Preaching a Church at Jerusalem II. Would you know the time 'T was in the space of three years that the Miracles of Jesus Christ his Death Resurrection and Ascension were brought to pass and a few Weeks after the Ascension the Apostles begun to Preach publickly in Jerusalem III. Would you know the witnesses of the truth of these matters of fact We can produce a great number of persons who both lived and conversed with Jesus Christ himself IV. Would you fain know the nature of the matters of fact here attested We shew you that they are very evident and singular ones that the Sick are healed the Winds and Seas hush'd the Dead raised a man put to death who convers'd with his Disciples and ascended into Heaven c. V. If you would know their number we can shew that the whole Life of Jesus Christ was but one continual series of Miracles VI. Lastly Would you know the proofs of all this The Apostles themselves boast of having received miraculous gifts and that too by a good Title as we shall shew in the sequel of this Work In the interim do but unite all these Circumstances together and see what an irresistible evidence arises from their Union How could the Apostles perswade so many persons concerned in this thing so many that had both known and seen Jesus Christ Would they not soon have lost all Credit if search had been made into the places and the truth of what they affirmed strictly examin'd Or rather how is it possible that whilst they ventur'd to publish such things in the very places where they must necessarily have been brought to pass the Jews should not have stopt the progress of the Gospel by discovering to the World so visible and evident an Imposture For the Apostles did not publish only one single matter of fact of this nature They affirm'd also that their Master had raised Lazarus from the Dead together with the Son of the Widdow of Naim and the Daughter of Jairus that he had heal'd almost an infinite number of people possessed with the Devil Deaf Blind and sick of the Palsy and that his fame had spread throughout all Syria Nor were the Apostles content barely to preach all these things they put them also down in writing and their Writings are dispers'd throughout all the World Therefore they hid not themselves but were willing every one should know the certainty of what they testify'd and examine as much as they pleased the matters of fact they related They gave them out to the World and exposed them to be search'd all manner of ways But supposing I should grant those Books to be written forty fifty or sixty years after the Death of Jesus Christ still is it evident that before that time there was a Church at Jerusalem founded by the preaching of the Apostles and it is certain that the Apostles had declared by word of mouth the Miracles and Resurrection of Jesus Christ which are the essential matters of fact contained in those Books For how could they otherwise perswade the World to worship a crucified man or convince them that Jesus Christ was the true Messias How was it possible the Christians should look upon that Book as Divine which went upon a supposition of what was never done By what kind of agreement should four persons who wrote in different times and places and copy'd not one anothers Writings as is plain if we read them over with never so little attention and consider their different manner of relating the same things I say by what kind of agreement should they have conspired to inform us of the same matters of fact if the Apostles had not first of all unanimously and universally publish'd them How could the Apostles have perswaded men to turn Christians had they not declared the Miracles Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ since Christianity can't subsist without these matters of fact Thus we see 't is to no purpose for Impostors to disguise themselves for all their shifts and tricks serve only to discover them CHAP. V. Where we shall more particularly examine whether the Apostles had the Power or the Will to deceive mankind THose men who have a design to deceive the World must have more skill wit and cunning than others which skill wit and cunning will appear in their works in spite of all their Art and subtilty But when I strictly examine those Authors whom we call Sacred I neither find Cunning Wit nor Affectation in their Books Every thing they contain seems to me very simple naked and open They all exactly relate their own Weaknesses and imperfections They do not conceal their true Birth and extraction They discover their ambition in their controversy who amongst them should be the greatest in the flourishing Kingdom of the Messias their gross ignorance in the Questions they asked their Master and one another viz. What meaneth this to rise again from the Dead their cowardise in betaking themselves to flight at the sight of the Soldiers that came to take away their Master and their incredulity in those scruples they raised concerning his Resurection All these things plainly discover the greatest sincerity and impartiality But yet there arises here a certain scruple which seems not altogether inconsiderable and may deserve a little consideration Who knows perhaps some will object but that this is an affected sincerity which prepossesses our minds in their behalf only to deceive us the more securely In order to overthrow this notion I shall not assert that the Writers we speak of were originally Fishermen and Publicans and that it would seem very strange that men of that Birth and Education should affect simplicity and be capable of so refined apiece of policy of which there can hardly be given an example amongst the most able Politicians that ever took upon them to deceive mankind Neither shall I say that since the four Evangelists composed their Writings apart 't would be very surprising that they should all concur in the design of imposing upon the credulity of men by Writing after so simple and ingenuous a manner and that they should not only be entirely conformable to one another in this respect but also should agree with the other Writers of the New Testament 'T is sufficient to observe that they sometimes relate such things as at first view suggest those notions in us which Piety utterly rejects and Incredulity makes use of to oppose the Christian Religion by attacking its divine head This they would never have done had they only affected an ingenuous simplicity Thus it 's ask'd why Jesus Christ who was subject to his holy and ever blessed Mother according to the observation of the Evangelists should make her this answer which is some what rough and severe Woman what have I to do with thee my hour is not yet come Thus Julian the Apostate Celsus Porphirius and other Enemies of the Christian Religion stick not to say that Jesus Christ gave
were we not assured of them from the Writings of the Heathens and had we not a clearer proof in the complaints of the Fathers who certainly were not so extravagant as publickly to complain of an imaginary persecution when it was so dangerous to complain of one that was real And therefore I would fain know what this Christian Faith and Doctrine is which made men so patiently suffer and abandon all things But to my great amazement I find that they believed that a certain crucified man was the Son of God that a man hang'd and nailed on a Cross was the sovereign judg of the World and the object of our Adoration I confess I can't but acknowledg some supernatural power in all this For tho' men of as mean appearance as those who first preached the Gospel might without any Miracles have weigh'd down the Authority of Emperours and Prelates and all the Magnificence and glory of Paganism objects very suitable to the worldly and ambitious heart of a man yet how can we conceive that they could without the help of Miracles perswade men to believe a Paradox so offensive to Reason and which appears at first view so horrible as this that the Son of God was nailed on a Cross We can never perswade our selves without offering violence to our Reason that those who from their youth represented their Deities to themselves as the greatest and most glorious Beings they could imagin and gave the name of Divine to whatever they thought in the highest degree beautiful and magnificent should yet substitute to all these great Ideas the notion of a God who died an infamous Death upon the Cross That not one alone but an infinite number of persons embraced an Opinion that immediately overthrew all their first Ideas of a God that this great change was not gradually and insensibly brought to pass or in the compass of several ages but in a very few years and with an incredible swiftness by the Mystery of vile and contemptible persons of no power or authority in the World and that the passion they had for a Doctrine which seemed at first so monstrous to Men induced them to suffer Death in defence of the same after having renounced their Fortune Reputation and Pleasures But does not prejudice over-rule in all this and make me Fancy I see that distinctly which I perceive but confusedly in truth I ought yet further to distrust my self and tho' I honour Errour too much in suspecting it may be so coherent so united to the Principles of Common sense and involved in so many appearances of Truth yet I will not pass by any scruple for all that has been hitherto said I find then that the Christian Religion was established in the World an hundred years ago I know that the Christians believe in a certain Jesus Christ crucified I know also that this Opinion of theirs was not innate I am fully perswaded that neither the Heathenish Priests nor their ordinary Guides taught them this Doctrin because they were the profess'd Enemies of it I am compelled therefore in despite of my self to credit at least in some respect the Relation the ancient Doctors of the Church unanimously gave of it viz that some persons called Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ went about the World preaching that this same Jesus Christ was the Son of God and the Messias whom God had promised to the Jews But these fundamental Truths require a more particular Examination and therefore we must shew more distinctly whether there were ever such men as the Apostles in the World what their Original was what Doctrine they preached and how they were qualified This we shall presently see by laying down for a certain Principle that the Christians had the books of the New-Testament in their possession at that very time we have chose for our fixed point I shall not at present enquire whether those Books are forged or not my design being to argue some time without entring upon that Enquiry For whether they are forged or not at least we learn from them certain undeniable matters of fact which will wonderfully illustrate all our following Enquiries CHAP. V. Which demonstrates that all the matters of fact contained in the Books of the New Testament can never be forg'd IF the New Testament be forged It may well be presumed that the Contrivers of that forgery who certainly could have no other design but to make it pass for truth endeavour'd to ground it upon some foundation either good or bad So that we have reason to believe that tho' they should have invented all that they relate at least they invented not the Names Country and Persons of Jesus Christ and his Apostles under whose Names they speak and to whom they ascribe the Establishment of the Christian Religion For is it probable they should endeavour to perswade men to worship a certain Jew called Jesus the Son of Mary a Galilean too who was crucified at Jerusalem and had several Disciples whose names â—re exactly related if the Jews could have immediâ—tely convinced them of the falsehood of all those matters by producing the Testimony of their own Nation who would have thronged in to tell them â—hat Jesus and his Disciples were only fictitious â—ames and that there was no more to do but conâ—ult all the Registers and Decrees wherein Augustus commanded all the Jews should be taxed in the days of Cyrenius and where it must have appeared that Jesus Christ himself if there was any such Person was also taxed 'T is all one as if a man should publish in this age a book full of excellent precepts of Morality intermixt with several fictitious actions which book he would have the World receive as the Doctrine of some divine and extraordinary man who in the beginning of this age raised up several men from the Dead healed all sorts of Diseases calm'd the Winds and Tempests of the Sea gave Authority to several of his Disciples to work many strange Miracles was at length seiz'd and put to Death in Germany and whose Disciples who bore such and such names and were born in such and such a Countrey came afterwards into France dispersed themselves throughout the other parts of Europe preach'd his Doctrine and at length died all unanimously in defence of it What think you of this Tale And how would it be received in the World but as a System only of many evident and palpable falsities What think you those persons would say of it who should be thus accused of so dreadful a parricide They would certainly reply that that fictitious book was purposely design'd to blast their Reputation But it appears the Jews never attempted to clear themselves after that manner They confess there was such a person as Jesus Christ and that their Fathers put him to Death neither do they deny the least Circumstance of his Life Ministry or Death excepting those which might probably make him pass for the Son of God But we
then must that person do or rather what must an infinite number of persons do who utterly renounce all things for the sake of the Gospel III. There has been found some who have counterfeited Books of Humane Learning but none ever known that were willing to die in defence of their forgery Now none here can be suspected to have forged the Books of the New Testament but only those who suffered Death in defence of the Christian Religion and consequently to confirm the Truth of these matters of fact on which Chistianity it self is founded IV. A man may very well counterfeit a Book of Humane Learning but not always nor in all circumstances and 't would be very ridiculous in a man to forge Letters that must have been written not long ago to whole Societies or Epistles that must have been deposited in the hands of an infinite number of persons and in very many different places Now this must needs be affirmed of all the Epistles of the Apostles which make up a very considerable part of the New Testament And how could the Church of Rome have possibly been made to believe that St. Paul wrote an Epistle to her or the Church of Corinth that she had received two Epistles from him and so of the rest unless it had been so V. This argument is so much the more considerable since he that grants one point in this matter unavoidably grants the whole and if you should agree with me that perhaps one single Epistle among all those of the New Testament was not forg'd you must grant the same thing of them all or at least it will be to no purpose for the Incredulous to to cavil thereupon For what if I should grant the four Gospels to be forg'd does not the Book of the Acts of the Apostles contain nay does it not necessarily suppose the same essential matters of fact related to us in the Gospels should I grant the same of the Book of Acts are not the Epistles of St. Paul sufficient to inform us that Jesus Christ wrought several miracles rose again from the Dead and ascended into heaven and that the Holy Ghost descended upon the Disciples on the day of Pentecost and that 's as much as I desire In a word should I grant all the Epistles of St. Paul to be the works of another man I need but receive those of St. Peter or those of St. John to prove the same thing There being never an Epistle in all the New Testament but what mentions or implies those essential matters of fact without which there can be no such thing as Christianity in the World Let us now see whether we can perswade our selves that all the Books of the New Testament without excepting one fragment or single Epistle amongst them are forg'd and whether we can entertain such a suspicion which no Heretick no Impious or Incredulous Person ever entertained But how is it possible all the Epistles of the Apostles should be forg'd since they must have been committed to an infinite number of Persons as they were really in the begining of Christianity and since Tertullian tells us that in his time they carefully preserved in several Churches the Originals of those Epistles which the Apostles had wrote to them Again in what time and on what occasion could this Forgery have been made Was it during the lives of the Apostles No For could the World consider those Books as Sacred and Divine which the Apostles themselves forg'd Was it then immediately after the Death of the Apostles Do we owe it to Clemens Polycarp and the other Doctors of that Age By no means for those Disciples of the Apostles separated themselves as soon as those great Lights of the World were extinguished Polycarp went to Rome to decide a controversy with a Bishop of Rome occasioned in the Church about the time wherein they were to celebrate the Feast of the Christian Resurrection or Passover Those two great men differed much in that point but yet they both greed unanimously to receive the Writings of the Apostles and to look upon them as the true standard of their Faith and Manners Moreover what Probability is there that so great a number of Churches could have been induced to receive so many false Epistles so soon after the Death of the Apostles and when there was so many Persons yet living who had conversed with them In truth this is so extravagant a Notion that we hold our selves not at all obliged to refute it But it may be objected that the Primitive Christians question'd the Authority of some Epistles such as the Epistle to the Hebrews whose Author was never certainly known the second Epistle of St. Peter that of St. Jude c. I grant it but then I presume that this consideration makes for us since it cannot be conceived that the Ancient Primitive Christians should dispute so long about some Epistles in particular had the rest altogether been as liable to suspicion But may we not reasonably imagin that during those strange disorders which followed the destruction of Jerusalem some Christians either perfect cheats or but partly perswaded of that Faith might have composed the Books of the New Testament and so after having inserted in them whatever stories they pleased ascribed them to the Apostles to gain the greater veneration and respect for their fictions No certainly because the devastation of Jerusalem hinder'd not but that there might be very numerous Churches at Rome at Antioch at Thessalonica Philippi c. whom it would have been impossible to have perswaded that the Apostles had wrote them some Epistles which must have been already deposited in their hands And besides that it appears plainly that the Books of the New Testament were composed before the destruction of Jerusalem because Jerusalem and the Church established at Jerusalem is often mention'd therein without the least hint that Jerusalem was then utterly destroyed Besides how could it come into any mans mind to forge such Books after the destruction of Jerusalem whose design was only to humble the pride of the Jews to induce them no longer to hate the Heathens as being strangers and to perswade them that tho God as yet suffered the carnal worship of their Law they ought not to expect to be justified by that This I say was the end of the New Testament and especially the Epistles of St. Paul who seems earnestly to desire to unite the minds of the two Nations And Heaven having sufficiently declared it self against the Jews by the destruction of their City the confusion of their Tribes and Families and that general dispersion which made them Tributaries to all other Nations there was no need of any further reasons to prove that the Jews were not the only Nation called to the Knowledge of the true God 'T was enough that this proof was evidently written by the hand of God in the just punishment of that people In the mean while 't is necessary to observe
