abhors the very thought of deceiving any one with the least falsehood and speaks exactly according to his knowledg without any reserved or secret meaning or equivocation or concealing part of the proposition in his mind that it may be otherwise understood than he intends it much more with all the readiness of submission of mind imaginable are we to receive whatever comes from God without the least demur or doubt or contradiction This an infinite and eternal rectitude does justly challenge from us for God may assoon deny his being as falsifie his word so that whoever goes about to question or disbelieve any thing that God has revealed will run himself upon one of these two gross and absurd impieties either doubt whether God himself has an exact and perfect knowledg of those things he has propos'd to our belief or whether he has been just and true to deliver what he knows It is a most rational conclusion of St. John 1 Epist. v. 10. he that believeth not God has made him a lyar No difficulty then can or ought to deter me from the belief of a thing if God has once revealed it nor can the mind of man possibly desire a greater satisfaction than this 2. That we yield obedience and submit our understandings and all the powers of our minds to the will of God for 1. That there are thousands of things de facto above our knowledg and conception cannot be deemed by any without the highest immodesty an unjust postulatum 2. That all or at least most of our knowledg deriving from sense the more things are freed and abstracted from the entanglements of gross matter the more difficult is the conception because they fall less under the examination of our senses from which we receive so great prejudices in our infancy and childhood which make that deep impression on our fancies that they are not easily to be removed 3. God by virtue of his absolute dominion and soveraignty may command us to assent to things above our reach and conception and knowledg Faith is not to choose its Object no more than a mans will can prescribe and set to him a Law because its whole and only power consists in the liberty of obeying or not obeying of a Law prescrib'd by a superiour Power Whatsoever Doctrine therefore is delivered and revealed by God becomes immediately credible by reason of the authority that does accompany it and enforce it upon us The Articles of Faith carry along with them sufficient motives of Credibility but then these motives must not be fetched from the nature of the things themselves as if they were to be so evident that our Reason might fully discover their connexion and dependance but from without that is my Faith is rightly grounded and an obligation lies upon me to believe what is proposed by God if it be evidenced so to be by just and rational proofs and if the authority be certain and infallible God therefore declaring his Will and confirming the Revelations he has made of it by his divine Power this latter is a sufficient proof and a just and rational ground of my Belief for how absurd would it be for any one because he cannot comprehend and make out a thing fully which in the nature of it and by reason of our weakness and incapacity is incomprehensible and which he ought to acknowledg to be such unless he will presume to measure Eternity and grasp Infinity with a span therefore to doubt of so plain a truth as this is that the divine Power cannot be made use of to confirm any Proposition but what is exactly true and certain so that this is not to forego our Reason as the Socinians plead for nothing is more agreeable to the principles of right Reason but to act according to it and therefore to say that we Believe I know not what if they mean that the objects of our Faith cannot be proved to exist with the same kinds of proofs as what is presented to our senses or as a propriety may be demonstrated of the subject of a speculative Science this cannot be any prejudice at all to our belief because in all Faith whether Humane or Divine there cannot be the same clearness and evidence but that there are such Objects of our Faith we are as certainly assured as if we had a particular demonstration of each Now that the Mysteries of Christianity are confirm'd by such an authority and therefore are to be believed by us and consequently that the Christian Religion requires our assent to no more than what is apparent to be God's Will we have this assurance that they were attested and made good by the miracles of our Saviour by these he proved his Commission to be deriv'd from Heaven This was the belief of the Jews in general both Learned and Unlearned Nicodemus was fully convinced of the truth and evidence of it Joh. iii. 2. Rabbi we know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do those miracles that thou dost except God be with him In the case of the blind man who was restored to his sight the doubt was rational How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles Joh. ix 16. If this man were not of God he could do nothing v. 33. that is he could not do such things as are above the power of a meer Man which we see him do It was nothing but a most unjust prejudice to our Saviours Person and to the meanness of his Birth and Parentage arising from a false principle concerning the temporal Kingdom of the Messias through a misunderstanding of the Prophesies that made them against