place were about to depart bating the Heathenishness of the Phrase Tacitus his deos expounds the migrentus of Josephus he rightly conceiving that voice to have proceeded from that host of Angels the Cherubins who pitch their Tents over the Mercy-seat betwixt whom the Shepherd of Isrâ—el dwelt while he kept his Court in that sacred Palace but in the Gentile Idiom miscalling them Gods who were only his Courtiers and therefore foreknowing that their King was about breaking up his Court there they prepare to depart with him For what should they whose Office is always to stand before and behold the face of God do there when he withdrew his Face from the Ark of the Covenant and that was no longer to be the Ark of his Presence By all this it is apparent that the Prophecy of Jacob concerning the departure of the Scepter from Judah after that the Messias should be exhibited and the Gentiles be gather'd to him received its accomplishment at the demolishing of God's House the place of his residence amongst the Jews while it stood and that therefore the Apostles were well advised in the account they give us of such Circumstances as relate hereunto An account which so perfectly suits the mind of the Prophecy as to the time prefixed that our fixing it there hath the evidence of Reason the Suffrages of Jew Gentile and a Voice from the Oracle to warrant and confirm it § 7. If yet the Sceptick will cavil that not the Apostles but the Statists of after times who made a political use of their Simplicity accommodated the Evangelical History and the Occurrences of the Christian Age to this Prophecy I can stop his mouth with these two Animadversions upon this surmise 1. This Application was made as appears by the Testimonies alledged out of Tertullian and Clemens Alexandrinus before any of the Politicians own'd the Gospel while the Statists of the World did with all their might endeavour the suppression of the Christian Religion as conceiving it to be insociable destructive to Political Communities and repugnant to Maximes of Government 2. The Evangelists and Apostles themselves before Tertullian or any other furnish'd with Humane Learning had commented upon the Apostolical Writings did in the plain Text of Scripture apply the accomplishment of this Prophecy and assign the departure of the divine Scepter from the Jewish Nation to that Period of Time when the Gentiles being gather'd to Christ the fall of Jerusalem should happen St. Matthew chap. 24. reports from our Saviours Lips amongst the Signs of his coming to destroy the Jewish State and the Place of God's Residence among them a thing to be fulfilled within one Generation and therefore not applicable intentionally to the day of general Judgment this for one vers 14. that the Gospel of the Kingdom should before that be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come And this for another vres 15. When ye shall see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place that is as it is explain'd ver 28. the Roman Ensigns the eagles let fly upon their Prey that Nation then ripe for Rejection or as St. Luke more clearly and without a Trope lays down this Sign Chap. 21. 20. When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed about with armies then know that the desolation thereof is nigh Immediately after the Tribulation of which days of Siege the Jewish State is to be dissolved Which Catastrophe of their Polity Christ in St. Matthew ver 29. expresseth in such Prophetical Phrases as the Old Testament Prophets constantly used in their Descriptions of the Ruine of Kingdoms and Republicks Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkned and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken that is that heavenly Polity establsh'd among the Jews shall wholly be dissolved When the Gospel shall be preach'd in the Gentile World or as St. Paul explains this Text 1 Timothy 3. 16. when Christ shall be preach'd to the Gentiles and believed on in the world then shall Jerusalem be destroyed and immediately after that the Scepter departs from Judah then shall Israel after the Flesh cease to be God's Dominion and whosoever of them after that shall boast of the Covenant of Peculiarity will upon trial be found Liars not Jews the Portion of God but the Synagogue of Satan Rev. 3. 9. they having left the Blessing of that name to another People of God gather'd to their Messias out of all Nations and called by a new name Christians reserve the sound of it only for a Curse to themselves Is. 65. 15 16. Could the Apostles in their assigning the time and other Circumstances of the Dissolution of the Jewish State have thus comported with old Jacob's Prophecy thereof had they been such silly Animals as the Atheist pretends and not persons of the deepest Reach and solidest Judgments Let the whole Tribe of them who deride the Apostles for their Simplicity put all their Heads together and call in a Legion of Demons to be of their Council they may study till they split their dura mater and spill those few Brains they have before they shall be able to make so solid and irrefragable an Application of this Propecy to the time of any other Shilo and the gathering of Gentiles to him as the Apostles have made to the time of the Gentiles gathering unto Christ. CHAP. XI The Prophecies of Daniel's Septimanes and Haggai's second House not applicable to any but the blessed Jesus § 1. Porphyry and Rabbies deny Daniel ' s Authority The Jews split their Messias § 2. The unreasonableness of both these Evasions § 3. Daniel ' s Prophecy not capable of any sence but what hath received its accomplishment in our Jesus § 4. Daniel ' s second Epocha § 5. Christ the desire of all Nations fill'd the Second Temple with Glory § 6. That Temple not now in Being § 7. The conclusion of this Book § 1. THat Prophecy of Daniel chap. 9. 24. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and the holy City to finish transgression c. doth so precisely calculate the Time of the Messias coming and so exactly in every Circumstance sutes our Saviour as it cannot with any shew of Probability be applied to any other nor be denyed to have received its Accomplishment in him From which Text the Primitive Church made such clear Demonstration to the Gentiles of the Divinity of the Old and to the Jews of the Divinity of the New as Porphiry was forc'd to betake himself to this Reply to the Christians Arguments That these Prophecies father'd upon Daniel were writ long after his death about the time of Antiochus by some Jew and are not Prophecies of things to come but Naratives of things past Jerom prefat in Danielem Of which Surmise Eusebius Appollonius and other Champions of the Christian Cause shewed
in magnificence Instructive as pointing to the bruised heel of the Womans Seed as being so chargeable and toilsome as it was not credible that any Nation should by their own free choice encumber themselvs with so burdensome a service nor possible they could be induc'd to the embracing of it by any Motives inferiour to those dreadful appearances of the divine Majesty at the promulgation of it and Menacies annext to it Add to all this their sojourning in Aegypt the Nursery of Idolatry so many hundred years Their settlement in Canaan where the worship of Devils had taken deepest root so near to Caldaea where the Primitive Tradition had been first corrupted The improvement of the Art of Navigation by Solomon Their several dispersisions into the utmost parts of the inhabited Earth c. And it will appear that as the Earth was over-spread by degrees with people and people grew to apostatize from the Catholick Religion God sent this then last Edition of the Gospel after them by the hand of Abrahams seed bringing to their remembrance the almost forgotten Promise of the Womans Seed And that therefore the Divine Grace administred to all men an occasion to seek after God whom they might have found if they would have sought him where he directed them and whom all did find who did not maliciously shut their eyes against the Light shining in Judaea in its full body as the Sun in its Orb and thence transmitting its Beams into the utmost Coasts of the World Briefly The Jews setting aside the Covenant of Peculiarity which consisted of Earthly Promises and Carnal Ordinances was only the Worlds Cock to give it notice how the time past till the Fulness of Time was come to awake its drowsie eyes to wait for break of day to profligat those painted Lyons who had usurpt the Title of the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah to give notice the Star of Jacob was not yet risen and to direct them by the voice of their Prophets when and where to look for the promised Seed In a word they were not the Catholick Church but a Nation of Priests separated for the service of the Catholick Church consisting of Jews and Gentiles worshipping the true God and waiting for Christ. 3. Celsus his Exception therefore that Christian Religion opposeth the general Religion of the World is manifestly false for there never was any Religion universally profest as that which bringeth Salvation to all save the Christian that is Faith in the promised Seed for Gentile Religions were calculated to particular Climes but this publish'd to and believed through the whole World 4. What he objects as to Sects of Christians I answer what ever Sect recedes from the Catholick Church and the common Faith ceaseth to be Christian that is whoever rend themselves from that body of Believers who in all Ages before Christ and since have held the common Way of Salvation by the blood of the Womans Seed become as to Religion Heathens and therefore the Church is not chargeable with them Article 10. The forgiveness of sins This is plainly to be read as a Point of Christ and his Apostles Doctrine and the Churches Faith in that odious Comparison of the Epicurean Sophist Celsus lib. 3. 16 17. They that are to be initiated in Pagan Mysteries are by a Cryer thus invited whosoever is of pure hands and heart whosoever is free from all impieties whosoever hath a soul not conscious to it self of any villany whosoever hath lived well and justly come hither At sacer est locus procul ite prophani c. But the Christian Preachers invite men to the Christian Faith after these forms Whosoever is simple wretched wicked prophane here is pardon for them Come ye impure and defiled Souls here is a Fountain of Purgation open for you to wash in Your Jesus you say came not to call the righteous but sinners and whither should the Physician come but to the sick as Origen well replies In the exposition of the Apostles Creed among the works of St. Cyprian but by St. Jerom ascribed to Ruffinus and by Gennadius commended as the best piece of Ruffinus and therefore judged by Erasmus to be his the Pagans object against this Article That the Christians do miserably deceive themselves in believing that sins can be forgiven that what is committed indeed can be purg'd by words whether of Promise on Gods part or Confession on the penitent's part or Absolution on the Priests part Is it possible say they that he that hath committed Murder or Adultery should not be reckon'd a Murderer or Adulterer to which it is there well answered Why should I not believe that that God who of Earth made me a Man can make me of guilty innocent that he who made me see who before was blind who made me hear who before was deaf who made me sound who was before lame can restore innocency to me when I have lost it c Article 11. The Resurrection of the Flesh. Were this Article buried in the oblivion of whole Christendom it might obtain a Resurrection even out of the grave of Pagan Writers and loose no more of its perfection than our bodies shall do at their's That fleering Philosopher Celsus while he laughs it out of countenance brings it to remembrance All that Christ taught you saith he touching the Resurrection of the body touching Eternal Life and Death he borrowed from the Books of the Jewish Prophets lib. 2. 3. But with how much absurdity do you with that earnestness as if you accounted nothing more desireable hope and wait for the Resurrection of your Body when in the mean while you throw your Bodies as vile things to all kinds of Torments lib. 8. 18. And lib. 3. cal 6. The Christians amuse the unwary Vulgar with vain and bug-bear threats of eternal judgement of the pains of the damned and with the alluring promises of future rewards And yet the same Author lib. 4. 7. confesseth that we in our discourses of the day of Judgement speak congruously to the old Philosophers And lib. 1. cal 4. the very first instance he bringeth of our concurrence with the opinions of Philosophers is that which we teach touching rewards and punishment Deogratias relates to St. Austin this Quaere propounded by a Gentile Philopher Whether the promised Resurrection would be like that of Lazarns or that of Christ not like Lazarus saith the Philosopher for he rose before his Body was consum'd but you Christians say that mens bodies shall rise many Ages after they are crumbled to dust not like Christ for he shew'd the scars in his Hands and Side and did eat after he rose again but you say that after the Resurrection men shall neither eat nor drink nor have any blemish upon their Bodies Aug. Ep. 49. Here we have not only the Resurrection but the manner of it as it is described in the Gospel attested by Pagans to bave been the known Doctrine of the Church viz. that
six her eye more narrowly upon Emergencies there as things of highest State-concern in respect of that then famous Eastern Prophecy of one to arise at that time in Judea who should be King of the Universe § 4. At that time when the Erection of an Universal Monarchy was according to that Prophecy expected appeared Persons of a more Lordly Spirit amongst the Romans than any former Age had brought forth Caesar and Pompey ' s Ambition sprung from this Prophecy The then greatest Spirits courted the Jews favour and used means that they might be that oriundus in Judaea § 5. The arts which the Roman Candidates for the Universal Monarchy used to bring the World into an opinion that they were designed by Heaven to something extraordinary Julius his Dream his cloven-footed Horse his Mules his Triton his pressing to have the Title of King because the Sybils had prophesied one at that time would be King of all the World The Fathers quotations of Sybils vindicated § 6. Augustus had his Education amongst the Velitri who had a Tradition of the tendency with the Eastern Prophecy that one of that City should obtain the Kingdom of the whole World The Roman Prodigy before his Birth His Mother Atia conceives him by Apollo Her Snake-mole Nero ' s Bracelet Atias Dream of her Entrals Nigidius his Prognostication The Prediction of the Thracian Priests His Fathers Vision Cicero ' s Dream § 7. Tiberius his Omens Scribonius ' s Prediction Livias crested Chick The Altars of the conquering Legions His Dye cast into Apon ' s Well Galba ' s Mock-prophecy § 8. Titus and Vespasian ' s Motto Amor deliciae in English the desire of the Nations The Prodigy of Mars his Oak The Gypsies Prediction Dirt cast by Caligula into his Shirt The Dog bringing a Man's hand The Oracle of the God of Carmel His curing the blind and Lame c. CHAP. X. The more open Practices of soaring Spirits in grasping at the Judean Crown their hopes to obtain it and as to some of them their Conceit of possessing it § 1. Cleopatra ' s Boon begg'd of M. Antony denyed Herod ' s Eye Blood-shot with looking at the Eastern Prophecy § 2. Vespasian jealous of Titus The Eastern Monarchy the Prize contended for by both Parties in the Jewish Wars Mild Vespasian cruel to David ' s Line § 3. Domitian jealous of Davids Progeny Genealogies Metius Pomposianus his Genesis and Globe his Discourse with Christ's Kindred about Christ's Kingdom Clancular Jews brought to light Trajan puts to death Simeon Bishop of Jerusalem for being of the Royal Line § 4. Glosses upon the Eastern Prophecy under Adrian involve the Empire in Blood Jewry in Desolation Fronto taxeth benumm'd Nerva for conniving at the Jew 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. Pauls 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. CHAP. XII As no Age was less like to be Cheated than that wherein the Apostles flourish'd so no Generation of Men was less like to put a Cheat upon the World than the Apostolick and Primitive Church § 1. The Apostles and Primitive Churches Veracity evinc'd by their chusing Death rather than an Officious Lye to save their lives Pliny ' s testimony of them § 2 3. They hide not their imperfections nor the Truth to please Parties or to avoid the Worlds taking offence The offence which Heathens took at some Gospel-passages § 4. All false Religions make lyes their Refuge Pagan Forgeries § 5. Papal Innovation founded on lying Legends Sir Thomas Moor upon St. Austin Gregory Turonensis and Simeon Metaphrastes devout Lyars The Story of the Baptist ' s Head BOOK II. THE ARGUMENT As they could not nor would not delude others so they were not themselves deluded persons or Men of crazy Intellects but propounded to the World a Religion so every way fitted to the Dictates of Common Reason of the most Refin'd Philosophy and of pre-existent Religion as it was impossible for them to have fram'd had they not been of perfect Memory and sound Minds THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. The Gospel's Correspondency with Vulgar Sentiments § 1. The Testimony of the Humane Soul untaught to the Truth of the Christian Creed in the Articles touching the Unity of the Godhead his Goodness Justice Mercy The Existence of wicked Spirits § 2. The Resurrection and Future Judgment Death formidable for its Consequence to evil Men No Fence against this Fear proved by Examples § 3. In hope of future Good the Soul secretly applauds her self after virtuous Acts. This makes the Flesh suffer patiently CHAP. II. Reason nonplus'd help'd by Religion acquiesceth in her Resolutions § 1. Man's Supremacy over the Creatures the Reason of it not cognoscible by Natural Light § 2. Yet generally challenged even over Spirits whom men command to do what themselves disgust § 3. The way of Creation a Mystery Reason puzzel'd to find it out can but conjecture § 4. Divine Revelations touching both acquiesc'd in as soon as communicated Scripture-Philosophy excels the Mechanick Plato's Commendation § 5. Nothing but the God of Order's Grant can secure States from Anarchical Parity and Club-law § 6. Heathens assented to the Reasons of both assigned by Scripture CHAP. III. Natural Conscience Ecchoes to Christian Morals § 1. A Dispraise to dispraise Virtue or praise Vice The Comicks Liberty restrained § 2. How the worst of Men became to be reputed Gods § 3. Men were deified for their Virtues Vice ungodded Gods § 4. Stage-Gods hissed at The Infamy of Players The Original of Mythology CHAP. IV. Christian Religion concords with the highest Philosophical Notions § 1. Divine Knowledge coâ—â—unicated from the Church to travelling Philosophers Our Religion elder than Heathenism by Heathens confession § 2. Christian Articles implied in Pagan Philosophy's Positions Man's happiness through Communion with God and Conformity unto God § 3. This Conformity and Communion effected by God-man God manifest in
the Flesh born of a Virgin § 4. Plato falter'd under the burden of vulgar Error A man from God Whence Multiplicity of God-Saviours Pagan Independency Their mutual indulging one another § 5. Not many but one Mediator the result of the Heathen's second thoughts Plato's Sentences entenced by Platonicks Nothing can purge but a Principle St. John's Gospel in Platonick Books The Christian Premisses yielded their Conclusions denied by Gentiles Plato's Sentence under the Rose CHAP. V. None of their Local Saviours were able to save § 1. Their white Witches impeded in doing good by the black Lucan's Hag more mighty than any of their Almighties § 2. None of their Saviours Soul-purgers § 3. Porphiry's Vote for one universal Saviour not known in the Heathen World Altars to the unknown Gods whether God or Goddess § 4. The unknown God § 5. Great Pan the All-heal his death § 6. Of their many Lords none comparable to the Lord Christ to us but one Lord. CHAP. VI. God the Light Man's Reliever § 1. Plebean Light mistaken for the true All-healing Light Joves and Vaejoves Mythology an help at a dead lift § 2. Wisdom begotten of God Man's Helper the Fathers Darling § 3. Made Man Sibyls maintain'd as quoted by Fathers Come short of Scripture-Oracles § 4. Virgil out of Sibyl prophesied of Christ. The Sibyllines brought to the Test. Tully's weak Exceptions against the Sibyllines § 5. Sibyl's Songs of God Redeemer the Eternal Word the Creator Apollo commends Christ. Local Saviours exploded CHAP. VII Man healed by the Stripes and Oracles of God-man § 1. Jew hides face from Christ. Greatest Heroes greatest sufferers the expiatory painfulness of their Passions § 2. Humane Sacrifices universal § 3. Not in imitation of Abraham Porphyry's Miscollection from Sancuniathon Humane Sacrifices in use in Canaan before Abraham came there And in remotest Parts before his facts were known In Chaldea before Abraham's departure thence § 4. It was the corruption of the old Tradition of the Womans Seed's Heel bruised Their sacred Anchor in Extremities § 5. The Story of the Kings of Moab and Edom vulgarly mistaken different from Amos his Text. King of Moab offer'd his own Son the fruit of the Body for the sin of the Soul § 6. What they groped after exhibited in Christs Blood § 7. Mans Saviour is to save Man by delivering divine Oracles Heroes cultivated the world by Arts and Sciences § 8. Gospel-net takes in small and great The Apostles became all things to all men how CHAP. VIII The Gospel calculated to the Meridian of the Old Testament § 1 In its Types § 2. Its Ceremonials fall at Christs feet with their own weight The Nest of Ceremonies pull'd down That Law not practicable § 3. Moses his Morals improved by Christ by better Motives Moses faithful Christ no austere Master Laws for Children for Men for the Humane Court for Conscience Christ clears Moses from false Glosses § 4. It was fit that Christ should demand a greater Rent having improved the Farm St. Mat. 5. 17. explain'd Christian Virtue a Mirrour of God's admired by Angels St. Mat. 7. 26. urged The Sanction of the Royal Law § 5. St. Paul's Notion of Justification by Faith only explain'd it implies more and better work than Justification by the works of the Law Judaism hath lost its Salvifick Power Much given much required The Equity and Easiness of Christ's Yoak Discord in the Academy none in Christs School CHAP. IX Gospel-History agrees with Old Testament-prophecy § 1. Christ's Appeal to the Prophets § 2. The primary Old Testament-Prophecies not accomplishable in any but the blessed Jesus Jacob's Shilo Gentiles gathering Scepter departed at the demolishing of their King's Palace § 3. By consent of both Parties Not till the Gentiles gather'd Children to Abraham of Stones Gentiles flock to Christ's Standard § 4. Signs of Scepter 's departure Price of Souls paid to Capitol Not formerly paid to Caesar. Mat. 17. 25. explained § 5. Jews paid neither Tythes nor his Pole-money to any but their own Priests before Vespasian who made Judah a vassal to a strange God such as their Fathers knew not CHAP. X. More Signs of the Scepter 's departure § 1. Covenant-Obligation void They return to Aegypt c. § 2. Temple-Vessels Prophanation revenged of old not now regarded § 3. Titus and Vespasian rewarded for their service against the Temple § 4. Judah's God deaf to all their Cries § 5. They curse themselves in calling upon the God of Revenges § 6. Jewish and Gentile Historians relate the Watch-word Let us depart § 7. Jacob thus expounded not by Statists but the Apostles CHAP. XI The Prophecies of Daniel's Septimanes and Haggai's second House not applicable to any but the blessed Jesus § 1. Porphyry and Rabbies deny Daniel's Authority The Jews split their Messias § 2. The unreasonableness of both these Evasions § 3. Daniel's Prophecy not capable of any sence but what hath received its accomplishment in our Jesus § 4. Daniel's second Epocha § 5. Christ the desire of all Nations fill'd the Second Temple with Glory § 6. That Temple not now in Being § 7. The conclusion of this Book Book III. THE ARGUMENT 3 We have as good grounds of Assurance that the matters of Fact and Doctrine contain'd in the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles were done and delivered accordingly as they are therein related as we have or can have of the Truth of any other the most certain Relation in the World THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. The Universal Tradition of the Church a good Evidence of the Gospels Legitimacy § 1. The inconquerable force of Universal Tradition § 2. No danger of being over-credulous in our Case § 3. Reasons interest in Matters of Religion § 4. We have better assurance that the Evangelical Writings and History are those mens Off-spring whose Names they bear then any Man can have that he is his reputed Fathers Son § 5. The Sceptick cannot prove himself his Mothers Son by so good Arguments as the Gospel hath for its Legitimacy § 6. Bastard-slips grafted into Noble Families The Sceptick in Religion is a Leveller in Politicks CHAP. II. The Suffrage of Adversaries to the testimony of the Church § 1. Pagan Indictments shew what was found Christianity in Pagan Courts § 2. Christian Precepts and Examples Civilized the Courts of Heathen Emperours § 3. Pliny's information concerning Christians to Trajan § 4. What it was in Christians that Maximnus hated them for CHAP. III. The Substance of Christian Religion as it stands now in the Gospel is to be found in the Books of its Adversaries § 1. The Effigies of the Gospel is hung out where it is proscribed § 2. Hierocles attempting to outvie Jesus with Apollonius hath presented to the World the Sum of Evangelical History § 3. More Apes of Christ than Apollonius § 4. Christs Doctrine may be traced out by the footsteps of the Hunters who pursued it CHAP. IV. Every Article of the Apostles Creed to be found