shell and bark If I may so say of the Christian Religion by examining all those Arguments that are drawn from the external Testimony which the Primitive Christians gave of it and by considering their natural Capacities the discoveries that were made to them their prejudices the peculiar frame of their minds their Martyrdom and the reasons that induced them to suffer it c. And all this before we proceed to the consideration of the Writings of the New-Testament II. We shall consider these Writings themselves and enquire whether they are forged or not We shall examin the subject-matter of them and endeavour both to defend them against the suspicions of the Incredulous by shewing that they contain nothing but what is certainly true and to evince the Divinity of them by the Character of those things they contain III. and lastly We shall endeavour to shew the very substance and spirit of Christianity by discovering the Excellence uses advantages the end genius and in general all the beauties which are proper and natural to it And this is what we design to treat of in the following Sections whereof this second part is composed But since our Adversaries by their prejudices may be inclined to fear lest we should impose upon them by making them believe such Doctrines as can't be proved by Reason and since it is much for our advantage to remove all such suspicions we will for a while doubt of every thing with them and raising our selves by degrees to the Knowledge of those matters of fact which establish Christianity it self admit of nothing for truth but so far as appears evident CHAP. I. Where we shall enquire whence the Christians had their Original and what their Profession is by looking back into the first Ages wherein they appeared IN order to which we suppose that there are now Christians in the World and there have not always been such From this I gather that I must look back into past Ages to find out the Original of my Religion In this search I pass therefore from Age to Age till I come to Constantine without being able to clear this doubt But here we must make a little stop The prosperity of this Prince gives at first some occasion of suspicion and we easily mistrust a man who being Master of the most considerable part of the World seems probably to have established the Christian Religion therein either by Force or Policy looking perhaps upon it as more proper than that of the Heathens to carry on his designs Yet that suspicion soon vanishes since we are assured there were Christians in the World before Constantine's time All the Heathen Writers who lived before him speak of them and the Ecclesiastical Historians are wholly employed in describing their sufferings But supposing that these Historians lived in the days of Constantine or after him they must needs have either lost the use of their reason themselves or have imagined that the men of their age had lost theirs when they give them the History of the Christan Church down from the Apostles to Constantine if 't were certain there had not been Christians in the World before that Prince And therefore this must be too extravagant a suspicion to be entertained long But here is something still more observable viz. that on the one hand the Christians who lived before Constantine were then possessed of the Books of the New-Testament and on the other that those very Christians were so strongly perswaded of the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ of his miracles of the pouring out the holy spirit on the Apostles and of all other matters of fact that establish the Christian Religion that they hardly speak of any thing else their books are full of them and their Doctrine is altogether built upon this foundation And therefore if Constantine invented the matters of fact which establish Christianity he must not only have forged the Books of the New-Testament but also the Writings of Clemens Justin Iraeneus Athenagoras Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Origen and in general of all the Fathers who lived before him because every one of their Writings have an essential relation to those matters of fact that prove the truth of Religion And should we go up a little higher than the reign of Constantine we should hear of Christians that were afflicted during the three first Centuries of the Church and persecuted throughout the whole World and punished with most barbarous and new invented torments They were put to Death upon wheels and scaffolds tortured by fire their flesh torn with pincers their bodies were mangled by cutting off limbs one after another they were thrown into Rivers and cast into the Sea and exposed to Wild Beasts wrapp'd up in garments dipped in sulphur to serve for torches and set up to light Passengers in their Way In fine it was never known that men so universally agreed in any one thing as in their design of tormenting the Christians in so much that the ordinary people who have generally some compassion for the greatest malefactors upon the Scaffold conducted the Christians to the place of Execution with acclamations of Joy Certainly 't is a very difficult matter to restrain one's Curiosity so much as not to desire a more particular Knowledge of a people persecuted by the World with so much rage and malice For to see the whole World so strangely incensed against one sect of men one would easily think them the common Enemies of all mankind and the offspring of Hell it self born for a common plague to the Rest of the World What then were the great Crimes these Christians were guilty of They were accused of impiety murther and incest 'T was pretended that they violated the respect due to the Gods that they murthered their own Children which they scrupled not to eat up after having Killed them and lastly that they lay promiscuously together the Brother with the Sister and the Son with the Mother But first of all there is little likelyhood that the Christians should suffer Death and torments worse than Death it self in defence of a Religon which engaged them to the Commission of such infamous actions That stedfast constancy they shew'd in the midst of their Torments and which their Enemies themselves acknowledged sutes very ill with the voluptuousness and enormities they were accused of Besides were they question'd concerning these Crimes which they are obliged to clear themselves of they would produce in their Behalf the Apologies of Justin Athenagoras and Tertullian wherein they earnestly desired the Senate and Roman Emperours that they would make a strict enquiry into their lives and inflict upon them such torments as were a thousand times if possible more cruel than those they had already endured if they were really guâ—lty of what they were accused They would shew us likewise a letter from Pliny to Trajan which ought to be looked upon as an authentick monument of their Innocence Since Pliny there informs
the utmost pitch of Prosperity and Glory this Jesus himself was seized and nailed on a Cross where he suffered a most infamous Death infamous in the esteem of all Nations but more particularly accursed in the Jewish Law What a mighty thunder bolt must this have been to such men who had fed their fancies with such charming hopes They were long since perswaded that the Messias would make his appearance in a very Glorious State that he would overthrow at his coming the Empire of Cesar together with all the Roman Grandeur and thereby make the Jews absolute Masters of the World All these things they impatiently expected from Jesus and yet this Jesus was dishonoured by an infamous punishment he was compelled to endure The Jews themselves not only sacrificed him but they sacrificed him even to Cesar himself and delivered him up to the Romans to put him to Death There was no power able to deliver him out of the hands of his Tormentors so that he died and his Disciples heard of his Death or rather were eye-witnesses of it In truth I cannot conceive how they should after all this have still preserved the least of their pretentions They might reasonably grieve at the loss of such pleasing hopes but nothing could redeem the loss of them They might abhor the furious passion of the chief Priests and Sanhedrin who had utterly deprived them of their dearly beloved Master but they must at length lay aside the opinion they had entertained of him And therefore nothing can be so likely as that which St. Luke makes them utter in the midst of their sorrow and astonishment But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel and besides all this to day is the third day since these things were done Luke 24. 21. But supposing they had no such Hopes or Expectation it is enough that the Disciples look't upon Jesus as the promised Messias Nay 't is all one whether it was in the sense of the Jews or in that of the Christians For if it was in the sense of the Jews they could not but imagin that Jesus would have raised up the glory of the Jews to its utmost height so far were they from conceiving he was liable to be put to Death by them But if it was in the sense of the Christians they ought surely to have believed that in case he should die he would certainly raise up himself and those that believed on him from the grave because the whole System of Christian Religion essentially depends upon this foundation Thus were the Disciples preposessed with the general opinion of the Jews they could not chuse but lose it at the sight of the Death of Jesus and were they prepossessed with the profess'd Doctrine of the Christians they could not likewise but be undeceived of their Errour when they saw that Jesus Christ rose not again from the Dead What then shall we think of certain Fishermen who were a most mean wretched sort of people as the Enemies of Christianity called them who had not the courage to accompany their Master even when they looked upon him as the true Messias but gave him over to his Executioners Sure they are by this time sensible of their mistake What care then does it appear they took to hide themselves to conceal their shame and confusion from men let us see what was the Event and we shall know the Truth We find that few weeks after the Death of Christ his Disciples publickly shewed themselves in Jerusalem and confidently affirmed that they had seen their Master who was risen again from the Dead had spoken with him handled him eat with him conversed with him for forty days and lastly that they had seen him ascend into Heaven 'T is certain this was the Testimony of the Disciples since the Faith of the Primitive Christians was founded on this Testimony Who could have thought of this unexpected turn The Disciples affirmed that Jesus was the Messias but could they still believe it when they saw him give up the Ghost Or if they did not believe it were they now grown bolder to maintain an imposture than before to follow their Master when they thought him the true Messias Could certain Fishermen dejected fearful Fishermen who ought with shame to have owned their Error could they invent such a fable preach it with so much confidence maintain it with so much boldness expose their persons to all sorts of Torments and even to Death it self in defence of such an incredible fiction Could any of them imagin that they could seduce Mankind or had any one of them imagined it could the rest have been so extravagant as to approve of his ridiculous fancy Did they think the World would believe them upon their bare Word And were they then no longer in any dreadful apprehension of the Sanhedrin that had inhumanely put their Master to death Did they believe they might safely reproach the Jews for having put the Messias to death without being themselves severely punished Were they not sensible into how many troubles and afflictions this fable would inevitably cast them And if they were could they still be so couragious as to maintain such an imposture Is it possible that no one of them should recant his opinion not one contradict himself but that all should unanimously depose notwithstanding the most rigorous punishments inflicted on them a matter of Fact which they knew to be altogether Chimerical and false Certainly this is a thing so very strange or rather which appears to me so very absurd and extravagant that I question whether our incredulous Adversaries could perswade themselves of it provided they would but reflect never so little upon it But let us continue still to distrust our selves may we not probably have made some false Supposition in what we just now affirmed we will therefore go over again the same principles we just now established And indeed the more I reflect upon them the less I conceive how we can possibly call any of them in question For can I deny that Jesus ever was in the World that he ever had any Disciples or that those Disciples thought him at first the promised Messias But why should I alone question a matter of fact which the Thalmudists nay Julian Porphirius and all other Enemies of Christianity have always acknowledged This is what I have shewn to be absurd Can I question but that if Jesus died and rose not again from the dead his Disciples were then undeceived of the opinion they probably entertained that Jesus was the Messias the Son of God If so either they understood nothing at all by these two words the Messias the Son of God or else they understood quite another thing than that he was a Meer Man who was to remain for ever under the power of Death after his Crucifixion Can I deny that the Disciples declared the Resurrection of Jesus Christ after his Crucifixion It 's self evident All
the Earth has heard of the preaching of the Apostles who all unanimously declared that Jesus Christ was risen again from the Dead and 't is purely upon their testimony that the World believ'd it Can we imagin that the Disciples of Jesus let slip a long period of time as twenty or thirty years after the Crucifixion of their Master and so having had time to embolden themselves and to contrive an imposture they suddenly appeared in the World and preached that Jesus was risen again from the Dead If so how could the compilers or forgers of the New Testament make the world believe that the Disciples of Jesus preached his Resurrection a few Weeks after his Crucifixion How comes it to pass that the Jews never had the least thoughts of contradicting our Scripture in that respect And what is the reason that the Christians yearly commemorate two festivals successively one after another one for the commemoration of the Death and Resurrection of the Lord and the other for that of the coming down of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles which was purposely given them to preach the Gospel in all places If the Disciples had not preached the Resurrection of their Master till a long time after his Death would it not have been ask'd them what have you done since your Jesus was Crucified Rose he not sooner from the Dead Or wherefore do you now preach his Resurrection so long after it What could have obliged the Jews to assert that his Disciples had stolen away his Body by night if his Resurrection had been preached so very late in the World And how comes it to pass that there were Christian Churches established almost every where by the sole testimony of the Apostles few years after the Death of Jesus Christ Can we suppose that it was out of ambition or revenge that the Disciples of Jesus published his Resurrection as designing to make the Chief Priests and Scribes pass for Paricides or immortalise their own names to Posterity But could the Disciples think of revenging themselves on those Men that had so clearly shewn them their mistake in the Messias Or could they fancy there was any revenge purely in inventing such a ridiculous fable Would they buy their Revenge so dear as at the price of their own lives and expose their persons to inevitable Torments and certain death then as for ambitious thoughts did they entertain them immediately after the death of him who could only support and confirm them Had they any reason to aspire after Glory and Grandeur just when all their hopes were destroyed with their Messias Is it likely a few poor Fishermen should have had such thoughts Certainly had that been their design they would soon have relinquish'd it and the immediate scandal affixed to their profession the Misery and barbarous persecution it continually drew upon them would have soon banished out of their Minds so ridiculous and extravagant a design But to what purpose is it for any one to delude himself 'T is well known that when a Malefactor is put to the rack he is forc'd to confess his Crime the torments he endures extorting a confession of his most secret Actions This is a way almost infallible to discover truth and human Justice often puts it in execution for that purpose How were it possible therefore that so many impostors together that had been so often examined and urged by Fire and Sword to recant what they had asserted should yet so constantly persist in a false deposition For 't was not only one single witness but a great Number of Witnesses who were not compell'd to suffer one single punishment only but all sorts of punishments 'T was not only in one single place but almost in every place where they preached they were urged to recant their opinion by the severest torments Neither was it for one single Moment but for every Moment of their lives that they were thus exposed to persecution Not one single party was on their side But Jews and Heathens Kings and Magistrates Prelates and People openly declared themselves their Adversaries They were not only assaulted with Persecutions but reviled contemned and reproached yet for all that not one of them recanted his Opinion Being Separated or Confronted they all unanimously deposed not only that Jesus Christ was risen from the Dead but that they had seen him after the Resurrection If this be the Method commonly used to maintain an imposture I wonld gladly know how Truth it self is to be defended But perhaps the Disciples were themselves deluded and Peter or some other Apostle being so cunning as to remove the body of our Lord out of his Sepulcher perswaded the other Disciples their Master was really risen from the Dead and so they firmly believing his report went about the World preaching his Resurrection But this Opinion necessiarily falls of it self to the ground For the Apostles not only testify'd that they had all seen Jesus Christ after his Resurrection from the Dead but that the holy Ghost fell on them in the likeness of fiery Tongues They testify'd likewise the Truth of Christ's other Miracles and 't is impossible they should all have been deceived in respect of all those matters of fact at once Above all 't is necessary to observe this last kind of miracle viz. the coming down of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles in the likeness of fiery tongues For those Apostles boldly affirmed that with the help of that very miracle they were endowed with the gift of divers Languages so that Greeks Romans Parthians Persians c. heard them speak every one in their own Language This is a matter of fact which neither the Apostles could have deceived the World in nor they themselves have been deceived in It can't be imagined they could have deceived the World or that some Fishermen could have been so bold as to pretend they were endowed with the gift of divers Languages unless it had been really so for they would in every place have been immediately convicted of the most notorious Cheat in the world There were at Rome men who spoke Greek as well as in Greece some that spoke Latin And by reason of Trade it generally happens that there are men of all Languages in every Country Now if St. Paul really understood no other Language but that Greek spoken in Cilicia can we suppose he would have been so bold as to boast in Asia of his speaking Latin or any other forreign Language Would he not have certainly met with people who would have immediately convicted him of falshood Neither is it more likely that the Apostles could have been themselves deceived in this respect because 't is a business of inward sense I may easily be deluded outwardly and think that I see a man indeed when I see but the shadow or fantom of a man But I can never perswade my self that I speak several different Languages when I speak but one But when I see that men of
