of his Nurture Nazareth of his greatest Residence in the time of his Ministry Galilee The Confederacy of Herod and Pilate of Jew and Gentile against him the Treason of him that eat of his Bread that dipt in his Dish the Price at which he was sold the Purchase of the Potters Field with that price of Blood All the Puctilio's of his Passion The Piercing his Hands Feet and Side The Distension of his Sacred Body upon the Cross so as one might tell all his bones the Marring of his blessed Face with Buffeting spitting and besmearing with blood trickling down from his Thorn-crowned Head his being numbred with Transgressors his being Crucified between two Thieves the Souldiers dividing his Garments among them their casting Lots upon his Vesture The Jews scornful and malicious deportment towards him hiding their face from him turning their backs upon him rejecting him as not their King when Pilate presented him their giving him Vinegar to drink The very form of words wherewith they taunted him were by Prophecy put into their Mouthes He trusted in God that he would save him let bim deliver him if he will have him Mat. 27. 43. Psal. 22. 8. His making his Grave with the rich his being buried like a noble man for he was before hand by Mary Magdalen anointed against his Burial with most precious Spikenard was perfum'd imbalm'd by Nicodemus a Ruler of the Jews wound in fine linnen by Joseph of Arimathea and laid in that new Tomb which that Honourable Person had hewne out of a Rock in his Garden for himself and to make his Funeral more august the Chief Priests and Pharisees contribute a guard of Souldiers to watch his blessed Corps and take order that his Sepulchre be made fast with a hewen Stone filling the mouth and fastned with Cramps of Iron into the sides of his Tomb the most honourable form of entombing All which things the Evangelists do therefore affirm to be done that the Scripture might be fulfilled and our Jesus demonstrated to be the Person of whom those infallible Oracles spake The far greatest and most substantial part of those things not being applicable in truth to the persons that spake them David in his own person suffered not such like things any more then he did not see corruption as Saint Peter argues And therefore as the same Apostle dictates those Prophesies were not of private interpretation that is as Saint Philip in answer to the Eunuchs question resolves the Prophets did not speak those things of themselves but of some other man to wit the Messias 2. Can any thing be imagined more purely contingent than those things Is it conceivable how so long before there could be a Foreknowledge of their Futurity by the Prophets inspection into their Natural Causes The Learned Vossius de Origine idol lib. 2. cap. 48. doth explode the madness of some Modern Astrologers who affirm that all the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles or any body else were the natural and necessary effects of some Conjunctions of Planets and were not ashamed to ascribe to the Horoscope the Birth of Christ of a Virgin and all his stupendious works and those great Changes which have faln out in respect of Religion ascribing the rise of the Jewish to the Conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn of the Chaldean to the Conjunction of Jupiter with Mars the Aegyptian to the Conjunction of Jupiter with the Sun The Mahometan to the Conjunction of Jupiter with Venus the Christian to the Conjunction of Jupiter with Mercury and the Antichristian to Jupiters Conjunction with the Moon all which is to be read in Albumazar lib. 2. de mag conjectul tract 1. dissect 4. Say that such Conjunctions might possibly incline those parts of the World under the Dominion of their Influence to imbrace those several Religions yet he must be of a Facile Faith that can believe it was possible for our Divine Prophets to read their Predictions in the Book of the Starrs who if they had had an everlasting Almanack in their heads from what Positions of the Heavenly Bodies could they have Prognosticated the concentring of so many emergencies upon one man from what Conjunction of Planets or Lincaean inspection into Matters of State a Book more tost and to better purpose than the other by those prudent Judicial Astrologers who had a mind not to shame their Profession could David foresee the agreement of Herod and Pilate who the day before were at enmity and on the day of our Saviours Passion were made Friends and that in order to our Saviours Crucifixion at Jerusalem which according to Gods determinate Counsel revealed to David could not be effected till those Rulers under the Gentile Empire stood up in their Masters quarrel and with the people of Israel took councel together against the Lord and his Christ as the Church dictates Act. 4. 25. 27. From what sowr and crabbed Aspect of the Planets could David foretell their turning of Drink into Vinegar From what influences the distilling of the Blood of God from Christs Head Hands Side Feet In what Ephemeris did the Prophet read that astonishing Darkness that invelopt the Earth Briefly in what Cause but the Will of God revealed to them by himself could they see those strange events that fell out that one Year that acceptable Year of the Lord that one Week that great Week as the Ancients stiled it that one Day that Day of Redemption Let the most expert Astrologer erect a Scheme set up all the Lamps of Heaven in that posture wherein they stood at our Saviours Passion and try if he can by their Light discover the least appearance or likelihood of a reason that in such a juncture such things must fall out by the course of nature That at that time for instance those Prophetick Forms which the Jews used in derision of Christ that had hung as it were frozen at the Prophets lips so many hundred of years should be thawn and drop into the Mouthes of that Generation That the Legs of the Thieves should be broken and not our Saviours That his Side should be pierced and not theirs c. 3. Those Prophecies are so plain and the Application of them in their Effects to the Blessed Jesus so natural as we need not strain courtesie with the Letter it self to wrest it from its most obvious sence in making the Buckle and Thong meet in making the accomplishment kiss the Oracles Here need no Salvoes of the Prophets Credit by understanding them to speak figuratively The Text is so easie as it needs no other Gloss than the plain History of the Gospel the same words the same things which the one foretells to be done the other tells as done Bethlehem answers Bethlehem Nazareth Nazareth Aegypt Aegypt as face answers face David declaring the case of his own soul used the phrase of Broken Bones Metaphorically to shew the dislocation of its Faculties by his great Fall But Moses in describing