as asserted by the Church in those writings which opposed Christian Religion § 1. Maker of Heaven and Earth § 2. His only Son § 3. Conceived by the holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary § 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate c. § 5. Rose again the third day § 6. Ascended into Heaven thence c. § 7. The Holy Ghost § 8. Holy Catholick Church c. CHAP. V. The Truth of the Gospel-History attested by Secular Writers § 1. Old Antagonists did not persist in the denial of any point of Gospel-History save that of Christs Resurrection and the manner of their denying it proves the Truth of it § 2. Josephus his Story of John Baptist accords with Gospel-History § 3. His Text in testimony of Jesus vindicated from the Exceptions of Vossius c. § 4. Josephus his date of Christs and the Baptists Story falls in with Gospel-Chronology § 5. The Stories of Herod Herodias Aretus Artabanus Philip Lysanias in Josephus Tacitus Suetonius timed to Sacred Chronology § 6. The Twin-Priesthood of Annas and Caiphas at Christs Baptism and Passion cleared § 7. The Date of Philip the Tetrarch his Death CHAP. VI. The Date of Christs Birth as it is asserted by the Church maintain'd by Scripture § 1. Christ homaged by the Magi early after his Birth § 2. Christ born and Baptized the same day of the year § 3. God would have the Church observe the day of Christs Birth The Priestly Courses the Character of it which from the first Institution by Solomon to the last and fatal year of the Second Temples standing were never interrupted § 4. The Calculation of these courses leads us to the Conception and Birth of the Baptist and our Saviour § 5. Christs Baptism and John's Ministry in the same year of Tiberius Reign point out the same thing Objections answered § 6. The taxing of all the world ill-confounded with that of Syria CHAP. VII Josephus his Suffrage to the Evangelists in the Substance of their History of Christ. § 1. He appropriates the Compellation Christ to our Jesus speaks of the Churches growth in a Gospel-stile § 2. Describes Christs Disciples by Evangelical Characters gives the Evangelists Reasons why others did not embrace the Gospel § 3. He peremptorily asserts Christs Miracles how he came to a certain information thereof Appion and Justus would have found it out if he had proceeded here upon presumptions and uncertainties § 4. He describes Christs Miracles after the Evangelical Model § 5. And affirms them to have been such as the Prophets had foretold The Touch-stone of Canonical History § 6. He asserts Christs Resurrection with all its Circumstances CHAP. VIII Josephus confirms St. Lukes History of Herod Agrippa § 1. He paints him in Evangelical Colours as the Jews favourite as a Prodigal as much in the Tyrians Debt and therefore displeased with them c. § 2. He Dates his Death according to St. Luke St. James Martyred in the third a Famine at Rome in the second and third In Judaea in the fourth of Claudius § 3. He describes his Death after St. Lukes Style Two Acclamations immediately after the second he was struck by a Messenger of Death an Owle § 4. Angels assume what form the divine mandat prescribes Evil Angels God's Messengers § 5. Herod the Great died of the like stroke Josephus gives the natural Symptoms of Agrippa's Disease § 6. A Digression touching St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh. CHAP. IX Other Secular Witnesses to the Truth of Sacred History § 1. Phlegon of the Darkness and Earthquake at Christs Passion § 2. Thallus his mistaking that Darkness for an Eclipse § 3. The Records of Pagan Rome touching that and other Occurrences § 4. The Chronicles of Edessa though Apochryphal yet true Julian's Prohibition of the use of secular Books in Christian Schools his Testimony § 5. Moses his History of Joseph attested by Pagans § 6. His History of himself § 7. Of Noah Balaam c. avouched by Secular Writers CHAP. X. The Adversaries forced upon very great Disadvantages to their own Cause by reason that they could not for very shame resist the Evidences brought in defence of Sacred History § 1. Christ accused of working by the Prince of Devils that Accusation withdrawn in open Court and this Plea put in against him that he made himself a King and therefore was an Enemy to Caesar § 2. Pety Exceptions rebound upon the heads of their Framers § 3. The Modern Sceptick's half-reasons too young to grapple with old Prescription § 4. Christs Works Gods Seal to his Mission § 5. The present Age as able to judge of the Nature of those Works as that was wherein they were done § 6. Atheistical Exceptions against particular points of Religion an Hydra's head yet they all stand upon one neck and may be cut off at one blow by proving the Divine Original of Religion BOOK IV. THE ARGUMENT 4. The Divine Original of Sacred Writ is as demonstrable as the being of a God from the Infinity of Wisdom express'd in its Prophecies and of Power in its miracles THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. The Being of a Deity Demonstrated § 1. The Existence of a Deity demonstrable from the frame of the world the composition of humane bodies § 2. The Garden of the Earth did not fall by chance into so curious and well order'd knots The ingenuity of Birds sings the Wisdom of their Maker c. § 4. The Heavens declare the glory of God CHAP. II. The Author of Christian Religion hath stamp'd thereon no less manifest Prints of infinite Science than the Maker of the World hath left upon that his Workmanship § 1. Heathen Prophecies the Result of Ratiocination § 2. From general Hints which for mens torments God might permit the Devil to communicate § 3. The Ambiguity of Oracles on purpose to hide the Ignorance of them that gave them § 4. It was by chance they spake truth § 5. Scripture-Oracles distinct of pure Contingencies their Sence plain punctually fulfill'd CHAP. III. Instances of Prophecies fulfill'd whose Effects are permanent and obvious to the Atheists Eyes if he will but open them § 1. Predictions that Israel would reject their own Messia made by Jews Confession many hundreds of years before Christ. § 2. The Prophets foretell Gods Rejection of the Jews for their Rejection of his Son § 3. Texts proving a final Rejection Christs Blood calls down this vengeance § 4. These Menacies executed to the full Temple City and all vanish'd Spirit of Prophecy past from the Synagogue to the Church CHAP. IV. Gematrian Plaisters too narrow for the Sore § 1. The Ark. § 2. Holy Fire § 3. Urim and Thummim § 4. Spirit of Prophecy in the Second Temple § 5. Exorcisme and Bethesda's all-healing vertue the second Temples Dowry CHAP. V. The Jews rejected Messias to be called the God of the whole Earth and all other Gods eternally to be rejected § 1. The God of Israel every where worship'd where Christian Religion
obtains place § 2. The God of Israel hath his Priests amongst the Gentiles § 3. No acceptable Oblation but what Christians offer tender'd to Israels God § 4. The Gospel hath utterly abolish'd Idols made Virmin-Gods creep into holes § 5. Daphnaean Apollo choakd with the Bones of Babilas Heathen Testimony for the silencing of Oracles the Vanity of their Reasons § 6. Gross Idolatry in the Roman Pale by her own Doctors Confessions and Definitions the Legend of the Golden Calf yet not in the proper and prophetick sence CHAP. VI. Touching the Millenium Revel 20. § 1 Pagan Idol's Fall and Satans binding Synchronize Christianity grew upon the Empire by degrees § 2. Charity 's Cloak cast over the first Christian Emperours § 3. Theodosius made the first Penal Laws against Paganism § 4. Honorius made Paganism Capital then was Satan bound CHAP. VII The Millenium yet to come is a Dream of Waking Men. § 1. The Millenaries shifting of Aera's Apes of Mahometans and Papists Alsted's Boreal Empire § 2. Mr. Meed's Principles overthrow the Faith and Placits of the Ancients Christ will not come to convert but destroy the Jews Satans Binding Synchronizeth with the downfall not of Mahometanism but Gentilism § 3. America though anciently inhabited yet unknown to the ancient Church and therefore implicitly only comprehended in her Faith Hope and Charity § 4. The Millenaries impious and uncharitable Conceptions touching the Gogick-war Their Triumphant Church-Militant § 5. Christ will find more Faith in America than in this upper Hemisphere § 6. Satan's Chain shortned in the lower not lengthened in this upper Hemisphere CHAP. VIII That Satans loosing will not be till the Dawning of the day of Judgment Problematically discuss'd § 1. Elect gathered into the Air over the Valley of Jehoshaphat Chancells not all Eastward but all toward that Valley § 2. The Elect secur'd Satan reenters and drives his old Demesne The wicked destroyed as Rebels actually in arms Believers tried as Citizens by the Books of Conscience and Book of Royal Law § 3. Gog. Revel 20. a greater multitude than will meet before the day of Judgment When Prophecies are to be expounded Literally when Figuratively § 4. The Ottoman Army is not this Gogick § 5. The Fire of the last Conflagration carrieth Infidels into the Abyss The Goats are cast into it after they are convict by the Covenant of Grace White Throne New Heaven and Earth Flames of Fire divided § 6. They that are in Christ rise first but Infidels are first judged The Objection from their being in termino § 7. The Jews Septimum Millenarium is the eternal Sabbath The days of a Tree Isa. 65. 28. The Text Paraphrased CHAP. IX The Force of the general Argument from Prophecy urged § 1. Prophetick Events demonstrate the Reveilers infinite science § 2. And Omnipotencie § 3. The Divine Original of the Gospel § 4. Christ Circumstantiated old Prophecies of Jerusalem's Fall § 5. When her Fall was most unlikely § 6. Precognition demonstrates Pre-existence CHAP. X. The Demonstration of Power § 1. Christians Gleanings exceed Pagans Vintage § 2. Christian stories of undoubted Pagan of dubious Credit § 3. Pagan Miracles mis-father'd § 4. Rome's Prosperity whence § 5. Wonders among Gentiles for the fulfilling of Prophecies § 6. For the punishment of Nations ripe for Excision § 7. Empires raised miraculously for the common good CHAP. XI The Deficiency of the false Characters of true Miracles § 1. Heathen Wonders unprofitable § 2. Of an impious Tendency § 3. Not above the power of Nature § 4. Moses and the Magicians Rodds into serpents § 5. The suns standing still and going back The Persian Triplasia § 6. Darkness at our Saviours Passion § 7. Christs Resurrection the Broad-seal set to the Gospel CHAP. XII The Supernatural Power of Salvifick Grace § 1. The Church triumphs over the Schools § 2. Christianity lays the Ax to the Root § 3. The Rule imperfect before Christ. § 4. The Discipline of the Schools was without Life and power § 5 Real Exornations before Verbal Encomiums Christian Religion 's APPEAL To the BARR of Common Reason c. The First Book It was morally impossible that the Apostolical Church should delude the World with feigned Miracles or Stories CHAP. I. The Contents The Age wherein the Apostles flourish'd was sufficiently secured against the Impostures of Empiricks by its Knowledge in Physicks Ignorance in Naturals the Mother of superstitious Credulity The Darkness at our Saviours Crucifixion compared with that at Romulus his Death Heathen Records of the Darkness of Christ's Passion Sect. 1. HOW easily how certainly would the fraud have been detected had our Saviour and his Apostles wrought their wonderful Cures and stupendous Works by the Application of Natural Causes That Age wherein they were done being an Age of the most improved Wits in Natural Science that the benign Genius of any Age had till then or hath to this day produced Pliny that great Secretary of Nature so industrious a searcher into her Mysteries as in pursuit of the knowledge of the Causes of Vesuviums Conflagration he made so near an approach to that burning Mountain while the dreadful fragor of that fierce Eruption put the most undaunted Spirits into that fright as they fled as fast and far from it as their heels would carry them as he was stifled with its Sulphureous Steam choosing rather to die in the attempt of seeking out than to live in the ignorance of Natures secrets and to throw himself into its flaming Mouth by which it vented what was in its Heart rather than not to know from what abundance of the Heart it s now opened and gaping Mouth spake This unparallel'd Example for our modern Virtuosi who think they infinitely oblige Humane kind and let them never râ—ap the fruit of their ingenuous labours who grudge them that honour by the Experiments they make at the Expence of so much sweat and with the hazzard of stopping their own breath with the Exhalations of their Furnaces This so diligent an Attender upon Natures Cabinet-council was our Saviour's Contemporary by that compute of his age which his Nephew Plinius Secundus gave to Cornelius Tacitus Lib. 6. Epist. 16. requesting from him an account of his Unkles death that he might in his History transmit to posterity the memory of so brave an Exploit A little before him in years and not behind him in sagacity after Natures footsteps flourish'd Mithridates King of Pontus whose name to this day is famous in Dispensatories Regum Orientis post Alexandrum Magnum maximus the greatest of all the Eastern Kings after Alexander the Great so potent as he held the Romans in play 40 years and in his ruine involved almost the whole East and North L. Florus Appianus c. having 25 Provinces under his Dominion and understanding as many Languages as well as the Natives so that he answered all Embassadors in their Mother Tongue Agellius noct Att. l. 17. c. 17. Ingentis
fifteenth of Tiberius wherein our great High Priest was officiating in the Temple and within the Veil of his Flesh It is Doctor Lightfoot's Observation that St. John in that half hours silence alludes to the People waiting silently at the Door while the Priest was officiating in the holy place Peace was then continued for other thirty Years even unto the fourth of Nero It remains now that we prove that during that last thirty Years of silence the Line of the Gospel was drawn out not only through all the Earth the Land of Jury but to the ends of the World the utmost Bounds of the Roman Pale Would the Atheist for proof of this acquiess in sacred Testimony I would alledge that of St. Paul Ro. 15. 19. where he writes that in his own line he had proceeded from Jerusalem the Center round about unto Illyricum fully preaching the Gospel so as he had no place left in those parts over which the Line of some Apostle had not been sttretch'd And then leave him to compute though St. Paul labour'd more than they all and therefore must have twelve to one reckoned to his proportion how far the lines of all the rest were stretched out before the general Peace was broke seeing the single Line of one of them had reach'd so far in Nero's second Year as Doctor Lightfoot dates that Epistle But to deal with the Atheist at his own Weapon I shall urge him with the Testimony of Tacitus who having occasion thereof ministred to him from Nero's charging Christians with the setting Rome on fire speaks of our Religion as famously known and by multitudes embrac'd at Rome long before that bloody Edict in Nero's twelfth The common People saith he call them Christians from one Christ who in the Reign of Tiberius was put to death by Pontius Pilate Governour of Judaea whose Religion though by Edicts suppressed presently upon its appearance yet grew under those Weights and brake out again not in Judaea only where it had its Original i. e. the Center whence its Line was drawn but even in Rome it self having reached so far and got so many Proselytes as though the Vulgar looked upon Christians as Persons of an execrable Religion as Enemies to Humane Kind and deserving the Extremities of most inhumane Afflictions and Punishments yet there was none of them so hard hearted as not to relent to see such huge Multitudes of them led to the Slaughter grieving that so much humane though as they thought Malignant blood should be poured out Tacit. annal 15. 233. Ergo abolende rumori Nâ—ro subdidit reos quaesitissimis paenis affecit quos per stagitium risos vulgus Christiarios appellabat auctor ejus nominis Christus qui Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat non modo per Judaeam originem ejus whence their Liâ—e went out sed per Urbem etiam Igitur primo correpti qui fatebantur deinde Ingens eorum multitudo haud perinde in crimine incendâ—â— quam odio humani generis connicti sunt unde quanquam adversus sontes novissima exempla meritos miseratio oriebatur Nay to that height was Christian Religion grown at Rome in the beginning of Nero's Reign as Suetonius Sueton. Nero 16. reckons his making Edicts for the suppressing of it among those Reformations he made at his coming to the Crown It will be in vain to urge to our Scepticks St. Paul's Testimony that the Gospel had got footing in Nero's Family yet it may perhaps seem to him less improbable that that Grain of Mustard-seed should sprought up in that barren Soil and malignant Influence if he be minded of the State of Affairs under Aurelian and that in spight of that Juncture our Religion so throve even in the Court as he suspects the Christian Party even among his Senators impeded the passing of the Decree for consulting the Sibylline Books when the Marcomanni invaded the Empire by that handsome Evasion that the Emperour was so valiant as he needed not consult the Gods which though Vopiscus interprets as a point of Flattery yet the Emperour laid it to another Father in that Letter he sent to the Senate to hasten their passing that Decree in these words transcribed by Vopiscus Miror vos sancti Patres tamdiu de aperiendis Sibyllinis dubitasse libris perinde quasi in Christianorum ecclesia non in Templo Deorum omnium tractaretis I wonder holy Fathers that you should be so long debating the question whether Sybill ' s Books in this Exigent should be consulted like as if you were handling this point in the Church of Christians and not in the Capitol the Temple of all the Gods If he had reason to suspect there was so great a Party in his Council of Christians so soon after the persecution raised by Valerianus as they might possibly impede the passing of that Decree what reason have we to conceive it unlikely that Christ should have his Church in Nero's House Vopiscus Aurelian And if notwithstanding the opposition it there found Christianity had gained that rooting in Rome it selfe as so huge a number dare seal the truth of it with their dearest Blood I dare refer it to all unbiassed Minds to think how it must spread in those parts of the Empire that were nearer Judaea as the main body of it was and less under inspection and then to pass their judgment whether Heathen History does not Eccho to that of the Apostle where he saith that not only the Christian Faith was known at Rome but the Faith of the Roman Christians was famous through the World at his writing his Epistle to them which bears date the second of Nero. CHAP. IX The Judean Stirs were the Empires Advantage against Surprisal § 1. Objections from the Commotions in Judea answered and retorted Those inconsiderable and not so great as that delicate and repining People would represent them § 2. The Stirs that were in Judea put the Ministers of State upon a more diligent enquiry into what there fell out whereby they got a more full information of the state of that great Controversie between the Jews and Christians § 3. The Judean Commotions drew the Imperial Eagle to fix her eye more narrowly upon Emergencies there as things of highest State-concern in respect of that then famous Eastern Prophecy of one to arise at that time in Judea who should be King of the Universe § 4. At that time when the Erection of an Universal Monarchy was according to that Prophecy expected appeared Persons of a more Lordly Spirit amongst the Romans than any former Age had brought forth Caesar and Pompey ' s Ambition sprung from this Prophecy The then greatest Spirits courted the Jews favour and used means that they might be that oriundus in Judaea § 5. The arts which the Roman Candidates for the Universal Monarchy used to bring the World into
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