Husbandmen after having destroyed them as so maâ—y unfaithful servants another while that the King â—ho had invited them to the Marriage of his Son would â—nd his Soldiers to destroy them and burn up their City But not to go so far off one of the Marks whereâ—y they ought to have known that the Event which esus Christ had foretold drew nigh was that the â—entiles were to be called to the knowledge of the â—ue God This is expresly delivered in the places â—e have already quoted He therefore that insertâ— this Prophecy in the Gospel must have imaginâ— that in his time the Gentiles had already been â—lled to the knowledge of Jesus Christ But since â—ere were then an infinite number of Christians disersed throughout World since an infinite number â— Persons had the Writings of the Apostles in their â—ssession How was it possible either to alter or â—d thereto several Parables and Chapters nay to â—rrupt three Gospels in three Essential places If ch a thing had been done in Asia how could it afterwards have been received in Europe where there must necessarily have been an infinite number of Copies of that Gospel For of all the Books of the New Testament the Gospels were first composed And now do not the Incredulous as yet perceive that Truth overthrows more scruples than they are able to raise against it That they continually offer Violence to thelr Reason by resisting the Truth which appears so strong and invincible on all hands and that tho' their Reason is sometime perverted and blinded by their Passions so that they cannot see things in their due light yet the Objects the Nature of things and the Truth which is immutable never shift or turn a side to follow the foolish fancies of their Understanding or the perverse Inclinations of their Heart CHAP. IX Wherein we shall examine the matters contained iâ— the Book of Acts. THe matter of this Book may be reduced tâ— these three heads viz. the Ascension of Jesuâ— Christ the coming down of the Holy Gost upon thâ— Apostles and the Establishment of the Christiaâ— Churches by the successful preaching of the Apostles All these things are of such a nature as could noâ— possibly be forg'd The Ascension of Jesus Christ is related with toâ— many Circumstances to leave us any reason to believe that the Disciples themselves were deceiveâ— therein The Author expresly affirms that Jesâ— conversed the space of forty days with his Disciplâ— after his Resurrection that he promised them theâ— should be baptised with the Holy Ghost and commanded them to wait at Jerusalem for the effect of that promise that he carried them to the Mount of Olives that he was taken up in a Cloud which carried him out of their sight and that as they stedfastly looked up towards Heaven as he went up two men stood by them in white apparel and promised them that Jesus Christ would come again in like manner as they had seen him go into Heaven So that â—t is no longer a question whether the Disciples were deceived in this respect but rather whether they had a mind to deceive others by a false Relation of so Chimerical an Event For the perfect understanding of this Matter it is sufficient to observe the time in which the Disciples begun to declare it And when the day of Pentecost was fully come says St. Luke they were all with one accord in one place And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty Wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting And there apâ—eared unto them Cloven tongues like as of fire and it â—at upon each of them And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and begun to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews devout Men out of every Nation under Heaven Now when this was noised abroad the multitude came together and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own Language c. But Peter standing up with the eleven lift â—p his voice and said c. Then they that gladly received his Word were baptised and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand Souls c. And fear came upon every Soul and many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles Acts Chap. 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 14 41 43. That this matter of fact was not invented appears by the bare Consideration of it because this is a thing as must have been brought to pass at Jerusalem upon a solemn feast day before men of all sorts of Nations and as I may so speak in the sight of all the Universe and which Consequently is such as could not possibly have been forg'd or invented What then can be objected to shake the Certainty of this History Can it be said that this Matter of fact was inserted in the Writings of St Luke long after the Death of that Author But then it must at the same time be confessed that the whole Book was forg'd because that is an essential and fundamental matter of fact on which the other things contained in the Book of Acts altogether depend Thus for instance the preaching of the Apostles and the success of it wholly depend upon it Whatever is contained in their Epistles absolutely relates to it And lastly every thing in the New Testament is forg'd if the coming down of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles be a meer Invention Shall I believe that St. Luke himself invented this matter of fact and that no one ever spoke of it before him If so what was it the Apostles said to those they preach'd the Gospel to What did they ground their preaching upon but only on the Mission of the Holy Ghost What other right but that had they to preach Did the Apostles themselves to deceive Mankind pretend that they had received the Holy Ghost This is the only plausible suspicion the Incredulous can entertain yet for all that it is absurd For when was it they made this Pretension It must necessarily be either after they had founded a Church at Jerusalem or some time before If it was after they had founded a Church therein how was it possible this Church should have been afterwards perswaded that the Apostles had received the Holy Ghost that they had publickly spoken all sorts of Languages and that their preaching attended with several strange prodigies had been the occasion of the forming that Church But if the Apostles pretended they had received the Holy Ghost before there was ever any Christian Church established in Jerusalem nay if it were by a false attestation of this matter of fact and many other such that they founded this Church the Apostles must of necessity have learned all the Languages in the World since the death of their Master and together with that the secret of making the lame walk and healing the sick because these are what they call the gifts of the
been clearly explained by their event Neither the Books of the Old or New Testament bear the least record of Mahomet whereas the Prophets had foretold the coming of Jesus Christ as of a Messias that was to unite the Jews and Gentiles and to carry the Covenant of God unto the ends of the World Mahomet established himself in the World by force and violence but Jesus Christ only by patience and sufferings The former was environ'd with Soldiers the latter was attended with Martyrs The one put men to Death but the other received Death for our sakes Mahomet's ambition who established such a flourishing Empire was presently seen in the success he had in his undertaking But Jesus Christ was far from self Interest or Ambition since he withdrew himself when they would have made him King and declared his Kingdom was not of this World Instead of encouraging the carnal prejudices of his Disciples he took care to undeceive them and to foretell all the Evils they were to expect And tho' any should presume openly to dispute all these matters of fact still they appear by the end and success of the Gospel the design of which was to sanctify the heart and calm the disorderly passions of the Soul Mahomet invented such a Religion which agreed only with corrupted Reason and the loose inordinate desires of the heart He made the scandal of the Cross to give place to the magnificence and grandeur of the World he took away the most spiritual and difficult matters of Morality to fill the minds of his Disciples with carnal and sensual Ideas But not so did our Saviour act who proposed his Cross to the minds of men as an astonishing Paradox and a continual cause of Mortification and Repentance Mahomet Established his Religion by the help of Ignorance and Darkness by suppressing such Books as might have enlightened mens Understandings and by requiring a blind submission from them Jesus Christ on the contrary would not have them believe his Doctrine but as they found it conformable to that of the Prophets Search the Scriptures says he for in them ye think ye have eternal life John 5. 39. Mahomet established himself in the World by dissembling and disguising his thoughts He promised in the beginning a toleration of all Religions carried it fair to the Christians but afterwasds did his utmost endeavours to extirpate them utterly But Jesus Christ declared at first his intention and design which was to save mankind and overthrow Superstition it self Nor he nor his Disciples used any Policy or Circumvention in this respect Mahomet died but never rose nor pretended to rise again from the dead thereby to shew he was approved of God Jesus Christ died but it was believed he rose again from the dead upon the testimony of those who had seen him after his Resurrection and testified of the Truth of this matter of fact to all the World at the expence of their lives and effusion of their blood Mahomet's Religion was invented maintained and supported by Policy but that of Jesus Christ was at first offensive to all the Princes upon earth and was established in the World notwithstanding all their endeavours to the contrary Mahomets's Religion appear'd at first view to be as it were the Triumph of Humane Industry and Covetousness but the Religion of Jesus Christ shew'd that of integrity and justice in their full perfection and Natural Religion in that proper purity and simplicity that was restored to it by Charity Mahomet laid the foundation of a particular Monarchy and established such Laws as humanly speaking are serviceable only in those places wherein he has settled his Dominion but Jesus Christ has given us new Principles of union and intelligence very usefull to the good of publick society in general and very fit to cement the union of all men together by making the spirit of Charity reign in the World The coming of Mahomet did not sanctify mankind but that of Jesus Christ was attended with an innumerable Company of persons who all renounced the World meerly by the Faith they had in him 'T was not Mahomet but Jesus Christ who exactly fulfilled the Oracles concerning the calling of the Gentiles because Mahomet derived all his knowledge of the true God from Jesus Christ as we have already shewed Lastly Temporal Prosperity was the true Character of the Religion of Mahomet and it might be very well affirmed that Mahomet was a Man of God if it were true that all those who enjoy the greatest Prosperity in the World that is all Tyrants wicked and unjust men are the favorites of God But the Character of the Religion of Jesus Christ is patience self-denial innocence and a simplicity of manners and certainly he was approved of God if God approves of vertuous patient humble and charitable men It concerns now the Incredulous to answer all these differences if they would have us allow of this Comparison for otherwise we shall ever reject it as being very ridiculous and extravagant CHAP. XV. Where we further examin the objections of the Incredulous THe Incredulous are apt to raise as many suspicions against the miracles of Jesus Christ as against his person because of all those proofs which establish his Religion there are none that can move the senses so much as that taken from true Miracles I. Then they object that Jesus the Son of Mary might have healed two or three people either by chance or by vertue of Second causes and that that good success might have got him afterwards the name of a Prophet through the ignorance of the people who are wont to ascribe to supernatural Causes every thing that is unknown to them We answer that we have here a very great number of miracles all of different kinds evident and sensible miracles in their Nature unimitable and above all Imposture Such are the Resurrection of the dead healing the Blind the Lame and the sick of the Palsy c. II. They pretend that he might perhaps have suborned Witnesses to testify some fabulous miracles But how could this be Since Jesus Christ had neither money to give nor dignities to promise and as for cunning Politick niceties Riches and Credit they were only amongst the Scribes and Pharisees and Doctors of the Law his implacable Enemies who took all opportunities to prejudice him because he publickly censured their hypocrisy upon all occasions III. They object that Jesus Christ was so prudent as to work his miracles only before three of his chosen Disciples viz. Peter James and John Now say they who knows but that those three Disciples to flatter the ambition of their Master might have attested certain Miracles as true which were not really so To remove this suspicion we need only reflect upon the many miracles Jesus Christ wrought in the presence of his other Disciples He raised from the dead the Son of the Widdow of Naim as he was a carrying to be interr'd He raised Lazarus from the grave in
just going to shed the blood of Christians He went about afterwards preaching that he had seen Jesus Christ that a great light shone round about him that the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven were revealed unto him He affirmed that God had set him forth unto the World and that he became a Spectacle unto Men and Angels 1 Cor. 4. 9. If men will not credit his report let them try him by torments and see what effect they will have upon him Let them load him with Chains and cast him into Prison let them expose him to Wild beasts at Ephesus let the Elements Men and Devils be all at once set against him let them scourge him drag him along stone him let them bring him from Jerusalem to Cesarea from Cesarea to Rome increase and prolong his Afflictions Saul the Witness of the Synagogue 't is true recanted his opinion but Paul the Witness of Jesus will never recant his Having seen the strange alteration which happened to the Person of the Minister of the Synagogue let us reflect a little on that which happened to the Person of the Apostle of Jesus Christ Judas betrayed his Master and received for his reward thirty pieces of Silver But how comes it to pass he was so much disturbed after he had done it The Jews the Romans the People the Doctors the Magistrates and Judges all favoured his crime and let him go unpunished yet the remorse of his own Conscience tormented him to that degree that he could not rest any where and at length not being able to overcome his Despair he made away with himself and the Wisdom of God so ordered it that the Jews themselves preserv'd the memory of that astonishing event by buying with that mony a field which is since called Aceldama because it was the price of blood What a strange difference we find in these two Persons of Judas and Saul Judas killed himself in the midst of his Prosperity but Saul rejoyced in the midst of his afflictions Judas prevailed upon by the Synagogue could not be comforted by the same but died in despair Paul became the Disciple and Witness of Jesus and to him the Cross of Jesus was matter of the greatest joy God forbid says he Gal. 6. 14 that I should glory save in the Cross of my Saviour Christ by whom the World is crucified unto me and I unto the World Will any one believe that Judas was his own Executioner meerly out of remorse for having betray'd an Impostor to the Jews Or that St. Paul derived from the sense of his infidelity the courage he shewed in all his sufferings Certainly it may be very properly said that they were both the Martyrs of God but only with this difference that Judas was so against his will but Paul voluntarily If the constancy of the one testify'd in behalf of Jesus Christ the despair of the other was no small honour to him And the only difference is this that Paul was properly a Martyr but Judas in spite of himself a witness of the Truth of Religion CHAP. XVII Where we further answer the Objections of the Incredulous OF all the Objects which the Christian Religion offers to our understanding there is no one seems more to shock the Reason of a prejudiced and incredulous person than the Death of the Messias The Cross of Jesus Christ was according to the Expression of an Apostle a scandal to the Jew and a folly to the Greek But in our opinion there is nothing bears more visible characters of Greatness and Divinity than that does The Incredulous tell us that could we but rid our selves of all our prejudices we should be heartily ashamed to entertain such strange Ideas of God And we also tell them that could they once but free themselves of those passions which darken their understanding they would certainly admire with us the wonders of so Divine an object Who then is in the wrong in this thing That will best appear by the answers we shall make to their objections We find in the Person of Jesus Christ one who suffered himself to be seized upon and was afterwards nailed on a Cross not having any one to deliver him from the power of his Enemies This they object was a mark of his Weakness For say they had he been the King of the Jews why did he not come down from the Cross and all the World would have believed on him He died as one condemned by the grand Council of the Jews which God himself had established This was he as was found guilty He was seized with sorrowfulness even unto Death the day before his Passion and cried out bitterly when he gave up the Ghost This shews his wretched condition He was made to suffer a punishment proper only for Slaves It cannot therefore be doubted but that he died a most infamous Death And who can imagin that Weakness Guilt or at least Condemnation Wretchedness and Infamy should be the true Characters of the Son of God Thus the Incredulous argue We answer that Jesus Christ suffer'd by the determinate Council of God since the Scriptures foretold that he was to be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities that he was to make his Soul an offering for sin that he was to be cut off but not for himself And St. John the Baptist seeing him coming to him at a time wherein it was very unlikely he should ever suffer called him the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World John 1. 29. Jesus Christ suffered voluntarily he foretold all his own Sufferings to his Disciples inviting them to take up their Cross and follow him He told them that he had made choice of a Company of miserable and afflicted Wretches in the World who were notwithstanding to overcome the World and by their sufferings establish the Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth He freely owned to them that he was not come to settle peace in the World but the sword that God would smite the Shepherd and that the Sheep should be scattered that they were to drink of the same cup with him and be Baptised with his Baptism that is to taste the bitter cup of his Afflictions and be Baptised with him with a Baptism of Blood He intermixed his suffering with theirs that they might the better bear them in remembrance If we should in the least doubt whether Christ foretold his sufferings we need only consider the design of the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the time wherein this Ceremony was instituted For unless we should call in question the real institution of that Sacrament and so affirm that the Disciples out of an unaccountable and fantastical Extravagance pretended only that Jesus Christ had instituted that Ceremony when there was no such thing it will appear that Jesus Christ foresaw his Death that he prepared himself for it and affirmed he suffer'd it voluntarily for the Salvation of Mankind The Sacrament of the Eucharist which he
