nay to invocate them more then God for God is not so often pray'd to as the Virgin Mary but that these blessed Creatures themselves as well as their deluded worshippers have been abused intolerably by the forgers of Miracles I shall instance but in one Doctrine more I might do it in many for there is hardly any one of their upstart Doctrines which has not been taught or promoted this way but this is the transcendent foppery of all the Doctrine of Transubstantiation A Miracle it self they call it in their Manual which teaches them to say thus at the Elevation Oh Miracle Oh the Goodness c. This is done by no Iugling but in the open sight of all the lookers on And what do the Lookers on Discern Do they see any visible change of the Elements no not the least shadow of alteration But what is it that they believe a Miracle Nay more than a Miracle flat Impossibility and Contradiction A subject to be without accidents and accidents without any subject They believe the same body to be at the same time in so many several places and whole in every place in Heaven upon Earth both here and at Rome and in both the Indies Oh monstrous belief had not this need to be supported with Miracles It was propagated by them and Bellarmine proves it by them because some have seen the Host to bleed others have seen a Child in the place of it and he tells us that St. Anthony of Padua's horse forsook his Oats to go and worship it I am sensible that these things are very ridiculous and therefore I am ashamed to mention any more of them And yet I hope you will excuse us if we mention in our Sermons such things as have been the chief Arguments of theirs and such Arguments as their great Masters of Controversie despair not that some may possibly be fools enough to believe them But if I should proceed into their Legends and Lives if I should spread before you the filth of those lewd Romances I should seem to have too little regard to this Place and to this Presence They are stuft with such absurd Tales such idle and extravagant Prodigies as if the Devil had invented them in a wanton humour being not content to have affronted the true Miracles of God and to have had his Will upon the Doctrine of Christ but he must insult also and sport himself with the Ignorance and Superstition of Men. I cannot think of these things without some wonder at those men who knowing that these things are written in their own Books and that some of us are able to Read them can yet be so impudent as to revile and scoffe at the Reformation That happy Recovery of Christian Religion without which their old Tales would have been Gospel still and the Cheat would have proceeded farther still and 't is hard to imagine what a Monster by this time Christianity would have grown I know some of them say that they themselves are the better for it which yet may be a very great Question For though the Crafts-men among them are grown more wary of late daies in shewing of their Tricks and the Writers of them bring their Matters more within compass than their Predecessors did yet they can never wipe off the shame of their Old doings while they read Lessons in their Churches collected out of those Legends and while they Retain those Doctrines nay they make them part of their Creed that owe some their Being and all their Reputation to those gross and palpable Impostures For us we have great cause to bless God for the Reformation which like Christianity when it first appear'd in the world has chased away these Demons and their Oracles from among us I do not hear they work any Miracles among us of late daies unless this be a Miracle which I think is no Wonder that some persons for some causes are won over to so corrupt a Religion For our parts we pretend to no new Miracles nor have any Occasion while we content our selves with the old Doctrines While we hold to the Prophet that God has sent us we may rest in those Miracles that He wrought for us God grant we may be wrought by 'em into a due Faith and Obedience First we owe a duty of Faith to the Doctrines of our Prophet to all that have been taught by him and his Apostles and are left written for us in the Holy Scriptures In which Scriptures though there be many things hard to be understood which ignorant and unstable Souls wrest to their own Damnation yet all those things are Plainly deliver'd which are Necessary for us to know Which were therefore collected by the Apostles into the Creed and own'd by the Fathers under the name of the Apostolical Tradition the Profession of which was necessary for every man at his Baptism to make him a Christian and was sufficient for any man that was Baptiz'd to be known by as a Member of the Catholick Church This is the Tradition not of one or two but of all Ages This is the Faith not of this or that but of all Churches as far as Christianity goes it is the same Faith and Tradition still This has the seal of God to it in all the Miracles of Christ and of his Apostles and of the Primitive Christians Whosoever Adds to it or Varies from it especially if he pretend to Miracles of which the Scripture has forewarn'd us we are bound to defie both Him and his Doctrines If we hold our selves close to this Faith and if This should happen to deceive us what have we to say but with St. Victor Oh Lord it is thou that hast deceiv'd us Thou hast given such plain Demonstrations such visible Testimonies of thy Almighty hand to it that if This should be false we know not what can be true For there is no possible way of certainty of things removed from bodily sense no way to make any thing surer to our belief then that is by which we are made