distracts their thoughts There is no charm nor counsel against necessity and a terrour that is unavoidable is above the power and the relief of Philosophy and will not be vanquish't by stubborn thoughts or proud words So that it is altogether as easie to prevail with a Man to hate and abhor his own Being as to reconcile him to the thoughts of his own destruction For by the same necessity that Nature loves and desires the continuance of it self it recoils and starts back from all thoughts of its dissolution This then is upon the Epicurean Supposition a vain an useless and unreasonable advice being 't is so insuperable a contradiction to the nature of Things So that the fear of Death which is the thing I am now to represent is as certain and inexorable as Death it self and Men may as soon devest themselves of their own Natures as suppress the convulsions of this inbred passion And now when it is so incurable and yet withall so importunate and disquieting it is easie to imagine what desperately cheerfull lives those Men must live that always live under its sad and dismal apprehensions § XXII But beside this great and sovereign Antidote against the fear of Death they have several other little receits scatter'd up and down in their Writings I shall but briefly mention them because all that little force which they seem to have depends upon the former fundamental principle First say they let us be thankfull to the bounty of Nature for making our lives so long instead of repining at it for making them no longer But I say if our whole Being be at all mortal we have no reason to be at all thankfull for it and if our whole Being be worn out with this Life it is much more eligible never to have been But then say they we were admitted into Life upon this condition that we should give place to others as others have given place to us Were we so Then were we all admitted upon unacceptable terms Yes but by troubling our selves in vain we do but add one misery to another It is true but that is a fatal misery and it is as necessary to fear Death as it is to die and that is it that makes up the complaint that we are put in such a state of Being which we cannot enjoy without this continual anguish and perplexity annexed to it So that how wise or foolish a thing it is to fear Death is not at all material but whether it be unavoidable though if it be I am sure it is a very foolish thing to endeavour against it But how irksome soever Death may be yet seeing it is fatal we ought to make it as easie as we can by a voluntary compliance with it but this beside the folly that is common to all the rest that it advises to an impossibility is not so properly compliance as despair and is like the condition of a condemn'd Malefactour that goes to his Execution onely because otherwise he must be driven and whipt to it And no Man has any other comfort all his Life-time against the terrours of Death than a Thief upon the Gallows that would if it were possible counterfeit to die cheerfully because there is no remedy To the same purpose is that other advice that it is in vain to fear Death because it is natural necessary and inevitable that is because it is remediless and there lies the very agony of all our horrour that a thing so infinitely terrible should withall be so utterly unavoidable And when they tell us how strange a folly and madness it is to torment our selves with the fear of that which we are infallibly certain we can never escape they do but perswade us to the madness of despair instead of courage and resolution For how foolish or unreasonable soever this fear may be it is natural antecedent to the choice of our wills and the discretion of our understandings and so above all the rules of Prudence and prescriptions of Philosophy They can onely guide and instruct our Minds in things subject to their own election but cannot affect much less over rule the instincts of Nature In the next place we are already dead say they to so much of our Life as is past and gone so that so much as we live we die and that which we call Death is but our last Death and therefore as we fear not our Death that is past why should we that which is to come But what Child understands not the difference between Life and Death and if to live be to die notwithstanding this quibble we are troubled never the less that this new way of dying puts an end to our old way of dying and if we have been dying ever since we were born that is the thing that grieves us that we cannot be dying so for ever But Bassus Aufidius the Epicurean old Man in Seneca reconciled himself to his approaching Death with this reason because it was as absurd to fear Death as old Age which yet all Men desire to come to in that as old Age follows Youth so Death follows old Age. But if he were in good earnest satisfied it is a sign that he had lived not onely to his old Age but to his second Childhood For old Age is desirable not because it follows Youth but because it defers Death and that is it which makes it so much less valuable than Youth because it is so much nearer to Death And the Philosophers reason had been altogether as comfortable if he had preferr'd old Age before Youth because his Youth was very old it being many years since he was a young Man whereas his old Age was of a later date he having been but a little time an old Man By which device he might have proved to himself that Youth is old Age and old Age Youth Much like this is that other reasoning wherewith Gassendus himself seems so much pleased that whereas we now count our selves happy if we live to an hundred years yet if the natural course of our Life were as much shorter we should be as much satisfied with twenty and if our natural course reach't to a thousand years we should then be as much troubled to die at six hundred as now at sixty and so forward It is like all the rest of the Philosophick comforts and is so far from reconciling us to Death at any time that it is a demonstration that there is no time in which an Epicurean can or ought to be content to die and that be our lives longer or shorter yet unless they are eternal we cannot rid our selves of this importunate and intolerable evil And of the same nature is that witty saying of Seneca that a little or great circle are both equal in perfection of figure though not in quantity so is the Life of Man whether it last to twenty or to an hundred years But certainly no Man that might live to an hundred