instituted in cold Blood certifies us of all these things But because an involuntary Death would argue a certain kind of weakness 't is also most certain that nothing can better evince the strength and courage of Jesus Christ than that tho' he foresaw the horrours of an infamous and painful Death yet he exposed himself to it with such a constant will and firm Resolution that by his example he shewed his Disciples how he would have them imitate and commemorate his sufferings Jesus Christ was condemned to Death by a Nation seditiously stirred up against him and by a Sanhedrin envious of his Glory but he was justified by the Conscience of Judas whose remorse for having betray'd him forced him to kill himself and by the solemn declaration of Pilate who washed his hands in the presence of the Jews to shew that he was innocent of the Blood of that just Person He was justified too by the voice of the Centurion who saw the prodigies his Death was attended withall and soon after by the mouths even of those who sought his ruin and who being prick'd to the heart cry'd out to the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we do Act. 2. 37. And certainly 't is a very great glory to our Messias that the most guilty Conscience the most unjust judges the most insensible and hardened sort of Soldiers and the most barbarous Murtherers should even bare record of his Innocence Jesus Christ suffered but it was for our sakes he gave himself up to the sorrow and anguish of Death and made his life an offering for Sin And if those wounds are counted honourable which a Subject receives sighting in the presence of his King and if those which a King receives for the safety of his Subjects are esteemed yet far more glorious what Glory then did Christ deserve who suffered in the presence and by the will of his Father for the Salvation of his People and Children and who by his sufferings established such an Empire which no power can dissolve Lastly Jesus Christ suffered a punishment proper only to Slaves but we are also very certain that during the time of his sufferings he shewed himself to have a power over Nature her self since the Graves were opened at his Death the Rocks rent the Sun was darkened and the Vail of the Temple was rent in twain And it is impossible that the Disciples of the Lord should have invented so sensible and signal matters of fact against the fresh and publick knowledge which those men that lived in their days had of it without being guilty of such an Extravagance which is more than humane But here we will ask the Incredulous in our turn whether a voluntary Death an innocence publickly own'd the sorrows and anguish which a man suffered out of Charity to the World the homages which even insensible Creatures paid to him whom men scorned and condemned were not certain Characters worthy of the Messias that had been promised us Indeed if you take away the proofs which evidently shew Jesus Christ to be the Son of God you may then call his Cross a scandal to him and the World but whilst those proofs shall be left entire his Cross will serve the more to illustrate his Majesty and Grandeur and we shall not only then assert that it was a voluntary Death which he underwent and a Death that was foretold us but we shall also shew that it is as it were a looking-glass-like wherein we may see at once all the vertues of man and all the Attributes of God There we may find the patience of a man who suffered every thing from his equals and from those who ought to have been his Servants and Disciples the Charity of a man who pray'd for them that put him to Death the Constancy of a just man who bore the burden of the iniquities of mankind and the constancy of an innocent man who at once as it were wrestled with the fury of men and the Justice of God There we may see the Masterpiece of Divine Wisdom the designs of our Enemies frustrated and the designs of God triumphing over the vain opinions and projects of men the propitiation of sins made for us by the most dreadful parricide that was ever committed or conceived the Synagogue buried in his grave whom they barbarously put to Death in defence of their priviledges the Romans crowning a King with thorns who was to rule over all Nations and putting a Reed instead of a Scepter into his hands flesh and blood shewing us in the Death of Christ the true pattern of mortification Jesus Christ dying attended with almost infinite numbers of Martyrs who were willing to die in imitation of him who was Conquerour of the World only by his shame who crucifyed the flesh by the preaching of his Cross and procured Rest and Peace to the Souls of them that dyed by the Anguish of his Agony We may also see the Justice and Mercy of God clearly manifested in his Death For what other Victim could have better evinced Gods hatred for Sin What present could have been made unto men that could have better discovered Gods love to them The Incredulous therefore reproach us with the meanness of an object wherein the vertues of men and the attributes of God himself are shewn in their greatest height and perfection But let him that any ways doubts it consider the Resurrection of Jesus Christ which is as it were a key that opens all these Events to us To dye and remain under the power of Death is indeed an evident mark of weakness and misery but to dye and yet overcome Death by rising from the Grave is the mark of a supernatural power and a divine glory Thus Jesus Christ descended into the lower parts of the Earth for no other end but to ascend into Heaven as the Eye-witnesses of that great and notable Event did plainly testify But the Incredulous will not believe their report and they further pretend that they can find in history the example of a testimony very like that which was nevertheless without contradiction reputed to be a meer Imposture We read say they that after the Death of Romulus there was a certain senator who having always lived in the repute of a very honest man certified that Romulus was ascended into Heaven where he was inserted among the Gods and that this Monarch had appeared unto him c. Is not this a matter of fact not unlike that which the Disciples testify'd of Jesus Christ throughout the Universe 'T is very like it indeed only it has these following differences there you read of a single person testifying that he had seen Romulus ascended into Heaven but here you have a very great number of people who certifiy'd that they had seen Jesus Christ after his Resurrection There it is pretended that a great and triumphant Monarch during the course of his life was inserted amongst the Gods after his Death which agrees
Matthew who was born a Jew And who did he relate them to Why to several thousand Jews that had embraced Christianity and who dwelling at Jerusalem knew full as well what had happened therein both in their days and in those of their Fathers as they know at Paris what was done in that City in the days of Cardinal Richelieu or as they know at London every thing that happened in those of Oliver Cromwell and at Stockolm in those of Gustavus Adolphus And now I pray consider whether it be probable any man could have made the like matters of fact believ'd in any of those great Cities by such a successful forgery or whether he could have gained over to his side several thousands of people by the meer strength of his Fictions But if I grant that the Evangelist had boldness enough expresly to denote the coming of the Wise-men and the impression it made on all the Inhabitants of Jerusalem against their publick knowledge nay against the memory of those things they had then fresh in their minds at least it can't be denied but that the consequences of that coming and the Dependencies of that first event are of such a Nature and Character as not possibly to have been forged or invented by the most bold faced and impudent Writer that ever was There are here two or three Circumstances so naturally and inseparably united one with the other that it is impossible to grant one without granting the other too No man can doubt of the coming of the Wise-men to Jerusalem if he allows that this coming forced Herod to assemble the Grand Council of the Jews to know of them where the Messias should be born neither can he doubt of the answer that was made him by the Sanhedrin if he owns that Herod sent his men into Bethlehem to slay the young Children that were there from two years old and under So that if it can be made out that this last matter of fact was true the other two will not need much proof Now I affirm that the Evangelist durst not assert this last matter of fact had it been utterly false For what Since the reign of Herod surnamed the Great was so well known that the least of his Actions was publickly talk'd of how could any one have presumed to impute falsly to him a Massacre so notable and extraordinary as that must have been The City of Bethlehem had not as yet been destroyed when the Evangelist wrote those things and therefore supposing the things false there were so many Witnesses of the Falsity as there were Inhabitants yet living in that City That City was not so far distant from Jerusalem but that those Christians who dwelt in the latter might have very well known the certain Truth of them Besides there was a very great Commerce between those two Places and the time from the Birth of Jesus Christ to that in which this Gospel was composed was not so long as to have given occasion to so improbable a Fiction Suppose a Man in these latter Days should take upon him to make us believe that one of the present Kings in Europe or if you will of those who reigned forty or fifty Years ago caused two or three thousand Children to be slain in their Cradle that so he might involve in that Massacre the Ruin of a Child whose Destiny he suspected would prove fatal to him Certainly it is not very probable we should credit such a Fable or that any one durst pretend to publish it nay had so much as the least Thoughts of it But then 't is much more improbable that any one should endeavour to perswade those Men to the Belief of it who lived in that Kingdom or in those very Places where such a thing was supposed to have happened But to come a little nearer to the Death of Jesus Christ. The Evangelists represent him to us as having lived thirty Years obscurely in the World Now had it been their Design to put us off with Stories they might have perswaded us that Jesus Christ during his abode here had been often wrap'd up into Heaven or transported into far Countries where he had done many Signs and Wonders nay they might have told us too that for the space of thirty Years he had continually wrought very sensible and wonderful Miracles in the midst of the Jews For it was as easy for them to suppose such a thing as all the rest Yet it appears that the Evangelists include all his Miracles in the three last Years of his Life And what is the Reason of it Because they wrote nothing but Truth But we shall not here insist much upon this Consideration What is most certain is That the Evangelists having delivered in their Writings that Jesus Christ had done a great many Signs and Wonders before a great number of Witnesses and having set down the Time and Place when and where they were done they must necessarily have been void of all Shame as well as Reason to relate such things as these if they were false They tell us That Jesus Christ with a few Loaves and some small Fishes miraculously fed in the Wilderness at one time five thousand and at another three thousand men besides Women and Children Now I am at a stand to imagine how it can be thought natural for one Man to undertake to perswade several thousands that they had been wonderfully fed and not only to relate the bare matter of fact it self but also bring in Christ reproaching the Multitude that they followed him not purely for the sake of his Miracles but the Loaves he fed them with and then the Multitude excusing themselves and saying that Moses had fed their Forefathers and that he must also feed them if he would have them believe in him as also Jesus Christ bidding them on this Occasion to labour not for the meat which perisheth but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life Joh. 6. 27. and to that end promising to give them his Flesh to eat and his Blood to drink All which Expressions are indeed very extraordinary in themselves and such as no Man ever made use of before him But there are matters of fact related in the Gospel more extraordinary and surprising than these There is nothing so remarkable and which strikes us so much with Astonishment as the Description the Evangelists give us of the Prodigies that attended the Death of Christ And behold say they the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom and the earth did quake and the rocks rent and the graves were opened and many bodies of saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Matth. 27. 51 52 53. We shall not here insist on each particular Circumstance that attended this miraculous matter of fact neither shall we nicely examine the Resurrection of those Saints whose Bodies came out
of their Graves and appeared unto many in the City of Jerusalem It will be sufficient for us to consider only those Prodigies which drew the eyes of the whole World and could not but universally cause a publick Consternation and make a fearful Impression on the Minds of Men. Now I affirm it cannot naturally enter I shall not say into the Mind of a sincere honest Man but even into that of an Impostor to imagine he could ever be capable of making others believe things so notoriously known as those we now have under Consideration must have been had they been false 'T is not many Years ago since a certain Man was Executed at Paris for calling himself the Holy Ghost who had a few Disciples and some Followers but his Sect was soon buried together with him in his Grave Now let us suppose if you will that his Disciples had preach'd after his Death and composed a new Gospel filled only with the Doctrine and Precepts of that Man who was thought by them to be no less than a divine Person I ask then whatsoever Extravagance you may suppose them to have been guilty of whether you can conceive it could have entred into their Minds to perswade the People of Paris that the very Day on which that Man who called himself the Holy Ghost died the Church of Nostre Dame was either thrown down or demolished that its Altars and Statues were broken down that there happened an Eclipse of the Sun the greatest that ever was known accompanied with such a mighty Earthquake that even the Rocks were rent and that all these Wonders wrought so great an Impression upon the Mind of a certain Captain that guarded the Body of the executed Person that he believed in him Doubtless these whimsical Men could not have taken a more effectual way not only to hinder others from believing their Report but even to undeceive all those who might till then have been led away by that pernicious Sect than to insert in the Gospel they were to compose of the Doctrine of their Master such Circumstances as would have contradicted the publick Knowledge and fresh Remembrance every body had of things so lately done and to advance such matters of fact as would immediately have been proved to be false by the publick Testimony every body could give of them Now all this may be very well applied to the Disciples of Jesus Christ For supposing those Disciples were very great Impostors we cannot reasonably ascribe to them any other Design than that of deceiving Men by making them receive Falshood for Truth And it is sufficient if they had that Design and were not wholly void of Reason to make us think they could not have had â—â—e Boldness to invent such Circumstances as these and afterwards publish them to the World But after all was there not a very numerous Church 〈◊〉 in Jerusalem when that Gospel was composed And did not that Church consist of many thousands of People who dwelt at Jerusalem and knew perfectly well whatever had happened at the Death of Jesus Christ Certainly no Man can doub◠〈◊〉 it unless he has a mind voluntarily to 〈◊〉 himself Those very Christians then of Jerusalem saw all those things which happened at the Death of Christ for they were the Men that had been converted by the preaching of St. Peter and the other Apostles and who being prick'd to the Heart cried out Men and brethren what shall we do Acts 2. 