of the Law of Nature must first casheir the Being of a God and then indeed as I observed at first our work is done for it is in vain to vindicate the Goodness and Wisdom of his Providence if there be no such thing at all for that destroys the matter of Enquiry and the Supposition upon which we argue and then we must betake our selves to a new dispute and prove the Existence of a Deity and when that is granted we may then and not till then proceed to demonstrate from all the Effects of his Providence the Obligation of his Laws And that is all that can be demanded or need to be performed upon supposition of a Supreme Governour of the World to assign by what Laws he governs it and he is a very unreasonable Man that requires greater Evidence of the Being of a Law than can be given of the Being of the Lawgiver himself and if we have so much we have enough and all that we can justly desire and he that would have more is not to be satisfied without a contradiction This then being granted that there is a Sovereign Cause of the Universe which must be supposed in the order of Nature before we can proceed to any farther Enquiry the best and easiest way to find out the rules and methods of his Government is to reflect upon the naturall order and tendency of things for that being altogether contrived and design'd by himself it manifestly discovers to all that are able to observe the connection between causes and effects what he principally intends and aims at So that all things in Nature being so order'd as to inform every Man that the happiness of all Mankind and every member thereof is to be obtain'd by mutuall Benevolence and by nothing else that is a clear and satisfactory evidence to them all that as it is the end of all his purposes so it is his intention to oblige all his Subjects to act in pursuance of the same design And what could be done more effectually to engage them to it than to let them know if they will know any thing at all not onely that it is his own will and pleasure by that order that he has establish't in the world but also that he expects that they should comply with it as they intend to enjoy all the comforts and escape all the miseries of life and that he has done to purpose when he has made every Man's private Good so manifestly to depend upon his sincere and serious Endeavours to promote the Good of all with the same necessary connexion as naturall Effects do upon their naturall Causes and therefore seeing we have such an ample assurance of the nature of our Duty and such vehement Enforcements to perform it we have all the conditions that can be required to bring us under the Power of a Law or an Obligation to Obedience § V. Now this sense of mutuall Benevolence as it contains in it all the duties of Justice and Equity and is able if attended to without any other direction to preserve men honest and vertuous in all their entercourses of life so it erects without any train of Consequences the two things that are the most necessary to the happiness and security of mankind Society and Propriety in that it consists in nothing else than a just and reasonable Division of every Man's Love between himself and the publick i. e. between himself and all others to whom his Power and Concernment reaches Now if there be a common interest in which every Man is concern'd as he is concern'd in his own that is it that makes Society and if no Man from the naturall condition of his faculties be able to carry on either the one or the other without having a peculiar share divided and appropriated to himself for the exercise and employment of his industry it is that that assigns and settles propriety so that both these result immediately from the constitution of nature and are as evident to any Man that observes the natural frame of things as any experiments in naturall Philosophy or problems in Mathematicks and resolve themselves into such propositions as these that those causes that preserve the whole preserve its parts also and that those that preserve the parts preserve the whole but for a fuller and more distinct demonstration of both we shall prove and consider them apart And first as for Society it is absolutely necessary to the support and comfort of the life of Man for were this once dissolved and should Mankind once betake themselves to the Woods and the Deserts and imitate the manners of wild and unsociable Creatures they must subsist by destroying and preying upon each other and then the most innocent would always be the least secure as never being apt to invade other mens rights and lying always exposed to other mens wrongs and injuries and on the contrary the most injurious would always upon that account be the least unhappy ever studying to enlarge the bounds of their Power by wily and unjust Invasions and then the wanton and the violent Leviathan must at length devour all as being the cruelest and so more apt the strongest and so more able to oppress the rest Whence that saying of one of the Ancients that Laws and Societies were established for the sake of wise and good men viz. to preserve them from the injuries and oppressions of the bad for as much as if these would but be content to prescribe bounds to their appetites and moderate their desires by the capacities of Nature they would never be disposed nor invited to encroach upon other mens enjoyments but whilst their Appetites are unbridled and exorbitant and not restrain'd within the necessities and conveniencies of Nature they must be invading the Shares and Proprieties of their honest and harmless Neighbours to satisfy their wanton and unreasonable Humours This then is the proper end and usefulness of Society to institute a common Amity and Friendship