the Flesh born of a Virgin § 4. Plato falter'd under the burden of vulgar Error A man from God Whence Multiplicity of God-Saviours Pagan Independency Their mutual indulging one another § 5. Not many but one Mediator the result of the Heathen's second thoughts Plato's Sentences entenced by Platonicks Nothing can purge but a Principle St. John's Gospel in Platonick Books The Christian Premisses yielded their Conclusions denied by Gentiles Plato's Sentence under the Rose CHAP. V. None of their Local Saviours were able to save § 1. Their white Witches impeded in doing good by the black Lucan's Hag more mighty than any of their Almighties § 2. None of their Saviours Soul-purgers § 3. Porphiry's Vote for one universal Saviour not known in the Heathen World Altars to the unknown Gods whether God or Goddess § 4. The unknown God § 5. Great Pan the All-heal his death § 6. Of their many Lords none comparable to the Lord Christ to us but one Lord. CHAP. VI. God the Light Man's Reliever § 1. Plebean Light mistaken for the true All-healing Light Joves and Vaejoves Mythology an help at a dead lift § 2. Wisdom begotten of God Man's Helper the Fathers Darling § 3. Made Man Sibyls maintain'd as quoted by Fathers Come short of Scripture-Oracles § 4. Virgil out of Sibyl prophesied of Christ. The Sibyllines brought to the Test. Tully's weak Exceptions against the Sibyllines § 5. Sibyl's Songs of God Redeemer the Eternal Word the Creator Apollo commends Christ. Local Saviours exploded CHAP. VII Man healed by the Stripes and Oracles of God-man § 1. Jew hides face from Christ. Greatest Heroes greatest sufferers the expiatory painfulness of their Passions § 2. Humane Sacrifices universal § 3. Not in imitation of Abraham Porphyry's Miscollection from Sancuniathon Humane Sacrifices in use in Canaan before Abraham came there And in remotest Parts before his facts were known In Chaldea before Abraham's departure thence § 4. It was the corruption of the old Tradition of the Womans Seed's Heel bruised Their sacred Anchor in Extremities § 5. The Story of the Kings of Moab and Edom vulgarly mistaken different from Amos his Text. King of Moab offer'd his own Son the fruit of the Body for the sin of the Soul § 6. What they groped after exhibited in Christs Blood § 7. Mans Saviour is to save Man by delivering divine Oracles Heroes cultivated the world by Arts and Sciences § 8. Gospel-net takes in small and great The Apostles became all things to all men how CHAP. VIII The Gospel calculated to the Meridian of the Old Testament § 1 In its Types § 2. Its Ceremonials fall at Christs feet with their own weight The Nest of Ceremonies pull'd down That Law not practicable § 3. Moses his Morals improved by Christ by better Motives Moses faithful Christ no austere Master Laws for Children for Men for the Humane Court for Conscience Christ clears Moses from false Glosses § 4. It was fit that Christ should demand a greater Rent having improved the Farm St. Mat. 5. 17. explain'd Christian Virtue a Mirrour of God's admired by Angels St. Mat. 7. 26. urged The Sanction of the Royal Law § 5. St. Paul's Notion of Justification by Faith only explain'd it implies more and better work than Justification by the works of the Law Judaism hath lost its Salvifick Power Much given much required The Equity and Easiness of Christ's Yoak Discord in the Academy none in Christs School CHAP. IX Gospel-History agrees with Old Testament-prophecy § 1. Christ's Appeal to the Prophets § 2. The primary Old Testament-Prophecies not accomplishable in any but the blessed Jesus Jacob's Shilo Gentiles gathering Scepter departed at the demolishing of their King's Palace § 3. By consent of both Parties Not till the Gentiles gather'd Children to Abraham of Stones Gentiles flock to Christ's Standard § 4. Signs of Scepter 's departure Price of Souls paid to Capitol Not formerly paid to Caesar. Mat. 17. 25. explained § 5. Jews paid neither Tythes nor his Pole-money to any but their own Priests before Vespasian who made Judah a vassal to a strange God such as their Fathers knew not CHAP. X. More Signs of the Scepter 's departure § 1. Covenant-Obligation void They return to Aegypt c. § 2. Temple-Vessels Prophanation revenged of old not now regarded § 3. Titus and Vespasian rewarded for their service against the Temple § 4. Judah's God deaf to all their Cries § 5. They curse themselves in calling upon the God of Revenges § 6. Jewish and Gentile Historians relate the Watch-word Let us depart § 7. Jacob thus expounded not by Statists but the Apostles CHAP. XI The Prophecies of Daniel's Septimanes and Haggai's second House not applicable to any but the blessed Jesus § 1. Porphyry and Rabbies deny Daniel's Authority The Jews split their Messias § 2. The unreasonableness of both these Evasions § 3. Daniel's Prophecy not capable of any sence but what hath received its accomplishment in our Jesus § 4. Daniel's second Epocha § 5. Christ the desire of all Nations fill'd the Second Temple with Glory § 6. That Temple not now in Being § 7. The conclusion of this Book Book III. THE ARGUMENT 3 We have as good grounds of Assurance that the matters of Fact and Doctrine contain'd in the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles were done and delivered accordingly as they are therein related as we have or can have of the Truth of any other the most certain Relation in the World THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. The Universal Tradition of the Church a good Evidence of the Gospels Legitimacy § 1. The inconquerable force of Universal Tradition § 2. No danger of being over-credulous in our Case § 3. Reasons interest in Matters of Religion § 4. We have better assurance that the Evangelical Writings and History are those mens Off-spring whose Names they bear then any Man can have that he is his reputed Fathers Son § 5. The Sceptick cannot prove himself his Mothers Son by so good Arguments as the Gospel hath for its Legitimacy § 6. Bastard-slips grafted into Noble Families The Sceptick in Religion is a Leveller in Politicks CHAP. II. The Suffrage of Adversaries to the testimony of the Church § 1. Pagan Indictments shew what was found Christianity in Pagan Courts § 2. Christian Precepts and Examples Civilized the Courts of Heathen Emperours § 3. Pliny's information concerning Christians to Trajan § 4. What it was in Christians that Maximnus hated them for CHAP. III. The Substance of Christian Religion as it stands now in the Gospel is to be found in the Books of its Adversaries § 1. The Effigies of the Gospel is hung out where it is proscribed § 2. Hierocles attempting to outvie Jesus with Apollonius hath presented to the World the Sum of Evangelical History § 3. More Apes of Christ than Apollonius § 4. Christs Doctrine may be traced out by the footsteps of the Hunters who pursued it CHAP. IV. Every Article of the Apostles Creed to be found
Christ that speak him unlike that Messiah whom the Prophets delineate but this was but a Copy of his Countenance a Flourish of his Pen as Origen tells him for he pulls in his Horns as soon as he had shown them and is content to wave that discourse Orig. Con. Cels. lib. 2. cal 8. In the date of whose Face Times past present and to come Prophecy History bear that admirable proportion as the oldest age shews no wrincles but only shadows youth and the greenest Youth represents the sober look of gravest Age where yesterday and to day are the same Let the whole brood of Helicon's Brats the whole Fraternity of the Muses Sons compose such a Poem and with me they shall be no longer Semi-pagani half-witted Sciolists provided that till then the Apostles may not be such with them Christian Religion 's APPEAL To the BAR of Common Reason c. The Third Book We have as good Grounds of Assurance that the Matter of Fact and Delivery of Doctrine contain'd in the Gospel were done and delivered as they are reported there as we have or can have of any the most unquestionable Relation in the World CHAP. I. The Universal Tradition of the Church a good Evidence of the Gospels Legitimacy § 1. The inconquerable force of Universal Tradition § 2. No danger of being over-credulous in our Case § 3. Reasons interest in Matters of Religion § 4. We have better assurance that the Evangelical Writings and History are those mens Off-spring whose names they bear than any Man can have that he is his reputed Father's Son § 5. The Sceptick cannot prove himself his Mothers Son by so good Arguments as the Gospel hath for its Legitimacy § 6. Bastard-slips grafted into Noble Families The Sceptick in Religion is a Leveller in Politicks § 1. ANd doubtless nothing can hinder any man in his wits from giving assent to this Proposition That the Framers of the Gospel were Persons endowed with Reason But then the Atheist puts in this Bar against his own and others Belief That Christianity possibly may have been lick'd into this form wherein the Scripture presents it after the Age of the Apostles by such Politicians as conceived it a good Epedient to keep men in Order out of an awe and reverence of Religion For the removal of this Scruple I shall prove in this third Book That we have as good Grounds of assurance that the Matters of Fact and Doctrine contain'd in the Gospel were done and delivered by Christ and his Apostles as we have or can have of any other the most certain and unquestionable Relation in the World Though we who live at this great distance from the Time wherein those Occurrences fell out are so far disadvantaged as 't is scarce to be hoped that obstinate and captious Gain-sayers who hate the Gospel for its Holiness and Strictness will acquiess in the clearest Demonstration we can lay before them Necsi solem quidem ipsum gestemus in manibus fidem accomodabunt ei doctrinae quae illos jubet c. Lactantius de divino praemio l. p. c. 1 Debaucht persons will not yield assent to a Doctrine that commands Holiness Justice and Temperance though for demonstration of the truth of it we should carry in our hands the Sun it self Before I make my defence saith Origen against Celsus lib. 1. calum 23. let me premise this That to vindicate the Truth of any History though never so true is a matter of exceeding difficulty and in some cases impossible If a man be frowardly bent to deny that the Grecians fought with the Trojans that Oedipus married his Mother Jocasta c. there 's no convincing of him there 's no remedy against the biting of a Sycophant Yet the abovesaid disadvantage hath this convenience attending it that it necessitates us to the use of soberness of Mind in seeking and receiving satisfaction For the things in question being done many generations before us it were the highest act of unreasonableness imaginable to expect or demand any other grounds of satisfaction than such as all men that are not besides themselves and incapacitated for rational Discourse in all other the like cases acquiess in without the least hesitancy that is Universal Tradition which is of that force as to leave all wise men as much assured of those Matters that are so communicated to them as of those they themselves are eye-witnesses of I can no more force my self out of an assurance that there were such men as Caesar Pompey Alexander such Cities as Troy Carthage Jerusalem than I can perswade my self to believe that I am not now writing Nay I should sooner be brought to doubt of this than that for I may perhaps for this once be but in a Dream but that the whole World of Authentick Historians who have conveighed the Tradition of those things to us should dream waking for so many Successions of Ages bids that manifest defiance to Reason and common Sence as I must grow blind on both these eyes before I can swallow that Flie. When I sift my Mind to find out the bottom of this invincible Assurance such thoughts as these comes to hand It is not any way my own Interest that byasseth me whether there ever were any such Men or Cities or no mihi nec seritur nec metitur I am no way concern'd in it I cannot possibly discover the least Atom of self in my tenacious and even obstinate adhering to such Propositions It must be therefore some pure Beam of refined Reason by which I clime up to this degree of Confidence I take up and hold to these Conclusions meerly as a Man as a reasonable Creature without circumstantiating my self with those moveable those separable Attributes of poor of rich wise foolish c. But find all Men in all Ages since have with one mouth either reported or assented by their silence to these Stories and Vox populi vox Dei The common vote of Man-kind is the voice of God If I deny the validity of such Testimony I banish all humane Converse out of the World It may here perhaps be objected that in these cases we suffer our Reason to be captivated to the general Vogue by slender presumptions and because we may without any considerable detriment ride with the stream we are willing to save our selves the labour of rowing against it but in Matters of so high a Concern as Religion Prudence should dictate to us the use of more Caution than to be born down with the Current But what we take up in trust of the Publick Faith upon such Universal Testimonies is not credulously imbraced but forceth it self upon us with main force of common Reason I was almost saying of demonstration for else these Confidences might possibly be dismounted If these assurances were not built upon the firmest Grounds they might be undermined if they were not mann'd and garrison'd by the strongest Reason other Reasons might enforce to a surrender as we