Idols and evil Spirits be true they counterfeit the presence of God and therefore command their Worshippers to be just that themselves may be thought to be good but because they are in their nature bad they are prone to do evil and to lead us to evil Porphyry de sacrif pag. 314 315. out of Plato tells us that as heat cannot cool us so the Divine Nature that is all Justice can do no unjust thing and therefore concludes That all those Spirits that either themselves commit or tempt us to commit immoralities though they would make the World believe they are Gods and their Prince the highest and holiest God are no better than Devils Plutarch in his Pelopidas reports That while the Theban Army lay encamp'd in Leuctra resolved to give battel to Cleombrotus and the Spartan forces Pelopidas was terrified with a Vision of Scedasus Daughters there ravish'd and slain by certain Spartans against whom when their Father could not obtain Justice at the hands of the Spartan State pouring out dreadful execrations upon them he slew himself upon his Daughters Grave These Pelopidas thinks he hears groaning about their Sepulchres and cursing the Spartans and their Father commanding him to sacrifice a yellow-hair'd Virgin if he desired to obtain victory over the Spartans Pelopidas communicates this Vision and Command to his Prophets and Associates by whom notwithstanding the allegations of the examples of Menaeceus Macaerias Pherecides Leonidas Agesilaus and Agamemnon in favour of it that Command was judged so barbarous as it was impossible it could procede from or the fulfilling of it be acceptable to any of the Gods for those that delight in human blood and slaughter are infernal Fiends c. Thus Salacus King of Aethiopia is commended for interpreting that Dream wherein he was counsel'd to assemble the Aegyptian Priests and to cut them off by the middle as proceeding from the diabolical injection of some Demons that envied his happiness and desired to make him obnoxious to the just displeasure of the Gods for so sacrilegious an Act chusing rather to lay down the Egyptian Crown which he had then wore 50 years and return into Aethiopia than to hold it at that price the Vision set upon it Herodot Eutyrpe 163. Lo here the point of this Objection turn'd against those that framed it for Jove was so far from gaining by his Viciousness the repute of being a God as the Vices of his Namesakes imputed to him dethron'd him from that Heaven to which his own Vertue had of old exalted him while they knew and believed no other of him but that he was the Founder of their Commonwealth that he gather'd them being formerly dispers'd like savage Beasts into human Societie that he taught them by Precept and Example the Trade of Vertue they ador'd him for a God But when they hear the Poets tell Stories of his Murders Incests Rapes c. they conclude him if those Stories be true a wicked Demon. Yea Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Venus and Harp of all Philosophy in his Treatise of Superstition Moral tom 1. pag. 389. strenuously maintains the Point That those who deny the Being of God are not so impious as they that conceive him to be such as the Poets feign him I had rather saith he men should in their discoursing of me say there never was any such man as Plutarch than say I was such a man as the superstitious account God to be sickle mutable prone to anger desirous of revenge for the least injury and that from these misconceits of the Gods men grew into the Opinion that there were no Gods Would God this Christian Age had not too sad experience of the truth of this Aphorism For since the Pulpit hath been made a Stage for Mimicks who are train'd up to no other Art wherein they are more dexterous than that of making Mows and wry Faces upon the Establish'd Religion of misrepresenting the Christian Faith and the Authour of it by fathering upon the Spirit their nonsensical uncharitable blasphemous Prattlings upon God the Father such inhumane and bloody Purposes and Decrees as make him look out of their Dress more ill-favour'd than the blackest Fiend upon God the Son the Institution of a Religion more barbarous than the Worship of Moloch this Stage-play Divinity hath brought in Atheistical Contempt of God and the Ministery But I dare not give my just Zeal its full scope in this place I now alledge this only to shew That the Law of Honesty Vertue and Morality is so deeply imprest upon the Human Soul as rather than Men who are not altogether brutified will be led to Acts of Injustice upon the suggestions of a Divine Command they will deny the Divinity of that Command and chuse rather to worship no God at all than one that 's represented with such Properties as bid defiance to common Honesty CHAP. IV. Christian Religion concords with the highest Philosophical Notions § 1. Divine Knowledg communicated from the Church to travelling Philosophers Our Religion elder than Heathenism by Heathens confession § 2. Christian Articles implied in Pagan Philosophy's Positions Man's happiness through Communion with God and Conformity unto God § 3. This Conformity and Communion effected by God-man God manifest in the Flesh born of a Virgin § 4. Plato falter'd under the burden of vulgar Error A man from God Whence Multiplicity of God-Saviours Pagan Independency Their mutual indulging one another § 5. Not many but one Mediator the result of the Heathen's second thoughts Plato ' s Sentence sentenced by Platonicks Nothing can purge but a Principle St. John ' s Gospel in Platonick Books The Christian Premisses yielded their Conclusions denied by Gentiles Plato ' s Sentence under the Rose § 1. The Church gave life to received none from the Philosophers THe Apostles however illiterate might perhaps spin out of their own bowels a course-spun Warp which might fit to an hairs-breadth the home-spun Woof of vulgar Conceptions But then how came they to a Doctrine so exactly suting the more refined Notions of the most eminent Philosophers Quis docuit psittacum suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If they were men of crazy or but vulgar Brains whence learn'd they to dogmatize to Grecize in their divine Philosophy so profoundly to distil a Doctrine so absolutely Philosophical as it either ecchoeth to what was taught in the most learned Schools or is such as the most sagacious Wits were hunting after but could not start and must ecchoe to upon its Proposals or recede from their own Principles Hence that of R. Obad. Caon in Psal. 45. Kings Daughters were among thy honourable Women id est opiniones sapientùm Nationum exterarum that is the opinions of the wise Gentiles And that of Lactantius Quod si extitisset aliquis qui veritatem distersam per singulos per sectásque diffusam colligeret in unum ac redigeret in corpus is profectò non dissentiret à nobis Lactant de divino
lost two Sons but lost them by the hands of Ophella's Souldiers In which passage my Author seems to compare Agathocles his Immolation of Ophella to his own lusts with the Carthaginians Oblation of their Children to Saturn that the meritorious cause of his ruine this of their deliverance Hence Philo immolandos exhibuisse filios vel pro incolumitate patriae velut averterent bella siccitates inundationes pestilentias de Abrahamo 243. the Gentiles sacrificed children for the common safety for the averting of War Plague drought c. Hyginus Poetic Astronom tit Hydra reports that the Plague raging at Phlagusa near Troy Demiphon enquired of the Oracle what course he should take to pacifie the incensed Deity Apollo commands they should every year sacria Virgin of noble Parentage Petronius Arbiter amongst the most trite and obvious things in Classick Authors reckons responsa in pestellentiam data ut virgines tres aut plures immolentur Satyric pag. 1. Responds given for the removal of the Pestilence that two or three or more Virgins should be sacrificed If we review those Instances of humane Victimes that have already been quoted we shall find they were applyed to as their sacred Anker when all other ways of supplications were found inavailable and their distress such as required immediate redress and would admit of no delay Thus when the Priests of Baal found their God to lend a deaf ear to their Prayers they invoke him with the voice of their own Blood When the Grecians in their expedition to Troy at Aulis cannot by their Hecatombs of bestial Victims obtain the favour of their angry Goddess they immolate Iphigenia and when in their return home at the Taurick Chersonesus they cannot by any other means attone Achilles's Ghost or engage a fair wind homeward they with joynt consent sacrifice Polixena When the Marcomanni invaded the Empire an Christi 271. Fulvius Sabinus made a motion in the Senate by the Emperour's Order that the Sybil's Books might be consulted and such Sacrifices offered as they appointed for so great an Exigent to the which he instigates them in these words Serò nimis P. C. de reipublicae salute consulimus serò ad fatalia jussa respicimus more languentium qui ad summos medicos nisi in summa desperatione non mittunt we consult too late oh ye conscript Fathers about the safety of the Commonwealth we look too late to the fatal Commands after the manner of languishing persons who send not for the best Physicians but in greatest Extremity Now what these fatalia jussa were appears from the Emp. Aurelian's letter to the Senate Miror vos patres sancti tamdiu de aperiendis Sibyllinis dubitasse libris quasi in Christianorum Ecclesia non in templo deorum omnium tractaretis Agite igitur ceremoniisque solennibus juvate principem Necessitate publica laborantem inspiciantur libri quae facienda fuerint celebrentur quemlibet sumptum cujuslibet gentis Captivos quaelibet animalia regia non abnuo sed libens offero Vopiscus in Aureliano pag. 100 102. I wonder holy Fathers that you should thus long dwell upon the question whether the Sibylline Oracles are to be consulted or no as if you handled this question in a Church of Christians and not in the Temple of all the Gods Go to therefore and with solemn Ceremonies aid Prince labouring under the publick necessity Let the books be looked into and whatsoever they appoint to be done be it to sacrifice Cattel Captives or whomsoever it shall be observed § 5. But we need no better evidence that men fled to humane Blood in those extremities out of which they found no exit any other way than what the sacred Scriptures afford where it is recorded that the King of Moab being besieged in Kirharraseth seeing that he could neither hold out against the assaults nor with his select band make his way through the Forces of his Enemies and being resolv'd not to yield till he had tryed the last means of invoking and engaging the divine aid took his eldest Son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him up for a Burnt-offering upon the wall 2. Reg. 3. 26. And when the King of Moab saw that the battel was too sore for him he took with him seven hundred men to break through even to the King of Edom but they could not Then he took his eldest Son c. And there was great indignation against Israel and they departed from him and returned to their own Land I shall not here dispute whether Junius Tremelius their first or second thoughts are soundest It will be sufficient for my turn to prove their second not overwise except in St. Paul's sence being part of them grounded upon their correcting the Text as themselves translate it the Text Accepit filium suum primogenitum The Margin Corrigendum Ejus id est Regis Edomoeorum Such is their conceipt that the King of Moab sacrificed the King of Edom's Son for the framing of which they turn Suum which clearly carries it to the King of Moab into Ejus to which they make the King of Edom the antecedent whose Son they would make us believe the King of Moab took Prisoner in that fruitless sally he made to break through the King of Edom's Forces a thing in its self 't is true possible though very improbable that he who could not break through to the King of Edom's Forces sor the safety of his life by flight should be able to carry off such a Prisoner who doubtless was near his father's Standard in his retreat to the City through the Forces of the Kings of Judah and Israel which lay betwixt the City and the King of Edom as that expression does more then imply to break through even unto the King of Edom strange that he should venture back again through two Armies with the incumbrance of a Prisoner rather than through one for his own safety However the Argument à posse ad esse can be of no validity here where the consequence is as manifestly impossible as it is for God to lye for the Text saith the King of Moab took suum primogenitum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septuagint he took his own first begotten son his own first begotten son in which relative there can be no ambiguity though the Ejus which they foist into the Margin and the his which stands in our English Text may in Grammar refer indifferently to either the King of Edom or of Moab and therefore I am more scandalized with these learned men's turning of suum into ejus than I am with the Collecters of the Contents of our English Bibles for applying that relative to the King of Edom Eng. contents of 2 Reg. 3. the King of Moab sacrificing the King of Edom ' s son To return to Junius and Tremelius their opinion touching this subject expressed in their notes on Amos 1. 16. filium Edomaei captivum in holacaustum absolutissimè
kind of purgation for that part of man that Porphyry calls intellectual another for that he calls spiritual and another for the Body therefore hath our most faithful and powerful Purifier and Saviour taken whole Man In which Point the Heathen World saw itself labour under that great disadvantage as at the first starting of the Question the Roman Empire would by an Edict prohibiting humane Sacrifices have wiped her mouth with Solomon's Whore and denied the Fact had not the Patrons of the Christian Cause made palpable Demonstration of it by pointing to those Humane Victims to the Latian Jove that were openly sacrificed in Rome it self and to other Deities through the whole body of the Empire Tertul Apol. 8. Upon which disappointment those Philosophers which enter'd the lists against the Church or wrote in defence of Natural Theology not daring for very shame to deny the fact turn it into all imaginable shapes but of its natural Form that it might not serve the Christian's turn Hence Plutarch decries humane Sacrifices as barbarous and well he might for so they were Porphyry explodes the Vulgar Opinon that the blood and steam of sacrificed Animals was the food of the Gods affirming that none but Cacodaemons can delight in such food wherein the Christian does more cordially concurr with him than Jamblicus his Fellow-philosopher for he though he give him his say in gross yet takes it away by retail or rather consents to him in general words but opposeth him in deed and in particular Conclusions Jamblicus de mysteriis tit De sacrificiis unde vim habeant quid conferant tit Quae ratio sacrificiorum quae utilitas In all which windings and turnings more than I am willing to follow them in they did but seek Subterfuges from the dint of the Christians Plea from uuniversal Practice by perverting the state of the Question which was not Whether humane Sacrifices were of any efficacy towards the averting of evil or the obtaining of good in deed and reality but Whether in the World's Opinion they were not of that tendency nor whether they were justifiable in Morality But whether they were practised or no as propitiations in Divinity which Jamblicus himself is forc'd to confess more than once Good men saith he being expiated by Sacrifices receive good things from the Gods and have evil things driven away tit Chaldeor mysteria And again The Prophets foretold impending judgments and admonish'd People by Sacrifices to appease the Divine Nemesis tit Inspiratus vacat ab actione And lastly having assigned the cause of the wonderful efficacy of Sacrifices to be a certain friendship accommodation and habitude inclining the Workman to respect his Workmanship he concludes thus When we take and sacrifice any thing living that hath sincerely and exactly observed the Will and Decree of its Maker by such a Sacrifice we properly move causam opificiam the working cause to do us good and bring us releif tit Quae ratio sacrific quae utilitas How much more moving must the Oblation of Christs blood be who exactly fulfill'd the Will of God not only by a passive kind of Obedience such as Vegitatives and Animals yeild to the Law of Creation such as Fire and Hail Snow and Vapour fulfilling his word Psal. 148. 8. nor by a bare not actually sinning such as Infants yield but by an every way compleat fulfilling all Righteousness and who was made a Victim not by force and compulsion but by his own free oblation of himself It is St. Jerom's observation upon Daniel's seventh Vision That when ever Expiation was to be made Michael was sent from God with instructions to Israel whose name signifies who like the Lord. God by this intending to teach us that none can make expiation but God alone ut scilicet intelligatur quia propitiationem vel expiationem nullus possit offere nisi deus And Philo Judaeus his upon Levit. 4. 3. that Moses does as good as affirm the true High-Priest to be without sin tantum non dicens verum Pontificem expertem peccati esse de victimis pag. 528. The Jewel I have been all this while raking for in the Dunghil of Heathen Philosophy § 7. The second Branch of the last general Hypothesis common to us and Philosophers viz. That God-saviour incarnate must work Man's restauration into Communion with God by communicating divine Oracles to the World lies more bare-fac'd in their Writings and that it does so is not disputed by any that I have met with and therefore I shall quickly dispatch that point Jamblicus affirms that the Law of Religion was given by divine inspiration from the first Father of the World from whom were all Symbols in Sacrifices signifying some invisible thing Quae lex data est divinitùs à primo patre mundi a quo omnia symbola in sacrificiis significantia aliquid occultissimum Jambl. de myster tit de providentia pag. 31. that is from the supream God by the middle Deities for the same Jamblicus speaking of the Rites used in the Worship of the Gods de myst tit quae ratio sacrific pag. 135. lays this down as the common Opinion of all their Theologues That these Ceremonies are not the Inventions of Men nor obtain'd Authority by Custom and Prescription but were divine Revelations communicated to the several Nations by those Deities to whom God had committed the care of those Nations these are those local God-Man-Saviours concerning whom we have spoke already Of the same tendency is that fore-quoted Clause out of Celsus where he saith that these Presidents did appoint the several Religions that obtain'd place in their respective Cures congruously to the Tempers of the Climes and People committed to their trust and that therefore those Religions were all good and that the very best quoad hic and nunc for every particular Nation which their local Praesidents had instituted And that of Tully Mercurius tertius quem colunt Phenentae quem tradunt Aegyptiis leges literas tradidisse Apollinem Arcades Nomionem appellant quòd ab eo se Leges ferunt accepisse Cicero de natura deorum lib. 3. pag. 133. 134. With which concurrs that Testimony of Plato in his Symposium those Semidei that mediate and keep up a correspondency betwixt the Gods and us do bring to us the injunctions of the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apuleius de daemonio Socratis calls them Interpreters on both sides and bearers of Salutations St. Austin has a whole Chapter upon this Subject an daemonibus nunciis interpretibus dii utantur de Civitate lib. 8. cap. 21. And that of Jamblicus de mysteriis titulo de ordine superiorum quaesunt in diis c. quae sunt in diis ineffabilia occulta daemones exprimunt atque patefaciunt Those things that are ineffable in the Gods the Demons declare and reveal to us Hence we find this clause he gave Laws inserted in the Histories of all the Heroes vide Lact. de fal rel