armenti comes primisque nondum cornibus findens cutem cervice subito celsus fronte arduus gregem paternam ducit From David's Off-spring may arise a David that may repair the Ruines of the Kingdom These yet Lambs whose budding Horns have not yet cut the Skin may in time grow Rams and in the Front of their deluded Followers batter down the Walls of Rome An adorable depth of Providence in the Net which the Jews laid for Christ was their own Feet taken their whosoever makes himself a King is no Friend to Caesar was a manifest Reflection upon the Oriental Prophecy of a King to arise in Judea their Gloss upon it betrayed the Holy Jesus into the hands of the Roman Power their Plea against King Jesus was they for their part had Bel. Jud. 7. 29. no King but Caesar and if Pilate would not condemn him as an Enemy to Caesar who gave out himself to be the King of the Jews let him look how he would answer it before Caesar their refusing Jesus of Nazareth for their Lord was the Meritorious Cause of their Ruine the Offence they gave God And their refusing Caesar for their Lord for that King mentioned in that Prophecy was the occasion of their Ruine and the unpardonable Offence which Caesar took at them § 3. A State-Maxim communicated by Vespasian to his Successors whom we find so vigilant over Occurrences in Judea as they seem to be startled at every Blast blustering in Lebanon's Forrest no less than if it had portended the casting down of the Cedar of the Empire and the exalting of the then low Shrub and Sear-Stem of David Domitian before he came to the Emperial Crown had upon reading that of Virgil Impia quam caesis gens est epulata Juvencis conceived so great an Abhorrency of Blood-shed as he was about making a Decree in the beginning of his Reign against sacrificing of Oxen to the immortal Gods Suet. Domit. 9. but by that time he had learn'd Arcana Imperii he can without Regret sacrifice to his own Jealousie and the safety of Goddess Rome not only the Blood of innocent Lambs reputed to be of the Royal Line of Judah but even of those that attempted to communicate their Genealogies to the Knowledg of the World whereof we have an account in Suetonius Domit. 10. if I mistake him not where he writes of Domitian's crucifying Hermogenes Tarsensis and the Transcribers of his History because of some Figures or Schemes he had drawn up in it for I take this Hermogenes to be that Countrey-man of St. Paul whom he 2 Tim. 1. 15. mentions among those that had forsaken him and departed from him I suppose to Judaism and whom Dorothens reckons for an Heretick and his Heresie to have been the abetting of Jewish Fables and Genealogies relating to the Messias This starting of new Game and raising of new Hydra's Heads as Domitian conceived it the Empire could not but look upon with an evil Eye as that which would find their Hatchet as endless Work as those Genealogies were Perhaps Metius Pomposianus his imperatoria genesis and depictus orbis terrae for which he was banished were judged to be of the same Tendency Suet. Domit. 10. Quod habere imperatoriam genesin depictum terrarum orbem vulgo ferebatur To be sure the Story which Eusebius relates paints him as casting a jealous Eye upon David's Stock He commanded saith he Eccles. hist. 3. 17. such as lineally descended of David to be put to Death among whom some Christians were brought before him and accused to have come from the Ancestors of Jude our Lord's Brother and therefore of David's Line of whom the Emperour fearing the coming of the King of the Jews as Herod had done demanded whether they were of the Stock of David which they acknowledging he enquires what Moneys and Land they had and finding by their Answer that they had no Moneys and but thirty nine Acres of Land apiece out of which by the Sweat of their Brows they earned their dayly Bread of the Truth of which Answer the Brawniness of their Hands contracted by hard Labour was Demonstration sufficient He question'd them about Christs Kingdom where and when and in what manner it should come to which they answering It was not Earthly but Coelestial that it should be at the End of the World when he would come to Judg the Quick and the Dead he not only dismist them as too mean Persons to be his Rivals but stayed the Persecution formerly raised against the Church perceiving he had no Ground to fear that the Christians would raise any Commotions in the Empire upon the Account of the Eastern Kingdom Which yet he so much feared from the Circumcision as when he was inform'd that some of them lived incognito in Rome he caused a privy Search to be made of all suspected Persons among whom Suetonius reports that when he was a Youth he saw the Emperour's Attourney in open Court search one Old Man of Ninety Years Suet. Domit. 12. Judaicus siscus acerbissime actus ad quem deferebantur qui dissimulata origine interfuisse me adolescentulum memini cum a procuratore frequentissimoque concilio inspiceretur nonagenarius senex an circumcisus esset So vigilant was he over the Affairs of that Nation as he will not suffer so much as one decrepit Jew to live from under the Observation of his Eye fearing that the least Spark if it were raked up under the Ashes of Obscurity might live to an Opportunity of setting the Empire on Fire Under Trajan Simeon Bishop of Jerusalem was put to Death for no other Crime but that he was accused to have been of the Blood Royal and lineally descended from David's Loins Euseb. ec hist. 3. 29. an Argument that Trajan cast as envious an Eye as his Predecessors had done upon the Eastern Oracle and upon that Account on Christians but unjustly Though he had Reason enough to be jealous of the Jews who blustered in his eighteenth Year Dionis Nerva Trajanus as if they had been possessed of a Raging Seditious and Fanatick Spirit and kindled so Firie a Sedition at Alexandria and Cyrene under their upstart Kings Lucas and Andrew as could not be quench'd but by the Blood of many Myriads of them with what more than Anabaptistical Cruelty the Cyrenians sought to establish their Mock-Christ King Dion in the Life of Trajan declares telling us that their Sword made no difference betwixt Romans and Grecians that not content with their Swords drinking of Blood themselves eat the Flesh of the Slain with whose Skins apparell'd and Entrails yet bleeding girt they ran up and down like Furies and birkened those whom they met with from the Rump to the Crown of the Head putting to Death above twenty Thousand The Cyprian Jews as the same Author relates at the same time and upon the same occasion used that more than Savage Cruelty in Butchering twenty five Thousand in that Island as produc'd the