built the two Books De miraculis Martyrum writ by Gregory Turonensis who shuts up his first Book thus It behoves us therefore to desire the Patronage of Martyrs c. and his second thus We therefore well considering those Miracles may learn that it is not possible to be saved but by the help of Martyrs and other Friends of God But Simeon Metaphrastes deserves the Whet-stone from all that ever professed this holy Art of Lying for the advantage of Truth who notwithstanding that in his Preface to the strange Romance of Marina he blames others for forging Stories of the Saints and polluting their true Memorials with most evident Doctrines of Devils and Demoniacal Narratives yet himself splits upon the same Rock and so Shipwracks his Credit with all Intelligent Persons as Baronius himself is ashamed of him in notis ad martyrologium Roman Jul. 13. I need not multiply Instances the World swarms with lying Legends Their avowed Doctrine of Mental Reservation of Equivocation to promote the Cause of Religion casts up as wide a Gulf betwixt gospel-Gospel-Tradition and theirs as is betwixt Heaven and Hell the God of Truth and the Father of Lyes Quomodo Deus Pater genuit filium veritatem sic Diabolus genuit quasi filium Mendacium August 42. tract in Johan 8. 44. these introduc'd by Persons that account it meritorious of Heaven to forge the grossest Fables so it be in service of the Church which the Apostle calls speaking Lyes in Hypocrisie 1 Tim. 4. 2. vide Meed in locum Those publish'd by Men who less fear'd dying than lying who chose rather to suffer the cruellest Death to lay themselves obnoxious to the Calumnies of captious Adversaries through their Parasie their Freedom of Speech then to tell the most innocent and officious Lye and therefore the unlikeliest Men in the World to abuse the World with Figments and devised Stories and Persons from whose Hand a Man might with more safety and security have taken a Cup suspected to have Poyson in it than a Cup of Wine from the Hand of the most Divine Philosoper as Apollodorus said of Socrates in comparison of Plato Athenaeus dyprosoph l. 11. c. 22. Christian Religions APPEAL To the BAR of Common Reason c. The Second Book The Apostles were not themselves deluded no Crack'd-brain Enthusiasticks but Persons of most composed Minds CHAP. I. The Gospel's Correspondency with Vulgar Sentiments § 1. The Testimony of the Humane Soul untaught to the Truth of the Christian Creed in the Articles touching the Unity of the Godhead his Goodness Justice Mercy The Existence of wicked Spirits § 2. The Resurrection and Future Judgment Death formidable for its Consequences to evil Men No Fence against this Fear proved by Examples § 3. In hope of future Good the Soul secretly applauds her self after virtuous Acts. This makes the Flesh suffer patiently § 1. WHat Exception can be made against so impartial a Relation of Men possessed with such a mortal Detestation of Forgery made to an Age so well accommodated against Delusion by all internal and external Fortifications imaginable cannot in my shallow Reason be conjectured except it be that of Celsus and his Modern Epicurean Disciples That the Apostles themselves were deluded or which is worse infatuated For who but raving and dementate Persons would have ventured to put off Adulterate Wares to so knowing an Age But then how could they have framed the Doctrine and History of Christ in such a Decorum in so exact a Symmetry of Parts not only among themselves but to the great World as Lactantius argues Abfuit ergò ab iis fingendi voluntas astutia quià rudes fuerunt quis possit indoctus apta inter se cobaerentia fingere cùm Philosophorum doctissimi ipsi sibi repugnantia dixerint haec enim est mendaciorum natura ut coherere non possint illorum autèm traditio quià vera est quadrat undique ac sibi tota consentit ideò persuadet quià constanti ratione suffulta est Lactant de justicia lib. 5. cap. 3. The Apostles had neither Will to feign nor any crafty Design upon the World because they were plain Men and what illiterate Man can have the Art to make Fictions square to one another and hang together seeing the most learned of the Philosophers have spoke things jarring amongst themselves for this is the Nature of Untruths that they cannot be of a Piece But the Tradition of the Apostles because it is true one part falls out even with another and it agrees perfectly with it self and therefore gains upon Mens Minds because it is underpropp'd with that stedfast reason and on every side Squares with Principles of Reason Origen useth this Argument Cont. Cels. l. 3. willing him to consider if it were not the Agreeableness of the Principles of Faith with common Notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that prevailed most upon all candid and ingenuous Auditors of them For how can that be the Figment of deluded Fancies the issue of shatter'd Brains that 's so well shap'd as it bears a perfect Proportion to and Correspondency with whatsoever hath had the common Approbation of Mankind Being calculated 1. To the Meridian of common Sentiments to the Universal Religion of the whole World to the Testimony of every natural Soul to whose Evidence Christian Religion appeals by her Advocate Tertullian in his admirable Treatise De Testimonio Animae I call in saith he a new kind of Witness yet more known than any Writing more tost than all Learning more common than any Book that 's put forth greater than whole Man that is the All that is of Man Come into the Court Oh Soul whether thou beest Divine and Eternal as most Philosophers think and by so much the rather not capable of telling a Lye Or not Divine but Mortal as Epicurus thinks and so much the rather thou oughtest not to lye for Fear of distracting thy self at present with the Guilt of so Inhumane a Vice whether thou art received from Heaven or conceived of Earth whether thou art made up of Numbers or Atoms whether thou commences a being with the Body or art infused after the Body from whencesoever and howsoever thou makest Man a Rational Creature most capable of Sense and Science But I do not retain thee of Council for the Christian such as thou art when after thou hast been formed in the Schools and exercised in Libraries thou belchest forth that Wisdom thou hast obtained in Aristotle's Walks or the Attick Academies No I appeal to thee as thou art raw unpolish'd and void of acquired Knowledge such a one as they have that have only a bare Soul such altogether as thou comest from the Quarry from the High Way from the Looms I have need of thy Unskilfulness for when thou growest never so little crafty all men suspect thee I would have thee bring nothing with thee into this Court but what thou bringest with thy self into Man but
Idols and evil Spirits be true they counterfeit the presence of God and therefore command their Worshippers to be just that themselves may be thought to be good but because they are in their nature bad they are prone to do evil and to lead us to evil Porphyry de sacrif pag. 314 315. out of Plato tells us that as heat cannot cool us so the Divine Nature that is all Justice can do no unjust thing and therefore concludes That all those Spirits that either themselves commit or tempt us to commit immoralities though they would make the World believe they are Gods and their Prince the highest and holiest God are no better than Devils Plutarch in his Pelopidas reports That while the Theban Army lay encamp'd in Leuctra resolved to give battel to Cleombrotus and the Spartan forces Pelopidas was terrified with a Vision of Scedasus Daughters there ravish'd and slain by certain Spartans against whom when their Father could not obtain Justice at the hands of the Spartan State pouring out dreadful execrations upon them he slew himself upon his Daughters Grave These Pelopidas thinks he hears groaning about their Sepulchres and cursing the Spartans and their Father commanding him to sacrifice a yellow-hair'd Virgin if he desired to obtain victory over the Spartans Pelopidas communicates this Vision and Command to his Prophets and Associates by whom notwithstanding the allegations of the examples of Menaeceus Macaerias Pherecides Leonidas Agesilaus and Agamemnon in favour of it that Command was judged so barbarous as it was impossible it could procede from or the fulfilling of it be acceptable to any of the Gods for those that delight in human blood and slaughter are infernal Fiends c. Thus Salacus King of Aethiopia is commended for interpreting that Dream wherein he was counsel'd to assemble the Aegyptian Priests and to cut them off by the middle as proceeding from the diabolical injection of some Demons that envied his happiness and desired to make him obnoxious to the just displeasure of the Gods for so sacrilegious an Act chusing rather to lay down the Egyptian Crown which he had then wore 50 years and return into Aethiopia than to hold it at that price the Vision set upon it Herodot Eutyrpe 163. Lo here the point of this Objection turn'd against those that framed it for Jove was so far from gaining by his Viciousness the repute of being a God as the Vices of his Namesakes imputed to him dethron'd him from that Heaven to which his own Vertue had of old exalted him while they knew and believed no other of him but that he was the Founder of their Commonwealth that he gather'd them being formerly dispers'd like savage Beasts into human Societie that he taught them by Precept and Example the Trade of Vertue they ador'd him for a God But when they hear the Poets tell Stories of his Murders Incests Rapes c. they conclude him if those Stories be true a wicked Demon. Yea Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Venus and Harp of all Philosophy in his Treatise of Superstition Moral tom 1. pag. 389. strenuously maintains the Point That those who deny the Being of God are not so impious as they that conceive him to be such as the Poets feign him I had rather saith he men should in their discoursing of me say there never was any such man as Plutarch than say I was such a man as the superstitious account God to be sickle mutable prone to anger desirous of revenge for the least injury and that from these misconceits of the Gods men grew into the Opinion that there were no Gods Would God this Christian Age had not too sad experience of the truth of this Aphorism For since the Pulpit hath been made a Stage for Mimicks who are train'd up to no other Art wherein they are more dexterous than that of making Mows and wry Faces upon the Establish'd Religion of misrepresenting the Christian Faith and the Authour of it by fathering upon the Spirit their nonsensical uncharitable blasphemous Prattlings upon God the Father such inhumane and bloody Purposes and Decrees as make him look out of their Dress more ill-favour'd than the blackest Fiend upon God the Son the Institution of a Religion more barbarous than the Worship of Moloch this Stage-play Divinity hath brought in Atheistical Contempt of God and the Ministery But I dare not give my just Zeal its full scope in this place I now alledge this only to shew That the Law of Honesty Vertue and Morality is so deeply imprest upon the Human Soul as rather than Men who are not altogether brutified will be led to Acts of Injustice upon the suggestions of a Divine Command they will deny the Divinity of that Command and chuse rather to worship no God at all than one that 's represented with such Properties as bid defiance to common Honesty CHAP. IV. Christian Religion concords with the highest Philosophical Notions § 1. Divine Knowledg communicated from the Church to travelling Philosophers Our Religion elder than Heathenism by Heathens confession § 2. Christian Articles implied in Pagan Philosophy's Positions Man's happiness through Communion with God and Conformity unto God § 3. This Conformity and Communion effected by God-man God manifest in the Flesh born of a Virgin § 4. Plato falter'd under the burden of vulgar Error A man from God Whence Multiplicity of God-Saviours Pagan Independency Their mutual indulging one another § 5. Not many but one Mediator the result of the Heathen's second thoughts Plato ' s Sentence sentenced by Platonicks Nothing can purge but a Principle St. John ' s Gospel in Platonick Books The Christian Premisses yielded their Conclusions denied by Gentiles Plato ' s Sentence under the Rose § 1. The Church gave life to received none from the Philosophers THe Apostles however illiterate might perhaps spin out of their own bowels a course-spun Warp which might fit to an hairs-breadth the home-spun Woof of vulgar Conceptions But then how came they to a Doctrine so exactly suting the more refined Notions of the most eminent Philosophers Quis docuit psittacum suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If they were men of crazy or but vulgar Brains whence learn'd they to dogmatize to Grecize in their divine Philosophy so profoundly to distil a Doctrine so absolutely Philosophical as it either ecchoeth to what was taught in the most learned Schools or is such as the most sagacious Wits were hunting after but could not start and must ecchoe to upon its Proposals or recede from their own Principles Hence that of R. Obad. Caon in Psal. 45. Kings Daughters were among thy honourable Women id est opiniones sapientùm Nationum exterarum that is the opinions of the wise Gentiles And that of Lactantius Quod si extitisset aliquis qui veritatem distersam per singulos per sectásque diffusam colligeret in unum ac redigeret in corpus is profectò non dissentiret à nobis Lactant de divino
in magnificence Instructive as pointing to the bruised heel of the Womans Seed as being so chargeable and toilsome as it was not credible that any Nation should by their own free choice encumber themselvs with so burdensome a service nor possible they could be induc'd to the embracing of it by any Motives inferiour to those dreadful appearances of the divine Majesty at the promulgation of it and Menacies annext to it Add to all this their sojourning in Aegypt the Nursery of Idolatry so many hundred years Their settlement in Canaan where the worship of Devils had taken deepest root so near to Caldaea where the Primitive Tradition had been first corrupted The improvement of the Art of Navigation by Solomon Their several dispersisions into the utmost parts of the inhabited Earth c. And it will appear that as the Earth was over-spread by degrees with people and people grew to apostatize from the Catholick Religion God sent this then last Edition of the Gospel after them by the hand of Abrahams seed bringing to their remembrance the almost forgotten Promise of the Womans Seed And that therefore the Divine Grace administred to all men an occasion to seek after God whom they might have found if they would have sought him where he directed them and whom all did find who did not maliciously shut their eyes against the Light shining in Judaea in its full body as the Sun in its Orb and thence transmitting its Beams into the utmost Coasts of the World Briefly The Jews setting aside the Covenant of Peculiarity which consisted of Earthly Promises and Carnal Ordinances was only the Worlds Cock to give it notice how the time past till the Fulness of Time was come to awake its drowsie eyes to wait for break of day to profligat those painted Lyons who had usurpt the Title of the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah to give notice the Star of Jacob was not yet risen and to direct them by the voice of their Prophets when and where to look for the promised Seed In a word they were not the Catholick Church but a Nation of Priests separated for the service of the Catholick Church consisting of Jews and Gentiles worshipping the true God and waiting for Christ. 3. Celsus his Exception therefore that Christian Religion opposeth the general Religion of the World is manifestly false for there never was any Religion universally profest as that which bringeth Salvation to all save the Christian that is Faith in the promised Seed for Gentile Religions were calculated to particular Climes but this publish'd to and believed through the whole World 4. What he objects as to Sects of Christians I answer what ever Sect recedes from the Catholick Church and the common Faith ceaseth to be Christian that is whoever rend themselves from that body of Believers who in all Ages before Christ and since have held the common Way of Salvation by the blood of the Womans Seed become as to Religion Heathens and therefore the Church is not chargeable with them Article 10. The forgiveness of sins This is plainly to be read as a Point of Christ and his Apostles Doctrine and the Churches Faith in that odious Comparison of the Epicurean Sophist Celsus lib. 3. 