the Christians p. 376. § XL. The Persecutions not set on foot or carried on by the Governours themselves but the rage and fury of the fanatick Rabble p. 380. § XLI The Rabble enraged against them by impudent Lyes and Calumnies p. 387. § XLII Christianity opposed by the Pythagoreans upon the score of Superstition An account of the Superstition of that Sect. Of Porphyrie Hierocles and Julian p. 391. § XLIII Christianity opposed by the Epicureans upon the score of Atheism A large account and particular confutation of Celsus his Cavils and Calumnies p. 397. § XLIV The Conclusion p. 417. A Demonstration OF THE LAW of NATURE FROM THE NATURE of THINGS And of the Future State of Mankind from the Law of Nature PART I. § 1. HAving already from all those admirable contrivances that are visible in Nature and from all those wise designs that discover themselves in the frame and constitution of things demonstrated that there is a Sovereign Lord and Governour of the Universe I shall now endeavour in the same method and by the same argument to discover that model of Government that he has set down to himself and those Laws that he has prescribed to us and those Sanctions by which he has recommended them to our practice And here I shall desire nothing more to be granted me then what I think I have sufficient right to demand viz. what I have already proved that there is a God or an Authour of the Universe and that is the last result of this Enquiry for if there be no Deity there is an end of our present Disquisition and we must turn back to the former Question which must be determin'd before we can proceed to this Enquiry but that being granted the other unavoidably follows that if the world be govern'd by a divine Providence there are then some certain Laws and Rules of Government And therefore the Epicureans when they would take away all natural Obligations to Religion Justice and Honesty first endeavour to free the minds of men from all apprehensions of a Divine Providence for it is certain that without a Lawgiver there can be no Laws so that if there be no Deity or if the Deity that is have no Regard to or Knowledge of humane Affairs he can neither prescribe any thing to our Actions nor abet his Prescriptions with Rewards and Punishments These men are consistent with themselves and their Principles but Master Hobs that he may be constant to his own way of contradicting himself as well as all the World beside has given us a Body of Natural Laws that were never enacted by the Authority of a Legislator for upon that one absurd Supposition he founds all his Morality beginning his Hypothesis from a supposed State of Nature in which nothing is or can be just or unjust which can never be supposed if there be a Deity and to suppose it is to suppose no Deity and then whatever Laws the Philosopher afterwards provides for the Government of the World they are made Laws by himself and require Obedience without the Will and Command of a Governour And there is the whole Mystery of all his Politicks by this sly Supposition to leave the Deity out of the Government of the World and without it there is no difference between his Laws of Nature and those of all Mankind for though he boasts himself the Founder of all Morality yet he gives us the very same that have been acknowledged in all Ages onely we must not receive them upon the Authority of God but upon his own for by virtue of his own Wit after he has discarded the Authority of God he has as he thinks found out a way to make them obligatory to all the World But how ineffectually to his own purpose and how inconsistently with himself I shall not now trouble my self to enquire having elsewhere sufficiently proved that by that one Supposition he has irrecoverably let all Mankind loose to all manner of Wickedness and Vilany But if we will own any Laws of Nature to any material purpose of Life we must first suppose a supreme Governour by whose Authority they were enacted and to whom we are accountable for our Duty and Obedience So that all that remains to be accounted for is to demonstrate from the Nature of Things a Divine Institution of the Law of Nature enjoyning its Observance to all Mankind For if the Nature of Things were made and contrived by a wise and intelligent Cause that proposed to himself some Design in the Contrivance of every part then whatever Effects result from the Nature of Things as they stand contrived and constituted by him are to be ultimately resolved into his Providence And therefore whatever Notions or Observations are imprinted upon our Senses or upon our Minds by outward Objects he is as much the Cause of all such Impressions as if they had been stampt upon us immediately by himself If then from the Observation of the Nature of Things that present themselves to our Senses we are made to understand that such Actions produce such Effects it is the same thing as if we had received our Informa tion from the supreme Authour himself because he has on purpose so contrived them as to make it necessary for us to take notice of that Information that is given us by their being so contrived And herein consists the Institution of the Law of Nature that God has signified to us his own Design and Intention towards Mankind in the Contrivance of it and has induced us to pursue the same Design with himself by Rewards and Punishments resulting from the Nature of Things as we comply with or disobey his Will For that is all that is proper or necessary to make a Law or to pass an Obligation first to declare the Will or Command of the Legislatour secondly to enforce Obedience to it by consequent Rewards and Penalties So that if it can be proved that the Authour of Nature has signified any certain Rules of Life to Mankind by the very Order and Frame of Nature and that he has farther made them obligatory to all the World by making the same necessary connexion between the Duty and the Reward as there is between every natural Cause and Effect their Obligation will be establish'd upon no weaker Grounds or Proofs then of certain Demonstration and we shall have the same Assurance that they are design'd for the Rules of our Actions as we can have that any natural Cause was ordain'd to produce its natural Effect And it will be as manifest from the whole Constitution of Nature when it is consider'd and reflected upon that God intended Mankind should govern themselves by such certain Principles as that it is the Office of the Sun to give Light to the World This is the thing that I here attempt to prove and hope to perform And the Proof of it will consist of these two parts first to demonstrate the Publication secondly the Sanction
