as words whether they are willful and malicious or no I shall not determine but I am sure the account we find in Scripture to all reasonable Men must be ten times less liable to exception Phil. These are but small things Credentius for us to make many words about but I am afraid you Inspiration Men are guilty of a very great fundamental Errour in taking that for some supernatural Revelation of God which is only Natural Reason For I cannot be brought to think that the Prophets or other Writers of the Bible which are said to be inspired had the Mind of God revealed to them any other way than by the common natural way of reasoning and Knowledge For Natural Knowledge is but the Revelation of God wherein God reveals to our minds the natures of things which were unknown to us before so that God may he as well said to speak to us by our reason as by the Scriptures and Natural Knowledge may be allowed to be divine as proceeding from God as well as they And I doubt not but that it was the Hebrew way of using the word God that has betrayed both Jews and Christians into the fancy of Inspiration and Revelation in the modern sense when formerly nothing but pure natural Knowledge was meant by it For the Hebrews had always a very Religious and Devout way of talking and attributed almost all Natural Actions to God if they had gotten Money by their industry they would say it was given them by God if they had a good thought they would say God put it into their Hearts and the like So a great many other things were said to be divine or to come from God which were only natural but wonderful or extraordinary Thus the mountains of God is only another name for great mountains they Sleep of God for a deep sleep and the Sons of God Gen. 6. are but great Sons or Giants Now it would be a mad way of Interpretation to say all these things were inspired because they have God's name added to them Therefore why should we suppose that those Men who are called Prophets in Scripture had any divine and supernatural Revelation only because they are called the Men of God or are said to have the Spirit of God For this is only an usual Hyperbole to denote that they were extraordinary Men Men of sound Reasoning and notable parts and exquisitely gifted to move and perswade the People And this is no more than what the Greeks and Latins mean by Divine or Godlike i. e. extraordinary only because the Hebrews made use of Genitives instead of Adjectives they called him the Man of God which the Heathens would have called a divine or extraordinary Man So when the Prophets are said to have the Spirit of God what needs I pray of coyning an Inspiration or Revelation of divine Truth to explain this by For the Spirit of God has so many senses and those so very
obscure to us we should consult the Gods by Divination for they make known those things to them to whom they are propitious Indeed I think it but a vain attempt to go prove to you That Imagination is not the Cause of Inspiration for I do not suppose that in reality you do believe it only by this odd sort of disputing you endeavour to make our Religion stand upon as loose a bottom as you can that you may be able to overthrow it at your leasure For I dare say you do not believe a word of Revelation at all and therefore why should you trouble your self about the causes of it All that you and your Master Spinosa mean when you talk of Prophecies consisting in lively Imagination is that the inspired Prophets were only a parcel of Melancholy crack-brain'd Enthusiastical Folks that preached to the People of Judea a number of Phanatical Dreams and Visions But because there is so much pains taken in this Argument I will shew you that the Prophets or inspired Men of Scripture were not Men of this complexion as you contend for and that the Instances which you have alledged make nothing for this Opinion 1. For it does not appear that the Prophets were more Melancholy or Fanciful than other Men are Prophets not Melancholy And it is but a fancy of Mounsieur Petit de Sibyllis Lib. 1. to assert that Melancholy was the chief Disposition to make a Prophet and that Moses was an extraordinary Melancholy Man because he chose to live a solitary Life in the Wilderness feeding his Father-in-law Jethro's Sheep and because he is noted in Scripture to be slow of Speech Exod. 4.10 For these do not appear to be any Arguments at all of Melancholy For a Pastoral Life does by no means denote a Man to be of a Melancholick Complexion but contrariwise more debonair and pleasant and therefore the Shepherds in polite Nations as among the Greeks and Romans are always described as Men of great Mirth and Jollity and spending their whole Time in Pleasure and Gayety Neither did Moses leave the Aegyptian Court for a Melancholy Retirement in the Country but was forced to fly from Aegypt to avoid the Anger of the King after it was known that he had slain the Aegyptian Neither whilst he so absconded did he shew any sign of Melancholy there but only according to the Custom of his Nation and generally of those Ages chose to make his Employ the Keeping of Sheep So that David who is described in Scripture to be of a sanguine Complexion and famed for sprightful Singing and Playing may be as well taxed for Melancholy when he kept his Father's Sheep as Moses might Neither is the slowness of his Speech any Argument of his Melancholy because very sanguine Men are often troubled with that infirmity which does generally arise from some defect of the Vocal Organs in the Mouth and not from Mens Complexion and Temper of Mind And besides what is commonly translated slow of Speech is in the original Heavy or Difficult of Mouth