for a light to the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth Isa. 49. 6. and when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And Rom. 4. 16. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many nations Paralel or answerable to him whom he believed even God who quickneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were who against hope believed in hope that he should become the Father of many Nations answerable to him that is as God is not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles so should Abraham be the Father both of Jewish and Gentile-believers the believing of which as to the Gentiles was as noble a degree of Faith as that whereby Abraham believed the Promise that in Isaac his Seed should be blessed when he was about to sacrifice him this being no more against hope than that God would raise up a seed to him of Gentiles dead in Sins And to the second they answered that the Jew need not trouble his head with contriving how or where God would find Subjects if he were rejected for the Gentiles were flocking in apace to the Standard of Messias and ere long the Fulness of them would be come in and so all Israel be saved that is Dr. Ham. annot in Rom. 11. 12. 25. they should every where act the Call of the Gospel come in in such numbers as they would in every City and eminent Town afford matter enough for the constituting of Evangelical Churches or visible Assemblies of Christians there by which means the Jews will at length be provoked to believe and so all the true Children of Abraham Jews and Heathens both but particularly the Remnant of the Jews shall repent and believe in Christ. And for them that will not be gain'd by these Methods God may cast them off upon gainful Terms having in lieu of them a great multitude of Subjects which no man could number of all Nations and Kindreds and People and Tongues Rev. 7. 9. Christ foretells that upon the Builder's rejecting the precious Stone and its becoming a Corner-stone the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to another Nation Mat. 21. 42. 43. And according to this Prophecy of Christ and Application of Jacob's Prophecy which Christ and his Apostles made to the time of Jerusalem's final Desolation God did then remove his Scepter from Judah that ceasing then to be God's Kingdom and the Kingdoms of the World becoming the Kingdoms of God and of his Christ within a few Centuries afterwards when Christs Royal Law came to be established and protected by the Imperial Sanction and the Edict of Princes become Christian. In whose Territories in the mean time God had his imperial Cities his Cities on Hills that could not be hid Christian Churches so visible and conspicuous as spake him to be King of all the Earth in the same sence that he had been King of Judea that is in respect of his Kingdom of Grace of his golden Scepter Briefly there was such a gathering of the Gentiles to Shilo before that rejected King's coming to destroy miserably those bloody Rebels and to root out their Place and Nation as he need not be to seek for Subjects when he cast off Judah and chose the Gentiles any more than when he refused the Tabernacle of Joseph and chose the Tribe of Judah Psal. 78. 67. 68. for the Gospel had then been preach'd to and brought forth fruit in all the World God manifested in the Flesh had been preach'd to the Gentiles and believedon in the World as hath been formerly shewed § 4. But then this being laid for a Ground that the Scepter 's departure imports properly and firstly the Removal of the Thearchy from the Jews and translating it to the Gentiles and the time of its departure being thus stated to have been in such a Juncture as wherein God might and did break up his Court in Judea without impeachment of his Truth or Honour which he could not do before It will be obvious enough that that Prophecy consequentially to this implies as the effect of it a gradual withdrawing of their outward Polities Liberties and Privileges thereon depending as the Sun being set the light of it departs by degrees till it wholly disappear Of which though we can make no Demonstration while it is in Motion it takes such minute and insensible steps much less from thence convince an obstinate and captious Adversary that the Sun is set if it be not seen at its going down till the Light of it be impair'd to a degree beyond what the most gloomy Sky the thickest Mist or the most dismal Eclipse can reduce it to yet when its Light is dwindled into such a degree of privation 't is a palpable evidence that the Sun its Fountain is departed our Horizon As therefore I have been forc'd to prove that the Scepter notwithstanding any loss of Light it did or could sustain before the Gentiles flock'd in to our Saviour's Standard was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 departed there having been from David to Christ no greater diminutions of its Light then had been from Jacob to David and therefore the Jew upon the same reason that he will not look downwards in Judah's Line for Shilo as low as our Jesus must look upwards for him beyond David for if those castings down of the Crown to the ground which it sustain'd by the Apostacy of the ten Tribes the Babylonish Captivity the Persecution of Antiochus the Dictatorship of the Macabees or what else occurs in the History of that Interval speak the departure of the Scepter much more must it be departed in the interval before David in the Egyptian Bondage or under the Judges of which time their own Scriptures affirm that there was then no King in Israel Nor till our Saviour's time which is my Herculean Argument was there any such concourse of a new People to Israel's God as could have justified him from the imputation of making a losing Bargain should he have cast off his far more numerous old and have adopted that new People Though I confess that great access of Proselytes in Solomon's Reign said to be an hundred three and fifty thousand by Dr. Lightfoot in his Parergon of the fall of Jerusalem cap. 12. might occasion the Jew to think it was the Gentiles gathering to Shilo and boaded the departure of the Scepter in the falling away of the ten Tribes and doubtless those Gentile Converts together with the Levites and those that feared God adhering to the house of Judah being so numerous as in the worst of times there were seven thousand of them fill'd up the rent that was made in Judah's Royal Robe
Parents as the Lybians did for the Father We must be baptized after the Marcionist's form in the Name of the unknown Father Irenae l. 1. c. 18. or each man know his own by presensation as Jarchus the Indian King did the Parents of Apollonius Philostratus lib. 3. de vita Apollonii Except being by this levelling Policy turn'd into Terrae silios we be resolv'd with those Earth-born Brethren in the Poet to destroy one another by endless contending Tantum irreligio potuit suadere malorum The irreligious imperswasibleness of the Sceptick which inclines him to cavil at the Churches Testimony to the Truth of Evangelical History and to question his own Christian-name will with more shew of reason induce the World into a disbelief of every man's Sir-name and bury all men's Birth-rights in the rubbish of buzzing Exceptions which strike their venomous Sting deeper into the sides of the State than the Church her Testimony being a better proof of the Gospel's Legitimacy than any man can produce of his own Audacter dico quòd sine fide neque infidelis vivit nam si ab insideli percunctari voluero quem patrem vel quam matrem habuerat protinùs respondebit illum atque illam quem si statim requiram utrùm noverit quando conceptus sit vel viderit quando natus nihil horum vel se nosse vel vidisse fatebitur c. Gregor Dialog l. 4. c. 4. I affirm confidently saith Gregory the great that the very Infidel himself doth not live without faith for if I ask an Infidel who is his Father or Mother he will forthwith answer such a man such a woman and if I then demand of him whether he knew when he was conceived or born he will confess that he knew neither of these but believes that he was begotten by that man whom he calls father of her whom be calls mother upon the account of probable Testimony In se spuit qui in caelum spuit he spits in his own face who spits in Heaven's face as Seneca of old observ'd consol ad Polyb. c. 21. and from him our Companella in his Atheismus triumphatus CHAP. II. The Suffrage of the Adversary to the Testimony of the Church § 1. Pagan Indictments shew what was found Christianity in Pagan Courts § 2. Christian Precepts and Examples civilized the Courts of Heathen Emperours § 3. Pliny ' s Information concerning Christians to Trajan § 4. What it was in Christians that Maximinus hated them for § 1. 1. TUrn over the Examinations the Confessions of Christians in open Court before Pagan Tribunals where the same thing was done before the face of the Heathen World that was done at Baptism in the face of the Church Excepto martyrio ubi tota Baptismi sacramenta complentur Baptizandus confitetur fidem suam coram sacerdote interrogatus respondet hoe martyr coram persecutore facit ille post confessionem vel aspergitur vel intingitur hic vel aspergitur sanguine vel contingitur igne ille confitetur se mundi actibus renunciaturum hic ipsi renuntiat vitae For this cause the ancient Fathers believed Martyrdom to supply the want of Water-baptism because therein were performed all the Rites of Baptism the Martyr confessed before the Persecutor the same Faith which he that was to be baptized confessed before the Priest he after Confession was dipp'd or sprinkled with water the Martyr either sprinkled with blood or plung'd over head and ears in fire he promiseth that he will frsake the life of the World the Martyr renounceth life it self Gennadius de eccles dogmat in appendice ad 3. tom operum sancti Augustini pag. 384. Let us I say examine the Confessions of Martyrs and in them you may find the Substance of the Gospel peruse their Indictments against the Martyrs examine what Crimes they charged Confessors with what it was for which they raised against Christians those Out-cries Christiani ad Leones away with these fellows to the Lyons they are not fit to live they will not worship our Gods they will not sacrifice for the Emperour's health they worship for God one Jesus who was born in Judaea whom Pilate at the request of his own Nation put to death as an Impostor who gave his followers a Law destructive to humane Societies set up an unsociable an unpracticable Religion c. And there we meet with the Sum of Christian Religion St. James his Crime for which Ananas the younger the high Priest and a Saducee put him to death in the vacancy of a Governour betwixt Festus his death and the coming of Albinus was that being ask'd what he thought of Jesus that was crucified he answered why ask ye me of Jesus the Son of Man when as he sitteth at the right hand of the great Power in Heaven and his asserting the Resurrection as saith Aegesippus in Eusebius Ec. hist. 2. 3. which the story that Josephus gives of his death confirms not only telling us that the Jews imputed the Fall of Jerusalem to their sin in slaying that just Person but that the whole body of the religious Jews moved Albinus to put Ananas from the High-priesthood for imbrewing his hands in the blood of so just a man a title conferred upon him by that Party out of an Odium to the Sadducees and because he died in witnessing to those Articles of Christian Faith which oppose Saduceism upon the very same account that they sided with St. Paul The questions upon which Domitian examined the reputed Kinsfolks of our Lord were concerning Christ and his Kingdom in what manner and when and where it should appear to which they answered that it was not Worldly or Earthly but Celestial and Angelical that it should come at the consummation of the World when that he coming in glory shall judg the quick and the dead and reward every man according to his works Eus. ec hist. 3. 19. out of Aegesippus which story together with that of the noble Flavia's banishment for the same Doctrine he tells us he found recorded in the Pagan Histories of that Age. In the persecution of the Gallican Church under Antoninus Verus his bloody Lieutenants writ the cause of their process against those Christians to have been their professing Christ to be God their refusing to give divine Worship to any but God their believing the Resurrection their communicating in the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood In their solicitating them to renounce Christ to adore their Pagan Gods In their calumniateing them with Thiestian Banquets for which they had no ground but the confessions of some that fell under the weight of that intollerable Persecution informing their Examiners that in their sacred assemblies they ate and drank the Body and Blood of our Saviour in answer to which misprision the Martyrs would usually argue that it was extremely unlikely that they should devour Infants when their Religion did not suffer them to suck the blood of Beasts nor to
eat any Flesh with the Blood Tertul Apol. adv gentes taking that for their Medium in their Disputes with Heathens upon this point as a thing famously known And lastly in their burning their bodies to ashes and throwing the ashes into Rhodanus when yet the Emperour himself bestowed an honourable Burial and Sepulchre upon his Horse Panasinus Julius Capitolinus in vero Imper. whether in affront to our Christian hope I know not But his Lieutenants did dissipate and drown the ashes of Christian Martyrs on purpose to prevent their Resurrection whereof say they the Christians being fully perswaded contemn Punishment and hasten themselves chearfully to death Now let us see whether they can arise after this dissipation of their Bodies All which the French Church hath left Records of taken in open Court in their Epistle to the Asian and Phrygian Churches Euseb. Eccl. hist. 5. 1. § 2. If the Scepticks except against these Allegations that we have them but at second hand and not immediately from Pagan Records and demand to see the Original though that be a request not all out so reasonable as if a man pretending to dissatisfaction in a Copy taken out of the Parish-register certifying his Parentage and attested to by the Incumbents hand should demand to see the Register-book it self we can gratifie his utmost curiosity For we may gather what kind of people Christians were by taking out those Characters of them which Secular Historians give while at once they describe the temper of those civilized Emperours who indulg'd them and give in that Indulgence as the reason of others raising persecution against them Alexander Severus saith Lampridius Christianos esse passus est permitted Christians This he would not have done had their Religion tolerated Theft Uncleanness Lying Bribery c. which the Emperour so far hated as he made Proclamation to forbid all such Criminals to salute either himself or Mother or his Wife prohibited mix'd Baths would not allow Lenonum Meretricum exolotorum vectigal in sacrum aerarium inferri the Tribute of Brothel-houses to come within the sacred Treasury And yet his Court was so frequented with Christians as Maximinus his Successor raised Persecution against them out of that grudg he bare to the Family of Severus Euseb. l. 6. c. 21. And his Mother Mammea sent for St. Origen and entertain'd him in the Court as her Chaplain Id. Ib. c. 15. to whom her son was unicè pius above measure dutiful and built in the Roman Palace Dining-rooms for her Lamprid. Alex. Sever. Places I suppose separate from common use for the celebration of the Christian Feast He caused the sinews of the fingers of a Notary who had delivered into the Court a false Breviat of a cause depending to be cut off that he might be disenabl'd ever afterwards to write and yet he permitted Origen and other Christian Doctors who gave in to the World a Breviate of Christs Cause to reside in the Palace an Argument that they were not in the least suspected of forgery When a Nobleman of a sordid life and given to bribery who had procured some Kings to intercede to the Emperor for him that he would bestow upon him some Military promotion was admitted into his presence he was in the Presence of his Patrons convict of Theft that is bribery and by their sentence condemn'd to the Cross. Had the Preachers of the Cross been under suspicion of that or the like Crime they would have sped no better He caused Turinus for lying to be smoak'd to death in a fire of green wood while the Cryer made this Proclamation Fumo punitur qui fumum vendidit Would so great an hater of Lyars have tolerated Christians had they been guilty of that vice Would he have honoured our Saviours Image with a place in his Chappel amongst those of Apollonius Abraham Orpheus and others whom he deemed choice men and holiest Souls if the Doctrine he taught had been any other than pious any other than what the Gospel communicates Would he have taken up thoughts of building a Temple to Christ and receiving him into the number of the Gods but that he was advised that the whole Empire would then turn Christian and desert the Temples of all other Gods If the Christian Religion had not exceld all others and been then presented according to the Evangelical pattern now in being If the custom of Ordaining Christian Priests after trial according to the now extant Evangelical prescript had not been then in use in the Church Would he by name have commended that Custom of Christians to the imitation of the Romans in the appointing of Provincial Governours and Civil Officers Cùm id Christiani facerent in praedicandis sacerdotibus qui ordinandi sunt Lamprid. Alex. Severus Had not the Christian Religion then profest been as it is now against serving the Belly Would he have adjudged the benefit of a publiek place which they had taken possession of for Divine Service rather to the Christians than to the Cooks Whence learn'd he to offer those incomparable Jewels which an Ambassador presented to sale and when he could not meet with a chapman would give the price to hang them on the ears of Venus rather than his Wives but from that of St. Peter whose adorning let it not be that outward of wearing of gold This he did saith Lampridius to prevent the Queens giving bad Example to other Matrons by this excess of costliness in Attire who also being a Pagan Historian writes That if any of his Soldiers had in their march offered violence or done injury to any man this Pagan Emperor would see him beaten before his face with cudgels orrods or more grievously punish'd if the offence deserv'd it ingeminating to the offender this expostulation Wouldst thou have this done to thy self and thy own possessions that thou dost to another And that he was wont while he was giving correction to the culpable to cause proclamation to be made by a Cryer What thou wouldst not have done to thy self do not to another quod à quibusdamsive Judae is sive Christianis audierat which he had heard either from some Jews or Christians Thou mayst learn by this Reader that Lampridius was a Pagan for otherwise he would never have made such a dis-junction as ascribes that saying to the Jew which never came in his mouth but downright have affirmed as other Heathens did who studied the Case of the Christians on purpose to oppose it that this was a Christian Proverb Though that other Precept was originally Judaick which he walkt by when in judging that Widows Cause whom a Soldier had plundered of more than he could restore he disbanded the Soldier made him work at his carpenters trade for the relief of the Widow In the History of this our Emperour here are sufficient intimations given us of those Qualifications of the Christian Faith and Professors as speak it and them to have been such then in the
apprehension of Pagans as they are given out to be in the Gospel at this day viz. A Religion instituted by and a Sect named from Christ a Person of such holiness as he deserved to be numbred in the rank of the best and divinest Philosophers and would have been enrolled amongst the Gods but for fear that the Religion of his Institution would put down all others it containing those excellent Precepts which so civilized the followers of his Doctrine as they were permitted in the Court of this Emperour whence all vicious persons were prohibited and were of that use in the administration of the Affairs of the Empire as this very best of Heathen Emperours took those Rules and Practices of Christians for his Pattern which the Gospel exhibites Should I prosecute the Reigns of the rest of the Emperours who had a favour to Christians though themselves were none It would swell my discourse to too great a bulk I will therefore content my self with two instances more § 3. One out of Pliny who in laying down the Reason why Trajan remitted that persecution which his Predecessors had raised against Christians presents them in their religious Assemblies and civil Converse walking by that Rule of Faith and Manners which is extant at this day in the Evangelical and Apostolical Writings This great Agent of State under Trajan informed the Emperour that by examining those that were brought before him and accused as Christians he had learn'd this to be the sum of their Religion of their Crime or Errour as Pliny calls it That upon stated days they were wont to assemble before day to sing Songs and make Prayers together to Christ as God To bind themselves by the Sacrament not to any mischievous or dishonest action but that they should not commit Thefts Robberies or Adulteries that they should not break their word betray their trust or falsifie their promise that they should not with-hold or deny the pledge when they were call'd to restore it That after the performance of Divine Service their custom was to depart every one home and afterwards to meet together again to take meat in common to keep harmless Love-feasts This saith he I extorted and this was all I could learn by racking them to know the truth In the same Epistle he testifies the wonderful growth and prevailing of the Christian Religion through the perseverance of the Martyrs multitudes professing it of all Ages Orders Sexes in Cities Villages Hamblets Insomuch as the Idol-temples were almost left desolate their Solemnities of a long time intermitted the sale of Sacrifices and Victims in a manner given over by reason there were so few buyers Plin. lib. 10. Ep. 103. Trajano A description of the Religion and State of the Christian Church so exactly answering that which the Gospel gives as if it had been transcribed thence is here drawn out to the life and transmitted to us by the Pencil and Pen of an Heathen employed by the Roman Emperor to take an account of the Religion profest by Christians to inform himself what it was wherein they so far differ'd from the Religions establish'd or allowed by the Imperial Laws as to be therefore universally hated and taken from their mouths that were cognoscendis causis Christianorum Plin. ibid. appointed to take cognisance of the causes of Christians as such brought before them § 4. My last instance here shall be the account upon which Maximinus raised the sixth Persecution as it is laid down by Eusebius and proveable out of Lampridius and Capitolinus Maximinus by reason of that grievous envy wherewith he burned against the Houshold of Alexander where very many Christians converst stir'd up a bitter tempest of persecution against the Christian Pastors because they had taught that Doctrine whereby the Imperial Court had been so much civilized Euseb. Hist. l. 6. c. 21. This Beast saith Capitolinus who was so cruel as some called him Cyclops others Busiris others Phaleris some Typho and the Senate inade publick and the whole City private supplications that such a Monster as Maximinus might never be seen at Rome so Mortally hated Alexander for his severe Virtue and the strictness of his Court to which he had brought it by converse with Christians and by conforming his Government to their Precepts saith Lampridius in his Alexander as the Vulgar charged him with the murder of Alexander and moreover he put to death all the Ministers of State and Familiars of Alexander Dispositionibus ejus invidens grieving to see so good men in place If now thou wilt seek Reader what kind of Men and Courtiers they were for whose Christian Manners this Monster hated them and persecuted the Christian Doctors for introducing this civilty into the Roman then Pagan Palace and therewithall learn what went for Christian Virtue above 1400 years ago thou wilt find that Maximinus persecuted as Christian those Evangelical Precepts which the Apostolical VVritings commend to us and are not to be found but there or in Books derived from thence And thou needest not go far for a resolution of this enquiry for Lampridius will resolve thee who in answer to that Question of Constantine How Alexander a stranger born of Syrian extract became so excellent a Prince tells him That though he could alledge the indulgence of Mother Nature who is a Stepdame to no Country and the fate of Heliogabalus which might have terrified him from vicious living yet because he would suggest to him the very truth he commends to him what he had already written and Constantine read I suppose touching the favour he had to Christians and his sucking in their Precepts upon the perusal whereof and reflexion upon that saying of Marius Maximus It is better and more safe for the Republick that the Prince himself be evil than that his Friends and Counsellors be so for one evil man may be oversway'd by a multitude of good men but a multitude of bad men can by no means be brought into order by one though never so good a Prince And that Answer which Homulus gave to Trajan when he said that Domitian was the worst of men but had good Friends and Agents He must needs be a worse Prince than Domitian who being a better man than he had committed the administration of publick affairs to men of a bad life He presents it to Constantine as a thing not at all strange that Alexander should prove so good a Prince seing by following his Mother Mammaea's instruction which she had learnt of her Christian Doctors he himself became the best of men Optimus fuit optimae matris consiliis usus and had constituted his Court and adopted familiars of men not malicious not ravenous not thievish not factious crafty consenting to evil haters of goodness lustful cruel circumventors scorners But holy venerable continent religious lovers of their Prince who would neither reproach him nor be a reproach to him who would take no bribes would not lye nor dissemble nor betray their