so many Calamities out of their own power and disposal to discompose it yet are the degrees of a Man's Happiness as far as he is master of it himself always proportion'd to the emprovement of this temper of his Mind his Joy and his Delight are of the same extent with his Love and his Good-will and he that most dilates the exercise of his kind Passions most widens the capacity of his Enjoyments and so much as a Man falls short of this universal Kindness so much does he afflict himself with Anguish and Discontent and that is sufficient encouragement to excite him to work up his Mind to habitual Resolutions of Love and Kindness when they are all along their own Reward in proportion to their own strength and vigour and he that is possest with most Good-will becomes thereby the happiest and most contented Man and he that is possest with nothing else enjoys his full and adequate Felicity Though so great a Goodness and by consequence so great an Happiness is onely agreeable to the descripsion of the Joys of Heaven where eternal Love will be our eternal Bliss yet seeing in this World there is a difference as to the Misery or Happiness of every Man's Life in proportion to the degrees of this Affection that is a sufficient inducement to him to habituate himself to its free and constant Exercise when he is so plainly engaged as he desires and designs the improvement of his own Content to procure and delight in the Content of others and so far as he extends his concernment for their welfare so many Objects does he provide for the entertainment of his most pleasant and agreeable Passions Which being all the Happiness that is within our own power it is the most proper motive to determine our Wills to such Thoughts and Actions as are most effectual to attain or to advance it For that is the proper use of Rewards and Penalties to set before us such Considerations as are suited to determine our Wills to such Designs and Actions as lie within our own power if they do not all the Arguments in the World are to no purpose and nothing is more absurd than to court or threaten a Man into the doing of what is impossible And therefore seeing the casual or the fatal Calamities of humane Life are altogether out of our own disposal and will befall us whether we will or will not they can have no possible influence to determine the choice and the resolution of our Minds but the onely things that can affect us as moral Agents are such Proposals of good or evil as we know our selves able to dispose of as we are pleased to incline our own Wills What then though the natural Calamities of Life are incident to the Good equally with the Bad it is not in our power to avoid or overrule their Necessity but when they happen to us all we have then to doe is to bear them as we are able And what will enable us to bear them as we ought I shall represent in the second part of this Discourse But because there are some things that have some influence upon our Happiness that are altogether out of our own disposal shall we therefore take no care of all those that are altogether within it That may become the humour of peevish and unreasonable People but certainly no prudent Man because he cannot overpower all things to comply with his own Will will therefore conclude with himself that it is in vain to be concern'd about those that he is able to command And therefore all those we must set aside as of no use and consideration in matters of Morality in that they are of another Nature and depend upon other Causes it is enough at present that the Providence of God has left a certain proportion of our Felicity to our own disposal by a regard to which we ought if we are wise to order our Designs and Actions and that he has annexed such degrees and advantages of Happiness to such practices and habits of Vertue and that is all that can be done to recommend them to our choice and good Opinion especially when the Act it self is its own Reward and is the most pleasant Exercise of the Mind of Man § XIII 2. If there be a Deity or Sovereign Cause of all things that is ever supposed in this Enquiry we must of necessity suppose him endued with the highest measures of Reason Wisedom and Goodness for these are Excellencies that we perceive to reside in some degree within our selves and therefore much more in him whose Idea comprehends all Perfections and who is the onely cause of all ours Now right Reason is the same in God and in his Creatures because it is measured by the same Rule and that is the Nature of Things and when it agrees with that it passes a true Judgment and when it does not it is false and erroneous and therefore if it be consonant to the Reason of Man and the Nature of Things to judge that the Good of all is preferrable to the advantage of a single Person it cannot be supposed that the unerring Wisedom of God should fall into a different or a contrary Perswasion for that were to reconcile no less than contradictory Propositions to right Reason And therefore this Rule of Justice and Goodness results unavoidably from his essential Attributes and therein consists the whole Account and Employment of his Providence to carry on the common Good of his Creatures by proper and effectual Instruments and all Goodness and Wisedom and Vertue is reducible to these two Principles first to propound worthy Ends and then to pursue them by suitable means there is nothing else capable of praise and commendation and therefore if the Good of all be the noblest End that he can design it is certain that it is agreeable to his Will that all his Creatures that are sensible of it should seek it by those means that they shall judge most agreeable to his Understanding And this is much more evident if we consider the Deity not onely as the most excellent of all rational Beings but as the supreme Cause of their Existence and then it is but reasonable if he first created them to conclude that he desires their continuance and preservation otherwise he must have made them without design and to no purpose and then if therein consists the common Good of all that they should continue to enjoy those Natures and emprove those Perfections that he bestowed upon them that cannot but be conceived most acceptable to the Intention of his Will and most agreeable to the Scope of his Creation Especially if to all this we shall adde those Intimations of his Mind that he has so plainly interwoven with the whole Systeme of Things in that all the Effects of Nature are the Effects of his Will and therefore when any thing in Nature declares any Proposition to be true and enforces or invites us to