their Belief and Conscience reject the authority of so many evident and often repeated miracles and though they would not acknowledg him for their Messias that came in a way of humility and meekness so opposite to their humours and expectations who thought of nothing but triumphs and revenge yet they are forced to acknowledg that the Messias could not do greater and lastly our blessed Saviour appeals to miracles as to his credentials as being a most rational motive to work faith in the minds of the most scrupulous if ye believe not me believe the works that I do This then is a sufficient confirmation of our Saviours mission and of the doctrine He and the Apostles delivered from him and preach'd through the several parts of the World which they travelled and after put in writing for the benefit and greater satisfaction of all succeeding Generations Nor are we now at this great distance of time to call for new signs from Heaven or to desire a farther confirmation of what hath been received so universally for so many successions of Ages The holy Scriptures are the authentick Registers of the Doctrine and Revelations of God and that I may add this by the way were they but of humane authority they deserved not to be drolled upon but to be treated with an equal if
of fancy or conception His actions and understanding must needs as much transcend ours as does his essence His ways are not as our ways nor his thoughts as our thoughts Isa. lv 8. 2. This Hypothesis of theirs that nothing is or ought to be believ'd but what is cleared up to the understanding by the evidence of the things themselves does wholly take away the Blessedness and Rewardableness annext to Faith One necessary condition to make any action capable of reward or commendation is that it flow from a principle of liberty and herein man who is endowed with reason the only true foundation of it has the preeminence above all other creatures that act only by instinct or the force of appetite or by necessity of Nature He becomes hereby as it were Lord of himself and can act or not act according as he is guided by counsel and rational motives or meerly as it pleaseth him and according either to the right or ill use of this liberty he is to be judg'd whether he has deserved well or no. That Chrystals shoot out into curious and exactly regular figures that the flakes of Snow are Hexagonal and ten thousand other Rarities of Nature are not to the commendation of the things themselves They shew admirably the wisdom of the first contriver of them the Artist not the Pendulum is praised though it measures time so exactly and performs all its various motions without any interruption or inequality because this necesssarily arises from a due proportion of weights and wheels and from a just adaptation of the several parts of it 't is the perfection of a man that he acts freely and consequently that he is virtuous out of choice notwithstanding all the allurements and inclinations of sense And the like is to be said of the several assents of the mind if the truths of Religion were in themselves so clear and evident that we could not but assent whether we would or no if they could be prov'd by arguments deriv'd from sense or nature where then would be the blessedness of Faith our Saviour speaks of which belong to those who have not seen and yet have believed when we have a clear and distinct perception of a thing then we know it and he must be very stupid and very pertinacious that â—ill not submit to the truth and evidence and conviction of a demonstration How ridiculous would it be to raise a dispute and heap up arguments against clear evidence and pretend dissatisfaction in the midst of so great certainty as science affords If there were no difficulty in the notions where were that Obedience of Faith the Apostle St. Paul mentions where would be our submission and humility for a trial of which I am perswaded that many Mysteries are now proposed by God which hereafter as a reward of our Faith shall be more clearly made out to us and that this shall be one principal part of the glory that shall attend the blessed in the other world when we shall be divested of those circumstances that now hinder the exertions of Reason when our understandings shall be enlightned and our capacities enlarged and our thoughts heightened and exalted not that it is possible for the most refined and raised intellect ever to attain to a full and comprehensive knowledg of them for the Angels those glorious spirits who attend the throne and are continually in the presence of God humbly vail their faces and adore but that what we now know by Faith and Revelation only we shall have a somewhat clearer insight into and be as fully and satisfactorily convinced of as for instance that there is a Trinity of Persons in one undivided Essence as if we understood the manner of their several subsistences 3. It reflects upon the Wisdom and Power of God who may if he please propose these things to us and command us to believe them For that God may do this who can question or deny that we are as much obliged to give up our judgments and understandings as our wills to his will to assent to any speculation or truth of doctrine revealed by him as to any mode of instituted worship commanded by him or any precept of Morality and that I am not to object and throw in my little