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cause_n	good_a	see_v	work_n	3,903	5	5.7692	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80008	The hinge of faith and religion or, a proof of the deity against atheists and profane persons, by reason, and the testimony of Holy Scripture: the divinity of which is demonstrated, / by L. Cappel, Doctour and Professour in Divinity ; translated out of French by Philip Marinel, M.A. and fellow of Pembroke-College in Oxford.; Piuot de la foy et religion. English	Cappel, Louis, 1585-1658.; Marinel, Philip.	1660 (1660)	Wing C482; Thomason E1845_2; Thomason E2265_1; ESTC R209659	84,739	200

time place and likelihood that they could be made to believe forged Tales and could he take them to witness those things which they never saw nor knew Will it be said That he never made this Sermon That we only suppose it to be so That he hath not writ these Books Or That these Writings so replenished of Fabulous Stories have been hid for a long time and have not been published of a great while after he was dead when the Memory of those things which happened at the going out of Egypt and in the Desart was past and abolish'd in this people which was very glad and content to receive and believe these fine Tales as tending to the Honour of their Nation Or else will it be objected That some body after his death hath framed and published these Books under his Name First This is objected without the least Colour Appearance or Ground in Reason Secondly This is against the Testimony of the most ancient Monuments of History which father these Books upon none other then Moses and accuse no body of having compiled them for him Diodorus Siculus writeth that Moses gave the Jews their Laws and that he received them from the God called Jaoh which is the proper Name of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly The Authour of those Books doth not flatter that Nation but represent it to us as the most perverse and stiff-necked in the World Fourthly How could these pretended impostures have so universally in so many Ages taken so deep a rooting in the spirit of this Nation Fifthly The best part of their Laws and Political and Ecclesiastical Constitutions are grounded and have their Foundation upon these Narrations which these men do pretend to be fabulous These I say are wholy built upon them as the Pass-over the Feast of Tabernacles the Jubilee the year of Release c. Again The Tabernacle so splendid so ingeniously and artificially erected so divine and admirable by whose Model and Pattern Solomon that glorious and magnificent King hath afterwards builded his Temple that stupendious and wonderfull piece of workmanship to which the most sumptuous Buildings which the Vanity Power and Riches of the most potent Monarchs have erected is nothing comparable with all its Services and the Order of its Ceremonies which is so admirable where all the Mysteries of Christian Faith and Religion are seen pourtraied and as it were drawn to the Life as we know it by the Relation which the Sacred Writers of the New Testament do make and in their imitation the Fathers and Doctours of the Church could this be an Invention and Chimara of Moses's own fancying or of some body else after him Could he have divined so many Ages before all that our Lord Jesus Christ should do teach and suffer for the Salvation of men and accordingly erect this Tabernacle with all its Ceremonies and Appertenances which were so perfect and accomplished a Model of these things Now since there is no ground to doubt that Moses hath invented these things which he writeth of the Children of Israel's deliverance of their going out of Egypt or their going through the Red Sea of their Adventures through the Desart for the space of fourty years since he relates these things himself to a multitude of six hundred thousand men which could have given him the lye if he had forged these things Why should not he be believed in all those things which he recites to us in the Histories of Abraham Isaac Jacob and his Children of the Deluge of the Tower of Babel of Sodom and to go yet higher of the Creation of the World What is in all this more incredible then the History of the Children of Israel in Egypt and in the Desart The same may be said of all that which is recited to us in the Books of Joshua of the Judges and of the Kings for all this is not more incredible then this History of Egypt and of the Desart and it hath an indissoluble connexion with all the Narrations of Moses And why shall we esteem them past belief since they are represented to us as the Works and Effects of a God which is Eternal Infinite Almighty all-All-good All-wise Infinitely-exalted above Nature seeing it is he who hath given its being to Nature And that we have shewed by so many preceding Arguments that above this Nature there ought to be such a Deity the Cause and Rise of it Again It cannot be denyed but that Moses and the Prophets have promised and fore-told that the Messias should come and he came The Jews expected him they thinking that his time was come or near at hand For to this very day they are forced to confess that that time is past by above fifteen hundred years And when they are urged upon this Confession they have presently recourse to a pitifull and impertinent evasion to wit that this time hath been prolonged because of their sins and that the coming of the Messias hath been retarded upon this account although they are not able to shew what