this than other Cases brought before them as they apprehended the great Interest of the Empire to be more concern'd in this than in others the Trial of the Title to that Crown which the Eastern Prophecy made promise of cost more Blood than has been shed in umpiring the Titles of all other Crowns So that upon this Account the Tumults in Judea occasioned that severe Scrutiny of what the Church reported as would have dash'd her out of Countenance had those Reports been false and have render'd it impossible for her to shuffle any thing into the Story of Christ which would not abide the severest Test. This Medium we have seen attested under the Hands of Secular Historians of that Disaffection to Christian Religion as it could not but be far from their thoughts wittingly to let any thing fall from their Pens that might be interpreted or applied to the advantage of the Christian Cause yet he that guided the Asse's Mouth to rebuke the madness of the Prophet hath order'd the Pagan's Pen to draw that Image of those Times as it will puzzle the most daring Atheist to invent any probable Salve for his absurd Hypothesis that possibly the Apostles as well as the Promoters of other Religions might impose upon the World a Conceipt grounded merely upon his Ignorance of those Times and especiall the then great Interest of the Empire which that it put the Empire upon a strict Enquiry into what the Evangelists preached if what hath been observed be not sufficient to convince his Reason I shall demonstrate it to the Atheists Sense from matter of Fact in the Instance of St. Paul's Appearance and Apology before Nero the only Emperour except that short liv'd Beast Calignla and that never-living Fool Claudius whom I have omitted in my Discourse of the Emperours Jealousie the over Judean Assairs relating to the Eastern Prophecy and that purposely that I might in a peculiar Tractate handle St. Paul's appearing before him and therein clear this Hypothesis CHAP. XI St. Paul's Apology before Nero was in Answer to some Interrogatories put to him through the Suggestion of his Adversaries touching the matter of the Eastern Prophecy Ex. gr Is not this Jesus whom thou preachest to be risen again from the Dead that Jesus of Nazareth whom ye call King of the Jews § 1. Tertullus his Charge against St. Paul a Ring-leader of Nazarites Lysias his Interrogatory art not thou that Alexandrian Egyptian Nero put in hopes of that Kingdom which St. Paul preach'd Christ to have obtained Poppaea Nero ' s Minion Disciples slink away § 2. Why St. Paul stiles Nero a Lion of the Kingdom of God The Lions Courage quails at St. Paul ' s Apology Nero after that trusts more to his Art than Gypsies Prophecies § 3. St Paul ' s Appearance within Nero's Quinquennium Pallas Foelix his Brother and Advocate out of Favour in Nero ' s third Festus hastens St. Paul ' s Mission to Rome the Jews his Trial. § 4. Nero not yet a Lion in Cruelty but in Opinion Judah ' s Lion St. Paul ' s Doctrine tryed to the bottom before Nero desponds An Apology for this Pilgrimage through the Holy Age its Use § 1. FEstus who sent St. Paul bound to Rome and to whom it seemed unreasonable to send a Prisoner and not withal to signifie the Crimes laid against him Act. 25. 27. thus states it to Agrippa Paul affirmed Jesus whom the Jews said was dead to be alive Now Christ's Resurrection necessarily implies that he was that Son of God whom God had decreed should have the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost Parts of the Earth for his Possession Besides Festus could not be ignorant that Tertullus the Jews Advocate had laid this to St. Paul's Charge in open Court that he was a Ring-leader of the Sect of the Nazarens that is them that held Jesus of Nazareth to be the promised King of the Jews Now this having been the declared Sence of the Jewish Antagonists before Pilat and the urging of that upon him the thing that forc'd him against his Conscience to give Sentence against our Saviour and Festus having had so fair a Warning of the Jews watching Opportunities of accusing the Roman Deputies to Caesar by their accusing his immediate Predecessor Foelix would not sure give them that Advantage against himself which his concealing so main a point of their Accusation and an Article so nearly concerning Caesar's Crown would have administred 2. Lysias at St. Paul's Apprehension perceiving he could speak Greek that is was of the Grecizing or Alexandrian Sect questions him whether he were not that Egyptian that is Alexandrian Jew who the other Day made an Uproar For under Foelix this Egyptian among many others by Pretext of Miracles and Inchantments did seduce the unwary Multitude into an Opinion that he was the Christ. Now this Question art not thou that Fellow who the other Day gave himself out to be the promised Messiah the King of the Jews coming first out of the Captains Mouth argues what lay uppermost on his Heart as to the faithful Discharge of his Service to Caesar this being either particularly given in Charge or concluded on by his own Rational Deductions from that Juncture of Affairs that the Roman Ministers of State should chiefly fix their Eyes upon such like Emergencies as boaded the fulfilling of the Eastern Prophecy We may therefore without offering Violence to our Reason from the Method of Lysias his proceeding in the Examination of St. Paul at his Attachment calculate the Order of Nero's Process at his Argument and draw this Conclusion That Nero as we say Christned his own Child first first inform'd himself of what most nearly concern'd his own Interest by propounding Interrogatories of the same Importance with that Question of Lycias 3. Those Expressions in the Predictions of the Fortune-tellers in Suetonius ut destitueretur destituto ei c. they told Nero that after he had been deserted of his own Subjects and deprived of the Emperial Crown the Crown of Judea should be set upon his Head and with that the Sovereignty of the World are so exactly like the Language of the Prophets fore-telling that the great Shepherd must first be smitten and his Flock scattered from him before he was to gather all Nations into his Fold that the great King must first suffer before he was to enter into his Glory As the Suggestion of such like hopes to Nero could hardly proceed from any but a Jew and a Jew well read in their own Prophets or in the Satyrist Phrase Interpres Legum Solimarum For in those Writings only is declared the two-fold Estate of Messiah his Examination and his Exaltation and both of them in such seeming Hyperboles as the Jew to this Day cannot imagine how they can possibly meet in one and the same Person From which Consideration I am induc'd to think that the quidam those Individuums Vagmus in Suetonius who promis'd to Nero