sure of this that this Faith this Christian Doctrine was taught by that Prophet that was sent from God Lastly we owe the duty of Obedience to his Precepts to those Rules of life which he has given us in the name of God Rules that like their Author are full of Justice and Goodness then which nothing can be more fitly contrived to make us live happily here in This world and to prepare us for a Better life in the world to come Nor do they provide only for the Private but also for the Publick They both Direct and Secure every man in his own proper Station So that he were neither a Friend to Himself nor a Lover of humane Society that should not heartily submit to these Laws though he were led to it by no other consideration but that of their own Goodness and Utility But withall when we consider from what hand they come and by whom and in what manner they were sent how can we acquit our selves in the breach of these Laws of the highest Ingratitude and Rebellion against Almighty God That good God that has been pleased to require nothing of us but such things as of themselves are truly best for us and yet as if that were not enough to oblige us has recommended 'em by such a Prophet and confirm'd them to us by undeniable Testimonies Unless we Obey these Laws what can we expect from Him what Ought we to think of our selves If the Iews out of a misunderstanding of God's Counsel did oppose and reject it If that whole Generation of men were overwhelmed with such Calamities as no other Nation ever felt no other Age ever knew If their whole Posterity were sent wandring about the World to make us fear that great God that has sent these Examples to our doors How shall We ever hope to escape if we neglect so great a Salvation as is now offered to us What Examples may God make of us in This World What Judgments must we look for in the Other What Penalties what measure of Wrath can be too much for such ungrateful Wretches such Rebels against the Supream Majesty of God I beseech you pardon me this great Vehemence if any degree of Vehemence can need pardon in the pressing of things that so infinitely concern you That these things do so we shall be more sensible hereafter It is but a little while and He that is now our Prophet shall come to be our Judge and shall call us to a strict Account before him Then will the Observation of his Laws be a Comfort and a Joy Then will the Neglect of them cause Horror and Desperation 'T will be a restless Grief to reflect how easily we were won to Neglect them how easily we might have Observ'd them We have yet the Opportunity before us Good God give us Hearts to Consider it Now in this time of Advent so to remember the First coming of thy Son when He came to be our Prophet that we may be prepared and ready for his Second coming when He shall come to be our Judge To whom c. THE END * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vers. 9. * In their Comments on the place * In their Comments on the place * In Teshuba Cap. 9. * In their Comments on the places * In their Comments on the places * De veritate Christ. Relig. l. 5. §. 14. a L. 1. Epist. 1. l. 2. de Divinatione b Eclog 4. c De Vespasiano c. 4. d Hist. l. 4. * Act. xiii 27. * In Sanhedrin c. Chelek * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Deuter. xxviii 28 29. * Joh. iv 49. * In Hilcheth Melachim c. 11. * Ibid. in Sanhedrin †In Berachoth c. Meemathe korin * Israel's Conciliator Part. 1. Q. 11. in Deut. * Joh. xxi 25. Luk xviii 8. v. Rycaut of the Ottoman Empire l. 2. c. 2 3. * In Aboda Zara. * Iustin M. in Apol. 2. Tertull. in Apol. c. 21. v. Euseb. Hist. l. 2. c. 2. * Mat. xii 39. * Mat. xxviii 20. * Mat. xxiv 24 25. Which Text is thus applyed by the Fathers Chrysostom Austin c. v. Ambros. in 1 Cor. xii in fine * De Civ Dei l. 22. c. 8 9 10. * de Sacram. Eucharistiae l. 3. c. 8.
of the Nations in Haggai The Lord whom they sought in Malachi should come and that suddenly to that Temple The texts are Haggai ii 7. Mal. iii. 1. Both which places are clearly meant of the Messias and the latter of them is so interpreted by Aben Ezra and David Kimchi two of the learnedest Blasphemers of Christ in the Jewish Nation I shall offer but one Testimony more and it is from that Prophet whom I think no man without invincible obstinacy can read and consider and not be a Christian so unquestionable he is for his Authority so evident in his Predictions so punctual in the Circumstances of them I mean the Prophet Daniel who bewailing the desolation of Ierusalem and the 70 years Captivity of his Nation was told by an Angel they should soon be restor'd and Ierusalem be rebuilt But farther that after 7 times 70 that is after 490 years from the going forth of the Commandement for the rebuilding of Ierusalem they should be a Nation no more That within the last 70 of these years the Messias should come the holy One should be Anointed Dan. ix 24. and that he should be cut off but not for himself Verse 26. and then that a Prince should come and destroy the holy City and the Sanctuary as there it follows in the end of the Chapter How Easie a thing was it for any considering man in Christs daies to Reckon within a small matter of those 490 years I say within a small matter because there might be some doubt where to fix the Beginning of that reckoning whether it should begin at the First Commandment for the rebuilding of Ierusalem or at the Last which was about 50 years after Which possibly was the cause why R. Nechonia ben Hakkana who lived about 50 years before Christs Incarnation said as Grotius tells us for I know not his Author we are now within 50 years of the Messias