dissembled what he thought of the best Form of Government for fear of offending Aristotle I am willing to ascribe my self into the number of them who believe that there is greater apparance that Aristotle was of the Opinion that affirms the Souls immortality and I know many excellent passages may be produc'd out of his Writings which favor it But yet so it is that in other places he seems to lay down principles which are incompatible with the same and some of his most famous disciples have believ'd that he held the contrary Socrates as we find in Plato knows not how to be confident of it and perswades himself by reasons which for the most part are but of slender moment and always speaks of it as of other things with doubting and not determining any thing although through the desire he had that his Soul were immortal he inclined more willingly to this opinion and accounted it of most probability which is Cicero's judgement in his Tusculan Questions And truly I conceive that in all things of this Nature the vulgar had better apprehensions then the Philosophers yea that the Philosophers corrupted the sentiments of Nature which remain'd more lively and genuine in the breasts of the people For they had wit and knowledge enough to frame objections against the common conceptions of men but yet they had not sufficient to resolve them whence their minds became unsetled and wavering Whereas the people who understood not so much subtilty held themselves more firmely to that which was taught them by nature it self and they had received from her though doubtingly in regard of the weakness and ignorance of humane reason As it often falls out that a man that knows nothing in Civil Law and yet hath some natural faculty of understanding better discerns the right of a certain Case then knowing Professors who have their heads full of Statutes and Paragraphs great skill rather perplexing and confounding then resolving them in the knowledge of things But Philosophical disputes being spread from the Scholes into Towns among the people have obscured and disorder'd such natural notions much more then the people by their own ignorance and negligence could have depraved and embroiled the same of themselves However were they much better assured then they are that their Souls do not perish with their bodies yet they must necessarily be extremely ignorant of the estate of them after their separation For how blind so ever the reason of man be in that which concerns the Deity his Nature Perfections and Providence yet the arguments which satisfie us of them are so clear and resplendent in the World that in spight of all the darkness of the humane Intellect there is always some beam that breaks through affording that dubious and confused knowledge we mentioned was found amongst the Nations of the World And how intangled soever the disputes of Philosophers were the rational soul of Man gives always so many proofs of its incorruptibility that the knowledge thereof cannot be totally extinguish'd But as to its estate after this Life it is not onely impossible for men to divine of themselves what it will be by reason of the corruption and irregularity which is befallen their faculties but though the eye of their reason were as clear and luminous as could be desir'd yet they were hardly able to make the least probable conjecture concerning it because God hath written nothing of it in the book of Nature from which we draw all our knowledge But they which are instructed by Religion in the History of the Worlds Original can very easily give account thereof For God having produc'd Man in the Nature of things in such an estate that if he had persisted in it he should not have feared death the revelation of that estate which must follow this Life would have been unprofitable to him who was made in case that the design of his creation had been pursued to live perpetually in the World and never to undergo the separation of his Soul from his Body For that Truth teaches us and likewise reason being informed in this particular either consents to or is convinced of it that it was the Offence which the First Man committed which introduced death into the World To what purpose therefore should God have imprinted in Nature any evidence or token of the estate of man after death since in that first integrity of nature there was no suspition nor shadow of Death it self It is true indeed that God denounced to man that if he degenerated from his integrity he should dye which might have occasion'd some thought in him of the pains which follow death being he knew that his Soul was immortal But the apprehension of punishment after sin and also of that which follows death do's not infer any other of remuneration unless God reveal mercy and hope of pardon after the transgression Which God had not as yet done in the integrity of Nature So that man having from God neither hope of pardon in case he should sin nor any cause to think of death in case he should not sin he had no occasion to raise his mind higher towards a better life But if any one conceives some scruple touching the perpetuity of the life of man upon the Earth if he had not fallen into sin and imagines rather that God after he had lest him for some Ages in the World to practice obedience and virtue would have at last taken him to himself and given a greater recompense then that which he could have injoy'd in a terrestrial felicity he must also confess that to instate man in the injoyment of such remuneration there would have been no need of Death and so that it was not necessarily for him to know what the estate of his Soul after separation from his body should be Moreover whatsoever that compensation would have been which man should have received for his Obedience and Virtue insomuch as it would have been a condition and a glory supernatural some revelation of it must necessarily have been made by another way then nature namely then by the evidences which may be had from consideration of the Works of God and the Government of the World And in truth to hear the Poets and Philosophers speak of it sufficiently evinces that such as have had no other light to guid them in search of these things but that of Nature and Reason have onely groped in the dark For how ridiculous is the description which they make of the Infernal Regions and Elysian Fields Is it not pleasant to behold the Landskip which Virgil hath drawn of them in the sixth Book of his Aeneids where he speaks of Rhadamanthus and the severity of his sentences and forgets not to paint out Tysiphone with her scourges and serpents together with the Furies He also places there hideous Hydra's and I know not what kind of other vile beasts at the gates of Hell and in that horrible prison which he represents twice
would seem to carry something of inhumanity of which it is incongruous that he should propose himself an example God who is so good hath so many other means in his hand to lead men to Virtue would never willingly employ any thereunto for which he might be accus'd of barbarousness and cruelty especially seeing it is an accident so frequent that in a Town of a thousand families there do's not pass one day in the year in which it do's not happen 'T is true for certain great and important considerations Kings are excused if they sometimes commit some act of injustice or violence But this must be very rarely done and onely when the safety of the State is concern'd Yet Lucretia could not contain from crying out upon the death of Iphigenia who was sacrific'd for the safety of all Greece Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum But that there should dye five or six times as many Children in the Cradle as attain to mans estate seems an irregularity which not onely an Epicurean but the most devout and pious amongst the Philosophers cannot but judge unsupportable Above all other considerations the Fear which the thought of death begets naturally in all men deserves our animadversion For how couragious so ever any may endevour to appear 't is as Aristotle calls it the most terrible of all terrors And as one hath observed if Julius Câ—sar who was magnanimity it self said that the most unexpected death was the sweetest and most desirable which testifies that he resented some dread when he thought of it what may we think of the horrors which other men have of it And this Fear does not arise onely from the apprehension that a man shall exist no more but it hath something of I know not what other violence and bitterness For otherwise nature and reason being two things which accord very well together if death were purely natural reason would finde something in that consideration wherewith to be comforted and gently drink off that Cup. But experience shews that the consolations taken from the necessity of Nature and the example of so many other deaths are too weak and of too little efficacy when the business is to strengthen a soul that trembles at the presence of death Which if there have been some that were generously resolv'd to undergo they have been very few in number and almost none in comparison of so many men yea Nations to whom the alarms of death have been terrible and hideous For I do not put in the rank of such as resolve generously against it those Caitifs that tye the rope to their own necks and drink to their companions upon the Ladder For this is so far from true generosity conjoyn'd with the discourse of reason that it is meer stupidness and more then bestial brutality And it is diligently to be observed that they who believe not that their Soul is immortal comfort themselves more easily then others do with the consideration of the necessity of death and say that as the Generations which preceeded their Birth belonged nothing at all to them because they were not yet in being so they ought not to care for those which follow after their death in regard they shall be no longer and that Agamemnon is dead and Romulus and Patroclus and the Scipio's Qui multis quam tu meliores improbe rebus And I believe