would be content to die at twenty years of Age for this reason because a little circle is as round as a great one But lastly Gassendus has a very remarkable device with which the learned Man is so much pleased as often to repeat it that though a Man's Life may be short in it self yet may he make it equal with the duration of the whole World because he may converse with the transactions of all former times and be as well acquainted with them as if himself had then actually lived And as for the time to come he knowing that nothing shall be but what has been understands all future events as if present so that a wise Man partly by memory partly by foresight may extend his short Life to all Ages of the World But if he could unless he could make himself immortal too the Objection would still lie as heavy as ever Beside can any wise Man be so very fancifull as seriously by this device to perswade and satisfie himself that though he is not above forty years old he was born at the beginning of the World and that though he die to morrow he shall live to the end of it If he can he must be a very foolish Man too if he cannot it will be no support against the approach of Death that he hath already lived to the World's end This is the full account of all the Happiness of humane Nature according to the Epicurean Principles which you see without this support of a future state sinks of it self into a bottomless want and misery And therefore to anticipate our Exceptions Gassendus at the beginning of his moral Philosophy has warily as he thinks distinguish't between a twofold Happiness of Man the one supernatural which we are taught by Religion that instructs us in the knowledge of that future state of Bliss that good and pious Men shall enjoy in the vision of God The other natural which we are taught by Philosophy whereby we are instructed to live as happily in this Life as the condition of humane Nature in general and every Man 's own circumstances in particular are capable of And this he says is all the Felicity that Mankind can naturally desire or justly aspire to But this is like all the rest of his excuses particularly that of his account of Epicurus his filial Reverence to the Gods as opposed to the vulgar servile Fear when by denying their Providence he expresly destroys all manner of reverence to them So again when he distinguishes of two sorts of Sense the one external that of the Body the other internal that of the Mind and that when Epicurus affirms that all sense is extinguish't in Death it may be interpreted of all sense of the first kind when nothing can be more evident than that he intended all manner of sense whatsoever So now here does he distinguish between supernatural and natural Happiness and that it was proper for Epicurus to treat onely of the latter as a Philosopher when it is so notorious that as a Philosopher he made it his utmost endeavour to overthrow the very Being and belief of the former But however if this Happiness which he calls natural be all that Mankind is naturally capable of then is he naturally capable of none at all And as for the two Arguments he subjoins to perswade us to be content with it they onely aggravate and upbraid our wants instead of satisfying our desires As first that otherwise we forget our Mortality and the frailty of our Nature in that we are born exposed to innumerable mischiefs and miseries which is nothing else but the description of a forlorn and miserable condition and amounts to no more than this that a wise Man must be happy i. e. content with his condition because he knows his condition to be miserable And secondly that it is some comfort that when all Men are exposed to misery and when there are so many degrees of it that you are less miserable than others and that you are as little miserable as the condition of your Nature will admit of That is to say that though I endure most of the calamities of humane Life yet must I think my self an happy Man if there be any one Man in the World that endures more and though I feel my self actually miserable yet Philosophy teaches me to think my self happy because I feel as little misery as any of my Neighbours If these are the great Topicks of philosophick Consolation they had better prescribe but this one Remedy instead of all viz. To make our selves happy onely by despairing of ever being so for that is the last result of all their Propositions And therefore to conclude it is remarkable that Hegesias his Philosophy who vehemently perswaded all Men to be their own Executioners was but the natural emprovement of that of Aristippus whose Scholar he was For when the Master had once taught that there is no Happiness but in the pleasures of the Body it was easie for the Disciple to add that then there is none at all and therefore Death is the best thing that we can either pray for or give our selves For our Bodies are liable to such an infinite number of Evils and our Minds so sensible of what our Bodies feel that it is much more eligible not to be at all than to be in a state of so much misery And that is the unavoidable consequence of all Opinions that take away a future Immortality Though it is pretty to observe that this same Hegesias as warm and eloquent as he was in perswading other Men to throw away their lives when King Ptolomy threatned him himself with Death if he would not forbear those kind of Discourses to the People how easily he was cured of his Pedantry For how pleasant soever the death of others might seem to him yet when it concern'd himself it was quickly too hard for his Philosophy And that is the true desperate condition of all Men of the same Principles that they neither care to live nor care to die And now upon these phantastick Principles after what a rate do we rant and with what magnanimity and greatness of Mind do we defie all the miseries of Life and pangs of Death And how do we boast that in spite of the extremest torments that tyranny it self can inflict upon us we will enjoy Pleasures equal to the Happiness of the Gods Roast us in the Bull of Phalaris we will make it more pleasant than a Bed of Roses and instead of roaring out through extremity of pain we will spoil the Tyrants jest and onely laugh and sing quà m suave hoc est quà m hoc non curo But could one think it possible that the same Man who had placed all Happiness in Pleasure and all Misery in Pain should be so artificial as to reconcile his sovereign Happiness with all the anguish and extremity of Pain that is to say to think himself most absolutely