amongst men to unite multitudes together into combinations of Friendship to endear them to each other by mutuall Offices of love and kindness and by a joynt defence of their common welfare against all foreign Injuries and Invasions so that to be just and honest is onely to be true and faithfull to our Friends and were Mankind as faithfull to one another as the condition of their Nature requires and the Author of it expects there would be no need of civil Laws and Penalties that are onely a second and subsidiary help to force a few bad men to preserve that amity and friendship which were they good and vertuous they would choose of their own accord as most reasonable in it self and most agreeable to humane nature So that this is plain that if Men will but reflect upon the Condition of their Natures consider the insufficiency of their own personal Strength to their own Security observe the necessity of a publick Concern in order to the preservation of
of the Society and the Safety of every Man's Life and the Quiet of every Man's Mind So that these things being thus apparently tied together by such an inevitable train of Causes and Effects and their connextion being so obvious and so palpable to every Man's notice what can we imagine the Divine Providence could have done more to recommend their Practice and enforce their Obligation and for a farther proof of this I might resume all the Heads of Discourse that I have already represented to discover the Sufficiency of the Publication of the Law of Nature and shew what particular Rewards are entail'd upon the performance of particular Duties and what Punishments are in the course of Nature inflicted upon their Neglect But what I have performed in the former part of this Discourse supersedes the necessity of any distinct account of it here because I have all along as I have proceeded demonstrated together with their subserviency to the publick Weal their serviceableness to every Man 's private Interest and that includes as well the Sanction as the Declaration of the Law And therefore without descending to all Particulars I shall onely in general treat of those Enforcements that Nature or the Authour of it has added to all his Laws and they alone will give us a sufficient account of their Obligation in that they are so many and so obvious to the most vulgar Experience and most easy Observation that there is nothing else that concerns the Life of Man the knowledge whereof is more familiar and more unavoidable § XII The first Reward of Vertue is its own natural and intrinsick Pleasure Acts of Love and Kindness are in themselves gratefull and agreeable to the temper of humane Nature and all Men feel a natural Deliciousness consequent upon every Exercise of their good-natur'd Passions And nothing affects the Mind with greater Complacency than to reflect upon its own inward Joy and Contentment So that the Delight of every vertuous Resolution doubles upon it self in that first it strikes our Minds with a direct Pleasure by its suitableness to our Natures and then our Minds entertain themselves with pleasant Reflections upon their own Worth and Tranquility And this is made so apparent from the plainest and most easy Experience that it cannot possibly escape any Man's Animadversion There is no Man that does not perceive more satisfaction in the Affections of Love and Joy and Good-will than in the black and unquiet Passions of Malice Envy and Hatred that do but torment the Mind with Anguish Restlesness and Confusion A base and ill-natur'd Disposition frets and vexes it self with perpetual male-contentedness and the Man that gives himself up to any spite and rancour of Mind is not so much as within the capacity of Happiness at least in the same proportion that good or bad Passions prevail in the Minds of Men in the same are they affected with Joy or Misery Now this being made so plain and visible in the whole Entercourse of humane Life it must needs lay a mighty Enforcement and manifest Obligation to a suitable Behaviour for what Motive can we conceive of nearer concernment than when the Action it self is its own Reward or Punishment And as the kind Passions are most agreeable to the temper of our Minds so are they most healthfull to the Constitution of our Bodies and have a natural Influence upon the Cheerfulness and Preservation of our Lives The Affections of Love and Hope and Delight cherish our natural Heat sweeten our radical Moisture beget gentle and vigorous Spirits promote the Circulation of the Bloud and make the Heart and all the vital Parts more brisk and lively Whereas on the contrary Hatred and Envy and Discontent stifle the motion of the Bloud oppress the Heart damp the Spirits and hinder the functions of the Brains and Nerves and breed Diseases and Obstructions of the Spleen For when the briskness of the vital Heat is checkt and the contraction of the Heart weakned the Bloud grows thick and cold in the Extremities of the Vessels and is not able to thrust it self forward through the remoter Branches of the Arteries into the Fibres of the Veins but stagnates in all the more narrow Passages of the Body especially in the more curious and delicate Vessels that are every where spread up and down through the substance of the Brain from whence proceed tremblings in the Heart paleness in the Face and if they are strong and inveterate scorbutick Distempers through the whole habit of the Body So that as a Man desires length of Life and preservation of Health he is obliged to shun all bitter and unkind Passions in that they are in the constitution of Nature necessary causes of Discrasies and Diseases and though their Symtoms unless they are very vehement are not so obvious and palpable