the greatest part of those that have shewn so high a courage in contemning death among the Pagans had not much consideration of their future condition As it is clear by Socrates who says in Plato that he knew not which was best to live or to dye and that it were a folly to redoubt a thing of which there is no certain knowledge whether it be desirable or to be feared Whereas they that think seriously of immortality find nothing in nature that encourages or comforts them A sure evidance that death hath something of terror in it which does not proceed from nature but from something else for they would at least have more ground of consolation then the others in the subsistence of the better part of their essence Now whence can that horror be but onely that death is the forerunner of divine vengeance and makes up a part of it already If hereupon they agree that it is a punishment for sin certainly since all other Philosophers have held it to be simply natural they cannot know it to be so by any other way then that divine revelation that hath inform'd us by what gate it entred into the World For none of the Ancients ever found out or could so much as divine in a dream what was the cause of it And so far were they from having it come into their minds that on the contrary some have believed that Death was rather a gift and gratification to us from the Deity then a punishment inflicted by his Justice Which opinion the innumerable miseries of humane life greatly concurr'd to render authentick the undergoing whereof being look'd upon as so dolorous that sometime the deliverance from them ha's been accounted the greatest good that could arrive Or if some few have not dared to affirm absolutely that death was a Good yet they maintain'd at least that it was no Evil since it rescues men from all calamities which they suffer To fear death said Socrates to his Judges is nothing else but to seem to be wise and not to be so For it is to pretend to know that which we do not know because none knows what death is nor whether it be not the greatest good that can befall a man To which Plutark refers that exhortation of an ancient Greek Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metuenda non est mors arumnarum exitus So also the greatest part of the reflections of Cicero upon this matter in the first of the Tusculane Questions fall into the Dilemma of Socrates To wit that if the soul be extinguish'd with the body and so the sense of all things be absolutely abolish'd death cannot really be an Evil because a man being thereby wholly depriv'd of existence and exempted from among the nature of things that which is not is equally incapable both of Evil and Good But if the soul survive the Body death is so far from being an evil that it ought rather to be accounted in the number of the greatest goods seeing it delivers from the evils of this present life and puts a man in possession of the contentments of a better upon which he does not omit to mention the converse with the Heroes wherein Socrates placed the greatest part of the hopes of his joy But the business is of higher importancy For though the Light of Nature should have taught men that death is an effect of the justice of God yet is it impossible as we shall see in due place for the same to discover to them the remedy thereof And I conceive that though the reason of man should have been able
certainly to conjecture what the cause of death is God himself would have purposely hid it from them least not being able to discover the remedy of it despair should sink and ruine all the World All other ignorances have been prejudicial and very often pernicious to men to this alone we owe the conservation of humane Society So that we may pertinently apply to this in particular that which Horace speaks generally of the ignorance in which it hath pleased God we should live touching events to come Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte premit Deus The sole Word of God which is the special revelation we are in quest of is that which accords all these differences and clears up all the difficulties and confusions We shall not dispute at present whether in his first creation the body of man was naturally so well constituted that through prudence whereby he was able to avoid all hurtful things and the use of aliments which the blessing of God rendred as efficacious for the conservation of life by the good and pure qualities which he at first indued them with as now they are often full of noxious juices since the curse of God blasted them for our offence he might without other assistance from the Deity avoid all alteration and corruption either by disease or Age. God hath in the composure of Gold and Diamonds and other like things given sufficient proof of his power and hath so exactly temper'd the contrary qualities of the Elements in the constitution of certain bodies that they seem not subject to any corruption whatsoever And the long life which the first Men liv'd even after sin and the examples of the like we meet with in several profane Histories and some also though few which may be found in the Histories of these latter times give us enough to judge how firm and durable the life of man would be were he as exactly and perfectly fram'd and the aliments that support him as good as the estate of Nature in its integrity could have promised We onely affirm that though as the Philosophers thought the body of man being composed of the Elements and consequently including contrary and repugnant qualities would have carried in its self the seeds of death yet this revelation teaches us that the Wisdom of God would have so provided therein that if no disorder had hapened in the World through sin the propensity which our bodies have to their own dissipation would have been restrain'd and hindred by his Providence For he would have repell'd all sorts of eternal accidents he would have hindred the intemperature of the humors both by preserving them in right harmony and supplying man with aliments indued with excellent faculties and void of all noxiousness and by infusing new vigor of life in time of necessity to hinder the approach of Old-age would have maintained man in a vigorous and flourishing consistence and so given him the immortality of which we have now nothing left but the desire Whence likewise the union of the Soul and Body would have continued to eternity not subject to any important change or evil accident So that admitting death to be an accident that sutes with the natural principles of the composition of their bodies yet the cause that they do dye is because it having been covenanted that the consequences of a mortal condition should be hindred upon condition that man continued in obedience sin supervening hath changed the dispensation of all that and effected that death is become in quality of a punishment and vengeance And this ought nor to be deemed strange For there are things which considered in themselves have nothing so shameful in them but that they may well endure either the presence of another or the publike day-light which yet through the disorder befallen in nature are become ignominious Nakedness which of it self is not dishonest is become unseemly through sin which hath caused rebellion in the corporeal appetites against reason So that they who affirm it indifferent to go naked or clothed shew that extreme profaness hath worn out of their foreheads that shame which causes others to express their consciousness of sin and the unseemliness of the irregularity of our sensual faculties so as to be asham'd of their impudence who are not so themselves Wherefore though death were a natural accident which yet it is not the horror of it is too great to acknowledge no more in it but pure nature and its motions For why then do Infants dye We learn from the same revelation that that so sudden separation of the soul from the Body is not for ever but that the being which is given them though at first it seem's to have been allotted for a moment onely and by consequence little better then not-being shall endure eternally when the considerations shall cease for which it suffer'd the Eclipse of the time that it was to appear in this Life For the being of man when it hath once had a beginning is of perpetual duration and the time of Death is but as an Eclipse of his course But this is not the place for this discourse and therefore we shall add but a word more and pass forward Whether we consider the justice or the goodness of God this revelation amply furnishes us what to answer in defence of both He takes away little children at their birth and notwithstanding does not incur thereby any blame of cruelty because before they were born they deserved that punishment by reason of the natural infection of sin which they drew from those that begat them And indeed as we crush the Eggs of Scorpions before they are hatcht not because they have as yet deserved to be destroy'd for any wound which we have received by them but because in growing up the seeds of venome which that brood hath by nature will infallibly be exerted to our mischief so is it sometimes expedient for God to stifle from the wombe such children as have so many seeds of vice in them that coming to years would do much more mischief then any Scorpion in the World This the Philosophers never understood and therefore could not return in answer But if there opinion were admitted it would be requisite to defer judging of the merit of Infants till they come to the age that ennables them to manifest and display their Vice Moreover God resumes some of them back to himself whom he pleases to render happy by his goodness Nor is it necessary that he should permit them a longer abode in this life that so they might be capable of happiness for their practises of Virtue because he do's not give it as a Salary deserved from his justice by our Virtues but as a beneficence purely out of his liberality which likewise the Philosophers never thought of for according to them if there remains any beatitude to be hoped after this Life it cannot be aspir'd unto but by Virtue How then can Infants obtain