37. They had seen then that the Sun was not eclipsed that the Rocks rent not that there happened no Earthquake no surprising and supernatural Prodigy at the Death of Christ And if they saw none of these things they could not but look upon the Report of the Evangelists as a scandalous Lye and notorious Falshood design'd to seduce them from their rational Belief and perswade them out of their Senses But it is farther observable that not one only but three Evangelists have written these things who as appears evidently did not compose their Gospels together but separately and at different times and yet all agree in their Relation of that notable Circumstance of the Death of Christ And no doubt but they all agreed also in the Relation of it when they preached the Gospel by word of Mouth Who then can reasonably believe that when the Disciples preach'd the Gospel in Jerusalem in order to establish a Christian Church there their Design was to perswade the Jews that they must not believe their own Eyes and that what they had seen was not that thing which they had seen Who can imagine that those very Jews themselves who were present and assisted at the Death of Jesus Christ should suffer themselves insensibly to be perswaded that that fabulous Recital was a very true Narration and believe that really to have happened which they certainly knew never came to pass Who can even suppose that the Apostles could fancy themselves able to make the Jews look upon a crucified Man as the Object of their Adoration and Worship by proposing to their Belief the most impudent and apparent Lyes that ever were invented since the Beginning of the World But it will concern us carefully to consider the rending of the Vail of the Temple for that Circumstance is so very singular that it is sufficient of it self to stop the Mouths of our incredulous Adversaries who tho' they should so inconsiderately and wilfully delude themselves as to suppose that the Day whereon Jesus Christ died there happened by chance or rather according to the ordinary Course of second Causes a real Eclipse which had indeed seemed supernatural to the ignorant Vulgar but had nothing supernatural in it self yet what can they say to the Vail of the Temple 's being rent in twain from the Top to the Bottom Could there be any natural Cause why it should be rent precisely and exactly at the time when Jesus Christ suffered Death or could any exterior Darkness produce such an Effect Perhaps some will object that the Primitive Christians were simple and ignorant People and that nothing could be easier than to delude and impose upon them I grant it But then what great Learning was required to know precisely whether all those so sensible and so notable Prodigies had really fell out upon the Day of Christ's Death We have already shewn that among the several Circumstances of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ there were several which the Disciples durst not have invented or forged had they not been really true We must add in the second place that there were a great number of other Circumstances which the Disciples could not have forged had they design'd it To say nothing of the great number of Lame People whom our Saviour caused to walk of the Sick of the Palsy to whom he restored the Use of their Limbs of the Deaf whom he caused to hear and of many others diversly affected with various Diseases whom he wonderfully healed to the
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ justified the wonderful Passages of his Death so likewise does his Ascension justify those of his Resurrection For tho' one should suspect that the Eyes of the Disciples might by chance have been suddenly dazzled and so they thought they had seen what they in reality never saw yet they had time enough to recover themselves out of this dazzling Amazement for it was forty days after Jesus Christ was risen from the Dead before his Ascension Had it been a Spirit that appeared to them and frightned them yet had they time enough to come to themselves again and know certainly that the Spirit they saw was not really their Master For they saw him and heard him They handled him they eat and drank with him Had it been thro' the obscurity of a darksome Night that they had imagined they had seen some Representation of their Master instead of a true and full sight of him they could not long continue in their Error But it was in full day that they saw the Stone rolled away from the Sepulcher 'T was in full bright day that Christ so often manifested himself to them and discoursed with them and afterwards ascended into heaven before their eyes Had the force of their Desires their Fears or Affections disturbed their Senses we should have less Reason to wonder at it tho even in that case the thing would seem altogether unaccountable it being morally impossible that the Senses of so many People should all at once be so confined to one wonderful Object and so disturbed at the same time But they had time enough to get out of their Confusion and Astonishment and their Minds were very sedate and at ease when Christ made them Eye-Witnesses of his glorious Ascension In a word had it been a private and silent Interview we might have much more Reason to doubt but Christ appeared to his Disciples with a particular Design to discourse with them He gave them several Instructions he forbad them to depart from Jerusalem until they had received the Gifts of the Holy Ghost He made them several Promises and such surprising ones that they are fit only for a God to make and a God to perform for he promised that he would be with them even unto the End of the World He instituted two Sacraments he commanded them to baptise all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost as well as to commemorate his Death in the Passover Nor was that all He had many long and coherent Discourses with them He spoke to them and they answered him They were at first incredulous but he convinced them of the Truth of his Resurrection notwithstanding their Scruples and their Infidelity He rebuked them several times for their little Faith at least they tell us so The Evangelists relate what Christ said to Thomas and what Answer Thomas made And both their speeches were too surprising to be so soon forgotten Thomas being struck at the Wonders of his Resurrection was the first that gave Christ a Name which he was not wont to bear in the Stage of his Humiliation calling him My Lord and my God John 20. 28. The Disciples asked him Whether he would at that time restore the Kingdom unto Israel but he answer'd them that it was not for them to know the Times and Seasons which the Father only had in his power Lastly The Evangelists give us no less the History of Jesus Christ risen from the Dead than that of Jesus Christ living and conversing before his Death among the Jews and we affirm we have as much reason to believe one as the other For indeed Why do we believe there was ever any such Person as Jesus Christ We believe it certainly because it is in humane speaking morally impossible that so many Persons should unanimously tell us they had seen him that they discours'd eat and drank with him nay saw him suffer Death at Jerusalem I say they would never have told us all this supposing there were nothing at all in it But then ought not that same Reason to perswade us likewise that Jesus Christ both lived and convers'd forty days with his Disciples since so many Persons saw him discoursed eat and drank with him saw him present in the midst of their Assemblies nay touched and handled him But perhaps some will object were that certainly true Why then was there in those days so many Persons that refused to believe the Ascension of Jesus Christ Why it is no hard matter to find the reason of this 't was because if they had once acknowledged the Truth of the Ascension of Jesus Christ they were obliged to die Martyrs for that Truth and no doubt Men were as worldly-minded in those days as they are now So that methinks it appears hitherto very clearly that the Disciples of Jesus Christ were neither capable of deceiving themselves nor of being deceived by others as to the Truth of the matters of fact they testifyed It is a very difficult matter I had almost said impossible that they should have deceived themselves in the Miracles of Christ which they relate because they so exactly set down the Circumstances the Names Places and the Persons themselves nay they pretend they themselves were sent by their Master into all the Parts of Judea to work there the very same Miracles they attested But tho' they should have deceived themselves in the Miracles of Christ yet they could not possibly deceive themselves in his Resurrection For they knew well enough what a dead Body and a living Man was they could easily distinguish between them and those things are of such a nature as not to be capable of Illusion or deceit Yet tho' we should supose that the disciples had been deceived in the Resurrection of Christ yet they could not have been imposed upon in the last miraculous Event of his Ascension It could never come to pass that after having seen a Spirit they should yet converse with him forty days that that Spirit should suffer himself to be handled that he should give them Instructions make them several Promises and afterwards be caught up into Heaven in their Sight they all the while looking upon him and adoring him as he was ascending into Heaven and understanding distinctly the Discourse of the Angels which promised them that he should so come again in like manner as they had seen him go up into Heaven It would be to no purpose here to alledge with Spinosa That the Evangelists have not exactly described all the Circumstances of the Event they relate and that had they taken special care to do it it would perhaps so happen that the Circumstances which they thought sit to conceal would make us comprehend that those which they have related proceeded from Natural Caâ—ses For I desire to know what can be more expresly declared or more often repeated in the Gospel than the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus
the Divinity of the Christian Religion St. MARK CHapt I. 14. Now after that John was put in Prison Jesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God c. All these Expressions the Gospel or good Tidings the Gospel of the Kingdom of God c. are very strange and extraordinary And because our Ears are somewhat used to them we do not reflect on them so much as we ought Certainly it must be a strange kind of mutual agreement that several Fishermen made together to go preaching about the World and call the Subject of their preaching by the name of Gospel Chap. IV. 19. And the Cares of this World and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things entring in choke the word c. T is not usual for other Men thus to declare open War against their Passions or if they do they fail not presently to discover themselves and lay open their own Hypocrisy to the World Vers 41. And they said one to another what manner of Man is this that even the Winds and Sea obey him c. We too may as well say what manner of Man is this that not only the Sea and Winds but Diseases Graves Death Hell Earth Men and Devils all obey him For it is observable there was nothing within the bounds of Nature but what was sensible of his Miracles Chap. VI. 2 3. From whence has this Man these things And what wisdom is this which is given unto him that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands Is not this the Carpenter the son of Mary c. Whence rather proceeds this astonishment of theirs and what is the reason of this sort of reproach had not Christ wrought several Miracles amongst them Vers 4 5 6. But Jesus said unto them a prophet is not without honour but in his own Country c. And he could not do many mighty works there save that he laid his hand upon a few sick folk and he healed them And he marvelled because of their unbelief Every thing in this passage carries with it an Air of Truth without the least semblance of Falsity For he that would invent a story and desire other Men should believe it would never make choice of such Circumstances as these Vers 56. And whithersoever he entred into villages or Cities or Countries they laid the Sick in the Streets and besought that they might touch if it were but the border of his Garment and as many as touched him were made whole It is impossible for any Man to impose upon other People in such matters of fact as these Chap. VIII 27 28. And by the way he asked his Disciples saying unto them Whom do Men say that I am And they answered some say John the Baptist but some say Elias and others one of the Prophets Here we may observe what a great Impression Christ 's Miracles had already made upon other Mens minds Chap. XIV 33. And He began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy To own that Jesus Christ was reduced to this State nay him whom they would have Men look upon as the Son of God is the effect of a strange and surprizing sincerity Vers 62. And Jesus said I am And ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power and coming in the Clouds of Heaven Did ever any Criminal brought before a Tribunal of Justice speak thus Chap. XVI 17 18 20. And these signs shall follow them that believe in my name they shall cast out Devils they shall speak with strange Tongues they shall take up Serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them they shall lay hands on the Sick and they shall recover c. And they went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the word with Signs c. Either all these matters of fact must have been necessarily true or St. Mark must have been strangely besides himself when he related them Let us consider What is it that he relates Or whom did he design to impose upon nay what time did he choose to effect it How could he possibly perswade the Disciples that they had done such Miracles as they were never able to do And how should they perswade themselves that Christ had given them that power to do Miracles which they never received St. LUKE Chap. I. 64. And his mouth was opened immediately and his Tongue loosed and he spake and praised God And fear came on all that dwelt round about them and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the Hill Country of Judea No man is so mad as to pretend to impose upon Men's belief in matters of fact so publick as these he would rather make choice of passages scarce heard of or at least but obscurely known Chap. II. 16. And found Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in a Manger Great was the exactness of these Writers in giving us a simple Relation of things as they really were What can seem more contrary and irreconcilable one with another than all these Circumstances A Child sleeping in a Manger but a Child whose Nativity was declared even by Angels and celebrated by all the Host of Heaven a Child that was banished the Society of Men but elevated in dignity even above the blessed Spirits a Child that was inconsiderable and of no esteem on Earth but great in Heaven and adored by Angels that was indeed a while after his Birth worshipped by some Wise-men that brought him Presents but soon â—orced to fly into Egypt for the safety of his Life Certainly there appears nothing like a Fiction in all these Circumstances Chap. V. 19. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude they went upon the House-top and let him down through the tiling with his Couch into the midst before Jesus Do such things as these enter easily of themselves into a Man's mind who writes nothing but of his own invention Chap. VII 38. And she stood at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash his feet with Tears and did wipe them with the Hairs of her Head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the Ointment 'T was easie to know the Redeemer of the World by that saving alteration he was seen to make in those that followed him Chap. IX 45. But they understood not this saying and it was hid from them that they perceived it not Great indeed was the Evangelists sincerity who stuck not to own the ignorance and stupidity of the Disciples Chap. X. 19. 20. Behold I give unto you Power to tread on Serpents and Scorpions and over all the Power of the Enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you Notwithstanding in this rejoyce not that the Spirits are subject unto you but rather rejoyce because your Names are written in Heaven A certain Character of true Religion indeed which sets a greater value upon
been several famous Emperors who were not able to conceal from the World their favourable Opinions of the Christian Religion that some of them had for Inscriptions in their publick Edifices several Maxims of the Gospel that others would have consecrated Churches for the Use of the Christians and lastly that others professed themselves Admirers of the Morality of Christ. But what shall we say of the Jews and Gentiles who not being able to deny Christ's Miracles were forced to refer them some to a Magick Power and others to a certain I know not what mysterious Pronunciation of the word Jehovah So strange a thing it is that ev'n the very Enemies of our Religion should thus testify of it and yet scarce perceive it The seventh Testimony is that of several strange Events which the Wisdom of God so ordered that they firmly establish the Truth of Christianity Of these there are several very remarkable but it shall suffice at present to mention Three only which among the rest deserve a particular Consideration the First is the Destruction of the four Monarchies which had sorely afflicted and harass'd God's People at the end of which the Kingdom of Heaven was immediately to be established the Second the entire Destruction of the Jewish Government and the signal Devastation of the holy Land an Effect of the divine Wrath pour'd out upon that Nation the Third and last the Settlement of the Christian Church or the Calling of the Gentiles attended with so many Circumstances as plainly shew that nothing but the hand of God could perfect so great a Work The Eighth is that Testimony given of Christ by the Revelation of Moses And the Ninth that which is given of him by Natural Religion But of these two Testimonies we shall not speak at present for as much as we design to end this Work with a particular Consideration of them In the mean time 't is plain the Christian Religion must be true because it was confirmed by the Testimony of so many authentick Persons which can't be suspected of Deceit And it would be extravagantly ridiculous to imagine that the Prophets should have so clear an insight into Futurity meerly to countenance and authorize a Fiction that John the Baptist having been at first taken by the Jews for the Messias should renounce the Honour which that Title would have conferred upon him only out of Love and Complaisance to an Impostor that the Apostles and the rest of the Disciples should so readily sacrifice their Estates Reputation Repose and Life it self to a Person they knew to be a false Christ that the Heavens should countenance a Flam and a Lye by working such signal and sensible Miracles that the Heart of Man should have found every thing that can supply it's Wants and Necessities in a meer Cheat that ev'n the Enemies of our Religion should countenance and approve of our false Prejudices that all Events should so exactly coincide with an erroneous Imposture and that the Revelation of Moses and Natural Religion should thus testify so palpable a Fiction To this we may add the