yet are they certain from all the Experiments and Observations in natural Philosophy and in what proportion soever they prevail over Mens Minds in the same do they disorder and disturb their Bodies So that the Law of Nature is recommended to the nature of Man in all its Capacities and is suited to the satisfaction of all its respective Faculties of Body and Mind and by consequence is design'd to make up the completest and most entire Enjoyment of Pleasure and Happiness But besides this as it extends its Delight to all our Appetites so does it make the sense of their Felicity more intence and affecting and entertain the Mind with the most vehement and transporting Joys For there are but two things requisite to raise Pleasure up to the height of Beatitude and they are the spriteliness of the Act and the excellency of the Object Now the Good of all Mankind which is the general notion and scope of all Vertue being of the largest and most diffusive extent and the biggest Design that we can either desire or propose to our selves it calls forth all the vigour and earnestness of our Minds and employs the utmost force and vehemence of our Passions and transports us with perpetual Delight and Satisfaction Every Man enjoys a sensible Complacency in every act of Kindness his Good-will reflects back upon himself and when he is concern'd to procure anothers Happiness he thereby increases his own but when the Object of his Affections is so vast and unbounded a Good it excites a force and quickness of Mind proportionable to its own greatness it equalls the utmost capacity of all our Powers and we can never outdoe its worth it is sufficient to entertain all our Thoughts and to employ all our Actions and the Man that propounds this to himself as the delight of his Soul and the design of his Life never wants for objects or opportunities of Content but enjoys a complete and continual Felicity from the exercise of his own good-will and the reflections of his own Mind And though no Man can be capable of so pure and unmixed a Satisfaction in this Life there being
and solitary and infinitely more unsafe than Hares and Foxes and Vermin and we should all without a Metaphor be worse then Wolves to one another always insecure and uneasy eaten up with jealousies and suspicions troublesome to our selves and to all the World beside and in continual fear and danger from the whole Creation and yet in spite of all our vigilance and industry every man's Life would be short and his Death violent All this is so manifest at first view that one would wonder how a late Authour could be so wild as well as wicked in his Conceits as not only to define the State of Nature to be a State of War but to lay down this Supposition as the only fundamental Principle of all Government and Morality for if that be the State of Nature to which Nature it self would guide and direct reasonable Men though they were under no obligation of Laws or Covenants no nor Deity then certainly the State of Nature must be a State of Peace and Friendship in that it is so apparent from the plainest and most familiar Observations of things that Mankind is furnisht with sufficient Provisions for the necessities and comforts of life if every man would be content with his own moderate and reasonable proportion but if not that then their lives must of necessity become for ever forlorn and miserable and that they would all be so far from being ever secure in their own enjoyments that it would be plainly impossible for every or any single Person to defend himself against the fraud or the violence of all the World beside If this I say be so visible from the very first Observation of things Mankind cannot be supposed so wild and extravagant unless we can suppose them all perfectly mad and void of all sense of wisedom and reason as naturally to fall into a state of mutual hatred and enmity when that were so manifest a contradiction to the first dictates of their own Understandings and the most obvious directions of the nature of things And therefore they can never come into this inhumane condition of life till they become so unwise and so unnatural as to act against all the principles of their own Reasons and all the suggestions of their own Interests So far is this from being the original State of humane Nature that without the supposition of a Providence nothing can ever betray men into it but the most unnatural and unreasonable folly in the World So that though we could suppose that humane Race sprang out of the Earth without dependance upon or obligation to any Creatour yet if we will be pleased only to suppose them endued with the Faculties and Apprehensions of Men they would naturally fall into a condition of Peace and Society it being so evidently every Man's Interest to seek and procure it So that this imaginary State of War is just so much the State of Nature as it is for all Mankind to be Fools and Madmen But if it be more natural for this sort of Beings that we call Men to be guided in their Actions by the nature of things and the convictions of their own Minds and the love of their own selves that will immediately reverse the whole train of their Thoughts and Inclinations and bend all their Designs to a quite contrary course of life and instead of every Man 's falling upon every Man he meets as that Hypothesis imagines he would court his Friendship though he had no other motive to it than that by his help and assistance he might the better secure his own safety And if it be natural for every man in his wits to seek and desire that which no man in his wits can ever doubt of 't is as natural to enlarge his Friendships and Dependances in that as many as he endears or obliges so many he