conjectures and probabilities because it is not altogether or in the least evident to my reason when the nature of the thing renders it impossible that it should or if it did not yet his command should be enough to force my assent now to fancy that nothing is or ought to be credible but what can be made out and cleared up to the understanding by the evidence of the things themselves destroyes this supposition which has its certainty from and is supported by several of the divine attributes The Wisdom and Power of God are both infinite and therefore he knows more and can do more than what we possibly can conceive otherwise we must equal our little knowledg which we chiefly derive from the images and representations of things in our minds and which every contemptible insect and vegetable is too big for with his and upon the same account we must fancy our power equal too which is the effect of an irrational pride and madness like that of the Apostate Angels and by consequence throw off our dependence upon him and deny to yield obedience to his laws because they do as much cross our vitious and corrupt inclinations as the Mysteries of our Faith do our narrow conceptions and sentiments An infinite understanding only can fully comprehend an infinite perfection such a proportion between the faculty and the object being altogether necessary for if it could be comprehended by a finite intellect it would immediately cease to be infinite How insufferable then is such an insolence How vain and foolish are such imaginations and every high thing as the Apostle speaks extravagant fancies and conceits that get into the brain that exalt themselves against the knowledg of God which ought to be captivated and made subject upon the highest Reason in the World to the obedience and doctrine of Christ which will appear by descending to the 2. Second Particular I proposed to make good that the Christian Religion requires us to believe its Mysteries upon such grounds as we cannot reject without doing violence to our faculties and consequently that the rejecting and disbelieving them must be unreasonable Now the grounds are chiefly these two 1. That we believe and admit the divine Revelations 2. That we yield obedience and submit our understandings and all the powers of our minds to the Will of God 1. That we believe and admit divine Revelations because God is of infinite veracity and to deceive is repugnant to the holiness of his Nature there is an utter impossibility in it Now if we repose so much trust and confidence in a friend because we have tried him and know that he is a man of great integrity and that he
upbraided the Christians of their times with whom they conversed in their writings and in their discourses that they received all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an irrational Faith and an hasty assent past without any examination that they could bring no proof or demonstrative argument of what they held so pertinaciously that nothing was required to make a Christian a Believer as they used to speak by way of Scorn but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unjudicious and groundless Faith yes certainly a good life and a sanctified understanding and an humble opinion of a mans self But these are but words and men are not to be laughed and rallied out of their faith and a well-grounded perswasion there is nothing of argument in scorn and passion they only shew the weakness of the cause and want of reason in those who make use of them But now after so many myriads of Converts to the Christian Faith after the attestation and consent of so many ages who have examined severely the principles on which it is founded who would expect that any one should dare now to question the truth of it again that men who have been baptized into it should abjure and renounce it should no longer acknowledg Christ their Saviour should deny him to be God or that he had any commission from Heaven to institute a new Religion should act over the part of the Jews and arraign the Son of God as an impostor and side with the Heathen Philosophers against Christianity as a doctrine not to be endured and embraced and make use of their very arguments for the defence of their infidelity But we know whence the malice and the infidelity of these Theists proceed they have abandoned themselves to a wicked life they are immersed in sensual pleasures which they make the only end of life They are convinced that Christianity which is a Doctrine according to Godliness is not consistent with such practices which yet even nature and right reason utterly condemn The Mysteries of Faith do not so much trouble these men as the severity of its commands These they cannot away with their lusts help them to arguments against the other and they content themselves with little pieces of Sophistry and think to vindicate the ill course of life they have taken up this way Natural conscience and an ordinary reflexion upon the works of nature will not permit them it may be to deny a God though they live as though there were none They will acknowledg him it may be too in a good humour the Creatour of the World but not the Judg and Governour of it they look upon themselves as only born to gratifie their sensual appetite They declare equally for a liberty of living and thinking as they please They will have no restraint