up both in the Records of that City and the Syrian Tongue to which Language the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers were altogether strangers and if they had not yet they might easily be ignorant of so remote a Register But that there were such Records we have all the Faith of Eusebius at stake who positively vouches it that he found them enrolled in the publick Registry of Edessa and faithfully translated them out of the Syrian into the Greek Tongue Not to mention Saint Ephraem who lived before the time of Saint Austin and was a Deacon in the City of Edessa who makes the same honourable mention of these Epistles with Eusebius though that is a pregnant Testimony by it self but much more so from its exact agreement with Eusebius his Relation but passing by that and much Aug. Ep. 263. more the Epistle of Darius to Saint Austin and of Theodorus Studita to Pope Paschal because it is possible they might rely wholly upon the Authority of Eusebius I shall lay the whole stress of the Testimony upon him alone whom we cannot suppose guilty of such a gross and meer forgery as to have framed the whole story onely out of his own Brain I will grant that he may sometimes seem partial and favourable to his own cause and be apt to make more of a Testimony than the Testimony it self will bear but that he should forge and falsie a publick Record and that in a matter of this weighty nature he has given us no reason to entertain so hard and unkind a suspicion of him For he is a stranger to Eusebius that knows him not to be as nice and curious in examining the credit of his Authorities as any the most critical Authours whatsoever and for this reason he has rejected many excellent passages that might have been very serviceable to his Cause meerly because of their doubtfull Antiquity allowing nothing as Authentick that he cannot vouch by the Testimony of ancient and contemporary Writers Now that such a Man should be guilty of such a gross and groundless Lye as this is past the ill-nature of Mankind to suspect Nay farther though some of our late Masters of Censure are very forward to observe the slips and mistakes of this great Man and charge them smartly upon him as if done out of meer design yet the whole matter being impartially weighed we have more reason to impute them to haste and inadvertency For though sometimes he may seem to emprove Testimonies yet does he as often lessen them which plainly shews that he trusted too much to his memory But still he is ever in the right as to the main of the Story and fails onely in circumstances and that chiefly of Chronology by confounding sometimes one Story with another but otherwise he tells no false Stories and onely makes some mistakes of memory upon true ones and as many of them to the disadvantage as to the advantage of his Cause as might be shewn if it were worth the while by comparing all particulars But for the present this is sufficiently exemplified in the very last passage that we insisted upon viz. The Testimony of Pilate concerning our Saviour in which the chief thing as it is set down by Tertullian is our Saviour's Miracles and yet it is left out by Eusebius when he transcribes the rest of the Testimony And though it is possible that he might follow the Greek Translatour of Tertullian yet however we see he is as easily drawn into a lessening as a magnifying mistake and it is much more likely that Eusebius should through haste clip the Translation than that the Translatour should clip the Original for he onely consulted the passage occasionally and so might in his hasty transcribing overlook a part of it but for the other who made that Translation his particular business it was not easie to overlook so material a passage In short Whatsoever faults Eusebius may be guilty of no Man can suspect him of meer Forgery without the forfeiture of his Ingenuity Neither in the last place is the date of the Record an inconsiderable circumstance to prove the Record it self for Eusebius tells us that at the bottom of it was subscribed These things were done the 340 th year Which though it has heretofore puzled learned Men is excellently clear'd by the Epocha of the Edessean Computation who began their Account from the first year of the 117 th Olympiad when Seleucus began his Reign in Asia now from that to the 202 d. Olympiad in which year being the 15 th of Tiberius our Saviour suffer'd is just 340. years So that Thaddaeus was dispatched to Edessa in the very same year in which our Saviour arose from the dead that great work it seems being once over he would no longer delay the good King's request These are all the foreign Testimonies that I think convenient to represent in this place though many more I shall be forced to observe when I come to give an account how it comes to pass that though our Saviour did those Miracles that are recorded of him and though there were all that evidence given of them that we pretend there was yet so great a part of the Men of that Age both Jews and Gentiles should live and dye in Infidelity § XVII Having hitherto demonstrated the impossibility of the falshood of the Apostles Testimony concerning the truth of Christianity from its contradiction to the first Instincts of humane Nature to all the principles of common Prudence and to their own design it self and from the undoubted certainty of their Records and from the concurrent Testimony of foreign Writers I now proceed to the next part of the Argument that supposing the Apostles Evangelists and first Disciples of Christ would have endeavour'd to impose upon the World with a palpable and unprofitable Lye against all the foremention'd contradictions to Nature to Sense and to Themselves to demonstrate the impossibility that they could ever have prevailed so effectually and so speedily as they did upon the Faith of Mankind And as many thousand Absurdities as there were in the former Supposition there are so many ten thousands in this for the inequality of the number of the Persons was not less the first Preachers of the Gospel being very sew in comparison of the vast multitudes of their first Converts And yet if Christianity were false all these must be guilty not onely of all that folly that we have represented in the case of the Apostles but much more in that they did not onely suffer themselves wilfully to be deceived into the belief of the strange Story of Jesus without sufficient evidence of its truth for if it had sufficient evidence then it was no Imposture if it had not then all that profest their belief of it were wilfully deceived i. e. They pretended to believe that to be a Divine Revelation though themselves knew that they had no sufficient ground or motive for so strange a belief