engages to his service and defence so that so far as Men live according to the first Principles of Nature and Discretion so far do they endeavour after the love and good-will of Mankind because their safety and happiness is greater or less according to the number of their Friends or Enemies and therefore every Man as he is concern'd to secure his own quiet is concern'd to secure the good-will of all Men and to procure it by being as unfeinedly concern'd for their welfare as for his own For that is the most proper and effectual method to engage any Man to seek or consult my Interest to convince him that it is most serviceable to his own so that the strongest motive that can be propounded to court his benevolence is to perswade and satisfy him that it is the most natural and most probable way to endear me to his cause and service and therefore upon the same Principle that every Man is inclined to seek his own private good unless he will directly cross with his own designs he is obliged to seek the publick too i. e. the good of all others within the sphere of his own Power and Capacity But now if he be so plainly directed to this by the nature of things and if the nature of things were so framed and contrived on purpose by a Wise and Supreme Cause that is a sufficient Indication to Mankind that it is his mind and will that they should govern themselves and their Actions by its direction because as I premised at the beginning the whole train of natural Effects are ultimately to be resolved into his Providence that is the only cause of the nature of things and of all the properties that result from it and therefore if the usefulness and necessity of this Rule be so evident in the whole Contrivance of Nature it is the Authour of Nature that has made it so and then there is no avoiding the Conclusion without downright and wilfull perverseness but that he intended that those of his Creatures that were able to make Observations upon his Works should take it for the Rule of their Actions So that if there be an Authour of Nature this is a demonstrative proof of the Law of Nature and no Man can desire a greater Evidence than he has or may have of the truth of that Supposition For if there were no God 't is certain we can be under no Obligation but if there be one and if he have so clearly discover'd his Will in all the Effects of his Providence he has done all that can be required to establish it into a Law and declare it a matter of our Duty So that by the same method that we arrive to the knowledg of the Supreme Cause are we forced into an acknowledgment of his Sovereign Will and Pleasure and if from all the wonderfull and curious Contrivances that appear in the nature of things it be reasonable to conclude that they were so disposed by a Wise and Intelligent Being the very same Appearances that discover him discover his Intention too And therefore whoever goes about to avoid the Obligation
claps one or both of these upon them to make up the Objection And yet beside that they are a confession of the matter of Fact it self they are things of which he was obliged by his Principles to entertain as little belief as of the Christian Faith For the power of Magick supposes some Spirits or Beings distinct from Matter and Motion and the Resurrection of Men from the Grave supposes Souls distinct from Bloud and Brains both which are meer contradictions to the Epicurean Philosophy And therefore he could not design to oppose them to the cause of Christianity for any truth that he supposed in them but onely thereby to intimate that as they were Fables so might that too Which is such a slender way of arguing as onely betrays its own weakness for when I have demonstrated the truth of a thing with all the Evidence that any matter of Fact is capable of is it not a poor come off onely to reply That yet there are the same kind of Stories that neither I nor perhaps any Man else believes There are so but then the difference is this that the Story that I believe is vouched with all the Testimony in the World and that is the reason of my belief but the Stories that I do not believe are on the contrary destitute of all manner of Attestation and that is the reason of my disbelief so childish is this great and shrewd reflection of this witty Philosopher But beside these there are several other passages that we have already consider'd and therefore shall not here repeat neither is it fit to pursue every bubble that he has blown up but whatsoever is any way pertinent to the matter of Fact that is indeed to the Argument though never so remotely I shall give it as much confutation as and perhaps more than it deserves And when I have done that will make up a new demonstration of the truth of Christianity for thereby we shall see how little its greatest Enemies were able to object against it The Cavils of his first Book then are such as these viz. Their clancular Meetings against the Laws their being a barbarous Sect as springing from the Jews and not the Grecians Moses not being so ancient as is pretended the World not being created as he relates because eternal and his teaching the Jews to worship Angels our Saviour's being a Magician himself being poor and his Disciples ignorant First then they kept clancular Meetings against the Laws Against what Laws Why against such as forbid the Worship of the onely true God and in its stead injoin the Worship of Idols and dead Men. But as for the publick Laws against the Christians I have already given a sufficient account of their Iniquity Though as Celsus has managed the Cavil it needs no reply because it is a vain thing meerly to urge the Laws unless he had vindicated their goodness and justice in that there may be bad