laid upon their understanding or their lives Christianity is too strict and therefore too difficult for them They may have the wit perchance but not the morality of the Philosophers whose very lives notwithstanding will condemn them as much as the Christian doctrine Their evil education and custome and prepossession those great hinderances of truth made their refusing Christianity the less inexcusable upon the account of its mysteries while they acknowledged the rules and institutions of it to be according to the highest reason and the exaltation of the humane nature while these men pretend its mysteries to be therefore incredible because the rules of it which thwart their lusts so much are so severe Little or no good I know is to be done upon these men by perswasion or argument of which they are scarce capable who turn all things into Burlesque and ridicule They it seems are too witty for so they call their boldness and want of judgment either to understand or embrace the principles of Christianity but their ill lives shew that were they as clear as the principles of Geometry so long as a strict and holy life is as necessary and essential to the being of a Christian as a right and sound faith they would except and cavil at them and at last reject them and if the Gospel be hid be esteemed after so many clear and undoubted revelations after such evident proofs and convictions an obscure and incredible doctrine it is hid to them that are lost or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in them that are lost it is only so to such desperate and obstinate wretches whom reason it self cannot satisfie in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not least the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them 2 Cor. iv 3 4. But these are wild and extravagant persons of debauched understandings and lives and only to be confuted by the severity of laws and of the two the Christian religion has suffered more by the secret underminings of Hereticks than by their bold attaques These are the more dangerous enemies who deny the truths and mysteries of it upon a pretence of wariness and caution and go soberly about to destroy it But all their objections how plausible soever must at last resolve into obstinacy and pride They fancy things must be and are as they would have them or else they cannot be at all They vainly suppose themselves able to search into the depths of all divine and humane knowledg and being once prepossessed with this conceit they grow peevish and angry because the Christian Religion proposes things to their belief which they cannot grasp and are too big for their understanding and rather than forego this beloved Principle they will destroy the Fundamentals of Christianity and to apply that of Tertullian to them nisi homini Deusplacuerit Deus non erit homo jam Deo propitius esse debebit Christ shall not be God nor satisfie the divine justice for the sins of mankind because this seems incongruous to them it is a difficulty that doth puzzle their understanding it is above the strength of their fancy their reason they say tells them this cannot be allowing of no such thing as faith which is the great duty of the Gospel and forgetting that Christianity is as it is undoubtedly the great mystery of Godliness Thus under a pretence of clearing the truth of Religion and making it the more easily intelligible to Turks and Jews they resist it in the true notion of it and corrupt and destroy it to whom fully agrees that character which St. Paul gave of the followers of Simon Magus 2 Tim. iii. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith such whose understandings are wholly vitiated and perverted notwithstanding the great and fierce claims they laid to knowledg as if they were the only men that understood the will and mind of God such who reject the establish'd truths of the Gospel who have no regard to the heavenly doctrine of the Evangelists and Apostles the truth of which they sealed and
is it in matter of Doctrine whatsoever is proposed by God becomes thereby immediately credible and my assent is rational and just though the thing be above my apprehension and this I must ascribe to the greatness of the object and the imperfections of my reason which neither is nor can pretend to be an arbiter and judge in such matters which are too high for it so that before a man can safely pronounce a doctrine that is revealed incredible and reject it as such he must question the power and veracity of God and maintain that nothing is possible but what we can comprehend and thus under a pretence of caution betray the greatest immodesty in the world when he himself believes several other things upon the bare testimony of men which neither his wit nor curiosity nor his reason can ever be able satisfactorily to make out and demonstrate 2. It is equally false that no Proposition ought to be believed but what may be cleared up to the understanding by the evidence of the things themselves The falseness of which assertion I shall fully evince in these three particulars by shewing 1. That it destroyes the nature Faith 2. It takes away the blessedness and rewardableness annext to it 3. It reflects on the Wisdom and Soveraignty of God who may if it pleases him propose such things to us and command us to believe them 1. It destroyes the nature of Faith To