Pleasures whilst this ugly thought haunts us day and night jam jamque esse moriendum Whatever diverting arts we may fly to to stifle this reflection it is so unwelcome to our Minds and so affrightfull to our Natures and so insuperable to all the powers of Reason and Philosophy that when all is done there is no remedy but we must lie down and languish all our days under its fatal and intolerable expectations so that if any thing can be said well of Death it is onely this that it delivers us from the fear of it self But however proceeds he Death ought not to appear so formidable to a wise Man though it were for no other reason than that it delivers us from the miseries of Life And when it is objected that granting all his subtilties and that there is indeed no capacity of Misery where there is no Sense yet illud angit vel potius excruciat discessus ab omnibus iis quae sunt bona in Vitâ 'T is this that grieves and gripes our Souls that we must for ever forsake all the joys and comforts of this Life he returns upon the Objection with this brisk and nimble Answer Vide ne à malis dici verius possit You miserably mistake your self in the framing your Objection instead of the Joys and Comforts you should rather have said the Evils and Miseries of this Life And when you consider the emptiness and dissatisfaction of all its Enjoyments and reflect upon the smart and the weight of all its Calamities you will be so far from trembling at the horrour of your Fate that you will esteem it your greatest Privilege and there may you when you please take Sanctuary from all those troubles and vexations that pursue you and all Mankind through the whole course of Life And now is not this think you a mighty support to the Minds of Men to be informed that all the Happiness they are capable of is onely to cease to be miserable With what cheerfulness and tranquility can those Men live that live all their days upon this lank Meditation that though I must endure Torment as long as I endure Life yet the time will come when I shall escape both and cease to be miserable by ceasing to be Oh the transport and ravishment of these philosophick Reflections Who can desire greater ease and complacency of Soul than to be always thinking if thinking at all that though my present state be so utterly forlorn and restless yet however this is my comfort that I shall one day be at quiet when Death shall deprive me of all Sense and Being for ever Is not this a very comfortable representation of the best condition and whole capacity of humane Nature to be uncessantly bandied up and down like the old Britains between the Sea and the Barbarians between two such formidable Evils The sorrows of Life drive us to Death for refuge and the horrours of Death fright us back upon the Miseries that we fly and thus whether we resolve to live or to die we are equally distressed and miserable So that he is so far by this principle of Consolation from giving us any comfort against the terrour of Death that he has instead of that destroyed all the comfort of Life too But Nature he tells us has not granted us our Beings upon the Title of Fee-simple but has onely lent us the use of our Lives for a certain time and that during pleasure and therefore we have no reason to complain of her whenever she demands them back because she gave them upon no other condition than that we should always be ready to resign them upon demand But if Nature have clogg'd her Kindness to us in bestowing our Beings upon us with this hard Condition she had been much kinder if she had never bestowed them at all For the severity of the Condition annexed to the Gift not onely destroys all the pleasure and enjoyment of it but turns it into anguish and misery And this is all along our very complaint against Nature that she has put us into such a condition of Life as that we cannot enjoy it without continual grief and horrour of Mind So that she has sent us into the World not like her Off-spring but like Malefactours with the sentence of Death passed upon us as soon as we are born And therefore to tell us that this is the order and disposition of Nature is not to answer but to grant the Objection because that alone makes us fatally miserable So that when Monsieur Charon asks me If it grieveth thee to die why wert thou born I tell him plainly if I was born with that Condition of dying for ever I was born to no other purpose than to be miserable So that if it could have been in my power to have prevented my coming into Being I should more passionately have fled from Life than now I do from Death And being I could not avoid to be born I am bound all my days to curse and hate the Cause that gave me so wretched a Being At least if Nature resolved to beget us Mortal she might have been so kind as to have kept from us the knowledge and foresight of our own Mortality and then might we have enjoyed our present lives with some competent content and cheerfulness but when she has given us so strong a love of Life continually to embitter that with as vehement a fear of Death is onely to make our very existence a scence of Misery and to give us our Beings to be a torment to themselves And whereas as he adds for our comfort that there is no such thing as length or shortness of Life in it self but that it consists meerly in comparison and that the Insect whose Life begins and ends with one half revolution of the Sun is as old at the evening of the day as a Man at threescore beside that this is but a poor shift of Sophistry as I have already shewn against the Epicureans I would be content to exchange my Life of sixty years with your little happy Insect that lives but a day For when the Sun has scatter'd all the chill horrours of the night and darkness and gilded the World with light and splendour then it is that this little Creature thrusts up its Head assays its Wings forsakes the Clod that bread it and mounts up into the calm and gentle Air where it sports and revels and rejoyces in that Light and Warmth that gave it Being and dances away all its little Age with mirth and gaiety It s Life is short indeed but pleasant ours long and tedious its Age is all sunshine the greatest part of ours darkness and sorrow it sports away its little interval of Being but ours is fretted and consumed away with restless cares mournings and afflictions But that which makes the main difference between us is that this little Creature as it lives merrily so it dies unconcernedly whereas my whole