which may be any defect of speaking which does render Men less easy to be understood by stammering or fast speaking as well as slow speaking And therefore Ezekiel 3.5 People of another Nation are said to be heavy of Language because they could not be easily understood by the Jews And Moses might as well have been very quick in his Talk and upon that account mightily given to Hesitation and then this would rather argue him to be of an eager and volatile Temper than any ways given to Melancholy But as for all the rest of the Prophets it is plain that they were no Melancholy Enthusiasts because their Discourses and Writings are perfectly different from what is usually said by that sort of Men. There is nothing comes from them but what is grave and sedate and agreeable to good sense and Reason and a well-composed mind Do we find any thing in them that is like the mad Transports of James Naylor Read but the lives of Sancta Teresa Vid. Dr. Stillingfleet's Fanaticism of the Church of Rome Dr. William's 1 Sermon 1696. and Maria Magdalena de Pazzi and see if the Prophetick Writings bear any manner of Correspondence with their foolish talk Did ever any one of the Prophets spend three Years before his Death in nothing but repeating such an odd Ejaculation as thy Will be done in Time and in Eternity as Molinos reports of Gregory of Lopez Besides their Writings are full of just reasoning and serious unaffected Relations which do by no wise agree to Enthusiastical Men. Read but the History of the Pentateuch and other Historical parts of the Bible and see if they look like the Compositions of wild Enthusiasts If Naylor had been to write the Book of Genesis he would have made an otherguise spot of work of it than Moses has He would have clogged every Relation with odd Parentheses Great is the Lord of Host Judgment Horror Desolation Damnation c. he would never have kept his brains close to the order of a just Narration but would have jumbled the Creation and the Flood Noah and Abraham and Pharaoh all together Do you think that any one of those Popish Dreamers could have made use of such solid Reasoning and such Critical Remarks upon the Old Law as are to be found in the Writings of St. Paul and the Author of the Book of the Hebrews Could they have made such wise observations upon humane Life and given such Rules of Piety and Conversation as the Books of Solomon are full of Could they have framed such admirable Forms of Devotion as the Book of Psalms All that they were able to do would be to write some mad stuff which no Man of sense would have Patience to read three Leaves of Had the Scriptures no other inspiration than the imagination of fanciful Brains there would no one part of it be coherent with another History would be clashing with History and Prophecy with Prophecy and nothing suit together with that order and symetry as now we find it Ask two craz'd Men in Bedlam to tell a story out of the Bible and then see how these Men of Imagination will correspond together talk singly with two Enthusiastical Quakers till they be warm upon the Book of the Revelations and see then how finely their Prophecies will agree I am sure they will fall infinitely short of being so uniformly of a piece as the holy Scriptures are Let the greatest Infidel of you all consider that wonderful correspondence there is between the four Evangelists among themselves where there is no difference to be found but what among Writers which had not confederated together should be and observe the same in the Books of Kings and Chronicles See how the same great Design is visible throughout the Mosaical Writings the Prophets and the Gospel How exactly does the lapse of Mankind by Adam agree with the Reparation made by Jesus Christ
of them to be absurd and ridiculous others contrary to common Justice and the rest but mean and pitiful and unworthy of God the Author What more silly than the command of not eating the blood of an Animal as if it was worth the cognizance of a Legislatour to forbid Men the use of Black-Puddings Is it worthy a Divine Law to forbid the sowing of Maslin or that poor Folks should wear Linsey-Wolsey And does it not look a little like a jest gravely to establish that an Ox and an Ass shall not be yoked together Besides there are other things in the Body of his Laws which contradict the common notions of ordinary Justice What is the setting up in his Common-wealth so many Asylums but only making a Rendezvous or an Alsatia for a number of Hedg-Rogues to plague their honest Neighbours His Lex Talionis is unmerciful Cruelty that when I by chance or in a scuffle have beat out a Mans Eye I must stand still to let him bore out mine in cold blood His redemption of Estates after the year of Jubilee is to discourage good Parts and Industry and to entail Estates for ever it may be upon the Block-headed Heirs of those particular Families which first laid hands upon them His other Laws about Murder Theft Sacrifices c. are such as are equaled by the meanest Common-wealths and the ordinariest superstitions only here are some things more ridiculous than are to be found elsewhere with a deal of Injunctions about Red-Cows Scape-Goats and forty things more of the same Nature But if God had been the Author of these Laws and this Institution they had without all doubt been grounded upon admirable reason excellently fitted to the benefit of Mankind and the usefulness of them to Society and to make Men good would have been apparent to all that considered them but these seem only to be an odd jumble of Arbitrary Precepts for which there is no other but a Womans Reason to be given Because forsooth God would command