as well as good Laws And therefore unless he would have undertaken to make good the piety of those Laws that command the Worship of their Heathen Gods that himself knew to be no better than very bad Men he had much better have let the Laws alone But in the next place the Christians are a Barbarous Sect that had their beginning among the Jews not the Grecians But 't is no matter whence they sprang so they bring a good evidence of the truth of their cause and of this Origen tells him they had from the very beginning to that very day a demonstration that exceeds all their pretended Learning and that is the demonstration of power or the power of Miracles But alas this objection of Barbarity is nothing more than meerly an Instance of the Pedantick pride of the Greeks who valued themselves above the common rate of Mankind and looked down with intolerable scorn and contempt upon all the World beside But as for their great improvements in learning above other Nations of which they so much boasted among themselves I need here say nothing though I must confess I find nothing so valuable among their choicest Philosophers but when I lookt for the reasoning of Men I could find little better in any of them than Childish tricks and sports of Sophistry But however to pass that by I am sure no Nation in the World ever equall'd the Greeks in the Barbarity of their Religion and though with this Celsus and his Companions were at that time sufficiently upbraided yet it is too well known that they could never be prevail'd with so much as to undertake its defence But in the next place Christianity he sayes gives no Laws of Morality but such as the Philosophers taught and were common to Mankind before To this Origen replyes 't is very true in that there could be no exercise for the Justice and Providence of God or obligation of the duty of Men without a sense and knowledge of the Laws of good and evil And therefore it was requisite to have the Seeds of those Moral Notions which God taught by his Prophets and his Son planted in the hearts and consciences of all Mankind that in the final judgment every Man might be justly call'd to an account for the faithful discharge of his duty But beside is not this a fit objection to follow that of Barbarity or their Ignorance in the Grecian Philosophy that the Christian Church agreed in all their main points and Doctrines with the Schools of the Philosophers The next thing objected is credulity and contempt of humane Learning But the charge of credulity is already answer'd by those undenyable proofs that are produced for the Divine Authority of the Christian Faith And as for the humane learning that they despised it was nothing but the Pedantry of the Grecian Philosophers who whilst they pretended to the height and perfection of all Wisdom fell into the extreamest ignorance and folly And to mention no more what thinks he of the celebrated Founder of his own Séct who with abundance of pride and arrogance boasted that he had rid the World of a God and a Providence but with such trifling reasonings as are below the Bablings and Follies of Children Let them therefore cease to upbraid the Christians with the neglect of their Learning when there cannot be a greater Argument of true wisdom and a right understanding of things than to see through its folly And in the next place as for the Antiquity of Moses he had as good have let that alone too when Porphyrie or any other Learned Man conversant in Histories of Ancient times could have told him that nothing is more evident or undenyable than that Moses lived many Ages before Linus or Orpheus or any other the most Ancient Writers among the Grecians But it is the custome of Epicureans to be confident upon the slightest Enquiries Otherwise if he had taken never so little pains in searching and comparing Ancient Records he could never have put such a
trick upon himself as to think of bringing down the History of Moses below the known times of Greece As for the Eternity of the World which follows next I shall not answer him here because if it were true as I have elsewhere proved it false it runs too far from the present Argument of the truth of our Saviour's History And as for Moses his commanding the Jews to Worship Angels I scorn to answer it because it is so impudently false when the great Commandment of his Law is to Worship one God alone and when himself had but a very little before objected this as a singularity in the Jews against all the World beside And then as for our Saviour's being a Magician I hope I may now let that pass too without being suspected as guilty of any Omission And as for his Meanness and Poverty I think I have sufficiently accounted for that too already in that it was but suitable to the design of the Divine Providence that he should be sent into the World stript of all Worldly advantages that he might subdue it purely by the power of Truth And therefore that alone is to be consider'd in this Enquiry whether he wrought such Miracles in Confirmation of his Doctrine or not if he did the meanness of his condition is no objection against the truth of his Miracles if he did not he is to be rejected for a much worse objection Nay this is so far from bringing any real disadvantage upon the Christian cause that it brings a considerable accession to its demonstrative proof and evidence In so much that without it it must have ever been lyable to suspicion for if he had appear'd with Kingly splendour and all the advantages of earthly power the strange and wonderful entertainment of his Doctrine might have been imputed to Worldly Interest and not to the force of truth and Men would have followed him for politick Ends and not for any Conscience of Religion