Necessity and Importance of the Christian Religion since the Wisdom of God leads us to it by so many different ways as also the admirable Perfection and Transcendency of it since in a manner Heaven and Earth the Time past and present Events ordinary and natural as well as those supernatural and miraculous since the Prophets and Apostles who were altogether unknown to one another have agreed unanimously to reveal it and propose it to us as an Object for it's transcendent excellency worthy of our greatest Admiration II Portraiture of the Christian Religion as it is opposed to all other Religions ALL these Truths will more evidently appear if we consider the Christian Religion in it's Opposition to all other Religions The Excellency of the Christian Religion consists in that it has Advantages which other Religions have not and yet none of their Faults I say no other Religion has Advantages equal to those of the Christian Religion for no other can boast of it's having been confirmed by ancient Prophecies Ev'n Mahomet thought it better to oblige Men to call the Scripture in question than do derive any Arguments from it which might serve to confirm his Mission as appears by his not boasting that he had been preceeded by any Forerunner who made his paths streight There are indeed several Religions which perhaps may have had their Martyrs But what sort of Martyrs superstitious Men who blindly exposed themselves to Death without knowing what they did like those Barbarians who prostrated themselves by thousands before their Idol that their Colossus might crush them in pieces with it's Wheels as it passed along But no Religion besides the Christian was ever confirmed by the Blood of an infinite number of sensible understanding Martyrs who voluntarily suffered Death in Defence of what they had seen who from vitious and profligate Persons became Saints upon the Confidence they had in their Master and who at length being dispersed in all places of the World by their Death gain'd Proselytes and making their Blood the Seed of the Church chearfully suffered Martyrdom having certain Assurance of being crowned after their Death A certain Assurance which they derived from what they themselves had formerly seen We find other Religions which pretend to be confirmed and authorized by several Signs and extraordinary Events from Heaven The Romans used to attribute to their Religion all the Advantages they got over other Nations And the Mahumetans pretend that the great Successes God was pleased to give their Prophet were so many certain and undeniable Marks of the Truth of their Religion But to pretend that temporal Prosperity is a certain Character of a true Religion or Adversity that of a false one is to suppose as we have already said else where that the most profligate Wretches provided they are happy in this World are the greatest Favourites of God But certainly 't is not Prosperity or Adversity simply considered but Prosperity or Adversity as foretold by God or his Prophets that is a certain Character of true Religion And when we affirm that several extraordinary Events bear witness to the Truth of Christianity we mean only those Events which had been foretold by the Prophets as for instance the calling of the Gentiles the Destruction of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Christian Church Finally there may be several Religions that may deceive but none but the Christian Religion that can truly satisfy Mankind There are some Religions grounded upon fabulous Miracles and confirmed by Witnesses easily convinc'd of Imposture but none but the Christian Religion is firmly and solidly establish t upon true Miracles and valid Testimonies It appears then that no Religion in the World has such extraordinary qualifications as the Christian Religion of which it must also be affirmed that it is free from all such Defects as are incident to other Religions We need no deep
search no great sagacity or penetration of Mind to discover this Truth For it is manifest that the Christian Religion is not design'd for the satisfaction of the carnal and worldly Appetites of Men as that of the present Jews who aspire only after temporal Prosperity and worldy Pomps Nor is it a Monstrous medly like that of the Samaritans made up of a ridiculous mixture of the Pagan and Jewish Religion Nor is it impious and cruel like that of the Gnosticks nor has it any of the Faults or extravagant Superstitions of the Pagan Religion But since we have not leisure to oppose it particularly to all the Errors of other Religions we must be contented to shew in this Comparison the advantages the Christian Religion has above all the rest by laying down the following Rules I. Other Religions as being principally of human Invention and Institution were formed by degrees from the different Imaginations of several Persons who successively made such Additions or Alterations as they thought convenient The Greeks for Example added several things to that Religion they received from the Egyptians and the Romans to that they had received from the Greeks Menander sâ—â—ll improved the â—ottish Impieties of Simon Magus and Saturninus and Basilides added to those of Menander And the reason is because Men are never weary of inventing nor the People of believing Novelties But it is not so with the Christian Religion which was wholly deliver'd by Christ is entirely contain'd in every one of the Gospels and ev'n in each Epistle of the Apostles What ever alterations Men have thought fit to make in the Doctrine Christ brought into the World did only corrupt the Purity and Spirituality of it as appears by the great disproportion there is betwixt the Apostolical Doctrine and the ordinary speculations of Men. II. Other Religions durst not shew themselves openly in full light and therefore were veiled over with a mysterious Silence and affected Darkness The Gnosticks chose the Night to cover the Impurity of their abominable Mysteries And the Romans exposed themselves to the satyrical Railery of their Poets 〈◊〉 being so careful to conceal the Worship they paid to their Goddess Bona Julian and Porphyrius set all their Wits to work either to set off the ridiculous and offensive Ceremonies of Paganism or to palliate their Superstition by several various explanations of it as when they so stâ—ffly affirmed that they worshipped one only supreme God tho they acknowledged at the same time other Subordinate Deities depending one upon another and when they endeavour'd to justify the Worship they paid to their Idols by using many subtile and nice Distinctions It is certain there is a Principle of Pride implanted in the Hearts of Men which is the Reason they cannot endure to be accused of entertaining any absurd and extravagant Opinions so that when ever their Passions have made them embrace a Religion which seems not very reasonable they employ all heir Wit to make it at least appear consonant to Reason But the Christian Religion requires no Veil to cover it no mysterious Silence no dark Dissimulation or close Disguise altho it proposes such kinds of Objects to us as are vastly contrary to all our Prejudices and receiv'd Opinions The Apostles freely confess that the Preaching of the Gospel is as it were an apparent Folly but yet they assure us God was resolved to save the World by that seeming Folly They knew that the Death of Christ became a scandal to the Jew and a folly to the Greek yet they publickly declared that they were determined not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him crucified And how comes it then that they did not in the least mince or endeavour to soften the sense of that seeming Paradox so far were they from concealing it but that they were strongly and fully persuaded of the Truth of that adorable Mystery and that the abundance of their Understanding serv'd only to make them more fully comprehend the efficacy of the Cross III. Should we strictly consider some Religions we should find they were first for the most part institued either by Poets or Philosophers and that they generally spring from the sportive Conceits or witty Speculations of the Understanding which is the reason they were not so universally approved The Philosophers always derided the Religion of the Vulgar and the Vulgar understood nothing of the Religion of the Philosophers Socrates ridiculed the Religion of the Athenians and the Athenians accused Socrates of Impiety and Atheism and condemned him to death The Christian Religion alone is approved of as well by the Philosophers as the vulgar People as neither depending upon the Ignorance of the latter nor proceeding from the Learning of the former It has a divine Efficacy and agreeable Power suitable to all Hearts It is adapted to the Capacity of the most simple and ignorant tho infinitely raised above the Philosophy of the Wise It is sublime without being nicely speculative and simple without being mean in its Sublimity preserving its Clearness and in it's Simplicity preserving it's Dignity In a word there is nothing so great nor so inconsiderable in human Society but what may some way fall under it's consideration and it is equally approved of and admired by all IV. Other Religions brought Men from Spiritual Objects to those that were Corporeal and Earthly The Christian Religion brings them from the Objects of Sense to those of the Vnderstanding We all know that the Heathens when they Deified Men or worship'd a Deity under an human Shape they were so far paying that Deity a Worship due to a Spiritual Nature that their Adoration consisted in several Games Shews and divers Exercises of the Body The Jews and Samaritans by their eager Disputes whether God was to be worshipped in Jerusalem or in Mount Gerazim extinguished Charity the true Spirit of Religion in their too hot defence of the external part of it Nay the Prophets complained formerly that the Jews made 〈…〉 to consist in bowing down their Heads as a â—â—â—rush and putting on Sackcloth and Ashes And the holy Scripture observes that the Priests of Baal were wont to cut themselves with Knives and Lances when they sacrificed to him as if there were no other way to make their God hear their Prayers but by inflicting such Punishments on their own Bodies The modern Jews can't be persuaded that we have been called to the knowledge of the true God tho they find we all profess to put our trust and confidence in him because they perceive not that we use any Corporeal Ceremonies And the Mahumetans more irreligious than superstitious make their Religion and its Happiness depend chiefly on their Senses when they Worship they turn themselves towards Mecha as the Jews did towards Jerusalem and earnestly desire of God that he would gratify their Senses and tho they have a sort of a Religious Respect for the Letters that compose the Name of God and
have for ever divided Now the Christian Religion restores the Society of Nature For by uniting Men so strictly in the Bond of Charity it farther strengthens that natural Love which we call Humanity It destroys too the Societies of Interest and Ambition because it extirpates such inordinate Desires as are not true Principles of Vnion and good Vnderstanding one among another It also strengthens Civil Society by commanding us to obey our Superiours and teaching us to render unto Cesar the things that are Cesars and unto God the things that are Gods Lastly it establishes such a Society as restores the Equality of Nature among us and whereas there was in the World till the coming of Christ a Society of Men externally indeed united by the Bond of Civil Laws Government and the Degrees of Proximity of Blood but internally divided by their irregular Passions Christ shews us a Society of Men externally divided by the distance of Time and Place and the disparity of their Conditions but internally united by the Bonds of the same Faith the same Hope and the same Charity Nor are these meer Ideas or Speculations for besides that the Christian Religion visibly relates wholly to the Design of making Men holy and pure and dedicating them to God besides that the Apostles tell us that it is the End of their Preaching directing themselves in their Epistles to those that are called to be Saints and to the Spiritual Israel and declaring concerning Apostates that they went from them because they were not of them besides that Jesus Christ on all occasions makes the very same Distinction refusing to own them for his Disciples that should be wholly taken up with the advantages of the World and giving this Mark and Character of those whom he owned for his My Sheep hear my Voice and the World hates them because they are not of the World Joh. 17. 14. I say besides all this we have this Satisfaction that we can produce a Society of holy Men that yielded not to any Powers of the World but withstood the most rigorous Trials of Persecutions and renounced the enticing Charms of the World the better to adhere to the Cross of Christ A Society victorious in Temptations that overcame Vices and deluded the indefatigable Endeavours of Tyrants a Society composed of Mortal Men yet not to be exstinguished by Death that was subject to the Laws of Nature yet encourag'd with motives Super-natural that conversed in the World yet despised it that was dispersed in several different Times and Places yet always united in the same Thoughts and Opinions that was continually attack't by different Passions yet constantly surmounted them In a word a Society that still flourish'd in the midst of Persecution increas'd the more as often as it was defeated and rais'd it self out of it 's own ruins Certainly he must have read but little of Ecclesiastical History that is unacquainted with all these Truths and he must be wilfully blind and purposely impose upon himself that acknowledges not the Efficacy of Religion in all those wonderful Effects And 't is properly in that Society of holy Men or in the Church it self that we ought to seek for the Fruits of Religion for there we shall find the Accomplishment of those ancient Prophecies which promised to shew us the Sheep feeding with the Bear and the Leopard with the Lamb c. And as the Ark of God could not be left in the midst of it's Enemies without working several Wonders among them which even those Infidels were sensible of so the Christian Church cannot continue in the World without producing such remarkable Effects in it which the most incredulous themselves cannot call in question For let them tell us if they can how came the Oracles of the Heathens to be immediately silenced when the Apostles first preach'd the Mysteries of Christianity and by what Power the Sound of those Men being gone to the end of the World made those Oracles eternally cease which had so long foretold things to come and so forc'd the Heathenish Writers as Plutarch and others to inquire into the Cause of that so sudden and so unexpected Silence For to object with Julian that the Jewish and Christian Oracles have been also silenced concludes nothing because the Apostles foretold that the Gift of Prophecy should cease But how appears it that the Oracles among the Heathens declar'd they should one day be silenced The Accomplishment of our Prophecies being an everlasting Proof of the Truth of our Religion serves us instead of Perpetual Oracles But what Accomplishment of Prophecies confirms the Pagan Religion No less wonderful an Effect of our Religion was the abundance of Revelation which brought so many Superstitious and Idolatrous Nations to the Knowledge of the true God Hence came the World to be fill'd with Wisdom by the preaching of ignorant Persons and the meanest Servants to have more noble and rational Ideas of the Deity than the most quick Clear-sighted Philosophers and that too by the Proposal of such a Doctrin as seems indeed to the Flesh an Object of Scandal and Horror We cannot deny but that the Christian Religion has the advantage of all others for having utterly abolished all those Sacrifices wherein they offered the Blood of Men Neither can we doubt but that this cruel and bloody Superstition was sufficiently advanc'd in the World since we find that the Holy Scripture reproaches the Jews for having sacrificed their Children to Moloch and that Julius Cesar tells us in his Commentaries that it was an ancient Custom among the Gauls to offer Human Victims to their pretended Deities I confess indeed the Romans had already renounced such a barbarous and cruel Superstition but then I question whether they did not still retain some Spice of it in those Spectacles they exhibited to the People wherein they were extreamly pleased to see the Blood of their Gladiatours run down who killed one another meerly to make them Sport A Sacrifice so much the more impious because dedicated rather to the unlawful pleasure of Men than the Honour of those Beings they look't upon as Gods And what but the Christian Religion could have abolished all those bloody Spectacles and horrid Divertisements We have just reason to be surprized to think how licentiously that abominable Sin usually punish'd by God and Man with Fire reign'd heretofore in the World and we cannot without horror and amazement reflect how that the love of both Sexes seem'd equally grown common to Men and that ancient Authors freely speak of that kind of Debauchery which our own Writers dare not so much as mention lest they defile their Writings Socrates is represented to us by some of them as being deeply smitten with the Beauty of Alcibiades and the Emperour Trajan whose Panegyrick well deserv'd thirty Years labour strangely blemished his Reputation by that monstrous Lechery Which pretty well shews the just Grounds for St. Paul's reproach to the Heathens who says that because when