till he was enter'd into the Sanctuary of the Lord of Hosts and had consider'd the End that is reserved for such people And Claudian likewise declared his dissatisfaction till afterwards Abstulit hunc tandem Ruffini poena tumultum Absolvitque Deos. But seeing Death arrives equal to all and that that of the Wicked as the Prophet saith is very frequently without regrets and although it should be accompanied with some thing particularly terrible or painful yet that punishment do's not by much equal the atrocity of the crimes which they have committed if there be not some other chastisement reserved for the Wicked to come and some other recompense prepared for good men the Conduct of the Deity does not remain fully enough justified therein This consideration ought to suffice rational men to evince that our Souls subsist after our Bodies but we have other evidences besides of such firmeness that they could never be defaced by Barbarism it self For he that pleases to consider never so little attentively the capacity our Understandings have to comprehend so many and so different things their agitations so suddain as to fly from East to West and from North to South in a moment their inconceiveable swiftness in climing up in an instant even to the highest Heavens there contemplating their motions and the Earth which they environ as a point the power which they have to remember past things to connect them with the present and thence to frame conjectures of the future which are sometimes so certain that they seem to be Prophecies to embrace when they please in one gross all the mass of the Universe and also when they please to single out of it the most minute parts only the faculty which they employ to discover the beginning of the World and its annihilation to keep a register of times past not by Ages and years onely but by Moneths and Weeks and Days and Hours and Minutes to almost an infinite division the exactness they attain to in calculating so perfectly the courses of the Heavens that they divine and point out the Eclipses even for several Ages to come and their dexterous vivacity in inventing so many excellent Arts and industrious Mysteries in polishing illustrating and piercing into so many occult Sciences and difficult and intricate questions what can be said upon consideration of all these perfections but that there is something in us of greater excellence then our Bodies yea a spirit issued from the breath of God himself And herein I dare appeal to the testimony of the Epicureans themselves They do not stick to publish that their Philosopher is worthy of immortality and even to be acknowledged for a God in respect of his rare inventions in Philosophy although the rest hold him for a person absolutely ignorant of the things which he undertook to meddle with and impertinent in those which he treated of and imagined he understood Do they think then that that Divine personage as they call him who first dared to display the mighty power of his ardent spirit to break and wrest open the gates of Nature to dive into secrets formerly unknown to pass beyond the flaming Walls of the World and post over that immense space of things with his understanding to bring from thence the victorious knowledge of the Causes of the universe that he I say had no other Soul but a little Breath of Air that is dissipated in dying and I know not what kind of vital heat which is extinguished with this corporeal Mass And were it not a strange disorder in the Nature of things that Epicurus should have merited the immortality of the Gods and nevertheless could not arrive to the third part of the Age of a Raven For what advantage is it to him now while he is mingled with the dust of so many men dead before and after him that others speak of his singular devices in Philosophy And if the cause of his Life differ'd in nothing from that of a Horse whence came those faculties for which they pretend men are obliged to consecrate Temples and Statues to him Truely as an immortal faculty is requisite to serve and honor the Deity so for certain in case he had had no other principle of his Life but a pitiful mortal puffe of Air he would not have dared so audaciously to encounter the sentiments of other men and taught Irreligion with so mad an impudence as could not be repress'd by any terrors or respects whatsoever Quem nec fuma Deum nec fulmina nec minitanti Murmure compressit coelum sed eo magis acrem Virtutem inritat animi confringere ut arcta Naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret For there needs almost an equal strength of wit to do so well and so ill Moreover if our Souls be corruptible they result undoubtedly from the temperature of the Elements in our Bodies and by that means are howsoever subtle they be corporeal themselves If so how can they have any conception of spiritual substances which are absolutely separated from matter For there is required some proportion berween the thing understood and that which understands for which reason Philosophers affirm that by means of the conception of things the Understanding becomes in a manner of the same nature with them How then if we be nothing but Bodies do we comprehend that there are things which are not such and how do we enter into discourse of the Deity it self Must not he be a very Brute that imagines that the Facultie whereby we comprehend that there is a Deity and dispute of a spiritual and eternal Essence and its Properties differs not but in a degree of heat and refining of our humors from the Faculties of Beasts Aristotle taught that an Understanding was either an act of the Fancy or at least was not performed without the intervention of those Images which are form'd in the Fancy upon occasion of objects that strike our Senses And like a cautious person as he was made use of that Dis-junction to the end he might not shake the doctrine of the immateriality of the Intellect of which in truth he seems sometimes to speak dubiously but in other places renders such advantageous testimonies thereunto that there appears no ground of doubting but that he had very rational sentiments concerning it Pompanatius as great a Peritatetick as he is hath liked better to determine that the act of Understanding is nothing but the formation of such Images What picture then do's the Fancy delineate in it self whereby to represent the Deity and principally in them who are so clearly perswaded of the spirituality of his Nature that if it ever happens to them to conceive any Idea of him according to the similitude of Bodies they presently condemn their conceptions and indeavor as much as possible to abstract their Mjnds and raise them above all corporeal Beings to the end they may have no other thoughts thereof but such as are purely intellectual It is
just occasion of complaint that she had strangely forgot her self in the particular we have in hand For she would have produc'd man indued with an excellent faculty of understanding without giving him any knowledge of the End or of the means destinated to lead him thereunto and consequently whereas all other things seem prudently designed to a certain end man alone should have been brought into the world inconsiderately to discharge all his actions at randome and permit his natural appetites to run unguidedly at a venture Which were unworthy of that Wisdom which we all acknowledge extremely admirable in divers things in the world of much less importance But who is there that do's not observe a lamentable irregularity in Nature Sometimes the seasons fall out preposterously and intricately Sometimes vermin devours the buds of the Trees of the field sometimes the air is vitiated in such manner that it begets fatal pestilences sometimes the Sea breaks in upon a Country and swallows it up with its inhabitants and sometimes in another place the inundation of a River drowns great and flourishing Cities What wonder is it therefore that disorder being diffus'd throughout the whole world should also be found in the condition of one of its principal pieces 'T is true will some of them reply but have not these things their natural causes Surely yes but 't is as diseases have theirs For a Fever is not without inflammation of the spirits and humors and the humors are not inflam'd except they have had some propensity to be so either by reason of their corruption or their abundance or from the impression of some violent external cause Now these causes which are here called natural had never been if there had not been a disorder in the nature of the bodies themselves But those irregularities in particular things are proceeded from the disorder of their nature in general As therefore if the nature of humane bodies had continued in its integrity a perfect and immutable healthfulness would have had its natural cause in an exquisite temperature of pure humors so in the disorder which hath befaln it diseases have their natural cause in the abundance or deficiency corruption or distemperature of the humors also Now all the world is like one Body of which all the parts had no change befallen it would have been disposed in so excellent an harmony that the accidents we mentioned could never have happened which are like diseases surprising one or other of its members And therefore as in Nature well regulated fertility an uniform succession of the seasons and a good constitution of the aer would have had their natural causes in the perfect harmony of the Whole So the disturbances which have suceeded have theirs also in its discord and discomposure But above all things whatsoever that disorder is apparent in man not only in the calamities which befall him more frequent and great then to any of the rest of the Creatures from which it may seem Providence ought to have secur'd him but chiefly in himself in his affections in the perturbations of his mind in the reluctancy and contest of his Appetites against his Understanding