Life howsoever otherwise happy is turn'd into meer anguish and bitterness with the perpetual and intolerable horrours of Death And the longer it lasts the more miserable it is in that it is nothing else than to be so much the longer tormented with the fearfull expectation of a certain Evil and therefore as the Law as Cardan observes takes care that at the execution of Malefactours the more modest and less Criminal should be first dispatched but the bolder and greater Offendours be made Spectatours of the Death of others before they suffer'd themselves so Nature where she has a mind to shew the greatest kidness puts soonest out of pain but where she intends severity she keeps Men longer in suspence and makes them to behold their Friends and Companions Fate before she brings them to their own Execution In short this is a very strange oversight of all the Philosophers that when they have instructed us that the love of Life is of all passions the most Natural they should notwithstanding that with the same unanimity agree to perswade us not to fear Death because that is natural too What a contradiction is this in Nature to force us to desire the continuance of Life and yet require us not to fear its discontinuance But if the first be as it is the most natural of all our passions it prevents the force of all others that are inconsistent with it So that if in the first place we desire to live it is a vain attempt to perswade us not to fear to die because upon the supposition of the love of Life the fear of Death is unavoidable So that the Philosophers having unanimously laid the love of Being as the fundamental Principle of all their Morality it spoils all their consolatory Discourses from what Topicks soever against the dread and terrour of dying and therefore it is needless for me to pursue any more of their particular Reasonings upon this Argument because they all at first view dash so apparently against this first Principle § XXVII And now having as he supposes vanquisht this King of terrours the fear of Death he thinks it an easie task to rout all the little evils of Life and had he done that he had without any farther pains perform'd his whole design For what can hurt the Man who fears not to die For Death is a remedy always at hand so that if he think it not convenient to struggle with the miseries of Life by dying he may put an end to all But having beaten him out of that Sanctuary which he had raised by his first days Conference we shall follow him through the rest of his ensuing Disputations The two next Enemies therefore that he undertakes are Pain and Grief And though his Discourses upon these Arguments are very large copious and eloquent yet all the Philosophy of them is comprehended in two or three short Propositions The first is That Dishonour is worse than Pain and yet nothing can be more dishonourable to the courage of a Man or more unbecoming the dignity of a Philosopher than complaints and impatience or an abject behaviour under Calamities Yes no doubt there is a decency in bearing Afflictions with a manly Courage What then is this any remedy to relieve or asswage the Pain For first wherein consists this ground of comfort Is it not that other Men judge that you behave your self handsomely and like a Man Now who are they They are either the foolish or the wise part of Mankind But how can the Opinion of Fools afford any comfort to a wise Man Especially when you have and that justly discarded the common People as an ignorant idle and regardless herd And as for the Opinion of the Wise which way can that alleviate any Man's Pain For if you are in Pain and counterfeit that you are not if they are wise they know that you dissemble and certainly their knowledge of your Hypocrisie can be no comfort or if they thought you in good earnest it is not conceivable how their false Opinion should afford any true satisfaction to a wise Man But secondly how does the decency of my behaviour any way asswage my Pain Or do the Cholick the Gout and the Stone rage ever the less for the stoutness of my look And then if the Pain be not rebated by my Courage though I have strength of Mind enough to seem to follow this advice yet am I notwithstanding never the less miserable Not that I deny it to be a wise advice for though it is not sufficient to remove our Pains yet it instructs us not to double their smart by fretting under them And that is the most material difference between a wise Man and a Fool in this case that the one endures onely the simple and natural sense of his Pain whereas the other by his impatience adds to that the anguish of his own resentment which affects quicker and pierces deeper than the Pain it self and makes way for it through the Body into the very Soul But though the advice be wise not to make our selves more miserable than we needs must be yet it is utterly ineffectual to make us less miserable than we really are And therefore it is no remedy against the Distemper for the cure whereof it is prescribed because the Pain it self is the same with all the resolution in the World as it is without it And yet that is the thing that he undertakes to bring us to an absolute neglect and contempt of all Pain And then lastly we are in quest of Happiness whereas this onely instructs us how to behave our selves under Misery and so destroys the Supposition of the Subject of our Question which is Whether a Man under Pain can be Happy and that he cannot is very evident because all Pain is Miserable And if it be so Sentences will doe no good unless he could give us some real ground of comfort to support our Minds and cheer up our Spirits and for that there can be no other than the thoughts of and reflections upon an Happiness to come And that indeed would make all our Pains very light and tolerable but without it there is no remedy but they must lie upon us with their full load But Vertue he says requires Patience It does so but it does not asswage Pains And if it could yet taken alone it is so far from supporting our Minds that it cannot support it self as I have in part proved already both against the Epicureans and the Stoicks and shall do more largely when I come to consider our Authour's Discourse upon that Argument And this is all that I meet with material in his Second Book For as for the Examples of the Lacedaemonian Boys and the Roman Gladiatours and other Instances of Hardiness they onely prove the strange power of Custom and Education but are no proof that they are less affected with their Pain because they are able to stifle the natural expressions of it