dispencing of it as to several other heads of it While Celsus will needs make the Royal Law useless and needless as to the most part of it There is nothing saith he in the Christian Discipline new or worthy of commendation but is common to it and the Philosophers who before Christ have taught that there is to be expected Rewards of Virtue and Mulcts for Sin in the other World Orig. contr Cel. 1. 4. Christ tell us saith he we ought not to worship Gods made with hands that the Father is to be worship'd in Spirit Why we Philosophers account not Images of the Gods to be Deities we know that the Workmanship of wicked Artificers and villanous men as many times they are that grave these Images cannot be Gods we have learn'd of Heraclitus that they who adore liveless Statues do as simply as they that talk to Walls of the Persians that the Deity is not comprehended within any Structure made with hands and of Zeno Citiensis in his Book of the Common-wealth that he need not build Chappels that prepares the Temple of his own Soul for the entertainment of God Those very Laws which the Madaurencian Philosophers blamed as destructive to humane Societies Celsus mentions with Commendation as far more ancient than Christ. They have also saith he these Laws Thou must not repel injuries If any man smite thee on thy cheek turn the other to him this is an old Dictate long since utter'd by Socrates when he was disputing with Crito and mention'd by Plato in his Timaeus Orig. contr Cel. 7. 17. upon the same account he mentions the commendations which Christ gives to Humility Purity of Heart Pacateness of Spirit c. as better expressed by Plato in his Books of Laws advising him that would be happy to pursue Righteousness with an humble pure and pacate Mind Id lib. 5. cal 8. And the Caution that Christ gives against Covetousness Celsus in the same place affirmeth to have been derived from Plato whose saying that it is impossible for any man to be very rich and very good he parallels to that of Christ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven The mortiferousness of these Waters is to be cured by casting in that cruze of Salt which I have already exhibited and brought to hand in the second Book where I shewed that whatsoever points of abstruse knowledge occurr in the Schools they are beholding to the Temple for and are but Beams of that Light which Christ or his Spirit in the Prophets communicated to the World the last of which Prophets Writings are near as old as the first of Gentile Philosophers It were endless to enumerate the ecchoes of Christs Law which those Rocks that oppose it so articulately reverberate as a steadily listning Ear may take in the beginning middle and end of every Evangelical Precept from those mock-sounds in Heathen Authors I shall not therefore enlarge this Section with more Instances but conclude it with this Observation That the Adversaries in making reply to our urging them with the excellencie of Christs Law would not have taken that course as puts them upon such self-contradictory Salvoes if they durst for very shame the contrary was so palpable have denied them to be Christs Briefly we find in the Pagan Writers what they took to be Christ's Law and that which they opposed as such is the very same with that that the Gospel presents as such not one Egg is more like another than that Bracelet of Pearls which our Saviour fitted to the necks of his Disciples is to that which these impure Swine trample under their feet CHAP. IV. Every Article of the Apostles Creed to be found as asserted by the Church in those Writings which opposed Christian Religion § 1. Maker of Heaven and Earth § 2. His only Son § 3. Conceived by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary § 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilat c. § 5. Rose again the third day § 6. Ascended into Heaven thence c. § 7. The holy Ghost § 8. Holy Catholick Church c. § 1. 3. THe sum of the Christian Faith taught by Christ and his Apostles is intirely and in every branch of it recorded as such in the Authors that disputed against it For order and brevities sake I shall here instance in the several Articles of it comprised in that most admirable Compendium of it the Apostles Creed which as it has been taken for such by all Christians so it has been opposed as such by all Adversaries Article 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth That this Article as it is now profest by the Church and laid down in the New Testament was from the beginning held forth as a point of that Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles Preach'd and therefore not wrongfather'd upon them is manifest from those quotations out of Pagan Authors who affronted it upon that very account and only Reason because it was Christ's Doctrine Celsus from the practice of the Ophiani Hereticks who worship'd the Serpent as bestowing upon our first Parents the knowledge of good and evil a gift which God envied them as they blasphemously speak objects that Christians contrary to that faith which they profess worship another God than the Creator of all things to wit the Serpent Or. Con. Cels. 5. 16. As Celsus doth here confess that that Doctrine which our Bible exhibites touching Gods prohibiting Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and the Serpents prevailing with Adam to eat of that Tree and the opening of Adam's eyes thereupon to discern good and evil and the Serpents infinuating to Adam that God envied him that knowledge c. was the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles so his charging upon the Church that impious Practice of these Heriticks misgrounded upon the Churches Faith and which the Church exprest her abhorrencie of was no more equal dealing than that which the Romanists measure out to the British and other Protestant Churches when they lay to her charge the practices of such as are at as great a distance from Communion with her as with them You Christians saith Celsus profess you believe in and worship God the Creator of this Universe but since Plato saith it is hard to find out and know that God and impossible to communicate the knowledge of him to another is it like that you of all other men should attain to the knowledge of this God being fast bound in chains of ignorance so as you cannot see what is pure Idem 7. 14. Compare what the Christians teach with what the Philosophers guess concerning God and the controversie which of us have attained to a more perfect knowledge of God will easily be determined That God created man after his own Image was the Doctrine of Christ and the Primitive Church appears from Celsus his arguing that if the Christans
The Jew in Celsus lib. 2. 6. upbraids the Christian for believing in him that could not avoid or evade those dangers that Death he was brought to by the Treason of his own Disciple but suffer'd himself to be apprehended arraigned condemned and crucified for all that he fore-knew and fore-told his Disciples of those things that befell him And that they put their confidence in Jesus who not only in appearance suffer'd these things but really openly before many Witnesses as themselves say what God Angel or but wise Man would wittingly and willingly have been taken in those snares which were laid in his sight if he could have help'd it Is it not a wonder that Christ by telling Judas of his Treason Peter of his Denial should not have been so far revered they believing him to be God as to prevent the Apostacy of the one the Lapse of the other or did he not by foretelling it teach them to do it and lay snares for the Companions of his Table God is impassible why then did Christ if he were God suffer such an Agony for fear of death as made him sweat like drops of Water and Blood and cry out to be saved in the Garden in these words Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me and complain on the Cross in these My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The Christians after all their Promises produce for the Son of God not a pure and holy Word as they term Christ but a man affected with most ignominious suffering beaten with stripes spit upon and nailed to the Cross whence he could not descend though provoked to do it It was then sure high time for him to declare himself God when the Jews insulted over him before Pilat when in mockage they put on him a purple Robe put a Reed for a Scepter into his hand and set a Crown of Thorns upon his head with the pricking whereof as also of the Nails and Spear Blood issued out from him I pray what kind of Blood was that that flowed from your crucified God was it not like that which issued from the wounded hand of Venus Cruor qualis divis manat ille beatis Can you blame us Jews for not embracing for our Prince Messiah one that while he lived could not get above eleven or twelve Disciples and those Fishermen and Publicans the most dis-ingenuous kind of men and most easie to be seduc'd who rather than they would run the hazard of suffering with him did with most fearful execrations deny him One who while he was upon the Cross was so impatient of pain as he thirsted and greedily gulp'd in a draught of Vinegar and discovered more impatiency than an ordinary man would have done You say indeed he descended into Hell Observe by the way that our over-wise Disputers who question the Antiquity of the Article of the Descent are more ignorant of the Christian Faith than this dull-pated Epicurean Philosopher this Article was so obvious to Celsus as he made it the subject of Derision and yet is so dark to men that can see through a Mill-stone as we must take it for a courtesie if they will allow us to make it the Object of our Faith Was it to get Disciples there seeing he could get so few among the living lib. 2. cal 41. the Jew mentions Christ's last words at giving up the Ghost the Earthquake and Darkness that attended his death On these Scenes Celsus as he discovers the truth of the delivery of these parts of the History of Christ and his knowledg of that History so it bewrays his ignorance in the Contents of the Old Testament wherewith if he had been acquainted he would never have brought a Jew upon the stage thus to flout at the blessed Jesus for suffering those things which their own Prophets foretold were to befal their Messias to wit that he was to be apprehended arraigned and condemned as a Lamb not opening his mouth that he was to have Vinegar given him to drink that he was to be betrayed by Judas forsaken of his Disciples denyed by Peter c. So that Celsus could not have devised how to evince the Jew more effectually that Jesus is the Christ than by these very Arguments that he puts into his mouth against him nor more manifestly have confirm'd the Truth of that Evangelical Assertion That the Jews stumbled on this stone of Christs outward Meanness they dreaming of a Messias who would come in external Pomp. While you Christians saith Celsus unpersonated lib. 3. cal 9. worship for God one that was apprehended and condemned and put to death you are but Apes of the Getae who worship Xamolxis of the Cylicians who adore Mopsus of the Acarnanians who give divine honour to Amphilochus of the Thebanes who revere the Deity of Amphiaraus and of the Lebadiensians who repute Trophonius a God Upon this point he beats again lib. 6. 12. You contemn our Jove because the Cretians shew his Sepulchre in their Island why do you then worship Jesus who was buried Their Jove never declared himself to be the eternal Son of God by his Resurrection from the dead as our Jesus did And lib. 6. 18. that prophane Wretch thus scoffs at the Christians using these words The Tree of Life the Blood of the Cross c. such words are often in their mouths I suppose because Jesus was crucified and his Father Joseph a Carpenter sure had he been thrown down from a Rock precipitated into a deep Dungeon or strangled in an Halter had he been a Currier a Bricklayer or a Blacksmith we should have heard the Christian extol to the Heavens the Rock of Life the Dungeon of Resurrection the Halter of Immortality the blessed Stone the Iron of Love the holy Pelt So much foolishness was the Cross of Christ to this Grecian But these Scoffs Lactantius well answers tot latrones semper perierunt quotidiè pereunt quis eâ—rum post crucem suam non dico Deus sed homo appellatus est de justitia l. 5. cap. 3. And he must be a weak Christian that needs any other help to get over these Blocks without stumbling than what Christ hath afforded in his Resurrection for as in these he declared himself Man made under the Law and pointed out by Prophesie so in that he demonstrated himself God This Article was opposed as Apostolical by the Affrican Gentiles as well as European the sound of it went over the Sea But what need we more than the Jews reproaching us with it in stiling our Saviour Suspensus and the confession of Benjamin Tudelensis in itinerario that Jesus was put to death at Jerusalem Grotii annotat ad lib. 2. pag. 153. and the Vote of Tacitus annal l. 15. that Christ of whom the Christians are denominated suffer'd by Pontius Pilate the Governour in the Reign of Tiberius § 5. Article 5. The third day he rose again from the dead You therefore believe Christ to
a divine Person yet they retain'd still their old Heathenish Religion and these are the Christians of which Adrian writes that they worship'd Serapis and that their Bishops for all they said they were Christians were yet devoted to Serapis and that there was none of that Sect be he a Ruler of the Jewish Synagogue a Samaritan or a Christian Presbyter who was not a Conjurer a Wizzard and an Anoynter Insomuch as when the Patriarch came into Aegypt some solicited him to adore Serapis some Christ. Though Adrian of all others had least reason to condem these mungrel Christians for he himself notwithstanding his adhering to the Gentile Religion had that honourable esteem of Christ as he had a mind to build a Temple to him and canonize him for a God Lampridti Alexand. Severus 2. What if Josephus had been a Pharisee could he not lay the corruption of that Sect down when he went to write truly if he keep promise with his Reader he every where faithfully performs the office of an Historian in recording Occurrences as they fell out without favour and affection and I think never Pen that was not guided by infallible Inspiration went more evenly or directly to the point of Truth than he did or let fall less Passion A suspicion of this Nature could not have entred into the head of any man to whom Josephus is not a perfect stranger 3. Had the Pharisees enmity against no Sect but the Christian do not we find them in opposition to the Sadducees who denyed the Resurrection and said there were neither Angels nor Spirits and consequently no Miracles nor Prophesies siding and going along with St. Paul as far as Josepus doth in this Text for what is there in these words that are excepted against as not becoming the mouth of a Pharisee or inclining any further to the approbation of Christianity than their opposition to Saducism might bend a Pharisee to without prejudice to his own Sect. 1. Not in that If it be lawful to call him a man for first that may be taken in as bad a sence as those paradoxical wits put upon the immediat following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who interpret them as a defamation of the blessed Jesus which joyn'd together if the Context did not reclaim and Christian ears abhor the sound may by a sinister interpretation be made to speak Josephus to have had this opinion of our Saviour that he was not a Man but some Changeling or Fairy-elf who shewed apish Tricks play'd strange Pranks mimi histriones quoque dicti sunt paradoxi Vos Etymol If therefore the Christians had had a mind to periwigg Josephus to make him look more favourably upon Christ they would never have put upon him such a border as this out of which he looks more a squint upon him than he did without it Had Josephus in opprobry called Christ a doer of paradoxical actions it would have been neither Piety nor Policy in Christ's friends to have added by way of Preface I cannot tell whether I should call him a man the worst sence which the first clause is capable of alone being better than the best bad sence that can be put upon it in conjunction with such a Preface If it cast a bad aspect upon Christ alone it will cast a worse in such company 2. Take them both as Josephus delivers them with the right-hand as speaking in consort with the whole series of his Discourse the commendation of our Saviour and what is gain'd by taking in or lost by leaving out these words if we may call him a man that deserves the raising of so much dust does not Christ's doing miraculous Works his rising from the dead according to the Prophecies that went of him speak him to have been more than an ordinary Man either the Messias or that Prophet or Elias which is all that Josephus intends or can be deem'd to intend in those words which import no more but his being of an Opinion equivolent to that Pagan Opinion of Christ mention'd by St. Austin de consensu Evang. 1. 7. tom 4. pag. 162. honorandum enim tanquam sapientissimum virum putant non colendum tanquam Deum They thought he was to be honoured as a most wise man but not to be worship'd as a God for he was so far from thinking Christ to be God as in the question about Messiah he preferr'd Vespasian before him de Bel. Jud. 7. 12. an Argument that he did not apprehend the Messias himself to be God only he perceiv'd by the great Works Christ did that he was more than a common Man and by the Analogy which those Works bare to Prophecie that he was one of those extraordinary persons to whom those Prophecies had relation Either the Christ or Elias or that Prophet or one of the Prophets as some of the Jews conjectured our Saviour to be who were far enough from believing in him as Christ the Son of the living God Mat. 16. 6. 2. Nor in that that is Christ whereby it was not in Josephus his thought to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth for the Christ but only to distinguish him by that appellation from others his Coetanians who were called Jesus as the Son of Ananus who for seven years together before the ruin of the City denounced wo against it Bel. Jud. 7. 12. Jesus the son of Damneus whom Albinus made high Priest in room of Ananus the younger the murderer of St. James our Lords Brother which James Josephus in the same Chapter calls the Brother of Jesus Christ to distinguish him from that other Jesus Jud. antiquit 20. 7. there mentioned as also from Jesus the Captain of those Cut-throats whom the Imperialists of Sephorim hired to surprise Josephus vita Josephi and Jesus the son of Saphias that fire-flinger who incens'd the Galileans against Josephus Ibid. Jesus the son of Tobias that Captain of Robbers who near Tiberias surprised five of Valerian's Soldiers Bel. Jud. 3. 16. Jesus the son of Thebath to whom Titus gave quarter at the taking of the upper part of the City Jerusalem Bel. Jud. 7. 15. and Jesus the son of Gamaliel who succeeded that other Jesus already named in the high Priesthood antiq Jud. 20. 7. So that besides our Jesus there were six who in that Age bare that name and two of them mention'd in the same Chapter where he is named Jesus Christ Ant. Jud. 20. 7. Briefly so ambiguous was the name Jesus in that Age as the Jewish Exorcists that they might not leave the unclean spirits which they adjured in the name of Jesus in doubt who that Jesus was annex to it in their form of Conjuration this discriminating Circumstance whom Paul preacheth without which they might have pleaded they neither knew Jesus nor Paul there being Jesusses many and Pauls many but no Paul that preach'd Jesus saving the Apostle nor any Jesus whom Paul preach'd but Jesus Christ and therefore the Spirits are forc'd to confess Jesus