who were upon the place where the things reported were done If you say this was but a colour and mere pretence to gain the repute of men hating a lye that so they might more easily insinuate the belief of their Stories into their credulous and prepossess'd Hearers that surmise will be answer'd beyond all possibility of a rational Reply by producing clear Evidences of their actual conforming and pertinacious adhering to those Principles against the strongest Temptations to wave them that could possibly be laid in their way Vide quà m sollicitè Paulus distinguat quae à se sunt quae à Domino 1 Cor. 7. 10 11. quà m formidet dicere quae vidit in corpore an extrà corpus viderit 2 Cor. 12. 2. Grotius Quam probabilitatem habet talium documentorum auditores suspicari mentitos quaecunque suum praeceptorem effecisse testificati sunt aut quà m credibile faciant si putent illos omnes sibi inter se consensisse in mendacium c. Euseb. demonst Evang. 3. 7. Observe saith Grotius how carefully the Apostle distinguisheth betwixt what he saith and what the Lord saith how fearful he is to determine whether he was in the body or out of the body when he was rapt up Have we the least reason saith Eusebius to suspect that the hearers of such instructions did feign whatsoever they testifie their Master to have done or is it in the least probable that they should all conspire together to lye But let us here what Pagan Writers give in evidence here Pliny being appointed by the Emperour Trajan to take special cognizance of the Causes of Christians and to give him the best information thereabout which his utmost diligence in enquiring could arrive to gives him this account of them That in their Assemblies for Divine Worship they used so solemnly to bind themselves at the receiving of the holy Sacrament not to falsifie their word but to speak the truth as he could not induce any of them by any methods of either cruelty or flattery that he could invent to say they were not Christians Plinii Epist. lib. 10. ep 103. In so much that Trajan gave order that from his Ministers of State should procede in examining the Causes of Christians upon this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That if any of them that were accused being ask'd whether he were a Christian should say he was not he should forthwith be dismist as not guilty of the charge laid against him Trajanus Plinio epist. 104. And this grounded upon Pliny's Observation Nam ad hoc cogi non possunt qui sunt reverà Christiani for they that are so indeed cannot be forced to deny themselves to be Christians but would persevere to the last gasp in the midst of the greatest torments to roar out this good Confession I am a Christian I tell thee bloody tormentor who I am thou wouldst by the rack force me to deny my self to be what I am I cannot I dare not lye I am a Christian. Tear off my flesh with hooks break my bones with strappadoes pull asunder my joynts with skrews while thou leaves me a tongue in my head I must speak the truth I cannot but tell thee to thy face I am a Christian I worship God through Jesus Christ Tertul. apol 21. dicimus palà m dicimus vobis tormentibus dicimus lacerati cruentati vociferamus Deum colimus per Christum c. Could a more feeling proof be given of their abominating a lye than this They who would rend their Garments at Acclamations made to themselves as Gods that would not take to but spurn at divine honours laid at their feet will rather have the skin torn off their flesh their flesh off their bones their bones by continued and lingring pains drain'd of marrow than suffer the most exquisite tortures to rack from them that self-officious Lye or so much as a consent by silence to them who would have them say that they were not Christians The greatest testimony of a tenacious love to Truth that ever was exhibited what could tempt them to recede from it whom assurance of Life exemption from the torturing Rack and the horror of the most grim-fac'd Death that wittiest malice could contrive could not tempt Balaam put in a good Caution for his speaking truth when for all his love to the wages of unrighteousness he assured Balak That if he would give him an house-full of Silver and Gold he durst not speak more or less than what God should put into his mouth But the Primitive Church put in a far greater pledge limb and life it self for her Veracity And yet this was all the inducement they can possibly be imagin'd to have to persist in their Lye if the Gospel be a Lye as Eusebius excellently Demonst. Evang. 3. 7. Non enim exiguum erit hujus audaciae proemium siquidem non vulgares nos pro tantis certaminibus manent coronae sed quae supplicia videlicet à legibus omnium hominum ut par est contradicentibus injuncta est vincula tormenta carceres ignis ferrum cruces boluae ad quae omnia promptissimo animo est accedendum iisque malis eundum obvià m intrepidè quae praeceptorem nostrum nobis pro exemplo ostentant quid enim pulchrius quà m nulla ratione diis hominibus fieri inimicos c. We have reason sure to persist thus inflexibly in asserting this truth of the Gospel for we know we are to reap no small reward of this boldness to receive no vulgar Crowns for such strivings but those punishments to speak plainly which by the Laws of all men are adjudged meet to be inflicted upon those that contradict them bonds racks goals fire sword crosses and wild beasts To all which we come with a most ready mind and without all fear go to meet those evils that present our Master to us for an example you must think sure we take a great deal of delight in making our selves without all reason enemies to the Gods and men c. If we had not assurance of the Truth which we profess and did not so far abhorr to conceal much more to deny what we know is Truth as rather than do so to save our lives we persevere to our last breath in bearing witness to it It was a truly Christian and Heroick Answer well beseeming the Royal Champion and Defender of the Apostolick Faith which our late King of blessed Memory Charles the First gave to a person who counsell'd him to temporize with his Rebels in a dissembling compliance with those their not only unjust but impious Proposals which his truly tender and rightly informed Conscience disgusted telling his Majesty he might after he had reestablish'd himself in the possession of his just Rights and the Affections of his then abused Subjects watch an opportunity of retracting those extorted Concessions Oh Friend replies the King laying his hand upon his pious heart there is that here