and in the darkness and perversity of his Understanding it self And this ha's been the subject of high complaints in all Generations Insomuch that whoso beholds the Nature of things in the estate she is in at present perceives her like a broken or unorderly Watch of which the springs are some too stiffe and others too laxe and all its Wheels displac'd Or like a Great City formerly full of magnificent dalaces and stately buildings dispos'd in a perfectly handsome order which time or the fury of some provoked Prince â—ha's by fire and sword turn'd into rubbage and desolation The Traveller for Rome in Rome inquires And not to find her in her self admires Therfore to expect that Nature should now produce the same effects in man which she would have done in her integrity is as if one should require of a blind man to walk as directly as when he had good eyes or of a mad man to have setled thoughts and agreeable to reason Indeed that which we affirm that a particular revelation for ordaining the means of serving God and for providing for the needs of man's soul is absolutely necessary is not to be referr'd to nature in its integrity who perhaps would have furnish'd us sufficiently wherewith to have performed our duty and comforted our selves Like as a man that is both healthful discreet and intelligent is capable enough to preserve himself from things which may be hurtful to him but when he is surpris'd with a disease and the vapors of a Fever perturbe his Fancy he wants the assistance of another to prescribe him Physick and rules for his recovery And the second difficulty is resolv'd with the same facility The greatest part of men imagine that the Religion of which they make profession is true and are so far from taking pains to seek out any other that on the contrary when novelties are presented to them they reject the same without further examination being possess'd with this prejudice against them that since they have for a long while been owners of the truth any other novelty cannot be but an Imposture And this is usually strengthened by the natural affection which we have towards the fashions and uses of our own country and the constitutions under which we have been educated from our infancy For not onely the mountains rivers fields of our own Country have a kind of pleasingness attraction which allures our minds but also the manners of the inhabitants and the customes practis'd amongst them And it is no great wonder if we easily deceive our selves in such things For the same imbecillity of our Understandings which hinders us from finding out the true Religion of our selves does likewise hinder us from judging so sincerely and distinctly as we ought of such things as are propounded to us Besides that the opinions wherewith We are already imbued are a greater hindrance to us in this matter then if we were ignorant of all Religions because it is requisite that we first unlearn what we conceive we already know for certain which is a very difficult thing as Wool which ha's received some tincture beforehand is less fit to be dy'd into pure and native colours then that which is altogether crude As for those whose happier Understandings have enabled them to perceive the vanity of false Religions and yet have not been instituted in the true 't was the dispair of being able to discover it which made them give over the inquiry as if a man that had experienc'd the weakness and improfitableness of the Balm of Empiricks should utterly despair of Physick and abandon the care of dressing his ulcer together with the hope of healing it And if Diagoras Euemerus two persons branded by the Ancients with the title of Atheists suffer'd themselves to be carried to a total
he had pronounced them with his own mouth may beget an immutable certainty that although the expressions be Allegorical yet the reality equals or surpasses them which unquestionably produces wonderful effects Whereas the opinion that other descriptions found in the Books of Poets are humane inventions disparages their authority and so renders them wholly ineffectual Let us proceed now to the other point of this Chapter Because as it hath been shewn all knowledge which we have of God comes either from a particular revelation or from contemplation of his Works and that all our piety is deriv'd from and regulated according to the measure of such knowledge it is of high importance especially to those who acknowledge no particular revelation to the end they may become truely pious towards God to have an exact knowledge of his Works namely of the World and the things contained therein I demand therefore whether they believe that God is the author of the World For if they do not but deny that he created the matter out of nothing of which it is compos'd or introduc'd the form into the matter which we behold in it they are as much at a loss as Epicurus to make out whence they learn't that God is powerful or what is the measure of his power so far are they from being able to assure themselves that it is infinite There is indeed a great Virtue requisite for the administring of Providence and which being duely considered by right reason is found to be infinite But if there hath ever been one person among the Philosophers that reason'd in this manner God governs the world Therefore his power is unlimited which I do not meet with any that ha's done there are found a thousand who conceived that God employ'd his utmost skill and ability in the government of the World and that his object was proportionable to his power so that being but sufficient to all the World he was not able to remove so much as one straw besides unless he should during that little space surcease his action by which he moves all this great mass of the Universe Whereas they which believe that God created the World and that he created it of nothing do necessarily imply in that belief this other that his power is immense since there is an infinite distance between Being and Not-being and those two terms as they speak cannot be conjoyn'd nor the one be pass'd from to the other but by a power of infinite extent Wherefore these people cannot adore God with assurance in reference to the infiniteness of his power For that right reason which is necessary to frame reasonings from the conduct of Providence which may infer the immensity of the power of God is not to be found in any of mankind since the corruption which befell it Moreover they deprive themselves of the fairest inducement to praise and thanksgiving which can be imagin'd For if God did not create the World he ha's not manifested any proof of his goodness in giving Being to the Creatures which is infinitely better then Not-being and consequently deserves an infinite gratitude if man were capable of performing it If particularly he did not create the World for man nor gave him that dominion which he challenges over all things by imagining himself the King of the Universe he does not ow him one word of thanks and ha's no reason to say as a great King once did Lord how illustrious is thy Name Whose power both Heaven and Earth proclame When I the Heavens thy Fabrick see The Moon and Stars dispos'd by Thee Oh what is Man or his frail Race That thou shouldst such a shadow grace Next to thy Angels most renown'd With Majesty and Glory crown'd The King of all thy Creatures made That all beneath his Feet hast laid All that on Dales or Mountaines feed That shady Woods or Desarts breed What in the Airy Region glide Or through the rowling Ocean slide Lord how illustrious is thy Name Whose power both Heaven and Earth proclame Which is reasonably a hymne more agreeable and well-pleasing to the Deity then the sume of all the Incense of Arabia But in the next place what duty will man think he owes to God even for his Being if he believes not that he receiv'd it from him And will he not rather be ready to place himself equal with him being not dependant of him for his Being since there is nothing more renders things equal one to another then Independance It is true it may perhaps be said that men are oblig'd to the Deity in as much as they depend of his Providence because if that did not preside over natural causes and cause them to produce things necessary to the support of Life we could not subsist and therefore he which gives the conservation of a being obliges as much or more then he which gives the being it self and he that feeds and defends then he that begets But this is a gross mistake of theirs and their pretended reason deludes them For if God be not the Author of the World how is he the Preserver of it Do's it not belong to him that made the Work to take the care of it Whence hath he authority to intermeddle in the Works of another or the World the necessity of being guided and preserved by the hand of God if it was not framed by the same And indeed God must either be the author of the World or Chance as Epicurus affirmed or as others Nature or it had never any beginning but hath existed from all eternity If it was Chance that made the world then consequently it is also preserved and governed by the same hazard And truely Epicurus was consistent with his own Principles when he denied Providence For if the World was thus framed by the fortuitous concourse of Atomes there is no need for Providence to put its hand to support it since it might be preserv'd in its Being by the same means by which it was produc'd the conservation of things being not more difficult then their first production If it was made by Nature I demand what that is For if by Nature they mean the order which is in the things of the World according to which causes produce effects sutable to themselves certainly and determinately namely both universal causes as the Heavens and particular as Animals and Plants they are not greatly mistaken We desire to know who is the Author of that order seeing order cannot be the author of it self For besides that nothing is able to produce it self into Being order is an effect of a Cause indowed with Understanding but hath no understanding it self in as much as Order is a disposition and relation according to which things are both conveniently marshall'd among themselves and rationally subordinated to some certain end Now who will say that this relation and disposition of things among themselves is it self indued with understanding And if the order of things did