unprofitable cheat but yet however one would think Racks and Gibbets would have spoil'd the frolick And it is highly credible that any Men but much more these Men who have given us no ground to suspect their integrity because they could have no motive to forgoe it should prevaricate after such an odd and extravagant manner with Mankind yes and themselves too And when so many plain and simple Men so apparently without Craft and without Design without Advantage without Interest have given the World the most unquestionable proofs that they were serious and in good earnest as to the certain truth and reality of what they related after all this what wise and wary Man would not suspect the Forgery and disbelieve the Relation But this Argument I find prosecuted by Eusebius with extraordinary acuteness both of Wit and Reason Supposing says he that our Saviour never wrought any of those Miracles that are unanimously reported of him by his Disciples we must then suppose that they enter'd into Covenant among themselves after this manner Men and Brethren what that Seducer was that lived among us t'other day and how justly he suffer'd Death for his vile Imposture we of all Men have most reason to know and though others that were less intimately acquainted with him and his ways of deceiving might have some opinion of his worth and honesty yet we that were the daily Companions of his Conversation saw nothing in him answerable to the greatness of his pretences but that his whole design was by all the boldest Arts of Craft and Hypocrisie to get a Name in the World and therefore let us one and all join hands and enter into solemn Covenant among our selves to propagate the Belief of this impudent Cheat among Mankind and to fain all manner of Lies for its Confirmation to swear that we saw him restore Eyes to the Blind Ears to the Deaf and Life to the Dead and though it be all impudently false yet let us confidently report it nay and stand too it to the last drop of our Blood And because after all his great and glorious Pretences of being no less than the Son of God he was at last executed as a vile Malefactour with all the circumstances of shame and dishonour we must agree among our selves upon some Lie to wipe off this disgrace Let us therefore resolve to affirm with an undaunted impudence that after he was thus dishonourably Crucified the third Day he arose again and often conversed with us in the same familiar way as he had always done before his Execution But then we must be sure to stand unalterably to the impudence of the Lie and to persevere to Death it self in its assertion For what absurdity is there in throwing away our Lives for nothing And why should any Man think it hard to suffer Stripes Racks Bonds Imprisonments Reproaches Dishonurs and Death it self for no reason at all Let us therefore unanimously and vigorously set our selves to the design and with one consent agree to report such impudent Falshoods as are of no advantage either to our selves or to those we deceive or to him for whose sake we deceive Neither let us be content to propagate this Lie onely among our own Country-men but let us resolve to spread it through all parts of the habitable World impose new Laws upon all Nations overthrow all their old Religions command the Romans to quit the Gods of their Ancestours the Greeks to renounce the Wisedom of their Philosophers and the Egyptians the pretended Antiquity of their Superstition Neither will we take the pains to overthrow these ancient Customs of the most polite and most powerfull Nations in the World by the force of Learning or Wit or Eloquence but by the meer Authority of our crucified Master Neither will we stop here but we will travel to all barbarous Nations in the World reverse all their ancient Laws and command their obedience to a new Religion and this let us resolve to go through with an undaunted courage and resolution For it is not an ordinary reward that we expect for our Impudence nor is it for vulgar Crowns and Trophies that we engage our selves in such hard and hazardous enterprises No no we are sure to meet with the utmost severity of the Laws in all places whereever we come and the truth is we deserve it for disturbing the publick Settlement onely to establish a ridiculous Cheat and Imposture But for this who would not endure all the torments in the World burning hanging beheading crucifying and being torn in pieces by wild Beasts All which we must as we will secure the honour of the Impostor encounter with a cheerfull and resolved Mind For what can be more praise-worthy than to abuse God and affront Mankind to no purpose and to reap no other benefit from all our labours beside the pleasure of vain foolish and unprofitable lying And for that alone will we blaspheme all the Religions that have been from the beginning of the World to gain worship to a crucified Malefactour nay we will lay down our Lives for his Reputation notwithstanding that we know him to have been an impudent Impostor and for that reason is it that we honour him so highly because he has put such a dishonourable abuse upon our selves Who would not doe or suffer any thing for the sake of so vile a Man Who would not undergo all manner of Sufferings for a Cause that himself knew to be meer falshood and forgery And therefore let us constantly to the last breath averr that he raised the Dead cleansed Lepers cast out Devils and wrought all manner of Miracles though we are conscious to our selves of the gross falshood of the whole Story that we have meerly forged out of our own brains And therefore let us deceive as many as we can and if people will not be deceived yet however we shall sometime or other enjoy the pleasure of suffering and perhaps of dying for an unprofitable Lie It is no doubt credible that Men should discourse and act after such an extravagant rate as this or that humane Nature that has above all other Creatures an high sense of the love of Life and Self preservation should thrust it self upon a voluntary Death without any motive or any reward or if they should that when so great a multitude had agreed among themselves to carry on such a frantick design they should all persevere in the Lie to the very Death and not one of them be wrought upon by all the threatnings and all the slatteries in the World to betray the Plot and yet this was the case of the Apostles if their Testimony were not true So that it is plain that there is no more required to demonstrate the truth of the Christian Cause against Infidelity than onely to suppose that the Apostles were Men. And that certainly is as modest and moderate a Postulatum as can be premised to any Question And yet that onely being