and it requires onely eye-sight to observe that it could be contrived no other way but by Divine Providence But when I pretend to have routed all the mechanick Philosophers it is so far from presumption that there is no more glory in it than in the Conquest of an Infant And indeed nothing does more exactly resemble their wise contrivances than the little sports and works of Children for just as they make their Play-things so do these grave Philosophers make their Worlds In short the folly and non-sense of meer Mechanism or accounting for the nature of Things onely by Matter or Motion or any other second Causes is so notorious that all the Philosophers in the World never were nor ever will be able to give any the least account how so much as a Stone should fall to the ground without a Divine Providence This may seem a very odd challenge to be made to the great Wits and Virtuosi of Mankind but I make it not rashly and have throughly consider'd all their Attempts and more than enough demonstrated their Vanity and am sure upon the most diligent enquiry that it can never be done any other way than by resolving it into the force of Magnetism than which in all the Universe there is not a more amasing piece of Divine Art and Wisedom But here before I can proceed to what ought to have immediately followed I am forced to thrust in a kind of preposterous digression in answer to a very mean piece of disingenuity that I have lately met with from the Mechanick Philosophers viz. That I have made too bold with the reputation of great and famous Men and treat those that have been admired and renown'd for Wisedom and Learning in all Ages as if they were void of common sense And thus the late Authour of the Augmentation to Mr. Hobbs his Life when he has represented me as one of the keenest and unkindest of his Adversaries brings off his Master with this clean Complement that he has no reason to take it unkindly from one that sticks not to treat the greatest even of the ancient Philosophers after the same rate and gives the same correction even to the great Aristotle himself as to Mr. Hobbs and as for the famour de-Cartes he sticks not to chastise him like any School-boy But in the first place methinks this is a very poor and humble Objection and becomes not the due confidence of a Philosopher For it is this sort of Men that first upbraid us with the great and unanswerable Performances of Mr. Hobbs and tell us that till we can answer him we may preach what we please to the People but wise Men will be of his mind And yet when we not onely answer but plainly demonstrate the pitifull and even childish folly of his pretended Philosophy that is objected as an unpardonable rudeness to so learned a Man But I would fain know what is to be done in this case you will not be content till we undertake him and yet if we do you grow angry and our very attempting it is made our crime But yet if he be exposed 't is none of our fault but his own for 't is not in any Man's power to make his Notions better or worse than they are and if we represent them truly and they prove ridiculous we cannot help it but if we do not it would be somewhat to the purpose if they could convince us of so unmanly a piece of disingenuity but till then 't is at best but a very childish thing to complain either of unkind or uncivil Usage And therefore in the second place it was done much less like a Philosopher onely to give an account of my Assertions against Mr. Hobbs without taking any notice of our Reasons and Arguments For if I have charged any thing upon Mr. Hobbs and have not demonstratively prov'd it I am bound to give publick satisfaction to his memory But if I have then the severity of my charge is no fault of mine and for that I dare and do appeal to the judgment of all impartial Men whether I have not proved upon and against him all that I pretended to and if I have then it is evident that Mr. Hobbs has asserted a very wicked Cause very foolishly But lastly 't is done still much less like a Philosopher to load me with that invidious charge of traducing the greatest Worthies among the Ancients For I know no one quality more unbecoming a Man that pretends to letters and civility than an envious affectation of finding fault with the Performances of great Men. This has ever been the creeping artifice of small People to make themselves considerable onely by the greatness of their Adversaries and it is a practice that I detest as I do Slander or Perjury And if they could but assign one Instance in which I have in the least wrong'd any learned Man they should not be so forward to shew it as I would be to confess it But otheways to insinuate that I spare not the greatest even of the ancient Heroes is to say no worse but a sneaking way of encountring an Enemy and indeed an inward confession of the want of some better reply For if they thought they were able to overthrow Arguments in fair Combate they would scorn to betake themselves to such skulking Artifices For when all is done the whole merits of the Cause will rest upon the reason of the thing so that if I have opposed or confuted any of the ancient Philosophers upon good and substantial grounds I have done them no wrong in doing Truth right If otherwise I have not really injured them but my self and it is in these Gentlemens power that make the complaint to demonstrate the falshood or the folly of my Opposition But till then I think it becomes not the state and grandeur of a Philosopher to condescend to such poor topicks of Insinuation But if they will do so it is all one to me for my onely design is the pursuit of real Truth I mean not useless and barren Speculation but such as is serviceable to the Happiness of humane Nature and that is all the Learning or Wisedom that I care for And if any Man stand in my way though it be Aristotle or de-Cartes Epicurus or Mr. Hobbs Friend or Foe yea though it be M. Tullius himself yes though it be an Angel from Heaven I must on and if I am forced to justle them out of my way I cannot help it for I am resolved never to leave it my self However it is a vain thing for Mechanick Philosophers to complain of being a little derided when they so wantonly and affectedly expose themselves to it For how is it possible for the wittiest Men to come off with better success that when we see the whole World framed with such admirable Art and Wisedom shall undertake to teach the senseless Materials of which it is made to be their own Architect I will
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
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