16 17. They that are to be initiated in Pagan Mysteries are by a Cryer thus invited whosoever is of pure hands and heart whosoever is free from all impieties whosoever hath a soul not conscious to it self of any villany whosoever hath lived well and justly come hither At sacer est locus procul ite prophani c. But the Christian Preachers invite men to the Christian Faith after these forms Whosoever is simple wretched wicked prophane here is pardon for them Come ye impure and defiled Souls here is a Fountain of Purgation open for you to wash in Your Jesus you say came not to call the righteous but sinners and whither should the Physician come but to the sick as Origen well replies In the exposition of the Apostles Creed among the works of St. Cyprian but by St. Jerom ascribed to Ruffinus and by Gennadius commended as the best piece of Ruffinus and therefore judged by Erasmus to be his the Pagans object against this Article That the Christians do miserably deceive themselves in believing that sins can be forgiven that what is committed indeed can be purg'd by words whether of Promise on Gods part or Confession on the penitent's part or Absolution on the Priests part Is it possible say they that he that hath committed Murder or Adultery should not be reckon'd a Murderer or Adulterer to which it is there well answered Why should I not believe that that God who of Earth made me a Man can make me of guilty innocent that he who made me see who before was blind who made me hear who before was deaf who made me sound who was before lame can restore innocency to me when I have lost it c Article 11. The Resurrection of the Flesh. Were this Article buried in the oblivion of whole Christendom it might obtain a Resurrection even out of the grave of Pagan Writers and loose no more of its perfection than our bodies shall do at their's That fleering Philosopher Celsus while he laughs it out of countenance brings it to remembrance All that Christ taught you saith he touching the Resurrection of the body touching Eternal Life and Death he borrowed from the Books of the Jewish Prophets lib. 2. 3. But with how much absurdity do you with that earnestness as if you accounted nothing more desireable hope and wait for the Resurrection of your Body when in the mean while you throw your Bodies as vile things to all kinds of Torments lib. 8. 18. And lib. 3. cal 6. The Christians amuse the unwary Vulgar with vain and bug-bear threats of eternal judgement of the pains of the damned and with the alluring promises of future rewards And yet the same Author lib. 4. 7. confesseth that we in our discourses of the day of Judgement speak congruously to the old Philosophers And lib. 1. cal 4. the very first instance he bringeth of our concurrence with the opinions of Philosophers is that which we teach touching rewards and punishment Deogratias relates to St. Austin this Quaere propounded by a Gentile Philopher Whether the promised Resurrection would be like that of Lazarns or that of Christ not like Lazarus saith the Philosopher for he rose before his Body was consum'd but you Christians say that mens bodies shall rise many Ages after they are crumbled to dust not like Christ for he shew'd the scars in his Hands and Side and did eat after he rose again but you say that after the Resurrection men shall neither eat nor drink nor have any blemish upon their Bodies Aug. Ep. 49. Here we have not only the Resurrection but the manner of it as it is described in the Gospel attested by Pagans to bave been the known Doctrine of the Church viz. that
gloss Where the Emperours and Senates shooe pinch'd them How much this State-maxime prejudic'd the Apostles CHAP. V. A prospect of the Holy Age the Age wherein the Gospel was first publish'd in respect of its skill in Theology § 1. Natural Theology then in its highest acme by the improvement of the Pythagorick Platonick and Socratical Philosophy Within that Century lived Varro his Encomium Scaevola and Caesar great Divines Cicero and Cratippus well seen in Natural Theology Seneca the Miracle of Humane Divines Thraseas under Nero a Martyr for Moral Divinity § 2. Prophetical Theology exploded by Pagan Philosophers Divination by Dreams and Oracles censur'd by Cicero Apollo ' s Oracles ambiguous at last silenc'd Phoebus Philippizing Chaldean prognosticators vain Praenestine Lots and Auguries decided Divination by Prodigies taunted This a barr to credulity towards the Gospel § 3. Historical Divinity decried in the Schools when the History of the Blessed Jesus was first published as reporting things unworthy of God The Apostles could never have hoped to induce the disputers of this world to a belief of as unlikely stories had they had no more than an arm of flesh to trust to The conclusion of the whole matter God's Tabernacle set in the Sun shining out in its greatest lustre of humane Sciences § 4. The Civick Religion both with the Vulgar and Politicians in high respect in our Saviours Age proved from the Philosophers salvo's by consequence and directly from several examples The world was enjoying her self Pigmalion like in the warm embraces of her-own-made sacred animals CHAP. VI. The Advantage the World had to try Apostolical Doctrine by the Touch-stone of the Septuagint § 1. The Septuagint was the worlds guard against all possible delusion The light of the Original Tradition shone out of the East Judaea the Navel of the earth had plenty thither Pythagoras Socrates Plato c. finding a Famine at home travell'd for the Corn of Heaven c. § 2. Josephus and the Church History of the Translation of the Seventy defended against Scaliger ' s exceptions Hermippus and Aristaeus reconciled by Anatolius The Authority of Socrates comes short here of Josephus § 3. The Sanhedrim held correspondency with the dispersion no harder a task for the Jews whose Mother-tongue was Hebrew and who for Commerce sake were forc'd to learn the Greek the common Language of the Empire to turn the Hebrew into Greek than for the Belgick Churches amongst us to turn a Dutch Bible into English § 4. Whence Ptolemy learn'd that curse he pronounc'd upon them that should add or take from the Seventy's Translation Whence the fiction of three days darkness and the application of Solomon ' s Text there is a time to rend § 5. The Legend of the golden letter'd Jehova Ptolemy might be a bad man and yet curious in point of Learning He was a kind of Jewish Proselyte and as good a one as Herod Poppaea c. God can make bad men Instruments of good The Fathers and Primitive Churches esteem of the Septuagint § 6. The Candour of the blessed Jesus in sending the picture of the Messiah drawn by the Prophets before he came in person that there might be no mistake of the person in appealing to a Religion pre-existing to and co-existing with that of his erecting CHAP. VII The World over run with Barbarous Ignorance when the Impieties of Turk Pope and Pagans imposed themselves upon its Credulity § 1. Platina his Censure of the sixth Century Pope Sabinian an Enemy to Learning monstrous Presages Phocas in Baronius his stile the Red Dragon gave the Title of Universal Bishop to Boniface the third § 2. As Darkness increased the Pope incroached till at last he set his foot upon the Necks of Princes The Eyes of those Centuries the Lights of the Church as they will be called were Darkness Formosus Stephen Romanus Theodore the second John the tenth and nine Popes succeeding him in less than nine Years Benedict the fourth Leo the fifth all Heads of the Roman Church like that Head in the Carvers Shop brainless These in the ninth Century § 3. The Popes of the tenth Century Baronius stiles abomination in the holy Place Genebrard reckons from the Hermophrodite Pope John or Joan above fifty in two hundred Years who were little better than Incarnate Devils amongst whose Predecessors was John the thirteenth a Stallion Benet the ninth in time succeeds a Monster made up of a Boar below and an Ass above § 4. The Popes of the eleventh Century light their Candle at the Devil's Match Silvester compounded with the Devil for the Papacy Onuphrius his Evasion obviated Benet rides the Devil in Purgatory He was a wondrous great Scholar that had learn'd his Grammar § 5. Paganism crept in in the dark before Commerce Heathens care to conceal their God-Births Minerva turns the tatling Crow out and takes the Bird of Night the Owl into her service the Eleusine Mysteries Mercury ' s hand upon his mouth Alexander must not reveil Aegyptian Mysteries nor Petronius his Ruffians the Secrets of Priapus As Traffick increased the World gives over teeming with new Gods Alexander Plato Caesar Aristaeus were born out of time to be made Gods As the Theology of those obscure times came to be enquired into by several Nations comparing Notes it grew out of Credit Euemerus his Sacred History Annons Birds CHAP. VIII The Apostolical Age was fortified against Surprisal by the External Advantages of Posts and Peace § 1. They find as speedy a way for conveyance of News as we Vibullius Caesar Sempronius Tiberius their incredible Posting Intelligence flew in Persia as fast as Cranes The Roman Eagle as swift of Wing as the English Unicorn is of foot § 2. That Age enjoyed so long a Peace as Intelligence might pass without Interruption Janus's Temple shut by Augustus a rare thing in the Roman Annals § 3. Tiberius had a peaceable Reign so had Caligula all the Warlike Marches that be made was in pursuit of the Cowardly Ocean running from him at the Tide and in lopping down the Bows of a Coppice Palsey-headed Claudius felt no shakings in his Empire no Trumpet of War then sounded but that of the Silver Triton in the Ficine Lake In Nero ' s third Year they had much ado to draw the Sword it had layen so long rusting in the Scabbard § 4. This peaceable Season was the Seed-time of Christ's Labourers wherein they dispenc'd the Gospel through the Empire CHAP. IX The Judean Stirs were the Empires Advantage against Surprisal § 1. Objections from the Commotions in Judea answered and retorted Those inconsiderable and not so great as that delicate and repining People would represent them § 2. The Stirs that were in Judea put the Ministers of State upon a more diligent enquiry into what there fell out whereby they got a more full information of the state of that great Controversie between the Jews and Christians § 3. The Judean Commotions drew the Imperial Eagle to
the point of obtaining Divine Honour at the Romans hands Augustus erected an Altar To the first begotten Suidas his story of Augustus his Altar defended Augustus his unhappiness in his Issue might probably put him upon referring the choice of a Successour to the Oracles determination His slighting Apollo argues the Answer he received not to have made for Apollo's credit § 5. Some passages touching this Argument in Tertullian cleared from the Anabaptistical gloss Where the Emperours and Senates shooe pincht them How much this State-maxime prejudic'd the Apostles § 1. NOtwithstanding that the World was so well fortified against Seduction by its being so well seen in the above-mentioned Arts yet had the Gospel found it in a disordered posture through its defect of polity this might have given an advantage to the Assaylants to subdue it to the belief of things not rationable or credible While every man is left to do what is good in his own eyes as the Jews were when there was no King in Israel the stragling Sheep may easily become the prey of Wolves and Foxes How many vast valiant expert and while well marshall'd terrible and inconquerable Armies have through want of Discipline in a disordered march been put to the Rout by a less strong and worse skill'd Enemy But the Gospel charged the world when it stood in a full field and well ranked body to receive the on-set not in that condition wherein the Danites found Laish careless and heedless without a Magistracy to put them to shame in any thing and keep them in order which was the great incouragement their Spies gave them to make an attempt upon that City Weem's Exercitations on Judg. 18. 7 8 10. For that part of the world wherein the Apostles obtain'd most ground was then united under the newly erected Standard of Augustus as General and under the Conduct of twelve as famous Gown'd Captains I mean Lawyers and Politicians as ever appear'd at one Muster viz. Sleidan Clav. Hist. lib. 2. Lucillus Balbus P. Octavius Balbus C. Aufidius C. Juventius C. Orbius Sext. Papirius Lucius Servius Sub. Rufus Tesâ—a Offilius Casselius Tubero all flourishing in the Reign of Augustus who himself was the most substantial and well weighed Statist that meer Nature has exhibited to the world equal'd by few that have had the benefit of Sacred Politiques but for that they may thank their studying Machiavel more than Melchisedeck Of him the Heroick Poet under the shadow of Counsel draws as high an Encomium as any Prince is capable of in point of prudence for the Administration of Empire Excudent alii spirantia molliùs aera Tu regere Imperio populos Romane memento Hae tibi erunt artes Let others learn to mould brass do thou learn to govern men To these succeeded Sleidan Clav. Hist. l. 2. Caesius the two Aufidii l'acuvius Flavius Priscus Varus Labeo Father and Son the Son of that repute as he left his name to a Sect of Lawyers Nerva Father and Son to one of whom Coccejus Nerva Tacitus ascribes all kind of Knowledge both in Humane and Divine Laws and reports him to have been a man of that foresight in Civil Affairs as to prevent the seeing of that mischief which the dissoluteness of Tiberius at his beloved Capreae would immerse the Empire in he chose to end his dayes by a voluntary death notwithstanding the Emperours perswasions to the contrary Annal. lib. 6. both the Longini from whom the Cassian Sect had its Sirname and Original All these under Tiberius Alsted Cron. Juridicorum who in point of vafrous cunning deserv'd the name of Fox as much as he upon whom our Saviour bestowed that title Herod This was the Scheme of that Heaven of the Roman Empire when the Son of Righteousness enter'd upon his race from the one to the other end of it through the Zodiack of his Twelve Apostles beyond the circumference of whose Doctrine once deliver'd that Sun never moves in his illuminating the world with saving Light all pretended supernatural Revelations eccentrical to that are but the dwindles of blazing stars The two Luminaries Augustus of stay'd policy Tiberius of versatile craft moving successively through a Zodiack of Twelve Statists stars of the greatest magnitude that ever shin'd at once in the firmament of that State The two first Judges of the Universe that enter'd upon that preferment by way of inheritance assisted each of them with a full Jury of as able Lawyers as ever past Verdict together sitting successively upon the Bench when the Cause of the Gospel was first pleaded as if they had been impannell'd on purpose to take notice of the Evidence brought into Court The Empires skill in Law was at its highest exaltation when the Royal Law came out of Sion our great Law-giver disdaining to vie the Arcana of his Empire with any State-maximes but the very best of humane invention Would the blessed Babe have ventured to thrust in his head among these sage Councellours had he not been the everlasting Councellour the Antient of Dayes to set up his Post against this Post had it not been like that at the Temple Gate stability it self to erect his Kingdom against this so well model'd an Empire had not his been the gift of him that said Thou art my Son c § 2. Especially if it be further considered That the genius of the Roman Polity disgusted the introduction of any Foreign over the head of its own Domestick Religion Ovid shuts up the discourse of the translation of Aesculapius with an Epiphonema His tamen accessit delubris advena nostris though he had begun it with this Salvo of the Roman maxime Not to receive any foreign God till he had given a sign of his renouncing his former Altars quáque ipse morari Sede velit signis calestibus indicet optant Annuit his motisque deus rata pignora câ—istis Et repetita dedit oráque retro Flectit antiquas abiturus respicit aras c. Met. 15. The Senate would not allow their General Lutatius in the Punick War to consult the Oracle of the Goddess Fortune at Praeneste for this reason alledged by Valerius Max. cap. 3. l. 1. because the Roman Republick ought not to be administred by the Conduct or Counsels of any God but their own Tiberius himself saith Tertullian Apolog. cap. 5. could not obtain of the Senate an Edict to have our Jesus canonized for a God at Rome though he moved earnestly for it upon Pilate's Letters informing him what had past in Judaea Celsus that fierce enemy of Christian Religion in Orig. l. 4. Cal. 11 12. will allow the Jews their own Religion and if they please to esteem Christ their Lord and King illa se jacret in aula he will not envy him that honour in his own Countrey but that that obscure and despicable Nation should impose a God and a Religion upon the whole world this is that he so highly disgusts The Pestilence raging and the people running