believe in general in the proper notion of it is to assent to things upon the discovery and attestation of others which are not evident and apparent of themselves that is when I have no demonstrative or sensible knowledg of things I admit and judge them to be true not because I either saw them and can assure my self of them by any of my other senses or because they are so evident to my reason that I must needs embrace them as a principle or conclusion in Philosophy but because I have received them from another who informs me and gives me this account of them for whose sake I assent to them as real and certain By which it is distinguished from science which is grounded upon the evidence and clearness of the apprehension of the respective propositions or objects when things are so plain that they do necessitate our assent as that the opposite members of a true and perfect contradiction cannot belong to the same thing at the same time that equals added to equals make equals that in a triangle three angles are always equal to two right angles and the like And the like assurance and certainty of knowledg is gained when we draw conclusions according to rule and the laws of method from first principles which are assented to assoon as they are proposed and the terms understood whence there is an immediate dependance and connexion of things and one thing naturally follows another Then we are said to know a thing when we can run it up to its first principles can trace its original and cause and understand its effects and operations This distinction being so just and natural to call for evidence and demonstration in things proposed to be believed is to confound different assents of the mind to turn Religion into Science to destroy the truth of History and Tradition and Revelation and to fall into Scepticism and doubt whether any thing be certain but what we see and can prove and represent by a Scheme and at last question whether our Sense and what we call our Reason do not deceive us or else which is the effect of a greater phrensie run our selves into this gross absurdity that we are as wise as God and that he can do no more than what our gross fancies will have him That then some of the grand articles of Religion are not so clear as Propositions in Metaphysicks or Theorems in Geometry or indeed are not clear at all cannot be objected against their credibility They are in themselves as certain and as infallible nay more certain and more infallible if infallibility may be supposed to admit of degrees but in reason it cannot be expected our knowledg of them should be as explicit and as clear Supernatural Truths are not cannot be determined or judged of by proofs derived from nature or sense they have proper proofs of their own as all other arts and sciences have To judge of these things therefore by our narrow conceptions is a most false and unwarrantable way of procedure and indeed it cannot seem strange that so much Error and Blasphemy and all that direful train of Heresies in matters relating to God and Religion which have so much disturb'd the peace of Christendome should spring from this one absurd and corrupt principle Hence it was also that Orpheus and the other Greek Poets have dressed up their Gods in the habit and figure of men and cloathed them with all the infirmities and passions incident to humane nature and hereby made way for all the debaucheries and superstitions that lust could possibly suggest or a troubled fancy invent They made use of no other faculty to judg of God but a gross imagination Epicurus upon this very slight pretence excluded God from having any thing to do in the ordering and governing of the world because he fancied this could not be done without anxiety and trouble like the due management of a great charge or employment which takes up ones whole time and requires contrivance and study and foresight to keep things in an equal poise to prevent disorders to apply remedies to the least inconveniences that otherwise might quickly grow and improve into a mischief and to secure all by an equal distribution of rewards and punishments forgetting that God's power is infinite and inexhaustible that his eyes reach from one end of the world to the other and see into the very essences of things that all things are at his absolute disposal and command that trouble only arises either from fear of success or when we are overwhelm'd with business or our strength is not proportionable or any way sufficient to sustain so great a weight Aetius presently rejects the eternal generation of the Son of God because this does not in all things agree with natural generations and because it cannot be so with men he impiously and dogmatically concludes it is an impossible notion and thinks he has reason for his blasphemy and peremptoriness by laying down seven and forty arguments for it as they are numbred and confuted by Epiphanius in his Panarium The same gross fancies have the Mahometans of this article of faith to this day who deride the Christians by asking impious questions concerning it and even in their Devotion renounce it with a great deal of earnestness with a far be it from thee what the Christians impute to thee as if man were the measure and standard of all things even of God himself who made him and who is of infinite perfection beyond the utmost reach