And therefore to be secure of the Integrity of his Disciples he gives them no secular Encouragement nay on the contrary ensures to them all the miseries of humane life in their propagation of the Christian Faith His Institution was pure Religion and conscience towards God was its onely Obligation and therefore it was but agreeable to its own intention that it should carry along with it no other recommendation And thus I remember when Julian objects the meanness of our Saviour's condition in that he was born a Subject of the Empire which as he fancies was below the dignity of the Son of God St. Cyril answers that if he had appear'd with Imperial Power and by virtue of that commanded the Obedience of Mankind Men must have submitted to him for Worldly Interest and not out of any sense of duty or Religion and he had been just such another Deity as Caligula and the rest of their Emperours were who forced Men in spite of themselves to give them the shew of Divine honour by their own Laws And whereas you object sayes he that he was subject to Caesar what is that to the purpose when he did such things as neither Caesar nor any other Man ever did He raised Men from the Dead did any of your Caesars ever doe so What then if he were subject to Caesar it is evident from his Works that he was greater and they alone demonstrate him to have been the same Person that he pretended to be So that being the Son of God he scorn'd all your outward pomps and shews of Majesty and would receive no honour but what reflected upon him from the glory and greatness of his own Works To which might be added Origen's reply that it is no wonder for Men that have all the advantages of Birth and Fortune to make themselves considerable in the World but this is the thing that is most wonderful in Jesus that a Person so obscure upon all Worldly accounts should raise himself to so great a fame and reputation that a Man so poor and meanly Educated and never instructed in the arts of Eloquence should take upon him to convert the World to a new Doctrine to Reform the Religion of the Jews and to abolish the Superstition of the Greeks and yet that without any force or Artifice he should so speedily effect what he undertook this sayes he is a thing singular in him and was never done by any Man that I know of in any other Age. Nay farther beside the obscurity of his Life and all other things designedly laid to Eclipse his Glory his ignominious death one would think should have put it out for ever and that even those that he had deluded in his Life-time should then have been convinced of the grossness of the Imposture And therefore it is most wonderful of all that if the Apostles had never seen our Saviour after his Resurrection or had no assurance of his Divinity how it could ever come into their minds to leave their Country and expose themselves to all hazards and hardships to publish and propagate the belief of a known falsehood So that we see that the meanness of that State in which our Saviour appear'd is so far from being any material Objection against his Divine Authority that upon several accounts in the last result of things it lyes at the bottom of itsdemonstration In the next place he flouts at the Relation of the appearance of the Holy Ghost and the voice from Heaven at our Saviour's Baptism as a thing in it self absurd and incredible But here the Epicurean forgets that he is a Jew in that there are many Relations of such appearances in the Old Testament which yet if this objection hold good every Jew is bound to believe false and impossible But to treat with him as an Epicurean why is it impossible Because all Stories of God's concerning himself in Humane affairs are undoubted Fables An admirable way this of confuting a matter of fact onely by saying that it is impossible upon a precarious Principle of our own So that the last result of this rude objection against the Faith of the Evangelists is onely this that it cannot be true because there is no such thing as a Divine Providence But he adds that there was no witness of it but onely John the Baptist his Companion in wickedness And this is another unhappy mistake of a Man that sustein'd the Person of a Jew when all the Jewish Nation even the greatest Enemies to Jesus had a very great Reverence for John the Baptist. And yet it is not his Testimony that we rely upon for the truth of the Story but the truth of the Evangelists that have Recorded it they knew what Evidence they had of its reality and we know what evidence we have of their sincerity And now having discharged all his little Topicks of Calumny against our Saviour's own Person in the last place he falls foul upon his Apostles and that with the same unhappy success For
as little as he gain'd by objecting the meanness of our Saviour's condition he gains just as much by insulting over their Ignorance that is but another enhancing circumstance of his Divine Authority For as it was a wonderful thing for so obscure a Person to make such an alteration in the World so was it much more so to effect it by such contemptible Instruments For no Man that ingenuously considers the prodigious success of the Apostles can ever impute it to any other cause than either some Divine and extraordinary Power or the great and irresistable evidence of the thing it self In that by the Objection it self it is plain that they were destitute of all the Arts of Eloquence and Learning by which it was possible that they might perswade or deceive the People into any belief Whereas if Jesus had chosen the Learned and the Eloquent for the propagation of his Doctrine he might have been justly suspected of the same design with the Philosophers of erecting a new Sect by the Power