the veneration of Antiquity the commonness of Custom lull'd it into a Lethean forgetfulness of its own handy-work as the perswasion that they were Gods indeed and that to their Religious Observances they were indebted for all the benefits were powred down upon them could not be eradicated by the closest and most convincing Arguments The conceit that they had found the Lips of those Statues warm in propitious responds their bosoms soft in gracious returns to their votaries that they had felt the beating of their Pulses in their declared liking or disliking of Persons and Actions proportionable to the Worlds Genius had so far prevail'd with this Pigmalion as his knowledge of the contrary is cast into a dead sleep while he is entertaining himself with these pleasing dreams Now had the Apostle attempted to interrupt the world in those fancied enjoyments with fancies had they instead of those Sacred Animals thrust into the Bed a dead Image or a Pillow stufft with Hair what could they have expected but to have been deservedly clamour'd against as men upbraiding the World with the imputation of more insensate Stupidity than can possibly seise upon a Rational Soul what leave those Gods under whose wings I have been brooded to this perfection of honour and happiness whose present relief I have as often found as invocated for one that was but the other day in Clouts and could not save himself when he was dared to do it to his face nor be heard in that fervent Prayer for releif he preferr'd to him whom he called his God and Father What reply could they have return'd to these expostulations had they seen no more in Christ than Man had they not known him to be the living as well as express Image of the living God to be that eternal word which by his power bears up all things and of power enough to bear down before him those strong men who had got such firm possession of the house as none no not among the most Rational Philosophers could 〈…〉 out but a stronger than they CHAP. VI. The Advantage the World had to try Apostolical Doctrine by the Touch-stone of the Septuagint § 1. The Septuagint was the worlds guard against all possible delusion The light of the Original Tradition shon out of the East Judaea the Navil of the earth had plenty thither Pithagoras Socrates Plato c. finding a Famine at home travell'd for the Corn of Heaven c. § 2. Josephus and the Church History of the Translation of the Seventy defended against Scaliger ' s exceptions Hermippus and Aristaeus reconciled by Anatolius The Authority of Socrates comes short here of Josephus § 3. The Sanhedrim held correspondency with the dispersion no harder a task for the Jews whose Mother-tongue was Hebrew and who for Commerce sake were forc'd to learn the Greek the common Language of the Empire to turn the Hebrew into Greek than for the Belgick Churches amongst us to turn a Dutch Bible into English § 4. Whence Ptolemy learn'd that curse he pronounc'd upon them that should add or take from the Seventy's Translation Whence the fiction of three days darkness and the application of Solomon ' s text there is a time to rend § 5. The Legend of the golden letter'd Jehova Ptolemy might be a bad man and yet curious in point of Learning He was a kind of Jewish Prosylite and as good a one as Herod Poppaea c. God can make bad men Instruments of good The Fathers and Primitive Churches esteem of the Septuagint § 6. The Candor of the blessed Jesus in sending the picture of the Messiah drawn by the Prophets before be came in person that there might be no mistake of the person in appealing to a Religion pre-existing to and co-existing with that of his erecting § 1. THis Age wherein the Gospel was first preach'd had besides all those fore-mentioned guards against surprisal the advantage of a peculiar Expedient to try the truth of what the Apostles publish'd even at their own bar and by their own avowed Principles and to have proved it false had it indeed so been to the Apostles own faces themselves being Judges by means of Ptolemy's having procured some hundreds of years before our Saviours incarnation the Translation of the Old Testament into that Tongue that had 〈◊〉 the vulgar Tongue of the Empire some while before and was in the age of the Apostles familiar to the learned Romans Those sacred Oracles having been lock'd up from former ages in Hebrew a Tongue barbarous to the Western World So that it could have no knowledge of the Contents of those Divine Writings but what was communicated by the Oral Tradition of Jewish Teachers From whence notwithstanding those most famous and incomparably knowing Philosophers that travell'd for Learning into Judaea Aegypt and the Countries circumjacent gather'd such Maxims as served them like so many straight Rules to discover in a great measure the crookedness and deviations of the commonly received opinions touching God and Nature The first Graecian Theologists Pherecydes Pythagoras and Thales are acknowledged with one mouth to have been the Scholars of the Aegyptians Chaldaeans and Hebrews as Josephus saith contra Appion lib. 1. for the confirmation of which he alledgeth the authority of Hermippus a Pagan Historian who in the life of Pythagoras lib. 1. writes that Pythagoras did translate out of the institutions of the Jews many things into his philosophy and Clearchus Aristotle's Scholar who in his Dialogue of the Jews brings in his Master confessing he had learned the best part of his knowledge of a certain Jew The Swarm that hived in Plato's mouth came from Mount Carmel and was a Call of the School of the Prophets there The Honey which that Attick Bee made was gathered from the Flowers of Moses's Paradise and Solomon's garden of which his Philosophy so perfectly relisheth as many of our ancient Christian Writers wondering at the congruity of his Doctrine to Christian Verity conceived he had conference in Aegypt with the Prophet Jeremy of which opinion St. Austin sometimes was but retracted it upon the account of that light which Cronology gave him to see his error it being thence apparent that Plato was born almost an hundred Years after Jeremy was dead and pitcheth upon this that this busie and industrious Bee suck'd that part of his Philosophy from the lips of an Interpreter as he did the Aegyptian as well as he could de civit 8. 11. titulus Unde Plato illam intelligentiam potuerit acquirere qua Christianae pietati propinquavit Whence Plato might possibly acquire that Understanding whereby he approach'd so near to Christian Religion Of which that learned Father there makes proof by instancing in several Platonick Sentences and Notions so agreeing in the Main and yet differing in the Circumstance as speaks Plato to have partly understood Moses his sence but not his words But what need I urge the Authority either of St. Austin or Justin Martyr who in
an opinion that they were designed by Heaven to something extraordinary Julius his Dream his cloven-footed Horse his Mules his Triton his pressing to have the Title of King because the Sybils had prophesied one at that time would be King of all the World The Fathers quotations of Sybils vindicated § 6. Augustus had his Education amongst the Velitri who had a Tradition of the tendency with the Eastern Prophecy that one of that City should obtain the Kingdom of the whole World The Roman Prodigy before his Birth His Mother Atia conceives him by Apollo Her Snake-mole Nero ' s Bracelet Atias Dream of her Entrals Nigidius his Prognistication The Prediction of the Thracian Priests His Fathers Vision Cicero ' s Dream § 7. Tiberius his Omens Scribonius ' s Prediction Livias crested Chick The Altars of the conquering Legions His Dye cast into Apon ' s Well Galba ' s Mock-prophecy § 8. Titus and Vespasian ' s Motto Amor deliciae in English the desire of the Nations The Prodigie of Mars his Oak The Gypsies Prediction Dirt cast by Caligula into his Shirt The Dog bringing a Man's hand The Oracle of the God of Carmel His curing the Blind and Lame c. § 1. I Would therefore here draw this Argument to a Conclusion but that I am jealous that the first Branch of it may possibly be excepted against and that Age we are speaking of denied to have been so calm as we have reported it to be and that because of the frequent mention of Troubles in Judea made by Josephus Philo c. I shall therefore chuse rather to incurr the censure of being tedious than of omitting what is necessary towards the stopping the Mouths of unruly talkers or depriving the Atheist of all possibility of Subterfuge from the force of this Argument while I demonstrate that this Objection does not only not diminish from but adds to its strength 1. The Commotions in Jury the uneavenness of that hilly Country no more hinder the smoothness of the Universe than Mountains those Wens of the Earth hinder the roundness of it being no more considerable in so vast a Body than a few Nail-heads on the Rim of a Wheel a point Mathematically demonstrable in the Moons Eclipse upon whose Body the Earth notwithstanding those Exuberances casts the shadow of hers so exactly circular as the most piercing Eye cannot detect it of the least inequality This is the highest account these Judean Stirs can amount to though we cast into the sum those perhaps over-weight Aggravations thrown into the Scales either by Philo on purpose to heighten Caligula's Tyranny and the Divine Indulgence to his Nation in preserving it from ruine under his Oppressions Philo de legatione ad Caium Valeant igitur humana praesidia quae nos deserunt modò in anima spes firma maneat Deum nobis servatorem non defore qui saepe gentem hanc eripuit exitio pag. 637. Or by Josephus that he might present the sufferings of that People equivalent to their sin which he equals to Sodoms telling us he believes the Land was so polluted as had not the Romans purged it by the fire of that desolating War God would have expiated the sins of it by Fire and Brimstone poured down from Heaven upon it Joseph de bel Jud. 6. 16. Si Romani contra noxios venire tardassent aut hiatu terrae devorandam fuisse civitatem puto aut dilâ—â—io perituram aut fulminum ut Sodomae incendia passuram multo enim magis impiam progeniem tulit quà m illa pertulerat But if we weigh them in an equal Ballance they will be found so short as they could not for any considerable time â—ay so slight as they could not at all dam up the Current of Intelligence as being rather Contusions than Wounds no Blood almost but Christian following those Blows as might be evinc'd out of both these Jewish Authors in those passages where they interweave not Passion with their History But I shall rather call Tacitus as one less partial and without all exception to hold the Scales who giving an account of the affairs of Judea states them thus Tacit. lib. 5. 346. Sub Tiberio Judaeis quies Jussi a Caesare Caligula effigiem ejus in Templo locare arma potiùs sumpsere quem motum Caesaris mors diremit Felix per omnem sevitiam libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exeruit duravit tamen patientia Judeis usque ad Gessium Florum The Jews had peace during the Empire of Tiberius under Caligula his command to erect his Image in the Temple caused no small stirs but by his timely death they were allayed before they came to blows Towards the latter end of Claudius and the beginning of Nero ' s Reign Felix indeed with a servile Genius as a beggar on horse-back vapoured over them in all kind of licentiousness and cruelty yet the patience of the Jews held out and they did not make insurrection until Florus became Governour of Judea in Nero ' s 11. year § 2. This blustering in Jewry was so far from being an Euroclydon to overturn to the Packet-boats or a cross Wind to stop Intelligence as it proved as fair a gale as could blow to wast over the knowledge of what fell out there touching our Saviour into the rest of the Empire and rendered it still less possible to the Apostles to delude the World to whose Doctrine had it been the wild Oats of their own Invention these blasts would have proved a fanning Wind and have scatter'd it as chaff before them 1. For these Stirs being about Religion Christo impulsore as Suetonius states them Sueton. Claud. 25. Judaeos impulsore Christo assiduè tumultuantes Roma expulit the blind man stumbling upon the true sence of Christ's Menace I am come to send fire on the Land or as Lysias states them to Agrippa Questions Altercations Debates touching their own Superstition and one Jesus administred occasion to those that were interested in taking cognizance of these Debates to bring those matters to the severest Test. While the Jew clamoured against the Christian as unworthy to live and impleaded him at the Bar of the Roman Ministers of State and the Imperial Law prohibited the proceding against the accused indictâ causâ Lex Sempronia nè quis indictâ causâ Cicero pro Cluentio till he had been heard what he could say for himself the Roman Magistrates before whom these Contests were determinable are necessitated to bring the Antagonists face to face and to hear the Business in question disputed pro con by Plaintiff and Defendant by Jew and Christian. Act. 25. 16. It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die to grant this favour to the Plaintiff that the Defendant should be be given up to ruin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before he be permitted to speak for himself having his adversaries face to face Thus Lysias the chief Captain finding all Jerusalem in an