them And is not this a fine way of making Laws Cred. I find you are running The Jewish the best of all Political Laws Philologus upon your old strain and therefore I must beg leave to interpose a little I believe it is want of due consideration of the Laws of Moses which makes you talk against that which when you understand better you would rather admire For my part I look upon the Judaical to be the most excellent Civil Constitution which ever was or ever will be in the World and if you will but compare the three Legislative Books of Moses with what are extant of the Aegyptian Attick and Lacedemonian Laws the Roman twelve Tables their Plebiscita and Imperial Rescripts nay even when they were collected into the Digests You will find that they all fall short of these Laws of Moses I do not speak this at random nor in the least to detract from the Roman Laws but considering the Circumstances of the Jewish Nation their Laws do I think far exceed the other Indeed the Jewish Laws were not drawn up into such an exact a Systematical Method nor adorned with such Artificial Terms nor do so precisely set out the minute Boundaries of Right and Wrong as the Roman but yet they are better calculated for ordinary Justice and Neighbourly Society The extraordinary mercifulness of them and what is better yet for Mercy and Charity I say Mercy and Charity and I defy any Civil Constitution in the World to shew so many good-natur'd Laws and enacted with such a tender regard to their Fellow Creatures as the Jews can What more kind Constitution could there be than to ordain Cities of Refuge for the innocent Man-slayer to fly to to avoid the impotent Anger of the Relations of the killed which according to the Custom of those times were wont immediately to revenge their Kindreds Death thereby to give him Time to clear himself which if he could not the Law allows him to be dragged even from the Horns of the Altar Exod. 21.14 The kind usage which by those Laws is to be given to Slaves and the stripes which are not to be exceeded in punishing Criminals are another Argument of the Mercifulness of these Laws above others The great care which is taken to prevent mischief which might happen by the flat roof'd Buildings of those times by ordering Battlements to be made round them and the penalty of Womens taking abortive potions do confirm the same The forbidding the Jews to suffer a Beggar among them and not allowing new Married Men to be forced from their Wives the first year to the Wars are a Tenderness which most other Nations are wanting in Indeed the same Laws punish Adultery with Death but then they are so mild as to punish Theft with only abundant Restitution In which sanctions you may see an admirable Temperament of Justice and Clemency and which may serve for an Example to other Governments where Adulteries which are irreparable are pretended to be recompensed by pecuniary Mulcts and Thefts for which restitution may be made are Capital Nay in these Laws there is a tender Regard had to Beast themselves of which the forbidding to muzzle the mouth of the Ox that treadeth out the Corn is a sufficient instance mercifully providing that the poor Beast which provides sustenance for us should not be denied its natural cravings after its own And so it is in the case of the coupling an Ox and an Ass and other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tenderly taking care that one Beast of greater strength should not force another poor Creature of less toil beyond its ability Thus much I have thought fit in some few particulars to point out the Merciful Disposition of these Laws which is not so visible in any civil Constitution in the World as in this The great Wisdom in them And besides you may perceive as much Wisdom and excellent Design running through the whole frame of it The Distinction of Families and Registery of their names was the most useful thing which could be in a Common-wealth thereby to know its own strength and abilities to prevent Law-suits and to settle Inheritances The sabbatical or fallow year was a noble contrivance to keep a Country in fertility and from being worn out of heart by covetous Tillers The weekly Sabbath setting aside the Religiousness of it was a wonderful ease both to Servants and Cattle and must even upon this account be esteemed a very wise Establishment which other Nations were wanting in But their severe punishment of Idolatry of all sorts and the great encouragement of the Worship of the one true God from whom the whole World had relapsed is such a Glory of the Judaical Laws above all other as can never be eclipsed by all that can be said against them by Infidel Tongues Talk what you will of your Solon's Lycurgus's and Numa's but the Idolatrous Worships which they established by their Laws is enough
to ruin their Character in the Opinion of all sober Deists whilst they must needs have a secret esteem for the Jewish Legislatour in setting the Worship of the one true God among his People alone in opposition to the whole Idolatrous World Nay that hostile odium which the Historian calls their Aversion to a free conversation with other Nations which their Law obliged them to was that which preserved both their Religion and their Laws from the encroaching powers of their Neighbouring Potentates For if they had wanted this they had been lost in their Babylonian Captivity and forever mixed with that Idolatrous Nation And truly this surliness was such a good piece of Policy among the Jews that we Englishmen in the midst of our complaisance should not do amiss to learn who have so long been fond of fetching over the Customs of a Neighbouring Nation that they