who to revenge the death of his father kill'd one of them as they were upon the point to give him the fatal blow though he knew nothing of the business But in stead of acknowledging the Providence of God therein he contents himself with saying that the spectators wondred greatly at the artifice and contrivance which fortune uses how she carries on one design by help of another and unites things so remote by liguing and chaining the same together how different soever they be for producing the effect she resolves on And without inserting any judgement of his own concerning God or his Providence he onely says that the Corinthians understanding the deed conceived good hopes thereby of success in the war of Sicily because the General that manag'd it was a sacred person and favour'd of the Gods Leaving his Reader to divine what his own sentiment was of the matter So in like manner when he speaks of the different apprehensions which the Fall of Dionysius caus'd in the minds of them that liv'd in those dayes he declares that some were glad of his misfortunes as if they would have trampled him under their feet whom Fortune had cast down others beheld him with some compassion considering the great power secret and divine causes have over the weakness of Men which appeared so remarkably in this Masterpiece of Fortune What other words do's he use to represent the wise Providence of God then that by which blind and temerarious chance is signified And lastly that no man may think that by the term of Fortune he understood the provident Wisdom of God I shal here rehearse his own words in his first book of the Opinions of Philosophers which I believe will cause astonishment in them who have any knowledge of that person After having said that Anaxagoras held that before God put his hand to the fabrick of the World the bodies which we behold in motion were at rest but the Mind of God contriv'd and order'd the same and that Plato on the other side maintained that the particles of matter had a confus'd motion till God ranked and marshall'd them knowing that order is much better then confusion he adds That Herein they are both guilty of the same mistake in esteeming that God concerns himself with humane affairs and that he made the World on purpose to govern it For a nature so happy and incorruptible and replenish'd with all sorts of goods without any participation of evil wholly addicted to preserve its own beatitude and immortality cannot be engaged in the care of things belonging to men otherwise it would be unhappy by being employ'd like a Labourer to carry great burdens and to take pains in fabricating and governing the world You would think he had forsaken the Academy and pass'd into the School of Epicurus How could a man that is susceptible of these rare opinions have any thing certain in the knowledge of Providence however some excellent passages sometimes fall from him in its commendation Moreover let us call to minde what Cato himself said and we touched above This person whom Nature had endued with incredible gravity as Cicero reports which was augmented and confirmed by the doctrine of the Stoicks the most severe of all others and who extoll'd Providence to the highest when he perceiv'd the affairs of the Commonwealth to decline under the conduct of Pompey and those of Caesar who aspir'd to Tyranny to thrive and gather strength he complains that he beheld as he said a fallacious instability in the government of the Gods in that Pompey was always prosperous while he did no good and all things were unsuccesseful when he took up arms for the conservation of his Country and defence of the publike liberty If therefore that great personage could be so scandalised at the Providence of God what must we judge of them to whom nature had not given so great a capacity nor so high a courage or deep knowledge in Philosophy even of that sect which would be accounted the most religious Could it otherwise be but that the least accident of Fortune as they spoke falling out contrary to what humane Understanding judg'd fit and reasonable should unsettle and transport their minds with amazement And indeed what were the opinions of the Philosophers in those dayes Some maintain'd a fatal Necessity such as it were impossible to avoid inferior causes being so connected by Destiny with the superior that not onely men could not resist it but the Gods themselves were ty'd up by it in like manner as Sarpedon dy'd in the War at Troy by the decree of Destiny though his Father Jupiter had a vehement and ardent desire of the contrary And this because they had sometimes indevoured to prevent certain accidents by their industry and prudence which Divine Providence that penetrates all obstacles did not suffer them to bring to their desired end Whence it came to pass that the weakness and ignorance of man and the invincible power of the Deity in executing its purposes brought a contempt upon Providence For nothing can be imagin'd that renders the Deity more subject to be contemn'd or that more deadens the hopes of men upon all occasions then this fatal destiny nor yet that renders them more impudent in excusing their enormities witness that Varlet in the Comedian who after a sly trick which he had done said It was the will of the Gods and had they not decreed it I could never have done it Others observing that there fell out an infinite number of things in the world of which no account could be given nor the causes assigned of such effects esteemed that all went at random and that God took no care of any thing Yea sometimes they expostulated the cause of their calamities with the Deity and complain'd that he took pleasure in beating them down and bandying them to and fro And the Writings of the Ancients are frequently strewed with such complaints as so many blasphemies and tokens of impiety which their ignorance of Providence caus'd them to utter Besides what I have recited above out of Claudian Ovid and others Jason in Seneca the Tragedian beholding Medea fly away in the Air after she had murder'd his children saies to her Testare nullos esse qua veheris Deos. In Virgil a mother that had lost her Son by an immature death reviles the Deity Atque Deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater And of this enough of other examples may be found which have been collected by learned men But if there have been some among the Pagans who in these scandals have contained from blaspheming which were very rare in comparison of others at least it cannot be denyed but that in that ignorance of the cause that governs the Universe they were depriv'd of a great consolation being dubious and wavering in a perpetual perplexity whether God took care or not of their Life and affairs Now as much as the opinion of God's good will and
devour our hopes and the rebellion of animals against us is such that we are put to defend our selves even against vermine not onely against Serpents Dragons Lyons and Tygers Whence it is come to pass that the Ancients were so inconstant in the judgement which they made of man and his nature For after having spoken so much to his advantage that the title of King and God sometimes was not sufficient for him who can but wonder at Jupiters repenting in Homer for having given Peleus horses to become partakers of humane misery where he says that man is subject to more miseries then any other animal upon the face of the Earth So some wept upon the birth of their children through compassion that they come into this Scene of troubles and laught upon the death of their Parents out of joy that they go out of it and Euripides says that we ought to do so In a word the most usual comfort which they took in death is that it puts an end to our miseries and their histories or fables affirm that it was sent as a present from the Gods to the greatest and most excellent persons in recompense of their Virtues as to Cleobis and Biton for their piety towards Juno to Agamedes and Trophonius for their pains in building the Temple of Apollo at Delphos and likewise to Pindar What therefore can we say that man is In truth considering mankind in general it cannot be better resembled then to the present estate of Rome which is but as the carkass of what it was of old There are remaining indeed some ruins and some old inscriptions not-intelligible some fragements of ancient Statues and defaced monuments and ponderous tombes since the time she was Emperess of the World But in the whole all this is of so little proportion that had we no other knowledge of her grandeur by histories it were as impossible to conjecture thereby what she was fifteen hundred years ago as it is to guess at the integrity that flourish'd in the first ages by the manners of the present times Now of the cause and origine this so deplorable ruine all the ancients both Poets and Philosophers have been ignorant all their conjectures thereof are dubious and unresolved and all their assertors false Nor is it difficult to judge how much this ignorance hath hindred them from rendring to God what belongs to him upon this account and tasting any true and solid consolations in their miseries For how could they acknowledg his justice in the punishment of mankind whilst they knew not that this disorder hapned by their own fault How could they admire his goodness in conservation of the Universe when they were ignorant that man deserv'd to be reduced to nothing from his birth How could they have recourse to God for obtaining of him a remedy against such misery seeing they knew him not or how could they beseech him to repair their ruins How could they learn not to murmure against him if they knew not that the evils they