return and bring them into a worse Bondage to the Ceremonial Law than they were in before that their last Estate that of Judaick Christians should be worse than their first of Judaism It were easie to multiply Instances and to point to those Passages in St. Mark who wrote his Gospel to the Grecizing or Alexandrian Jews whose Bishop he was from St. Peter's Mouth that make clearly for St. Paul and against St. Peter but for Brevities sake I wave that and come to shew that on the other Hand St. Luke who was St. Paul's Amanuensis in that Gospel of his writing but St. Paul's inditing challenging therefore a Propriety in it and calling it his Gospel Rom. 2. 16. does no more favour St. Paul's than St. Peter's Cause presenting St. Peter as the Mouth of the whole Colledg of Apostles in confessing Christ to be the Son of God the King of the Jews and receiving from Christ upon that Confession the Privilege of being the first-laid Stone in the new Jerusalem upon which Christ would build his Church And in his History of the Acts of the Apostles demonstrating how Christ made good that Promise to him For though all the Twelve were so many Pearly Foundation-Stones upon whose Persons and Preaching the Gospel-Church was built and though all of them were Doors in the City of God and had the Keys given them to open the Door of Faith to the Jew and Gentile Yet St. Luke gives the Preheminence to St. Peter in order of Time reporting him with his Brother Andrew to have had the first explicit call to Christianity and after that to the Apostolical Office and and so his Person to have been laid as the first Stone in the House of God and in the Foundation of the Apostles and informing us how his Key of Doctrine after Christ's Assension and assuming of his Kingdom did at Jerusalem on the Day of Penticost and some while after at the House of Cornelius first open the Door of Faith both to Jews and Gentiles how his Sermons were the first Pearly Foundation-Stone upon which the Catholick Church of Jew and Gentile was built Nay St. Luke relates those Passages with such Circumstances as are of greatest Tendency towards the heaping of Honour upon St. Peter's Person presenting him not only as the Stone upon which those individual Converts were laid but in their Persons as their Representatives the whole Church of believing Jews gathered from every Nation under Heaven to his Sermon on the Day of Pentecost and of Gentiles represented by Cornelius a Roman a Name in the Idiom of that Age equipollent to a Citizen of the World God the King of the Jews his peculiar Heritage and Caesar the Emperour of the Romans sharing the World betwixt them The Poet came nearer the Truth in the Evangelical Sence of all the World then he was aware of in his Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet If any of our own Furiosi fasten his Canine Teeth upon this Interpretation of the Rock and Keys and cast up his Snout in the Air as if he smelt Popery in 't he may know if he have not confin'd himself to the Circle of Modern Systems or be not too proud to learn of his Betters that I yield St. Peter no more than the greatest Champions of the Christian of Old and of the Reformed Religion of late have granted him and yet upon such clear Scripture-Grounds as speak it to be no more than his just Due they that think the Papal Church and Cause advantaged by this Concession may do well to joyn Heads with the Jesuits to whom they are already joyn'd by the Tail and try if with his Ram they can batter down the Walls of our Jerusalem about the ears of them who through God's Grace have hitherto defended her upon this Ground and amongst them by Name that Bl. Martyr Arch-Bishop Laud against Fisher pag. 237. c. For my own part I shall rather be of none than of that Religion which stands in need either of a Lye or the Dissimulation of Truth to support it But to return to St. Luke who though St. Paul's Scribe makes the most honourable mention of St. Peter of any of the Evangelists reciting his being with Christ at his Transfiguration a Privilege which St. Peter himself glories in 2 Pet. 1. 18. Christs praying for him that his Faith should not fail and Injunction to him when himself was converted to strengthen his Brethren Reporting the History of his Denial of his Master more favourably than any of the rest therein omitting the Aggravations of his denying Christ the second time with an Oath the third time with cursing and swearing both which are recorded by St. Matthew's Pen describing St. Peter every way as well instructed as St. Paul in the State of the Controversie betwixt them touching God's accounting the Gentiles holy as well as the Jews touching God's antiquating the Law that put difference of clean and unclean upon Meats and his freeing both Jew and Gentile from the insupportable Yoke of Legal Ceremonies In all which St. Luke reports St. Peter to have been so well instructed as the Synod grounded its Decree touching those things upon the Evidence which St. Peter gave Act. 15. And lastly introducing St. Paul doing the same thing in Effect which he rehuked St. Peter for shaving his Head purifying himself circumcising of Timothy c. and that upon the same Ground that St. Peter pleaded That he might not offend those weak believing Jews who were as yet zealous of the Law and had not learn'd that Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free A thing which not only scandalized the Pagan Madaurenses and opened the Blasphemous Mouth of Porphyry to accuse St. Paul of Procacity and Partiality but put St. Origen and Chrisostome to their Wits End to answer his Calumnies And occasion'd those sharp bickerings betwixt St. Austin and Jerome as have been a Bone of Contention among the School-men to this Day and like to be till the Last Day Vide August tom 2. Epist. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 17 18 19. This is such an Argument of Impartiality in the Evangelists as hath no Peer Alexander laid his Finger upon his Scar while Apelles was drawing his Picture Aelian Var Histor. 2. 23. would not give Nicodorus the Mantinean his full Praise because he was affraid thereby to honour the Memory of Diogoras a reputed Atheist who help'd Nicodorus to frame his excellent Laws and Virgil because the Nolanes would not permit him to draw their River over his Grounds expung'd the Name of this City out of his Verses placing instead of that Ora A. Gelii noct attic 7. 20. Talem dives erat Capua vicina Veseno Ora jugo When before that it was Nola jugo Compare the History of the Guelfs and Gibellines the Papal and Imperial Parties the Roman and the Carthaginian Writers the Netherlands and the King of Spain's Favourites Or to come nearer home the London
Except we furnish our selves with Weapons from God's Armory from the Tower of David from the Magazine of Sacred Writ we shall be in as bad a case as the Israelites were when there was not one Sword nor Spear amongst them and have nothing to defend our selves against the Imputation of Tyranny but must be forc'd as our last and only Refuge to betalie ourselves to the Herculean Argument of Club-Law We may because we can For a negat sibi nata nibil non arrogat armis When the Roman Legates demanded of Brennus what Ground he had of Quarrel with the Clustans the same saith he that you had with the Albanes Fidenates and Ardeates because they being fewer and weaker will not impart what they have to us who are stronger we herein observing the old Law which Gods and Men and Beasts are under that the weaker should yield to the Stronger Platar Camil. A desperate Principle of Hectorishi which if it make Root in Men's Hearts will turn the whole World of Mankind into a Wilderness of Savage Beasts and deprive Prince and Peasant of all possibility of securing either Life or Fortune any longer than these Snakes are frozen I leave therefore these Inhumane Placits to the severe Animadversion of all Republicks that are not weary of their own happiness § 6. Religion so dexterously resolves these Questions as Reason acquiesceth in her Determinations While I observe how aptly how dexterously the Ladies hand of pure and undefiled Religion unties these Knots Man had not Power so much as over the green Herb to deprive it of its Vegetive Life no not in Order to the Preservation of his own but by Gods Donation Gen. 1. 29. Seeing that Life of Vegetation was not given by Man by what Right but the Indulgence of him that gave it could he deprive the Creature of it and withal inflict perhaps beside the Evil of Loss the Evil of Pain for that some Plants ar esensitive is manifest and I have heard some Florists affirm it with so much Confidence and assay to confirm it with such Arguments as of the two Problemes I had rather undertake the Proof of this That all Vegetives have Sence than this That any Atheist hath Reason This Grant of the green Herb for Meat being made to every Fowl and Beast and creeping thing as well as Man as it argued the Paternal Care of that provident Housholder towards every Member of his great Family so it prohibited man from falling upon those Creatures which were set at the same Table with himself till God enlarged his Quarters and mended his Commons in the Charter granted to Noah Gen. 9. 2 3. every Beast of the Earth every Fowl of the Air all that moveth upon the Earth and all the Fishes of the Sea into your Hand are they delivered every moving thing that liveth shall be Meat for you even as the green Herb have I given you all things An Account so rational as the Stoicks had no sooner receiv'd an Inkling of it by Oral Tradition but they yielded assent to it and enroll'd this among their Maxims concerning Justice That all things that were brought forth upon Earth were made for Man's use Lactant. de ira Dei cap. 13. Unde hoc nisi de nostris Whence had they this but from our Scriptures saith St. Ambrose Officior l. 1. cap. 28. they learn'd of us how all Creatures by Gods subjecting them to Man were put under our Feet Psal. 8. and therefore concluded that Man might justly make use of them as being made for him Ovid's Pipe borrows Breath of Moses his Lips in his Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae Deerat adhuc quod dominari in caetera posset Natus homo est Where having according to the Method of Scripture described the Creation of Heaven and Earth with its Inhabitants he introduceth the Story of Man's Creation with this Preface There wanted yet a more Divine Creature that God might set over the rest of the Works of his Hands and make Lord of the Universe speaking of Man's Dominion as a Vulgar Notion universally subscribed to but of the Ground of that Dominion viz. God's preferring him to it as a Point of hidden Wisdom and revealed by that Deity he invocates It were easie to multiply Examples not only of particular Men but of whole Nations who have both confessed the Impossibility of finding out by light of Nature the reason of Man's Soveraignty over the Creatures and acquesc'd in the Reasons produc'd by Christian Religion as soon as they have been propounded to them but the matter is so manifest and every where obvious as these few may serve for a Taste Mercurius Trismeg in his Pimander Dial. 1. introduceth the Divine Mind informing him that God had that respect for Man who bare the Image of his Creatour as he granted to him the Lordship over all his Works Cicero out of Chrysippus could say the Hog could not possibly be serviceable to Man but at the Table whose Soul serves only for Salt to keep their bodies from stinking till they are fit for Slaughter but yet confesseth that to find out the Counsel of God and the Reason of his ordering things as we see he doth for Man's Behoof is not within the reach of Humane Counsel and that no Man can in this Knowledg as well as any thing else be eminent without the help of Divine Inspiration Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit de Natura deor lib. 2. 113. CHAP. III. Natural Conscience ecchoes to Christian Morals § 1. A Dispraise to dispraise Vertue or praise Vice The Comicks Liberty restrained § 2. How the worst of Men became to be reputed Gods § 3. Men were defied for their Virtues Vice ungodded Gods § 4. Stage-Gods hissed at The Infamy of Players The Original of Mythology § 1. Christian Morals had the Universal Approbation of the Heathen World NO less clearly does every Man's Conscience eccho to our Christian Morals than we have heard it resound its assent to these our Placits and Theorems But it were an endless labour to compare every line of the Gospel drawn by the pencil of Christ and the holy Apostles paralel to what is drawn by the hand of Nature upon every Soul There being no Language that does not eccho to the sound of their Doctrine I will therefore wave here the prosecution of Particulars and confine my discourse to this Observation That Those men that in all Nations and Ages have lived nearest the Rule of Evangelical Morals have obtained the best Memorials and most sweet smelling Names among all these to whom their Histories have been communicated And those men's Memories have stunk most in the Nostrils of the generality of Man-kind whose Lives have been most contaminated with bidding defiance to Gospel Precepts What undebauch'd Soul does not that Encomium of Chastity arride which an Heathen could sing to Domitian Censor maxime principumque Princeps Cum tot jam tibi debeat