great sin they have committed that may have been the cause of this delay and of so signal a Desolation in their Nation And the Apostles and Christians do evidently prove that this promised Messias is come in the time prefixed by their Prophets and that this is Jesus Christ whom they have rejected upon no other account but that they falsly imagined to themselves that the Messias was to be a Great and Potent Monarch who was to free them from the slavery they suffered under the Romanes and give them Domination over all other People of the Earth An imagination quite contrary to the intention of the Spirit of God which the Prophets were inspired withall Neither can it be denyed but that Moses and the Prophets and Jesus Christ and his Apostles after them have fore-told the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple by the Romanes and that miserable Dispersion of the Jewish Nation wherein they have been for so many Ages their Rejection their Exclusion from the Covenants of God and the Vocation of the Gentiles in their stead and their being brought to the Service of the God of Abrabam Isaac and Jacob who is Creatour of Heaven and Earth with the utter abolishing of all the Heathenish Superftition All which hath came to pass since these sixteen hundred years as it was fore-told by them which is an invincible Argument that these Predictions were not made at adventure neither can they be any product of Humane Wit which cannot dive so far into Future Events nor foretell so certainly and constantly by so many different person those wonderfull Effects which so many Ages since have came to pass To these we might add the Miracles of Jesus Christ and of his Apostles which the Jews themselvs though they be their sworn enemies do not deny although they falsly and foolishly impute them to I know not what imaginary Virtue of the Name of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

these Verses Parcus deorum cultor infrequens Jusanientis dum sapientiae Consultus erre CHAP. VIII The sixth Argument Drawn from the Immortality of the soule THose that do deny a Deity do also consequently deny that there is another life after this and that mans soule is immortall and will acknowledge neither Paradise nor Hell nor Angells nor Devills and these things indeed are so firmely conjoyned together that whosoever denyeth or affirmeth one of them ought also to affirm or deny the rest So that the Sadduces among the Jewes who denyed that there was either Angell Spirit or Resurrection were in effect right Epicures and Atheists like those of these times who for the feare of the Lawes and shame of the World not daring openly to say what they think make an outward Profession of the Religion which is Publiquely received in the Land or State of which they are members though they really believe nothing of it but laugh and gibe at it secretly and hold it to be a meere tale The Reason of this impiety and Prophanesse is that which we have noted in the beginning viz. That these persons are wholy sensuall and carnall bewitched with the pleasures and sweets of this World in which they constitute their supream good happinesse which is that that makes them to hold for Fables all that is said of another Life after this and the Happinesse and Misery which attends men there They hold also that the Soule dyeth and perisheth with the Body neither will they acknowledge that there are any Angells or Devills that so they may not be forced to confesse that the Soule is immortall and that there is an Eternall punishment of the wicked after this Life and by this means they do deny also the Deity and his Providence For they plainly perceive that if there is a God he is a just Judge and a Revenger of the sins and iniquities of men and that the God of Epicurus is in effect nothing but an Idoll and a vain imagination From the Deity they cannot expect or promise to themselves any favour since that they do not love and cherish Virtue but only desire to satisfie their evill Concupiscences in which they think the Summum bonum is contained which is that that makes them to deny the Deity the Immortality of the Soule and another Life where there is a Hell and a Paradise their Conscience telling them that they cannot have a part in the Paradise and that Hell if there is any is for them and their like On the other side if the Soule is immortall there is another Life and in it a place of pleasure or sorrow for man there are also Angels Copartners of this Joy and Devills the Executioners of these Supplices and above all a God who doth justly reward the one and punish the other For if the Soule is immortall being as it is naturally very active it cannot be alwaies without any sentiment and remain so forever for that would be little lesse then death it must needs then follow that it participates of some joy and content or that it is tormented and hath an infinite share of sorrow and that for the Reward of that good or evill vice or virtue to which it hath been addicted in this Life for we have shewed heretofore that Virtue is worthy of Commendation and Reward and Vice of shame and of sorrow Which not being sufficiently according to their merits rewarded in this Life it must needs be rewarded in the other otherwise both vice virtue should be deprived of their due which is against Nature and Right Reason And this is to grant a Paradise and a Hell And if the Soule is immortall there is no reason to deny that there are Angells and Devills since either of them are