Writings said he would speak of all things she acts her part here so poorly as she deserves to be hiss'd off the Stage and make way for Religion Such things as these we rather desire to know than do know saith Velleius in Ciceron de natura Deorum lib. 1. Quae talia suxt ut optata magis quà m inventa videantur Sciscitor cur mundi aedificatores repentè extiterint innumerabilia ante saecula dormirent non enim si mundus non erat saecula nulla erant saecula dico non ea quae dierum noctiúmque numero annuis cursibus conficiuntur sed fuit quaedam ab infinito tempore aeternitas quam nulla temporum circumscriptio metiebatur spatio verò qualis ea fuerat intelligi non potest quòd nè in cogitationem quidem cadit ut fuerit tempus aliquod nullum cùm tempus esset Isto igitur tam immenso spatio quaero Balbe cur Pronoea vestra cessaverit Velleius in Cicer. de nat deor l. 1. that is in brief why was the World made no earlier Cicero's Eloquence never stammer'd so his Inventions were never so nonplus'd as when he would describe the Order and Method of the Creation of the World in his Book de Universitate where he becomes so vain in his Imagination and plays the fool so with Philosophical Wisdom as I wonder not that Velâ—eius should say à Philone didicistis nihil scire Ye Philosophers have learn'd of your Masters to know nothing in Cicer. de nat deorum l. 1. Or that Cotta should tell Balbus after his large Discourse of Providence Non igitur adhuc intelligo hoc esse credo equidem sed nihil docent Stoici I am not one jot wiser for all thy reasons I believe indeed what thou sayest is true but the Stoicks do not teach the reason of it Upon which Lactantiuss observes Tullius expositis horum omnium de mortalitate immortalitate animae c. sententâ—â— harum inquit sententiarum quae vera sit Deus aliquis viderit Lactan. de div praem 7. 8. And hath this Note upon Anaxagoras who affirm'd the Snow to be black Hic est ilie qui se idcirco natum esse dixit ut solem coelum videret qui in terra nihil videbat sole lucente de fals sap l. 3. cap. 23. This is be that said he was born to contemplate the Sun and Heaven and yet he could not in the clear Sun-shine see what lay at his foot § 4. Moses a better Philosopher than Cartesius or any of the Mechanicks But Religion no sooner drops from her sacred Lips the first word we read in Moses and the Eagle-wing'd Evangelist In the beginning was the Word all things were made by it than she is received with general acclamations And by that time she had utter'd Let them have dominion over the Fish of the sea and over the Fowl of the Air c. Reason her self claps her hands and cries plaudite that natural Logick that 's every man's Birth-right adores this rising Sun whose resplendent Beams discover those latent Reasons her self could not grope out and welcoms these discoveries with with a thankful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with as great an exuberancy of joy as Pythagoras conceiv'd when upon his finding out some Philosophical Experiment he sacrificed a whole Oxe to the Muses He had been more just had he crown'd the Fountain whence he drew better Conclusions than the rest of Philosophers to wit the sacred Philosophy of Moses Cicero de natura deorum l. 3. pag. 149 Ingenuously confessing that had she not ploughed with God's Heifer she should never have found out these Riddles of his Providence Tatianus amongst the reasons he gives why he embrac'd the Christian Faith names this for one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The rational account which that gives of the Creation of all things Indeed it were to be wished that Moses his Philosophy were more studied as that which is the only Expedient fully to satisfie inquisitive minds For though the old and modern Mechanick Philosophy be of excellent use to inform us of those Causes which partake most of Matter and live next door to our Senses yet whoever follows them home will see them make doubles before they come to their seat at a stand in their progress through intermediate to the prime and only independent Cause and not able to joyn the inferiour Links of the Chain to that upper part of it that 's fasten'd to Jupiter's Chair How much more rationally is the Sun's Motion for instance deduced to the power of the divine Fiat to the force imprest upon it by that Omnipotent hand out of which it first came than either to those intelligences which Aristotle invented to move it as a Dog in a Wheel or such Jack-pullies and Weights of I know not what Atoms which our modern Wits have fancied for the Springs of his Motion After the same manner that that which Proclus calls the Soul of the Universe wheels about the Primum mobile staret si unquam stantem animam reperiret as he is quoted by Macrobius in som. Scipionis 1. 17. Of such whimsical Philosophers well saith Lactantius Multò sceleratiores qui arcana mundi hoc coeleste templum prophanare impiis disputationibus quaerunt de fals sapien l. 3. cap. 20. If it be accounted sacrilege to profane Temples of Wood and stone how much more impious are they who labour to prophane the secrets of Nature and this heavenly Temple the Universe with their godless Disputations I wonder that the Doctrine of Atoms blusheth not to see that variety and yet constancy of the admirably disposed Colours in Birds and Flowers that it is not overcome with smelling that variety of scents issuing from Herbs of different kinds which can with no more reason be deemed to be the Effects of the blind fortuitous Concourse of Atoms than the first Propunder of this Hypothesis could expect that that Basket of Herbs which his Wife threw up to the roof of his Hall should fall down in the form of a well-order'd Sallad into a dish she set on the floor We may believe that the Painter's Pencil thrown in a rage at the lips of the picture of an Horse might perchance supply the defect of Art and make the lively representation of Foam with the same degree of certainty as we believe the blind man caught the Hair But he that would attempt to perswade us that the whole Horse was drawn after that manner must first repute us more doltish than Asses To whom can I better resemble these Kitchin-Doctors than to Children at a Puppet-play who minding the various motions of the Images and fancying a spring thereof within themselves independent to that hand which behind the Curtain puts them upon and directs them in those Motions beat their brains and set their fancies a work to find out the Causes of such strange Effects and after all the fluctuations of their mind produce nothing but froth