Upon the same account that bitter enemy of Christ Celsus also confesseth that Christ by means of the Miracles he wrought procured many Disciples Origen Contr. Celsum lib. 1. cal 21. 2. He casts not in here that common allay of as it is reported nor gives that Caution against his Readers too facil Credulity which he usually inserts where either himself questions the Truth of Matter of Fact or fears his Prudence may be called in question for not questioning that but roundly affirms Christ to have done wonderful works not fearing the Censure of his critical Readers upon either his reporting it for a certain Truth or believing it nec meis scriptis timui conscius enim mihi eram veritatis servatae Vita Josephi I was not afraid of mens censuring my writings for I was conscious to my self that I have kept strictly to the Truth He writes in another strain when he reports the dream of Archelaus expounded by Simon the Essean the appearance of Alexander's Ghost to Glaphyra and an hundred more historical Passages out of which I single this for its proximity of time to our Saviour's working and preaching These stories though reported to him by the familiars of the Queen Glaphyra though one of them came from an Essene to the Professors of which Religion Josephus ascribed more holiness than all other the most strictest Sects he concludes thus Though I thought good to communicate these Relations as being of great use towards the proving the immortality of the Soul and divine Providence yet they that think these things incredible I give them leave to enjoy their Opinion Jud. ant 17. ult And another thus Antiq. l. 15. c. 13. Haec tametsi fidem excedere videntur visum est tamen Lectori indicare quia multi sunt in eo genere quibus ob morum probitatem divinitas aperire dignatur sua decreta consilia These things though they seem to exceed belief yet I thought good to acquaint the Reader with them because there are some of this Sect to whom for the probity of their Manners God vouchsafes to reveil his Decrees and Counsels What reason can be given of his confidence thus peremptorily to dictate while he discourseth of Christ is he in so short a while as the writing of two or three Chapters takes up grown so regardless of his Credit that he was so lately so tender of as without any Salvo or reserve thus positively to affirm that Jesus wrought admirable Works or proceeds not this rather from the assurance he hath of the Authentickness of his Intelligence this being a point that he had the fairest opportunity to inform himself about of any that are recorded by him except those he was an Eye-witness of for before the end of Claudius's Reign at sixteen years of age he committed himself for five years together to the Discipline of the Essenes Scribes and Pharisees in order to his making a prudential Choice of the best Religion who doubtless out of an inveterate odium against Christ would taint this new Vessel with all imaginable Prejudices against the Gospel from his one and twentieth year he resigned up himself to the Placits of the greatest enemies our Saviour had while he was upon Earth the Pharisees and to the Society of their Brethren in iniquity the Priests of Jerusalem Josephi vita thus armed against the Christian Faith in the Judaean troubles under Gessius Florus he betakes himself into Galilee the Stage of our Saviours great Works in managing of which Province he staid till he was taken Prisoner by Titus having in the mean while his residence by turns in all the Towns of note in that tract which the blessed Jesus had so worn with his feet as he could scarce come any where where he might not yet see the recent prints of them and converse with thousands upon whom and in whose sight those Miracles were wrought he might yet at the Sea of Tiberias where he first quarter'd see the Ships which those Disciples were called out of to be Fishers of Men wherein Christ taught multitudes that stood on the shore wherein he commanded the Winds and the Sea to be still At Gadera the next place he march'd to he might speak with the Relations of that man out of whom Christ cast Legion and with some of the owners of that Herd of Swine into which the Devils enter'd At Cana he might see the Water-potts whence the true Vine made Wine flow in room of Water After quarter given him by Vespasian he followed the Roman Ensigns as a Prisoner to Caesarea where he might feel the Prison and Moot-hall almost yet warm with St. Paul's Breath the Judgement-seat yet quaking with Felix his-trembling yet resounding the Eccho of St. Paul's pleadings and Agrippa's Confession that he was half perswaded to be a Christian if not infested by that Vermine which insinuated into that other Herod the knowledge of his being a Man while the flattering voyce of the people cryed him up for a God where he might with his Keeper walk to the House where Cornelius was praying when he saw the Angelical Vision where he and his Family were brought in and consecrated to Christ as the First-fruits of the Gentiles and converse with that Italian Band that Cornelius had command over Bel. Jud. 3. 14. From whence he had as fair an opportunity of sending to Joppa to enquire for the Tanners house where St. Peter lodged and on whose Battlements he received his Commission to go to the Gentiles as could be offered for at that very time Vespasian sent a party thither Bel. Jud. Ib. But I must not write a Journal of his March with the Army in Chains though all that while he had freedom and leisure enough to inform himself in the Truth of those things he then intended to commit to Posterity Follow we him whither the Eagles lead him after he has liberty granted him by Vespasian now made Emperor and we find him at Alexandria in Aegypt where was a famous Christian Church then gathered by St. Mark the Evangelist and a Society of four thousand Essenes mentioned by his Co-etanean Philo the Learned Jew if they were not all one as Eusebius thinks they were so near a kin in the Judgement of the World as the ancient Church to wash her hands of those stains were cast upon her Virgin-purity by the Worlds deeming the Essenes to be of her Society was fain to explode them together with the Ebionites Nazarites and Hemerobaptists or rather the Essenes were really the greatest opposers of Christians and the Christian the most perfect hater of them of any Society of men as coming nearest him in outward shape as the Ape to a man but having a divers Soul and therefore the most odious of all Beasts However Josephus his venerable Opinion of that Sect and his three years Pupilage in his Minority under Bannus the strictest of the Judaean Essenes could not but invite him to the acquaintance of
taking Sanctuary from his many and importunate Creditors in a Castle of Idumaea bethought himself how he might put an end to his miserable life which hunger would quickly have determin'd had not his Sister Herodias by the instigation of his Wife Cypros obtain'd of her Husband Herod a stipend for him and an Office at Tiberias till his Uncle in the midst of their Cups upbraiding him with it he left him in scorn and betook himself to the Trencher of Flaccus the President of Syria from whose friendship he falling doth with much difficulty and disadvantage obtain of his Mothers Freeman the Loan of 20000 Attick Drams with which he makes fot Italy but is intercepted and arrested by Herennius Capito for 300000. he was indebted to Caesar. Follow him whither you will till he come to the Crown you shall find him immersing himself in Debt And when he comes to that he leaves not his old wont for though then his yearly Revenues were 1200. Myriades yet he outrun the Constable in his Expences his Disbursements did so far exceed his Incomes as he was still forc'd to borrow and take up upon trust Joseph Antiq. lib. 19. 7. But we need no other Instance of his excessive profuseness nor evidence of his being deeply in the Books of the Tyrian and Sidonian Tradesmen than that Description of the Royal Apparel mention'd by St. Luke which Josephus makes viz. He was arrayed in Cloath of Silver so admirably wrought as the Beams of the rising Sun beating upon it it cast so wonderful radiant a splendour as begat veneration in the beholders We will proceed to his external Character Herod the King whereby he is distinguish'd from Herod Antipas the Tetrarch of Galilee who slew the Baptist and simply the King without the addition of Judaea to difference him from Herod the Great in whose son Arebelaus the Kingdom of Judaea expired being annext to Syria and made a Roman Province at the latter end of the Reign of Augustus and administred by the Governours of Syria Jos. ant 18. 15. from which time to the Reign of Caligula the Herodian Family had not so much as the Title of King and when Caligula bestowed that Title upon this Herod Agrippa he made him not King of Judaea but only of those Tetrarchates which he gave him the Tetrarchates of Philip Lysanias and Herod together with some part of those Territories which Archelaus had held And this Herodian Kingdom of the second Edition though it throve to as great dimensions under the favourable influences of Claudius Vespasian Domitian and Trajan upon the Junior Agrippa as that of Herod the Great had done under Julius and Augustus Claudius added to Agrippa ' s Jurisdiction Judaea and Samaria which had of old belonged to the Kingdom of his Grandfather Herod Jos. ant 19. 4. yet it never recover'd that Grandure either to be or to be so much as reputed the Kingdom of Judaea till either Eusebius or St. Jerome miscalled it so to make it comport with their former mistakes about Daniel's Weeks and the Departure of the Scepter Against which mistake both the sacred Historian in giving Herod the Great and Archelaus the formal Title of Kings of Judaea but Herod Agrippa and his Son that only of King and Josephus by giving us the Story at large of both those Kingdoms have given us sufficient Caution have set up so plain VVay-marks as the way-faring Ideot cannot erre if he attend to those palpable differences of those Kingdoms pointed out by those Mercuries nor possibly overlook their perfect Correspondency in that particular For this Herod is not so much as stiled King of Judaea except once by Josephus and that for brevity's sake with the addition of totius Tertium Judaeae totius regni annum agens an t 19. 7. by that distinguishing that his three years Reign from his four precedent under Caius wherein he had only some part of its Territory which under Herod the Great made up the Kingdom of Judaea but not intending thereby that he was in due form King of Judaea for he presents him as coap-mated and check'd by Marsus the Deputy of Syria in his building the walls of Jerusalem and his entertainment of the five Kings whom Marsus commanded forthwith to depart Herod's Court unto their own homes much against Herods will if he could have helpt it Joseph Antiq. 19. 7. § 2. The like agreement there is betwixt St. Luke and Josephus in their dating the remarkable Death of Herod At that time while upon Agabus his Prophecy of a general Dearth the Church of Antioch sent St. Paul and Barnabas with relief to the Christians which dwelt in Judaea St. Luke dates it for having mentioned their Mission he subjoynes the stories of Herod murdering James imprisoning Peter and his own miserable End after which he tells of Paul and Barnabas their return from performing that Ministry and Office of Charity unto Antioch from whence they had been sent which though it do not necessarily inforce this Conclusion that all those things mentioned in that intervall fell out in that order wherein they are related for St. Luke might lay the Actions in the 12 Chapter before the sending out of Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles on purpose that the story of St. Peter might be taken up together and concluded before the Story of St. Paul come in which is to be prosecuted to the end of the Book as Dr. Lightfoot well observes and therefore St. Paul's Mission to the Gentiles might possibly fall out before some part of the story of Herod and yet properly enough be mentioned after Yet this intertexture plainly enough teacheth us that their former Mission to carry the benevolence of the Church of Antioch to the Saints of Jerusalem happen'd before the Commencement of Herod's Story and that this is contemporary with that Famine which fell out in the days of Claudius as St. Luke states it That is Herod's murder of James fell out in the third and his own death in the beginning of the fourth year of the Reign of Claudius as Josephus expresly affirmeth antiq 19. 7. Herod Agrippa died at the age of 54. after he had reigned seven years That is in the Tetrarchate of Philip three years and one in the Tetrarchate of Herod added to that by Caligula And three years more under Claudius who bestowed upon him Iudea Samaria and Caesarea And that Herods murdering of James could not be before the third of Claudius is manifest from Josephus his affirming that Claudius sent not Agrippa into Judaea till after he had sent forth his general Edicts in favour of the Jews not only unto Alexandria but throughout the whole Empire his edictis Alexandriam per totum orbem dimissis moxque Agrippam Jos. ant 19. 5. which bare Date the second year of his Reign chap. 4. 5. l. 19. and of his being Consul the second time which Consulship beginning the First of January it was so near impossibility that those
de emend temp 6. tit quinta pascha pag. 561. being faln into a grievous and in humane appearance incurable Disease sent a Messenger to Jesus with a supplicatory Letter that he would please to come and heal him of these contents Abgarus Prince of Edessa to the propitious Saviour that hath appeared in the Flesh in the Confines of Jerusalem health I have heard of those miraculous Cures which thou doest without application of Medicines and Herbs for it is reported that thou givest sight to the blind causest the lame to walk cleansest the Leprous castest out Devils and unclean spirits curest the most inveterate sicknesses and recallest the dead to life from which I conclude one of these two things that either thou art God come from Heaven and doest those things or the Son of God that bringest such things to pass wherefore by these my Letters I beseech thee to take the pains to come and cure me of my malady wherewith I am sore vexed I have heard moreover that the Jews murmur against thee and go about to mischiefe thee I have here a little City and an honest people which will suffice us both To this Jesus sends this Reply Blessed art thou Agbarus because thou hast believed in me when thou sawest me not for it is written of me that they which see mee shall not believe in me that they which see me not may believe and be saved Concerning that which thou writest unto me that I would come unto thee I let thee understand that all things touching my Message are here to be fulfill'd and after the fulfilling thereof I am to return to him that s 〈…〉 me But after my Assumption I will send one of my Disciples unto thee who shall cure thy Malady and restore life to thee and them that be with thee Out of the same Records Eusebius reports how after our Lords Ascension Thaddaeus one of the seventy was sent to Edessa who cured and converted Agbarus and preach'd the Gospel to his Subjects c. I know that Gelatius in a Council of 70 Bishops Crab. Con. Tom. 1. decret Gelasti pag. 993. decreed those Epistles Apochryphal as he did also the VVritings of Tertullian and Eusebius his Ecclesiastical History to prevent their being received with the like reverence wherewith we embrace the Canonical Scripture but neither he nor any body else either Christian or Pagan question'd the Truth of this Relation till Nicephorus discredited it by his forged additions of Christs sending his Picture to Agbarus drawn on an Handkerchiefe and of the strange Effect that Image had when that City was besieged and those other ridiculous storyes relating to that business The Sceptick I know will except against these last Allegations that their Originals are not extant in answer to which I commend to the Umpirage of common Reason these Queries 1. Whether it stand with Reason that men who stood so much upon their credit as the ancient Christians did would appeal to common Records for the probat of these things had they not then been to be read in those Authors or Chronicles out of which they made their Allegations 2 By what means it came to pass that the Adversaries of our Religion who lived upon the place and had opportunity enough to-examine those Quotations and whom interest would have prompted to enquire into these things did not make their exceptions against the Apologists of the Christian Cause 3. Whether the Christian Church or the Pagan Adversaries were most like to obliterate those Antiquities the Christian whom they favour'd or the Pagan whom they confuted considering what artifices Julian the Apostate used to suppress Learning forbidding Christians to be trained up in prophane Literature Ec. Hist. 3. 10. Socratis Scholast which Facts of Julian Ammianus Marcel though a great admirer of him and the Pagan Religion condemns as worthy to be buried in eternal silence Illud autem inclemens obruendum perenni silentio quod arcebat docere magistros rhetoricos grammaticos ritus Christiani cultores Am. Marcel 22. 10. As that whereby Julian designed to deprive the Christians of the knowledge of those Pagan Writings and Records out of which the Christian Apologists had collected such palpable Testimonies for the defence of Gospel-history and to bury the Originals out of which they had made their Quotations in perpetual oblivion as advantagious to our Cause by their confessing the Truth of the Matter of Fact Lactantius by name whose scope was Quia nondum capere poterat divina prius humana testimonia ethnico offerre id est Philosophorum Historicorum ut suis potissimùm refutaretur Authoribus quo si eruditi homines se conferre caeperint evanituras brevi religiones fallas Because the Heathen World was yet uncapable of Divine first to offer it Humane Testimonies of Heathen Philosophers and Histories that it might at least be confuted by its own Authors Which method if Learned men would take false Religions would quickly vanish See more in Eusebius his Apology for Origen where he shews how he and other Christian Doctors foil'd the Pagans at their own Weapons and Dionysius the Areopagite his Epistle to Polycarp For not dealing in this way but by Texts of sacred Writ with Demetrianus Lactantius blames St. Cyprian Lact. de justicia l. 5. c. 4. Let Julian who was thus careful to suppress Pagan records bring up the Rear of Gentile Witnesses to the Truth of the Evangelical Writings as to their being rightly Father'd upon those Authors whose Names they bear who as Cyril Contra Julianum lib. 10. testifieth Apertè fatetur Petri Pauli Mathaei Marci Lucae esse ea quae Christiani legunt iisdem nominibus inscripta confesseth That the Books which the Christians read inscribed with the names of Peter Paul Mathew Mark Luke are the genuine Writings of those men § 5. I should put the utmost of my Readers patience to trial should I shew the Prints of Old-Testament-stories in the Antiquities of the Heathen I will therefore content my self with these few particulars and for the rest refer him to Blundel Vossius c. The History of Joseph was presented in the Aegyptian Apis saith Ruffinus lib. 2. historiae Ecclesiast and produceth Pagan Writers affirming that a certain King or Steward of Aegypt in a time of Famine relieved the people out of his Storehouses to whom therefore after his Decease they built a Temple wherein an Ox was kept at the publick Charge as an Embleme of the best Husbandman a creature saith Diodorus Siculus l. 1. cap. 2. exceeding helpful to Husbandmen which Varro l. 2. c. 5. de re rusticâ stiles the Husbandman's Companion and the servant of Ceres Upon which consideration was grounded that Athenian Law that no man should kill an Oxe that Plowed the ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because he is a kind of Husbandman and a partaker with man in his labour Aelianus var. hist. l. 5. c. 14. and therefore Appianus de belis Mithridat makes it an
their own Prophets foretold they would make to that Question Listen in their Synagogues if thou canst hear the blessed Jesus named except it be in execrations spie if thou canst see the Symbol of his precious Death except it be in their barbarous representation thereof by some Crucified Christian Infant Observe if there be any Signs of their relenting for Murdering that holy and just One of their bitter mourning over their Fathers sin in choosing a Murderer before the Innocent Lamb of God If thou discernest one tear to trickle down from their eye while 't is fixt upon him except it flow from their spightful envy to see him exalted adored and worshipt of all people but themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isidor Pelus l. 4. ep 74. They are preserv'd alive that they may be vexed at the heart by beholding the glory of Christ shining every where Or be in revenge of that vengeance upon them by which Christ has paid himself for the Travel of his soul for that unthankful Nation and vindicated the honour of his Deity in the opinion of all men but themselves by which they that would not receive instruction are made an instruction to others and they who would not by all the plainest Demonstrations which Christ or his Apostle did lay before them be convinc'd are become a Demonstration to convince the World that that Jesus whom they slew and hanged upon a Tree is the very Christ For as their Fathers by condemning him so the Children of that stock of Abraham by persisting in their denial of him not knowing him nor the voyces of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day have been and are still fulfilling those Prophets as to this Point of their Prediction that that People should reject their own Messias Act. 13. 27. § 2. A second Branch of Prophecy whose Fruit hangs yet upon it whose Effect is still permanent to be seen felt and handled is that touching Gods Rejection of the Jews for their rejecting of his Son Of the truth of which that Nation is a manifest proof and stands as a Pillar of Salt to season all Ages with the belief of the Supernaturalness of those Revelations wherein that event was foretold And of the warrantableness of the Churches Application o◠them to the Blessed Jesus whereupon Celsus having excepted against that Opinion of the Christians That the Jews had moved Gods displeasure against them for their Crucifying and disowning Christ Origen replies What Is not the dispersion of their Nation the ruine of their Temple City c. sufficient indications of Gods rejecting that people I dare say they shall never be restored Origen contra Celsum l. 3. cal 10. I hope the English Atheist is not so much a French Gentleman as to take it in Dudgeon that I lay some grains of this Salt on his Trencher or rather advise him to help himself to some now that it stands at his Elbow for I fancy him yet in Belgium taking out the first Lesson touching the Jews disowning of Christ And now that he is amongst those Keepers of our Rolls those bearers of our Books let him search whether those Prophecies which foretell that upon that Nations refusing to accept their own Messias their Fathers God should wholly disown them be the inventions of Christians the pious frauds of our Church or the Responds of their own Prophets Ask a Jew of whom that Prophet of theirs whom for honours sake they call Angel Jeremy speaks chap. 6. I will bring evil upon this people because they have rejected the word of the Lord because they said we will not walk in the good way wherein they were promised to find rest for their souls because they would not hear the sound of the Trumpet that sound which the Gentiles would hear Hearken therefore hear ye Nations hear O earth I will bring evil upon this people reprobate Silver shall men call them because God hath rejected them Can the most obstinately blinded Jew shut his Eye so close as he shall not here see the glimmerings of those unwelcome Truths 1. That this is an Evil the Effects whereof should be so palpable as all Nations should so manifestly see the Marks of Gods rejecting them as the name whereby they should in common speech be called is reprobate Silver a refuse Nation a People cast off of God a name which God was angry with the Heathen for fastning upon them in the saddest dereliction of that people formerly That 2. The word for their rejecting whereof they were rejected of God The good old way for their refusing to walk wherein they were left out of the road of Mercy can be none other but that eternal Word who proclaimed himself to be the Way and offered Soul-rest to them would come to him is manifest For 1. This is absolutely and without compare the good old Way the saving Word that was chalk'd out that was Preach'd to Abraham before he was Circumcised 400 years before the good old Way of Moses was known Nay preach'd by Noah that Preacher of Righteousness by Faith many Generations before Abraham and by God himself in Paradise tendering Life through Faith in the Blood of the Womans Seed which was the only thing saving in all the After-dispensations of that Covenant of Grace 2. This is the only Word and Way which the Jews totally rejected the Word spoken by Moses and the Prophets their Fathers in some part for some time neglected but never totally renounc'd it and the Modern Jew does too tenaciously stick to the Letter of that Word and the external Form of that Way 3. The only Sound of the Trumpet which the Gentiles hearken to in order to their finding rest to their Souls is that sound of the Apostles which from Jerusalem is gone into all the Earth and to the uttermost parts of the World the sound of that Trumpet whereby Christ is Proclaimed the Word of God the everlasting Way of Salvation § 3. Ask a Jew whether the same Prophet chap. 16 and 17. threaten not a more dreadful Judgment then impending over that Nations head than the Northern Captivity to wit a dissipation into Strange lands that neither they nor their Fathers knew whereas Chaldaea and all the Nations into which they were carried Captive before their Crucifying the Lord of Life were their door Neighbours with whom they had Commerce where God would shew them no favour as he had done in all other Captivities but take away his peace from them even loving kindness and mercy where they should be hunted from every Mountain and Hill and Hole wherein not only all the Treasures of Gods Mountain in the Field the riches of that Covenant of Grace sometimes deposited with that faithless and fruitless People should be given as a spoile to the Gentiles But the holy Mountain her self discontinue from that heritage which God had given her and he burnt up and made desolate by a fire that should be kindled in Gods anger and burn