this Necessity and it is to no purpose to alledge his Meanness and Wretchedness for that Circumstance rather aggravates the Crime than excuses it it being impudent beyond all pardon for a Traytour to plead Innocence because he is a Peasant and not a Lord. It will be also in vain to lay the Fault upon the evil Temperament of Body and Mind For if either submits to those Reasons which you have for committing no indecent action before a Sovereign and if that and all its Passions are calm when you fall into any Danger or expect Sentence of Death there is the same Reason that the Presence the Will and Judgments of God should have the same effect upon it Nor will Ignorance be any Excuse It would indeed justifie you if it were not only a bare pretence as it does Brutes Children and Ideots But what Man knows not his Duty 'T is also in vain to rely on the Mercy of God for that extends not to impenitent Sinners and the Almighty saves only those that desire and endeavour to be saved Lastly 'T is meer folly to assert that eternal Punishments are disproportionable to the weakness of our Nature For is not God himself eternal whom you have offended And is not your Soul also eternal that has Sinned against him Self-love however blinded thinks not life eternal a thing disagreeable and imagins nothing in it disproportionable to our Condition But 't is shock'd at the Thoughts of everlasting Pains and therefore willing to believe them improbable Dreams and Whimsies But why it does so is hard to be imagin'd unless we suppose its design to be at any rate to impose upon it self In the mean while since you can neither destroy the Eternity of God or the Soul which Reason it self forces you to acknowledge you must either suppose that the Soul is to dwell eternally with God or that it must be eternally banished from his Presence that is that it must live or die eternally For to live with God is to enjoy the greatest Perfection of Happiness and to be banished his Presence is certainly the greatest Misery that can be thought of As soon as we know the Existence of God that the Soul has no Parts and that 't is incapable of any Dissolution that its Nature altogether distinct from that of Matter cannot be buried under the Ruins of the Body it is then very hard for us to oppose the Doctrin which the Gospel teaches us concerning the State of the Soul after Death Nay we are so far from impugning of it that there is even a Necessity incumbent upon us readily to embrace the same For if the Souls of the Wicked together with those of the Good are equally to be banished the Presence of God then Reason Nature and all our other Knowledge impose upon us in giving us Hope of a future Reward And if the Souls both of the Wicked and the Good are to enjoy alike the Presence of Almighty God then too those very Principles delude us in making us dread his pretended Judgments and so Gods Justice and Veracity together with all our other Knowledge are at an end To avoid therefore falling into such an impious Assertion we must own that the Souls of the Good are to dwell for ever with God but that contrariwise those of the Wicked are to be banished his Presence and in owning this we affirmthe only thing in the World that is most agreeable to all our Knowledge and most visibly flows from the nature of things themselves The Blessings of God excellently answer his liberal Promises and the formidable Severity of his Punishments All the Creatures of this visible World conspire together to do us good And besides all the temporal Blessings daily conferr'd upon us besides the whole Earths being replenished with the Knowledge of the true God the Hearts of Men are sanctified their Souls comforted the Gospel preached throughout the whole World the Son of God died for our Offences and was raised for our Justification our crucified Saviour came out of the Grave to bring us Peace from God and seal the Truth of his Gospel by his frequent Apparitions after his Death there was a visible and frequent Effusion of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost upon Men a multitude of Martyrs sent from God to reclaim the World by their Examples and Conversation from Vice and Idolatrous Superstition all these things I say are such Blessings as are wonderfully suitable to the Promises and Threatnings of God and fully convince us that the Christian Morality has as many Objects to exalt and comfort Men's Souls as it has to excite and terrify their Minds to the performance of their Duty X. But to prove that this Morality is not a meer Idea of Perfection God in is Wisdom was pleased not only to have it set down in the Book of the New Testament but also to have it lively Painted first in the Life of Christ and afterwards in the daily practice of the Primitive Christians These Men are not such Teachers as might deservedly be accused of speaking well but doing ill as it was objected formerly to Seneca who composed very excellent Discourses concerning Poverty and the contempt of the Goods of Fortune when he himself was richer than the wealthiest Citizen of Rome These on the contrary confirm'd by their practice what they taught And by extirpating their evil Desires form'd such a Society as is conformable to that we have had above but a faint Prospect of when we laid down the Idea of Man's Duty They utterly renounced those Passions which put a Distinction betwixt them and other Men. They forgot their Quality and Condition the better to use one another like Brethren The same Interests were common to them all They sold their Possessions to ease the Wants and Necessities of those that suffered Adversity They rejoyced for having been thought worthy to suffer for the Name of God Every thing conduced to their Happiness even Afflictions themselves They prayed for those that despitefully us'd them and as Charity and not Selflove was the Rule of their Affections so all the Motions of their Heart tended to one as to the same Center to the Glory of God and the good of their Neighbours which gave the Scripture occasion to say that they were but one Heart and one Soul I confess that State could not always continue in the Church but the Wisdom of God permitted it should last for some time to give us a lively Image and Idea of Heaven here on Earth and so to confirm by the excellence of such an Example a Morality already supported by so many great and powerful Motives VIII Portraiture of the Christian Religion as it is consider'd in its Mysteries THe Mysteries God has revealed unto us in his Word are like the cloudy Pillar which led the Children of Israel through the Wilderness For like that they are clear on one side but dark and obscure on the other If we contemplate
that was divided into the Porch the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies is answerable the World the Church and the Heavens the eternal Sanctuary of God To the Levites all the Faithful without Exception that are designed to serve God to the White Cloathings of the Ministers of the Tabernacle the Innocence and Holyness of all those who design to approach unto him to the Purity of the Body the Purity both of the Heart and Conscience to the Blood of Goats and of Lambs which was a Confirmation of the Old Covenant the Blood of Jesus Christ which confirms the New Testament to the Entrance of the High Priest into the Holy of Holies wearing the Names of the Twelve Tribes written upon his Breast and presenting to God the Blood that was shed in the Porch corresponds the Ascention of Christ into Heaven where he continually presents us to God his Father and intercedes for us by virtue of that Blood which he shed for the Expiation of our Sins to the purifying Waters which washed away all the Pollutions of the Body the Waters of Grace which sanctify the Spirit To Mount Sinai Mount Zion to the sound of the Trumpet of Rams Horns the Voice of the Gospel to Moses himself the Mediatour of the Law Jesus Christ the Mediatour of the New Covenant The different state and condition of the Church is is also further represented to us by the various condition of the People of Israel Our spiritual Bondage is marked out by their temporal Slavery our Deliverances by their Deliverances our Enemies by their Enemies and so just and reasonable is the Conformity there is betwixt those Images and their Original that the Holy Scripture often makes little distinction betwixt them and intermixes in one and the same Chapter that which concerns the temporal State of the Israelites and that which concerns the Spiritual condition of the Faithful as also the Events that attended the Jewish Oeconomy and the Wonders of the New Covenant These things are worth our Observation and he that does not duly consider them will never be able to understand any thing in the Prophecies contained in the Books of the Old Testament Lastly The Wisdom of God was resolved we should not want a competent number of Types that might sufficiently represent to us the Excellence Offices and Ministry of our Mediatour Thus Isaac conceived in the Womb of a barren Woman the Delight of his Father the Foundation of all the Promises of God offered up for a Sacrifice upon a Mount by the very hand of his Father rising as it were from the Dead by being delivered from the Knife he had already lifted up against him and having afterwards a Seed as numerous as the Stars of Heaven and the Sand of the Sea this Isaac I say was a lively Image of Jesus Christ who was conceived in the Virgins Womb the Darling of his Father in whom he was well-pleased the Foundation of all his Promises the Source of his Blessings dying upon Mount Calvary rising again in a wonderful manner after his Death and seeing his Seed after him when he had made his Soul an Offering for Sin Thus again Joseph sold by his Brethren betrayed out of Envy accused tho' Innocent condemned because he would not submit to the immodest Desires of a lascivious Woman delivered out of Prison appearing before Pharaoh cloathed in Garments suitable to that Honour and then sitting at his Right Hand was a wonderful Representation of Jesus Christ betrayed out of Envy sold by the Jews themselves who were his Brethren condemned for refusing to comply with the Synagogue cast down into the Darkness of Death endued with heavenly Gifts raised again to Heaven and sitting at length at the Right Hand of God Moses defigned to be the Mediatour of the Legal Covenant rescued at his Nativity from a Deluge of Blood exposed to the River-side and as it were given up to a sure and infallible Death but afterwards delivered by a kind of Miracle from the Fury of the Waters and also delivering not long after his own Nation himself by a lucky Turn when he seemed to be cast away was an exact Representation of Jesus Christ who came into the World to be the Mediatour of the New Covenant was delivered at his Birth from the Murder of Herod and saved Men after his having suffered Death Jonas who was cast into the Sea to appease the Tempest and swallowed by a Whale which three Days after cast him again on the Shore sufficiently gives us to understand who it was that calm'd by his Death that Storm our Sins had raised that went down into the Grave and afterwards rose again the third Day Lastly David being raised from the State of a Shepherd to that of a Monarch was an excellent Type of Christ who after his Humiliation inherited a Name that is above every Name And as for those Prophecies which have described to us by such notable Epochaes and signal Characters both the Person Coming and the Time of the Coming of the Messias we have already very largely spoke of them so that what we have said in that respect is more than sufficient to make us admire the exact Proportion there is betwixt the first and second Covenant as well as betwixt the Jewish and Christian Religion Moses Illustrates Christ as we have proved in our first Part of this Treatise and Christ again Illustrates Moses as appears plainly by the Comparison we just now made of them XI Portraiture of the Christian Religion as it is considered in the Proportion it bears to natural Religion WE have already described the Christian Religion as it is thus considered in having fully proved in several places of this Work that it takes away the Corruption which had disordered Nature that it subverts Paganism which was the Corruption of natural Religion that 't is the perfect Restauration of the latter that it reestablishes the Principles of Justice and Equity which God had imprinted in our Hearts that it produces the most perfect Union of Society by Love and Charity that Humility Temperance Wisdom and all other kind of Virtues which support natural Religion derive the Force of their Motives from the Christian Religion they alone being equivalent to all sensible Objects and lastly that it makes us answer the End of our Creation 'T is a wonderful Comfort and Satisfaction to our Minds and at the same time exalts our Nature to reflect that the End for which Man was designed is the same with that of Christian Religion and the End of Christian Religion the same with the true End of Man's Creation Every thing that goes to the Constitution of Man's Nature does in a manner seek after God The infinite Curiosity of our Minds incessantly thirsting after the Knowledge of New Objects seeks after that Deity which the Christian Religion discovers to us because that Deity contains all things in the Excellence of its own Nature The greedy and hasty Desires of our
one another and so to become Subjects of the same Heavenly King they renounced then all their differences and quarrels the dear expectation they had of their Messias stifling in their hearts all Passions and Resentments But when John the Baptist had as it were led them by the Hand to Jesus Christ himself they were strangely surprised to find in him nothing of what they expected They found in him Poverty where they thought to have found Riches Shame and Afflictions where they thought to have met nothing but great Splendor and Temporal Glory For this Reason therefore they rejected him with Horrour and Abomination all their thoughts being on a sudden changed into indignation and anger against him in whom before they had fixed all their imaginary hopes But tho' the generality of his Nation cast him off there were yet a certain number of persons who were willing to follow him and that number daily increased in proportion as Jesus Christ's sufferings and afflictions increased There were at first but twelve whom he called to his Service Then sent he seventy others abroad who were succeeded by a great may others after his Death And their number further increasing with the fury of the Sanhedrin there were at length many seen who testify'd in behalf of that crucified man But how come those Disciples to follow a Messias so contrary to their first Ideas and receiv'd opinions How is it possible they should not have been discouraged at his Cross unless Jesus Christ had promised them to do signs and wonders How could they have been with him night and day for three Years and an half without inquiring into that important matter of fact or knowing whether he were really able to do Miracles or not Or how is it possible when they found their mistake that Jesus Christ was but an ordinary sort of a man uncapable of working any signs or wonders they should not have forsaken him as a Whymsical Impostor How could their minds be so suddenly changed as to look on Humiliation and Meanness Misery and Afflictions as upon the true and real Character of the Messias they I say whose minds Education had filled only with carnal Ideas of the flourishing Kingdom of the Messias But above all how could they be present at the Crucifixion of their Master without being reduced to the last greatest Consternation and Confusion So that the second Consequence which may very well be drawn from these principles already established is that the Disciples having always imagined with their Fathers and Mothers their Brothers and Sisters their Teachers and Elders and in general with their whole Nation that their Messias should have restored the Kingdom of Israel and having understood those words in a literal sense it is impossible but that they should be extreamly offended to see him wearing a Crown of Thorns upon his Head when he was nailed on the Cross and a Reed instead of a Scepter in his Hand Nay more than this 't is morally impossible but that this object must have rooted out of their Hearts all thoughts of Pride and Ambition and all pretensions to Greatness and Temporal Prosperity which their Blindness had caused them to conceive upon this mans account unless there had happened since his Death such supernatural and extraordinary things as were able to revive in their Heart such great hopes as these Thirdly We shall conclude from the Principles we have already established that the Disciples as well as all other Jews being as it were ty'd to their Religion by what they had Seen and Heard by their Inclination and Vnderstanding by their Interest and Piety by their Customs and Education and by the Advantage wherewith they might well flatter themselves of being distinguished from all other Nations of the World and being further as it were wedded to it by that great number of Ceremonies and Customs the Justice and Holiness of which they could no way doubt of since they had been so exactly prescribed them by the Law of God himself it cannot be supposed but that they imagined their Law to be of an eternal Duration and that being extreamly averse to every new sort of Worship which was contrary to that of Moses they could not have so suddenly altered their opinion nor could there have happened so strange a revolution in the Hearts and Minds of so many persons united and as it were link'd by so many respects to the Law of Moses that in so small a period of time the Souls of all those Jews should have been so entirely changed as that they should begin to look upon the Jewish Religion as upon a Dispensation granted with a proviso and which was to come to an end and for the future be considered only as a thing altogether useless and out of Date I confess that this principle was not first of all approved of in the World without great contest and difficulty and that there were for a while certain Judaising Christians who taught others that the Law of Moses was still in force and that it was necessary to Salvation to joyn the Doctrine of Jesus Christ with the Ceremonies of the Law But then it is well known they were only either some of Christ's Enemies who started these questions out of a particular design to make a division in the Christian Church or some Jews turned Christians as yet very weak and not fully strengthened in their belief whose scrupulous Zeal and blind Superstition caused all those Controvesies But however 't is evident that the true Disciples of Jesus Christ and especially the Apostles were not long in an errour as to this point They affirmed that men were justify'd only by the Faith of Jesus Christ without the works of the Law And 't is manifest that in the first Council held at Jerusalem the Disciples of our Lord abolished the Customs and Rites of the Ceremonial Law But at last it is of no great moment whether the Ceremonial Law or Religion of Moses was abolished ten years sooner or later Still it is certain that it was sometimes abolished or rather to speak more exactly and truly it was fulfilled by the Gospel and so the observation of it ceased Now I demand how it is possible that those men who were so devoted and bigotted to that Law who made it the object of their thoughts and most common discourse should so great a number of them and in so short a time with one common consent renounce that Law which Piety made so venerable and Honour and Interest so valuable in their Esteem Whereas so many ages elapsed before the coming of Jesus Christ into the World could not wear out of their minds that profound esteem and respect they had for that Law For tho' they had often broke it in several respects yet it may be said in their behalf they almost always look'd upon it as inviolable And can we suppose that so many ages as have passed since the Death of Jesus Christ could not remove