Whereas to them that observe what influence the Artificers hand within the Veil hath upon those Engins the whole series of the Causes of those Motions are naked and bare-fac'd Plutarch gives Plato this commendation that finding fault with Anaxagoras for immersing his thoughts too deep into Natural Causes and too eagerly pursuing the necessity of those Effects which happen to Natural Bodies he totally omitted the efficient and final the prime and chief of all Principles and avoiding the other Extreme which some fell into to wit Poets and Divines who only minded the Supreme Cause the rational and voluntary Efficient never came to the Natural and Necessary Causes of things These first ascribing all the second nothing to the Perpessions Collisions Mutations and Mixtures of Natural Beings among themselves Plato waveing these Rocks was the first that joyn'd together the Indagation of both thess sorts of Causes de oracul defect pag. 677. Hitherto appertains that saying of St. Austin De Trinitate l. 3. cap. 2. Itaque licuit vanitati Philosophorum etiam causis aliis ea tribuere vel veris sed proximis cùm omninò videre non possent superiorem caeteris omnibus causam id est voluntatem Dei vel falsis non ipsa quidem pervestigatione corporalium rerum atque motionum sed à sua suspicione errore prolatis The vduity of Philosophers took lieve to attribute these effects to Causes either true but next to hand seing they could not at all discern the supreme Cause of all the Will of God or false and such as were not produced by the pervestigation of Corporeal Matter or Motion but from their own suspicion and errour Were it not that with the Tradition of Religion God hath communicated to Mankind general Maxims to help us in our search into the Nature of things we could never attain to the certain knowledge of any thing And therefore we see all the Grecian Philosophy that was not grounded upon Tradition dwindled at last into Scepticism and veil'd the Bonnet to that of Pythagoras Socrates and Plato who travel'd for theirs into those places where the Tradition had been best preserv'd So true is that Oracle which the Indian Gymnosophist delivered to Socrates in his Reply to the answer that Socrates made to this Question By what means a man might become wise If he consider after what manner it becomes man to live saith Socrates To which the Indian smiling gives this retort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No man can understand the nature of humane and mundane things that 's ignorant of divine Euseb. praeperat Evang. referente Grinaeo in praefatione ad Irenaeum Upon which Point the golden Tongue'd Lactantius elegantly Veritatem divinae Religionis arcanum Philosophi attigerunt sed aliis refellentibus defendere id quod invenerant nequiverunt quià singulis ratio non quadravit nec ea quae vera senserant in summam redigere potuerunt de divino praem 7. 7. The Philosophers made a shift to touch with the fingers end Truth and the Mystery of divine Religion but they could not grasp them so close as to hold them as to defend what they had found against opposers because Reason did not square to every one of their Placits singly nor were they able to bring into one Sum and subordinate System their true sentiments And it is Fernelius his observation in his Preface de abditis rerum causis that the latter Platonicks Numenius Philo Plotinus Iamblicus Proclus Quicquid de divinis rebus magnificum attigerunt illud à Christianis viris Joanne Paulo Hirotheo Dionysio furtim excerpsisse ut inde abstrusa Platonis dicta clariùs lucidiusque interpretarentur in verum sensum deducerent attain'd to the knowledge of nothing in divine things that was magnificent but what they stole from Christian Philosophers by whose spoils they were enriched with ability more clearly to interpret and deduce to a true sence the dark sayings of Plato But I digress How the World was produced and how man came to be Sovereign of the rest of the Creatures Reason was in pursuit after but could never attain to the knowledge of till Religion prompts her till sacred Writ informs her That God made man after his own Image gave him that Dominion made him Lord of the Universe as being of that Nature of which the Son of God was to assume Flesh into a perpetual Union with himself which being the highest preferment that the Creature is capable of and an Estate which Angels shall never aspire unto speaks it no wonder that God should make his Angels ministring Spirits for the good of Man But we need not now go so far as the Reason of God's disposal 't is enough we have found out Gods disposal as the ground of Man's Sovereignty Weigh this with all besides that ever was said upon this Question and they are lighter than vanity and let Reason use the utmost of her skill in descanting upon this ground she shall never be able to find the least flaw in it § 5. The longest Sword or over-reaching Wit conveigh no Right Self-love prompted Reason to play the part of an Oratour handsomly to declaim probably upon Man's Dominion over Beasts but how he came to command Spirits she could not deem And that his Power over inferiour Creatures should extend it self to the taking away of their Lives though it was practically concluded by all Nations yet I could never see one sound natural Reason produced for it and do here solemnly challenge the profoundest Atheist to give one irrefragable Argument which he is not beholding to Religion for in defence of that Dominion he daily exerciseth over his Fellow-Creatures and for ought he knows if he travel no farther than Athens to learn his Betters what Staff can he find to beat his Dog with that his Skullion may not as well lay about his own Shoulders what can he plead for his Butchering a Sheep that another may not with as much reason urge against his own Throat How will he handle the Knife with which he carves a Capon and not cut his own Hands too unless it be hasted with Scripture Reasons Bar these and abstain from Flesh till Pythagoras be confuted and thou must keep Lent all thy Life be it as long as Metbuselah's wave these Topicks and where wilt thou gather Arguments to Silence Celsus Orig. in Celsum lib. 4. calum 29 30 31. or Plutarch de solertia animalium while they make these Assertions their Theme Some Creatures as Bees and Ants excel Man in the Science of Government others in the Art of Divination others in Religion as the Elephant that they are dearer to the Gods have a more sacred Converse among themselves than Men c. If the Humane Soul were not better distinguish'd from the Bestial by its Original and Fountain by Gods breathing it into us than by its Effects and Productions we should be hard put to it to prove our Superiority of Reason