upon such appeals and challenges as these that is an evident Demonstration of their undoubted truth and reality And this may suffice for the proof of the truth of Scripture-history supposing the Books of it were written by those Persons whose Names they bear Though beside this it is no inconsiderable proof of their Integrity that Eusebius has observed in their impartial way of writing Thus onely Saint Matthew himself of all the Evangelists takes notice of his own dishonourable Employment before his Conversion and Saint Mark who wrote his Gospel from the information of Saint Peter is observably sparing in those things that might tend to the praise of that Apostle and so could not with decent modesty be reported by himself but more exact than any other of the Evangelists in the description of his shamefull Fall Thus when Saint Peter had so frankly own'd our Saviour for the Messias Saint Matthew relates our Saviour's Answer with a high Commendation of him Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jona for Flesh and Bloud hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Then charged he his Disciples that they should tell no Man that he was Jesus the Christ. Whereas in Saint Mark all these magnificent Expressions of our Saviour to Saint Peter are modestly omitted and all the Answer that is there made is no more than this And he charged them that they should tell no Man And so again though Saint Mark in all his other Relations is more compendious than any of the other Evangelists yet in the Story of Saint Peter's denial of his Saviour he is most of all circumstantial And whereas Saint Matthew and Saint Luke set off the greatness of his Repentance afterwards by saying that he wept bitterly Saint Mark expresses it more modestly onely that he wept Now when Writers pass by such things as make for their own praise and record their own Faults and Miscarriages that without their own discovery might never have been known to Posterity they are of all Men least to be suspected of falsehood and give the strongest proof in the World of their love to Truth and Sincerity So again granting that they would not stick at any falsehood to advance their Master's Honour and Reputation yet to what purpose should they forge Lyes of his Disgraces and Sufferings especially all those shamefull Circumstances that they have recorded of his Condemnation and Execution Now if we believe them in the black and tragical part of the Story why not in all For if they onely design'd to set off their Master's Greatness why do they so carefully acquaint the World with the History of his Misfortunes Why do they tell us of his great Agony before his Passion of his scourgings and Mockings of his purple Robe and reeden Scepter of the Contumelies and Reproaches that were thrown at him whilst he was hanging on the Gibbet of his being forsaken by all his Followers of his being abjured by the most zealous of them all and that without the application of Racks or Torments These things if not true to what purpose should they invent them nay if true why should they not doe what they were able to stiflle them if the onely design of their Romance had been to gain Honour to their Master So that if they were honest and faithfull in those sad Relations concerning him why not in those that carry Triumph and Reputation in them For if they had design'd to lye for his Glory they must have baulk't every thing that might any way offend the Reader And if they had design'd a Romance instead of that plain Story that they have recorded to Posterity they would have told us that Judas had no sooner given the treacherous Kiss but he was turn'd into a Stone that the Hand that struck him was immediately wither'd that Caiphas and his Accusers were struck blind that the Souldiers who supposed they had apprehended him had onely seised a Phantasm whilst he vanisht away that his Judges were befoold in all their phantastick Process against him whilst he stood invisible among them despising their Mock-solemnity In short was it in all humane Accounts much more becoming the grandeur and dignity of that Person that he pretended to be that he should not have been obnoxious to the common Miseries and Calamities of humane Life but that when by his Divine Power he had establisht his Kingdom in the World he should have return'd back to Heaven without any suffering and with all the Ornaments of Glory and Triumph This certainly had been much more proper matter for a Romance if they had design'd nothing but their Master's Greatness than to have fain'd those mixt Actions that are recorded of him in the Gospels and those that would have believed their other Reports would not have disbelieved these And therefore seeing they would not corrupt or suppress the Truth in the unpleasant part of the Story we have no ground to suspect them of the least falsehood in any other part of it howsoever in it self strange and miraculous when it is so evident that their design was real Truth and not their Master's Greatness § VIII But if we believe the Books of Scripture were not written by those Authours whose Names they bear then we must believe that either they were forged in their days or afterwards If in their days then they either own'd them as true or not If they vouched them they gave them the same Authority as if they had been indited by themselves If they disown'd them as containing Reports that they knew to be false then they themselves were obliged to discover the Imposture which having never done that is an undeniable evidence that if they were written in their time either they themselves writ them or at least approved of them But if they were written afterwards how came they to meet with such an early and universal reception in the Christian Churches We find them always own'd as the undoubted records of the Evangelists and Apostles in the most ancient Writers that lived after them nay some with them Now how is it possible that Books that contain in them matters so strange and wonderfull if they had been counterfeit and spurious and thrust upon the World after the death of those Persons whose names they pretend to bear should command such a catholick and unquestionable reputation If indeed they had pretended to have lain obscure for some time and to have been afterwards retrieved there might have been some ground of suspicion But when they are own'd as the most ancient and undoubted records of the Church