seeing us so very obliging were once in a fair way to have sent us over their Government and Religion too Objections against particular Laws answered As to your exceptions which you have raised against some particular Instances in the Mosaical Law I think they are not very material The forbidding of the Blood of Animals for food was a Noachical Precept as well as Mosaical which God by a new sanction thought fit under Moses his dispensation to continue And at the first giving of it in Noah's time it was a very proper Injunction and highly rational For God at the same time gave Mankind a Licence to eat the Flesh of Animals excepting only the Blood This being as it were a kind of Sacrament or Token to put them in mind of the tenderness they ought to have in shedding Human Blood as appears by the Context where Murder is forbidden and Blood is required for Blood As to your objection against the Law of sowing mixed seed I presume the reason which Philo gives is sufficient that the strength of the ground might not be worn out thereby and no incouragement given to the Husbandman's Covetousness The wearing linsey woolsey was probably a proud fantastick fashion of the Heathens at that time which therefore the Jews were forbid to imitate Though further I believe all the three Conjunctions mentioned Deut. 22. of yoking the Ox with an Ass the mingling of seeds and wearing Linnen mixed with Woollen have as Theodoret observes something emblematical mixed with the precept to make Men have the greater abhorrence of all venereal commixtures contrary to nature As for the Lex Talionis of the Jews let it have been as rigid as you would make it it is no more than what was practised in other Nations and had a place among the celebrated Roman Laws in the 12 Tables Nuct Anic Lib. 20. c. 1. And as it is set down in Aulus Gellius is thus SI MEMBRVM RVPERIT NI CVM EO PACIT TALIO ESTO But the Jews say that for Mutilations where Death did not ensue a pecuniary Mulct was generally accepted and granted to the maimed person and that the Judge did never inflict the Talio but upon the desire of the injured party who unless he were very malicious would rather accept a recompence in Money And so for the Return of mortgaged Estates to the owners at the Jubilees there is no manner of injustice in this Law because the Estate could be sold for no more Money than an Annuity from the time of sale till the year of Jubilee was worth and it was at the purchaser's peril if he ventured more upon it And there was incouragement enough for Men of Parts and Industry to raise themselves by purchace only of Annuities for fifty years Nay further this Law seems to be excellently contrived to hinder the encroaching purchaces of Covetous Men which has given so much disturbance in all Common-wealths and which occasioned the Leges Agrariae which gave such great Content to the Roman * Liv. Hist Lib. 4. cap. 48. Lib. 6. c. 11.14 Citizens So Aristotle in his Politicks says †Arist Pol. Lib. 2. c. 7. That Solon made a Law and that other Countries have the same that every Man should not purchase as much Estate as he had a mind to And again the Law forbids to sell a Man's Houshould goods * Id. Lib. 6. c. 4. as the Law of the Locri which obliges a Man not to sell them unless he can make it out that some great calamity has befel him Besides the Law commands to keep those ancient Patrimonies which came by Inheritance And so again in another place In many Cities it is established by Law that no one should have power to alienate the ancient Inheritances And there is a Law which is said to be of Oxylus which injoyns that no one should lend Money to another and take his Estate as a Pawn for it So that if this be a fault in the Mosaical Laws the Attick and Roman are liable to the same Censure As for the Red Heifer which is commanded to be Sacrificed Numb 19.2 the reason most probably is that such an one is more beautiful and choice such as the Ancients made use of for Sacrifice of which * Plut. Isid Oysr Plutarch says the Aegyptians were so scrupulous that if a Red-Bull had but one black or white Hair he was unfit for Sacrifice And lastly for the Scape-Goat I take that to be an Expiatory Sacrifice purposely designed to be a Type of our blessed Saviour and was expiatory only by relation to his sufferings Phil. For my part I have no great liking to your Types and Figures but why should not these Laws be given in opposition to the Zabii those ancient Idolaters which Learned Men of late have found out and from whose Doctrines methinks they give a pretty handsome Rationale of the Mosaick Laws Cred. Let this Rationale be as pretty as you please I believe it is very false and that there were never any more such a Nation as the Zabii than the Vtopians They never had any more being than in the Dreams of the falsifying Jews who four or five hundred years â—go writ some Sham-Books under their Name I do not doubt but that Maimonides saw them and was imposed upon by them so that the cheat does not lie at his door The Zabii among the ancient Arabians were esteemed a Name for Sorcerers Aul. Gellius Lib. 4. c. 1. or Fortune-Tellers and signified no more than the Chaldaei * Az. 2. in Latin and the Gypsies in English And thus 't is used in the Alchoran †Hist Dyn p. 281. and Abuâ—-Pharajâ—us set out by Dr. Pocock says their Profession was the same with that of the ancient Chaldeans Now should not we make pretty work of it if we should go to give an account of the old Aegyptian rites and customs and the Coprick Language from the lies and cant of our vagrant Gypsies and truly the case is the very same of those Books which Maimonides relies upon that pretend to