Natural Philosophy It is as great folly to attempt it as to expect it both arising from a wantonness of Wit which quickly looses it self in a Labyrinth of wild Opinions and pleasing it self with new Notions and Ideas is more and more perplext and entangled and is scarce ever reducible to a right and sober temper What ill success the Schoolmen have had in their attempts this way upon the Articles of Religion Christendome has long since had sad experience of these men guilty of the other extream would scarce acknowledg any thing of Mystery in it all things seemed so clear to them as if they had had a particular Revelation they have thrown open the Vail that covers the Ark they define boldly and obtrude their Conjectures for Oracles St. Paul and St. John shall be explained and proved by the Writings of Plato and Aristotle thus prostituting the Majesty of the Sacred Scriptures and corrupting the Simplicity of the Christian Religion by their niceties and subtilities of Distinctions and exposing it the more to the Cavils of Hereticks who observing the falseness of their Principles and the weakness and incompetency of their Proofs are more encouraged to reject the truth of it Hereby too a Contentious and Disputative Theology has been introduced in the Schools and unnecessary and bold questions started impossible to be resolved with any satisfaction which perplex and confound the Understanding and are so far from Building us up in our Holy Faith and from explaining the Doctrine of it that it has scarce suffered by any one thing more Some things we may understand but we see more to admire which with all our art and subtility we can never attain to It is enough that the Christian Religion doth perswade us by Rational Arguments to the acknowledgment of its Doctrine that it laies down sufficient grounds of the certainty and necessity of our Belief that it gives us all the assurance we can with any modesty pretend to and all the proofs the nature of the things proposed to our belief are capable of and will bear 'T is Faith in Christ that He is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World that denominates us Christians to deny this how excellent a Person soever we make him for Meekness and Holiness of Life is to renounce Christianity and in effect to turn Mahometans for they acknowledg Christ to have been a Great Prophet to have been born of a Virgin to have been assumed into Heaven and the like Satis sit pro universis rationibus Author Deus as the same Salvian has it This is that that is equivalent to ten thousand Demonstrations this will level all those objections that are raised against the Mysteries of Christianity that will silence all the Sophistry of Corrupt Reason and cut off all those Arguments which presumptuous Men are wont to make and certainly if we rightly consider it the Mysteries of Christianity as they are proposed in the Scriptures are by reason of the great difficulties that attend the conception of them so far from being incredible that they ought thereby to become more credible that is they are more worthy of the infinite Majesty and perfection of God by how much they are above the reach of our Faculties 2. Let us remember that Christianity is a Mystery of Godliness and consequently that the Great Mysteries of it ought to have an influence upon our Lives and Practices As on the one hand to say that these Great Articles of our Faith are nice Speculations and the explicit Belief of them as they are proposed not necessary and to question that Sense of them in which they have always been received by the Catholick Church is to undermine the Fundamentals of Christianity So on the other side it takes off very much from the obligation to Obedience and dulls those affections which a reflexion on these Great Mysteries must needs cause in the mind That God should send his Son into the world to discover this Mystery to us in Person and in order to our Redemption was the Effect of an Infinite Wisdom and of an Infinite Love that God should be Manifested in the Flesh for our sakes and submit himself to the weaknesses and imperfections and contumelies of the humane nature that the Second Person of the Trinity Co-essential and Co-eternal with the Father should condescend to assume flesh and therein to suffer a reflection on this cannot but fill us with admiration and love One great part of the Worship we owe to God consists in our admiring his infinite Perfections all our Praises and Thanksgivings are but the outward significations of this and faint expressions of our thoughts which loose themselves in the contemplation of them Now these Mysteries afford us eternal matter for our admiration Besides what greater obligation to Obedience can there possible be than the Revelation of this Mystery upon which our Salvation is founded A Holy and Religious Life then is the best evidence of our belief of these Articles of Christianity beyond all subtility of Disputation This especially concerns us who are dignified with the Holy Priesthood who are Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God This shews that we do more than barely assent to the truth of them when they produce in us all both Priests and Lay these effects for which they were principally discovered that so living in obedience to the will of God revealed to us by his Son whom he sent out of his own Bosom and in