of wit and Rhetorick But when a few Fisher-men that wanted all the improvements of Learning and Education as the Evangelists Record and Celsus objects effected it with such prodigious success it is not conceivable how they should do it any other way than by Miracle either in their words or actions And thus all along the more they object the contemptibleness of the means the more the strangeness of the Event returns upon themselves so that if there had not been something more than Humane in the design it could never in the way in which it was Prosecuted have taken any effect In the Second Book the counterfeit Jew first rates his Country-men for quitting the Laws of their own Nation to follow this Innovatour But setting aside the answer of Origen that the Christians did by no means forsake the Religion of Moses but pursue and improve it Still this is short of the Argument and comes not up to the reasons for which they did it If they had none their lightness was justly blameable but whether they had or had not it concern'd not this Atheist to enquire And then this becomes Celsus the Jew and the Epicurean very well that when the Epicurean had begun his discourse with a disparagement of the Impostor Moses the Jew should make this an Argument against the Christians that they renounced the Man that his Friend had proved an Impostor In the next place when he objects our Saviour's Cowardise that he fled and hid himself and such other trash it is equal malice and folly without ground or pretence in that there was no History of Jesus extant beside the Evangelists who all affirm that he went up to Jerusalem purposely to deliver up himself into the hands of his Enemies Now sayes Origen I leave it to any Man of common sense to judge which is most reasonable to believe these unvouched and vagabond surmises invented out of meer hatred to the Christians or to believe things as they are deliver'd by the Evangelists who pretended either to have been Eye-witnesses or to have had a full information of the matter of fact and were ready to seal the truth of their Testimony with their blood This strange constancy and resolution even to death it self is not like Men who were conscious to themselves of having forged a false Story but on the contrary a clear and manifest Argument that they were serious and very well satisfied in the truth of the things that they Recorded Is not this then an ingenuous way of proceeding to oppose the truth of their History with flying Reports that have neither Author nor Authority and indeed such that whilst there is malice in the World no true Story can escape But sayes Celsus though he was pleased not openly to shew his Divinity before yet at least he ought to have done it by vanishing miraculously from the Cross. No no Celsus he had a farther design to demonstrate not onely his own Divinity but Man's Immortality If he had onely disappear'd you might have imputed that to a trick of Magick but when he arose from the dead after he had been so publickly executed this was both an undeniable proof of his Divine Authority and a full assurance to Mankind of their capacity to subsist after Death And though there were other indispensable reasons why he suffer'd himself to be sacrificed upon the Cross yet if it were for these alone he had sufficient reason to suffer what he did Especially when himself had through the whole course of his Life referr'd the proof of his Authority to his Resurrection so that if he had according to Celsus his advice withdrawn himself from the Cross he had apparently defeated his own design that he had laid through the whole History of the Gospel But beside this by his Death Passion and Resurrection he has demonstrated to Mankind that the Divine Providence has reserved the happiness of humane Nature to another Life and clear'd up the future existence of Souls by an undeniable Experiment And that is the thing that so much frets the Epicureans that he has put so clear a basfle upon their Impiety But as for his next Cavil he is really to be pitied when he asks Why we do not Worship all other crucified Malefactours It is an Objection worthy the wisedom and gravity of a learned Philosopher but yet for his satisfaction it is fit to let him know that we Worship all such Malefactours as our Saviour was who own'd himself to be the Son of God and then suffer'd himself to be murther'd to prove it by his Resurrection But he says his Disciples forsook him and would dye neither with nor for him They did so by sudden surprise but what did the same Disciples immediately after upon his Resurrection They that were but a little before seised with so much Cowardise feared then no danger to attest it to the World and most of them dyed for the truth of their Testimony So that this Objection of Cowardise in the Apostles is just such another advantageous circumstances to the cause of Christianity as that of their ignorance and want of learning For as it is an Argument of the great Evidence of their Cause when Men neither learned nor eloquent were able so successfully to propagate it among Mankind in that they could give it no more advantage than it brought along with it So when Men so timerous and cowardly should afterward grow so very fearless in asserting it even to the Death that is an unquestionable evidence that they were abundantly satisfied in the truth of what they attested But as for Celsus his insinuation that the Apostles onely dream't and fancied that they saw Jesus after his Resurrection as it may be applied to any matter of Fact in the World and turn even all the actions of his own Life into dream and fancy so if it be compared with all the peculiar circumstances as to this thing they prevent the folly