immateriall spirituall and incorporeall substances And indeed nothing makes these men to deny that there are Angells and Devills but that if they grant this they must also confesse that the soule is immortall and so that there is a Heaven and a Hell which is that which they so much feare and tremble at Now it may be proved both by testimony and by reason that the soule is immortall by the Testimony I say of all men that are or have ever been upon the face of the Earth for if the records of Antiquity be looked into and History both Ancient and Modern be read it will be found that there never was yet neither at this day is there any People or Nation whether civiliz'd or not which doth not acknowledge that the soule of man doth subsist and lives after the death of the body but of the strength of this proofe we will speak hereafter as for the arguments that prove the immortality of the Soule they cannot be a priori for there is none but God that is the cause of it whose existency we are now about to demonstrate These arguments then must be taken a posteriori and we must prove this immortality by the effects of the Soule and indeed they are such effects so great and admirable as cannot proceed from a mortall and materiall cause Now its effects and operations are either internall in the soule it selfe and those either in the Intellect as Knowledge or in the Will as the Virtues or externall as the Speech and the motions of the body and the parts of it whence doe proceed the wonderfull and stupendious works of liberall and mechanicall arts In all the things that are seen in this great World there are severall degrees of the excellency of things the one being above the other by which as by so many Ladders we ascend at last to the knowledge of immateriall and eternall things the lower degree of these is of insensible things that have neither Life nor Motion as Stones Metalls c. The second is of those that have some life by which they grow and are nourished c. The third is of those that besides this kind of life have a sensitive facultie and locall motion by which they are carried from one place to another as all the Animalls Amongst which there are severall degrees of perfection For there are some of them that have only the sense of feeling as Oysters some besides the sense of feeling have the sense of tasting also as Bees and many other Insects Others again have the senses of smelling and hearing as the Moles or Wants And finally these are the most perfect Animalls which have the five externall senses and among these there are some that excell in one sence some in another as the Eagles which have a very quick and sharp sight and the Vultures Wolves and Dogs have a very exqisite faculty of smelling These Senses do receive in them the Spcies and Ideas of the materiall qualities that are inherent in their Subjects from these senses they are afterwards conveyed to the Imagination or common sence which receiveth them and from which doth straightwaies proceed the knowledge of the things

a corruptible matter For I pray for example what wonderfull thing is Writing which with so few Characters doth expresse an infinite number of words so different which serve not only for every particular Langnage but for every Tongue under Heaven And what a wonder is it that the Hands and Fingers are so artificially made and fitted to infinite forts of Motions necessary for the Exercise of all the Arts and for the working of all those things that are in a manner infinite In which thing we must acknowledge a wisdome altogether divine which hath so wisely framed this humane Body and grant that there is an immortall and spirituall faculty which directs and guides all these so different and almost infinite motions Time would be wanting to any that would decipher the Wonders and Excellencies of Limning Sculpture Musick and of all other Arts both Liberall and Mechanicall the effects of which are so admirable that man wonders at his own selfe and is almost swallowed up with the admiration of his works By all that hath been said it is easie to see what an infinite distance there is between the Soule of Man and that of Beasts since the effects of both are so divers and that there is no Reason to say that the one as well as the other is materiall corruptible or mortall Those that have observed and collected the various effects of the imaginative faculty of Brutes of their industry and fore-sight of things of some appearance of Virtue c. that they might make them run parallell with those which proceed from mans Reason to shew by this that the Soule of the one is not of another Nature then the Soule of the other and that bring for Examples the quicknesse and vivacity of the Apes and Elephants and their aptnesse to be taught to do any thing one would have them to do Also the Labour and Industry of Bees by which they frame their Lodges and make the Wax and Honey The Oeconomy and fore-sight of Amets the chastity of Doves and Turtles the watchfullness order and obedience of Cranes such as is the Author of a dialogue intituled Brother Anselme where he brings an Asse disputing against this Monke and proving to him that all the advantages priviledges prerogatives and excellencies that man pretends to have above beasts are equalled if not surpassed by all those things that we see of their nature such persons I say have not said or written these things seriously but rather to shew the vivacity of their wit and the Knowledge that they had of the Nature of