Heroes of Assyria His custom of sacrificing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was observ'd by Alexander and the Romans who upon no other account sacrificed at Jerusalem to the God of the Jews when they sojourned there as out of Apollonius Rhodius his Scholiast is observed by Scaliger in Eusebii chronic num 1685. Upon this account the Crime which Creon charged Polinices with was That he attempted to overthrow the Land of the Theban Gods and their Laws their Laws extended no further than their Lands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 took their name Sophoclis Antigone § 5. How far this supposition of Gods assigning the Regions of the World to the Guardianship of particular Angels may stand with Scripture-grounds either according to Mr. Meed's Scheme who applies to this purpose that Text of Zachary These are the serene eyes that run to and fro through the world or according to the compute of some of the Ancients who apply to it that Text of Moses When the most high divided to the nations their inheritance when he separated the sons of Adam he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel in the Exposition of St. Jerome in Daniel cap. 7. vis 6. That is as Israel was divided into Twelve Tribes so the World was parted into Twelve majores Gentes Ancient Nations and an Angel set as President over each of them one of them conceived by Daniel to be called the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia Jerom in Dan. 10. Princeps autem regni Persarum restitit mihi 21 diebus Videtur mihi hic esse Angelus cui Persis credita 〈◊〉 juxt à illud Quando dividebat altissimus gentes statuit terminos gentium juxt à numerum Angelorum Dei faciens pro credit â sibi Provincia nè captivotum omnis populus dimitteretur enumerans peccata populi Judeorum quòd dimitti non deberent But the Prince of the kingdom of Persia resisted me one and twenty days This seems to me saith St. Jerome to be that Angel to whom Persia was concredited according to that When the Almighty divided the nations he appointed their bounds according to the number of the Angels of God an Agent for that Province that was committed to his trust pleading by commemorating before God the sins of the Jews that they might not be dismist out of Captivity to the Persian Empire And because there were Twelve ancient Nations hence these Presidents are altogether stiled by the Gentiles Duodecim Dii majorum gentium the Twelve Gods of the ancient Nations How far I say this Hypothesis in general and which of these ways of applying it is grounded on Scripture would carry me too far out of my way to discuss Origen lib. 5. contrà Celsum hath an excellent discourse upon this subject whom they that have a mind may consult That which at present I am commending to my Reader is the abstraction of Plato's Sentence from the Errors of those times wherewith he was born down yet so abstracted it may afford us the Genuine sence of the Philosophers touching the end of God's Incarnation viz. To communicate divine Oracles and to relieve Mankind by suffering that is to be in the Christian Dialect our Priest and Prophet our Lord-saviour Whether this is to be perform'd by piece-meal for several Nations by diverse Gods incarnate or at once for all by one according to the Dictates of the Philosophical Schools where they speak under the Rose out of the hearing of the Vulgar and are not biass'd with fear of going against the Current of the Popular Opinion is another Question and comes next to be discuss'd And let Plato's School determine it By the mouth of his Scholar Porphyry as malicious and potent an Adversary as the Christian Cause hath met with who affirms as he is quoted by St. Austin de Civit. 10. 23. that this was the Respond from the divine Oracle That the humane Soul cannot be purged by the most perfect Sacrifices offer'd to the very chief of the Celestial Gods the Sun or Moon but only by a Principle Upon which St. Austin hath this Animadversion Thou mightest have spared the labour of telling us that nothing can purge the Soul but a Principle after thou hadst said The Sun or Moon sollicited by the purest and every way compleatest Sacrifices could not do it for if they cannot who are the chief of the Heathen Gods sure 't is out of the reach of the underlings to do it Observe by the way rhat Ludovicus Vives translates Telesmata perfect Sacrifices but Selden makes them all one with Teraphims that is Images which were thought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 replenished with the Deities of those Gods they were dedicated to and whom they invocated after the performing of sacrifice before them Such an one was Pope Gerebert taught to make by the Saracens of Spain and our Bacon falsly reported to have erected Saving that the Teraphim was the head of a Man bearing the name of one Deity alone but the Telesmata had the Images and Names of all the Gods they could think of Such were those of Apollonius Tyaneus mention'd by Justin Martyr respond orthodox 24. such as Scaliger in his Epistle to Casaubon affirms he had frequently seen This therefore is manifestly the importance of Porphyry's Dictate That the most religious worshippers of all the known Gods cannot thereby be purged But what means Porphyry by a Principle That will best be discerned by observing with St. Austin that the Platonicks held Three Principles the Father the Intellect Mind or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father and the bond of these viz. the Spirit not the Soul of Man as Plotinus misinterprets it for that must have been postpon'd to the Father and his Mind whereas Plato interpones it that is makes the Spirit the bond or tie betwixt them Vide testimonium Platonis in Epimenide de Patre Filióque Plotini verba in libro quem inscripsit de tribus hypostasibus citata ab Eusebio in Praepar Evang. 11. 10. Numenii testimonia de Trinitate de primo Deo Deo Creatore Spiritu vivificante Thus also Zeno affirms Fate that is the necessary Being to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word God and the Soul And Plato himself in his 6. Book de Legibus brings in Socrates after he had discoursed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the one Good that is God telling Glaucus he will speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of him that is both the begotten of that Good and his express Image and in his Epistle to Hermius he hath these expressions swearing by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the maker of all things and the Lord-father of that Principle and Cause And in his Epinomides he mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word the most divine of all things by which the World was framed whom a wise man admiring is