vestris semper metalla suspirant de vestris semper bestiae suginantur nemo illic Christianus nisi planè tantum Christianus aut si aliud non jam Christianus Malefactors condemned to perpetual imprisonment to the Mines and to the Beasts are of your own the Pagan Religion among such there is not one Christian or if there be he is there for no other Crime but only that of being a Christian for if he be an Offender in any other point he is no longer a Christian. A seditious a factious a traitorous Christian was then a non-ens that could no where be found When they could maintain that nunquam vel Nigriani vel Albiniani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani Tert. ad scap c. 2. No Christian had been a Traytor to his Prince When the worst effect of Christian Faith appear'd to be that it procur'd the Husband a chaste Wife the Father an obedient Son the Master a faithful Servant Vt domi habeat uxorem jam pudicam maritus non jam zelotipus filium subjectum pater famulum fidelem dominus Tert. apol cap. 3. Of the same importance is that of Rab. David Chimchi in Ps. 1. 3. 4. Mundus documentum à viro bono recipit per umbram viarum fructum operum ejus non sic impii nullum commodum per eos venit sed damnum velut gluma per ventum in occulos hominum pulsa vel super hortos domos cadit Vicars Decupla The World receiveth good Instruction from a good man grown good by meditating in Gods Law by the Tract of his Ways by the Fruit of his Works But as for the ungodly it is not so there is no benefit to be reapt of them but incommodity they are like the Chaff which the Wind scatters and beats into mens eyes to afflict them or into Gardens and Houses to annoy to foul and disfigure humane Society § 3. Reply 2. Though humane Testimony in Religious Matters be the feeblest of all Arguments to prove or disprove the Truth of Doctrine delivered or the goodness of things done yet it is of as much validity to evince the delivery of Doctrine the Doing of such Things in this case as in any other we must not indeed so much as admit it into the Juries Chamber much less into the Judges Seat to give sentence what is de jure but yet it must be allowed even in the Lords Courts a place among the Witnesses to declare what it knows de facto to give in evidence whether the Action under debate was done or not whether an Action be legal or criminal is the Judges Office to declare but whether the Actions which are brought before him were done or no is the Witnesses Office to discover If the question be What Doctrine was delivered hy Christ Moses Mahomet what Orations were writ by Tully what Poems by Homer humane Testimony and undoubted Tradition must umpire this but if it be what-like Doctrine Orations Poems those are Reason regulated by the Maximes of every such Art or Science whose subject is under debate must cast the scales and determine that Controversie Reason I say may and must be exercised about Religion in discerning the true from the false we must not chuse our Religion as men draw lots unseen nor as Children in that Libian Province where women were promiscuously and in common frequented drew Fathers each of them taking him for Father to whom in a great assembly chance or instinct directed their first steps Herodot He that 's a Christian but perchance may perchance be no better than no Christian the blessed Jesus is well content that Merchants who deal with him should see his Ware before they buy Indeed that God should endow our Souls with Reason and make us differ from Brutes only that we might rule them and not our selves in what highliest concerns us that he should put a golden Mattock into our hands on purpose that we should digg Dung hills and not rather for hid Treasure that he should communicate to us a Ray of the invisible World only that we may contemplate the visible and employ that Light that Candle of the Lord in the search of things only on this side of Eternity hath not the least congruity with that Decorum observ'd by him in all his Works which are fram'd in Number Weight and Order And those Morning Stars which the Divine Goodness hath fixed in the Orb of our body are from the height of their Native Heaven faln into the lowest Abyss of Reptile-spiritedness if they be content with and submit to such drudgery such Gally-slavework and not exert their noblest Powers upon the noblest Objects in the study of God and the way to the eternal Possession of him In which Case though we make it Reasons duty to judge of the Religion which is true yet we set not Reason above the true but only the Unreasonableness of the false The King of France set not Joan of Acres that holy Maid of France as the Primitive Rebel-covenanters stiled that their Enthusiastick Sister as a Judge over himself nor our King Henry the Eighth of glorious memory the Cardinal and his guests over himself when they put them to it to judge which of those Gallants was the of King France which of these Guisers was the King of England Reason may without the least suspition of usurping the Office of a Divider or the Authority of a Judge over him determine which is the King in a crowd of Guisers provided that when she has discover'd him she give him the Chair of State I mean Reason in her Debates about the true Religion after she hath by Principles of common Sence discover'd it to be of divine Revelation from those manifest Impresses of its sacred Original it brings with it into the World must be regulated by Maximes of that now acknowledged heavenly Science We allow her to walk round about Sion to mark well the Bull-warks and count her Towers but in judging of their Strength or Comeliness she must not walk by the exotick and forreign Rules of inferiour Sciences but by the Domestick Principles of that Architectonick Art the Municipal Laws of that holy State while she sojourns in the City of God she must conform to the Customs thereof That may be a good Reason in one Science that 's a grand Solecism in another The Asses adjudging the Palm to the Cuckow from the Nightingal was therefore absurd because it was not grounded upon Principles of Musick the Art wherein they strove for preheminency had he past the same Sentence upon the same reason he did that in case of contest betwixt two publick Criers the Determination would have been grave substantial and becoming a wiser Animal But to return from this Digression Humane Testimony as to Matters of Fact touching Religion is of as much validity as in any other Subject For although the Actions relate to Religion they are not reported under that consideration but barely
as Actions that have past over the Stage of the World and as such the Spectators are as competent Judges of them as of any that are brought before them All that is demanded of Tradition is whether it saw Christ and his Apostles doing such things whether it heard them deliver such Doctrines or what it ever heard or saw tending to the disproof of that Relation we call her not to pass judgement upon the Nature or Quality of either Words or Works we summon her to do the part of an Historian not Commentator And what hinders but that she may gratifie us in this as well as in any other Case were not Christs Actions as visible as Caesar's his Words as audible as Cicero's § 4. Having thus stated the Question and assigned to the Witnesses what we expect from them as to the Resolution of it we will call them in and take their depositions 1. Had we nothing to produce but those almost numberless Copies and Translations of the Text into most of the Languages of the anciently-known World those Cart-loads of Commentators Paraphrasts c. upon the Text all agreeing in substance and out of which we may with facility gather not only the Matter but the very Words and every Word of the Gospels this would be a full-measure Proof that the Books of the New Testament as they stand now in the sacred Canon are as faithful a Repository of the Actions and Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles as any Writings whatsoever can be of the Subjects contain'd in them This would be a better Evidence for instance that the History and Doctrine therein contain'd is the genuine Off-spring of those whose Names they bear than any man living can produce to prove that the Books going under the Names of Virgil Horace Cicero are those mens Works whose Names they bear That the Deeds and Conveighances whereby he holds his Estate are those mens Deeds whose Names and Seals are affixt to them or that he is that Man's Child whom he calls Father This comes near enough to the state of the Question and one would think it concern'd the VVorld to repute that Generation of men the bane of Mankind who with their insociable infusions of Suspitions into mens Heads that possible it might be otherwise deprive all men Princes and Peasants of power to make a rational Proof of their Title to what they hold from their Ancestors as their Heirs at Law And the Sceptick cannot in reason expect a more satisfactory Answer to his Misprisions than such like as Plutarch in his Apothegms reports Cicero to have given his Nephew Metellus to whom demanding of Cicero to tell who was his Father it was replyed thus It would be a far harder thing to tell who was thy Father for thy Mother was accounted an errant Strumpet and mine an honest Matron The truth is all the claim that any body can make to him whom he calls Father depends wholly upon the single twine of one VVomans Honesty which be it never so apparent is not to be cast in the Scales with the Fidelity of the immaculate Virgin-spouse of Christ the Apostolical Church But I will wave this odious Comparison partly because I would not create jealousies of this Nature in the Ranters Head to harden him against his poor Mother to whom it is affliction enough to have been the Parent of such a Son and partly that I may not cast the least suspition of dishonour upon our Female-Gentry whose inconquerable Vertue necessitates our Goatish Males to turn Channel-rakers and to scrape off Dung-hills fuel for their Lusts the scum and off-spring of the fordid and Rascal vulgar the scrapings and garbish of the Body Politick such as that Nobleman of the East would hardly have set before the Dogs of the Flock How many courses of Purification must such Lumps of Dirt mixt with the Dregs of English Blood undergo before he that values the Nobility of his own can think them fit for his touch even by the proxy of a pair of Tonges The Bawd washes the Cats face pares her Claws by the transforming power of the exchange dubs her a Gentlewoman and then though all the Castle-sope in Christendom cannot wash out Pusse's stains contracted in the Chimney-corner nor all the perfumers Shops in Level-land take away the Nautious scent of her rank Blood presents her as the great Beauty of the Land an Helen a Venus a Peer for a Prince a Bed-companion for a Peer Issa est purior osculo columbae Issa est blandior omnibus puellis Issa est carior Indicis lapillis Issa est deliciae catella Publii If there be no difference of Blood why do we boast of Nobility If there be why does it not recoil even in spight of the most lustful Titillations into those Vessels we extracted from our noble Progenitors or at least for shame into our Faces fitter Receptacles of it than such common Jakes such unequal mixtures are a kind of Buggery For though in Religion there 's none yet in Nature there 's as great and in Politicks a greater distance between the Cream of Nobility and the Sediments of Vulgar Baseness than there is betwixt this and some ingenious Animals And in Ethicks 't is a less Indecorum to see a Ladies Dog in bed with her than her Groom Publius commits a less Solecism in dallying with his Bitch than with his Laundress Catullus may with less Absurdity bill with his Sparrow than his Maid That our delicate and spruce Gallants who cannot relish Prayer and Fasting which would cure them of this Canine Appetite after strange Flesh of this Orexis after dirty Puddings should be brought to this necessity of feeding their Wolf with such course fare at such three-penny Ordinaries That they who will not lose so much of their height as the bending of their Knees to him who has promised to give his holy Spirit to them that ask would put them to the expence of should by an unclean Spirit be precipitated from the top of Honour's Scale to the foot of the Hangman's Ladder with that Wanton in Petronius Vsque ab Orchestria quatuordecim transilit ut in extrema Plebe quaerat quod diligat amplexus in crucem mittat He leaps down at least fourteen steps from the top of the stairs of Nobility that he may seek a Mistress amongst the basest of the Vulgar and obtain the Embraces of one of Mal-Cutpurse Nymphs who last Assizes held up her hand at the Bar and hardly escap'd the Gallows That our fine-nosed Gentry who can smell State-plots and humane Inventions in the most sacred Religion should not smell the Plot which their own lusts have upon their Honour nor how rank their Mistresses smell of the Dunghill can proceed from nothing but their habituating themselves to such Carrion for want of better fare And that they are fain to feed the Flame of their Green-sickness-lusts with Coal and Cinders must with all thankfulness be ascribed to the Chastity
of our English Matrons for if the Ladies honour had not been impregnable Joan had never come in such request Such Mushromes would never have been meat for the Gods to borrow Nero's Phrase such Lettice would never have pleased their lips If the Garden of truly-noble Virginity had not been shut up against their Importunities Let this be engraven in perpetuam rei memoriam to the eternal praise of our English Ladies that in the hour of temptation and laying seige to their Honour they have not given up the Fort. And therefore though the off-spring of Females of profligated honour should follow the Dam there being no sufficient presumption whereby the Father can be indicated upon which is grounded that of Vlpian Lex naturae haec est ut qui nascitur sine legitimo matrimonio matrem sequatur Grotii de Jure 3. 7. 5. and that of Cotta in Tully de nat deor 3. pag. 133. where he gives this Reason why those Heroes whose Mothers were Goddesses were canonized Deities and not those that had a God for their reputed Father because the former were of the surer side ut enim in Jure Civili qui est de matre libera liber est item Jure Naturae qui de Dea matre est Deus sit necesse est Yet for those that are born in Wedlock the common sence of Nations presumes the Father is sufficiently pointed out And as to our English Ladies the respect they have to their Honour is next door to a Demonstration of the Legitimacy of their Issue and that their Partus non minùs sequeretur patrem quà m matrem is as sure on the Father 's as Mother's side Grot. de jure 2. cap. 5. 