unquestionable proofs in the World § XX. This is the first invincible Impediment of Christianity supposing it had been false but whether true or false it labour'd under many other great disadvantages that it could never have surmounted but by the irresistible evidence and certainty of its truth And the first is its contrariety to the Vice and Wickedness of that Age in which it was first divulged The World being at that time as is evident from the Records that are left of it extreamly debaucht both in its Manners and Principles For Julius Caesar having violated all the Laws of his Countrey and overthrown the old Government that had always kept up a generous sense of Vertue and Integrity and by that means chiefly raised it self to that vast Greatness that afterwards so much exposed it to the attempts of ambitious Men. For though that spirit began to work in the time of Marius and passed down through all the great Men Cinna Sulla and Pompey all of them struggling for the sole Sovereignty of so vast an Empire the design was never compleatly compassed but by the boldness and activity of Julius Caesar. Now the success of the Caesarean Faction that were generally Atheists and Epicureans against the Patriots of the old State that were as generally eminent for Worth and Honour Vertue and Integrity and Zeal for the publick Good made the thriving Principles and Practices quickly come into Fashion and Reputation with the World And after the Death of Brutus we find no such thing as an ancient Roman but what he said in passion was seriously and universally embraced as a great truth That Vertue was nothing but an empty name So that if we survey the Roman History before and after the Usurpation of Caesar it does not look like the History of the same Nation the former abounding with the bravest examples of Gallantry and Magnanimity whereas in the latter we are generally entertain'd with no other politicks than Fraud and Treachery Even the admired wisedom of the great Augustus himself was no better than craft and dissimulation And though his Successour Tiberius be particularly remarqued for that Vice it was onely because he was not able to act his part so artificially as his Predecessour had done who dyed with that particular comfort to himself that he had so skilfully played the Comedy of humane Life and certainly of all Princes upon Record he had the most subtile faculty of appearing highly honest without any design of ever being so In short under his Reign all the Principles of Atheism and Impiety were prevalent in the Court of Rome that then prescribed Manners to the best part of the then known World neither were their Practices disagreeing to their Principles for as they cast off all restraints of Vertue and Modesty so they entirely devoted themselves to Luxury and Sensuality and studied nothing else than to emprove their bruitish Pleasures to the utmost extravagance of Enjoyment And as was the great Court of Rome so were all the other lesser Courts of their several Prefects and Governours And that not onely by imitation but by the natural baseness of the Men themselves Scarce any but the worst of Men that is Epicureans and Vilains by Principle being prefer'd by J. Caesar to Authority in the Empire though things grew much worse under the Tyranny of Mark Anthony a Man kneaded up of Lust and Malice and the onely reason why he was not more of each was because he was all both for he would never unless for the sake of his Lust quit his Cruelty nor ever unless to satisfie his Cruelty forsake his Lust and as himself was made up of all manner of Baseness so he would advance none to preferment but such as had recommended themselves to his good liking by their more than ordinary Wickedness And for that reason it was that Judaea and the parts about it were at that time more over-run with Vice and Debauchery than in any former Age in that Herod one of the vilest Men that ever lived had by the patronage of Mark Anthony obtain'd their Government and by a long Reign over them after his Patron 's Death under Augustus had familiarised all manner of the most licentious Wickedness to the People even so much that one half of the leading Men even among the Jews themselves that had been so famous through all Ages for their reverence to their Religion were no better than open and avowed Atheists Now how was it possible for such a Doctrine as Christianity that consists of Precepts of Chastity and Sobriety of Truth and Honesty of Kindness and Charity and of renouncing the Pleasures of this Life for the Rewards of another to make its way into such a wicked World as this Men of atheistical Principles are of all others the most stubborn and inflexible they scorn all manner of better Information and will not endure to enquire into the truth of any thing that might possibly undeceive them so that there is no way to overcome Persons so prejudiced and so conceited unless we can by the meer evidence of things force them into conviction And as for Men of luxurious Lives they have neither Mind nor Leisure to attend to any thing that may reclaim them It is Pain to them to think of parting with their Pleasures they will labour to preserve them upon any terms and as long as they are able to resist no information shall be able to fasten on them and therefore when the Christian Religion so suddenly reformed infinite numbers from all sorts of Vices it must have brought along with it a real Evidence equal to its pretended Authority for as it pretended to a Divine Commission by virtue whereof it required strict Obedience to all its Commands so it must have proved the reality of its Commission by such certain Evidence that it was not possible for the most refractory Persons to withstand its force and therefore when we find such multitudes so wonderfully prevail'd upon to quit their most beloved Lusts and Vices we have reason from thence onely to conclude that they were more than convinced of the undeniable truth of its pretences § XXI The next disadvantage of Christianity was its bold and open defiance to the establisht and inveterate Religions of the World For of all prejudices those of Religion are the strongest and the older they are the deeper root they take And therefore when its Enemies could plead the antiquity of many hundred years against it it could not but be a very difficult task to perswade them out of such an ancient Prescription It s meer Novelty was an Objection of no small force but when a new and upstart Religion would not be content with its own Authority but must disgrace all the settled Religions in the World and refuse its own settlement unless they may be utterly extirpated this could not but seem too sawcy a demand especially to Princes and great Men to require of them not onely