all holy conversation and godliness we may at last be admitted to the sight and fruition of his glorious Godhead to sing Praises and Hallelujah's to the blessed Trinity for ever and ever Amen Appendix IT must be confessed that this Verse is not to be met with in several Old MSS. as particularly in the mentioned Alexandrine now in the Kings Library at St. Jame's brought out of Egypt by Cyrillus Lucari when he removed from the See of Alexandria to the Patriarchate of Constantinople who was strangled by the Turks in the year 1638 and sent to K. Charles I. though not so antient I believe as is pretended as if it had been wrote by the hand of Thecla an Egyptian Woman of an honourable Extraction and a Martyr for the Christian Faith condemned to the Amphitheatre under Dioclesian as Eusebius relates in the Supplement to the Eight Book of his Ecclesiastical History which is found in several Copies if it be his cap. 3. before the first Council of Nice which is barely said and conjectured and I suppose that it may be proved that the Vatican exemplar is the more Genuine of the two and comes nigher the Original It is omitted also in an ancient Manuscript in the Archives of our Colledg Library containing the New Testament entire except the Apocalyps with the Psalter and several Hymns collected out of the Old Testament the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being also wanting in the eight verse and in several others
antient MS. Grotius made use of though he gives us no proof of its antiquity in that place and suppose it were written a thousand years since we are not to be swayed by it as if it were authentick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and no more who thereupon conjectures these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the former verse to have been added by the Arians to prove the father son and holy ghost to be one in consent only but afterwards removed and altered by the Catholicks and added to the former verse which is said without any the least proof either from reason or antiquity and has nothing to maintain the fancy but the great name of the Author of it That which Sandius and several others allege in the first place that eo omisso meliorem esse verborum connexionem the connexion is far better if the 7 v. were omitted and that therefore it ought to be so and was antiently omitted if the supposition were true is not only vain and frivolous but very bold and immodest to ty the spirit of God to such a way of writing as pleases their humours and fancies best and savours most of humane artifice and by the same argument they may reject not only verses but whole chapters in the N. T. for the meanness and inaccuracy of the stile and the seeming carelesness of the method which is not always conformable to the rules of the Gr. eloquence 2. Indignum est summo Deo esse testem inio coram quo judice testis foret is a groundless and bold cavil for this witnessing is nothing else but the declaration of God to mankind by evident signs and tokens concerning our Saviours being the true Messias and of his being born in the flesh and that he came from him This God has attested and sufficiently made known to the World and in this sense the Word often occurs in the Scriptures without the least indignity offered to the Divine Nature The only pretence he has for his fancy is a base and unworthy comparison he conceives in his mind between Gods being a witness and mans being a witness in our Courts of Judicature forgetting the genuine and easie sense of the word as I have above expressed it 3. That it is highly probable that this verse was inserted by a Sabellian the contrary whereof is most true 4. That in several MSS. and Editions of modern languages there is a transposition of these two verses The same before was acknowledged to be found in some Greek copies which no way proves the pretended interpolation but only that antient copies do not all agree 5. That this v. does very highly favour the Arians but this is such a strain of fancy that he may as well allege the first words of the Book of Genesis to prove Aristotles opinion of the eternity of the World If men out of a prejudicate opinion against the doctrine of the Catholick Church allow themselves to interpret Scripture according to their own fancies it cannot seem strange to any that they should go about to prove and justifie their blasphemies from the plainest texts of Scripture that in the judgment of all sober persons who are free from those prejudices do most evidently refute them FINIS â— Tim. 1. 10. a Thus Eusebius sums them up in general it being the common argument of the Heathen Philosophers against the Christian religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 4. Parisiis A. C. 1628. b The words of Celsus as we find them in Origâ—ns first book against that Epicurean Philosopher are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. â— edit Câ—ntab In this latter part he alludes to S. Pauls words 1 Cor. 3. 