29. Nay to give that whole Sex of all Ranks its due though the Children of Servants in Wedlock among the Lombards Saxons and most Nations follow the Mother yet so famous have our English Women been for Conjugal Fidelity as the Law here is Francus qui est aut villanus ex patre idemque in aliis conditionum discriminibus observatur Littleton de villanis referente Grotio ibid. I will therefore wave this Comparison and fall upon the proof of that that 's less Odious and yet will shave the Seeker's Prejudice against the Faith more close and come nearer the quick § 5. That the Gospel gives better evidence for its being rightly father'd on Christ than he can produce to convince such a captious Gainsayer as himself that he is that Woman's Son whom he calls Mother 1. If the Depositions of Gossips Midwives c. the Evidence of a Parish-register be valid Proofs that at such a time such a man was born of such Parents c. which of all these are wanting in our case The things reported in the Gospel have been attested by many Eye and Ear-witnesses who were upon the place when these things were brought forth have been ingrossed in Parchment-rolls deposited in the Archives of those Churches to which they were originally directed whither they were immediately conveighed by the hands of the Evangelists and Apostles Messengers under known Seals Marks Tokens Hands 2. If not withstanding these Evidences the bare possibility of Fallacy either active or passive from both which we have freed the Apostles in our first and second Books may administer to a considerate Mind ground of doubting whether the Works and Doctrine reported of Christ be indeed his and not wrong father'd will not that Principle much more warrant me to doubt whether thou art thy reputed Mother's Child For might not Mother Midwife Gossips either deceive or some of them be deceived far more probably than Christ his Apostles or Primitive Church and combine to impose a suborn'd Child upon the Father rather than they a suborn'd Gospel upon the World 1. Put case thy Mother had suspected her Husband would have thought her unfaithful by reason of the disparity of thy Complexion to that of both thy reputed Parents and had question'd whether her alledging that in the time of Conception she had in her Eye some Picture of another Complexion resembling thine would have removed the scruple might the not rather than put a point so tender to hazard have put thee out secretly as Persina in Heliodorus Ethiop 10. did Characlia upon the like account fearing that her Child resembling Andromeda whose Image hung before her while she conceived would not be thought to be the Off-spring of an Aethiopian Say thy Mother upon such a surmise had put thee out to her whom thou callest Mother by what prints couldst thou prick out thy way back again to thy true Original or prove to a captious pretender that this is not thy lot to mistake thy Nurse for thy Mother 2. Put case thy reputed Father's Estate was intail'd upon Heirs Male or that he passionately desired a Son and his Wife as passionately desired to gratifie his importunate Longings how many ways might she invent to deceive him into an Opinion that she was teeming with a Son when she was not so much as with child We have frequent examples of Women cheating themselves through their extremely impatient desire to have it so into a most confident beleif that they are near the time of Delivery when they have not so much as conceiv'd It is not long since I knew one so big with a Minerva a Brat of her own Brain as when her own appointed time of labour came she cryed out for the Midwife and her Neighbours who though at first they had much ado to with-hold laughing out-right at the Woman 's apparent folly yet as her pangs and visible child-bearing pains grew upon her her Opinion grew upon them In short she could have no case nor would allow them rest till by the Midwive's advice they had fairly laid a bed with all the Formalities appertaining to a Woman in that condition into which she had fancied her self and perswaded her she was delivered of a goodly Boy at the news whereof her Travelling throws surrendred their place to a sound Sleep I was christning a Child in peril of death over the way where this Comedy was acting and some of this new laid Woman's Gossips came over to us to whom telling this strange Story and withal their fears that upon her awaking finding her mistake she might fall into the like or worse Pangs some advised that the Child I had then Christen'd might be carried and shewed to her that so time might be gain'd for the allaying of her Passion Had now the Parents of this Child been content to forego it it might have found a Mother who would as verily have believ'd it to have been her Child as thou believest thou art the Son of thine own Mother or as thy Mother believes thee to be her Son And had the Company been bound to keep silence he might have rock'd the Cradle whose own the Child was not and the Cobler's Son on the surest side might have proved the Gentleman's Heir If Women's Fancy can thus
dispencing of it as to several other heads of it While Celsus will needs make the Royal Law useless and needless as to the most part of it There is nothing saith he in the Christian Discipline new or worthy of commendation but is common to it and the Philosophers who before Christ have taught that there is to be expected Rewards of Virtue and Mulcts for Sin in the other World Orig. contr Cel. 1. 4. Christ tell us saith he we ought not to worship Gods made with hands that the Father is to be worship'd in Spirit Why we Philosophers account not Images of the Gods to be Deities we know that the Workmanship of wicked Artificers and villanous men as many times they are that grave these Images cannot be Gods we have learn'd of Heraclitus that they who adore liveless Statues do as simply as they that talk to Walls of the Persians that the Deity is not comprehended within any Structure made with hands and of Zeno Citiensis in his Book of the Common-wealth that he need not build Chappels that prepares the Temple of his own Soul for the entertainment of God Those very Laws which the Madaurencian Philosophers blamed as destructive to humane Societies Celsus mentions with Commendation as far more ancient than Christ. They have also saith he these Laws Thou must not repel injuries If any man smite thee on thy cheek turn the other to him this is an old Dictate long since utter'd by Socrates when he was disputing with Crito and mention'd by Plato in his Timaeus Orig. contr Cel. 7. 17. upon the same account he mentions the commendations which Christ gives to Humility Purity of Heart Pacateness of Spirit c. as better expressed by Plato in his Books of Laws advising him that would be happy to pursue Righteousness with an humble pure and pacate Mind Id lib. 5. cal 8. And the Caution that Christ gives against Covetousness Celsus in the same place affirmeth to have been derived from Plato whose saying that it is impossible for any man to be very rich and very good he parallels to that of Christ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven The mortiferousness of these Waters is to be cured by casting in that cruze of Salt which I have already exhibited and brought to hand in the second Book where I shewed that whatsoever points of abstruse knowledge occurr in the Schools they are beholding to the Temple for and are but Beams of that Light which Christ or his Spirit in the Prophets communicated to the World the last of which Prophets Writings are near as old as the first of Gentile Philosophers It were endless to enumerate the ecchoes of Christs Law which those Rocks that oppose it so articulately reverberate as a steadily listning Ear may take in the beginning middle and end of every Evangelical Precept from those mock-sounds in Heathen Authors I shall not therefore enlarge this Section with more Instances but conclude it with this Observation That the Adversaries in making reply to our urging them with the excellencie of Christs Law would not have taken that course as puts them upon such self-contradictory Salvoes if they durst for very shame the contrary was so palpable have denied them to be Christs Briefly we find in the Pagan Writers what they took to be Christ's Law and that which they opposed as such is the very same with that that the Gospel presents as such not one Egg is more like another than that Bracelet of Pearls which our Saviour fitted to the necks of his Disciples is to that which these impure Swine trample under their feet CHAP. IV. Every Article of the Apostles Creed to be found as asserted by the Church in those Writings which opposed Christian Religion § 1. Maker of Heaven and Earth § 2. His only Son § 3. Conceived by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary § 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilat c. § 5. Rose again the third day § 6. Ascended into Heaven thence c. § 7. The holy Ghost § 8. Holy Catholick Church c. § 1. 3. THe sum of the Christian Faith taught by Christ and his Apostles is intirely and in every branch of it recorded as such in the Authors that disputed against it For order and brevities sake I shall here instance in the several Articles of it comprised in that most admirable Compendium of it the Apostles Creed which as it has been taken for such by all Christians so it has been opposed as such by all Adversaries Article 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth That this Article as it is now profest by the Church and laid down in the New Testament was from the beginning held forth as a point of that Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles Preach'd and therefore not wrongfather'd upon them is manifest from those quotations out of Pagan Authors who affronted it upon that very account and only Reason because it was Christ's Doctrine Celsus from the practice of the Ophiani Hereticks who worship'd the Serpent as bestowing upon our first Parents the knowledge of good and evil a gift which God envied them as they blasphemously speak objects that Christians contrary to that faith which they profess worship another God than the Creator of all things to wit the Serpent Or. Con. Cels. 5. 16. As Celsus doth here confess that that Doctrine which our Bible exhibites touching Gods prohibiting Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and the Serpents prevailing with Adam to eat of that Tree and the opening of Adam's eyes thereupon to discern good and evil and the Serpents infinuating to Adam that God envied him that knowledge c. was the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles so his charging upon the Church that impious Practice of these Heriticks misgrounded upon the Churches Faith and which the Church exprest her abhorrencie of was no more equal dealing than that which the Romanists measure out to the British and other Protestant Churches when they lay to her charge the practices of such as are at as great a distance from Communion with her as with them You Christians saith Celsus profess you believe in and worship God the Creator of this Universe but since Plato saith it is hard to find out and know that God and impossible to communicate the knowledge of him to another is it like that you of all other men should attain to the knowledge of this God being fast bound in chains of ignorance so as you cannot see what is pure Idem 7. 14. Compare what the Christians teach with what the Philosophers guess concerning God and the controversie which of us have attained to a more perfect knowledge of God will easily be determined That God created man after his own Image was the Doctrine of Christ and the Primitive Church appears from Celsus his arguing that if the Christans
perusing them and to prevent all suspicion of Forgery we are content to refer the business to our Adversaries Records these have been produc'd and appear to be all one with ours as to the stating Matters of Fact so that there was never any thing more unanimously agreed in than Gospel-history Friends and Foes giving in their harmonious Testimonie to the Truth thereof and the busiest Adversaries being not able to make any solid Exception against any thing reported in it CHAP. V. The Truth of Gospel-History attested by Secular Writers § 1. Old Antagonists did not persist in the denyal of any point of Gospel-history save that of Christs Resurrection and the manner of their denying it proves the truth of it § 2. Josephus his Story of John Baptist accords with Gospel-history § 3. His Text in Testimony of Jesus vindicated from the exceptions of Vossius c. § 4. Josephus his Date of Christ's and the Baptists Story falls in with Gospel-Chronologie § 5. The Stories of Herod Herodias Aretus Artabanus Philip Lysanias in Josephus Tacitus Suetonius timed to Sacred Chronology § 6. The twin-Priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas at Christ's Baptism and Passion cleared § 7. The Date of Philip the Tetrarch's death § 1. 1. THat Christ was born at such a time of such a Mother did such things preach'd such Doctrine as our Scriptures mention the Jew who was upon the place and his Contemporary had not the face to deny as being things not done in a corner but the greatest and most considerable part of them famously known to thousands of Eye and Ear-witnesses The only Passage in the whole Story of Christ he offer'd to make exception against was that of Christ's Resurrection for the disproof of which he hired Soldiers to say that he was not risen but his body stoln away by his Disciples But now the positive part of their Testimony clearly confutes the Negative and confirms the rest of the Evangelical Story touching that matter for if the Soldiers can tell that his Disciples stole him away then it is certain that his Sepulchre was watch'd by them that his body the third day was gone out of the Sepulchre and that his Disciples said he was risen And this is as much as we need strive for in this Question concerning Matters of Fact reported by the Apostles Whether this report were true or no! is another Question whose final and irrefragable Determination depends upon the probat of their divine Mission of which anon For grant but this that the Apostles to whose Doctrine God set his Seal did preach that Christ rose again and Gods Seal will go farther with considerate men than the word of suborn'd Buff-coats Soldiers are not generally men of over-tender Consciences To weigh the Evidences at present in the Scales of common Sense That Christ was conveighed out of the Grave either by the hand of his divine Power or of his Disciples and that the Disciples said he was risen is confes'd is attested to by the Soldiers the only doubt remaining is whether in that Point wherein they differ we are in reason to believe the Apostles or Soldiers The Apostles can shew Gods Hand and Seal to confirm their Report do with great power give evidence of Christ's Resurrection we have only the Soldiers bare word and the syllables of it not hanging well together His Disciples say they stole him away while we slept a company of armed men set on purpose to watch must certainly be asleep if they let his Body be taken away by a few unarm'd and timorous persons a few scatter'd sheep now their Shepherd was smitten and on a dead sleep if they were not awaken'd by that noise they could not but make in opening the mouth of the Sepulchre it being shut up with a great stone firmly fastned in the Rock with cramps of Iron soder'd into the Rock and Stone and made as sure as could be by the wit of his mortal enemies Make it as sure as you can saith Pilate so they went and made the Sepulchre sure sealing the Stone Mat. 27. 65. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 use the best of your skill to make it fast so fast as it cannot be removed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they made the Sepulchre sure as sure as a prison is when the doors are fast lock'd as feet are from getting out when they are lock'd in the Stocks Act 5. 23. Act. 16. 24. And this by sealing the stone not as we seal bags which makes them not fast but is only a sign of honest dealing for no such sealing could have hindred the Disciples if they had had a mind to steal away the Lords Body and therefore this sealing of the stone could be nothing else but their fastning it to the Rock as hath been above expres'd Gaill's Sacred Philosophy art 4. cap. 27. But then if they were on so dead a sleep how can they tell what was done or by whom it was conveighed away They were awake after the Body of our Lord was gone when they saw it was not in the Grave and the Disciples were awake those many times they saw him and handled him after his Resurrection All say they saw the Sepulchre empty on Sunday morning when they were broad awake the Disciples say they saw him alive after he was risen and knew that Body wherein he appear'd to be that very Body which was crucified by many infallible tokens No say the Soldiers he did not rise again but the Disciples stole away his Body yet confess they were asleep while this was done which is in effect to acknowledge they cannot tell how it was conveighed away and to forbid all sober men to give assent to what they say as being incompetent Witnesses Christ's Body we can assure you is not in the Sepulchre but how it was removed thence or by whom ask them that can tell for we were asleep This is just like the evidence which Aemilianus gave against Apuleius Apolog. pag. 295. Habuit Apuleius quaepiam linteolo involuta haec quoniam ignoro quae fuerint iccirco Magica fuisse contendo crede igitur mihi quod dico quia id dico quod nescio Apuleius had certain things wrapt up in Linnen cloath these because I knew not what they were I strongly affirm to have been some Magical Tools that is as Apuleius truly represents to the Judges this Testimony you must therefore believe me because I affirm that of which I am wholly ignorant And had the Chief Priests themselves believed the Soldiers Tale why did they not send hue and cry after the Thief why did they not rack those that were famously known to be his Disciples to make them confess where they had laid it why did they not make privy search for it while the sent was hot Why did not the Soldiers if they had believ'd themselves as soon as they awoke and saw the stone roll'd away disperse themselves several ways in pursuit of those had stoln it why did they not