and R. Iose who lived about 50 years after Christs death said according to R. Iacob in Caphtor we are now past the time of the Messia Certain it is that the 100 years between these was a time of great expectation of some extra ordinary Person to come into the World which Expectation began in Iudea and from thence it spread even all the World over Among the Gentiles there were strange Intimations of an Universal King that was then to be born as may appear from Cicero and Virgil from Suetonius and Tacitus in their several Writings Among the Iews it was a Question in every mans mouth where is he that should be born so the Pharisees to Iohn Baptist Art thou he and so the Baptist to our Saviour Art thou he that should come so the People among themselves Is not this that Prophet They were at it upon every Occasion and dearly they paid for it at last For they put the Nations about them all into a ferment with these Discourses and then into a rage with their Commotions which could never be laid but with the Destruction of their Temple and Government according to those Prophesies which being read to them in their Synagogues every Sabbath day as St. Paul saith they fulfil'd because they understood not And as for those obstinate wretches whom God suffered to outlive that Destruction when the terrour of it was a little over and they begin to recollect themselves and to consider what hope they had left of the Promise the Scepter being now departed from Iuda there being no Temple left and the 490 years long since expired what a Confusion they were in 't is not possible to express nor easie to imagine without reading of their Talmud where in the 4th part 4th Book 11th Chap. you may find them casting up among themselves what hopes they had left of their Messias One reflects upon that Prophesie of the School of Elias that the World should last 6000 years 2000 years before the Law and 2000 under the Law and 2000 under the Messias which makes well for us because Christ came much about the year 4000 but made ill for them because that year was then past and gone Another makes mention of two old Prophesies that the Messias should come after 85 Jubilees that is about the year 4200 but those Prophesies gave them no comfort that year also being past and gone A third said all our prefixed times are at an end a fourth that the Messias was come already and lived somewhere incognito a fifth wisht the bones of him broken that should keep any more reckoning of time A strange and a certain accomplishment of that most antient Prophesie concerning the state of the Jews after their rejection of the Messiah that God would sinite them with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart that they should grope at noonday as the blind gropes in darkness a Prophesie that ought not to be lightly past by but I must not go beyond my line I have shewed that our Prophet was foretold and that a time was set for his coming and that in Christs daies that time was come Now what could the Jews desire more but some Token to know him by And such a Token was this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text. It signifies properly a Sign though we translate it a Miracle which obliges me to shew what a Miracle is and how fitly it was ordein'd to be the Sign of the great Prophet A Miracle according to the derivation of the word is such a work as is apt to raise Wonder and Admiration in us And admiration proceeds from the ignorance of causes Therefore Fools wonder at many things because they know the causes of few things Wise men admire at those things which proceed from occult causes in nature though the things are very usual and ordinary All men admire at those things which are unusual and extraordinary which if they also exceed the whole power of nature so far as any man is able to judge of it then they are properly and strictly called Miracles In every work by the laws of Nature there must be an Active cause naturally able and ready to work and there must be a Passive matter fitly disposed for it without both which nothing can be done If any thing be done without either of these then it is said to be Supernatural 1 st On the Passive part when either there is no matter at all as in the Creation of the world out of nothing or when there is such a matter as has no fitness for such a use as it was in the Creation and will be at the Resurrection of living man out of the dust of the Earth 2ly In respect of the Agent when the work is above the reach of any natural cause above the power of any Creature that we can know of as the staying of the Sun in Ioshuah's daies or when no second cause is imployed in it or such a cause as has no
this distance of time to question the Judgment of that age and to promote the Infidelity of this I am sorry there should be any cause to mention it that instead of carrying on the Building of God and helping forward the duty of Christian life we must be put to answer those Atheists that stand pecking at the Foundation But we must be content since God is pleas'd to suffer it It is a vicious World that we live in and alwaies so much Vice so much Unbelief Perhaps too we are not farr from that time of which Christ saies when the Son of Man comes shall he find Faith upon the Earth If so we are not like to prevail much against the Atheists Howsoever we are bound to do our indeavour and not to leave their Arguments unanswer'd though in effect we only leave their Persons the more unexcusable Their Objection is that these Evangelists being Christs followers might boldly assert things for the honour of their Master and his Cause which for ought we