suffered were worthily inflicted on them and as due to their crimes Lastly how could they restrain themselves from suspecting the wisdom or power of him that governs the World while they were ignorant of any pertinent reason of all this disorder For as when we observe in a Commonwealth good and bad laws and commendable and unseemly customes mixed together we conclude that either the first Legislators failed in some particular things though they hapned right in others or that later Magistrates degenerated from the Wisdom and Virtue of their Ancestors so beholding order and confusion jumbled together in the World it remains onely to conjecture that either the wisdom of him that contrived it at the beginning was defective or that he could not support and maintain his ancient laws through want of power I mention not at present the natural avidity of knowledge in us which can be little satisfied without a particular revelation as in other abstruse things so in this which is of such moment and continually presented to our minds namely what should be the cause of so many evils that reign in the World In the next place the consolations which they employ against them are very strange Some comfort themselves with the consideration of necessity against which it is unprofitable to struggle And indeed I deny not but it is good counsel to give to such as are miserable that when there is no means of deliverance from calamity to indevor at least to support it with the least impatience that may be because necessity is invincible It is good I say if it could be put in practise But as he that should exhort a man that is in the paroxysm of a violent Colick to be cheerful would shew himself ridiculous and void of understanding so he that should counsel a man fallen into some great and irrecoverable distress to comfort himself because it cannot be otherwise would deservedly be accounted troublesome and almost barbarous Can any imagine that it would have been any great heartning to the poor Philoctetes when he made the Sea and rocks resound his lamentable ejulations and wish'd that some body would cast him down from the precipice of a rock into the waves beneath for one to have said to him Friend there is no remedy Destiny will have it so and to wrastle against her decree is to swim against the stream For this is the cause of his despair that there is no remedy were there any hope of it he would not cry out so loud but sustain himself with those excellent words of Epicurus If pain be great it will be but of short durance And it would be to no purpose in such a case for a man to boast of the invincible strength of his courage Hercules himself groan'd â—nd cry'd out in the midst of the flames In effect there is no constancy which the assiduous perseverance of pain do's not at length overcome Nature ha's not made us of Iron or Steel but hath given us a tender and delicate flesh and quick and lively sentiments In a word the consideration of Necessity may indeed cause a man to resolve to travel through a bad and dirty way or to swallow a bitter potion that is soon down but there is no constancy which is not undermined and worn out by a continual suffering Others have solac'd themselves with the commonness generality of the misery conceiving it both injustice and folly for any particular person to complain of his own case where all are equally involv'd As the Proverb hath it 'T is the comfort of sufferers to have companions Thus the Poet Antimachus compos'd an Elegy wherein he reckon'd up all the disasters befallen to any people that ever he knew to comfort himself upon the loss of his wife But as the Sun though he shines in common to all that have eyes yet his light ought not to be accounted less grateful and sweet and as the use of respiration is
men to things honest and commendable and to contain them in the observation of the same none are bound to yield obedience to them Thus in the One the will of God is the rule and in the Other that honesty and equity which nature it self teacheth In other things wherein piety do's not suffer nor honesty and the natural right of things is violated there is nothing so well-pleasing to God as a ready and willing subjection though it were even painful and laborious So far is God from permitting attempts against the one or the other of those whom he ha's constituted in the government either to diminish their authority or deprive them of Life In effect though Brutus and his companions thought they had done an heroick action in the assassinate of Câ—esar and Cicero extoll'd it as highly as if it had been commanded by some Oracle of God himself yet it is certain that it was an evil and culpable attempt with which their memories will for ever be stained I shall not here speak of the ingratitude of which they that executed it may be justly impeached there being none of them but had received some remarkable benefit from Caesar or had their lives preserved by him Nor shall I insist upon the success that came of it that instead of freeing the people of Rome they were the cause that they fell under the hands of three or four masters more rigorous then Caesar was and who raign'd after a more absolute and bloody manner I shall also omit to press what was so carefully observed by the ancients that there was not one of the Murderers of that Prince but perish'd by a violent death and some by their own hands and with the same sword wherewith they had slain him although the vengeance of God be manifest enough therein I shall onely say that when Caesar was after his victory created perpetual Dictator the people themselves all together had no power in them to take his authority from him much less had fourteen or fifteen particular persons any just cause to conspire against his life For the perpetual Dictatorship being a Soverain Dignity and independant on any other but God the people of Rome had indeed a power to confer the same by voluntarily surrendring up their liberty to him but after they had conferr'd it it was not in their power to revoke or annull it so long as the person they had invested with it was living Wherefore it ought not to be doubted but that the death of Caesar was a horrible parricide Hereunto ought to be conjoyned the precept we have not to exercise our own revenge our selves For since Revenge if good and lawful is an administration of justice and not a satiating of our passions there being none but God that administers justice in the World as being the sole governor of it either immediately and by himself or by the intervention of Magistrates whom he hath appointed guardians of Laws and conservators of humane Society he that receives an injury ought not to do himself reason for it in as much as thereby he would indulge and content his own passion and not execute a just and lawful vengeance but it is fit that reparation be done him for it by their means to whom the care of right and preservation of laws is committed And if these fail him he must attend that God himself do it for him having a perswasion that he is the preserver of the rights of all and that when men sail in their duty he does not forget to correct their faults For a man to attempt satisfaction of his wrong himself would be to invade the government of God and to slight or implead the Magistrates would be an express overturning of things establish'd by God himself To him it belongs to revenge the injuries of private and the injustices committed by publick persons Nevertheless it is evident that if they have little understood the moderation which ought to be held in point of revenge and the means of pursuing satisfaction of an injury they have been yet more ignorant of that precept which Wisdom it self gives us and right reason too if we would hearken to it Of loving our very enemies and procuring good to those that offend us And yet if the excellence of Mans nature consists in resemblance with God since God is so good and so patient towards the Wicked and notwithstanding their offenses their crimes and blasphemies awaits their amendment with so great indulgence and invites them thereunto with perpetual clemency and goodness how can man ever attain his perfection if he do not imitate God in this example Moreover since the publick good is without scruple to be preferr'd before that of any single person and that if there be any good in the hatred which we bear to our enemies it lies only in some particular contentment which we receive by following the motions of our nature if the pleasure of letting loose the bridle to one's passions may be called good which ought rather to be restrained by right reason and since on the contrary the good of the Commonwealth and humane society receives advancement by the virtue and prosperity of our enemies how much more prevalent reason is there to love then to hate them that is to desire that they may become good and happy for themselves and ornaments of the Commonwealth in general rather then to wish their shame and calamity for the gratifying a particular passion Lastly since Hatred is a desire of seeing evil befal the person we hate and no man ought to undergo evil but he that deserves the same by his wickedness how can we be virtuous our selves if we desire that others should become vicious seeing a good man should wish that if possible all the world might become like himself and virtue is a good that naturally desires to be communicated and expanded Or how can we desire that they were virtuous and yet calamitous together Nevertheless the Philosophers have scarce seen so much as a shadow of this doctrine Wherefore we conclude in brief that even in the knowledge of true virtue as well as in what concerns the nature of God and his legitimate service humane reason is so defective that without the aid of a supernatural light it can neither constitute nor practise any thing consideable and of worth CHAP. IX What the principal tokens and evidences are by which this particular Revelation may be known and distinguish'd BUt admitting will some say That the reasons above alledged induce to confess that a particular and celestial revelation is either highly important or absolutely necessary yet where shall we find it For all sorts of Nations have boasted of the same and the mind of man is so incertain in its judgments that in this variety and confusion of voices wherewith every one pretends to it it is difficult if not impossible to be resolved We are sufficiently sensible of our need but we are at a loss in