brutes or if they have done it seriously deliberately and on purpose to make good the Mortality of the Soule and to plead the Atheists Cause as it seemeth that this forementioned Author hath done because that after he hath pleaded at large the Cause of Beasts against man and ingeniously confuted as he thinks all the arguments that can be brought to prove its excellency above that of beasts at last he yeelds and flies to one argument taken from the death of the Son of God which he hath suffered only for man and to which the beasts have no part an argument very strong but which is of no value among Atheists and prophane persons and at which they laugh in themselves as being foolish and ridiculous these I say shew themselves in this to be more brutish and ignorant then this Asse which they make to dispute so subtilely there being in effect no comparison betwixt these pretended wonders and excellencies of beasts and those which are really seen in man which in this goes infinitely beyond them and in respect of which all the rest are as a phantasme or meer nothing Chap. IX The seventh Argument Drawn from the good and evill Conscience of men It is a certain thing and dayly experience teacheth us and the Records of Antiquity do witnesse that every man unlesse he is altogether barbarous and brutish hath a conscience of the good and evill that he doeth For he knowes very well when he hath done well or ill and if he hath done ill his Conscience accuseth him and if he hath committed any enormous crimes his Conscience doth affright him and gives him no rest but doth continually torment him fills his soule with anguish and sometimes yea very often doth cast him into despaire Of the truth of this no one can doubt since History is altogether full of examples of the like nature These be the Furies of the Heathen Poets who with their whips scorpions and torches do incessantly pursue and torment the wicked and this is no other but Prometheus's Vulture which doth constantly gnaw mans heart and the Worm that dieth not which is mentioned in Scripture These fears and terrours do not proceed from the sear of the punishment that men may inflict upon them and those men themselves are perplexed with them which fear nothing from men as the Tyrants and other wicked men and all those that are in great Authority among men as Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily made his great favourite to acknowledge this by hanging a sword just over his head and Caligula also who did hide himselfe under his bed-clothes whensoever he heard the thunder And that which is to be much noted is this that very often they are then more affrightned by alarums of their conscience when they are near their end and have as it were one foot in the grave and have no reason to feare any thing from mens part all which is a clear evidence that they dread another Judge and fear some other punishment and that they acknowledge there is another life then this in which there is something to be feared or hoped for It is a poor and simple evasion to say or imagine that these fears and terrours proceed from a false opinion that men are perswaded to viz. That there is another life for if this perswasion was salse and without any foundation how can it be so prevalent over mens spirits as that for what they can do they cannot be perswaded to the contrary though I say they do with all their hearts desire that it were false It is a very easie thing to perswade our selves with that which we desire but it is not easie to perswade a thing which is wholly contrary to that which we desire and wish and especially to perswade it universally to all without any exception for whose Authority at any time might have been so great as to make us believe this without any reason or who should have been so very subtile as to back this with reasons which deceive all the World and even those that desire to discover the falsity of them and how is it that if the opinion of the Atheists is true in this and their reasons and arguments so good and solid they do not make all the World believe them and do not show clearly how vaine is the contrary opinion and the reasons for it for though they make some believe

it they be such as have overwhelmed and drowned their reason in carnall delights and pleasures and who are like a Malefactor who makes himselfe drunk in the prison whilest the Sentence is pronouncing against him But all their reason and subtileness will never perswade it to those that are perplexed and tormented within themselves by the guilt of their crimes and they themselves very often are not free from the scourges of these Furies which in spite of them do sometimes give them terrible checks which is an invincible argument of this great truth naturally imprinted in the hearts of men that there is a just Judge and a severe Revenger of their sins which he never leaves unpunished It is also a poor evasion to say that such are not bred in the Schole of Epicurus whose followers and disciples laugh at these phantasmes and Chimeras For first experience sheweth that they themselves are not exempted from these terrours of conscience and I think they will grant Caligula and such like Monsters were of their tribe who yet have felt these compunctions and terrors Secondly every one through the corruption of his Nature and his strong inclinations to evill is to himselfe a Master of Epicurism and a professor of Atheism and would if he could perswade this to himselfe that so he might