that perswasion so deeply rooted in their Mind that their Law was to be eternal and yet that a few years should perswade that great multitude of Disciples converted by the preaching of the Apostles that all those Rites and Ceremonies were become invalid by the Death of a Man whom the Sanhedrin had condemned to be executed as a Malefactor without any extraordinary or supernatural accident intervening which should occasion the framing to themselves such Ideas so particular and so contrary to their first Prejudices Certainly we may very well affirm that our Incredulous Adversaries have too great a value for imposture and ignorance when they imagin that an universal delusion and unanimous consent to a Lye could convert Nations Sanctify Mankind and spread the Knowledge of God throughout the World according as it was foretold by the Scriptures or that a few simple and ignorant Fishermen whose knowledge extended no further than their Employment should discover the defects and imperfections of the Ceremonial Law and introduce instead of it a Spiritual worship as really more conformable to the Nature of God who is a Spirit and more worthy of man who is a Spirit and more worthy of man who is a Reasonable Creature that those simple and ignorant men should discover the Sacrifices under the Law to be only Types of the Death of a man who was condemned to be executed as a Malefactor that they should attribute this thought to John the Baptist and make him express it only in these words Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World John 1. 29. Words so full and comprehensive that they contain the whole sum of Christan Religion And Lastly That they should invent Mysteries so very different from mens ordinary Thoughts and Conjectures and so far above the Capacity of the most judicious and learned that it may deservedly be said of them that they are such things which Eye has not seen nor Ear heard neither has it enter'd into the Heart of Man to conceive them 1 Cor. 2. 9. Lastly Experience tells us how difficult it is for persons already advanced in years to renounce the Common practices generally approved of in the World especially when authorised by Religion and Education How hard would it be for us Christians to live as the Jews And yet it would be more difficult for them to live as we do Because we look upon all their Customs as things very indifferent in themselves whereas they always look'd upon our Practices as scandalous and unlawful How then was it that not only one or two Jews but thousands who had embraced Christianity no longer in the least scrupled to converse with the Gentiles nay to to live with Heathens who before were an Abomination in their eyes You will say this was not without many considerable difficulties and was the cause of several great Animosities and Disputes I grant it but yet it appears the Ceremonial Law was utterly abolished presently after the Death of Christ the Apostles having determined that it had been accomplished in his Death and that it was not Lawful to joyn the Carnal Ceremonies of the Law with the Spiritual worship of the Gospel And I say that had not the Apostles both testify'd the Miracles and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and wrought very great wonders themselves it was naturally impossible they should have executed so great a design especially in so small a time For certainly if we consider the Disciples as born Jews they must necessarily have been very much devoted to their own Law If we consider them as poor and mean people they could not but have been passionately fond of that Law which gave such wonderful precepts for the Administration of Justice and the relief and comfort of the Poor If we consider them as simple and ignorant men they could not but have a blind love and obedience for their Law as all ignorant People have for the external objects of Religion Lastly Should we consider them as prepossessed with the usual prejudices of their Nation they must necessarily have expected a Glorious and Triumphant Messias who instead of abolishing the Law of Moses should have established it throughout the World Yet we need only consider the event to clear the truth of this matter We shall not insist upon all the Reflections we might easily make hereupon It 's sufficient to have taken notice of those things by the by because they may serve in some measure to illustrate the particular examination we shall make of the Miracles of the Gospel We have already considered them in general sufficiently to convince all reasonable Persons But it may not be amiss to insist more particularly on them that we may confound the Obstinate and Incredulous and make them at least truly sensible of their Errour tho' perhaps we cannot reclaim them from it To do this better we shall lay down four miraculous matters of fact which shall be as so many centers of the Truth we enquire into because there are several lines and degrees of Evidence and Light which necessarily lead us to the Truth of each of these matters of fact and then we shall joyn them all together the better to form a full and perfect Demonstration of them CHAP. II. The first Center of Truth a particular consideration of the Miracles of Jesus Christ WE dare say that such is the nature of these Miracles that the composers of the Gospel durst not could not would not have forged them had they been really false I say they durst not because they could not but have been publickly known To prove this I shall lay down four Examples of them which are I. The History of Zachariah the Father of John the Baptist II. The History of the Massacre of the young Children of Bethlehem III. The miraculous feeding of several thousands at several times in the Wilderness with a few Loaves and some small Fishes IV. And Lastly the supernatural prodigies which happened at the death of Jesus Christ himself As to the First we may observe that the Subject upon whom this great Miracle was wrought is a Priest a Priest who daily performed the functions of his Ministerial office and was then actually burning Incense in the Temple of Jerusalem at a very remarkable time during which the people who expected him were very intent at their Prayers to God in the outward Part or Porch of the Temple whilst he himself was in the Holy Place Now tho' the Historian had observed only concerning the Birth of John the Baptist that Zachariah and Elizabeth his Wife were far advanced in years and that the latter till then was thought Barren yet that event would have employed something so extraordinary and surprising that one might have been almost positive that the Evangelist durst not have been so bold as to forge it against the publick knowledge which all the Jews must then have had of it How then durst any one have affirmed that Zachariah wholly lost
three Years or three Years and an half as long as his Office lasted wrought more surprizing Miracles than have been either seen or known since the Beginning of the World And so to believe the Gospel is firmly to believe that Christ work'd those Miracles which are so often and so circumstantially repeated in it and so inseparable from the other Parts and Accidents of his Life It must not then be affirmed that the Primitive Christians embraced Christianity without enquiring in the least into the Miracles of Christ for that implies a Contradiction Neither must we say that they believed those Miracles without a due Examination of them Such Things as these indeed require no very great Examination but they could not avoid examining them had they endeavour'd it for 't is not wholly left to my Choice either to know or not to know the Things which are done in the Place which I inhabit neither does it wholly depend upon me to believe or not to believe certain matters of fact that are contradictory to publick Knowledge And tho' a Man under Pretence of Religion or otherwise should endeavour to make me believe he had raised a dead Man to Life again in a Village a few Miles distant from the Place I dwell in whom I might have both seen and known after his Resurrection or if I had not seen him my self many others had both seen and known and many went to see I say all this is no more left to my Choice to know or not to know than it is left to my Choice to be Mad or in my Senses For the better apprehending the Strength of this Argument I shall make this Supposition What if we being fully perswaded that Christ did all those Miracles the Gospel relates had gone up to the City of Jerusalem in the time of the Apostles themselves and reach'd thither just at the Evening of that Day of Pentecost on which St. Peter Converted so many People by convincing them that he had received the Holy Ghost I dare maintain first that we could not have forborn examining such Things which made so great a Noise then secondly I affirm that however willing we might have been to delude and impose upon our selves we could not have been so much as twenty four Hours at Jerusalem without knowing very distinctly the certain Truth of all those matters of fact It would have been no very great Trouble for us to have enquired how Lazarus did and his two Sisters Mary and Martha and tho' by chance they might have been all three dead to have desired to speak with their Friends and Relations or with those that had seen Lazarus and eaten with him both before and after his Resurrection In like manner we might have easily spoken with the Friends and Relations of Jairus and with those too of other People whom Christ had healed or raised from the Dead in the different Parts of Judea and Galilee and that was so much the more easy because Commerce was much more stirring between the Metropolis of Judea and the other Cities of the Holy Land than between the Metropolis and the other Cities of the other Provinces the Jews being wont to go up to Jerusalem at least on every solemn Feast-day Nay farther we might have enquired about the Truth or Falshood of those wonderful Prodigies which as the Gospel tells us attended the Death of Christ And since it was impossible that several thousand Witnesses should have been imposed upon concerning so great a number of evident and sensible matters of fact so in like manner it would have been absolutely impossible we should have become Christians only for twenty four hours after we had left Jerusalem supposing those matters of fact had been utterly false I have already shewn that the Life and Death of Jesus Christ were attended with such wonderful Circumstances as the Evangelists durst not have presumed to invent had they been utterly false neither had the Power to forge or make one single Person believe them had they design'd to impose upon Mens Belief There remains only for our full Conviction in this matter to shew that they would not have forged them had it been wholly left to their Choice I shall not here alledge that the Miracles of Jesus Christ according to the Recital of the Evangelists were attended with such Circumstances and so many strange Events that it is inconceivable the Disciples should take any Pleasure in inventing them such is for Example the tempting of our Saviour a strange and most scandalous Passage indeed to all those who are not fully acquainted with the true Mystery of it since it represents Christ to us as being in the hands of the Devil who sported himself with his Weakness tho' he was not able to overcome his Virtue one while placing him upon the Pinacle of the Temple whence he advised him to cast himself down another while upon an exceeding high Mountain from whence he shewed him all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them Now to see a Man in the hands of Satan would be a Sight that would shock us to see a just Man would be an Object more terrible but to see a Prophet himself would be a Wonder that would create Horror in us What must it be then to see a Divine Person in his Clutches or rather one that is both God and Man one that was called by way of Eminence the Just the Holy the Man without Sin or Blemish the greatest of all the Prophets in â—ine the Son of God himself He must necessarily be much mistaken that can imagine that such Thoughts as these could have naturally offered themselves to any Man's Mind much less to the Mind of Ignorant People who judge of Things by the Prejudices they are generally possest with 'T is true indeed Christ is represented to us in the Gospel as surrounded with Angels who ministred unto him after his Temptation but yet that Circumstance is so far from removing that which may seem offensive and surprising in that Event that it rather makes it the more strange and incomprehensible nothing so ill befitting a Man who was but just now in the Power of the Devil and carried about by him wherever he pleased as to be immediately after waited upon by Angels Add to this the uniting of so many mean Circumstances with so many glorious ones that occur in his Nativity in his Life and in his Death to instance in Christ's lying in a Manger whilst he was praised by the Hosts of Heaven his having not a Hole wherein to lay his Head whilst at the same time he commanded the Fishes of the Sea to bring him Mony to pay Tribute to those who asked it of him his shewing a great deal of Fear nay even apparent Weakness whilst he shook the whole Frame of the World and made the Earth tremble and the Sky to become dark his begging of his Father that the Cup of his Sufferings might pass away from
him when at the same time he so well had prepared himself for Death as to have instituted a Sacrament for a Commemoration of it unto the End of the World his complaining that his heavenly Father had forsook him whilst he promised Heaven to a Thief that glorified him upon the Cross An hundred other mysterious Contrarieties there are which Divine Providence inspired the Evangelists to write against their profest Opinions against the Biass of their Passions and their natural Ideas that their Gospel might have a more extraordinary and more divine Character But these are not the Circumstances I mean when I speak of such extraordinary ones in the Life of Christ as the Disciples would not have forg'd if they could By them I mean all the sensible and extraordinary Miracles which Christ himself wrought and his Disciples have related to us and these I say the Disciples would not invent had they been false which I prove by these two invincible Arguments First that by their relating them and above all their mentioning both Places and Persons as it appears they have done they manifestly ingaged themselves both to maintain and evince the Truth of them Certainly they doubted not but that they should be called to give an account of them They who so very well knâ—w how difficult it had been for them to escape free when their Master himself was put to Death They knew they should be compelled to maintain what they had thus affirmed and they knew also they could never be able to defend their Imposture if they should by chance be confronted with the Witnesses they mention'd And all this is no very hard thing for any one to foresee a Man tho' not over-wise may easily presage these Things and it is sufficient that he be in his Senses to make him cautious of advancing such Matters as he thinks himself incapable to maintain the Falshood of which would be presently discovered by the very Witnesses he mentions by the Places he sets down and the other Circumstances of the matter of fact he thus exposes to publick View 2. The Second Argument which proves that the Evangelists would never have forg'd the like matters of fact supposing they had been altogether false is that by counterfeiting them they necessarily rendered themselves liable to be put to a great Confusion when they should find themselves obliged to perform the very same Miracles For besides that it was very natural for any one to say to them thus If it be true that your Master has wrought so many strange Miracles surely he has also given you Power to do the like your selves it being well known that the first thing they taught was that Jesus Christ had sent them abroad with Power to perform the very same Works he had done 'T was no time therefore to use Shifts or stand doubting and shuffling they were obliged either to suppress what they knew concerning the Miracles of Jesus Christ or to perform the same themselves Christ himself when he sent them to preach in the different Parts of Judea commanded them saying Heal the Sick cleanse the Lepers raise the Dead cast out Devils freely you have received freely give Matth. 10. 8. And these are the Characters he gave of the calling of his Disciples And these Signs shall follow them that believe in my Name shall they cast out Devils they shall speak with new Tongues they shall take up Serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them they shall lay hands on the Sick and they shall recover c. And they went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and comfirming the word with Signs c. Mark 16. 17 18 20. Thus it appears they could not well relate what Jesus Christ had done without at the same time publishing what they themselves were obliged to perform for the further Confirmation of the Gospel so that they did not relate the least Miracle without at the same time affirming they were able to do the like It must therefore certainly be one of these two things either that those Men had utterly lost their Reason or that they sincerely believed the Miracles of Jesus Christ Had they thought them to be false they would neither have engaged themselves to maintain an unwarrantable Fiction by setting down so many Circumstances more than sufficient to discover the real Truth of it nor have rendred themselves liable to Shame and Confusion by relating such Miracles they were not able so much as to imitate at that very time when they professed themselves absolutely capable of doing every thing their Master himself had done Thus it appears to us that the Miracles of Jesus Christ are such matters of fact which the Disciples had neither the Boldness the Power nor the Will to counterfeit supposing they never had been done And I think this enough to convince us in this respect and to make us look upon those Miracles which have illustrated the Life and Death of Jesus Christ as a Center of Truth that will infallibly perswade us of the Truth and the Divinity of the Christanity we profess CHAP. III. The second Center of Truth A particular Consideration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ HAving spoke of the Miracles of Jesus Christ we come now to his Resurrection an Event which ought chiefly to be considered in the Connexion it has with those Miracles For if this Resurrection be true without dispute those Miracles are so too And if those Miracles are true one cannot easily doubt of the Truth of our Saviour's Resurrection Now to take away all Scruples that may arise in our Minds concerning the Truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ 't is but reflecting a while upon Christ himself upon the Jewish Doctors who used all possible Care and Precaution to prevent so much as a Report after his Death that he was risen from the Dead upon the Testimony of the Watch appointed to guard his Sepulchre upon the Procedure of the Apostles and the discourse of all the Disciples in general and lastly upon that ready Disposition of Mind found in a great number of Jews to embrace Christianity aâ— Jerusalem a few Weeks after the Death of Jesus Christ and at a time when nothing could be easier than to enquire into the Truth of his Resurrection As for Jesus Christ the Evangelists unanimously tell us that he had several times foretold his Death and Resurrection to his Disciples Nay 't is observable that those very Predictions are oftentimes intermixed either with such Circumstances as do not easily of themselves enter into any Man's Mind or with those which seem to have no manner of Relation one with another which proves that they cannot be the imaginary Conceits of a pleasant Fancy that delights in the Invention of Fables It is very improbable that the Evangelists should have invented the Discourse of Jesus Christ with St. Peter concerning the Sufferings that should certainly besall him at his going