now the Relation of the God of Heaven to the Jews is ceased so that that relative Title is not applicable de praesenti to him and the thing signified by it is a mere Idol And therefore Titus might in the name of the true God who sent him defie that Relation and trample upon the Jew's Confidence in a bare and and then insignificant Name the Relation being now out of doors Which if it had not been Divine Vengeance would not have slept all that while without giving some hints at least of God's displeasure not only against these Emperours but the Empire it self for killing and dissipating his sometimes flock As he manifestly did for its killing the Lord of Life whose Blood he vindicated upon the Roman State in his permitting Tiberius after the Passion of Christ to vent those to the Commonwealth destructive Vices which till then he had palliated in his setting over the Empire that raging wild Beast Caligula that noted Brute Claudius that Monster of men Nero in his involving the Empire in those bloody civil Wars under Galba Otho and Vitellius Whereas on the contrary as if their shedding the Blood of the Jews had expiated the Guilt of Christ's the Empire was never happier in any Succession of its Emperours than of those who were Instruments of the Jews ruine and their Successors § 4. Lastly where have been God's Mercies of old where the sounding of his Bowels towards his ancient People these so many hundred years while they have been scatter'd as Chaff before the Wind to all the Points in the Compass and made a Prey to the several Nations of the World among whom they have been sojourning all this while If that be not improperly called sojourning out of which that bewildred and benighted People shall never find Out-gate Would their Plea We are thine save us have been thus long unanswered had not the old Relation betwixt God and them been out of date Ever since Libanus open'd her doors that the Fire might devour her Cedars Zach. 11. 1. c. since the Temple built of the goodliest Cedars of Libanus opened its doors on the night on its own accord Joseph de Bel. Jud. l. 7. c. 2. to which Prodigy happening a little before the Temple's Ruine Rabbi Jochanan applied this Text of Zach. Dr. Lightfoot on the Fall of Jerusalem and the sober Jews interpreted it to import the burning of the Temple ever since this Prophecy and Prodigy took effect There has been an howling of the Fir-trees the Vulgar Jews of the Oaks of Bashan their Heads and Chieftains of their Shepherds their Priests Levites and Princes a roaring of the young Lions the Infants of the Seed Royal St. Jerom in Zach. 11. The whole Nation high and low have been crying mightily to Judah's God to return their Captivity to avenge their Blood But Ego non sum ego I am not I their Father's God will not now own the name of Judah's God that Title is a mere Idol a Nothing in the World there 's no such God in Heaven as Judah's God and they gain no more by invocating that Name than if they were blessing an Idol than if they were censing one of the Vanities of the Heathen who have Eyes and see not Ears and hear not there 's no voice no hearing no returns of answer but the eccho of that fatal and seal'd decree Zach. 11. I will no more pity you I will no more deliver you out of the hand of your king into whose hand I have delivered you I will not feed you that that dieth let it die I will no more plead your cause with those your possessors that slay you and hold themselves not guilty with those your shepherds that pity you not You once had a Shepherd that did pity you but you are gone astray from him and these into whose hands you are fallen will not pity you neither will I pity you to rescue you out of their merciless hands I will not scare them away from their Prey by my Judgments nihil mali pro tanta crudelitate patiebuntur as St. Jerom renders it out of the Septuagint they shall suffer no Punishment from me for all the cruelty which they exercise upon you Let them sell you and grow rich by your impoverishing let the Extortioner catch all you have let the stranger spoil your labour the Stranger to whom you lend the Creditour of whom you borrow Dr. Hamond in Psal. 109. vers 10. let whosoever you deal with oppress and injure you I will not right you I will give no other word of command concerning you to those whom in fury I set over you but this pasce gregem occisionis feed the Flock of Slaughter Let them graze till they be fat enough to kill nutriatur ut crescat qui posteà occidendus est If you spare and tolerate them to thrive and get Estates do it not out of clemency but with an eye to your own Profit non propter clementiam sed pretium reservati All the feeding you shall have shall be to make you fit for the Shambles Upon all which St. Jerom hath this Note Audi Judaee qui tibi spes vanissimas repromittis non audis dicentem Dominum atque firmantem non eruam te de manibus eorum quòd Aeterna sit apud Romanos tua futura Captivitas Et pascam pecus occisionis ut semper Judaei nutriantur ad mortem Hear oh Jew who dost again promise to thy self vain hopes of a return from this thy last Captivity and mindest not what the Lord saith and affirmeth I will not deliver thee out their hands That this thy Captivity by the Romans will be eternal feed the Flock of Slaughter that the Jews shall be always fed that they may be slaughter'd Sixteen hundred year's Experience hath commented upon these Menacies during which time the Jews have been a Prey to any would put out the hand for them Those of them that converse amongst the Eastern Christians go in danger of their Lives upon every tumultuous Assembly of of the common People and constantly every Easter wheresoever they be Insomuch as if a Jew do but stir out of doors betwixt Maundy-thirsday at Noon and Easter-Eve at night the Christians among whom they dwell though far fewer in number will be sure to stone them Heylin Geograph Palestine Wheresoever that Turba Multitude of No-people have their place of aboad they are without God without a King without Scepter Sheep scatter'd upon the Mountains without a Shepherd a prize to whomsoever will assault them a Generation hated of all men and hating all men whose hatred of Christ blind zeal for now-mortiferous Ceremonies and doting confidence in a dead Lyon a Messias yet to come put them daily upon those extravagant courses as scarce a week passeth wherein they do not render themselves obnoxious to the revenge of him that beareth the Sword and administer just occasion to Magistrates of proceeding against them either to