abolition of Idols so they laid a sure ground for the Fathers of the succeding century to conclude that the beatum Millenium the Reign of the Saints on the Earth with Christ and the time of Satan's binding was then commenc'd when they saw Paganism wholly exterminated from the Earth Idols either broken or cast into holes all the then known World over For the Fathers generally never dreamt of the Antipodes but in scorn of their possible being For a Millenary I will name Lactantius Institut lib. 3. cap. 24. Quid illi qui contrarios vestigiis Antipodes putant Num aliquid loquuntur aut est quispiam tam ineptus qui credat esse homines quorum vestigia sunt superiora quam capita aut ibi quae apud nos jacent universa pendere fruges arbores deorsùm versùs crescere pluvias nives grandinem sursùm versùs cadere in terram miratur aliquis hortos pensiles inter septem mira narrari cùm Philosophi agros maria urbes montes pensiles faciunt For an Antimillenarian St. Austin who de Civitate 16. 9. censures the relation of the Antipodes to be an incredible Fable Now St. Austin who lived to see the utmost bounds of the Empire and of this upper Hemisphere subjected to Christs Septer and freed from the service of Idols speaks of those Prophesies which foretel that Christ should reign from Sea to Sea and to the worlds end as then fulfilled and Lactantius would have joyned with him in that triumphant Song had he lived to that Age and seen that one God alone exalted in the Earth who in his time was rival'd with so many false Gods § 3. But you will say this was triumphing before the Victory a mistake of the Fathers to think the whole VVorld was become Christs when one half of it stood out against him In answer to this Objection some say and have perswaded themselves to think that America hath not been long inhabited but that it was first possest by such Pagans as from the Light of the Gospel and the penalties of the Imperial Laws fled thither before the face of Jesus as the Tyrians to Carthage from before Joshua If this surmise were true it would be a good Salvo and give light to those passages in Old Testament prophesie where it issaid the Idols shall go under ground be cast to the Moles and Bats to that Hemisphere which was then uninhabited c. But it is wholly against reason that a place so near that part of the World where Noah's Posterity first seated themselves as some question whether it be not the same Continent and others confess them sever'd by a narrow Sea Fullers Miscelan l. 2. c. 4. should not more early be found out Noah having taught the World how the Seas might be made passable and those parts where he seated his children so crowded with inhabitants as men to enlarge their quarters and to avoid hunger which breaks stone walls forc'd their way to new seats through the most inhospitable Climates Secondly I therefore prefer here this answer that this upper Hemisphere in the common dialect of the Prophets signifies the whole world God being pleased to accommodate his language to the Conceptions of the vulgar And therefore he himself put that new Song into the Churches mouth wherein she triumph'd in her Christ as install'd sole King over the VVorld when he gain'd that eminent part of it into his possession that had been the Stage of Scripture-history and of the Apostles Peregrination and was at that time both when they were given out and began to receive their accomplishment the only known VVorld Not that I subscribe to that of Mr. Meed that this Hemisphere is to be solely partaker of that universal Restauration which the Scriptures mention and what Nation soever are out of its bounds are reserv'd for Christs Triumph at the day of judgement and to be destroyed with that fire which shall consume those Armies that shall compass the holy City which that learned person conceives shall be listed by Satan in America and thence drawn up against the Camp of the Saints that is as he opines the old VVorld men wholly reigning with Christ. For this is not only contrary to Experience whereby we learn that that new VVorld is coming in a pace to Christ. Vide Heylin Amer. 2019. But other express Prophesies that mention the round VVorld and all that dwell therein all Nations whom God hath created as portions of Christs Inheritance that mention every Tongue and every Knee confessing to and bowing to the God of the whole earth c. And therefore as those that lived before the discovery of this new found VVorld might when they saw the old converted appropriate that universal Restauration unto it in Faith and Charity extending themselves to the utmost bounds of the explicite hope of those Centuries which preceded that subjection of that old VVorld to the Royal Law So we to whom the knowledge of the new VVorld is communicated by our excluding of that from the benefit of Redemption transgress the Law of Faith Hope and Charity 1. Of Faith for though the belief of the being of the Antipodes be no Article of Christian Faith yet the belief of their future Call upon supposition of their being is that is he that knows there are Tongues and Knees under the Earth is bound to believe that in Gods appointed time every knee there shall bow to every tongue there shall confess to the only true God Yea were I sure by a certainty of Reason or indubitable Intelligence that men inhabit the VVorld in the Moon I were bound to be sure by an equal certainty of Faith that the Inhabitants of that VVorld shall have their season of Grace as well as we 2. Of that Hope which the Primitive Church had which expresly dilated it self to the expected Conversion of all Nations and implicity upon supposition that there were Nations and Languages there of those of the lower Hemisphere And 3. Lastly of that Charity wherewith the first Christians embrac'd all that VVorld they could grasp with their minds From which Christian Charity how far do they deviate from whose Pens fall such unmerciful Sentences such bitter things against the poor Americans as the defence of their Hypothesis naturally draws from our Modern Millenaries from the guilt of which uncharitableness they will hardly be acquitted by wiping their mouths and ascribing this severity justo at nobis incognito Dei judicio to the just but to us unknown judgement of God upon that so great a part of the VVorld For though the deferring of their Conversion so long may piously be ascribed to the secret and incomprehensible counsel of the all wise God at the depth whereof in this case of his having mercy upon some of the most barbarous Gentiles so early in the day of the Messias and so long before he had mercy on far more civilized Nations Reason and Religion
call upon us to stand astonish'd and so much more as we cannot conceive any other Reason thereof but the Divine Will yet for men to frame to themselves an Image of Divine Justice inconsistent with that Mercy which God hath proclaim'd he hath treasured up in his Christ for all Nations to be manifest in its due and appointed time and in defence of their own foolish imaginations to plead Gods secret Counsel against his reveiled Purpose is to add the sin of Sacrilegious Impiety to that of barbarous inhumanity § 4. Thirdly In both which the Placits of the Millenaries touching the Gogick War are so deeply immerst as I wonder how such conceits could find place in the pious head of Mr. Meed as those are which he lays down rol 2. pag. 714. where propounding to himself this Question from what quarter of the World from what kind of men that huge Army was to come that should incompass the holy City he resolves it must be raised in America and consist of the Inhabitants of that Hemisphere that 's opposite to ours And next enquiring into the Cause of that their invading our World into the Arguments whereby Satan should ensnare them into this engagement he determines it can be for no other reason but that they may mend their Quarters possess themselves of a more fertile Soile and live and die here in this upper Hemisphere where they may enjoy a Resurrection which perhaps they think is a priviledge appropriated to this World of ours For this it is that they shall invade the holy City that is this upper half of the Earth the sole Seat of Righteousness and for their making this invasion in pursuit of these ends God shall rise up against them as so many Gyants fighting against Heaven and in an instant destroy them by Fire from Heaven Volum 2. book 3. p. 712. Let us examine these Responds of the greatest Oracle of the most refined Learning that ever opened its mouth in defense of the Millenaries Cause 1. Say that World be now as horrid as Germany or Gallia was in Caesars time may not the Cultivation thereof for more than a thousand years render it as fertile and delectable then as our World is now The old Serpent must be grown into his dotage if he can after a thousand years musing in his Den study out no better an Argument than that Topick affords to engage the Americans to invade this upper World 2. How can it be a manifestation of the righteous Judgment of God to destroy the Americans for that Crime which the Christian Hemisphere is a thousand times more deeply immerst in the guilt of than they who have suffer'd those things by us while we have been harasing those Countries as were enough to prejudice them for ever against the reception of that Religion whose professors are so unjust and barbarously cruel were it not that the Almightiness of Prophetick Truth will carry on the purpose of God against all the blocks that can be laid in their way to Christ by man Josephus scarce any where more bewrayes the spirit of a Pharisee than in lib. 12. cap. 13. of his Antiquities where he censures Polybius for saying Antiochus Epiphanes came to a miserable end for attempting to plunder Diana's Temple for saith he the intention of Sacrilege which he did not actually commit seems not to have been a thing worthy of such a punishment yet in the sequel of his discourse he recovers himself and speaks like a man of Reason If Polybius think that to have been a sufficient cause of his ruine with how much more probability may it be affirm'd that the vengeance of Heaven overtook him for that Sacrilege which he not only intended but perpetrated upon the Temple of Jerusalem with how much more reason may I argue against this cause of the Americans overthrow assigned by this learned man Must they perish for but designing an encroachment upon us who have made so many unjust encroachments upon them Must their thoughts of retaliation of repaying the inhabitants of this upper Plane that measure they have been meeting to them be punish'd by the Righteous Judge of all the Earth that respects not persons with so severe and suddain a destruction 3. How much less can the inflicting of so dreadful a vengeance upon them be imputed to their seeking a place of burial amongst us where they may lye down in hope of a Resurrection as conceiving in this part of the World to be that Elizium beyond God knows what Hills where the Souls of righteous men rest in joy as Dr. Heylin reports of them in his America can any thing be more strange or abhorrent to Christian ears than that either Satan should tempt them to or God punish them for such an undertaking 4. As it is an Article of Faith that the Church is Catholick that is at once in all its members in point of necessary Doctrine they all and every one in all ages and places holding the same form of sound words And successively in respect of Place as well as Time And therefore to assert the exclusion of any place much more one half of the Earthly Globe finally out of that Church bids defiance to the Christian Faith So 't is the confession of all that this Church shall be militant here on Earth as to the state of every particular Member who have remains of corruption within them to grapple with and as to the general state of the whole being incombred in all places with the bad neighbourhood of such visibly wicked ones as either maliciously excind themselves by separation or are justly for their contumacy cast out of her Communion such as make up the Devil's Chappel where-ever God hath his Church From whence will necessarily flow these inferences 1. That to put such an Interpretation upon dark and prophetick Texts as makes them present the Church on Earth in a state so triumphant as leaves her neither spawn of Corruption within nor the Seed of the Serpent without for the exercise of her Repentance Faith Hope Charity Patience is a giving of the lye to those numerous plain and open-fac'd Texts whose uncontroverted sence and words not capable of perversion inform us the direct contrary That the Net of the Gospel gathers good and bad which shall not be sever'd one from the other till the last day That the Tares grow with the Wheat till the end of the World That is the Local and visible Church shall have a mixture of formal Members in it that are not of it Insomuch as when Christ was personally present with the College of the Apostles they were not all clean that Church of his own gathering had a simpering Judas who could cry Hail Master and Kiss his Lord while he betray'd him And as all the visible Members are not good so the best and sincerest Member is not all good Venus hath her Mole the Moon her spots the best Christian his infirmities there is not a
man upon Earth that sinneth not and whoever saith he hath no sin he sins in saying so So that the old Serpent when he shall be let loose again will find wicked instruments of his malice against the Church his own evil Seed among the Wheat where-ever that is sown and therefore the Millenaries in confining him to the lower Hemisphere to gather his Army in by which he is to assault the Holy City not only contradict their own Texts which assigns him the four corners the four Quarters of the Earth the whole breadth of the earth the whole compass of the Globe from East West North and South which I could bear with them in knowing that the Prophets have a peculiar language by themselves in their Proverbials and Hyperbolics but the whole current of sacred Scriptures commented upon by the uninterrupted series of Providence in all ages § 5. Second Nay that at the approaching of the general Judgement when that War of Gog and Magog shall commence The Churches most eminent Seat and the most glorious entertainment of the Gospel will be in those Chambers of the South in that new discover'd World to which it is hasting apace from our Hemisphere The far greatest part thereof all the West of Asia the East West and South of Affrica and the sometimes most flourishing and best peopled parts of Europe being already over-run with Mahometan Barbarousness and the remaining parts of it by our great provocations and impieties against God and by our dissentions and discord among our selves hasting to open a way for the Turk to enter the City of God through the breaches we dayly make and widen in the Walls of Sion We sin and he wins we contend and he conquers we presume that because we are the Temple of the Lord the City of God we are inconquerable and in the mean while he takes our Forts and batters our Walls about our ears our ears which we stop and will not hear the voyce of the Charmer charm he never so wisely and therefore I fear I should but spill my Ink in bestowing it in recording the Turks dayly encroachment upon the Christian Pale his making Conquests by inches over the Western as he did by Ells over the Eastern Church or in describing those Marks of future bane those Prints of divine displeasure and certain forerunners of Gods rejection of a people as deeply imprest upon the Western as they were upon the Eastern and Southern Patriarchates when God deliver'd those Churches into his and their enemies hands If we go to his place at Shilo where once he put his Name enquire for what wickedness he made his Glory depart from Jerusalem Ephesus Antioch Alexandria Constantinople we shall find the very same provocations reigning in these parts of Europe the same infatuation of Counsels the same strong delusions the same debaucheries and abominations and our selves as ripe for excision looking as white for harvest as they did when the Mahometans Sickle reaped those goodly Fields Suppose ye that they were greater sinners I tell you nay but except we repent we shall all likewise perish But I look too long upon the dark side of that cloudy Pillar that has been passing from the East the place where the Gospel first set out towards the West and as it moves deprives the Church of her Head attire Christian Princes of those her dry Nurses and Guardians yet not of her wet Nurses or the inward Glory of her Garments for she shall reign still with Christ even upon this Earth in those remnants of her seed dispersed over the face of it The Sun of a Christian Magistracy shall not be seen where this Night hath or shall encroach upon the Church but her eyes shall see her Teachers still and her ears hear This is the good old way walk in it and find rest the Stars will appear behind the Cloud as they did in the Primitive Church before Princes became her Nurses and as they do now within the Turks Dominions where Princes have ceas'd to be her Nurses And when Mercy triumphing over Judgement shall have left us such a Nail such a stump of the Tree of Life in our Hemisphere The Covenant that God has made with the Christian World being like that he hath made with day and night of which he saith if those ordinances shall depart from me then shall the whole seed of Israel be cast off the Covenant he made with the Ordinances he gave to the Carnal Seed were but Temporary and therefore that seed was wholly cast off but the Covenant he made with the Spiritual Seed is an everlasting Covenant and therefore that Seed of Gentile Believers shall never be wholly cast off The new Israelites in shew and profession only when this Sun of persecution for the Gospel ariseth when the Temptations of the World shall be laid before them when none shall live under the benign influence of their Mahometan Rulers but those that wheel about with them to the embracing of that Brutish Religion shall forsake Christ and embrace the present World But the Israelites indeed in Faith and Practice shall never be prevail'd with to renounce Christ but that poor and peeled People shall bear up his Name in all Nations upon whom it hath been called to the end and consummation of the World When I say the infiniteness of the divine compassion shall be so bounded and streightned by the circumjacent Guilt of our multiplyed and crying sins and by the innate veracity of divine Menacies as all it can obtain for us against the pleas of both is no more then this when our golden Dreams of glorious days end in this God will provide Kings and Queens to be Nursing Fathers c. to the American Churches who shall dandle them upon their knees and that perhaps for as many ages as we have been dandled I say perhaps because I would not pry into Gods secret Purposes nor limit the holy One in that point wherein I cannot observe him to walk by any Rule but that of his own good pleasure whereby both to Persons and Nations he lengthens or shortens their day of Grace so as the Sun hath been set near a 1000. years ago upon most of Asia and yet shines upon us in the West of Europe upon whom it rose before it did upon them I mean the cherishing Light of a Christian Magistracy for we had our Lucius before they had their Constantine However this is certain that how long or short soever God hath in his eternal Counsel determin'd that space that they shall have their time of Grace as well as we and we shall have no more than our time and therefore as the night shall grow upon us that had day before them the day shall grow upon them and when the Sun is farthest from our Horizon it will be highest in theirs § 6. And this affords us another Argument against those who limit the Millenium to a precise number of years and yet