them Depths of Satan and the Church proved them to be such and rejected them as soon as ever they saw the light for spurious upon this Ground because they did not bear Correspondency to what the Prophets had fore-told Pope Leo rejected Apochryphal Miracles by this Rule that which the Prophets did not foretel should be done and the Gospel reports not to be done is spurious Quod Prophetia non cecinit quod Evangelica Veritas non praedicavit Leonis Epist. 50. Crab. con tom 1. pa. 715. per Prophetas per Evangelium Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. pag. 242. a. Sicut improbi pueri excludunt praeceptorem ita etiam hi haeretici arcent Prophetias à suâ Ecclesiâ Id. Ib. As naughty boys shut out their School-master saith Clem. Alexand. so those Hereticks exclude the Prophets from their Church whereas the full proof of a Truth is this that both the Prophets and Evangelists give their joynt Testimony to it And therefore he concludes that that Faith that is not cloven-foot'd that depends not on both Testaments the Prophesie of the Old the History of the New is unclean Id. Ib. 245. But of all other most Divinely Lactant. de Justicia l. 5. cap. 3. Disce igitur si tibi cordi est non idcirco à nobis deum creditum Christum quia mirabilia fecit sed quia vidimus in eo facta esse omnia quae nobis annunciata sunt vaticinio Prophetarum Fecit mirabilia magnum putassemus si non illa ipsa facturum Christum Prophetae omnes uno spiritu praedixissent Itaque Deum credimus non magis exfactis mirandis quam ex illa ipsa Cruce quam vos sicut canes lambitis quoniam simul illa praedicta est Learn therefore if thou hast a mind that we do not believe Christ to be God barely because he wrought wonders but because he wrought such wonders as the Prophets foretold should be wrought by the Messias at his coming He wrought wonders we should have thought that a great matter but that is nothing in comparison of this that those very works that Christ did all the Prophets with one breath did predeclare should be done by him We therefore believe Christ to be God not more upon the account of his admirable Facts than of that very Cross which ye doggs snarl at because that also amongst other things was foretold And yet more clearly That Christ saith Tertullian which Marcion describes out of the Gospel of St. Luke as he hath perverted chopt and changed it is not the true Christ for God's Christ is the Prophets Christs one that every where and in all things bears a resemblance of Prophecy Contra Marc. 4. 8. Caeterâ—m verus Christus Prophetarum erat Christus ubicunque secundùm Prophetas invenitur That which Petilian affirms of Christ cannot be true saith St. Austin contra literas Petiliani 3. 6. for whosoever I do not say of us men but of the holy Angels shall say any other things of Christ than what is foretold in the Old as well as reported in the New Testament let him be accursed The same Father contr Faustum Manichaeum lib. 12. hence concludes the Manichees Christ to be a Christ of their own invention because he was not talis qualem patres Hebraei prophetaverunt such an one as the Hebrew Prophets had described We will not believe saith he those Preachers who would deceive us with a Christ that not only is a counterfeit Christ but never was at all seeing we have the true Christ even him that was really described aforehand by the Prophets and preach'd by the Apostles who make proof of what they say of him out of the Law and Prophets The learned Chancellor of Paris in his Book de examine Doctrin 1. alledgeth this gloss upon the Text And there appeared with him Moses and Elias suspecta est omnis revelatio quam non confirmant Lex Prophetae cum Evangelia That is no true Picture of Christ which answers not the Model drawn by Moses and the Prophets The Law is the Touch-stone of the Gospel by which we may discriminate the good Money in the Apostles Scrip from the adulterate in the Cheaters Bag the Genuinness of their History while they make known unto us the Power and Coming of our Lord Jesus from all other the most cunningly-devised Fables that ever were invented of him Their drawing Christ after the Pattern they saw in the Holy Mount when Moses and Elias talked with him with those Rays of Glory those Emanations of such mighty VVorks as the Prophets speak off as they give the Platform and rude draught off when they speak of his Glory puts the matter out of all possibility of delusion beyond the Power of the subtilest Imposture to counterfeit and affords us if we attend to this sure Word of Prophecie as clear a Light to discern that the Description which the Evangelists make of Christs Acts and Person is a perfect representation of the Prototype and all Apochryphal Pieces that write not after that Copy therefore spurious Mis-representations as I could have to judge whether the Painter has hit it or mist it in drawing my Picture by comparing it with the Image in my Glass Briefly Josephus in this Character which he gives of Christ's Miracles that they were such as the Jewish Prophets had assigned in their Predictions to be performed by the Christ doth both discriminate Christ's Miracles in point of Excellency from all others for as the veriest Dunce may have conn'd some Lessons so by heart as to have them at his singers end that if he be left at liberty to read where he pleases one that hears him would think he reads perfectly when perhaps he scarce knows one Letter of the whole row and therefore the way of trying his sufficiency is to turn him to and make him read the Lessons which we prescribe him So the most sottish Wizzard if he may chuse what Pranks to play may shew one or two which may pass for Wonders But if you prescribe him what to do he forth with bewrays his inability nothing but Omnipotency could keep pace with the Prophets Prescriptions in working Miracles And also evinceth those of which the Evangelists make report to have been those very individual great VVorks of which Josephus writes seeing all these and these only of all those that either Christ hath been reported to do by apochryphal Authors or any man pretended to do in any other Name do manifestly bear the Impresses of this Character that they are such as the Prophets predicted should be performed by the Christ at his appearance § 6. Of all Christ's Miracles the greatest and of most use to the Christian as being the crowning and confirmation of all the rest was his Resurrection concerning which Josephus gives as full a Testimony to what the Evangelists deliver as he could have done had he been a fifth Evangelist for thus he writes Though Pilat upon the accusation of
of those sacred Waters making the Souls of men take the Impress of the Soul of the Gospel forming in them the Image of God and converting the most wicked persons that embrace it from all their Debaucheries wherein they were immerst to a life most sutable to Nature and Reason and to the practice of all Virtues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orig. Cont. Cel. lib. 1. cal 30. Whereupon to Celsus his Calumnie that Christ chose the worst of men for Apostles Origen replies that Christ thereby made it appear how Soveraign a Medicine his Doctrine is against Soul-plagues and that therefore Celsus ought rather to have admired the Physicians skill than to have upbraided him with the pristine maladies of his Patients who could do more than all Chrisippus his Rules towards the curing of unrulie Passions How many saith he did Christ recover from the Plague of their head strong Affections From the colluvies of their vitious distempers how many had their beastly Manners tamed by occasion of the Evangelical Preaching which ought to have been embraced of all men with thankfulness if not as true yet as a new and compendious Method of curing Vice and exceedingly advantagious to Humane kind He that can think the malignant Powers would contribute towards the bringing of such a Doctrine as this into credit by their Sealing to it in those wonderful Operations which gain'd it an Authority over Conscience may with an equal likelihood of Reason conceive it worth the while to milk Hee-Goats To which labour I remit him while I commend to wiser persons the conclusiveness of this last Argument for the Divine Original of the Christian Faith in general and in special for the probat of Christs Resurrection the Center wherein all the Articles of the Christian Faith meet and the demonstration of the Divine Authority and heavenly Mission of the blessed Jesus to communicate that way of Salvation to the World as being the Doctrine of Christ that dyed or rather is risen again from the dead and ascended into Heaven whence he communicates that Grace of which we have been speaking and wherein Christianity triumphs over the greatest pravities of corrupt Nature as subdued by her Discipline and overall other Methods of cure as insufficient as unable to reduce lapsed man to a state of health § 5. The strength of this Argument would be more apparent if we of this Age could make good the assumption as easily as those Primitive Christians did of whom the Patrons of the cause of Christ made these holy boasts and such as that Non aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum Tertul. ad Scapulam Christians are not to be known from other Sects but by the emendation of their pristine vitious manner were we who embrace the form of those sound and healing words as much under the power of Godliness as they whom that saving Grace taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live godly righteously and soberly did we more study the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ so as to know him in the power of that Resurrection of his which we make profession to believe the truth of and in the fellowship of his sufferings so as to be made conformable unto his Death In which point notwithstanding that never to be enough bewail'd Apostacy of these latter times God hath not left himself without witness But reserv'd a remnant of persons who cordially embracing the truly Catholick Religion of Christ as it is profest in the Church of England and mourning over the Irregularities of and Scandals given by such as conform not to its sacred Precepts really exhibit to the Worlds view a Specimen of ancient Holiness in their harmless and blameless Conversation with and towards all men in their serious piety towards God their reverential observance of their Superiours their Justice Charity Love towards all men their Continency Chastity Sobriety Temperance in respect of themselves And for the rest of the Professors of the pure and undefiled Religion who deviate from the rule of this Sacred Discipline they cease to be Christians Sed dicet aliquis etiam de nostris excedere quosáam à regula disciplinae desinunt tum Christiani baberi penès nos Philosophi verò illi cum talibus factis in nomine honore sapientiae perseverant Tertul. apol 46. Some men may say that even some of ours deviate from the Rule of Discipline They cease then to be esteem'd Christians by us Philosophers with such debaucheries retain the name and honour of Philosophers Fanaticks though unrighteous unmerciful unpeaceable pass among their own Tribes for Saints but no man can pass the Muster for a Christian indeed that keeps not the Commands of Christ that conforms not to his Example The Church owns them not for hers Christ owns them not for his but will profess unto them I know yee not depart from me ye that work iniquity and will expostulate with all who hate to be reformed for their taking his Covenant in their mouths Christ has past the same Decree against all vitious Livers that Severus past against Thieves per praeconem edixit ut nemo salutaret Principem qui se furem esse nosset ne aliquando detectus capitali supplicio subderetur That none salute him with Lord Lord who knows himself to be guilty under pain of being Convict and suffering the extream punishment None must enter into his Courts any more than to the Eleusine Rites or into the Emperours Palace Nisi qui se innocentem novit but he that knows himself free of those sins which by the sanction of the Royal Law exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven And who so presume to contravene those Edicts must expect the same entertainment that Severus gave Septimius Arabinus when he came to salute him O numina O Jupiter O dii immortales Arabinus non solum vivit verùm etiam in Senatum venit fortassis etiam de me sperat tam fatuum tam sâ—ultum esse me judicat ac Heliogabalum Lampridii Alex. Severus Oh monstrous Arabinus dares come into the Senate dares appear in the Assembly of Christians does he think he can deceive me as he did the world with vain shews as he did himself with vain hopes he 's deceiv'd indeed if hetake me for such a fool if he think I will be mock'd Can he be ignorant that the sentence is past the prohibition à mulieribus famosis matrem uxorem suam salutari vetuit Id. Ib. is seal'd that none presume to joyn themselves to my Church to associate with my Love my Dove my undefiled Spouse whose Lives are infamous Christians may not eat with such and can they expect to eat bread in my Kingdom And therefore they who either by going out from us do more openly declare or by a Conversation unbecoming the Gospel while they are with us more secretly insinuate that they were not that they are not of us in an impartial judgement should neither prejudice