know have been as stifly denied by the Opposite parties I propound this Objection in behalf of a sort of men whose Invention is commonly better then their Reading For whosoever is any whit skill'd in Antiquity must needs know that the Ground of this Objection is false Jews Heathens Mahometans as many as write of this matter do all confess that our Saviour did work Miracles For the Mahometans they are but of yesterday and know nothing only this they say in general for the brutish proof of their sensual Religion that as Christ came with Miracles so Mahomet came with the Sword As for Iews and Heathens who in Christs time and after it abounded with Writers and Learned men there is no reason to imagine but if they had had any Colour for it they would as fiercely have denied Christs Miracles with their Pens as they persecuted his Followers with Fire and Sword But seeing it was in vain to Deny those things which so many thousands knew to be true and the memory of which was continually revived by those fresh Miracles which the Primitive Christians wrought in Christs name therefore either they chose to take no notice of them at all in their Writings or if they mention'd Christs Miracles they ascrib'd them to Magick or Diabolical Causes And what can one ask more of an Enemy as to matter of Fact then that he should either speak out and confess it or shew by his silence that he knows not how to deny it No Iew can with reason deny Christ's Miracles since they are confest by his own Talmud in divers places specially in the 4 th Part the 9th Book Nor no Heathen could in Tertullian's or Martyr's daies unless those Learned men were monstrous silly and impudent who durst tell their Emperours they might finde proofs of them in Pilat's Records which were then at Rome They were such irrefragable Proofs that neither Jew nor Heathen had any thing to say to them but this that they were done by Magick which may be said of any thing and signifies just nothing or that they were done by Evill Spirits which will not serve the turn of our Atheist who is as unwilling to believe that there is a Devil as that there is a God But besides these Quotations which it were easie to multiply if it were so proper for this place besides these we have the greatest Assurance that in reason can be wisht for of the truth of these Miracles For what assurance can be had at such a distance concerning things done 1600 years agoe The best that can be expected is a History written by some credible Persons that lived in those times And such a History this is or there is no such in the World For that it was written by them whose Names it bears no Adversary ever question'd and all Christians have acknowledg'd that have written from Age to Age ever since Nor is it questioned that the things here written are the same that were taught by the twelve Apostles which Apostles our Saviour took along with him to be the constant Witnesses of all his actions and they profess to have been present with him at most of the things that are here Written Men so farr from being suspected of any Deceit that their Simplicity and Ignorance has been their only Accusation And that so many such men should conspire together to fain incredible things and to impose them upon the faith of Mankind Why they should do this without any Temptation of Honour or Wealth or Preferment nay with certain Assurance of persecution and misery and cruel death which their Master foretold them and they lookt for no other and they were not mistaken in this How they durst Adventure such stories with such Circumstances of time places and persons which they knew certainly would be sifted and might easily have been disproved if they had not been true all this were as prodigiously strange in Them as it would be now in Us if we should not believe them But say it were possible that they might be deceived themselves in Christs Miracles yet sure â—hey could not be so in his Resurrection and think whosoever believes his Resurrection is much to blame if he doubts of any of his Miracles This being that Sign of the Prophet Ioâ—as which Christ said he would reserve to the â—ast place to confound them that would not be Convinc't and were therefore not worthy of â—ny Other sign But what say they of his Resurrection â—ews and Heathens say in the General that he was put to death These Apostles tells us all â—he Particulars of it and say farther that after â—hree daies he Rose again from the dead That â—e show'd himself Alive to them First to one â—r two at a time then to all the twelve together then to 500 of his followers at once most of whom were alive when these things were written but especially to those twelve Apostles he shew'd himself by many Infallible proofs being Seen of them and Conversing with them for forty daies at the end whereof being together with him upon Mount Olivet after much discourse they Beheld him taken up in a bright cloud which carried him out of their sight Now is it reasonable to imagine that all these men all this while had no use of their Reason or had not so much as Common sense about them For if that Relation was false then one of these things must be true that either they were besides their Senses when they believ'd this or they were out of their Wits when they affirm'd it and laid down their lives for the witnessing of that which they did not believe And what then shall we say to that world of Christians that Render'd themselves up to the belief of these men that had so little Reason to believe themselves 'T is Prodigious to Think what I am about to say and yet think it one must oâ— he can be no Atheist he must assent