they would all run raving and foming up and down the World and every Man fall upon every Man he meets with and that for no other reason than because they are an equall match so that if he did not give he must take the first blow But if we suppose them in their right minds with any sense of humanity or discretion about them able to reflect upon the great advantages of mutuall Benevolence and the horrible mischiefs of a perpetuall Hostility it is easie to imagine how ready and forward such sober People would be to oblige one another by kind and civill Treatments and to rejoyce in any opportunities of doing good Offices to others for the Comfort and Cheerfulness of their own lives So that the result of all this dispute viz. what use men would naturally make of their Power upon one another from the consideration of its Equality is onely to enquire whether Mankind be by nature in or out of their wits if the former may be taken for granted the case is very plain that men unless they are alter'd by preter-naturall distempers are creatures tame and civill enough but if it must be presumed that they are all naturally frantick and void of all principles of reason and sobriety that indeed will be a proper foundation for the Hobbian Politicks and upon that supposition it is possible they may be allowed I am sure they never can upon any other And as for what is farther pretended of the passion of fear the desire of Glory and some other affections of humane Nature that they naturally dispose men into a posture of mutuall violence This too is onely credible upon the former supposition for if all Mankind were acted purely by unaccountable humours and whimseys and were driven upon the wildest and most extravagant attempts without their own consent and deliberation then indeed we might suppose they might be hurried upon rash and fool-hardy actions they know neither why nor how But if these passions how vehement soever are or may be brought under the conduct of reason and discretion and if we have so much power over them as that we may if we please not indulge them any farther than may be consistent with our own quiet and tranquility then the Question is what course a prudent man would take to gratifie these inclinations And that is answer'd from the premises that any Man in his wits whatever he designes would endeavour to carry on all his projects in ways of peace and civility and especially if he were afraid of all other Men he would think it his wisest course rather to court them by offers of friendship than to provoke them by injuries and ill-turns So that the inclination of these passions can onely be accounted for in conjunction with the Reasons and Understandings of Men and then what way a prudent man would naturally determine himself that must be supposed their naturall tendency They are not capable of any certain determination from themselves but receive their Biass from the bent of Mens designs and resolutions and may be inclined either way as they choose to act rashly or advisedly and the same passions that make Fools and Mad-men turbulent make all Men in their wits modest and peaceable And here to this purpose it is pretty to observe that when Mr. Hobbs treats of War and the causes of War it is then manifest in that Chapter that Men are forced into it by the violent passions of Fear and Hope and Glory but then when he proceeds to discourse of Peace and the inducements to Peace the same passions are ready to serve his purpose thereto and the very same naturall causes may be assign'd either for War or Peace as it pleases him and serves his turn and his cause But after this rate of talking it is an easie matter to prove any thing out of any thing it is no more than first to lay two propositions together and proceed to say this follows that though there be no other reason for it than because it did not go before it and that is an Hobbian Demonstration But this may suffice to shew that as mutuall Benevolence is necessary to the happiness of Mankind so is society necessary to the exercise of mutuall Benevolence and if so then if there be a supreme Governour of the World that is an unquestionable proof of its Institution by virtue of his Authority in that without it it is manifest he can never obtain the end of his Creation which if it be any at all must be the happiness of his Creatures a thing plainly impossible to be hoped for without the benefit of Society Especially when he has vested all Mankind in an equall and common Right to the comfort and felicity of their Lives and when we know that he desires and intends the well-fare of all his Off-spring and when he has made that to depend so unavoidably upon the care and the safety of a common Interest all that is a sufficient declaration of his will to all his Creatures that are able to observe and reflect upon that order of things that he has instituted and establish't in the frame of his Creation that he expects they should pursue the same end with himself which is the good of all and make use of such means as are absolutely necessary to its attainment which is Society especially when he has farther enforced it by such powerfull Rewards and Penalties as to annex every single Man's Happiness to the performance and his Misery to the neglect of this Duty § VI. Secondly as for Propriety it is as plainly instituted and injoined by Nature or the Authour of Nature as Society and that upon these two accounts in that every Man 's naturall power and capacity is limited and that unavoidably and by it self introduces a limited use and enjoyment of things for no Man can claim a greater right from Nature than he is capable of enjoying and therefore seeing that is fully provided for by a parcell that is proportion'd to it self and its necessities he cannot challenge by virtue of his naturall Right any power over the Remainder but will be content to leave whatsoever he cannot enjoy himself to other Mens use and advantage and certainly that is very reasonable to allow our Neighbours to challenge their share of happiness when our own turn is fully served and satisfied So that Nature by setting bounds to the capacities of our Appetites and Enjoyments thereby plainly determines the limits of our Rights without setting them forth by any other lines and descriptions For the right of Nature neither is nor can be as some Lawyers and Philosophers have wildly enough defined it any such state of life in which Mankind may be supposed free from all manner of Laws and Obligations because this very supposition is made inconsistent and impossible from the Nature of created Beings which can never be supposed to exist without depending upon and being subject to some superiour Power and