to set about such an Undertaking to reverse all the ancient Laws and Religions in the World and to introduce every where not onely a different but a contrary state of things These things says he if they should have objected he could have return'd them no other answer had he not prevented the Objection by the promise of his miraculous Assistance And therefore when they were obedient to his command it is evident that they were already by his Divine Works convinced of his Divine Authority For that they believed in him must be granted in that they so readily obeyed him in a little time leaving their own native Country to instruct the World in the Faith of Jesus and soon saw the promise of his Divine Assistance not onely made good but abundantly exceeded by their incredible success But when they went about such a Work as this after what manner think you did they address themselves to the People Did they go into the Market-place and there summon up an Auditory of all Passengers or did they apply themselves to particular Persons Take which you please I pray which way did they win their Attention when they began their Story at the most ignominious Death of their Master whom they set forth as the onely Instructour of Mankind the Son of God and Saviour of the World For if they had conceal'd that part of his History that related to his Passion and Sufferings and onely trumpeted out his great Vertues and much greater Miracles it had been very difficult to overcome the Faith of Mankind to a report so very strange and in it self incredible And yet if they had done this they might have kept their Story within some bounds of probability But when they acknowledged that the same Person whom they magnified as a God lived like a miserable Man encountred perpetual Affronts and Contumelies and at last suffer'd the Death of the worst and most ignominious Malefactours who that heard them would not laugh at the gross contradiction of their own Story Or at least how could any Man be so credulous as upon the bare report of unknown Persons to believe that a Person so shamefully executed should be so conspicuously risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven when he was not able to rescue himself from so dishonourable an Execution However who could have been so easie as to forsake the Religion of their Countrey and that way of Worship that had been used as they believed from the beginning of the World by the meer Authority of a company of mean and ignorant Mechanicks and a crucified Malefactour who notwithstanding his contemptible Life and dishonourable Death would bear himself out as the onely Son of God While says he I revolve these things in my Mind and consider the improbability of the Story in it self I cannot imagine how it is possible meerly by their own bare report to prevail upon the Faith of any one Man And yet when I reflect upon the strange Effect of their Endeavours and that such despicable Persons as they were in themselves should prevail upon such innumerable multitudes of Men and that not in barbarous and obscure places onely but in the most famous Cities of Rome Alexandria Antiochia nay in all parts of the World Europe Asia and Africa I am forced to enquire into the rational Account of so strange an Event and find that nothing could ever have brought it about but a manifest Divine Power whereby they were able when they pleased as we find in their Records to work Miracles and that alone was more than enough to vanquish and subdue the minds of Men to their Authority For when they saw their Miracles they could not but be concern'd to enquire by what Means they wrought such Effects And when they were told that they were empower'd by Jesus and did whatever they did by virtue of his Authority that alone over-ruled their Minds and without farther proof commanded entire submission to his Doctrine So that it was not the evidence of the thing it self nor the credit of their Testimony but the undeniable power of God discovering it self in their miraculous Actions that so easily subdued the World before them And it is impossible as Origen observes that the Apostles of our Lord without these miraculous Powers should ever have been able to have moved their Auditours or perswaded them to desert the Institutions of their Countrey and embrace their new Doctrine and having once embraced it to defend it to the death and defie all manner of dangers in its defence But then as it was impossible to have wrought this wonderfull change in the World without these miraculous Powers so with them it was impossible for Men to withstand so clear a demonstration of Divine Authority And therefore they did not so properly convert the World by their Preaching as by their Actions whilst they perform'd such things as though they themselves had never opened their Minds proclaim'd their Divine Commission And when People were once convinced of that little perswasion would serve the turn to engage them to the belief of that Doctrine which by their works they had already proved to be of Divine Authority And this if we consult the Apostolical History was the usual method of their proceeding first to shew a Miracle and then to declare its meaning Thus the first time that they appeared in publick after their Commission to preach the Gospel to the utmost parts of the Earth was at the great Festival of Pentecost when Proselytes of all Nations resorted to Jerusalem to whom they preached in their several Languages and this being noised abroad that a few illiterate Fishermen were all on a sudden inspired with the gift of speaking all the Languages of the known and habitable World curiosity brought great multitudes to hear them and when the multitude was convinced of and amased at the Miracle then was it a proper time for Saint Peter to begin his Sermon of the Resurrection of Jesus and prove it by their own Testimony This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we are all Witnesses That is we that are as you see endued with this miraculous gift of speaking all Languages in order to our preaching in the name of Jesus to all Nations do here assure you that we were no less than Eye-witnesses of his Resurrection And there lay the main strength and efficacy of Saint Peter's Sermon it was the Miracle that so soon converted thousands to his Doctrine So again when it was blazon'd abroad that the famous Cripple that was so well known to every Boy in the City to have kept for so many years together his begging stage at the chief Gate of the Temple styled Beautifull because made as Josephus informs us of Corinthian Brass was so miraculously healed by one of the company onely by a word speaking this could not but enflame their curiosity and every Man was concern'd to satisfie himself in the truth or falshood of a report