which consisted all external service performed to God For it would be more difficult for all Nations to obey that then the Political What likelihood is there I beseech you that God would tye all Nations so remote and dispers'd upon the face of the Earth to repair and sacrifice at Jerusalem and assemble there at solemn Feasts That from the North South East and West they should all be there at a time appointed to perform that service notwithstanding the interval so many Seas mountains And if when Jerusalem was besieged by Titus the multitude of men grievously pestred the place although there was onely the Nation of the Jews assembled there at that time what Jerusalem would be capable of containing all other Nations besides which ought to come to the knowledge of the true God Could the Tribe of Levi have furnished Sacrificers enough or Judea beasts for victimes Could the Temple had it been twenty times as big as that which Herod built have received the twentieth part of those that were to perform their devotions in it And what a horrible slaughter would there be or how could they escape the deluge of blood which would fill the streets if every one were to offer his beast But indeed he that shall duely consider the whole structure of the Religious Policy which was sometimes amongst them shall find that it ha's not the appearance of a thing that was to indure to perpetuity but was onely the platform and delineation of some other to come in its place For to what end serv'd the massacre of so many beasts Was it because God took pleasure in the flesh of bulls or in the blood of Goats Himself denies it in their Prophets In the 50. Psalm vers 8. I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or for the burnt-offerings which should be continually before me I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goats out of thy folds c. Vers 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats Offer unto God thanksgiving c. Also Thou takest no pleasure in sacrifices else would I give them the burnt-offering is not acceptable to thee The sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit c. And Isaiah in a severer strain chap. 66. He that killeth an Ox is as if he slew a man he that sacrificeth a sheep as if he cut off a dogs neck he that offereth an oblation as if he offered the blood of a swine he that burneth incense as if he blessed an Idol And certainly he should have too low an opinion of God that should imagine he delighted in beholding the spilling of the blood or the smoking of the fat of sacrifices He takes pleasure in the piety of the heart and in virtue and not in the odor of incense or the death of beasts Was it to make propitiation for their sins and secure them from the curse denounced by their Law Much less For 't is possible some man might fancy God so good towards his creatures as to be pleas'd with such offerings proceeding from a good heart as testimonies of its devotion But he is too just for any to imagine that when he is incensed he maybe satisfied with trifles Lastly was it to exercise the people of Israel and keep them in discipline as curbes and pasternes are us'd to unruly horses and divers rules of discipline are prescribed to youth inclinable to deboshery This indeed was one of the uses of the Law but the Jews will not acknowledge it and which they cannot have learnt but from the Doctors and Founders of the Christian Church Moreover these exercises are not to be continued for ever We take away the shackels from horses when they are become tractable and leave children to their own conduct when they come to age Can it be thought then that the Church of God should be alwaies in infancy and never come to perfect age to have no more need of so exact and so rigorous a discipline Let them consult their Books well and they will find that in process of time God gave them to understand that all those things were but shadows which were to vanish when the truth should be manifested and that proportionably as that time approacht the contempt that he had of those things in themselves was discover'd For in the books of Moses they are most severely enjoyned as if the service of God really consisted therein In the Psalms of David God begins to decry the use of them And Isaiah in the first and the sixty sixt Chapter of his Prophecies speaks so disadvantageously of them that he almost as good as saies that they were even already abolisht I know well that he speaks of them after a comparative manner with internal vertues which the Jews wholly forgot confining themselves strictly and trusting in the observation of these externals But I conceive that Moses in reproving the contempt of internal piety would never have spoken with such disdain of those corporeal sacrifices and there is nothing in all his books but gives assurance of the contrary Whence then should this difference between them arise since they were all guided by the same spirit but that Moses was yet too remote from the body in which those shadows were to terminate To what end were their Arks Propitiatories or Mercy-seats Tables of Shew-bread candlesticks dishes basins courtains covertures veiles altars sives gridirons censers and lamps in a word all the accoutrements and deckings of the Tabernacle which if they represented nothing but what they barely seem would be frivolous and tedious Especially why should God so particularly give the whole scheme of it and injoyn Moses so strictly not to transgress in any thing from the pattern shewn to him in the mountain Certainly if all this had no further reference then to the Tabernacle no body can give a pertinent reason why God should make so scrupulous a description of it or why he should impart extraordinary graces of his spirit to the chief managers of the whole work unless we will say that God takes pleasure like us in imbrodery and painting But when he saies expresly that it was onely a representation of what he had shewn to Moses he apparently intimates that he aimed further and that the Tabernacle was but the image of that which God reserved to himself till another time and the Israelites were to expect For seeing our minds are never contented with the images of things when-they consider that they are meerly images be cause they cannot perfectly represent the life and the more exquisitely the images seem to be made the more desirous are we to see the reality God admonishing them that the Ark and the Tabernacle were but representations of that which he kept hid with him would by degrees excite them in the desire to behold the thing it self But he would never have excited the appetites of men for nothing if he inflame our hearts with any desires he alwayes supplies
in arms Now what is the cause of this misery but their Sins both such as are common to all men in general and particular to their own Nation For certainly God who lov'd them so tenderly and chose them out from all others to communicate his Covenants to them would not treat them so rigorously were there not some lawful cause in their extraordinary offenses And what a strange blindness and stupidity of mind is it to have so quick a resentment of evils relating to the body and not to acknowledge the cause of them What a depravity and perversity of understanding to groan under the strokes of the hand of God never to groan under the load of their own iniquity To pant incessantly after a Deliverer of the Body and never to think of the redemption of the soul They are driven out of Judaea and Heaven and Earth resound with their lamentations They are by their sins debar'd the hope of Heaven and make no matter of it They are inthralled to their corporeal enemies and murmure against God for it They themselves are sold to Satan and to Sin and do not understand the horror of this servitude They are impatient in a waiting the coming of some Person that may reassemble them from their dispersion and deliver them in reference to the body The Redeemer and Deliverer of their fouls is offer'd and preach'd to them and they reject him They flatter themselves with hope of a profound and plenteous tranquillity in all sorts of pleasures and delights of the Flesh and cheer up themselves with it They are invited to taste how good the Lord is in his compassions and they refute it Their thoughts are day and night upon gold silver silk scarlet fine linnen and jewels and their hearts leap with the fancy The Gospel tells them of riches and ornaments relating to the minde and they blaspheme it Is this the Posterity of that onely wife and intelligent people with whom God establisht his Covenants But above all the rest they do injury to the glory of that Messias who was promised to them to fancy him an earthly Prince For since themselves call his Kingdom the Kingdom of Heaven what other ought they to hope for but one spiritual and heavenly which beginning to be exercis'd here below in the souls of men which are of a spiritual nature is accomplish'd above in glory unspeakable And truly 't is to this that all the Prophets lead us from the first to the last What does that promise refer to The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head but to the consolation of man by the hope of being deliver'd from the Curse of eternal Death into which he is fallen by the deceit of the Evil One For as he sin'd principally with his soul which is the source and principle of the actions of the body and alone capable of understanding the laws of piety and obedience so it was consentaneous that the condemnation of death should be directed to the soul in case of rebellion And that