thing and after that when Men reported that to have been done which they knew impossible to be done what followed but away with them for idle Cheats and Lyars And therefore without ever examining them they thrust them into Prison with all manner of scorn and indignation Acts 5. 17 18. Secondly as for the Pharisees who were of the greatest power and reputation with the People they were a strange sort of ignorant supercilious and conceited Fanaticks And there is no temper of Mind so fixed and stubborn as religious Pride and Self-conceitedness 't is of all Illusions the most delightfull to the minds of Men and when they are once throughly possest with it it barrs up their Understandings against all Arguments it takes away the use of their natural Faculties and to go about to convince them of their folly and hypocrisie is onely to provoke their rage and choler This was the state of the case between our Saviour and the Pharisees They pretended to the strictest Piety and valued themselves at a mighty rate beyond all other Men for the singularity and exactness of their devotion And yet this they placed not in any conformity to the Divine Laws but in the observation of some vain Customs and Traditions derived from their Forefathers Now this being so gross and so foolish an Imposture our Saviour set himself particularly to represent its vanity and took all occasions to convince them that they had utterly forsaken the Law of Moses for which they pretended so much reverence and that the Customs they were so fond of were no part of his Religion because no where injoin'd in his Law but meer arbitrary conceits of their own devising And this it was that raised their displeasure against him to so great an height of hatred and indignation that a Person who pretended to so great an Office and Authority as that of the Messias should represent them so contemptibly in his publick and constant discourses to the People And therefore instead of considering the nature and truth of his Doctrine they all along set themselves to trapan him in his Discourses and minded nothing else but to pursue their revenge against him and never rested till they had wrecked all their malice upon him as the mortal Enemy of their Sect. Now 't is no wonder that Persons of this complexion were so strangely blinded against all that evidence that our Saviour gave of his Divine Commission For none so blind as those that will not see and none so wilfull as those that are in love with themselves and no self-love so doting as that which is grounded upon a false conceit of Sanctity and Religion And yet notwithstanding this some of the more ingenuous among them as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were overcome by the Divinity of his Works and afterward even Gamaliel himself was startled at them For the advice he gave to let the Apostles alone seem'd to have proceeded meerly from the unsettledness of his own Mind that was not then throughly satisfied concerning the truth or falshood of their pretences And the truth is his advice took with the Sanhedrin not from the reason of the thing but the authority of the Man for otherwise it was but very foolish Counsel that if this Work be of Men it would of its own accord come to nought for by that principle they must give liberty to all the Impostors in the World to disturb as much as in them lies the publick peace and quiet of Mankind But when it was doubtfull as it then seem'd to him lest haply by punishing the Apostles they might be found to fight against God upon this supposition it was not onely wise but pious advice to stay for a little farther tryal of the Cause before they undertook its utter extirpation And it is not a little observable that though some of the Pharisees were shockt out of their Prejudices the Sadducees were all impregnable for we no where reade that any of them were ever converted to the Christian Faith and the reason is plain because their first Principle supposed its truth utterly impossible and then they would not so much as enquire after it or hear any thing concerning it But the Pharisees not lying under this invincible Prejudice were notwithstanding all their other great hindrances in some capacity of conviction So that though we find that notwithstanding they were at first the fiercest Enemies to our Saviour's Doctrine yet afterwards they were out-stript by the Sadducees in their zeal and fury against it For as in the Gospels the Pharisees are every where noted as his most implacable Enemies so in the Acts of the Apostles after our Saviour's Resurrection the Sadducees are remarked as their most bitter and vehement Prosecutors And now this I think may be a sufficient account of the Incredulity of the Jews notwithstanding our Saviour gave all that Evidence of his Authority that we pretend he did And it is obvious enough to any Man that understands humane Nature to apprehend how easie a thing it is for Men not onely byassed but pressed down by all these Prejudices to avoid or neglect the force of all the Arguments and Demonstrations in the World § XXXVII And thus having described the several unreasonable Prejudices that withheld so many of the Jewish Nation from embracing of the Christian Faith we proceed now in the last place to the grounds that the Heathens went upon in their Opposition to it And these were as much more absurd and unreasonable than those of the Jews as was their Religion For that the Jews had some appearance of pretence against our Saviour's alteration in Religion we have already shewn in that it was own'd by himself to have been establisht by Divine Authority But as for the War that the Heathen World raised against it they grounded it upon such false Principles as though Christianity it self had been false betray their own folly and absurdity Atheism and Contempt of God and all Religion was their master-objection against the Christians and the onely thing they set up and contended for in opposition to it was their own wretched Idolatry and Superstition both which are too great demonstrations of an invincible prejudice and inflexible partiality And they are both so very absurd that which is most so 't is very hard to determine For whatever the Christians were guilty of it is certain that they were at the greatest distance from Atheism of any party of Men in the World And as for the Religion of the Gentiles it was so grosly wicked and foolish that it was impossible for any wise Man to embrace it without affronting both God and his own Conscience This was the true state of the Controversie between them they never enter'd into the debate of the matter of Fact or so much as once enquired into the merits of the Cause but for this reason alone they reputed all Christians as vile and profligate Persons because they would not join