with more freedom let the reins loose to all his passions And though it may be those that have these alarums and terrours are not open and professed Atheists yet they are so in their will and desires and nevertheless they cannot do so much as to free themselves from these fears and to loose the opinion they have of a Deity and of a Providence which will avenge it self of their crimes which doubtlesse they could easily do since they defire and endeavour after it if this opinion was false and vaine and did proceed from nothing but from a vaine institution or the phansy of some that should at first have taught it And it is much to be wondered at if the opinion of the Atheists be true how those that have rid Common wealths of Tyrants and oppressors have been commended by all have had their Statues erected and Panegyricks have been composed to praise them and extoll them unto Heaven whereas if Epicurus in Athens or Lucretius in Rome had ascended the Theatre to perswade men to their opinion and to free them from these Tyrannicall insulting and by them pretended Panicall terrors of Conscience which do perplex and torment the soules of men instead of being applauded they had been stoned and branded with the execrations and curse of every one And although all those that are laden with vices and enormous crimes are not vexed or tormented by these Furies yet this is not an argument to evince that therefore these terrours are vaine no more then because all here below do not receive the just punishment due to their crimes is an argument that there is no Providence that taketh notice of them but is rather a clear evidence of the sottishness and brutishness of men which drown their reason in the torrent of their vices and the remorses and worme of conscience in the rest are sure proofes and effects of the Deity which never leaves it self without a witness in man whose conscience is his own accuser witness judge and executioner altogether If man knowes and is certain of the evill that he doth and if his conscience accuses and affrights him he knowes also and is very certain of the good he doth and that knowledge that he hath of his innocency and good life doth cause in him a great rest and quietness and a wonderfull tranquillity of minde which he values and esteemes more and which makes him more happy and content then wicked men are with the enjoyment of all their goods honors pleasures and riches And of this felicity and content which honest men do partake of more then the wicked men the writings of heathen Philosophers themselves are full without excepting even Epicurus who hath been forced to acknowledge this truth which is a strong argument that vertue hath a more reall and nobler recompense in it selfe then that happiness which is pretended to consist in the goods honours pleasures of this life and that it carries along with it selfe its own reward and expects another somewhere else then in this life and that cannot be altogether the praise and esteem of men and the posterities romembrance of their good works because most commonly vertue and vertuous men are deprived of this which shewes unto us its excellency above vice and an infinite distance between her and evill Moreover when men are wrongfully and unjustly blamed their goods life and laudable actions calumniated and their persons abused and diffamed they justifie and defend themselves as much as they can and passionately and vehemently endeavour to prove their innocency and this very thing do the Atheists against whom we dispute if they are at any time calumniated or blamed without a cause Why this I pray unlesse there was a vast difference between good and evill vice and vertue unlesse the one was worthy of praise the other of disgraces the one of punishment the other of reward I say what need they care to be praised or vilified if these praises or disgraces are in effect but imaginary things without any reall ground and if all this doth confist but meerly in fancy and opinion These pretended strong wits should laugh at all the ill opinion that men can have of them for their crimes and should not put themselves to the trouble of making any Apologies then when they are wrongfully accused for why should one trouble himself for a false imagination that hath no real and solid foundation And this is an Argument to prove that those men maugre themselves are forced to acknowledge even against their own Maxims what a vast difference there is between good and evill vice and virtue the recompense due to the one and the punishments which the other doth deserve Again experience teacheth us that when men are violently and unjustly oppressed without any means or hopes to revenge themselves they have recourse to the Deity from whose Justice they expect and promise to themselves the revenge of that wrong which is done to them Which Tertullian doth remark very well in his Apologetick against the Heathen and saith that if any one of them was oppressed he did cry out Deus videt Deus reddet God sees and God will render it and that in saying so he did not look towards the Capitoll where was the Temple of Jupiter but toward Gods Throne and he adds that it is an evidence of a Soul really Christian For this motion doth not proceed from a preconceived opinion of a Deity which hath been imprinted in a mans soul by education but which proceeds from his conscience and from the bottom of his heart and from the judgement of his best and purest reason which dictates and suggests to him