the Illumination of Faith could not understand what Christ meant when he spake to them of his Resurrection and were ready to give up their hopes that he was he that should redeem Israel when they saw him giving up the Ghost and hanging down his Head upon the Cross as St. Thomas though he had seen Lazarus rais'd from the dead and heard it reported by credible Witnesses that Christ was risen would not believe it As Celsus Orig. cont Cels. l. 2. cal 41. rather than grant the Truth of the Christian Hypothesis denied the possibility of it As it seemed good to the holy Ghost to confirm the report of Christs Resurrection by all those Signs which the Apostles wrought after his Ascension by the name of the Holy Child Jesus while with great power they gave witness of his Resurrection Acts 4. 33. Yea so much did divine Goodness condescend to Humane imbecility as to give a fuller proof of that point so far above Reasons comprehension and much more out of the Sphere of Natural Power than the report of Eye-witnesses than the Confession of Adversaries than the Seal of those Miracles afforded by that Grace that was upon all the Publishers and fell upon all the Receivers of that Doctrine a Grace enabling them to live up to the Gospel and to bring forth those Fruits of Holiness Righteousness Temperance Meekness as sufficiently commended to the morallized part of the World that Root of Faith from whence they issued as far outstript the most glorious glittering productions of the Moral Philosophers as infinitely transcended the results of fantastick Credulty and put all other Religions to the blush at the sight of their own impotency CHAP. XII The Supernatural Power of Salvifick Grace § 1. The Church triumphs over the Schools § 2. Christianity layes the Axe to the Root § 3. The Rule imperfect before Christ. § 4. The Discipline of the Schools was without Life and Power § 5. Real exornations before Verbal Encomiums § 1. HEre Christian Reader I must crave thy help and beg thy aid towards the convincing the World of the Divine Original of Christian Religion which though it apparently bear the stamps of heavenly Wisdome in its Prophecies of in finite Power in its Miracles commends it self more to the Consciences of men by engaging its Fautors to a Conversation answerable to its Sacred Rules than by affording the most substantial Grounds of discoursing in its Defence by any other Arguments Religion is better maintain'd by Living than Disputing A Gospel-becoming Converse falls under the Observation and speaks to the Hearts of all men even of those who are not able to fathom the depth nor feel the ground of the most rational verbal Discourse well exprest by the Apostle of the Circumcision 1 Pet. 3. 1. Dr. Hammond annot in the Argument whereby he perswades Christian Matrons to be in subjection to their own though Gentile Husbands that if any obeyed not the Word submitted not to the Gospel upon the Demonstration of the Spirit and of Power they also without the Word which the Apostles preach'd in confirmation of the Resurrection of Christ might be won by the Conversation of their Wives while they beheld their chaste Conversation that Modesly which the true fear of God Christian Religion which alone rightly Disciplines persons in that fear taught them In his motive 1 Pet. 2. 12 13. to Christian Subjects to yield obedient subjection to their Heathen Magistrates and in that point particularly to lead an honest life among the Gentiles that whereas they were evil spoken of as Jews by reason of the turbulency and frequent rebellions of their Countrymen the Gentiles might see that Christian-Jews were of another spirit than the rest of that Nation and upon that account might revere them for their good works and glorifie God the Author of a Religion that had made them so much more meek regular and quiet under the Heathen Government which was over them than the other Jews were when the Proconsuls should be sent to make enquiry of the Commotions made by the unbelieving Party of that Nation It was by this Argument that the old Laic-Confessor silenc'd convinc'd and converted that proud and subtile Philosopher who bore up himself against all the Reasonings of the Learned Teachers of the Nicence Council Crab. tom 1. pag. 249. In the name of Jesus Christ saith he O Philosopher hear the Dictates of Truth There is one God Maker of Heaven and Earth who Created all things visible and invisible by the power of his Word and confirm'd them by the Sanctity of his Spirit This Word therefore which we call the Son of God having mercy on Mankind vouchsafed to be born of a VVoman to converse with Men and die for them and will come again to give sentence upon the Lives of all men By the belief of those things we Christians are freed from Error and from that Religion wherein Men live like Beasts into a state of living like Men. Upon this the Philosopher cries out that he is a Christian and assures his Fellows he was drawn to it not upon light grounds but by that ineffable Vertue which attended the embracing of Christianity In this Argument the ancient Patrons of the Christian Cause triumph'd over all other Religions and Disciplines The Christian Churches saith Origen contr Cels. lib. 3. cal 8. compared with other Societies are really the Lights of the VVorld who is there that must not confess if he make an impartial collation of them that the worst part of the Church excells vulgar assemblies for the Church of God at Athens for instance is meek and quiet c. the Pagan Assemblies seditious turbulent c. And to that Calumny of Celsus that the Christians invited the worst of sinners Origen makes this Reply that the Christian Philosophy did dayly reform the most degenerate Natures not by converting one or two in so many Ages as Phaedo who coming Piping hot out of the Stewes into Plato's School took those impresses from his Doctrine as Plato in his Dialogues brings Phaedo in discoursing of the Immortality of the Soul Or Palemon who by attending to Philosophical Discipline became of a Ruffian so temperate as he succeeded Xenocrates in his School but great multitudes Christs Fishers of men caught them by whole shoales when these Philosophical Anglers drew them up by unites Tertullian apolog 46. outvies the greatest Philosophers with common Christians Thales one of the seven VVisemen could not satisfie Craesus when he askt him what God was but required time for the return of an answer and the more he thought upon it was further off from finding a solution when every Mechanick Christian hath found and can shew all that can be askt concerning God though Plato says the framer of the Universe is neither easie to be found out nor to be exprest If we compare them in point of Chastity we read that one part of the Attick sentence against Socrates condemn'd him of Sodomy
of those sacred Waters making the Souls of men take the Impress of the Soul of the Gospel forming in them the Image of God and converting the most wicked persons that embrace it from all their Debaucheries wherein they were immerst to a life most sutable to Nature and Reason and to the practice of all Virtues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orig. Cont. Cel. lib. 1. cal 30. Whereupon to Celsus his Calumnie that Christ chose the worst of men for Apostles Origen replies that Christ thereby made it appear how Soveraign a Medicine his Doctrine is against Soul-plagues and that therefore Celsus ought rather to have admired the Physicians skill than to have upbraided him with the pristine maladies of his Patients who could do more than all Chrisippus his Rules towards the curing of unrulie Passions How many saith he did Christ recover from the Plague of their head strong Affections From the colluvies of their vitious distempers how many had their beastly Manners tamed by occasion of the Evangelical Preaching which ought to have been embraced of all men with thankfulness if not as true yet as a new and compendious Method of curing Vice and exceedingly advantagious to Humane kind He that can think the malignant Powers would contribute towards the bringing of such a Doctrine as this into credit by their Sealing to it in those wonderful Operations which gain'd it an Authority over Conscience may with an equal likelihood of Reason conceive it worth the while to milk Hee-Goats To which labour I remit him while I commend to wiser persons the conclusiveness of this last Argument for the Divine Original of the Christian Faith in general and in special for the probat of Christs Resurrection the Center wherein all the Articles of the Christian Faith meet and the demonstration of the Divine Authority and heavenly Mission of the blessed Jesus to communicate that way of Salvation to the World as being the Doctrine of Christ that dyed or rather is risen again from the dead and ascended into Heaven whence he communicates that Grace of which we have been speaking and wherein Christianity triumphs over the greatest pravities of corrupt Nature as subdued by her Discipline and overall other Methods of cure as insufficient as unable to reduce lapsed man to a state of health § 5. The strength of this Argument would be more apparent if we of this Age could make good the assumption as easily as those Primitive Christians did of whom the Patrons of the cause of Christ made these holy boasts and such as that Non aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum Tertul. ad Scapulam Christians are not to be known from other Sects but by the emendation of their pristine vitious manner were we who embrace the form of those sound and healing words as much under the power of Godliness as they whom that saving Grace taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live godly righteously and soberly did we more study the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ so as to know him in the power of that Resurrection of his which we make profession to believe the truth of and in the fellowship of his sufferings so as to be made conformable unto his Death In which point notwithstanding that never to be enough bewail'd Apostacy of these latter times God hath not left himself without witness But reserv'd a remnant of persons who cordially embracing the truly Catholick Religion of Christ as it is profest in the Church of England and mourning over the Irregularities of and Scandals given by such as conform not to its sacred Precepts really exhibit to the Worlds view a Specimen of ancient Holiness in their harmless and blameless Conversation with and towards all men in their serious piety towards God their reverential observance of their Superiours their Justice Charity Love towards all men their Continency Chastity Sobriety Temperance in respect of themselves And for the rest of the Professors of the pure and undefiled Religion who deviate from the rule of this Sacred Discipline they cease to be Christians Sed dicet aliquis etiam de nostris excedere quosáam à regula disciplinae desinunt tum Christiani baberi penès nos Philosophi verò illi cum talibus factis in nomine honore sapientiae perseverant Tertul. apol 46. Some men may say that even some of ours deviate from the Rule of Discipline They cease then to be esteem'd Christians by us Philosophers with such debaucheries retain the name and honour of Philosophers Fanaticks though unrighteous unmerciful unpeaceable pass among their own Tribes for Saints but no man can pass the Muster for a Christian indeed that keeps not the Commands of Christ that conforms not to his Example The Church owns them not for hers Christ owns them not for his but will profess unto them I know yee not depart from me ye that work iniquity and will expostulate with all who hate to be reformed for their taking his Covenant in their mouths Christ has past the same Decree against all vitious Livers that Severus past against Thieves per praeconem edixit ut nemo salutaret Principem qui se furem esse nosset ne aliquando detectus capitali supplicio subderetur That none salute him with Lord Lord who knows himself to be guilty under pain of being Convict and suffering the extream punishment None must enter into his Courts any more than to the Eleusine Rites or into the Emperours Palace Nisi qui se innocentem novit but he that knows himself free of those sins which by the sanction of the Royal Law exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven And who so presume to contravene those Edicts must expect the same entertainment that Severus gave Septimius Arabinus when he came to salute him O numina O Jupiter O dii immortales Arabinus non solum vivit verùm etiam in Senatum venit fortassis etiam de me sperat tam fatuum tam sâ—ultum esse me judicat ac Heliogabalum Lampridii Alex. Severus Oh monstrous Arabinus dares come into the Senate dares appear in the Assembly of Christians does he think he can deceive me as he did the world with vain shews as he did himself with vain hopes he 's deceiv'd indeed if hetake me for such a fool if he think I will be mock'd Can he be ignorant that the sentence is past the prohibition à mulieribus famosis matrem uxorem suam salutari vetuit Id. Ib. is seal'd that none presume to joyn themselves to my Church to associate with my Love my Dove my undefiled Spouse whose Lives are infamous Christians may not eat with such and can they expect to eat bread in my Kingdom And therefore they who either by going out from us do more openly declare or by a Conversation unbecoming the Gospel while they are with us more secretly insinuate that they were not that they are not of us in an impartial judgement should neither prejudice
the holiness of that Society whereof they are no Members nor the Efficacy of that Religion they either never came under the power of or have rejected the yoak of what must it be presum'd that the Sun shines not that its beams warm not because those men see not its Light are not refresh'd and vegetated with its Warmth who either shut their eyes or remove into a Clime it never visits Dr. Hammond An. in Heb. 4. 2. But the word that was heard did not profit those who were not by Faith joyned to them that obeyed it Shall we condemn the Seed because it thrives not to maturity of Fruit in the ground of a dishonest heart where either the fowles of the Air pick it up or it wants depth of earth or is choak'd with Thorns and Weeds Shall we question whether Christ be risen because men whose affections are so strongly set upon the earth as they cannot elevate them towards Heaven are not risen with him when we see such palpable Effects and Demonstrations of it in his raising those to a newness of Life who do not resist grieve or quench his Spirit but with an humble teachableness follow its conduct in that way of holiness his Word hath chalk'd out before us In order to our perseverance in this way and confirmation in our assurance that it will infallibly lead us to Peace here and eternal Glory hereafter I have undertaken this vindication of the Christian Faith against the prejudices which our modern either Scepticks or Atheists have taken up against it which as they took their rise from the Scandals which have been cast upon Religion by the woful miscarriages of men professing it in guile and hypocrisie so they must fall before a Spirit of Grace and Glory resting upon the embracers of it in Truth and Sincerity and shining out upon the World in their so peaceable humble meek and every way Christian deportment and men seeing their good works may glorifie their Father who is in Heaven and revere that Discipline as proceeding from that Father of Lights by whose influence the wildness of common Nature is abated and its vertuous Seeds so improved as to bring forth Fruit chearing the heart both of God and Man To which if thou beest instigated Christian Reader to aspire by the perusal of this Discourse and so become one of Christs Witnesses by sealing to the Truth of the Gospel by a Life answerable to its most holy just and yet easie Precepts thou wilt lay up for thy self a good Foundation for time to come and contribute towards the conviction of the Adversaries of the Christian Faith by an Argument so familiar as it incurrs into every mans sense and so strenuous as the most stubborn Atheist will not be able to resist it but be forc'd to confess the unreasonableness of his own Exceptions against a Religion that brings forth such Divine Effects Would we all study thus to adorn the Doctrine of God our Saviour in all things such real exornations would render Religion more venerable in the eyes of the VVorld than all verbal Encomiums those whom the close fist of the most Logical Arguings cannot force the commanding beck of that open-handed Eloquence would allure to a silent admiring of that sacred Fountain whence they see such healing VVaters flow That this my Request to my Readers may take effect I shall back it with that Request to God which my Dear Mother the Holy Church of England hath put into her Childrens mouth More especially we pray for the good estate of the Catholick Church that it may be so guided and govern'd by thy good Spirit that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of Truth and hold the Faith in Unity of Spirit in the Bond of Peace and in Righteousness of Life And this we beg for Jesus Christ his Sake To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory world without end Amen FINIS To their old Cells and Altars the whole crew Of Guardian Gods Troy falling bid adieu While impious Caesar and his Godded rout Spurn Phoebus Tripos with insulting foot The learned Varro useth to expend So many hours in reading as we deem A winged minutes scantling can scarce lend It self unto his pen yet that doth seem To trust more notions to his sweating Page Than quickest eye can run o're in an Age. To my dark Cabin in the Stygean strand Dismiss me or if that be too much ease Send me to Phlegethon where I may stand Rather than here chin-high in fiery seas Haled from Styx to Thebes my ancient seat Had I my choice hard choice I would retreat If Heaven the fire and Earth the dam of things Had been from Ever whence is 't no Poet sings Of Wars more old than Troy of Floods than Noah Of Rapes than Jove and thousand wonders moe Had men nor hands to act nor hands to write During the seculum Prae-Adamite Had Nile for ages numberless no Reed Nor Bees Wax nor Trees Bark nor Hills a breed of Sheep nor Sheep a Skin nor Goose a Quill Nor Polypus his native Ink distil Or Man the Goose of all not wit to learn To make a Pen much less to guide a Stern Or build a Ship or break a Horse or bring The Oxe to th' yoke the Hawk to lure or string The warbling Lute or count the Stars by name Or other Arts whose birth we know by fame Whose growth we see come on with age We owe to thee great Caesar Triumphs many More Temples built and Temples that lay waste Repair'd more Cities Gods and Shews than any But most that thou hast taught Rome to be chaste Whom we invoke for Gods 't is Jove's decree Were Men of Bounty once and Gallantry But now with highest Deities attend On our affairs and us toth ' Gods commend The Father Word and Spirit God alone That Cotternal Three in one Thy will Theodames for Hecate Forc'd by thy charms dares not say nay Your Charms from me against my will commands These Responds I have said now loose my bands Judea worshippeth alone The God elsewhere unknown Him Pan men call Because he succours all They lay on tepid Altars Babes not born Of Mothers Wombs but from their Bellies torn Issa Bills sweeter than a Dove Issa's more blith than Mal or Siss No Pearls equal Issa's love What Issa's this Publius his Bitch Thus against Hercules vext the field to lose From wounded Hydra heads more fierce arose Who outstript all the Sophs in this Essay Quenching their Star-light with his Solar Ray.
frightning men to obedience by menacies of Hell-fire c. But all will not be won by Love the fear of approaching death was of more avail to perswade Celsus his Master Epicurus that there is a God than all the sweet morsels he cramb'd his belly with Let the Antinomian here acknowledge his first Father Besides saith he lib. 6. 19 Do not the Christians charge God with want of Power or Foresight in his permitting the Serpent so far to deface his Image in Man as that in order to the restoring of it he is forc'd to send his only Son to become Man's Advocate God knew how to use his Power and VVisdom better than in prevention of that evil viz. by bringing a greater good out of it Conceived by the Holy Ghost Touching the Christian's belief that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost he hath this Animadversion lib. 6. cal 35. What need was there that the Holy Ghost should over-shaddow the Virgin and frame Christ a Body in her womb could not God have shaped him a Body he could not have a Body of the Seed of the Woman without the Seed of the Woman without immersing his own Spirit into so great contamination Celsus might have learn'd better Language of Proclus the Pagan Philosopher Secundum nihil omnino providentiam ex gubernatis accipere nec eorum natura repleri nec eis alicubi commisceri non enim ex eo quòd omnia disponit admiscetur proptereà gubernatis Proclus de anima daemone tit providentia per singula percurrit interim nullis addit pag. 191. If he had been conceiv'd by the Holy Ghost his Body would have excelled all othets in Stature in Form in Strength in Voice nec vox hominem sonat in Majesty and in Elocution for it is incredible that he who had so much Divinity who was formed by so divine an hand should not surpass all men but Christ as the Christians confess was but like to if not inferiour to other men His face according to Prophecy was to be mar'd more than any man's low mean humble yea deformed Why should the holy Spirit be sent to one in a corner of the World in Judea and not be inspired into all men man must let the work of Redemption alone for ever if God have a purpose to save all men As to the last clause of this Article he brings in a Jew lib. 1. cal 20. thus scoffing at Christ for chusing to be born of so mean a Woman at so mean a Town he was to be born in the form of a servant and Bethlehem-Judah was the least of the Cities of Judea as Bethlehem c. did her beauty her inward Beauty being full of Grace invited God to chuse her for the Mother of the Son of God before others invite God into her embraces how could she conceive and bring forth a Son without the knowledg of man c. which Origen retorts thus how do the Vultures breed as your own Pagan Writers report without companying with the Male why could not God make the second Adam without a Father as well as the first without either Father or Mother and lastly that we Christians are not the only men who embrace such admirable stories is manifest from your believing that Plato was conceived by Apollo and born of his Mother Amphictione yet a Virgin before her Husband Aristo had knowledg of her being prohibited by a Vision to touch her At the same point the Seeker whom Volusianus mentions strains August ep 2. Who is there among you saith he so well versed and established in the Christian Religion as can resolve me where I stick I wonder how the Lord of the Universe could take up his lodging in the body of a spotless Virgin how she could go out her ten Months and then bring forth a Child and after that continue a Virgin how could he lurk in the little body of a Vagient Infant whom the Heavens are not able to contain how could the Ancient of days endure to undergo so many years of Infancy of Childhood of Youth of Man-hood or the everlasting God that faints not neither is weary submit to sleep to hunger and thirst to cold and wearisomness and the rest of humane weaknesses cease this wondring man Christ did all this to make it manifest that he was the Son of Man as well as of God Jam illud quòd in somnos solvitur c. hominem persuadet hominibus quem non consumpsit utique sed assumppsit August epist. 2. Volusiano and as to her continuing a Virgin St. Austin answers Ipsa virtus per inviolatae Mariae virginea viscera membra infantis eduxit quae posteà per clausa ostia membra juvenis introduxit that power which brought Christ through the shut door did bring him out of the shut womb It is St. Austin's Observation that the Philosophers in questioning the truth of the Church touching the Incarnatlon overthrew their own Principles It is their Assertion saith he de civit 10. 29. that the intellectual Soul may by purging become consubstantial paternae menti with the Father's Mind which they confess to be the Son of God what absurdity then can there be in the Christian Belief that one individual soul being the purest that ever was created for the salvation of many was assumed into Union with the Son of God Now that the Body must adhere to the Soul that he may be a perfect man we learn by the Testimony of Nature it self which Union of Body and Soul if it were not usual would be less credible than the union of an Humane Soul to the Mind Word or Son of God For 't is casier to be believed that an incorporeal should be united to an incorporeal than that a corporeal and incorporeal Being should conflate into one And Tertullian observes Apol. priùs citato that nothing was more common in the Heathen World than Virgin-births of divine Conceptions and yet they had been more common if some like Olympias had not been jealous of Juno's Jealousie after whose Copy she return'd this answer to her son Alexander's Letter thus superscribed King Alexander the Son of Jupiter Hammon to his Mother Olympias all health I pray thee Son do not traduce me and accuse me to Juno as one that had been naught with her Husband for I shall never be able to bear the burden of that her spightful jealousie which she will conceive against me upon thy writing thy self the Son of Jove and thy insinuating me to be his Whore Agellius Noct. Attic. lib. 13. cap. 4. This Text of St. Austin Ep. 2. beside that that I quoted it for points to a great many Circumstances in the History of the blessed Jesus mention'd in the Gospel all which are from this allegation of the Adversaries acknowledged to have been the Doctrine of the Apostolical as well as Modern Church § 4. Article 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilat was crucified dead and buried and descended into Hell