altogether false and frivolous what is that to what hapned at Rome So that had there been never so many of the Posterity of David at Babylon there might have been no more than two found at Rome And therefore if Hegesippus had affirm'd that there were onlytwo all Scaliger's Stories of Babylon are to no purpose But when he has affirm'd no such thing but on the contrary gives us a distinct account of Simeon the Son of Cleopas Bishop of Jerusalem who lived there after the time of Domitian Scaliger could have no motive to make the Objection but onely to empty his Common-place-book of two or three Rabinical Quotations But yet his next Exception is much worse viz. that there was no such Person as Judas of the Kindred of our Lord mention'd in the Gospels But suppose there were no such upon Record it seems very hard dealing with an Ancient Writer that lived so near the times that he Writes of and had opportunity of enquiring into the Genealogy of the Family when he affirms that there was such a Branch of it to deny the truth of the matter of Fact onely because it hapned not to be mention'd in the Gospels whereas nothing is better known than that divers more material passages relating to our Saviour's Family are there omitted their design being to describe his own descent from David and not to give any account of the several present Branches of the Family And yet after all Scaliger's confidence that there was no such Man upon Record do we find him expresly reckoned among our Saviour's nearest Kindred Mat. 13. 15. Is not this the Carpenters Son Is not his Mother called Mary And his Brethren James and Joses and Simon and Judas So blind is the humour of Criticising as to overlook the most obvious passages rather than loose the Glory of one new discovery This passage I have vindicated not because that it self was at all needful to my purpose but onely to maintain the credit of Hegesippus for if there were no such Story that saves our labour of giving any account of it if there were then we must take it as we finde it in Hegesippus according to whose account it was no Persecution for Religion but onely a jealousie of State Neither is it to be wondred at that Domitian though of all men most suspicious should be so strongly tainted with it when the same conceit had for a long time been of so great force among his Predecessours For it is very obvious from the Histories of those time that the Jewish Notion of their Messias had got deep footing in the Gentile World from the Authority of the Sybilline Oracles in that the Old Books of the Sybils that had been for many Ages Religiously preserved in the Capitol were together with the Capitol it self burnt about Eighty years before our Saviour's Birth and to retreive their loss three Ambassadours were about Seven years after when the Capitol was rebuilt dispatcht into Asia to gather together what Records they could there find of those Prophesies and brought back with them about a thousand Verses By whom they were first Composed I am not concern'd to enquire though it is probable as the Learned Isaac Vossius conjectures that they were Collected by the Jews out of the Ancient Prophets as appears from their agreement with the Holy Writings and especially in the great Prediction of a Messias or Universal Monarch Which it seems was so plainly foretold by them that in a little time it alarm'd the Senate it self to forbid the reading of them and that for very good reason too When they found every aspiring Spirit in the Common-wealth to apply them to himself For this was one of the Foundations of Catiline's Conspiracy as Tully informs us concerning Leutulus in his Third Oration against Catiline And when Caesar had made himself Master of all it was vulgarly believed to have been the effect of this Prophesie as the same Author Triumphantly tells us in his Second Book of Divination which was written immediately after Caesar's fall Cum Antistitibus agamus quidvis potius ex illis libris quà m Regem proferant quem Romae posthaec nec Dii nec homines esse patientur The great thing that offended the zealous Common-wealths Man in them was the name of a great King And if we may believe Suetonius or his Author Julius Marathus the same year that Augustus Caesar was Born the Senate upon the account of this Prediction Regem populo Romano naturam parturire that nature was then in labour with a King of the Romans Decreed nequis illo anno genitus educaretur Not unlike the practice of Herod when he Murther'd the Children of Bethlehem to secure the Title of Shiloh to himself which some of the Atheistical Jews of the Sect of the Sadducees had flatteringly applyed to him and were for that reason stiled Herodians And this conceit himself cherished with very great care among the Jews as the fulfilling of Jacob's Prophesie upon the departure of the Scepter from Judah to himself thereby to conciliate the greater reverence and Authority to his Government And this probably was the reason as very an Atheist as he was of his building so magnificent a Temple because the Jews expected such a glorious work from their Messias Now this conceit being so familiarly entertain'd in the minds of men in that Age it is no wonder if all that were in actual possession of Authority whether themselves believed it or not were so watchful against all pretenders to it but much less in such a suspicious Prince as Domitian especially as to the Family of David who by the consent of the Jews that were the great Masters of these Prophesies had the first Title to this great Prerogative And yet it was not so much but onely as far as appears by Story they were presented by some flattering and officious Informers to the Emperour which occasion'd some trouble both to themselves and the followers of Jesus but when the jealous Emperour came to enquire into their Claims he was so satisfied of the Innocence of the men that he immediately dismist the Inditement as frivolous and revoked all Edicts against the Christians as Partisans in the same cause This is the true account of all his proceedings against them though if he had proceeded upon other reasons all his reasons could be nothing but reasons of State and all his executions nothing but acts of Savageness and Cruelty But whatever they were there is no evidence of his entring into the merits of the cause and if he did not his brutal Tyranny can be no objection Nay if he did all that can be inferr'd is that Christianity was not pleasing to one of the worst of Princes and that is the best that can be made of his Persecution and there we leave it that as Nero was the first so Domitian was the second Enemy to Christianity and conclude with Tertullian Consulite commentarios vestros