18. which he most horribly and maliciously perverts as Origen shews p. 12. He had before out of his great Philosophical wariness advised his readers not to take up opinions upon trust without following reason and a rational guide which he imputes to the Christians and reckons them among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. such as rashly believe juglers and pretenders to Legerdemain tricks whose credulity and simplicity they aluse to evil designs and intents So in the third book he most falsly accuses the whole body of Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as diving away every wise man from the doctrine of faith and only admitting persons void of understanding and of a base and servile temper p. 121. c De morte Peregrini speaking of the Christians whom he makes a company of idiots easily cheated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d In Eusebius in the confutation of his impious book which he intitl'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein he compared Apollonius of Tyana to our most blessed Saviour where he objects to the Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lightness and easiness of nature p. 512. and calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fools and rusiicks p. 514. edit Paris in fine librorum de demonstratione Evangelica * In Apologetico cap. 5. where he mentions an old decree of the Ron an Senate Ne qui Deus ab Imperatore consecraretur 〈◊〉 à Senatu prebatus and hereupon he tells us that the Emperor Tiberius moved by the report of those mighty works which declared the truth of our Saviours Divinity he received out of Palâ—stine detulit ad Senatum cum praerogativa suffragâ—i sui though the Senate were not disposed to admit him into the number * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex editione Reverendissimi Usserii Armachani p 20. This perchance more particularly respects Marcion the heretick for by that name he called him to his face as we read in Irenaeus 3. lib. adv haereses cap. 3. a See the excellent discourse of Plato about this subject toward the latter end of his second book de Republica p. 377. c. lomi secundi ex editione Serrani b In his Epistle to Herodotus as it is extant in Diogenes Laertius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 edit Londinensis p. 285. This he establisht as one of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or main principles of his Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 300. and laid down therefore in the first place by his great admirer and follower Lucretius in the beginning of his philosophical Poem to make the better way for the Atheism which was to follow that is to exclude God with a fairer pretence from having any thing to do either with the framing or governing of the world and to deny a providence that censure which Cotta in Tully mentions to have bin past upon him by several being exactly true Video nonâ—ullis videri Epicurum ne in offensionem Atheniensium caderet verbis reliquisse Deos re sustulisse lib. 1. de Nat. Deorum speaking of this very Atheistical afhorism * In haeresi Anâ—maeorum quae est LXXVI * Principiorum Philosophiae parte primâ sect XXXVII Joh. 20. 29. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphanius in haeresi Ebionaeoruâ— qâ—ae est XXX sect XVIII ex edit Petâ—viâ— Perisâ—is 1622. pag. 142. b Epiphanius in haeresi Aâ—iâ—ncrum quae est LXIX sect XVIII p. 741. c Gregorius Abulpharagius in historiâ Dynastiarum Arabicè p. 129. edit Oxon. 1663. Euâ—ychius in Annalibus Alexandrinis Arabicè edit Oxon. parte primá p. 397. 441. d This argument drawn from the Form of Baptism is generally made use of by all the antient Fathers against the blasphemy of Sabellius Arius and the rest of the Hereticks who had departed from the true faith establisht at first to follow phansies and inventions of their own But reserving these numerous citations for another work I shall content my self at present to say with the Author of the Breviarium fidei adversus Arianos who lived above 1200 years since put out by the most learned Sirmondus to whom the world is so much obliged for his publishing several writings of the antients out of MSS. Qui Spiritus sanctus si Deus non esset non in baptismo in uno nomine Deitatis patris filio sociaretur sicut scriptum est ubi regulam baptismi posuit ipse Dominus Ite inquit baptizate omnes gentes in nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti Quod solum testimonium deberet haereticis sufficere ad credulitatem insiparabilis Trinitatis quia nec ipse audent aliter baptizare ne regulant Domini corrumpere videartur Et ubi unum nomen dicitur ibi mejor miner excluditur e Of this see the Appendix a 1 Vâ—l. p. 147. Paristis 1627. b Tom. 2 p. 55â— p. â—8â— p. 772. a p. 591 ex Editione Theophili Ranaudi Soc. Jesu â—arisiis 1671. printed with St. 〈◊〉 Maximus Tâ—urinensis and four others which make up the â—â—pras â—raesulum P. 447. b lib. 1. p. 16. ex Edit I. Sirmondi Parisiis 1629. a This Preface is printed in an old edition of the N. T. with the interlineary Gloss and I find it in several MSS both in the Bodleyan and our own Colledg-Library before the Catholick Epistles The Stile is exactly St. Hierom's and questionless his and acknowledg'd as such both by Erasmus and Socinus however omitted by Erasmus in his edition of St. Hierom's works at Basil a de illâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut mihi quidem videtur non agitur hoc in loco quod glossa ista interlinearis quam vocant agnosciâ— Tom. 4. Bibliothecae veterum Patrum Paris 1610. pag. 372. a Consule Epistolarum Pontificalium censuram à D. Blondello editam Genevae A. Chr. 1628. pag. 190. * In appendice Interpretationum Paradoxarum p. 381.