other promise In thy seed shall all the families of the Earth be blessed and I will give this Land to thee and to thy Posterity after thee wherein did it profit Abraham if it aim'd no further then that Canaan which himself never possess'd and was not given to his Posterity till above 400. years after Was it either a sufficicent consolation to him in all the Crosses that he underwent or a Promise worthy of God who establisht his Covenant with him For which of us cares what will be done a hundred years after his death As for those words of Jacob untill Shiloh come they promise a Prince of peace about whom neither fire nor sword shall glitter but he shall be the author of peace between God and men It shall come to pass saith Isaiah that the Mountain of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountaines and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it But what to do Come shall they say and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths Therefore 't is to be enrich'd in the knowledge of the Name of the Lord and not in Jewels or Pearls to learn to moderate and subdue their Passions and not to conquer Kingdomes Also in the 25. chap. 6. vers In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things a feast of Wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well refined Can they take this according to the Letter It is certain there are some so stupifi'd with the wine of ignorance that they take it so and expect to be satiated with that horrible Leviathan which is powder'd up I know not where against the manifestation of the Messias Poor people who think the Prince of the Kingdom of Heaven will come to fill their bellies But behold what follows vers 7. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all Nations What is the meaning of this but that all Nations being involv'd in ignorance as in the black veil of night he will dispell all that darkness to the end they may behold the light of his knowledge that they may rejoyce I say in the light of that Sun of Righteousness who carries healing in his wings And thus through out all the Prophets which would be too long to recite there needs no more but to read them For it will be found that he is a Prince of peace upon whom the Spirit of the Lord shall rest the Spirit of Wisdom and Vnderstanding the Spirit of counsel and might the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. That under his reign The Wolfe shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard lye down with the Kid and the Calfe and the young Lyon and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them c. That is He will unite the most hostile Nations together in the same society of Religion and cicurate and mollifie the fiercest people by the knowledge of the true God and render the most untractable natures gentle and sweet Which the Prophet himself expounds immediately after They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street A bruised reed shall be not break and the smoaking flaw shall he not quench So far is it that he shall batter all to pieces with Canon-shot or hew all down with the sword And as for his Glory it must needs be other then terrestrial and corporeal Since he was to be despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Since I say he
Faith of Christ against all the superstitions of the world And though some knot may be met with here or there by the way yet what man is there who addicting himself to the study of a science is deterr'd from it by one or two difficulties he finds in it How often ha's such a one vex'd his brains for the understanding of Aristotle and how many days and nights ha's he spent in the reading of his writings dispairing of being ever able perfectly to understand them who having scarce once in his life cast his Eyes upon the Epistles of Saint Paul complains of the contexture of his ratiocination and the obscurity of his doctrines And yet the affair with the Philosopher was perhaps no more then to know whether Demonstration from the Effect deserves the title of Demonstration as well as that which is made from the Cause or whether according to the Peripatetick doctrine Universals have a subsistence out of our Intellect or what reasons justifie the opinion of ranking Privation among Principles of things empty questions and of no importance in reference to Life whereas in the writings of the Apostle the argument is concerning the glory of God and the salvation of our souls But the truth is where the business is to render to God the service which we owe him the most even ways seem rugged to us but where 't is to follow our fancies all precipices become easily superable and we level mountains Had these people once understood Religion and well conceived the idea of it they would exalt the mercy of God without comparison more then they do and withal have a greater dread of his justice and where he ha's reveal'd his celestial truths they would not dare to bring a Lye into competition where he ha's manifested his will they would not presume to prefer their own before it where he ha's described the form of Religion he would have us to follow with his own hand they would not offer to equal with it either humane imaginations or inventions of Devils where he hath sworn that As he lives he will not give his glory to another and that he will bring vengeance upon his enemies by drenching his arrows in their blood they would not abuse his mercy to impiety nor sleep in so profound a supinity but would learn from those who have most of all extoll'd his compassions that 't is a terrible thing to fall into his hands The great judgements wherewith he hath chastis'd all Nations by reason of their Idolatries the dreadful calamities which he brought on his beloved People for having imitated the same the unparallel'd desolation of the City of Jerusalem and the visible Curse which pursues that miserable Nation every where for having rejected the Gospel the breaking to pieces of the Roman Empire for having persecuted it and the judgements which lie pours down from time to time upon all those who provoke him would be sufficient documents to them that though his patience be marvellous yet he is terrible in revenging contempt towards himself and the truth revealed by him As for what is alledged concerning the peace and union of minds inflam'd with so great passion through the occasion of Religion some against others and of the tranquillity of States put in combustion by differences in sacred matters did we see no other means to obtain the same but those of impiety it were more eligible to be at perpetual jars and enmities Did Christ who knew well that he came to bring fire and sword into the world by the preaching the Gospel desist therefore from preaching it or command his Apostles to conform themselves to all professions according to occasion for fear of exciting seditions and tumults No surely Should the world perish by combustions his truth must be maintained But by the grace of God we are not reduc'd to those terms To turbulent and inconsiderate minds Religion is often a pretext of commotions to violent and bloody souls the same Religion is sometimes an incitement to murders and massacres But wise and politick Princes who give not themselves up to their own passion or to the furious zeal of others have well understood how notwithstanding the diversity of professions to contain their people within the compass of duty towards them and concord together and experience hath attested that when they will employ their prudence and authority therein as they ought they are equally well served by opposite Parties So that the zeal of Religion being moderated by the laws of reason and humanity does not so transport mens minds but that they may live peaceable together under one Government although in contrary profession of Religion Besides the two Societies Civil and Religious have their rights and their laws distinct and the knowledge of the true God do's not lead to the troubling or subverting of humane Commonwealths no more then ardency we ought to have for his glory ought to render men murderers and barbarians But what tends all this discourse to For certainly these people who speak so much of the publick peace have no great care for it t is their own peace they are solicitous of And because their God is the grandeur pleasure and contentment of the world they hate the profession which crosses thâ—ir designs and lays obstacles before them which hinders them from mounting whether they aspire And being 't is an infamous thing to be accounted a despiser of the Deity and they which declare freely that Religion is not worthy to be prefer'd before the things of the world are ordinarily lookt upon as monsters by others they shelter themselvs under the fair appearence of the desire of peace and seek masks to disguise so uncomely an aspect But he that should behold the bottom of their hearts and they cannot so well hide themselves but they may be discerned cross their veil would find there the contempt of God and of his service which shame hinders them from laying open to the world In Christendom whoever is neither a Catholick nor Reformed he must of necessity be an Atheist since he cannot be either Pagan or Jew or Mahometan unless he have lost common sense together with all gust of piety And indeed for the most part either their lives or discourses convince them to be such For if there be any such person that lives in a measure honestly in the sight of the world yet he speaks disdainfully of Religion and looks upon all those as besotted who are lovers of the same Others swim in all sorts of pleasure and are so abandon'd to dissoluteness that they cause shame to mankind and horror to any that considers them These Truth accounts it a glory to have her enemies The former she cares for so much the less as they are much more rare I pray God restore them to a better mind And to him who hath afforded us the grace to bring this small work to its conclusion be honor and glory to all eternity Amen FINIS