began it is not easie to imagine but it must certainly have been in the most Brutish and Barbarous Age of the World and so afterwards gain Authority onely by virtue of Ancient prescription For otherwise it was so monstrous and ridiculous in it self that its most zealous Patrons could make no better defence for it and were at last forced to turn it into Allegories contrary to the Faith of their own Histories And though the Primitive Christians insisted very severely upon this Argument against the Heathens of Worshipping dead men for Gods I do not find that any of the Heathens that opposed Christianity ever took upon them its defence but all their Writings against the Vanity of the Pagan Religion past uncontroul'd so uncapable was it of any defence that no Man durst so much as undertake it And nothing was done for it but onely by force of Law and Government it was setled in the Empire and therefore must be complyed with and object what you please against its Impiety that concerns not Statesmen the Laws must be preserved And now upon this account it chiefly was that the Primitive Christians suffer'd it was not so much for any thing that was charged against their own Religion but onely for refusing to comply with the Heathen Idolatry That was their form of Tryal Will you Sacrifice to the Gods If they did that alone absolved them if they did not that was certain death Now if this were the case of the Christians what was to be done to comply with the Heathen Worship were in them downright Atheism and if they would not comply it was so in the Opinion of their Enemies and so they were vulgarly esteem'd and put to death as Enemies to all Religion But if this were the State of the Heathens proceedings against the Christians it is evident that they concern'd not themselves to enquire after the Christian pretences it was matter enough for Condemnation that they would not Worship their Gods § XL. Neither were these Tryals and Executions set on foot so much by the Governours themselves as by the rage and fury of the People that for the most part forced the Emperours and Pro-consuls to put the Laws in Execution Romani nec ulli magis depostulatores Christianorum quà m vulgus Planè coeteri Ordines pro Authoritate religiosi ex fide Nihil hosticum de ipso Senatu de Equite de Castris de Palatiis ipsis spirat It is the Vulgar Rabble sayes Tertullian that are the vehement Accusers of Christians the other orders are civil and courteous in their respective Offices neither the Senate nor the Knights nor the Camp nor the Court breath out any hostility against us And this was the meaning of Trajan's Rescript to Pliny that he cared not that the Christians should be sought for but if the People accused them the Laws must be Executed And though his Successour Adrian under whose Reign the next Persecution Commenced were as great a Zealot for the Grecian Rites as he was a Pretender to their Learning and was himself initiated into their Eleusinian Mysteries yet he was rather the occasion than the cause of the Persecution For that zeal that he had shewn to the rites of Greece encouraged the Common People to fall foul upon the Christians and therefore Eusebius ascribes the beginning of this Persecution not to the Emperour but to the forwardness of some ill-minded men But the fury of the People run so high that the Government was forced to give a stop to it in so much that Serenius Granianus Pro-consul of Asia wrote to the Emperour in behalf of the Christians that it was very unjust that for no Crime but onely at the out-cry of the People they should be put to death For that was grown the common Custom to Sacrifice them to popular Tumults and Meetings at the publick Theatre which is the meaning of that Proverbial saying Christianos ad Leones viz. that if the People askt it at the publick Shews the Pro-consuls and Presidents were forced to yield to their demands as they did not onely in this but innumerable other cases Nothing being more common both at Rome and in the several Provinces than for the People to extort what they pleased from their Governours at these Tumultuary meetings And therefore to prevent their Barbarity upon these occasions against the Christians the Emperour returns this serious and severe Answer to Minutius Fundanus that immediately succeeded Granianus I received the Letters which were sent me by the most excellent Serenius Granianus your Predecessour Nor do I look upon it as a matter fit to be passed over without due enquiry that the Men may not be needlesly disquieted nor Informers have occasion and encouragement of fraudulent accusations Ministred unto them Wherefore if the Subjects of our Provinces be able openly to appear to their Indictments against the Christians so as to answer to them before the Publick Tribunal let them take that course and not deal by Petition and meer noise and clamour it being much fitter if any accusation be brought that you should have the Cognisance of it If any one shall prefer an Indictment and prove that they have transgressed the Laws then give you sentence against them according to the quality of the crime But if it shall appear that he brought it onely out of spite and malice take care to punish that Man according to the mischief of his own Intention A Copy of which Epistle he sent to several other Governours of Provinces from whence it appears that the Magistrates themselves were so far from being satisfied with any rigorous proceedings against the Christians that they did it onely to gratifie the clamours of the People and interposed their Authority to skreen them from their fury And Tertullian reckons up several Presidents to Scapula who either avoided or refused to proceed against the Christians and particularly Pudens out of regard to this Reseript But though it was able to check and bridle their fury during that Emperour's Reign yet it broke out again in the time of his Successour Antoninus Pius and extorted from him a more severe Letter to the States or Common Council of Asia Prohibiting all such Wild and Barbarous proceedings against the Christians But still the Laws are in force and ready to be seized upon at all turns by publick zeal or private malice and so they were under the succeeding Reign of M. Aurelius For whilst himself was busie in his Wars several Persecutions were raised in several Parts of the Empire at Smyrna where Policarp at Rome where Justin Martyr and at Lyons where Pothinus suffer'd Policarp was meerly Sacrificed to the Out cry of the People Away with the Atheists let Policarp be sought for upon which being apprehended by a Fanatick and hot-headed Justice of Peace he was put to death by virtue of the Law that commanded to Sacrifice to the Gods and to swear by the Emperour's Genius Justin was Prosecuted by
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